Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury Page A

pleasantly. ‘It’s
exciting, isn’t it?’ said Treece; he had, Emma noticed, a fondness for using oddly exaggerated words to define things, as if the ordinary commerce of language was just not quite enough
for him. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I sometimes wonder if Utrillo is appropriate to a hall.’
    It was just a simple conversation gambit of mine, thought Emma, but if he really wants to make something out of it – well, let him; it’s his party. He probably wanted to make it
appear as if he had
thought
about the way the place was decorated.
    ‘Oh, I think so,’ said Emma.
    ‘He always goes well with the smell of a river, or the sea, doesn’t he?’
    Grasping at a straw, Emma said, ‘But the whiteness of your hall brings out his blues so splendidly.’ Things were getting rather strained; even Treece was beginning to realize that
this was the phoneyest kind of conversation you could get.
    Sounds of something not unlike riot now came from behind the door of the drawing room, and this recalled Treece to his responsibilities. ‘Look, Miss Fielding,’ he said rapidly.
‘I’d be glad if you could act informally as a kind of hostess. My housekeeper’s gone home, and things aren’t going very well. I upset a tea-trolley and there’s a man
called Bates in there who’s been very difficult. Everyone seems terrified of him and I’m afraid he’s going to get up and start cutting his own hair.’ Gently, gently, Emma
wanted to say; you poor, poor thing. Under which king, Bezonian? was clearly the gist of his little speech; are you with them, or with me?
    ‘Yes, of course I will,’ said Emma.
    Treece beamed and pulled the creases out of the arms of his suit. ‘This is one of the occasions when bachelorhood proves a disadvantage,’ he said gratefully and took her arm so
affectionately that she presumed he had thought of another. Was he going to haul her off upstairs, leaving first-year honours to riot among the cakes below while he satisfied his passion? Was it
worth the loss of a master’s degree to resist? Did she want to go, anyway? Questions flurried in Emma’s head and it was with the greatest surprise that she found herself not in bed, but
in the drawing room, being introduced to people she already knew. Earlier arrivals now sat silently about the fringe of the room, appraising the wallpaper and looking around for a dog to pat. The
man who was causing all the trouble was evident enough; he was a tall, ghoulish man, who could be seen bobbing up and down, smiling a great wet smile, interrupting people’s conversation and
repeatedly proffering his chair to people who would not have dared to take it from him. Treece introduced her to Bates, and he gave her a very studious looking over, finally reaching down for her
hand, shaking it firmly for several moments, and at last replacing it back at her side, where it had come from. ‘Where would you like to sit?’ he asked. ‘I’ll sit on the
floor,’ said Emma. Bates now felt compelled to make the supreme sacrifice: ‘Have my chair,’ he cried. Emma refused, and relief and offence mingled in his face.
    Treece went to the door to let in Adrian Carfax and Ian Merrick, and riot broke out again. Emma felt like a spy. Someone was twanging the elastic in the brassière of a girl with a very
full figure, who obviously liked it.
    ‘Men are such prancing, leering goats,’ said a prim young girl, very stiffly, to no one in particular.
    ‘I broke my teeth on one of those cakes,’ said a girl with a lisp. ‘Do you think I could thue?’
    ‘I wonder why the prof doesn’t marry?’ said a girl in spectacles.
    ‘If only’, said the man with the beard; his name was Hopgood, ‘to get this place dusted.’
    ‘No, I mean seriously, Larry, why?’
    ‘Why don’t you sleep?’ a man was meanwhile asking a girl with a fringe. ‘What do you worry about?’
    ‘I just don’t know,’ said the girl. ‘For one thing, I worry about being worried.’
    ‘Just