Laura Broghlie felt her existence threatened by solitude. Her mind became ‘literally blank’, as she had told Patrick Melrose during their week-long affair. Five minutes alone, or off the telephone, unless it was spent in the company of a mirror and a great deal of make-up, was more literal blankness than she could stand.
… It had taken her ages to get over Patrick’s defection. It was not that she had liked him particularly – it never occurred to her to like people while she was using them, and when she had finished using them, it would clearly have been absurd to start liking them – but it was such a bore getting a new lover.
… “He may be worth two hundred and forty million dollars, but is he going to spend it?” asked Laura, who had bitter experience of how misleading these figures could be.
[Illustration: De Chirico, Victory, 1928]
“They’re the last Marxists,” said Johnny unexpectedly. “The last people who believe that class is a total explanation. Long after that doctrine has been abandoned in Moscow and Peking it will continue to flourish under the marquees of England. Although most of them have the courage of a half-eaten worm,” he continued, warming to his theme, “and the intellectual vigour of dead sheep, they are the true heirs to Marx and Lenin.”
“You’d better go and tell them,” said Patrick. “I think most of them were expecting to inherit a bit of Gloucestershire instead.”
[Illustration: De Chirico, Guardian of Thermopylae, 1966]
“It must be funny having the same name as so many other people,” she speculated. “I suppose there are hundreds of John Halls up and down the country.”
“It teaches one to look for distinction elsewhere and not to rely on an accident of birth,” said Johnny casually.
“That’s where people go wrong,” said the Princess, compressing her lips, “there is no accident in birth.” She swept on before Johnny had a chance to reply.
[Illustration: De Chirico, Sunlight on an Easel, 1966]
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