Francis Bacon in Your Blood Read Online Free Page A

silence in the jolting, creaking cab for a while; even Denis has stopped talking, numbed by the accumulation of wine which hangs over us like a pall. Drink is our element now, I think confusedly, we have to live by its rules. I lapse into sleep for what I think is a couple of minutes and only wake up as the cab comes to a halt in front of a large, brightly lit building with ‘THE WATERMANS ARMS’ announced in gold letters on a red ground running right around its top floor.
    Inside is the biggest party I’ve ever seen. There’s music and some couples dancing, but most people are just standing round with glasses in their hands talking and laughing. I see some attractive girls but they’re all older than me and a bit intimidating in the eye-catching short skirts they’re wearing. I’m also struck by how smooth many of the men look in their velvet jackets andbright ruffled shirts. Nobody seems to mind my dull polo-neck sweater and I’m soon finding my feet (forget those old, cracked shoes) and feeling proud to be at the centre of a new world as Francis’s new protégé with lots of fashionable chat and the feel of easy money flowing through the cavernous room. I vow to buy myself a shocking-pink shirt, which I’ve never seen anywhere in Cambridge, and I fall into conversation with someone in advertising, florid and middle-aged but still boyish-looking, who seems to be very interested in art and my opinions about this and that until he gets a funny look in his eyes and I feel he might be interested in me for the wrong reasons, clearly a lot of it going on here, and I move on, from group to group, exulting in my ease and not even minding being extravagantly propositioned, this one is suggesting I go on to another party, perfectly alright, people he knows, all I have to do is to stand naked and take the whip, a guinea a lash, just have to stand there, nothing to it, won’t hurt because they’ll probably want the plastic mac bit anyway, you know, breaks the blows but everything shows and flows, and he won’t take no it’s not something I’ve ever done for an answer, pursuing me round – fish to water, specially with the mac bit, marvellously handy for some extra cash – until I get back into the orbit of my protector, who’s talking to a very manly-looking man with blond hair and bright-blue eyes. ‘Ah Michael,’ Francis says, ‘I want you to meet our host Dan Farson, who’s been telling me about some of the people who are in tonight. There are plenty of East End villains, of course, Dan has a soft spot for them, don’t you, Dan, but more interestingly that man over there’, I follow his eyes to where an elegant-looking middle-aged chap in a blazer and dark glasses is chatting to a couple of girls with pale powdered faces and impressive beehives, ‘is Stephen Ward, you know, who’s at the centre of all this ridiculous scandal. Now that Profumo has gone I can’t think he’s got anywhere to hide. But to look at him just chatting those girls up you wouldn’t think he had a care in the world. It’s very interesting to watch people who are what’s called in extreme situations.’
    Having given me an inquisitive once-over, Dan says, ‘What I really want to know is where’s Philby?’ He moves on to greet some newly arrived guests and, chuckling, Francis says in a low voice, ‘You could say that Dan himself is in a kind of extreme situation the whole time. The last time I was here this East End tough told me he’d gone back to Dan’s place for a drink and Dan said to him, “Excuse me, I just have to go upstairs to change,” and the next thing he knew, he says, “there’s this manly man coming down the stairs in a fur coat with women’s undies on like some great big fucking lady!” There it is, you never know about other people’s sexuality, or their sexual