“Harold, you know what?” says Belinda.
“What?” asks Harold.
“Today is the official celebration of my birthday, and I would rather not hear the rest of this story.”
“Why?”
“Because it is not going to be a happy story, Harold, and as the birthday girl I would like to hear only happy stories today.”
“Gwen is a ‘birthday girl,’ too, I might remind you,” says Harold.
“And I’ll bet she doesn’t want to hear any unhappy stories today, either,” says Belinda. She doesn’t look at Gwen.
“Well,” says Harold. He does look at Gwen. Gwen looks into her plate.
Something brushes Matthew’s foot. A rat? Belinda’s foot? Gwen’s foot? Matthew glances under the table and is amazed to find the child from the next table investigating the glass-covered section of the wall. He can understand that it would be an object of curiosity for a child but thinks that this child should not have been permitted to crawl over his feet to investigate it, should not, in fact, have been brought to this restaurant at all. The parents, a glance tells Matthew, don’t seem to care what the boy is up to. Matthew leans across the table and says to his companions, in a voice of steely calm, “I don’t want to alarm any of you, but there is something crawling under our table. It’s — a child.”
Belinda leaps up from her chair. She looks terrified. At first, Matthew doesn’t connect this behavior with what he has said. His first thought is that Harold has kicked her. “A child! A child!” she nearly shrieks. Matthew can’t believe what he’s hearing. Harold and Gwen snap upright.
People turn their heads. Waiters hustle over. Belinda cries, “A child is under our table!” She puts a hand to her forehead as if she were about to swoon. Matthew isn’t at all sure whether he’s amused — and therefore pleased, or embarrassed — and therefore annoyed. He is certainly astonished.
Harold lifts a corner of the tablecloth and peeks underneath, wearing a look of apprehension and disgust and making such a good job of his performance that Matthew can’t tell whether he’s actually revolted by the idea of a child under the table or just playing along, playing, perhaps, an elaborate game of flirtation with Belinda. “Oh, how revolting!” he says, and with this one patrician utterance, all his snobbery is redeemed as far as Matthew is concerned. You can’t just improvise that tone. You have to have been putting it on forever. Harold squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and reaches under the table as if he were performing an act of heroism. He brings out a terrified, red-faced boy, draws himself up to full height, and demands of the room at large, “Who is responsible for this?” He holds the boy at arm’s length. As if he stank, thinks Matthew.
The boy’s mother rushes over to claim him but doesn’t say a word, in the hope that the whole embarrassing affair will end at once and dissipate like an odor; but Harold has the audience he’s always longed for, and he isn’t about to let it go so easily. “Allow me to suggest,” he says, plummily orotund, “that you get the little deviate some good psychiatric help before he makes a career of molesting women in restaurants.” The mother almost slinks away. Gwen, her mouth hanging open, wonders if she hasn’t been wrong about Harold. Perhaps there is a vigorous, even outrageous, man beneath that pompous skin; perhaps she should have encouraged him more.
To the waiter, standing nearby, looking aghast but struggling to keep himself from laughing, Harold says, “I think you’d better bring us a round of drinks. We’re pretty shaken up. The women have been through quite an ordeal.”
“No. No, thanks,” says Belinda. “Nothing for me.” She has remained standing.
“You’re not going?” says Harold.
“Yes,” says Belinda. “I think so.”
“The evening’s young. You can’t be tired.”
“No.” She smiles a freezing smile. “Not at all. It’s just that I want to go back to Matthew’s and screw.”
The waiter laughs out loud.
[to be continued]
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