PADDED with winter coats, most of the people lined up along the staircase that twists down into the restaurant occupy about twice their summer volume, but first in line is a lightly dressed couple of a type that Matthew and Liz used to snicker at.
“Colonials to your left,” Matthew mutters.
Liz looks without seeming to, turning her head only the minimum, shifting her eyes as much as she can. “Oh, but definitely,” she says, raising her eyebrows.
“Hmm?” says Belinda. “Colonials?”
“The people at the bottom of the stairs, the first ones in line,” says Liz. “Just take a look at them.” Belinda does. “A little fancy for this place, wouldn’t you say?” Belinda smiles and nods. The man is wearing a double-breasted suit and shoes that look like dancing pumps, the woman a straight black skirt and a halter that seems to be made of chain mail, with gloves and reticule to match. Belinda and Liz snicker and chortle, lean against each other like impudent schoolgirls. “How does it happen to people?” Liz whispers. “How do they wind up thinking that a place one flight below the sidewalk is a place for fancy clothes? Matthew and I always used to call this the Black Hole, did I tell you that already? I told you that already. Anyway, we used to call these people colonials.”
“Right,” says Matthew. “They make me think of a colonial attitude, somehow.” He’s struck by this thought: he has a condescending attitude toward these people and their ilk, and this attitude is very much like the one he supposes them to have toward everyone foreign and dark. He wonders why his thinking about history, about international politics, nationalistic attitudes, hasn’t become more sophisticated as he’s aged. He still holds the attitudes he had as a boy, a naïve sense that fair play for all is the obvious best condition for the world — but perhaps he’s changing. He used to think that he didn’t understand condescension, real condescension, not the kind he affects for BW’s reviews, but the condescension that’s born of contempt. Now, however, recognizing his attitude toward the colonials, who fidget at the bottom of the stairs uneasily, speaking furtively, in the way that cautious schoolchildren might pass notes under their desks, he wonders how long he has misunderstood himself, failed to recognize what his attitudes have become, the contempt he feels for the people at the bottom of the stairs, a contempt he feels for many more people and types of people than he is quite ready to admit.
“We probably weren’t being fair,” he says.
Liz gives him a look. “Probably were,” she says.
[to be continued]
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