‘I have the same sort of thing with my father.’
‘You know I remember when poor old Crumlish showed me round on my first day and it was say hello to … and then some noise, and I’d have to say, who? And then he’d say very clearly and loudly PYRRHOUS, or BYSSHE, or FULVIA, or whatever, and then do a little smirk. When I told my dad there was actually a person called Horace, he laughed so hard he spilled a bucket of maggots.’
‘Euw.’
‘Fish bait. Did I never tell you about the tackle shop? Hang on, your father? I thought your father was dead.’
‘He is, but I still talk to him.’
‘Oh.’
There was a pause. Andrew didn’t really think it was mad to talk to a dead parent, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to say next. Alice broke the silence.
‘Do you spend a lot of time thinking about male beauty?’ She was trying very hard, and succeeded in pulling off the naughty/innocent face she had once specialised in when talking to boys at college.
Andrew ignored the half tease. He’d been mocked about the feyness of his research too often for it to bother him, but no one ever thought he was gay. It rather annoyed him.
‘God no, not any more. Not that I ever did, really. There was just a gap in the research. You know, tonnes of stuff on changes in female beauty, but nothing academic on the blokes, despite the fact that, off and on, men have been just as much the focus of the adoring gaze as women, and just as likely to be described as beautiful.’
The adoring gaze. Yes, Alice knew about the adoring gaze.
‘So what do you think beauty is then, as you’re the expert?’
‘Well, I certainly don’t think it’s any particular type of face, or shape of body. There’s been loads of scientific, or rather cod-scientific, research trying to pin beauty down in terms of facial geometry, and tie it all in to our genes, but it just hasn’t come up with anything persuasive.’
‘It’s funny, but I actually know quite a lot about this. The biological side.’
‘Really? Yeah, I suppose you might.’
‘You see there are various theories that suggest that being … nicely turned out, if you’re a bird, or a guppy, say, (Alice at this point remembered that she used, when much younger, to do a rather fetching guppy face, which never failed to amuse, even if no boy could ever truly fancy her again after seeing it. She quickly decided against doing it now) means that you’ve got strong, healthy genes, so you can get enough to eat, and haven’t got parasites. And as for things like peacock’s tails, well the fact that you’ve been able to carry that lot around with you for a while and not get eaten means that you must be pretty tough. So in either case, the lady guppy or peacock will want a piece of the genetic action.’
‘God, I love girls that know stuff! I can’t believe we have an overlap.’
‘Not much. Just one lecture’s worth. But back to beauty. If you don’t think it’s the gene thing, then what is it?’
‘Well, you’re not going to like this, being a science dolly …’
Alice did a head-on-one-side pretend pout, looking, Andrew thought, suddenly very, very kissable, weirdness and talking to dead dad notwithstanding.
‘… dolly … what was I saying? Oh yep. Well, it’s all just a way of talking. Oh, and writing, and painting. My view, I say my view, but I actually only got a handle on the theoretical side by talking it through with Leo. Did I mention that he was a genius?’
‘I think it was implied or suggested at some point.’
‘Well, our view is that beauty dwells in language: it’s a series of conventions, or clusters of ideas, that live and move in our culture, and determine how we think and talk about beauty.’
Alice made a polite but distinct scoffing noise.
‘So you’re saying that when you look at someone and think, mmmmm, then there’s no biological basis for that, it’s all just a cultural convention? You’re insane, or you’ve never been in love, or even … just fancied someone.’
Alice was enjoying the discussion; she could feel some of her old zest for ideas creeping back. She was also fairly sure that Andrew was talking rot. Behind the lightness, however, there was another, darker, reason for her pleasure. They were talking about beauty, and beauty meant talking about her Boy, her Dead Boy.
‘No, no, of course you’re right that even in humans, sexual attraction is biological, and you could probably trace it back to the need to reproduce, but what I’m talking about is what happens when we start to reflect on our … urges, to try to find meaning or structure. What happens as soon as you look at someone you find attractive?’
‘I …’
‘Yes, you give them a word, such as beautiful, and then wham, you find yourself smack in the middle of three thousand years of Western culture, you’re in Plato’s dialogues, you’re in the songs of the troubadours, you’re in Shakespeare, in Shelley, in Keats. Your thoughts and certainly your words aren’t yours any more, they’re part of the great conversation.’
‘Talking of the great conversation …’
‘What? Oh, damn, sorry, I’m ranting, aren’t I? I must have had a couple of years of thesis stuff pent-up inside.’
‘It’s okay. It’s an interesting subject, beauty. I just wish I had some.’
‘Oh come on!’
‘That probably sounded like false modesty. I know I’m not hideous, everything in the right place and things, but I’m not beautiful, not in the way that transforms everything, not in the adoring gaze way you were talking about.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Alice, you’re the …’ and Andrew only just stopped himself from saying ‘you’re the second most beautiful girl in the office’, which he knew was more than any girl could take, be she hunchbacked, begoitred, or scrofulous. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop himself from quickly physically running through hunchbacked, begoitred, or scrofulous as he drove.
Alice laughed.
‘What were you doing?’
‘Eh?’
‘You did a funny thing with your back, and you pulled a silly face. You stopped yourself saying something, didn’t you?’
In the moment he had to gather his thoughts, Andrew realised that he couldn’t correct ‘second most’ even to ‘most’. It would sound either insincere (which he could live with) or desperate (which he’d rather do without).
‘I was just going to say that you’re not bad-looking for a geek. At least you haven’t got mad hair.’
Andrew’s hair was the thing he thought most about, after breasts and books.
‘Here we go!’ Alice had heard quite a lot about Andrew’s hair: he’d start most mornings by complaining about it over his coffee.
‘Well, it’s okay for you. At least all of yours is pulling in the same direction. You’re not being subtly undermined from within. You must have seen it – whenever I’m trying to be serious it deliberately looks silly, curling off in all directions, and making obscene gestures. And then when I’m trying to be funny, it goes all sensible, and makes me look like a fucking Mormon missionary. I hate my hair.’
Andrew’s hair was, in fact, quite silly.
‘I think your hair’s