astounding versatility of his physical presence. Quentin can silence a cocktail party just by walking into it or, alternatively, cruise around the room for half an hour and listen to people complain about his nonarrival. He can swank into the Savoy in T-shirt and jeans or sidle dinner-jacketed through the Glasgow slums. He can halt a conference with a movement of his little finger and yet sit so invisibly that directors start to discuss his salary without realizing he's there. "Or so it seems," Quentin is fond of saying, "—and that's all it needs to do."
Watch Quentin closely. Everyone else does. Stunned by his good looks, proportionately taken aback by his friendliness and accessibility, flattered by his interest, struck by the intimacy of his manner and lulled by the hypnotic sonority of his voice—it is impossible to meet Quentin without falling a little bit in love.
11: THE Human wigwam
Does he know, for instance, what I'm feeling now? wondered Whitehead, as Quentin, glancing back into the kitchen before unbolting the front door, favored him with an oddly piercing, oddly meek, smile, the corners of his fine mouth curving downward at either end.
Did he know what it was like to be introduced to a girl a foot taller than oneself, the dwarfish humiliations involved in shaking hands with somebody practically twice one's height, the sneaky web of tensions that obtain when a person measuring four-foot-eleven (or "five-one," in Keith's parlance) meets a fellow human being who has cleared the magic divide of five-foot-six? For the Americans, Whitehead had established by peering in tiptoed apprehension out of the kitchen window on the way to the hall, seemed to have been selected to illustrate the elementary differences possible in the standard Earthling hominid: one rangy pale giant with cropped white hair and plasticene limbs; one tuft-faced goblin whose plaited brown braids extended to his waist; and . . . Roxeanne, it must have been, one of those terrifying, genetics-experiment, centerfold American girls—well over six feet in her platforms, a bonfire of lambent red hair, breasts like zeppelins, large firm high backside, endless legs. During his buildup to the ordeal, Keith had had a prayer that he would be able to suffer it in a sedentary, and thus unexposed, posture. Now, watching Quentin gambol out with a cheer to embrace the newcomers, and watching Celia approach the four in a solemn, formalized step, Whitehead began to see the full horror of what was in store for him.
Quentin held out a hand to his wife and turned to his friends. "Marvell . . . Skip . . . Roxeanne," he said huskily, gazing from one face to another, ". . . take my wife in."
There was a pause. Celia then moved forward to join the circle of arms, where she was embraced by each in turn and kissed on either cheek by Roxeanne and firmly on the mouth by Skip and Marvell. Grouping in a circle, the quartet leaned inward and touched foreheads. Besting his emotion, Quentin looked toward the porch, within which Andy, Diana, and Whitehead were uncertainly arranged. Quentin's voice was lusty, brave: "Come on!"he cried.
"Fuck this," sighed Diana.
"C'mon, it's only tender," Andy told Diana before striding
out into the drive.
Queasily Keith watched Andy kiss Roxeanne—with indecorous relish, he thought—and link arms crossways with : Marvell and Skip. Five foreheads touched. Whitehead looked up at Diana. "To hell with this, eh?" he pleaded.
Diana, more out of a reluctance to be with the loathsome Keith than a desire to be with the others, glanced at him in tired contempt and left him alone at the front door. A rather stiffer version of the Celia ritual was enacted, then the entire pyramid of legs, arms, and faces turned expectantly toward the tiny boy.
Keith was still reviewing various gambits—run screaming to his room? fall on his face? start crying? go mad again?— when he found himself skipping corpulently across the drive, piping out, "Room for one more
Watch Quentin closely. Everyone else does. Stunned by his good looks, proportionately taken aback by his friendliness and accessibility, flattered by his interest, struck by the intimacy of his manner and lulled by the hypnotic sonority of his voice—it is impossible to meet Quentin without falling a little bit in love.
11: THE Human wigwam
Does he know, for instance, what I'm feeling now? wondered Whitehead, as Quentin, glancing back into the kitchen before unbolting the front door, favored him with an oddly piercing, oddly meek, smile, the corners of his fine mouth curving downward at either end.
Did he know what it was like to be introduced to a girl a foot taller than oneself, the dwarfish humiliations involved in shaking hands with somebody practically twice one's height, the sneaky web of tensions that obtain when a person measuring four-foot-eleven (or "five-one," in Keith's parlance) meets a fellow human being who has cleared the magic divide of five-foot-six? For the Americans, Whitehead had established by peering in tiptoed apprehension out of the kitchen window on the way to the hall, seemed to have been selected to illustrate the elementary differences possible in the standard Earthling hominid: one rangy pale giant with cropped white hair and plasticene limbs; one tuft-faced goblin whose plaited brown braids extended to his waist; and . . . Roxeanne, it must have been, one of those terrifying, genetics-experiment, centerfold American girls—well over six feet in her platforms, a bonfire of lambent red hair, breasts like zeppelins, large firm high backside, endless legs. During his buildup to the ordeal, Keith had had a prayer that he would be able to suffer it in a sedentary, and thus unexposed, posture. Now, watching Quentin gambol out with a cheer to embrace the newcomers, and watching Celia approach the four in a solemn, formalized step, Whitehead began to see the full horror of what was in store for him.
Quentin held out a hand to his wife and turned to his friends. "Marvell . . . Skip . . . Roxeanne," he said huskily, gazing from one face to another, ". . . take my wife in."
There was a pause. Celia then moved forward to join the circle of arms, where she was embraced by each in turn and kissed on either cheek by Roxeanne and firmly on the mouth by Skip and Marvell. Grouping in a circle, the quartet leaned inward and touched foreheads. Besting his emotion, Quentin looked toward the porch, within which Andy, Diana, and Whitehead were uncertainly arranged. Quentin's voice was lusty, brave: "Come on!"he cried.
"Fuck this," sighed Diana.
"C'mon, it's only tender," Andy told Diana before striding
out into the drive.
Queasily Keith watched Andy kiss Roxeanne—with indecorous relish, he thought—and link arms crossways with : Marvell and Skip. Five foreheads touched. Whitehead looked up at Diana. "To hell with this, eh?" he pleaded.
Diana, more out of a reluctance to be with the loathsome Keith than a desire to be with the others, glanced at him in tired contempt and left him alone at the front door. A rather stiffer version of the Celia ritual was enacted, then the entire pyramid of legs, arms, and faces turned expectantly toward the tiny boy.
Keith was still reviewing various gambits—run screaming to his room? fall on his face? start crying? go mad again?— when he found himself skipping corpulently across the drive, piping out, "Room for one more
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