“Now wait just a minute,” Yasmin had said to me when I told her all this. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to take on a bugger.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t be so stupid, Oswald. If he’s a raging hundred per cent fairy–”
“He calls it an invert.”
“I don’t care what he calls it.”
“It’s a very Proustian word,” I said. “Look up ‘to invert’ in the dictionary and you’ll find the definition is ‘to turn upside down.’”
“He’s not turning me upside down, thank you very much,” Yasmin said.
“Now don’t get excited.”
“Anyway, it’s a waste of time,” she said. “He wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I think he would.”
“What d’you want me to do, dress up as a choirboy?”
“We’ll give him a double dose of Blister Beetle.”
“That’s not going to change his habits.”
“No,” I said, “but it’ll make him so bloody horny he won’t care what sex you are.”
“He’ll invert me.”
“No, he won’t.”
“He’ll invert me like a comma.”
“Take a hatpin with you.”
“It’s still not going to work,” she said. “If he’s a genuine twenty-four carat homo, then all women are physically repulsive to him.”
“It’s essential we get him,” I said. “Our collection won’t be complete without fifty Proust straws.”
“Is he really so important?”
“He’s going to be,” I said. “I’m sure of it. There’ll be a strong demand for Proust children in the years to come.”
Yasmin gazed out of the Ritz windows at the cloudygrey summer sky over Paris. “If that’s the case, then there’s only one thing for it,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You do it yourself.”
I was so shocked I jumped.
“Steady on,” I said.
“He wants a man,” she said. “Well, you’re a man. You’re perfect. You’re young, you’re beautiful, and you’re lecherous.”
“Yes, but I am not a catamite.”
“You don’t have the guts?”
“Of course I’ve got the guts. But field work is your province, not mine.”
“Who said so?”
“I can’t cope with a man, Yasmin, you know that.”
“This isn’t a man. It’s a fairy.”
“For God’s sake!” I cried. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let that little sod come near me! I’ll have you know that even an enema gives me the shakes for a week!”
Yasmin burst into shrieks of laughter. “I suppose you’re going to tell me next,” she said, “that you have a small sphincter.”
“Yes and I’m not having Mr. Proust enlarge it, thanks very much,” I said.
“You’re a coward, Oswald,” she said.
It was an impasse. I sulked. Yasmin got up and poured herself a drink. I did the same. We sat there drinking in silence. It was early evening.
“Where shall we have dinner tonight?” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I think we ought to try to solve this Proust thing first. I’d hate to see this little bugger get away.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“I’m thinking,” she said.
I finished my drink and got myself another. “You want one?” I said to her.
“No,” she said. I left her to go on thinking. After a while she said, “Well now, I wonder if that will work.”
“What?”
“I’ve just had a tiny little idea.”
“Tell me.”
Yasmin didn’t answer. She stood up and walked over to the window and leaned out. She stayed leaning out of that window for fully five minutes, immobile, deep in thought, and I watched her but kept my mouth shut. Then all of a sudden I saw her reach behind her with her right hand, and the hand started snatching at the air as though she were catching flies. She didn’t look round as she did this. She just went on hanging out of the window and snatching away at those invisible non-existent flies behind her.
“What the hell’s going on?” I said.
She turned round and faced me, and now there was a big smile on her face. “It’s great!” she cried. “I love it! I am a clever little girl!”
“Out with it then.”
“It’s going to be tricky,” she said, “and I’m going to have to be very quick but I’m good at catching. Come to think of it, I was better than my brother at catching cricket balls.”