Charlotte charged back into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. ‘Bastard!’
‘What?’
‘Leaving me in there with him like that. Jesus, that man is boring.’
‘You’ve only been in there five minutes.’ Matt put his wine glass down on the worktop.
‘It felt like a decade. I can’t believe you just palmed him off on me like that!’
‘You were about to do the same to me.’
Charlotte considered this. ‘True.’
Matt leaned back against the sink. Now that the table had been expanded, it was a bit cramped with them both in here. ‘How did you get away, then?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I said you had some cashew nuts. Do you have some cashew nuts?’
‘No.’
‘Never mind. I’m not going back.’
They looked at each other. ‘Have you got some wine?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got some in there, but I can’t go back for it now.’ She stared at him.
Matt poured her another glass. He’d have to wash up one of them before the others arrived.
‘Need any help with anything?’ Charlotte asked without enthusiasm.
‘Nope, it’s all done.’
‘You are efficient.’ Charlotte sprawled into a dining chair, allowing Matt to move away from the sink. ‘What were we talking about?’ she asked.
‘You’re not going back?’ he replied.
‘No. You?’
Matt sat down next to her. ‘I think it was books,’ he said.
‘Can we say it was TV shows? I was watching this brilliantly awful thing yesterday . . .’
Soon, the doorbell went again.
Charlotte sighed in irritation. ‘I’ll go and get it, shall I?’
There were several small Somali children playing football in the courtyard below the tower. Justin watched them approvingly. He had been feeling concerned since he first looked
up Matt’s address on Google Street View. The flat was on the top floor of a former local authority block halfway up St John’s Street in Islington, not far from Clerkenwell, and Justin
had always thought it was wrong for such places to be sold off, exiling the poor from anywhere nice, diminishing the stock of good-quality council homes and making central London a rich-only zone.
He had been worried about whether it was right for him to eat dinner there.
But seeing the children use a tree tub and a dustbin for goalposts made Justin scold himself for being so judgemental. Maybe, in fact, Matt’s decision to move here showed a worthy
commitment to socially mixed living, a desire not to use money to run away from the less fortunate, but to join them in pushing the authorities to make conditions better for all. If it was right to
send your children to a state school, perhaps it was right to buy in to a council estate as well. Justin took the working lift as confirmation of this. He resolved to apologize at a suitable point
in the evening.
Surprisingly, there was no one else there when he arrived. Charlotte seemed in a bit of a huff as she poured him a drink. Perhaps she had quarrelled with Matt. Was she actually his partner?
Presumably she was, although she didn’t seem to know where the wine glasses were. Perhaps she hadn’t moved in yet.
When they were sitting down, facing each other over glasses of wine, Justin asked, ‘So how long have you two been together?’
‘We’re not.’
‘Oh. I . . . Well, I thought . . .’
‘It’s Rosie’s fault.’
‘Is it? I’m not sure I understand how . . .’
‘Never mind. Where’s your wife? I’ve forgotten her name.’
‘Barbara. She’s not my wife. We have decided not to get married until gay couples everywhere in the US have the right.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at him with obvious mystification.
‘Barbara feels very strongly about it and I’m fully in support of her,’ he explained.
‘Right,’ Charlotte said in a tone he couldn’t read. ‘Is she coming?’
‘Yes. But she’s launching her new ceramics exhibition first.’
‘Oh.’
There was a pause after that. Justin thought Charlotte might ask a bit about the exhibition, but she didn’t. So instead he asked, ‘What kind of work do you do?’
‘I’m an accountant.’
‘Oh.’
Justin didn’t want another silence, so he thought he should carry on. ‘Is that for one of the City firms?’
‘No. It’s the same place Rosie works. We design and manufacture kitchen appliances.’
‘I see. Do you enjoy it?’
‘No. Not particularly. But that’s work, isn’t it?’
Justin was a little shocked by this, and couldn’t think of anything to fill the next silence. The humming of the Sky+ box seemed to be unusually loud. Charlotte took several sips of wine
while Justin fiddled with his glass.
After a while, Charlotte asked, ‘Are you a fan of
Come Dine with Me
?’
‘Oh we don’t have a TV.’
‘Right.’ That tone again.
‘We both feel it tends to be a distraction from the more important things in life, you see,’ he explained.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ she asked.
‘Oh, er, no, thanks. I’ve hardly even started this one.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, honestly, I’m fine.’
‘How about some nuts, then?’ Charlotte stood up.
‘No, I—’
‘I’m sure I can find some peanuts or something. You must be getting pretty hungry.’
‘Actually, I’m intolerant to peanuts. If I eat one, I start to swell up and—’
‘Cashews, then?’
‘No, really, I’m fine.’
‘Let me see what I can find. Maybe Matt has some kind of organic snack.’
Justin thought it would be rude to object this time. Charlotte left the living room very quickly.
For a while, Justin remained perched on the edge of the sofa, his body bent forward at the forty-five-degree angle he used to signal interest in a conversation he was finding difficult. After
Charlotte had been gone for several minutes, he stood up and immediately noticed the view that appeared once he was looking down out of the window. In the bruise-coloured dusk, the landmarks of the
City dazzled against the forest of lights stretching off in every direction. The Gherkin and the other skyscrapers seemed incredibly close, as if they shared with the tower block a high-rise space
that ignored distances occupied by lesser buildings.
Coming closer to the window, Justin could see what must have been Smithfield market almost directly below. To the left he saw a strange warren of thick stone walls with ancient beamed roofs that
seemed oddly out of place among the concrete and brick. Away to the right he could make out the top of the glowing dome of St Paul’s, cradled in a ring of taller office blocks. Although it
was a small flat, Justin now understood what Matt saw in it. How wonderful to have the whole city spread out below you like that.
Justin turned away from the window. Odd that there was no one else here. Perhaps he should have gone to Barbara’s exhibition after all. He looked at his watch. Ten to eight. Where was
Charlotte? Well, never mind. Justin put down his wine and opened the battered Eastpak rucksack he always carried with him. If he could start reading over the section he’d written that
morning, then that would set him up well for the weekend. Relaxing into the sofa, he began to read.
He had barely got halfway through the statistics on mosquito-net penetration in rural Malawi when the doorbell went. Soon, he heard Barbara’s voice in the hall. Reluctantly, he put the
report back in his bag and stood up as Barbara and Charlotte came into the living room.
‘Hi, my love,’ he said.
‘Hi, Justin,’ she replied.
They smiled at each other but Barbara didn’t come over to kiss him.
‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Yeah. A large one, please.’
‘Red or white?’
‘Whatever. Red.’
When Charlotte left, Barbara flopped down in the recliner and exhaled noisily. ‘What a shitty day.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The launch was a disaster.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come.’ He sat down facing her.
‘It wasn’t that. That’s not important.’
‘I’m sorry anyway. Did that gallery owner . . . I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his name – did he not come?’
‘Dieter Tunhelm? Of course he didn’t. But I don’t care about any of that. I was standing there, drinking wine out of a plastic cup, looking at my work, and I thought: this is
all a bunch of crap.’
‘Oh no! Some of it’s very nice!’ Justin leaned forward to show her how strongly he felt.
‘It’s just twelve ugly lumps of painted clay. What’s the point of it?’ Barbara waved her arm dismissively towards the television. ‘They say, if at first you
don’t succeed, try again. They say, if you work hard enough, you’ll be successful. But what if you’re a talentless nobody? They don’t say anything about that.’
‘You’re not a talentless nobody!’ Justin insisted.
‘I think I’m done with it.’
‘No!’
Barbara wasn’t looking at him. ‘And so I just left. I couldn’t take it any more.’
‘That’s a little bit mean for Mary, don’t you think? She put a lot of effort into—’
‘And then I walked around for a long time thinking I just wanted to go home. But I didn’t. I came here.’
Justin patted her on the arm. ‘That was the right thing to do.’
‘And now I’m thinking I don’t want to spend an evening talking to these people.’ Barbara’s face hardened. ‘And you know what I thought? If it wasn’t for
you, I wouldn’t be here.’
Justin smiled affectionately at her. ‘That’s a sweet thing for you to say.’
Barbara stared at him again. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’
She stopped as footsteps came towards the door. Justin was surprised to see it was Matt bringing in the wine.
‘Here you are.’ He put a glass down next to Barbara. ‘Hey are you OK? You look like you’ve had a bad day.’
‘Yeah, you know . . .’ she mumbled.
‘What happened?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘No – tell me.’ Matt sat down on the recliner’s footstool and pulled in closer.
Barbara shrugged. ‘All right . . . I had my exhibition launch today.’
‘It didn’t go well?’ Matt asked in a soft, understanding tone.
‘No.’
‘What was it? Was someone rude about it?’
‘It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. It was just me. I looked at my work and I realized it was just garbage.’
‘That must have been tough.’ Matt patted her knee.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’ Barbara straightened in the chair.
‘No, it’s good. Look, I hope you don’t mind if I say this – but things probably aren’t as bad as you think.’
‘They’re pretty bad.’
‘The thing is, this is a common response among artists. They work on a piece for so long, really throw everything into it, and then when they are done they can hardly bear to look at it.
That doesn’t mean the work’s no good. Not at all.’
Barbara seemed to consider this. ‘You think so?’
‘Absolutely. In fact, I think I was reading somewhere that the same thing happened to Picasso. He made ceramics, didn’t he? Well, I read that he was so disgusted with what he’d
made one summer, he told his assistant to smash everything in the studio. Fortunately, the assistant didn’t do it, just stowed them all away somewhere, and when he brought them out again
after Picasso’s death they were recognized as some of his finest works.’
Barbara brightened. ‘Really?’
‘Yup. Now, I’m not sure I can promise you’ll make as much cash as that assistant did . . .’
Barbara laughed. She had a warm and open laugh, Justin thought. It made him happy to hear it.
‘But all I’m saying is, things will turn out a lot better than you think now,’ Matt said.
The doorbell went.
‘I’d better go and get that.’ Matt stood up, patting Barbara’s knee again on the way.
When Matt had gone, Barbara looked at Justin questioningly. Justin was touched.
‘What a nice thing for Matt to say,’ he said.
Rosie could see Charlotte puzzling over the table settings while Matt poured out wine in the kitchen to her left; in the living room to the right Barbara and Justin faced each
other in silence across the coffee table. That was poor hosting, she noted with a hint of triumph. Definitely a potential mark against.
Was it wrong docking points in the hall before she had even got her jacket off? No, that was part of the game, surely.
In fact, if Matt didn’t come and hang it up for her soon . . .
‘You can come and sit at the table straight away,’ he said, taking Rosie’s jacket from her. ‘It’s about ready.’
‘Can’t we have a look round? I haven’t been here before.’
‘Sure. If you like. There’s the living room. Go on in.’
‘Hello!’ Rosie waved at Justin and Barbara. She registered the bookshelf for further snooping, but went straight to the window.
‘What an amazing view!’ she exclaimed. It was fully dark now, and towards the horizon the lights of the city merged into the stars, twinkling gently through the haze of distance.
‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ Matt said, joining her. ‘It’s a small flat, but I’ve always felt this makes up for it.’
‘It must feel like you own the whole city!’
‘Well . . .’
‘No, it’s fantastic. I bet you wake up every morning thinking London is there for the taking.’
Matt didn’t reply to that. They stood side by side for several moments, watching the lights in silence.
It wasn’t until the doorbell rang that Rosie noticed Stephen standing behind them. She moved away quickly. Not that, you know, but it might look . . .
‘I’d better go and get that,’ Matt said.
‘Yes, of course,’ Rosie agreed. She moved towards the bookshelf while Matt let in Marcus and Sarah. By the time he called them all through to the table, she had not found anything
she could picture Matt enjoying reading.
Rosie had to turn sideways to squeeze into the folding chair jammed up against the wall by the extended table. Sarah and Marcus were already ensconced at the far end, and if either of them
needed to get out, everyone would have to get up. Justin and Barbara had a bit more space on the other side of the table.
‘Do you mind if we push the table out a bit?’ she asked. ‘We’re a bit squeezed on this side.’
‘We haven’t got that much room.’