Rosie composed her face into an expression of sympathetic attentiveness as she waited for Justin to answer. It put her in the right frame of mind, even though he wouldn’t
be able to see her. The phone rang for a good twenty seconds, and Rosie thought she might get away with just leaving a message. But then a slightly breathless voice answered.
‘Hello, Justin? It’s Rosie here.’
‘Oh.’
Rosie waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. ‘I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time?’ she said.
‘No, it’s fine. I was just getting some work done.’
‘On Saturday morning? That’s very dedicated.’
‘Well.’
Again Rosie expected more, but didn’t get it. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ she said.
‘It’s fine.’
Rosie couldn’t read his tone, even over the landline, which she liked to use for socially or emotionally fraught conversations, because it was easier to hear the inflections in
people’s voices. His replies seemed terse, though. It was almost as if he was blaming her for what had happened.
No, that was ridiculous, of course. She was reading far too much into a few syllables. How on earth could it be her fault?
It had been a rather odd end to the evening. Everyone had just done their best to get on with it and drink their coffees, determinedly ignoring the conspicuous fact that both Barbara and Matt
had disappeared. Rosie and Justin had sustained a discussion about which drinks kept them awake at night.
Rosie had decided to leave before it became absolutely clear that they were not coming back. Justin had made some mild protests, and she hardly needed to deploy the babysitter excuse to overcome
them. The others had taken the hint. They all praised the meal as they left.
Rosie spent all of Sunday itching to find out what had happened. But was a bit too soon to phone, and she’d managed to get through Monday as well. On Tuesday she cracked. But Barbara
hadn’t picked up the phone.
Later, she tried calling Matt, but he didn’t answer, even when she phoned from one of the phones at work that hid your number. She begged Stephen to try, but he, very unhelpfully, refused
to get involved.
Rosie was disappointed with Matt. It was so rude, just to go off like that. Not even saying goodbye to your host? That was unforgivable.
Of course it made it worse that he had gone off with Barbara. It threatened to ruin the whole competition. And obviously Justin must be devastated.
Barbara, well, she was an artist, wasn’t she? She was allowed to be unpredictable. That was why Rosie had decided to cultivate her. It was always nice to have an unconventional friend.
But, as she should have realized, it came with risks.
It would have been much better if Barbara had run off with a sculptor or something. Then, Rosie thought, she could even invite them round for dinner without the others. It would be very
interesting to talk to a sculptor. Not that she didn’t like Justin, but he could be a little, well, single-minded, couldn’t he? No, a sculptor would have been nice, or even some kind of
poet, at a push.
Rosie had a nagging sense that the right thing to do would be to call the whole thing off now. It would be sensitive, tactful, and it would avoid any unpleasant confrontation.
But Rosie didn’t want to. She wanted to win. In some ways, it would even be helpful if everyone was in a bad mood tonight, she thought. It would depress the scores. But there was no
getting round it. She had to offer Justin the opportunity to cancel. Politeness demanded it. She must at least to be able to say she had asked.
Rosie gripped the phone tighter to her ear and prepared a way through the conversation.
‘How are you anyway?’ she asked.
‘Fine.’ Justin’s voice was still toneless.
‘Great. We both had a lovely time last week.’
‘Oh. Really?’
‘I know it must have been difficult for you, with Barbara and everything.’ Rosie waited, hoping for a steer on how she should go on. But Justin’s reaction was impossible to
detect. ‘Did she . . .’ Rosie decided to go for it. ‘Did she ever come back?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Rosie didn’t know what to say next. She wished she hadn’t been so blunt. ‘Well, I am sorry. Did she say why?’
‘No.’
‘Gosh, so have you heard from her at all?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she say?’ Rosie knew this was nosy, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘She . . . well . . . it’s hard to explain.’
‘Of course. I understand,’ Rosie said with disappointment. She left a sympathetic pause.
‘Look, I’ve got some e-mails I need to send . . .’ Justin began.
‘Yes, sorry, I won’t keep you. But I just wanted to ask you about tonight.’
‘Oh?’
‘I know it might be difficult with Barbara there. And Matt. Not together, I mean . . . I mean, I don’t know anything about it, just that they’ll both be there . . .’
Rosie stopped herself, aware that she had begun to panic. ‘So I suppose I just wanted to check if you were still OK to come tonight.’
Justin thought about it.
‘We’d all understand perfectly if you wanted to cancel.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that I’m up to it, even without, you know . . .’
‘Of course. I understand. That’s completely fair enough.’ Rosie nodded in vigorous sympathy, more for her own benefit than Justin’s.
‘So I think, if that’s all right, I’d prefer—’
‘It’s entirely up to you, as I said,’ Rosie cut in quickly. ‘I don’t want to pressure you at all.’
‘OK. So . . .’
‘Of course, if you didn’t come, we would have to abandon the whole competition.’
‘Really? Couldn’t you just not include me?’
‘No, it wouldn’t work, because you have to have the same people voting each time, otherwise it’s meaningless.’
‘Oh.’
‘But it’s only a silly competition. It doesn’t matter at all. You have to do what you feel comfortable with.’
‘Yes . . . I . . .’
‘I know Marcus and Sarah will be disappointed, though, because they were planning something really special. It would be a shame to have to cancel.’
‘Couldn’t you . . .’
‘I’m sure they’ll understand, though. It’s only a dinner party.’
‘Yes.’ Justin didn’t say anything else.
Rosie pressed home her advantage. ‘Although it would be such a pity to see everyone’s effort go to waste,’ she said. ‘But I would never dream of twisting your arm if you
don’t want to come. You should put yourself first.’
Justin took a long time to respond.
‘Actually,’ he said. ‘Now that I think about it, maybe I ought to come.’ The phone stripped his words of all tone and emotion. Rosie thought this was probably just as
well.
‘Brilliant!’ she said. ‘I mean, are you sure?’
‘I don’t want to be selfish about it.’
‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’
‘I’m sure it will do me good to get out.’
‘Really?’ Rosie said, sounding concerned.
‘I suppose it will take my mind off things.’
‘Well, as long as you’re sure.’
‘It will probably be good for me.’ Justin breathed heavily into the receiver, sending a blast of static crackling down the line.
Rosie now felt confident enough to push it all the way. ‘No, look – don’t come,’ she said. ‘We’ll be OK. I’m sure we’ll work something
out.’
‘No, no, I’ll come.’
‘Great!’ Rosie closed her eyes and made a silent fist of triumph. ‘And you’re sure you don’t feel you’re being pushed into it?’
‘No, not at all. I want to come.’
‘That’s wonderful. I must say, it’s very big of you. I’m not sure I’d be able to do it if I were you.’
Justin might have sighed, but it could have been another crackle on the line.
Justin sighed as he put the phone down. But he quickly told himself not to be so self-pitying. It was true that he didn’t want to go out for dinner, particularly not at
Marcus’s house, and absolutely not if Barbara was going to be there with Matt.
But he had made a commitment, and he could see that it was unfair to try to get out of it at the last minute. Justin hoped he hadn’t seemed rude on the phone to Rosie. It was nice of her
to call. Perhaps he should send her a text apologizing for being so unenthusiastic.
Justin looked at his laptop, a constellation of blue and white LEDs twinkling on the coffee table. But instead of reaching for it he slumped back on the sofa and stared listlessly out of the
window. On the balcony of the flat opposite, drying laundry flapped slowly in an intermittent breeze. Justin did not in fact have any more work he needed to do. When Rosie rang, he had been
composing an e-mail to the office IT Services department, making some suggestions about how they could improve the archiving of old messages in Outlook.
The previous Sunday, he had gone straight into the office, feeling immediately reassured by its calm emptiness. He spent the week working even harder than usual and finished his report sooner
than he had anticipated. By Wednesday evening he had nothing left to do except clear his backlog of messages. He went in early on Thursday anyway, offering to help out on other projects. For a long
time, he had been meaning to clarify his thoughts about the strategic direction of the organization, and spell out some ideas for future projects, so he set these down in a series of long e-mails
to the chief executive.
No one wanted to go for a drink after work so, reluctantly, he went home in the evening.
Back at the flat, he immediately noticed that things were not as he left them. Someone had come in and moved them. For a brief, delighted moment, he thought Barbara was back and called out her
name. The flat was silent. When he went into the bedroom, he found that her side of the wardrobe had been emptied. There was no note. In the living room, the iPod speakers were gone. Justin thought
she had given him those as a birthday present.
The sofa was still pushed against the wall of the living room. Justin crumpled on to it. He didn’t want to examine what he was feeling, staring at the ransacked room, but he had to admit
to himself that worrying about his moral commitment had conveniently stopped him worrying about anything else.
He briefly tried to feel guilty in turn about using his conscience to distract himself, but it didn’t work. He sat very still on the sofa. The beanbag still lay against the bookshelf,
where Barbara had abandoned it on Saturday.
As soon as she had left, Justin had wanted to run out after her, stop her from disappearing and make her tell him what was wrong. But the coffee was brewing, and he had to go and push the
plunger down. Otherwise it would have been stewed when he served it to the guests.
He was desperate for them to leave immediately, of course, but it was obvious they could see that, so he had to insist that they stay. No one spoke while they waited for taxis. Charlotte had
taken the first one. It was while they were discussing who should take the next one that Justin realized Matt had not come back. The possible reason for this dawned slowly over the silent room,
bleaching the awkward pause into something far starker. Goodbyes were said very quickly. Justin was left alone with his thoughts.
But he couldn’t think about Matt. Even as he tried to, his mind was repelled as if by a magnetic field from the obvious conclusion, veering off instead to go over things he might have said
to upset Barbara.
As soon as the front door shut he tried to call her, but the phone went to voicemail several times. After that he washed up very thoroughly.
Yes, he’d been annoyed with her at the start of the evening, but he hadn’t let it show, had he? What had he said? If only he could go back, find out what it was, and apologize.
Justin tortured himself with this thought as the dishes built up in the drying rack. Usually when she stormed off she was back within a few hours. But this time . . . and Matt . . .
Justin had always suspected that Barbara might be out of his league. So there was no point thinking about this as anything other than his fault. Even so, what she had done with the sausages . .
. it was unforgivable. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t giving him a chance to forgive her.
With the casserole dish soaking in the sink, Justin went back to the living room and tried Barbara again. This time her phone was off.
On Sunday morning, she had sent him a text, saying she was OK. He had replied with six messages, all of them asking questions. He hadn’t heard back.
And so, on Thursday evening, finding her clothes gone, he had turned round and gone back to the office.
All Friday, he had dreaded the weekend. As he sat on the sofa after ending the call with Rosie, the days stretched out ahead of him, trackless and terrifying.
Trying not to think about it, Justin roused himself from the sofa and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He hadn’t used the pot since last Saturday, and behind it in the cupboard were
his and Barbara’s weekend bowls. They had been made by a friend of hers, and Barbara had decreed them too delicate for everyday use. This time on a Saturday morning, he and Barbara would
usually be having a late breakfast, maybe reading the
Guardian
– him the foreign pages, her the magazine – or if the weather was good, going for a walk in Abney Park.
He took both bowls out of the cupboard, but filled only one of them with cereal. Very suddenly, Justin felt his eyes welling with tears.
‘What a shame!’ Rosie exclaimed as she opened the door to Sarah. ‘You’ve just missed Jonathan. He’s having a nap.’
‘Oh dear.’ Sarah stepped into the hallway. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit later than I said. I haven’t seen him for ages. I don’t want to wake him,
though.’
Rosie smiled tightly at her. ‘No,’ she said.
Sarah wondered if she had been rude. Surely not, not with such a good friend. But she found it so hard to tell what you were and weren’t supposed to say about other people’s
children. She pulled off her jacket, feeling an itchy patch of sweat under her clothes. It was one of those early spring days when it was too cold not to wear a coat when you left the house, but by
late morning a jacket felt cumbersome and a little foolish.