The pan of cabbage boils over and she lunges in to lift it off the hob, leaving a ring of foam angrily sizzling away to steam.
Perverse Incentives
? Was this an example of the great art he was always searching for? After he flatly refused to represent
Gilligan’s Century
, not out of the sense that he would be professionally compromised, but because of the book itself.
He can be a real bastard. That night, last time, in the taxi home Alex had to get out and throw up, then the next day he spent nearly all of it in bed, head under the quilt. While Dominic was out cracking open a lobster for lunch somewhere in Soho and refreshing himself with a half bottle of Dom Pérignon.
She checks the joint, crisping up nicely, time for a break. G and T in hand she looks at herself in the mirror next to the door. Aunty Karen. She was never glamorous but she was ok, which seemed enough. Is she frumpy? Well, compared to this Brazilian supermodel, who has a chance? Why do they have to bring these girls around, make everyone else feel bad about themselves? Maybe that’s the point.
She sighs, tilts her head back, sucks her cheeks in a little, smoothes the skin out under her eyes. She has been drinking too much and putting on weight, can’t seem to motivate herself to do anything about it really. After a couple of half-completed home exercise programs, time wasted looking for a personal trainer, money wasted on Frugl gym gear, she finds that back home, straight away, she’s reaching for the wine bottle. She needs a good detox, should eat more celery and drink milk of thistle and she knows, she knows, strong is the new skinny. No one likes a slob, no one likes a girl who can’t control herself, no one likes a girl who isn’t trim and prim and bright and pretty. No one loves them, they end up alone, like the fat woman with the pale scratched arms and the immense watery blue eyes she saw mumbling to herself last week on the DLR, coming back from a client meeting in Canary Wharf. A woman for whom, in whom, something had gone wrong, broken, a depressed woman, braless, in her mid-thirties, with her flaccid breasts resting on her gut, her hair thin and dry, striking up conversation with anyone unwise enough to sit next to her. Those great, endlessly moist eyes, the downturned mouth and mottled cheeks, thick ankles, cheap shoes. Wandered in bewildered from some antechamber or storage cupboard, from offstage, an emissary from the realm of the unwell, staining the day. Karen turned away from her quickly, not wanting to catch her eye, turned brightly back to Damien with a slightly quizzical smile and a raising of the eyebrows as Damien, making no attempt to lower his voice asked, “Why do they even let these people on the
DLR
?”
Into the living room she finds that they have laid the table, taking the dinner service in all its antique finery, a gift from her mother, from the upstairs cupboard, and are seated around it expectantly.
Twenty minutes and we will be ready to eat, she says, and perches on a seat at the opposite end of the table, in the overlap between the demands of the guests and the demands of the kitchen.
She lingers by the fridge, strangely reluctant to go back in, tells herself to stop staring at Stella, who is sitting up straight at the table, head politely inclined and constantly smiling, sipping a sparkling mineral water. Such good deportment. Then there’s feisty Jaqui with her fiercely plucked eyebrows, raspy laugh, brash manner, and giving-the-boys-as-good-as-she-gets attitude. Beauty and grace. Personality. Attitude. She has none of that.
When she goes back in to top up her G and T they have drifted into talking property.
Gin, quite a generous serving from Dominic, a splash of tonic, ice, and a slice of cucumber. Is that right? He runs his fingers through his thick hair, leaves his normally floppy fringe standing straight up off his head like a fin and nods sagely. She knows better than to quibble and returns to her chair, tries to focus on the conversation and think of something interesting to say, aware her face is flushed. Jaqui and Peter are expressing their customary outrage at the way things are, Dominic ready to ironise it all, Barney preparing to chip away at both sides. And Alex? He’s surprisingly quiet, contentedly swilling down ales.
No sooner has she sat down than she hears the alarm on the cooker buzz and gets up again. It looks ready. She wrestles the roast up onto the surface, a rivulet of meat juice waxy as twine spooling over the edge of the baking tray and spattering the hob. Careful Karen, don’t burn yourself. Steam and the heat slowly seeping through the oven gloves. She lifts the joint onto a plate, spoons and slides veg into serving dishes. She could use some help getting it through to the living room but no one seems forthcoming.
Here we are, Karen says, as Stella with a few nimble plucks clears a space for the tray and then deftly rearranges glasses and bottles. Wonderful, she says, as the others keep talking.
So what they are doing now is they are building low-cost housing in the centre at certain key points around what they’re calling the Zonal Service Hubs, i.e. around the edges of Zones 1 and 2, in order to keep the cleaners and what have you in easy reach of the centre.
Back for the vegetables, too many plates to carry at once so then a second trip.
OK! She announces. Everyone pays close attention to the food now, saying it looks fabulous and wow lamb and you’re so clever in the kitchen, best I can manage is toast.
Dominic has taken it upon himself to carve and is brandishing the knives theatrically. Silence as they all dig in, load up plates, pass dishes, lean across and over, arms crisscrossing with sorrys! and would you minds?
We used to have those you know, they were called local authority housing. I mean it is just unbelievable, lets kick everyone out, gentrify, realise we have got no one to clean the streets and wait the tables anymore and so be forced to build loads more of the stuff you have just got rid of. Genius!
I had always imagined that the purpose of social housing was to bring a mix of social classes to a given area, prevent domination by the upper classes, rather than garrison the skivvies and bus boys at close quarters. The democratisation of urban space, no?
You know very well what I mean, Dominic, Peter says.
Perhaps I’m paying too much attention to the meaning of your words and neglecting your nobility of soul as usual.
Fabulous cabbage! Never thought I’d find myself saying that! Barney chips in with a twinkly smile.
Except, Jaqui continues, this is of a vastly inferior quality, of course. Single person only accommodation almost like a capsule hotel. You will never guess what the one that serves central London is called. The Battery. This one’s a kind of a showcase but some of them out in Zone 2 and 3 are really jerry built. Just cubicles with a bed, an internet point, a shower, and a microwave. Most don’t have windows.
Of course they are mostly being filled up with immigrants, EU, Slovakia, Portugal, whatever, but lots of Brits too. Maybe, yes, also some Brazilians.
Ah, the long march of Ordom e Progresso! Dominic says, raising his glass. Stella smiles and inclines her head wistfully, actually flutters her eyelashes.
Peter quickly swallows a mouthful of half-chewed meat.
I read somewhere that the main source of income for many families in Northern Wales now is effectively remittances. That is to say the kids or the fathers come down to London to work and send money back so the family can survive. So normally that’s a cross-border phenomenon, the Philippines, famously, y’know. Well that’s now true for much of the North and Wales, the relationship between the South and the rest of the country, well London essentially, is now basically the dynamic between the developed and the developing world.
Soon enough it may well be an actual cross-border phenomenon!
Places like Manchester are still OK though, I guess. Property is still affordable. -Ish. There are jobs, business relocating. Barney waves his fork around.
You have just returned from the Hinterland Alex, isn’t that right? From that Other Country, Scotland no less?
Partly, of course the inspiration for a lot of the speculation that has gone into my latest work, yeah, Alex says.
Prescient, prescient is the word, Dominic announces.
How was the North?
Well, I didn’t see that much of it. Drab to be frank, a few banners and posters in windows.
I mean, the whole Europe thing, though.
Yes, they all breathe in. That would be a body blow, a wound, to lose that easy access to the continent, the Eurostar, the cheap flights for weekend breaks, the flats in Lisbon and Berlin, just because some disgruntled pensioners out in the provinces think they might smell curry or Polish sausage late one night in the village square.
It’ll never happen, big business will keep us in, if they want it we’ll stay.
Ahh, big business subverting the democratic process is wise, necessary and good when–
I’m not saying that Dominic, I’m saying–
The proles are about to make choices you feel–
I am simply talking about the likeliest outcome–
Ahh, simple realism, I see. Will you be out objecting to undue influence of our biased media over this issue if the public will is thwarted? Or do you only support democracy when it’s making the right decisions, when clearly the public are fully and properly informed, by which–
Trolling, Dominic. You have reduced yourself to trolling.
We mean acting in accord with your interests and principles?
Are you an advocate of Democracy now Dominic?
Liberal elites, technocracy, enlightened despotism, philosopher kings. I am on the side of–
We were SO lucky to get this place, Karen says.
To be given it, you mean. Dominic chips in.
Rather as you were given your flat in Holborn, Dominic? Jaqui asks.
Indeed. But I would have phrased it exactly that way instead of this evasive little “get”.
Well Dominic your candour about privilege doesn’t actually change anything does it?
Dearest Jaqui, ever the champion of the working person.
You’ll all fight to hold on to what you’ve got, Barney says, to what has been bequeathed you. When the chips are down you will be firmly with the upholders of Law and Order and the Right to Property.
You’ll?
You’ll
? Dominic smiles indulgently as Barney fidgets at his misstep, fingers tapping impatiently at his glass. We should
all
be murdered in our beds!
Well, if you want to get murdered these days you will have to travel pretty far from your bed, Dominic, the way the police have got this City locked down. You might have to leave WC1.
The horror, the horror.
Who knows, maybe The Battery, Peter says, is a buzzing beehive of insurrection! He smiles at the alliteration, slips into self-mockery.
A buzzing, beastly …
Barbarous, Jaqui quips.
Bulbous, Stella adds and everyone nods in approval, very good command of the English Language.
Bibulous, Dominic adds and raises his glass again
Bubonic! Karen in a panic.
Alex: Bumptious!
Back to Peter. Bouncing beehive!
Bouncing?
Everyone laughs.
To an extent here I actually agree with you, Barney says in a rare moment of accord. I mean, the problem is that you have to look at things globally. It was the case for a while that the really poor were all concentrated in certain parts of the world and that the middle class were all concentrated in another part, the West. Now I guess we are seeing more really poor people emerging in the North, so that is a big shock to us. We’ve never really seen it before.
Unless you know, you have actually been to Africa, and tried to help out over there, Peter says.
Well yeah, but most people haven’t so they don’t get it, they can’t see the rising middle class in Africa or Asia, they can’t see the big picture, which is that in this convergence the poor kind of spread out laterally but there are more, overall, more people doing well.
He pauses theatrically, takes a big sip of wine. Is he trying to impress Stella?
I mean, you are right to worry, you are right to object, but maybe we have had it good over here for long enough and it’s time we accepted that if they grow and develop at our expense that’s, you know also, a historic debt being repaid.
Dominic tilts back his head eyes Barney with suspicion. Who is that “we” at whose expense “they” are developing?
Perhaps your public school background gives you a greater legitimacy to, to, Barney trips over his irritation for a moment then composes himself. Peter and Jaqui’s heads swivel avariciously towards them. Yes, yes, the public schoolboy and scion of the landed gentry, the old-boy networker. Attack!
Not this again. She hopes it won’t get too boisterous, too aggressive. Alex, she says, can you give me a hand with the plates, everyone seems to have finished and Dominic, raising his hands against the impending torrent of criticism from the other three jumps to his feet. Allow me, Karen. Allow me! He begins to laugh, Jaqui slapping his forearm as he goes past, and the moment collapses back into mirth.
Plates, plates!
She checks the Bitter Toffee Puddings are warmed through and begins to heat the vanilla and cinnamon custard, Dominic noisily piling the plates into the dishwasher and dropping cutlery. It’s odd for them to be alone in a room together, almost always Alex or some third party is present. Excellent lamb, he says. He seems rather vulnerable standing with his shirt untucked, squinting in the kitchen’s clinical brightness, no drink in his hand, no audience, adrift.
After ten hours in the oven I am relieved to hear it, she says. He seems to be almost frozen to the spot. She notices that he has developed a paunch, that he is wearing a t-shirt under his shirt, his chin is greasy. Suddenly stripped of aura.
Oh! You look surprisingly good for it! He says. A pause and then she smiles. Ah, a rather weak pun for Dominic.
Well, really excellent nonetheless, he says. She hears him swallow.
Fingers crossed dessert will be as good. Karen turns back to stir the custard and Dominic almost bolts back to the living room, as though released from a trap, or a spell.