She laughs softly to herself, sorts out the puddings and a custard jug, thinks twice about calling Alex in to help and decides to ferry them in herself.
Back into the kitchen for the next two, back to the dining room. Peter and Jaqui return from having a quick ciggy in the front garden.
They are all obviously drunk and the boisterousness shows no sign of abating, and is intensifying if anything, though Karen feels strangely sober, given how much she’s drunk. Dominic has his arm around Alex now, top two buttons of his shirt undone, chest hair plentiful, face shiny with sweat and some deep level of satisfaction and certainty she perhaps has never been able to attain.
Remarkable, extraordinary work from this man, this man, this secretive, stealthy, son of subterfuge, this embodiment of the principles of cunning and exile, Dominic is announcing, Alex nodding along in mock humility, trying to look grave, his face repeatedly cracked open with an irrepressible smile.
I am in the business, the sordid business, of poaching a friend, he tightens his grip around Alex’s shoulders, from another associate the–
What? Karen asks, what’s going on. Is this some announcement?
This sneaky devil, Dominic says, has persuaded me to represent him. Not persuaded me, but presented me with a work of such quality that I am powerless to resist.
What work? She’s about to ask out loud but bites her tongue. Discretion, Karen. Don’t go blundering in, make a fool of yourself, reveal how little you might know about your own partner’s life, work, plans, thoughts. How little he might have told you.
Amazing. So it’s all done and dusted. Ready for the big push.
Literary stardom awaits! Among the pantheon of the greats!
You two working together. So great. So happy this has happened. Barney raises a magnanimous glass; he looks genuinely pleased for them.
An announcement then, but not the one she’d imagined would be made a few months ago. She imagined glasses might be raised to her too, to the two of them, the smiling and admiring faces turned toward them both.
An unbeatable team! This is where we put
Simply the Best
on! Alex half stands up and Jaqui yells no, Alex for pity’s sake, no! Not even in jest, sir! And he collapses back down laughing.
Slow down Alex it’s not even 9 o’clock yet, she wants to say but then thinks better of it. She doesn’t want to cause a scene. Her eyes, she can’t help it, flick over again and again to Stella, who catches her looking and offers her a gleaming smile back. Karen actually finds herself blushing, fumblingly excuses herself so she can go and get something from the kitchen, a cheese board with a range of craft cheeses from the Fromagiere around the corner where she gets to practice her French with the handsome, slightly obsequious young Anglo-French guy who set the place up and who is always trying to get her to come round to a friends’ Pop-Up Charcuterie and Wine Club the first Friday of the month at one of the cafes round by Clapham Junction station.
Alex comes in a minute later searching for more wine and settling instead for the last bottle of Porter from the fridge, adding more from the box of mixed ales that they have delivered once a month from the local microbrewery.
Careful, she says, you’ll have a hangover tomorrow.
He leans back against the fridge a bit unsteadily.
Stella’s very nice, isn’t she? She says in a low voice, turning back to the cheese.
Oh yeah, where does Dominic find these women? He asks. They’re wasted on him of course.
Are you two working together now, what’s all this, when did this happen? She tries to keep her voice light and open.
Yes, Alex says. He’s agreed to represent me.
She lowers her voice. I thought you said, after he wouldn’t take you on for the last one? She makes a half puzzled, half angry face.
He’s approached me, Alex says with evident satisfaction, and takes a quick swig of the Porter.
But. Have you got something for him? A proposal?
No, no, he says. The book. It’s the book.
Eminent Domain
. It’s finished now. I’ve done it.
She turns back to the sink, face darkening. Yes a novel, it’s a novel I have been working away on during the winter, secretly, you know, getting on with. I wasn’t going to mention it for a while but with the excitement of getting it done, I couldn’t help putting a few feelers out there and I got such a positive response, then Dominic getting on board, so …
And what was all this Ramsgate, Aberdeen? I thought that was your new big thing.
He breathes out heavily, shrugs. A dead end. Interesting but ultimately, y’know, things look promising but turn out to be, in the end I just thought, OK let’s go with this novel.
And do you want to work so closely with Dominic? He’s so competitive with you. I don’t know if I trust him.
Well, God he’s in love with you, he says offhandedly. He always has been.
She looks at him.
He is staring out of the window, suddenly edgy, swigging at the bottle.
What is this nonsense?
He’d kill to have you, he says distantly, then snaps out of it suddenly, his face lightening. He takes a couple of steps forward, arms out to embrace her, to say something soothing, quieten her suspicions. She moves away to the counter quickly.
I have to get this cheese board in there, she says, raising it defensively between them. Plus, you know, I don’t think we should leave our guests alone in there for so long.
Sure, sure, he nods. Swivels on the spot, a smile that says, baby, baby, trust me on this, it’s not something you need to worry about.
Oh lovely, the girls exclaim as Karen comes back in again, and it’s, where did you get this and wow that beech-smoked parmesan is so amazingly intense until Jaqui says, looking very earnest her eyelids heavy and her mouth set determinedly, It just seems so old-fashioned to live in a house oh my god don’t take that the wrong way I did NOT mean it to come out like that hahaha but it’s great I mean it’s got so much space and everything but I just since I have lived in the complex, I know I mean The Complex right, dahhh! The Matrix! or whatever but I don’t think I could see myself living outside it now I mean, whatever you might think about Regeneration or
USG
and the security for one thing, essential right? Even if in principle you are with the rioters and the concierge, as a woman–
Dominic is about to cut in and she raises a hand to silence him.
As a woman, as a woman who lives alone, I value that security, yes, as someone who has to, as a worker, and a single woman, work irregular hours, I couldn’t live without it, to pick up and hold my orders, can you imagine trying to arrange to be at home at certain times?
I mean, Peter says, that’s OK Jaqui, I mean yes these things are amazing, the point is to want it for, and not just to want obviously but to fight for it, for everyone. Everyone should have what we enjoy. The rioters, the marginalised, don’t want us to put on a hair shirt or be some kind of poverty tourist, that would be patronising.
Jaqui has turned and is talking to Stella now, perhaps a little closer than she needs to be; a half bottle of white between them and the girly intimacy blossoming. And there’s just everything you need onsite, gym, swimming pool, Waitrose, great bars, the courtyard’s amazing, the roof terrace has these great barbecue racks for summer and water fountains and heated hideaways for drinking mulled wine on winter nights and there are all these useful little smart gadgets that restock and reorder and link up with your phone so they know when you have set off from work and put the heating on I mean even now so many of the developments are so close together, they are even planning to do walkways between buildings with security passes so you can literally, where I am, in six months time, stroll from your roof terrace across to our friend Benji’s roof terrace about quarter of a mile away and the Soft Rail hub is basically going to connect all these up too and–
Karen nods and tries to keep her eyes focused. Yes, security, she might welcome that, gates and a guard and codes and key fobs and concierges and never having to get on public transport again, just work from home or take the Dedicated Soft Rail service into the Wharf from some networked set of New Builds in South London.
And it has a crèche and a nursery school onsite and talk of a whole Academy going up in one of the new buildings across the road so the convenience is amazing really.
What was the slogan for that development? Remind me.
Jaqui seems to have tuned out slightly. If you are ever actually going to have children of course hahaha, what? Oh, “escape the hustle and bustle”.
Ah yes. Now, the hustle and bustle used to be the presumed selling point didn’t it? A city is defined by its street life, all that nonsense. I prefer to meditate instead upon the sublime emptiness of all these ghostly luxury enclaves, occupied once or twice a year for a few weeks. Perfect. This is the luxury in it, isn’t it? The removal, the lack of other people, that’s what wealth has always bought isn’t it? Distance from others; proximity is horrible.
Jane Jacobs. The book was, erm, the book was. Robert Moses, of course, Barney says.
Of course, the prices. So many people priced out. That’s the scandal. Peter frowns.
One moves up through tiers of emptiness and removal from the boiling, teeming slum to the depopulated luxury condo complex with its cavernous restaurants and deserted saunas and fitness suites and boutiques all permanently staffed and held in a state of suspended animation, awaiting the return of the lord to his estate like those petrified, liveried domestics of yore. And this is it, isn’t it? Yes. That is wealth, the power to command others to stand and wait perhaps forever, ready to attend to one’s needs. That is godlike, to commandeer lives and set them in place, their whole existence devoted to your merest caprice, the faint rumour of your presence.
Not at all, not at all, it depends who’s buying; I live somewhere similar to, sorry …
Jaqui
Yes Jaqui, Jaqui, of course, a little too much of the …
Hahaha, yes. Quite a powerful little …
My neighbours are from everywhere, the Middle East, Russia, China, Thailand, Nigeria, even a few Brazilians, you know, the whole world wants to live in London, already we are a top three city for numbers of millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires, the only global city top three in all categories. China and India are rising up the ranks of millionaires over the next decade, I am sure second homes in London will be essential for them for their business needs for …
And it was …
Yes I mean it’s soooo good that we have such an even spread on the wealth scale I mean relatively, of course. What I am trying to say is Moscow is all billionaires and hardly any millionaires so London has a more equal feel to it and I think that’s the great thing about this city is it has a more equal feel that’s what makes people want to live here.
Ever thus …
Y’know that it’s not a city of extremes …
Ever thus! The poor have proximity, the rich a world in which the same few familiar faces circulate around vast airy coliseums and colonnades! For the rich the world is scarcely populated at all. Imagine those few multi-billionaires in their tundral isolation! Do they yearn for the hustle and bustle of the souk, the slum, the stink and sweat and screaming?
Of well, extreme extremes.
What time is it now? Half twelve. Barney’s phone is buzzing. Bags and coats being collected up, pockets checked for keys and wallets gone astray, last glances around, pats and hugs.
End of the evening, the last cab has arrived. Dominic hops manfully inside, dragging himself across the back seat as Stella, slightly unsteady in her heels and that tight dress, creaks and angles in beside him, Barney in the front. She waves them off, and rather than go all the way back to the kitchen shouts out that she is going to bed. She hears Alex shout something affirmatory back over the sound of the dishwasher being emptied and re-loaded, bottles bagged and empty boxes binned.
She’s glad now that she didn’t wear any make-up, what a pain it would be to have to start scrubbing all that away. What is all this about Alex having finished a novel? She sits on the edge of the bath. What’s he doing?
She pushes it from her mind. Well, whatever he’s doing, whatever he’s up to, she will just have to go along with it for the moment and no doubt, if and when, it all goes wrong later she’ll be the one who has to do all the tiptoeing around, the consoling, the nursing. She sighs and scrutinises herself in the mirror. Never good to look at yourself when you are drunk, especially under this light. She opens the door of the bathroom cabinet, checks the Deveretol blisterpacks, about half gone. Is he sticking to the dosage? She thinks about taking one.
A successful evening? Everyone seemed to have had a good time, Alex especially, maybe they should do it more often, but it’s all so much work, so tiring, needs so much planning and then the constant anxiety that the food is good enough, that everyone is OK, that the arguments won’t spill over into outright hostility, exhausting, exhausting.
She will be the one to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong. She squeezes toothpaste from the tube onto the brush, tries to push it from her mind, now, drunk, late, it’s not the best time to talk about it, certainly not. She wonders if she will be able to sleep until she has said something though, then again, the tension it will generate will stop her sleeping anyway.
She considers waiting for him to come upstairs, imagines discussing it quietly, light off in the dark of the bedroom so they don’t need to see each other’s faces. Lying side by side, disembodied, cowled, calm, the way they spent the winter, when they seemed to be getting somewhere, talking about hopes and fears and shame and the pressure to succeed, and his father, his friends and their expectations and she had thought perhaps, in the depths of it all, that he might learn to let go and say that there were other possibilities open to him, other types of life available, but now it seems he’s back again, gripped, obsessed and desperate, desperate enough to get himself into trouble, making claims and promises and striking deals he can’t keep.