He was about to cross the road when a car pulled up outside and he shrank back as he saw Peggy climb out of the passenger side, waving good-bye to Maisie and Suze in the backseats. The window lowered and Andrew heard Steve’s gruff voice. Peggy turned and leaned in through the window to retrieve the handbag Steve was proffering, and there was just enough light in the car for Andrew to see them kiss. He waited after Peggy had gone inside and watched as Steve cracked his knuckles before taking what was unmistakably a hip flask from the glove compartment and taking a deep swig before driving off, tires shuddering against the tarmac.
* * *
—
Meredith opened the door and bestowed a kiss on each of Andrew’s cheeks, a greeting he received while motionless, as if he were a statue she was kissing for luck. The music that was playing from concealed speakers throughout the house was, Meredith cheerfully informed him, by someone called Michael Bublé.
“It’s jazz!” she added, taking the wine from him.
“Is it?” Andrew said, looking around for something hard and pointy to bash his face into.
The others were all there. Keith, to Andrew’s surprise, was dressed in a gray suit with a purple tie, the knot of which was largely obscured by the folds of his neck. He looked troublingly happy. Cameron—who was already sitting at the dining room table with a large glass of red wine—was wearing a white shirt with three buttons undone, graying chest hair poking through, and had a bracelet of wooden beads around his wrist.
Andrew bumped into Peggy coming back from the loo and they performed an interminably awkward shuffle as each tried to let the other past.
“You know what, I’m just going to stand still and close my eyes until you’ve found a way past,” Peggy said.
“Good plan,” Andrew said. As he passed her he caught what smelled like a new scent—something subtle and fresh. For some reason this floored him even more than seeing the kiss. He felt his stomach plunge.
“I thought we’d start with a bit of a game, just to loosen us up,” Meredith said once they were all assembled in the dining room.
Oh joy, Andrew thought.
“Let’s go around the group, saying a word each, until we’ve improvised a story. It can be about anything. First person to go blank or crack up loses. Andrew, why don’t you start.”
Oh god.
Andrew: “We.”
Peggy: “All.”
Cameron: “Went.”
Meredith: “To.”
Keith: “Meredith’s.”
Andrew: “House.”
Peggy: “And.”
Cameron: “We.”
Meredith: “All.”
Keith: “Really.”
Andrew: “Hated.”
Andrew looked over to Peggy. Why was she staring at him like that? Did that mean she’d lost? And then he realized what he’d said.
Thankfully, Peggy came to his rescue, saying “having,” and the rest of the story went on until Cameron inexplicably started guffawing and the game was quickly brought to a close. The dinner itself passed uneventfully. Meredith delivered several courses, all of them seemingly varieties on the theme of hedge cuttings, which left Andrew starving. He’d worked his way through most of his bottle of Latvian wine, which was surprisingly nice (so he was a racist as well as cheap), drumming his fingers on the table as he listened to the others talking about a Scandinavian crime box set he’d yet to watch. Meredith prefaced her thoughts by saying, “This isn’t a spoiler,” before revealing the death of a lead character, two plot twists, and the dialogue from the final scene of the show in its entirety. He’d cross that one off his list, then.
Cameron had been his usual animated self, edging toward the giddy end of the spectrum. Andrew hadn’t thought his behavior particularly unusual, but when Cameron stood up to go to the loo he wobbled on his feet, grabbing on to a cabinet for support, before weaving unsteadily out of the room.
“He got here an hour early,” Meredith whispered gleefully. “Got stuck into the malbec like you wouldn’t believe. I think there’s trouble in paradise with Clara.”
“And where’s your feller tonight?” Peggy asked, just as Keith went to brush a crumb from Meredith’s sleeve. He withdrew his hand sharply but Meredith grabbed it, like a lion being fed a hunk of meat in a zoo, and slapped it down on the table, locking her fingers with his.
“Well, in fact,” she said, “I was—we were—going to wait until after the homemade profiteroles, but we’ve actually got something to tell you.”
“You’re shagging?” Peggy said, stifling a yawn.
“Well, there’s no need to be so crude about it,” Meredith said, a fixed smile on her face. “But, yes, Keith and I are officially partners. As in lovers,” she added, in case anyone thought they were about to float a company on the stock market.
The dining room door swung open and banged against the wall as Cameron staggered over to his chair. “What have I missed, then?” he said.
“Them two are ‘lovers,’ apparently,” Peggy said. Andrew went to top up her glass but she put her hand over the top and shook her head.
“Well, that’s, I mean, good . . . Good for you,” Cameron said. “Now, that’s what I call team bonding!” He laughed raucously at his own joke.
“Keith, would you mind helping me in the kitchen for a moment?” Meredith said.
“Yeah, sure,” Keith said, the familiar leer back on his face.
“I’m just going to get some air,” Peggy said. She looked at Andrew and raised her eyebrows.
“I think I will, too,” Andrew said.
“There’s a surprise,” Keith said quietly.
“What’s that?” Peggy said.
“Nothing, nothing,” Keith said, hands raised defensively.
The four of them stood and Cameron looked up at them, confused, like a little boy lost in a crowd.
Outside, Peggy produced a cigarette and offered one to Andrew, who accepted despite having no intention of smoking it. He lowered his arm, letting the cigarette burn, and watched Peggy inhale deeply.
“Cheek of that knobber Keith,” Peggy said, tilting her head up as she exhaled smoke. Andrew again caught a hint of her new perfume and felt like he might overbalance. He wasn’t sure why it was affecting him like this. He hummed tunelessly, the silence too much to bear.
“What?” Peggy said, seemingly taking this to mean he wasn’t in agreement with her about Keith.
“Nothing,” Andrew said. “He’s a knobber, like you said.”
Peggy exhaled again. “You haven’t . . . said anything to him, have you?”
“No, of course not,” Andrew said, cringing.
“Okay. Good.”
This was miserable. To hear the concern in Peggy’s voice at the thought of their secret coming out, knowing that her primary concern was jeopardizing her reconciliation with Steve, was torture. Should he tell her he’d seen Steve drinking as he’d driven off? Regardless of what had happened between them, surely she had a right to know if Steve was lying to her, especially if he was endangering the girls. Peggy was eyeing him suspiciously.
“Just so we’re clear, you’re not going to do anything silly, are you? No mad gestures inspired by those two idiots in there? Because believe me, that won’t work.”
This time, it was anger Andrew felt. He hadn’t asked to come and stand in the cold and be humiliated like this.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “I wouldn’t dream of ruining things for you.”
Peggy took a final drag on her cigarette and threw it to the ground, crushing it with her boot heel, fixing Andrew with a steely expression.
“Just so you know,” she said, her tone so harsh it made Andrew take a step back, “this hasn’t been an easy week for me. It’s been pretty grueling, in fact, largely because I’ve spent the entire time doing what that moron Cameron w
ould no doubt describe as a root-and-branch review of my marriage. But thankfully, for all the pain involved, it’s resulted in Steve cleaning himself up and deciding to be a husband and a father again. And that’s how things have to be for me. There’s no other option. It’s not my place to say, but if you’re not happy with Diane then maybe you need to have an honest conversation with her too.”
Andrew was going to let her walk back inside, but these last words had stung him too much and he couldn’t stop himself.
“I saw Steve drop you off earlier,” he blurted out. “With the girls in the car.”
“And?” Peggy said, her hand on the door handle.
“When you’d gone inside he took out a hip flask.”
Peggy bowed her head.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. “I just thought you should know.”
“Oh, Andrew,” Peggy said. “Did all that stuff we talked about before—about being friends, about being there for each other . . . did it not mean anything to you?”
“What? Of course it did.”
She shook her head sadly.
“Yet you’re fine with lying to me?”
“No, I . . .”
But Peggy didn’t stay to hear him out, closing the door firmly behind her.
Andrew stood listening to the faint strains of music and voices coming from inside. He looked at Peggy’s cigarette smoldering on the floor and realized he was still holding his own. He took aim and dropped his onto hers, then mashed them together with his heel.
* * *
—
For the rest of the evening he retreated into himself, picturing his Ella records and all the model train components he owned neatly laid out on the floor, debating what he could live with selling should he be the one to get sacked. There was Souvenir Album, maybe. It was probably the record he listened to the least. The DB Schenker Class 67 had seen better days, too, he supposed. It looked magnificent still but barely made it around the track without slowing to a melancholy stop at least a couple of times, no matter how much he serviced it.
Peggy sat glumly while Cameron, Keith and Meredith entered the stage of drunkenness where one-upmanship masquerades as badinage. There were boasts of drinking sessions, crowbarred anecdotes about meeting celebrities and, most alienating of all, talk of sexual exploits.
“Come on then, come on then,” Keith said, raising his voice above the others’. He had seemed unusually awkward earlier, before Meredith had made their affair public, but now he was relaxing into his old self, shirt untucked, tie loosened, like Mr. Toad on dress-down Friday. “Who here’s done it in public?” he said.
So far Andrew had gotten away with staying quiet and eating his food, occasionally smiling or nodding to give the impression he was engaged with the conversation. But now their plates were cleared and he had nowhere to hide. Keith caught his eye and Andrew knew instantly that he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to embarrass him.
“Come on, Andy-pandy. You and your missus have been together how long?”
Andrew took a sip of water. “A long time.”
“So come on, have you . . . ?”
“Have we what?”
“Got down and dirty somewhere public!”
“Ah. Um. No. Not to my knowledge.”
Meredith sniggered into her wineglass. Cameron laughed too, but his glassy eyes suggested he was too drunk to understand what was going on.
“Not to your knowledge?!” Keith said. “You do know how sex works, Andrew? It’s not like you can do it behind your own back.”
“Well . . . depends how flexible you are,” Meredith said. As she cackled at her own joke, Andrew excused himself to go to the toilet.
“Don’t think we’ve forgotten about you,” Keith called after him.
Andrew was in no hurry to return to the dining room–turned-school-playground, but there was something disconcerting about Meredith’s bathroom—namely the picture of her and, presumably, her now-former partner. It was a professional shot—all fluffy white shag pile and unnatural body language. Andrew looked at the man smiling gamely at the camera and wondered where he was at that moment. Maybe he was out drowning his sorrows with friends, that same fixed smile on his face, telling everyone that no, seriously, honestly, this was the best thing that’d ever happened to him.
Back in the dining room, there was no sign of things having calmed down, although Cameron did appear to have passed out. Keith was standing next to him holding a marker pen, apparently preparing to draw something on his face. Meredith was at his side, bouncing on her feet and wheeling her arms excitedly like a toddler who’s just learned to stand unaided. Just as Andrew approached the table he saw Peggy clearly lose patience and stomp over to Keith, making to whip the pen out of his hand.
“Oi!” Keith said, ripping his hand away. “Come on, it’s just a bit of fun.”
“Could you be any more immature?” Peggy said. She went to make another grab for the pen but this time Meredith stepped in front of her, eyes fiery with defending Keith. “I don’t know what your problem is, Mrs. Uptight,” she hissed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Peggy said. “How about the fact he’s clearly in a bad way about his wife, as you so kindly brought up earlier. Just because you two are apparently so happy doesn’t mean you get to humiliate him.”
Meredith tilted her head to one side and stuck her bottom lip out. “Oh, hon, you sound ever so stressed. You know what you need? A good yoga sesh. I know this great place—Synergy—where I was last week? Get all that frustration out of you, yeah?”
Synergy, why does that sound familiar? Andrew thought, edging around the table to stand next to Peggy. He’d planned to try to calm things down, but Peggy had other ideas.
“You know what?” she said. “Every time I’ve had to be in the same room as you these last few months, the only thing that’s given me any sort of pleasure is trying to work out what exactly it is you both look like.”
“Peggy,” Andrew said, but she raised a hand. A hand that wasn’t to be trifled with.
“And, I’m very pleased to say, I’ve finally reached my conclusion, because it’s now very clear to me that you, Keith, look like a health warning on a pack of cigarettes.”
Meredith made a strange gurgling sound.
“And as for you, hon, you look like the result of a dog being asked to draw a horse.”
As much as Andrew was enjoying the looks on Keith’s and Meredith’s faces he knew this silence was his last chance to stop things from getting out of hand.
“Look,” he said, startling himself with how loudly he’d spoken. “Remember the cutbacks thing we saw in Cameron’s presentation? You really think this sort of behavior is going to go down well if he’s got to make that decision? I know he can be an idiot, but he’s still the most important person in this room.”
It was at that moment that Cameron began to snore.
“Ha, yeah, he looks really important right now,” Keith scoffed. “You’re just scared, as fucking usual. I, for one, am sick of trying to pretend he’s anything other than a streak of chamomile-tea piss. Let him fire me, see if I fucking care.”
He took the lid off the pen with his teeth and spat it onto the floor, doubling down on his bravado. For the first time, Meredith looked uneasy, Andrew’s words about the cutbacks clearly getting through to her at least. Andrew and Peggy exchanged a look. He wanted to tell her that they should just get out of there, let these two idiots seal their own fate. But before he could say anything Peggy darted toward Keith and grabbed the pen.
“You bitch,” Keith snarled, grasping at thin air as Peggy dodged him.
“Oi!” Andrew yelled, rushing over, banging his hip on the table in the process. Peggy feinted one way, then doubled back and climbed up onto a chair, where she held the pen aloft, Keith and Meredith straining to reach it. If a stranger had walked into the roo
m they might have been under the impression that they’d just chanced upon a strangely angry Morris dance. Just as Andrew reached the melee Peggy pushed Keith away with her foot so that he stumbled backward. Andrew could see the fury in Keith’s eyes, and as he lurched back toward Peggy, Andrew instinctively reached out and pushed him in the side as hard as he could. Unbalanced, Keith stumbled away and slammed backward into the wall with a horrible double thwack of back followed by head against the doorframe.
At that moment, several things happened at once.
Cameron woke with a start.
Keith reached for the back of his head, looked at the blood on his fingertips, and promptly collapsed to the ground with a thud. Meredith shrieked.
And then, as Andrew’s brain finally clicked—Cynergy, not Synergy—he felt his phone vibrating and pulled it out of his pocket. It was Carl.
— CHAPTER 26 —
Andrew wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the bath (or why he’d decided to run one in the first place), but it had been scaldingly hot when he’d lowered himself gingerly in, and now it was barely lukewarm. He’d put Ella on in the living room, but the bathroom door had swung shut so he could only just hear the music. He’d considered getting out and opening the door, but there was something different about experiencing the music like this, where he had to train his ears so intently that he heard every key change, every subtle shift in vocal inflection, as if for the first time. He felt overwhelmed at Ella’s capacity to surprise and thrill him after all this time, but now the record had come to an end and every time he shifted position he felt the coldness of the water seeping into his flesh.
He couldn’t really remember leaving Meredith’s earlier that evening. He’d stumbled out, his phone still ringing, vaguely aware that Meredith was screaming, “He’s killed him! He’s killed him!” as Peggy tried to calmly explain the situation on the phone to the emergency services. The next thing he could recall was the scuff marks and the strip light and his neighbor’s perfume. Maybe he was in shock.
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