Idiopathy

by Byers, Sam

  ‘That’s why I didn’t ask it,’ said Daniel, sensing a tangent and getting tired in advance. ‘I thought it was sort of insensitive or stupid or something. I thought maybe I should just be like, oh yeah, you know, that happens, rather than being ghoulish about it.’

  ‘So basically you just bottled out and avoided the whole issue and talked about the weather or something?’

  ‘No. I invited him to come and visit.’

  ‘Oh,’ she sounded slightly deflated.

  ‘You see? And at first he was a bit reluctant.’

  ‘Mmmmhmmmm.’

  ‘But then he texted and said OK, he’s coming. And I said OK, great.’

  ‘So when’s he coming?’

  A note of unease had crept in. Daniel wasn’t sure if he should try and keep things chipper or take a more business-like, PR approach. He was, after all, supposed to be good at this.

  ‘This weekend.’

  ‘This weekend? God, that’s not much notice, is it?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a free house.’

  ‘Oh. What’s her name’s away is she?’

  ‘Angelica. Yes.’

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yeeeesss, thank you. She’s, um, she’s away on a demonstration.’

  This time her pause was for effect. He could imagine her at the other end, drawing her head back, turning away slightly to regard him out of the side of her eye, a smirk of pleasure already beginning to bloom.

  ‘A demonstration? About what?’

  ‘Look, this is kind of a tangent, you know.’

  ‘No, no. I’m interested. What’s she demonstrating about?’

  ‘It’s a protest against the cattle cull.’

  ‘Reaaaallllllllyyy?’

  ‘Are you about to get all judgemental?’

  ‘Not at all. I think that’s very admirable. I’ve always said, not enough people care about the environment and the animals and all that. You know, one earth, one chance, the web of nature and all that. Peace.’

  ‘Shall we move on?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re so touchy about this. Aren’t you proud of her?’

  ‘Of course I’m proud of her,’ he said flatly. ‘Anyway, I think we’re done here.’

  ‘I think it’s lovely that you’re embracing your hippy side more. It’s always been there. It’s like you’re coming out.’

  ‘OK, so, take care …’

  He managed to get the phone from his ear and halfway towards the table before her voice won out.

  ‘Whoa there. What about arrangements?’

  ‘What arrangements?’

  ‘For the weekend? I don’t even know where you live.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘You see.’

  ‘Ah …’

  ‘I am invited, of course?’

  ‘Well, it’s not that you’re not invited …’

  ‘OK. Fuck you too.’

  ‘Hey, hold on.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine, whatever. Never mind that he actually called me and then I called you. Never mind that he’s my friend too, probably actually really more my friend than yours, if we get right down to it. No, you just go right ahead and do whatever the fuck you want to do and fuck everyone else. That’s fine.’

  ‘Can I speak?’

  ‘Oh don’t do the whole thing of asking if you can speak like I’m talking so much you can’t get a word in edgeways. Of course you can fucking speak. I’d actually be very interested to hear what you have to say.’

  ‘Right.’

  Neither of them said anything for several seconds. Daniel wondered if Katherine could hear his brain whirring as the cogs of all his thoughts and motivations and horrid conflicts heaved against each other.

  ‘Well say something then,’ she said.

  ‘I’m about to say something if you’ll give me a chance. Christ.’

  He heard her chuckle grimly at the other end of the phone, happy at having lured him into anger. He kept forgetting what he’d only just decided to say.

  ‘We haven’t seen each other in a year,’ he said slowly.

  ‘That’s not my fault.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault. But it is a fact.’

  ‘This is going to take forever, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. What was I saying?’

  ‘We haven’t seen each other for a year.’

  ‘Right. We haven’t seen each other for a year, or even actually had any contact. We haven’t spoken on the phone …’

  ‘I know all this,’ she said. ‘Although I would point out that you still sent a Christmas card to my mother, which I would ask you not to do again.’

  ‘OK, point taken.’ Daniel did a hurrying motion with his free hand despite the fact that Katherine couldn’t see him. ‘Anyway, we haven’t had any contact with each other, and now we are having contact and let’s be honest neither of us is enjoying it.’

  ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it.’

  ‘Well you’re acting like you’re not enjoying it.’

  ‘Me? What about you with all your practicalities? If it’s a heart-to-heart you want, try turning your office voice off and being discernibly human for a discernible period of time.’

  Katherine was warming up, he thought, finding her rhythm and range. He was warming up too, although in a less metaphorical sense. He ran his palm across his forehead and then wiped it on his leg.

  ‘That’s because you’re not listening,’ he said.

  ‘How can you say I’m not listening when I’ve responded to absolutely everything you’ve said? I’m fully alert. I’m catching every word. My ears are open.’

  ‘We haven’t been in touch,’ he began again, mustering his slowest, calmest tones, which he knew pissed her off but which he always ended up doing anyway. ‘Now we are in touch and we’re not getting along.’

  ‘Why do you say we’re not getting along?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean OK, there’s a touch of friction …’

  ‘A touch of friction?’

  ‘Yeah. But that doesn’t mean …’

  ‘OK, whatever. That’s not the point. The point is …’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘I am TELLING you the point.’

  ‘OK. Don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘The point is, do we really want to lay all this on Nathan? That’s the point.’

  Her silence was pointed. It was her I-can’t-believe-the-stupidity-of-what-you-just-said silence.

  ‘OK …’ she said.

  ‘You see what I’m saying?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He doesn’t need this. He hasn’t been well.’

  ‘So he’s made of glass now?’

  ‘OK, put it another way: no one needs this. I don’t need this. You don’t need this.’

  ‘Maybe don’t start telling me what I do and don’t need, yeah?’

  ‘This isn’t helping anyone. This isn’t making anyone happy.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot, we all have to be happy all the time.’

  ‘Look, the point is …’

  ‘Stop saying that. Stop telling me what the sodding point is all the time as if I’m too stupid to see what the point is or as if the only point that matters is your point. I’ll tell you what the point is. The point is Nathan rang me, and in trying to be an adult I rang you, and now you’ve taken it upon yourself to go all unilateral on the situation, which is what you always do because you’re obsessed with this idea that there’s only ever one way to deal with anything. You’ve sidelined me without even having a discussion about it because you don’t want a discussion because you’re a pussy and you know you’d lose any discussion we had not only because you’re wrong and you know it but also because you’re so determined not to have an argument or rock the boat or anything that you just end up totally backing down all the time, and you know that, so you just try and do things without discussing them with anyone.
’

  ‘How can you lose a discussion? Only you, Katherine, would regard a discussion as something that has to be won or lost.’

  ‘Please don’t get all Confucius-he-say with me, Daniel, because it’s unbelievably pointless and annoying. Of course a discussion can be lost. You of all people should know that because you lose them all the time.’

  ‘Whatever. And I haven’t sidelined you. Nathan can still come and see you after he’s seen me.’

  ‘How about you just tell me when and where I can come and see you.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I can find out anyway.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘No, I’m not scared,’ said Daniel, who was scared. ‘Why should I be scared?’

  ‘Well stop acting like you’re scared.’

  ‘Being scared has absolutely nothing to do with it. I just think that Nathan really doesn’t need the discomfort of being there when we see each other for the first time in God knows how long, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Well. The solution’s pretty obvious then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Let’s meet up before. Then it won’t be the first time, will it?’

  Daniel considered this, or rather he attempted to consider a response to it that would ensure it didn’t happen while also ensuring he didn’t come across as a callous shit. He wondered why he was so worried about how he came across all the time, particularly to someone he was fairly sure he didn’t like.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  Every time she made him say it again his doubt levels crept up another few degrees.

  ‘I really don’t think it’s a good idea,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  She was, of course, bound to ask that, but the second she asked it it became the one thing he felt incapable of answering. He wondered what the best answer would be, and it struck him that if he could switch off his automatic attempts to find the right answer and just go with whatever his answer actually was then this whole process would be a lot easier.

  ‘I, ah, I think it’s too soon,’ he said decisively.

  ‘Well, when would be the right time? Tell me, Daniel, what is an appropriate amount of time?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t rush your answer.’

  ‘I don’t think it can be measured,’ he said, pressing on. ‘It’s more just a feeling. It doesn’t feel like a good time.’

  She sniffed, lit another cigarette.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course. If you’re really that immature and frightened and pathetic then there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  All he needed to say, he thought, was: I am, and then he would not have to see her.

  ‘Because that’s a really mature response,’ he said.

  She said nothing. She was smoking incredibly loudly.

  ‘I’m just trying to be sensible,’ he said weakly.

  No answer.

  ‘A lot of people rush into it,’ he said. ‘And then find it’s too soon.’

  It sounded like she might be picking her teeth.

  ‘I’m not going to roll over just because you want something.’

  ‘A cup of coffee,’ she said. ‘One cup of coffee. Say no.’

  Daniel seemed to be experiencing some difficulty saying no.

  ‘I mean, I can,’ he said. ‘Of course I can, it’s just a question of whether it’s wise.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said. ‘Has to be wise. And hey,’ she added, ‘don’t worry about Nathan, either. He’ll totally understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘He’ll totally understand that we just couldn’t get it together for him. You know, he’ll appreciate the difficulties.’

  Giggles waddled into the room, spasmed briefly, then emptied a stomachful of half-digested cat biscuits onto the floor.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Daniel, staring at the mess. ‘Fucking cat.’

  ‘You have a cat?’ said Katherine quickly.

  ‘Yeah, we have a cat. Look, what are you talking about? I’m seeing Nathan. I’m there for him. You can see him if you want. We’re doing everything we can.’

  ‘Don’t you think,’ she said, ‘that after all he’s been through, what he’d really want is to catch up with his friends like the old days without having to go through some bizarre system of visitation rights? Don’t you think he’d like to just come and see us and chat and not have to deal with all of our problems, which, compared to his, are pretty fucking insignificant? But don’t worry. He knows you. He knows you can’t set aside your stuff. You’re right. Make him do all the running around. Make him feel like he’s the inconvenience so you can back away from anything that seems difficult.’

  Giggles looked up at Daniel with a slightly sheepish expression, then began tentatively licking the pile of vomit.

  ‘OK,’ Daniel said finally. ‘You win.’

  A pause.

  ‘I win?’

  ‘Yeah, you win.’

  ‘What do I win?’

  ‘You just win. We can meet up.’

  Another pause.

  ‘Well don’t do it if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘No, seriously. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. Let’s just forget it.’

  ‘No, let’s not forget it. Jesus, Katherine will you stop making everything so difficult?’

  ‘Me?’

  He sank his face into his free hand, defeated.

  ‘Let’s have coffee,’ he said lifelessly. ‘It would be great to see you. Where do you want to meet?’

  ‘Well,’ said Katherine. ‘Since you ask …’

  For several minutes, perhaps even an hour after putting the phone down on Daniel, Katherine was seized by an odd sense of disappointment. Perhaps, she thought, it was the old issue of necessity, of the thing she’d wanted evolving into something that was thrust upon her. But it was more than that, too. It was, she thought, a sense of unwanted completion, even repetition, and it was only after an hour of smoking and cupping a cooling mug of coffee between her palms that she realised exactly what the issue was: she had imagined an exit where in reality there was none. Whatever door had opened through her conversation with Daniel, it led only inwards, back to places that were no longer any use. She’d spent days feeling trapped, imagining a release, but when the release arrived, it brought only a further encounter with finitude, with the limits of what she was prepared to be. She wanted, quite suddenly and sadly, to call Daniel back, to ask him things. They were not even, she thought, things in which she was particularly interested, but in the recounting of them something would be achieved. She wanted to ask him about himself; his job; his girlfriend, and she wanted to ask him not because she really wanted to know but because she wanted him to know that she had asked, to feel that she wanted to know. She’d heard amputees say that they still felt an itch where the limb had been. This was how it felt. An irritation of a familiar emptiness. She picked up her phone and tapped his picture to make the call. He didn’t answer. She briefly debated a voicemail, then hung up, annoyed that now he would see the missed call on his phone and no doubt misinterpret it as either needy or annoying or both. She let herself cry a little, then sort of angered her way out of the gloom by telling herself she could have asked him those things but he hadn’t let her because he was a prick. He was a prick. It was true. After all, what had he really asked her? What expression of concern or care, however small, had he really shown? But then, it was difficult to tell. She hadn’t given him much of a chance.

  It was only after a considerable period of time, during which Katherine continued to hold her hands around the now cold mug of coffee and stare out of the window at t
he thickening winter gloom, that the realisation solidified inside her that she was actually going to see Daniel. She couldn’t quite remember why she’d wanted to see him, and why, specifically, she had wanted to force him into it, but it had seemed desperately important that she did so. Now this was achieved, she was surprised to find herself needled by fear. How exactly were they supposed to sit down together and talk? She couldn’t determine why or at what point their finely held balance had fallen apart. There was, after all, no definitive transgression. Perhaps, she thought, that was exactly the problem. Without the certainty of the unforgivable, they had been forced to cope with the ambiguity of the irreconcilable. Maybe one of them should have just gone out and fucked someone else, she thought, then at least they could have hated each other properly. But Daniel, of course, would never have done that.

  The thought led naturally to thoughts of sex, about which she was still divided. The idea repulsed her, but the repulsion was enticing. At night, in bed, her insides writhed with life and hunger. In her dreams, tiny hands poked at the edges of her face. She was not certain she was in the right condition to meet Daniel. Her desperation was spraying off in multiple directions. She wondered about a safety fuck, then wondered where she might secure one now Keith was supposedly cured. She thought about Claire Demoines in her desperate tights and wanted quite strongly to harm her. The idea of sleeping with Keith was disgusting, and just what she needed.

  She lay in wait for him near the stairs at work; grabbed his wrist and snapped his rubber band.

  ‘Ow,’ he whined, rubbing his wrist.

  ‘Disabled toilets,’ she said. ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘You’re nuts,’ said Keith.

  ‘Five minutes,’ she said, reaching for his cock. ‘Fuck or flee.’

  She sat in the disabled toilet and waited. She gave him fifteen minutes, then fingered herself and started to cry.

  Back at her desk she had two new emails, both from Debbie.

  Jesus, is it just me or is K like utterly pathetic? said the first one.

  Sorry, said the second. Sent to you by mistake.

  The day they met was cold and sharply bright. Daniel arrived early and, despite the icy air, chose an outside table so Katherine could smoke. They’d agreed on a place about which neither of them was particularly enthusiastic. Neutrality was critical. Neither of them wanted to be anywhere the other seemed too comfortable, or anywhere they had once been comfortable together. Everything, they seemed to agree, should be as mundane as possible. The upshot, agreed upon but never discussed, was that they were going to try and get through a reasonable duration of time without hurting each other.