Idiopathy

by Byers, Sam

  He’d made it to the supermarket and bought wine and beer and an assortment of finger foods that covered every possible permutation of potato: fried; reconstituted; slathered in mayonnaise. Then he’d returned; changed; unpacked the shopping, and established a position of comparative calm on the sofa just in time to put logistical concerns out of his head and get down to the serious business of worrying about all the other aspects of the evening he’d managed quite successfully not to worry about through strategically worrying about things like making the bathroom smell better and whether, in the modern age, people could truly feel comfortable with a screw-top wine.

  Around him, he thought, up and down the street and out in the world, other people, other adults, were doing all of this with a practised, almost cultish ease: lighting votive candles and setting out individual bowls of Japanese rice crackers and finding an appropriate volume for some unobtrusive yet not wholly middle-of-the-road electronica, the very knowledge of which made Daniel feel basically like he had at the virginal age of seventeen, when he routinely walked through town and looked at adults of every shape and size and level of attractiveness and thought, All of these people, even that enormous old lady with the shopping bags, have at some stage in their lives had sex.

  He was, he had to admit, worried. There was a sense of events and people descending; a flurry of unbidden arrivals. He could, of course, have refused to have anything to do with them, but doing so would have run contra to his sense of doing the right thing, and would have made him feel guilty, and it hadn’t seemed worth it. He remembered other times Nathan had visited: always faintly awkward, a little disappointing, but also, in light of Daniel and Katherine’s increasing isolation, so needed. Daniel spent most of those evenings trying not to look too out of it while at the same time wanting to get completely out of it, usually leading to an early retreat to the comparative safety of the bedroom in order to focus more closely on the elliptical nature of the ceiling’s orbit. Nathan never openly teased, but the judgement was clearly there. Daniel couldn’t hold his substances, and where Nathan was concerned, that was something of a barrier to true empathy.

  Poor Nathan. Daniel couldn’t help thinking it, and wanted to think it a few times before Nathan arrived in the hope that he might be able to get it out of his system. Poor Nathan. Daniel supposed that with anyone else there would be the usual questions, the hows and whys and wherefores, but with Nathan such uncertainties seemed somewhat moot. Of course what had happened had happened. It was, Daniel thought, part of the reason that being around him had been exciting: the sense of borrowed time; of upcoming inevitability. You couldn’t live as Nathan lived indefinitely. Everyone knew that. Everyone could see it. More than likely Nathan could see it too. It was probably why he did it. But still. Poor guy.

  There would, Daniel thought, be a proper way of handling this. He would have liked very much to know what it was.

  Before ringing the doorbell Nathan spent roughly four minutes standing in Daniel’s small front garden going through a series of checks not dissimilar to the ritualised switch-throwing of a pilot preparing for takeoff. He smoothed the front of his jacket; tugged his cuffs free of his sleeves; ate a mint; took three deep breaths; rolled his shoulders; straightened his stance and pressed the small round button for the bell with a slow, deliberate motion that he hoped would lead to a strong, confident ring from the doorbell. Sadly, Daniel’s doorbell appeared to be playing up and what resulted was more along the lines of a computerised glitch or synthesised approximation of a chime, giving his arrival exactly the sort of hesitancy he’d hoped to avoid and necessitating a further press of the button out of concern that the strangled sound had not been audible, which as it turned out it had, because Daniel opened the door just as Nathan was removing his finger from the second press, catching him standing rather too close to the door with his finger raised and throwing him off guard just enough to lead to his hello being slightly too loud and an uncomfortable failed exchange whereby Daniel and Nathan fell into an awkward and momentarily unbreakable sync.

  ‘Hi,’ they both said. ‘How are you? Good. I’m good. How are you? Good.’

  Then Daniel reached for Nathan’s bag, which Nathan misinterpreted as Daniel stepping aside to usher him in, leading to a mutually baffling moment where Nathan advanced towards Daniel, who then appeared to block his passage.

  ‘Sorry,’ they chorused. ‘No, it’s OK.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Daniel firmly.

  The front room smelled deeply of incense, as if joss sticks were lit so frequently that their scent had impregnated the wooden floors. Judging by the inch or so of visible leather, the two generous sofas were expensive, but both were covered with heavy knitted throws in patchworked rainbow colours, on top of which perched a variety of cushions in a range of sizes and fabrics. A large mirror on the wall was trimmed with intricate beading.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Hi,’ said Daniel, spreading his arms. ‘Thanks.’

  They hugged awkwardly. Daniel seemed reluctant to exert any pressure.

  ‘You look well,’ said Daniel as they both stepped back.

  ‘You too,’ said Nathan. ‘This place suits you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Daniel, with a cursory wave of his hand. ‘It’s all Angelica.’

  Nathan smiled. ‘Anyway,’ he said.

  Daniel pointed at Nathan’s bag. ‘You’re in the spare room,’ he said. ‘Do you want to take that up? Do you need to freshen up at all? How was your journey? Are you tired? Thirsty? You must need a drink. What are you drinking?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Nathan. ‘I’m fine. Maybe a beer?’

  ‘Of course.’ Daniel pointed at Nathan as if he’d just given the correct answer in class. ‘Sit. I’ll get it.’

  Nathan ignored the instruction and followed Daniel. He was afraid of sitting, for some reason. He liked the idea of them standing somewhere for a while, perhaps propped against a worktop or leaning on the backs of chairs. He wished Daniel would put some music on.

  They wandered through to a dining area. The table, to Nathan’s relief, was not set for dinner. The kitchen, half-visible through an archway, was long and narrow and brightly lit by a variety of chrome spotlights, all angled in such a fashion as to make their illumination feel inescapable. Daniel reached into a stylish fridge with rounded corners and came out with two bottles of Pilsner.

  ‘Let’s get started, eh?’ he said.

  Nathan smiled. They touched bottles.

  ‘Good to see you,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Good to be here,’ said Nathan, at which point Daniel’s smile went fractionally awry.

  ‘And then she left me,’ said the taxi driver morosely. ‘Just like that. Moved in with him next door.’

  ‘Really,’ said Katherine, staring determinedly out the window in a way she hoped would make him stop talking.

  ‘I can hear them having sex,’ he went on. ‘I’m working triple shifts just to avoid being home.’

  ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘It’s so lonely, you know?’

  ‘Mmhmm.’

  ‘What about you? You attached?’

  Katherine gave him a long, steady look. ‘I get embarrassed when other people embarrass themselves,’ she said.

  A blank look crossed the driver’s face.

  ‘My name’s Al,’ he said.

  ‘That’s lovely, Al.’

  ‘Bit of a one, aren’t you?’

  Katherine lit a cigarette and rolled down her window. ‘You have no idea,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t smoke in here,’ said Al.

  ‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ said Katherine.

  Al looked nervous. Making people nervous made Katherine less nervous. She had entered the stage of spirit-based intoxication that masquerades as absolute sobriety. She met her gaze in the rear-view mirror and knew without question that she was a motherfucking force to be reckoned with.

  ‘How far down do you want?’ said Al.

  �
��Probably however far down the number is,’ said Katherine, launching her cigarette out the window.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Al. ‘Course.’

  What was going to happen, thought Katherine, was that Daniel was very definitely going to say something to annoy her, and then she would very definitely destroy him. She went through a list of all the possible things he might say and do, and the more she went over them the more likely they looked. She would not get angry, she thought. She would be icy-calm and devastate with precision.

  ‘Do you go out much?’ said Al.

  Katherine stared at him until he ran the back of his hand across his brow.

  ‘I try and get out,’ he said, pressing on.

  ‘Tell me, Al,’ said Katherine. ‘What would you do if I told you to pull the car over right now and fuck me?’

  Al failed to slow for a speedbump. They bounced twice in their seats.

  Al said, ‘Y …’

  ‘This is me,’ said Katherine, infinitely revived.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is where I’m going. The house. The number.’

  Al stopped the car.

  ‘What do I owe you?’ said Katherine.

  ‘Six,’ said Al.

  ‘Call it five,’ said Katherine, slinging him a grubby fiver and slamming the door behind her.

  Daniel wasn’t sure what he should be saying to Nathan and so had been reduced to a series of pre-verbal sounds meant to communicate pleasure, nostalgia, comfort and warmth. He took a swig of beer and said, Mmmmmmmhhmhmhmhm. He stretched his arms above his head and said, Aaaaahhhhhhhhmmmmmmuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. He nodded, and his nods bore no relation to anything that had occurred or been said, primarily because nothing had been said. He kept trying to sneak a peek at Nathan when Nathan was distracted, but since absolutely nothing was happening to distract him this was proving difficult. Disconcertingly, Nathan still had his coat on, although he had removed his gloves and Daniel had managed neither to turn up his nose nor comment on the state of his hands. They looked burnt, Daniel thought. Had he tried to kill himself with something hot? Was that an accepted suicide method? Christ, was there even any such thing as an accepted suicide method? There were definitely scars on his neck too. Hanging, maybe? But that didn’t explain the hands.

  ‘So,’ said Daniel. ‘How long have you been home?’

  ‘Few weeks,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Right. Cool, cool,’ said Daniel. ‘And, ah, like, how is that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Being home.’

  ‘Oh. You know.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Sorry about you and Katherine,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘For the best.’

  ‘She’s coming, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Daniel looked at his watch. ‘Any time now.’

  ‘I hope that’s not, like …’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s fine. We’re, you know …’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘Because a lot of people just …’ He shrugged.

  ‘Part of me wonders if maybe we’ll actually be able to function much better as friends than we did when we were together,’ said Daniel, who appeared, as he often did, to be making pronouncements in which he had absolutely no faith.

  ‘That can happen,’ said Nathan, who Daniel already suspected might be losing interest. What a burden it was, Daniel thought, entertaining people. He wondered how he’d ended up being the linchpin of the whole occasion. Probably because he was always the sodding linchpin, he thought, sucking moodily at his beer bottle.

  He realised he was desperate for Katherine to arrive. Not for reasons of romance or nostalgia, but simply because there had always been times when her galloping obsession with being the absolute epicentre of existence offered Daniel the welcome opportunity to put his feet up, chug beer after beer, and free himself from all sense of social responsibility. Sometimes, naturally, letting Katherine be Katherine could prove embarrassing in the extreme, but after years of inwardly shrivelling while the woman he was sometimes highly reluctant to describe as his partner held stubbornly forth on such diverse topics as vaginal discharge, child molestation, the benefits of adultery and whatever partially concealed raw nerves she might be able to locate, like a beachcomber stalking the sands with a metal detector, in or among her assembled guests, he had found that it was actually much easier simply to switch off and enjoy the fact that no one gave a shit what he thought or said so long as Katherine was putting on her usual performance. It was, he found, oddly liberating and even, at times, surprisingly beneficial to his ego, as he kept one eye on Katherine and one on the pitying glances of their guests and came to understand that they were going to walk or drive home and, during the usual post-mortem of the evening, describe him as long-suffering to the point of heroism. Surveying the post-apocalyptic tundra of silence and awkwardness between him and Nathan now, Daniel felt he could use a bit of heroism, no matter what the source.

  ‘Another beer?’ he said, waving his empty bottle at Nathan.

  ‘Still working on this one,’ said Nathan. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel, creaking out of his chair and making that odd little noise he seemed to have started making whenever he tried to rise from a sitting position. What, he wondered, was happening to him? Was he decaying?

  The doorbell rang, then rang again three seconds later. After two more seconds Katherine’s voice bellowed at him to open the fucking door. Thank God, Daniel thought, striding through the dining room with his arm outstretched, that she was here to break the silence.

  ‘Katherine,’ he said, opening the door wide and affecting a smile he hoped would fill the space. ‘Come in.’

  The invitation carried a whiff of inadvertent irony, however, as she was already in, turning twice on her heel to take in the room, casting off a glance as she did so.

  ‘Love what you’ve done with the place,’ she sneered. ‘You must have spent weeks choosing just the right throw.’

  Daniel narrowed his eyes, but was spared the exchange, because Nathan had appeared in the doorless doorway that led through to the rest of the house. He had his hands behind his back and his head tilted to one side. He looked awkward, Daniel thought with a little heart-skip of pity, perhaps even embarrassed: a man still stinging from a fresh slap.

  ‘Hi Katherine,’ said Nathan.

  She stood and looked at him, semi-quizzical, a little on the back foot. She was smiling, Daniel noted, in a manner that suggested she’d selected the smile quite deliberately from a range of other possible expressions.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You don’t look so bad.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘I’m not that bad,’ he said.

  ‘Liar,’ she said, stepping forward to hug him. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said into his ear.

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ said Nathan into hers.

  ‘Fuck me,’ she said, drawing back. ‘What happened to your neck?’

  Nathan’s hand shot to the side of his neck to cover the mixture of scar tissue and disfigured crows. Katherine reached forward and grabbed the hand, running her thumb over the ridges of healing skin. She looked back up at him.

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ she said.

  ‘Bloody hell, Katherine,’ said Daniel. ‘Go easy.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Nathan. ‘Heard it all before.’ He smiled down at Katherine. ‘We all have our little moments of madness, I suppose.’

  ‘Be as mad as you like,’ said Katherine, ‘but no more playing with sharp objects.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Right,’ said Katherine. ‘Well, some things clearly haven’t changed because I’ve been here over five minutes and this cretin hasn’t even offered me a drink.’

  ‘What are you having?’ Daniel said, the warmth in his voice surprising him.

  ‘Anything,’ she said, strutting through to the dining room, her heels rattling against
the wooden floors and no doubt, Daniel thought, leaving some pretty nasty dents in the boards. ‘Beer. Whatever you’re having. Can I smoke?’

  ‘If you must. But could you maybe take your shoes off?’

  She pivoted neatly on one stiletto, as if adding emphasis to the damage, then kicked her shoes one by one into the corner, winking at Nathan as she did so.

  ‘I’m on my best behaviour,’ she said with a smile. ‘Isn’t it fun?’

  Nathan’s first thought on seeing Katherine was that she looked both wonderful and unwell. Her strut and timing and general flair were all present, but seemingly at some cost. Her smile tugged harshly at the edge of her face. She was pale and thin. Her skin had broken out. It was all, he thought, a little precarious, a little chancy. When he hugged her, she felt delicate, which was not a word one usually associated with Katherine. She was living up to herself, Nathan sensed, to her own aura, and for the first time he experienced a flash of recognition at what a strain that must be.

  But he was pleased to see her, and not just because Daniel was proving to be such an awkward host. When she hugged him, when she winked, he felt a familiar sadness, a little stab of regret. She was very much alive, he thought, and where interaction with other people usually caused Nathan to struggle with certain facts of his own existence, as if the very reality of his aliveness was something to which he needed to reconcile himself, Katherine’s presence only ever made him wish that he was as alive as she was. He didn’t even feel that queasy when she examined his neck, although there was always the question of how much she knew, and how responsible she might feel, which he wanted to address later, when Daniel with any luck would have blacked out.