by Byers, Sam
Katherine nodded, apparently thinking this over. ‘It’s just all so far off,’ she said. ‘I mean, I want to care. I really do, but …’
She looked away, shrugged slightly.
‘But what?’ said Daniel.
Katherine shot Nathan another look which was difficult to decode. Nathan stole a glance at his own fingers as they began rolling a ruinously strong joint, marvelling at his own capacity for guiltlessness.
‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine. ‘Forget it.’
‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘What stops you?’
Neither of them was looking at Nathan at this point, although Nathan, out of a combination of politeness and discomfort, was looking at them. He’d also finished rolling the joint, which Daniel took back and lit.
‘I stop me,’ said Katherine. She shook her head. ‘How did we get on to this? It’s totally tedious.’
‘Well sorry if my job bores you, Katherine.’ Daniel hauled deeply on the joint. ‘I … Oh fuck.’
He paused for a moment to cough. Nathan took a deep breath and didn’t smile, then shaped his face into exactly the simulation of concern he’d seen, he now realised, so many times on the face of his mother, noting the ease with which it came to him, and how unpleasant that ease made him feel.
‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘This … this is quite strong actually. Whoof.’ He flopped back in his chair and widened his eyes as if the lids were suddenly getting in his way.
Katherine’s phone rang. She looked at it, swore, dropped it face down on the table, then clearly thought twice and picked it up.
‘Where’s your bathroom?’ she said.
Daniel pointed and she marched off, answering on the way, leaving Nathan smiling awkwardly at Daniel, trying to forget the muscular flicker he’d seen in Katherine’s face as she looked to see who was calling.
‘What do you want?’ said Katherine, sitting on the toilet and speaking into her mobile in a barking whisper. ‘I’m busy. I can’t talk.’
‘Where are you?’ said Keith. ‘What are you doing?’
‘That’s none of your business. What do you want?’
‘Look, babes. All due respect, OK? But you’re carrying our child.’
‘Don’t say that. Are you drunk?’
‘I feel like I’m seeing the world, like, what’s the word, afresh, you know?’ He paused. ‘I am a bit drunk, yes.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You know I feel like sometimes you don’t take me seriously.’
‘Whatever gave you that impression?’
‘Well it’s just a sort of niggling feeling that you don’t really …’
Katherine leaned back and looked at the ceiling a moment.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘That can only be very bad news.’
‘I was at home. You know. Up to the usual. Watching a bit of television. And I was watching the news, right? You know, the national stuff, like what’s going on and everything.’
‘Is that what the news is? I had no idea.’
‘And I was looking at all the cows, you know, and I was thinking, like, what if we can all catch this? Like they’re saying? What if this is, like, it?’
‘What if what’s it?’
‘This. This whatever it is. This thing. What if this is the end of civilisation?’
Katherine rested her forehead on her hand.
‘It’s just a bunch of cows, Keith,’ she said.
‘And sheep now,’ said Keith with a note of panic. ‘It’s sheep now too. What if we’re next?’
Katherine didn’t have a pithy response for this, so she stayed quiet and distracted herself by examining Daniel’s bathroom. Either he’d cleaned up his act since they’d lived together, she thought, or Angelica was some sort of domestic powerhouse.
‘And then I thought, what am I doing? What am I doing here? What are any of us doing here? What’s the point?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine, still taking in the surface glint and atmospheric gloss of a room she was now very tempted to defile in some unspeakable way. ‘What is the point?’
‘And I was like, look at you, Keith. Look at yourself. There you are on your sofa. Sitting there. Watching the telly. With your feet up. And your shirt undone. Holding a beer. Looking, OK, maybe not so bad considering, but also not great. Because I’m not blind, right? I can see myself. Sitting there. Watching the telly. With my rubber band on my wrist in case, you know, any of the newsreaders happens to be foxy. And I said look at you, Keith. Look at you. Sitting there. Watching telly. What’s the point? What do you want? Is this where you want to be in five years? In ten years? Sitting there? Watching telly?’
‘That’s … I can see how that must have been quite a realisation,’ Katherine said diplomatically. ‘But I have to go now.’
‘No. Hear me out, OK? Just hear me out. Because I realised … I realised that, no, this is not where I want to be in ten years. I … Where I want to be in ten years is sitting there, watching telly, with my family. You see?’
Katherine didn’t really know where to begin, and so chose not to try.
‘I don’t want to die alone, baby,’ said Keith. ‘I don’t want to go gently into the whatever with people saying, Oh, look at him, look at Keith, what did he do? Nothing. He just sat there …’
‘Watching telly.’
‘Exactly! Exactly! I knew you’d understand. Oh Katie-babes …’
‘Katherine.’
‘Will you be mine?’
‘What?’
‘Will you be mine? To have and to hold? Until the end of time, or until we all die of this terrible cow thing, whatever comes first. I’ve been so stupid. I love you. You’re having our baby. I know it seems crazy, bringing a child into a world like this, but you see, this is what I was thinking. What if that’s why we’re here? What if it’s our responsibility to carry on civilisation? What if that’s us, Kate?’
‘Katherine.’
‘What if this is it? The big one. The whopper. And it’s shit or walk, motherfucker. Shit. Or. Walk. I’m asking you, babes. Are we gonna walk? Are we? Or are we gonna …’
‘Shit?’
‘Exactly. My God, you get me, princess. You really get me. No one gets me like you get me, you know?’
‘What about Claire Demoines? She seems to get you.’
‘Oh, Claire. Claire. Whatever. She’s nothing. Don’t you see? All my life, I’ve … I’ve … I don’t know what I’ve done, actually. I really don’t know. But I … I saw us, you know? I saw us in the future. Sitting right here. With our baby.’
He went quiet, then exhaled at length. Katherine’s eyes finished their tour of the room and ended up fixed on the off-white linoleum and the pointless horseshoe of carpet around the toilet. Somewhere, in the midst of everything, Keith had become so irrelevant that she was no longer even interested in hurting him.
‘Keith,’ she said gently.
‘Yes babes.’
‘Keith. I’m not going to keep the baby. I’m sorry, but I’ve decided, and that’s the way it is.’
There was a long silence, and then Keith said, ‘You don’t mean that though, princess. It’s just the hormones.’
‘No Keith,’ said Katherine. ‘I mean it. It’s not what I want.’
‘But …’ Katherine could practically hear the wobble in Keith’s lower lip, the triumph of independent thought now tragically vanquished. ‘But …’
‘Come on Keith,’ said Katherine. ‘Let’s be practical.’
‘You could give it to me,’ said Keith. ‘I’d take care of it, I swear.’
‘I know that,’ said Katherine. ‘But I’d still have to have it, wouldn’t I?’
‘I know what you think,’ said Keith. ‘I know what you think of me. I know I haven’t done everything right. But I thought about the baby and it made everything different. Doesn’t it make everything different?’
‘No,’ said Katherine. ‘It doesn’t. Sorry.’
&
nbsp; ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Bye Keith.’
She hung up; switched off her phone. She sat for a few minutes, not so much thinking as allowing her thoughts to end. Then she stood up and washed her hands and went back outside, where she found that once again Daniel seemed to have steered all interaction into a place of glacial politesse. It was, she thought, more like old times than even the old times had been.
Daniel had left three-quarters of the joint in the ashtray, clearly having reached his limit before even really getting started. She picked it up and lit it, dragging deeply, listening to the satisfying crackle as it burned.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this fucking party off the ground. Who’s for another drink?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Nathan.
‘No you’re not,’ said Katherine.
‘Yes he is,’ said Daniel.
‘Oh fuck off,’ snapped Katherine. ‘Let’s make it a rule. No one’s fine. None of us are fine. We all need another drink.’
She reached for the wine bottle and sloshed the dregs into her glass.
‘Is, er, is everything alright?’ said Daniel, smirking slightly, the er obviously for sardonic effect.
‘Peachy,’ said Katherine through her wine glass. She was fucked if she was going to be not-alright in the face of Daniel’s juggernaut of alrightness.
Now Daniel’s mobile, which he’d left lying on the table in front of him, started to vibrate. A photo of some piteous little blonde flashed onto the screen, and beneath it her name: Angelica. Daniel pounced but was too late. Katherine had swept up the phone and pressed it to her ear.
‘Katherine don’t,’ said Daniel.
‘Hello?’ purred Katherine. ‘Daniel’s phone.’
‘I … Oh … Is that … Who’s that?’
Katherine could hear the sound of a muffled car engine, the hushed swoosh of motorway traffic. The voice sounded pretty and out of its depth. Katherine thought of the spotless bathroom; the his-and-hers towels. Daniel was out of his seat and standing over her, threatening force he would never actually use. She blinked at him several times, then passed him the phone with ostentatious care.
‘It’s for you,’ she said.
He took it with a withering look to which she could only respond with laughter and then walked quickly upstairs, talking as he went.
‘I … no, no … it’s no one. I’ll tell you all about it. Where are you?’
Katherine took a long, deep breath and reached up to knead the muscles in her neck. Nathan was eyeing her in a manner that was becoming predictable.
‘Well hello there,’ she said, re-lighting the joint. ‘Come here often?’
Marching up the stairs with his phone, breathless and on the verge of a spin-out that might have been containable were he still seated but which, in light of his body’s recalcitrant reaction to the sudden mix of adrenalin and exertion, now seemed as if it would end where so many spin-outs of the past had ended – on the floor, shallow-breathed, seeing nothing but a thick blizzard of white light where once there had been a room – Daniel managed to hold it together despite feeling a very strong sense of excitement and release at the prospect of not holding it together.
‘Hello?’ Angelica was saying on the other end of the phone. ‘Hello? Daniel? Who was that? Are you there?’
‘I’m just … I’m … I’m just going upstairs,’ Daniel managed to wheeze as he careened into the bedroom and flopped heavily onto the bed, bunching a corner of pillow into his fist in a hopeless attempt to slow everything down. ‘Hold on.’
He was furious, and furiously stoned. How fucking typical of Katherine, he thought, just to emerge out of the stratosphere and start fucking up his life for no other reason than the fact that she didn’t like her own life and so resented anyone – especially him – who liked theirs. She’d never wanted him to be happy. His unhappiness had always been more important to her than her own happiness. It was integral to her happiness, in many ways. Her perspective was the exact opposite of all those couples Daniel loathed who came round and asked how he and Angelica were, collectively, as a unit, as if one couldn’t possibly experience an emotion not shared by the other. For Katherine, happiness was a finite resource. They could never both be happy. One of them had to selflessly offer their happiness, like a kidney donor, to the other. Now, even though they were apart, she was still leeching away at what he had; still behaving like a four-year-old and embarrassing him in public and determinedly wrecking anything and everything that fell within her reach but wasn’t hers. He was going to deal with Angelica, he thought, heaving himself over on the bed and staring upwards at the ceiling, trying and failing to shake the disconcerting sensation that he’d left half his face stuck to the pillow, and then go downstairs and absolutely unload on Katherine, and it was going to be fantastic, because this time, perhaps as never before, he had her bang to rights. There could be no moral evasion. Picking up his phone was absolutely wrong, and she was going to have to apologise, and her apology would be glorious and he would milk it dry.
‘Daniel?’ said Angelica. ‘Daniel?’
He was also angry with Angelica. Because where was Angelica? Where, he thought loudly, was Angelica? Gadding around the country? With Sebastian? Defending a bunch of cows? Perhaps, he thought, he should give her a piece of whatever was left of his mind after he’d given Katherine a piece of his mind. Except, of course, that with Angelica there would be so much more to lose. With Katherine, he could now get as angry as he liked and there would essentially be very few consequences. The one thing she’d always held over him – that she’d leave him before he summoned the courage to leave her – was now little more than an uncomfortable memory. It was wonderful, in a way, to see her again, to have this opportunity to vent spleen free from fear of fallout. Indeed, he’d actually imagined just such an opportunity many times, both after he and Katherine had split up and, if he was honest, before.
But that was not the case with Angelica. With Angelica, he thought, there was still much to lose. The situation was unsafe. It would be rash to be entirely himself.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Daniel,’ said Angelica. ‘What’s going on? Where are you?’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m on my way home. Where are you?’
‘I’m …’ He wondered if he should lie, but it occurred to him that Angelica hadn’t actually said how far away she was, meaning she could walk in the front door any minute and catch him in the midst of saying he was out. ‘I’m at home.’
‘Well who answered your phone then?’
‘Katherine,’ he said.
There was a moment’s silence while Angelica processed this; a moment during which Daniel felt another little swell of excitement. Take that, he felt like saying. It lasted approximately a second, however, because as soon as Angelica gathered a breath and spoke, he knew exactly how hurt she was, and how stupid it was to have caused that hurt.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I …’
Angelica wasn’t angry, Daniel thought with a sinking feeling. How could he be angry if she wasn’t angry? He felt suddenly deflated and pathetic, and even more angry with Katherine.
‘It’s not what you think,’ said Daniel, slightly hopelessly. ‘I mean, Nathan’s here too.’
‘Who’s Nathan?’
‘Our friend, you know, from before.’
‘You and Katherine’s friend.’
‘Yeah. An old friend.’
‘Who else is there?’
‘No one.’
‘So, it’s the three of you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Just sitting around.’
‘Pretty much, yeah.’
‘You and Katherine. And Nathan.’
‘Yeah, but that makes it sound like …’
‘And was this some sort of spontaneous thing, or has it been arranged for a while?’
‘A few days, really,’ said Daniel. ‘I was going to tell you.’
‘You were going t
o tell me and then something stopped you?’
‘No. I was going to tell you and then …’
He broke off, unable to determine exactly why he hadn’t told her, or more specifically, to what extent his reasons for not telling her would, if expressed, utterly undermine what was left of his standing.
‘Is there something going on?’ said Angelica, her voice timid. ‘Because if there is you should just tell me.’
Daniel sat up on the bed. ‘There’s nothing going on,’ he said, and it was only in saying it that he realised it was true. ‘There is really, honestly, nothing going on.’
‘Then why would you …’
‘Nathan tried to kill himself,’ said Daniel. He hadn’t been intending to say it. He felt cornered. It was said, although he could barely bring himself to admit it, in defence.
‘Oh God,’ said Angelica. ‘I’m so sorry. When? Recently?’
Daniel took a moment to answer. Through the fog of the weed; his anger; his guilt, the dim thought flickered in his mind that he was doing something that it would take a considerable amount of circuitous and dishonest thinking to defend even to himself.
‘A while ago,’ he said. ‘We didn’t know at the time. We thought he’d gone off somewhere. He got back in touch and asked to see us.’
‘Oh baby,’ said Angelica. ‘How does he seem now?’
‘Well …’ said Daniel. ‘I don’t know really.’
‘And what about you? How are you? It must be such a difficult thing to try and process.’
‘Um … Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s …’ Was he going to say it? He was, he thought. He actually was. ‘It’s been kind of hard to take in.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Angelica. ‘That’s awful. But I think it’s really amazing you haven’t backed off from it. You know? Like, a lot of people would have tried to distance themselves, but you’ve got him straight round to the house, and you’ve obviously set aside so much shit with Katherine so the two of you can help him. I’m so proud of you. I’m really sorry I misunderstood.’
‘It’s … That’s OK,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Angelica. ‘Honestly. I understand. Look, I’ll be home soon, OK? But if you guys still need some space …’