‘Tuck into these. This is Patrick. Patrick, these are Adam and Eva. Yes, those really are their names.’
Patrick nods at them, a strange, silent boy. His eyes gleam with intelligence under those butterfly lashes.
Someone taps on Eva’s shoulder. She turns to find herself facing Marie Szpozinski.
‘Eva, hi. Marie Szpozinski.’
‘Yes.’
Obviously she is Marie Szpozinski.
‘I don’t want to interrupt you and your friends, but I just wanted to congratulate you on your nomination. I absolutely adored the Kamran Sheikh piece.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We should have coffee some time.’
She slips a business card into Eva’s hand; Eva wonders where she pulled it out from.
‘Oh. Wait, let me give you mine …’
Champagne glass in one hand and Marie Szpozinski’s business card in the other, Eva flails around for a split second.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll only lose it. Just give me a call next week. And enjoy the evening.’
Eva turns back to her drinking companions. Jonathan is raising an eyebrow at her; Patrick watches inscrutably. Adam gives her a proud but wan smile.
‘Patrick, darling, I spot Roger over there. If you want to talk to him this evening, I would do it sooner rather than later.’
Patrick nods, and slips off in Roger’s direction. Eva wonders what his voice sounds like, and whether he will actually try it out on Roger or just stand there watching him mutely. She feels an absurd pang of envy. Oh, to be a beautiful young man trying to get a foothold on Fleet Street, to have fluttering eyelashes and a career ahead of you! What if she doesn’t win the prize?
‘So, Eva, my dear, how are you finding the giddy heights of journalistic stardom?’
‘Everyone keeps staring at me.’
‘That is only to be expected.’
‘I don’t know – it’s a bit creepy.’
‘Well, of course, most of them are eaten away with envy.’
‘Or shock. Disbelief.’
‘No, just good old green-eyed envy.’
‘You deserve this, Eva – you really do.’
‘Ah, Eva. Behold your supportive husband. How did you manage to find him? Though I have to say, Adam, you look dreadful tonight.’
‘Oh. And I thought I could always rely on you, at least, to succumb to my charm …’
‘Well, I do, my darling, of course I do, but really, you do look very tired. Eva, what have you been doing to him? Have you earned your success by drinking a pint of his blood every evening?’
‘Jonathan. You always portray me as such a harpy.’
‘Only because I’m jealous, darling. Jealousy and envy – they surround you tonight. But at least neither Adam nor I begrudge you your prize.’
‘Nomination. But yes, you’re probably the only two people here that can be said of.’
‘And Patrick. Patrick is not envious of you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he is convinced it’s only a matter of time before he is in your shoes.’
‘And do you think he’s right to be? Is he any good? He’s very beautiful.’
‘He is very beautiful. You and I need a top-up.’
Jonathan whisks her glass off her and slices off between two tailcoats. She got through that quickly. Adam’s glass is still three-quarters full.
‘You got through that quickly.’
‘I know. I must be nervous.’
‘Sorry. That sounded like I was getting at you. It wasn’t meant as a criticism, I just—’
‘I didn’t take it as a criticism.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Really. It’s fine. I didn’t take it like that.’
‘It sounded like one, though.’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘I don’t even know why I said it. Stupid.’
‘I knew what you meant.’
This is good. Apologizing fills the space between them while they wait for Jonathan to come back. He returns with brimming flutes.
‘So, Adam, aside from playing the sacrificial victim to your monstrous wife, what have you been up to recently?’
‘Oh, you know – the usual grind …’
‘Adam’s too modest to boast about this, but he’s been doing pretty well recently too: his team have been awarded a research grant by the Wellcome Trust.’
‘Adam! I raise my glass to you. Still looking into your old fatties, I presume?’
‘Yep. Though I’d watch my words if I were you, Jonathan, with the amount of booze you drink, it’s not inconceivable you might contract diabetes at some stage.’
‘Well, I’ve never denied my own decadence. Though it would be a little galling to be lumped in with the overweight masses – I have, at least, always been careful about my waistline.’
‘Well, you know, cream cakes aren’t the only things that contain sugar. In fact, most of the stuff we eat and drink nowadays does. And then there’s the fact that everyone sits in offices all day and drives everywhere. Processed food, sedentary lifestyles – you might say diabetes is the symptom of everything that’s wrong with the way we live now.’
‘A decadent disease for a decadent people.’
Around them, the room is a blaze of evening gowns offset against dark, well-cut suits; glass chinks sweetly against glass, and every now and then a snippet of Fleet Street gossip drifts past their ears, as tantalizing and insubstantial as popcorn.
‘Actually, this might interest you, Jonathan: part of the study is looking into how far treatment outcomes are influenced by patients’ relationships with their doctors.’
‘I didn’t realize patients were supposed to have relationships with their doctors.’
‘Meaning …’
‘Now I know it’s acceptable, I might have to rebook an appointment with my new cardiologist.’
‘Meaning …’
‘Though I wonder what an affair with a cardiologist would be like – do you think their knowledge of the heart’s innermost workings makes them more or less amenable to its flutterings?’
‘Most of the cardiologists I know are total players, I’m afraid.’
‘Heartless specialists of the heart.’
‘I’m afraid so. Anyway. We’re leaving the Lotharios out of this study, but what we are interested in is how the way patients relate to their doctors influences what they tell them, how they manage their disease.’
‘Are the fatties lying about how many Mars bars they’ve had for breakfast?’
‘For example. But it goes further than that: often people won’t report how many hypos they’re having because they think it’s their fault. They’re embarrassed that the doctor will think they haven’t been taking their readings properly or have been miscalculating how much insulin to take. Even though, more often than not, it’s simply due to the nature of the medication, which requires a hell of a lot of fine-tuning before you get it right. It’s fascinating. Why don’t our patients just tell us the truth? It’s not like I have a go at them when they do tell me what they’re really up to, even the worst stuff …’
‘But they feel guilty. And they view you as their judge. You are the confessors of the twenty-first century, Adam.’
‘But we’re talking about people’s lives and deaths, here. Their not being honest with me about how many hypos they’re having, or what their eating habits are, can have a real impact on how long they live. It could be the difference between them living to see their grandchildren or not. And yet they would rather sacrifice this for the sake of not looking silly in the eyes of a man they see for half an hour once every six months.’
‘People have always died for honour. Walked to their deaths out of embarrassment.’
‘I told you you’d find it interesting.’
‘I do. I need to think about it some more. Diabetes as a symbol of the decline of Western civilization. A disease born of our oversaturated, consumption-driven economics;
the doctor as high priest of our rudderless society – as the final, ineffectual representative of some remnant of morality. I could probably eke an essay out of it.’
Adam has revived; gone is the dark grey under his eyes, the hint of pale green in his cheeks. He is rosy and attractive, frothy with champagne. It saddens Eva that it should take contact with a cynical old queen to bring this out in him; there was definitely a time, not that long ago, when she could animate him in this way. But he doesn’t tell her about these interesting thoughts he has; not any more than she tells him about hers. They are left to hear each other’s inner lives through third parties – he when he reads her latest column in the paper (which she knows he still does, even though he no longer tells her what he thinks of it), she by listening in on a conversation he is having with someone else.
‘You’re being very quiet, Eva. Is the enormity of your situation finally dawning on you?’
‘What? Oh. God, no. I’d completely forgotten we were here, actually. I was just listening to you.’
‘Sorry, Eve, I didn’t mean to monopolize the conversation …’
‘You’re not monopolizing anything, it was fascinating! All you’d told me about was getting the grant – you get all the philosophical musings, Jonathan.’
‘Well, of course, Eva, you must never forget that mundanity is the province of the good wife. You should hear what Adam and I discuss in the smoking room.’
‘Hi guys! What are you lot talking about?’
‘Oh, the usual – the metaphysics of diabetes, Adam and Eva’s marital breakdown in communication. Tom, verily, you grow handsomer every time I see you. Where did you get that gorgeous bronze sheen from?’
‘Oh – I’m just back from Baghdad … I miraculously managed to escape being embedded and actually got out into the sunlight.’
‘You valiant warrior, you.’
Jonathan grasps him at the waist and plants a kiss on both his cheeks. Tom, infuriatingly assured of his own sexual magnetism and unwavering heterosexuality, manages to enjoy the attention without in any way being shaken by it. His eyes drift to Eva’s. They always do.
‘Hi, Eva. Adam.’
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
He kisses Eva, extends a dark, heavy paw to Adam, whose skin looks so pale in comparison.
‘So. Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Gave you my vote, of course.’
‘I should think so.’
Jonathan has his hand on Tom’s biceps, which even underneath a dinner jacket still manages to show off how substantial and defined it is. Or perhaps it is just that Eva has seen it so often in perfect outline through skin-tight T-shirts that she is seeing the memory of it right now. At any rate, Jonathan is just as beguiled by it: he can’t seem to let go.
‘And where will your travels take you next, our valiant warrior?’
‘Well. Hopefully the DRC in a couple of weeks’ time, together with our award-winning journalist here, right?’
‘I haven’t won the award yet.’
‘Yet! So you do recognize you’re going to win it?’
‘No! I don’t know. Not award-winning, anyway.’
‘Yet.’
‘The Congo, eh. Thank God I’m too old for fieldwork.’
‘It’ll be a doddle after having to deal with the bloody American military.’
‘That’s what you think, Captain Kurtz.’
‘People get the wrong idea about the Congo.’
‘Well. That’s true. But you can’t deny that the mosquitoes are punishing.’
‘Do you know, they don’t really go for me, it’s weird.’
‘Young man. Is there any aspect of your life in which the gods have not smiled upon you?’
‘Oh come on, Jonathan – I’m a war photographer. We’re as fucked up as they come.’
‘I’m glad to hear you’ve had some price to pay. Anyway, can I introduce you to my young protégé, Patrick? He’s trying to make his way in the world of journalism, and I think he’d probably be interested in speaking to you.’
‘Sure. Is he a photographer?’
‘Yes, he went to art school. Don’t look like that. I doubt he’s made for conflict zones, but you can probably tell him a thing or two about pitching to editors.’
‘Where is he?’
Jonathan beckons at Patrick who, it turns out, has been hovering within view of them all along. Eva has never seen anybody be at once so striking and unobtrusive; he will probably make a good journalist. She strains to hear him speak once he is standing between Jonathan and Tom, but he is just out of earshot. What can his voice be like?
‘I didn’t realize you’d said yes to the Congo trip after all.’
‘Well, I haven’t. I’m still thinking about it.’
‘I thought we’d agreed on this …’
‘No, I said I’d think about it. I know you’re worried, but really, Tom’s right, people just have this completely overblown idea of how dangerous it is.’
‘How do you know? You’ve never been there.’
‘Tom has. I trust his judgement.’
‘Well, I don’t. He’s a bloody war reporter – he probably can’t even feel the most basic of emotions unless he’s got three bombs going off around him.’
‘I know he looks like a hothead, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s very careful, really.’
This isn’t, strictly speaking, true – Tom does know what he’s doing, but he also can put himself into some fairly hairy situations, and though he would never encourage Eva to take the same risks he does, she has often felt tempted to. It’s one of the things she finds attractive about him – he is so fearless he makes you forget that anything might happen to you. Whereas Adam always worries about her so much that she starts to feel unnerved.
‘Adam, this is my job. It’s what I do.’
‘It’s not! You don’t have to go to the DRC! You could write a feature about that beekeeper down the road from us and you’d be paid just as much money!’
‘He’s a really good photographer. The war there has claimed over four million lives so far, way more than Iraq and Afghanistan put together – I mean, come on, that’s getting to Holocaust levels. And yet hardly anyone talks about it. I just know we’d come back with an amazing piece.’
‘You always come back with amazing pieces! You’re up for the fucking Holden Prize!’
‘Can you keep calm, please? I’m feeling enough at the centre of attention as it is.’
‘Yes. OK. Sorry.’
‘Adam, I’ve done this sort of thing before. I’ve been to Iraq, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I know. And I’ve always been terrified for you every second you’ve been out there.’
‘But it wasn’t that bad! Really. I’ve got more chance of dying riding my bike down the Holloway Road than in either Iraq or the DRC.’
‘They’re still dangerous places. People die in them every day.’
‘People die every day everywhere. Why can’t you just accept that it’s really important for me to go on this trip?’
‘Why can’t you accept that it’s really important for me that you don’t go?’
‘…’
‘…’
‘Look. Let’s talk about this tomorrow. As I said, I haven’t decided yet. I don’t think this is a very good forum for this discussion.’
‘Sure. Yes.’
‘…’
‘Eva, it’s only because I love you that I—’
‘Oh fuck! Sorry.’
A passing tray has been nudged into Eva, spraying champagne down her front.
‘Great.’
‘Shit. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. At least it wasn’t red wine.’
‘Shall I – um. I could get—’
‘It’s fine. I’ve got a tissue. It’s fine, really.’
‘OK. Sorry. Well done on the nomination, by the way – I’m a great fan of yours.’
/> ‘Right. Thanks.’
Tom seizes the opportunity to disengage from Patrick.
‘Hey. What happened to you?’
‘I know. The perils of cocktail parties. I’d better not win now, I’d look like a right tit having to get up on stage like this …’
‘Hm. Yes. “Tit” being the operative word.’
Eva looks down to see her left breast moulded by diaphanous white, her nipple red and perky, seeming to want to push through both bra and shirt into the cloying air of the party. She lifts the fabric off it; it detaches reluctantly, like a limpet.
‘Fuck.’
She blushes – standing there like that, wafting her champagne-drenched front away from her nipples. Tom has an uncanny ability to make the blood run to her cheeks even in quite innocent situations; this level of embarrassment she simply has no defence against.
Adam runs a hand down her shoulder in an awkward gesture that is either proprietorial or consoling.
‘Don’t worry, it’s rather fetching. Maybe they should add a wet T-shirt category to the Holden Awards … Anyway. How are you doing, Adam?’
‘Oh, er – good, yeah, thanks. Fine.’
‘Good.’
‘How are you?’
‘Great, man, great.’
‘Great.’
‘So. Eva. What are you going to spend the prize money on?’
‘I don’t even know if I’ve got the prize, Tom.’
‘No. You don’t know, that’s true.’
He looks at her, the faintest of smirks at the corner of his lips.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
He won’t let go of her gaze, and his eyes mock her gently. She narrows hers at him.
‘Do you realize what a talented woman you’ve married, Adam?’
‘Believe me, it’s not easy to forget.’
‘No, seriously, though – I’ve been wanting to say this to you, Eva, before everyone else comes and sucks up to you. There aren’t that many journalists who are as committed to their job as you are. You should see her out there, man, she’s fierce. I mean – have you ever been to Russia?’
‘Oh bullshit. I wouldn’t have done half of it if you hadn’t been there.’
‘What happened in Russia?’
‘Where do I begin?’
A tinkle on the opposite side of the room signals the start of the evening’s proceedings. Allegra Brookes is on the stage, reeling off a long list of thank-yous. Can Tom really have any inside information? He does have a vote, after all – but she thought they always kept the results quiet. And Tom is definitely the kind of person who would pretend that he knows something just to get a rise out of her – a rise of red to her bashful cheeks …
How I Lose You Page 26