Dinner at Mine

by Chris Smyth

  ‘I did, actually. Starts next month. Should pay the mortgage for a while. Especially if I win.’

  Stephen laughed dutifully. ‘But you do usually win, don’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got a decent record,’ Matt said. ‘What about you, Stephen? Did you get that promotion you were applying for?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Matt inclined his head. ‘Sorry to hear it.’

  Matt took a square of loaf. They lapsed into silence.

  Marcus took a long sip of his second glass of sherry. His left hand groped towards another slice of the Gruyère loaf. He had eaten half of it now. Probably rude to have any more. But he was going to get pretty drunk if they didn’t start eating soon.

  ‘I didn’t see you at Rosie’s thirtieth, did I?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘No, I wasn’t there,’ Matt said.

  ‘It was a good party, wasn’t it, Stephen?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Stephen nodded.

  ‘Of course it must be a couple of years ago now.’

  ‘I think I was abroad,’ Matt said.

  ‘On holiday?’

  ‘No. For work.’

  ‘Well, you missed a fun night.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  Marcus could not have been more relieved to hear the doorbell ring. Stephen leaped to his feet with equal gratitude.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  Marcus heard a female voice he didn’t recognize, and Stephen returned with a tall blonde woman, with a florid complexion, whom Marcus judged just the wrong side of statuesque. Stephen introduced her as Charlotte.

  Marcus girded himself for more small talk when Rosie appeared at the door, looking flushed and carrying a small bowl of olives.

  ‘Hello, everybody. Sorry I’ve abandoned you. Don’t worry – everything’s going fine with the food. Nearly there now. Have you all met? Oh good. Stephen, are you getting Charlotte a drink . . . well done. Now, could you be in charge of these?’ She handed him the bowl.

  Stephen handed Charlotte a glass of sherry, offered round the olives and returned to sit quietly in his corner seat.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Charlotte, the glass reaching her lips before she had finished the word. ‘What’s this?’ she asked after a generous draught.

  ‘Sherry.’

  Charlotte shrugged and drank some more. ‘So, Rosie, how does this whole thing work?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve seen Come Dine with Me on TV?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It’s just like that. We all take turns at cooking, give each other marks out of ten, and someone wins.’

  ‘What, is there a cash prize?’

  ‘No, apart from that. It’s just for the fun of it. And the glory of course.’ She laughed briefly.

  ‘Right, but I have to cook for everyone?’

  ‘Yes – didn’t you read the e-mails?’

  ‘Because on TV there’re just the four of them. What are there, six of us here?’

  ‘And Barbara and Justin.’

  ‘We’re not doing eight evenings, are we? We’ll be sick of the sight of each other by then.’

  Rosie grinned nervously. ‘No, the plan was that we do it in couples. So just four dinners, like on TV.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem very fair if I’m on my own and there are two of everyone else.’

  Rosie’s anxious smile got wider. ‘Well, the thing was, you see, that I thought you might cook with Matt. I thought I said in the e-mail . . .’

  ‘Who’s Matt?’

  Marcus took a quick gulp of sherry to hide his grin. A slow red blush was creeping up towards Rosie’s ears.

  ‘Stephen, I thought you said you’d introduced everyone?’

  ‘Well, I did, but . . .’

  ‘I’m Matt,’ said Matt.

  He and Charlotte stared at each other appraisingly.

  ‘It’s a bit of a surprise for me as well,’ he told her. ‘But pleased to meet you anyway.’

  Three

  Christ. What the hell was going on? Charlotte turned to stare at Rosie, who snatched up the bowl of olives again.

  ‘Shall we go and sit at the table?’ Rosie said. ‘I’m sure the others will be here in a minute.’

  She was leading them out of the door before Charlotte could say, ‘Fucking hell, no, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  Charlotte fumed silently. Wasn’t there something a bit more humiliating Rosie could have tried? What about sticking her in a shop window with a neon sign saying: ‘Sad and Lonely – Reduced to Clear’? Or having some business cards printed up with ‘Charlotte Wells – Getting More Desperate Every Day’? And why the fuck did Rosie think she’d want to be set up anyway? Particularly with one of her husband’s arse-crushingly dull friends. Jesus, what are they going to do at the end of the evening? Lock her and Matt in a room with some Barry White playing and a box of Milk Tray? Or is this going to be a car keys in a bowl situation?

  Fuck.

  There’s no way I’m going to get through four nights of this, Charlotte thought. Absolutely no way. How awkward can you get? Maybe I just won’t talk to him all evening, just to let him know how things stand. But then I’ll have to talk to the others. Christ, I bet Stephen’s already talking about house prices. No, it’s home improvement now, isn’t it? And that little git in the black-rimmed glasses – Marcus, was it? – I just know he’s going to start asking everyone’s opinion on the new Rimsky-Korsakov exhibition or some such bollocks, and then, when you say you don’t know, act all smug and bore everyone to death about it. Look at him, you can just tell.

  Christ, why did I agree to do this? Was I drunk? Well, I soon will be.

  Charlotte reached for the nearest bottle sitting on the side table of the dining room, relieved to find it already open. She abandoned her sherry glass for something bigger.

  ‘That’s quite a decent New Zealand Pinot noir,’ Stephen said as she filled her glass towards the brim.

  Oh Jesus. Just let me drink my booze in peace, will you? Why do all these boring couples assume I’m desperate to join their self-satisfied, delightfully decorated, ‘oh I know the best little wine club’ world? I’m not. I don’t care about your Ascot-style patio garden extension. I don’t care that little Johnny’s learned to crap. And I certainly don’t care about your pitiful attempts to offload your embarrassing male friends on to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to Stephen as she tasted the wine. ‘Very nice.’

  They were hovering round the dining-room table, as Rosie explained the seating plan. Charlotte ignored the instruction to sit opposite Matt and plonked herself down in one of the empty seats, silently thanking whoever it was that hadn’t turned up yet. Rosie looked flustered for a moment, but Charlotte stared her down.

  ‘Did you like the living room?’ Rosie turned to Marcus to restart the conversation. ‘We spent ages agonizing over the colour, didn’t we, Stephen?’

  ‘It’s certainly very striking,’ Marcus said. ‘Didn’t I see something like it on one of those TV programmes?’

  ‘No, it’s a new pattern that was only launched this season.’

  Oh Jesus. Charlotte hid her face with her glass. Kill me now. It’s even worse than I thought. There’s no way I’m doing this again. No way. Even if I have to fake leukaemia, I’m not doing three more evenings of this. I’m not sure I’m even going to make it through tonight.

  ‘Of course, the builders were a nightmare. They took twice as long as they said they would, and made a terrible mess,’ Rosie said.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me about builders,’ Marcus interrupted. ‘I deal with them all the time. The trick is to always double everything they say. That way you won’t be disappointed.’

  ‘Are you in the trade yourself, Marcus?’ Matt asked.

  Charlotte snorted a little through her nose as she stifled a laugh.

  ‘I’m an architect,’ Marcus said stiffly.

  ‘Oh, right.’ Matt’s face was unreadable.

  Charlotte studied him again. He wasn’t
that bad to look at, she thought. Tall, beefy, but not fat. Nice, soft, wavy brown hair. Something clever-looking about his face, but, for some reason, really dirty eyes. If she hadn’t already decided not to, Charlotte thought she might have quite fancied him. Not a sexy accent, though. Still, maybe if he didn’t say too much . . .

  ‘I’ve tried Barbara’s phone, but there’s no reply,’ Rosie said. ‘I don’t want to start without them, but you must all be getting hungry?’

  ‘I’m starving,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Stephen, can you bring in the rest of the loaf and crackers, please? And should I bring out some crisps or something as well?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘It would be a shame to ruin our appetite for the meal, though,’ Marcus said, grinning.

  ‘Sarah, do you have Justin’s number?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘I vote we start,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Maybe give it five more minutes . . . I’ll get you the crisps.’

  ‘Who are these people anyway?’

  ‘I know Barbara through Sarah. She’s very nice.’

  ‘I met her at my Pilates class,’ Sarah explained.

  ‘Oh yes, that reminds me,’ Rosie said. ‘You’ll need to know for your meals – Barbara and Justin are vegetarians.’

  Vegetarians! Immediately, Charlotte decided not to like the late-coming couple.

  ‘I’m sure I told them seven thirty,’ Sarah said.

  ‘They’ve probably got lost,’ Charlotte declared.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because they’re vegetarians.’

  Matt laughed. ‘How does that follow?’

  ‘It’s the sort of thing they’d do. Vague and inconsiderate.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d met them.’

  ‘No, I mean vegetarians. Can’t be trusted.’ Charlotte took a long gulp of wine.

  The doorbell rang. Everyone jerked upright.

  ‘There they are!’ Rosie leaped up and rushed to the front door. There were urgent, apologetic voices in the hall.

  ‘Sorry, everyone,’ Justin said, sticking his head round the door. ‘We got a bit lost.’

  Four

  ‘Maybe I should have given you clearer directions,’ Rosie said.

  ‘No, it was my fault,’ insisted Justin, savouring the acceptance of blame. ‘We got off the bus in the wrong place.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s easy to do.’

  ‘I hope we haven’t held everyone up.’

  ‘No . . . not too much.’

  ‘We have, haven’t we? I’m so sorry.’ Justin felt a warm glow of self-sacrifice seep through him. ‘I knew I should have looked more carefully at the instructions.’

  ‘You could have phoned me once you were lost and Stephen would have told you the way.’

  ‘Yes, I should have done,’ Justin agreed. ‘But I didn’t want to disturb you. My mistake.’

  ‘Never mind. Let’s go straight through. Barbara, can I take your coat?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Barbara said, handing over her bead-embroidered jacket.

  There was no question of telling people what had really happened. It would have been too upsetting for Barbara, and Justin didn’t want to worry the others with talk about deportation. So he had decided to take the blame for lateness on himself.

  Of course there was an element of guilt at mentioning the buses at all; public transport was always being picked on and belittled, and Justin hated to add to the blame. On the way over, he had considered claiming to have been held up at work, but that wouldn’t have been fair on his colleagues.

  ‘Sorry again, everyone,’ Justin said as they entered the dining room, with its two conspicuously untouched place settings. ‘It was my fault.’

  He thought he heard the blonde woman at the end exclaim something.

  ‘Never mind, let’s just sit down, shall we?’ Rosie said. ‘Sorry to rush, but do you mind if I bring the starter straight through?’

  ‘No, that would be great.’

  ‘Stephen, can you give me a hand, please?’ Rosie said, already retreating towards the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry to keep everyone waiting,’ Justin said again, as he sat down.

  There was silence. Charlotte topped up her wine glass and offered the bottle to Barbara and Justin.

  ‘Just a bit for me, please,’ Justin said. ‘Early start tomorrow.’

  ‘On Saturday?’

  ‘It’s my volunteering morning.’

  There was another short pause.

  ‘OK, here we are,’ Rosie said, decelerating sharply as she arrived back at the table with a tray of soup bowls. ‘Our first course: Chilled Spinach Soup with Avocado and Bacon Croutons.’

  She began handing out the bowls and, as Justin’s mouth opened, added: ‘And, of course, the vegetarian version with celery chunks instead of bacon for Justin and Barbara.’

  Justin closed his mouth.

  ‘It looks wonderful,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Right, then,’ Rosie concluded as she sat down. ‘Cheers, everybody.’

  Everyone raised their glasses and the table fell quiet. Spoons scraping against china bowls occasionally disturbed the hush.

  ‘Well, what does everybody think?’ Rosie asked, an edge of anxiety in her voice.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ Sarah said.

  ‘It’s lovely, Rosie,’ Justin said. ‘Really fresh-tasting.’

  ‘Oh good.’ Rosie exhaled.

  ‘The bacon’s a nice touch,’ Matt volunteered. ‘It’s good to have a bit of crunchiness.’

  After a moment’s thought, Marcus said: ‘It makes a change to have a cold soup, doesn’t it? Particularly when it’s not really summer yet.’

  Sarah looked at him sharply.

  Rosie said: ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes. And I suppose it’s so much more convenient if you can make it all a couple of days in advance and stick it in the fridge.’

  ‘Yesterday actually.’

  ‘It’s definitely not too cold, though, so you judged it well, taking it out of the fridge in time.’

  ‘Marcus . . .’ Sarah began.

  ‘I’m just giving you my impressions,’ Marcus replied with a defensive shrug. ‘Anyway, Justin, you were telling us about your charity work.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t.’

  Justin realized this might have been a bit abrupt. The question seemed aggressive to him, but perhaps that was unfair. He didn’t really know Marcus, and he probably meant well. ‘I mean, I don’t want to bore everyone.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be boring,’ Sarah said. ‘I’d like to hear about it. You work for AfricAid, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but in the office it’s all about lobbying work – talking to governments, organizing donors, putting together support packages for victims of violence or persecuted activists in Africa. At the weekend it’s nice to actually meet some of the people this is happening to, to see who you’re trying to help.’

  ‘Where do you do that?’

  ‘There’s a refugee support centre in Stamford Hill. It’s so hard for them, adjusting to a new way of life in an alien country.’

  ‘What do you do there?’

  ‘Oh not much, really. Offer advice, help with bureaucracy, that sort of thing. Often, I’m not really needed. They’d much rather watch TV Which is fine. But I just like being there, you know? It reminds me why I’m doing it.’

  The clink of spoons on china once again filled the dining room.

  ‘Tell me,’ Marcus asked, wiping soup off his upper lip with a napkin. ‘How effective do you think your campaigns are?’

  ‘It’s hard work, of course, but we do think we make a difference.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re just treating the symptoms? Interfering from outside, making cosmetic changes that aren’t really lasting?’

  ‘Marcus . . .’ Sarah said again.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Justin said. ‘It’s important to be able to correct those arguments openly. There
are a lot of misconceptions around international advocacy work. Most importantly, everything we do is alongside local partners. We’re not forcing change on these societies; we’re trying to help forces for change that are already there. That’s the first thing. Secondly, we do make lasting changes. Our project in Malawi, for example—’

  ‘Does anyone want any more?’ Rosie asked. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Justin, but there’s loads left, so does anyone want a top-up before we move on to the main course?’

  ‘No, thank you, Rosie,’ Justin said. ‘It was delicious, though. Now, what we did in Malawi—’

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘No, thanks, Rosie. I’ve still got plenty left.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I’ll let you finish, then.’

  ‘Actually, I’d like some more if we’re going to have to wait for the main course,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Great.’ Rosie reached out to take the empty dish from Charlotte, and handed it to Stephen. ‘Would you mind getting Charlotte some more?’ Wordlessly, Stephen got up and took the bowl through to the kitchen.

  ‘Anyway, in Malawi—’

  ‘Oh look, sorry, Justin, but before we get too drawn into things, maybe we should just sort out some ground rules for the competition. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine, Rosie, of course.’

  In fact, Justin was a little disappointed at being interrupted. It wasn’t that he liked talking about his work as such, but these were important issues. People needed to know. There was a lot of scepticism out there about what aid groups and NGOs like his were doing – maybe they hadn’t been good enough at communicating it – and Justin liked to take every chance he could to tackle public mistrust. But it was OK, he told himself. There would be another opportunity.

  ‘Is everyone all right with doing one dinner a week?’ Rosie was saying. ‘I thought four in a row might be a bit much . . .’

  ‘It certainly would,’ Charlotte said with feeling.

  ‘Great, and for the scoring,’ Rosie continued, ‘shall we just get each couple to give a mark at the end of the night?’

  ‘Why by couple?’ Charlotte demanded. ‘Why can’t we give our own marks?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Rosie said, avoiding Charlotte’s eye. ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘If we’re cooking in couples it does make sense to score that way too,’ Marcus said.