Dinner at Mine

by Chris Smyth

  Sod it. She popped one of each into her palm and swallowed them straight down with a cupped handful of water from the bathroom tap.

  Her glasses were on the ledge under the window, and as she put them on Charlotte caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her skin was puffy, with red blotches down her cheek and a dark-yellow patch under her eye. She made herself look closer. The flesh below her chin sagged, but above it the skin was waxy, imprinted into lumpy mounds by the pillow. Her eyes were still not fully open, sunk into deep trenches ringed with wrinkly fortifications. She looked exhausted. No, worse than that – she looked old.

  Christ. Jesus. Charlotte stared at herself. What a hag. She couldn’t keep doing this. She wasn’t young enough any more. She didn’t recover like she used to. The nausea seemed to spread to her bones. How long was she going to carry on doing this? Would she still be out on the lash in twenty years? With all the twenty-one-year-olds laughing at her behind her back? Maybe they were doing that already.

  At least she had woken up in her own bed this week, though. That was progress, wasn’t it? Well, no, actually, it was the norm. And would be for decades ahead . . . decades of waking up alone with hangovers that got steadily worse until they turned into a terminal illness.

  Charlotte slammed the bathroom door behind her. Jesus, what maudlin bollocks. Bacon. That was what she needed. Charlotte took off the bra, put on her warmer pyjamas and a dressing gown, and went down the hall to the kitchen. The fridge was largely bare, but at the back there were two stacked packets of smoked bacon, the remains of a three-for-two offer. The top packet was open, but the three rashers left in it had acquired a rainbowy sheen. The meat below looked lifeless and grey. Charlotte checked the use-by date. It wasn’t that long ago. She sniffed it. Nothing. It always looked better once it was cooked anyway.

  She threw the bacon into a frying pan with a big chunk of butter. When the butter began to melt, she stirred the pan, coating the bacon all over. Within minutes the kitchen was filled with a fatty sizzle. Charlotte perked up immediately. She searched for mushrooms or tomatoes, but found only a tin of baked beans in the cupboard. They would do. Beans were better for a hangover anyway. Someone had told Charlotte recently that beans and ketchup each counted as one of your five a day, which cheered her up so much she decided not to check if it was true.

  She tossed a couple of slices of white bread into the toaster, and when the bacon was browning at the edges she broke in the last egg without sniffing it first. The kitchen filled with thick, warming smells and Charlotte felt a stab of hunger which this time brooked no opposition from the nausea. She made a cup of tea and tipped the contents of the frying pan on to a plate. The egg landed upside down with the yolk bleeding into the beans. Delicious.

  Charlotte flipped on the TV as she ate, pausing at a programme in which overemotional teenagers discussed their break-ups and crushes direct to camera. One boy, describing how his girlfriend of three weeks had dumped him, began to weep unashamedly. What wimps. No wonder teen bullying was on the rise if this was what fifteen-year-olds behaved like these days.

  The pills and the fry-up had kicked in now, and Charlotte was feeling much better. Two days of recuperation lay ahead. Did she have anything on tonight? Oh shit. Another bloody dinner party. Charlotte mopped up the sticky red and yellow residue on her plate with another piece of bread.

  She hadn’t heard from Matt since last week. She could have been annoyed, but it would have been for form’s sake. It was obvious that neither of them wanted anything more. Actually, she now felt that they’d handled it quite well.

  The previous Saturday she’d woken up late too, with a moment of panic at the unfamiliar surroundings. When she had realized where she was, she had been relieved to find herself alone in the bed. It was a bad moment to be making small talk.

  She had lain there in the half-light, wondering what to do. Occasionally, she heard Matt’s footsteps walking past the door. Was he trying to let her know that he was still there if she wanted to come out? Or was it just a small flat?

  Charlotte didn’t move. The stale smell of Matt’s sweat rose from the sheets, along with a strange aftershave she couldn’t imagine him using. There was a glass of water by the bed. Had he brought it in that morning or was it left over from last night? Charlotte downed it. The room felt fetid. Charlotte wanted to open the curtains, maybe the window too, but she didn’t want to attract Matt’s attention. What the hell would they say to each other?

  The footsteps paused conspicuously outside the bedroom door. Charlotte slumped back down and closed her eyes. Matt opened the door; light flooded in from the hall. Feeling his eyes on her, Charlotte didn’t stir. She was pretending to be asleep and Matt, she was fairly sure, was pretending to believe her.

  After a while he left without saying anything. Charlotte wondered how long she would give it before cracking. She didn’t want to go out there drowsy and hungover, but what was the alternative? She lay staring at the bare walls. There were no posters on them, and the only clothes on the floor were her own. Everything else was tidied away. Charlotte suddenly wanted very badly to be in her own flat.

  Outside, the front door slammed. Charlotte listened. The footsteps had stopped and the flat was silent. Had Matt gone out?

  Charlotte waited five minutes. Nothing. The bastard! He’d just fucked off and left her there!

  But no, this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She slipped out of bed and found a dressing gown in Matt’s freakishly neat cupboard. Cautiously, she opened the bedroom door. The hall was quiet. She approached the kitchen, but it was obvious there was no one in it. Matt had already done most of the washing up, and a big stack of plates and glasses was drying on the worktop. The extended table was now very bare, apart from a note in the centre.

  Morning, Charlotte.

  I’ve just nipped out to get some stuff for breakfast. I shouldn’t be more than half an hour if you can stick around.

  Matt

  Charlotte admired its neutral simplicity. It committed him to absolutely nothing, and while it raised the possibility that she could leave, that couldn’t be classed as rude because the decision was hers to make.

  Charlotte had put her clothes on and got the hell out.

  Now, the fry-up gone, Charlotte dumped her plate in the sink. She poured herself a bowl of Frosties for pudding and settled on to the sofa with more tea and the remote control.

  If it wasn’t for Matt, she would make an excuse and stay in tonight. No, that wasn’t quite what she meant. It was just that if she didn’t turn up, he would think it was because of him. Charlotte zapped through the TV channels. So she would have to go. It would be bloody awkward, obviously, but she wasn’t going to be the one to blink first.

  Nineteen

  The minicab driver didn’t offer to help Justin get the chairs out of the boot. Justin struggled under their weight and had to find a lamp post to lean them against while he went over to the driver’s window to give him a ten-pound note. The man drove off without giving Justin his pound change. Justin thought of protesting, but the man didn’t seem to speak much English. If he was a recent immigrant, he probably needed the money anyway, Justin decided.

  The folding chairs were much heavier than they looked, and Justin found he needed to loop his arms beneath the backrests to be able to carry them over his shoulder. As he let himself in the front door he had to turn sideways and shuffle carefully into the hall to get them inside.

  Justin had borrowed the chairs from Gautam, a friend who lived nearby. It was very kind of him, Justin thought. Especially since he hadn’t been invited to the dinner party. Justin had explained that he would have asked him, only it was a competition, you see, and it had to be the same people every time . . .

  Justin felt bad too that he hadn’t felt able to ask his neighbours if they had any spare chairs. He experienced a familiar pang as he walked past the front door of Mrs McCluskey’s ground-floor flat. He really wanted to get on with his neighbours, but she did make it so
difficult. Justin trod as lightly as he could on the way past, hoping that today she would not dash out and complain that his footsteps were too loud. He had never had a conversation with her in which she hadn’t complained about that, or about him walking around too late at night, or playing music, or running the washing machine at the weekend. Of course it wasn’t her fault; she was obviously lonely, and had probably had a difficult life. Justin had tried to ask her about it more than once, but she’d told him to mind his own business. He suspected hers might be a council flat. That made him feel a bit better about it.

  Justin made it past Mrs McCluskey’s front door and started up the stairs with a great sense of relief. He had been dreading telling her he was having people over for dinner and with four folding chairs over his arms there was no way he could lie about it. As he turned on to the first-floor landing, Justin accidentally scraped the chairs on his left against the wall. He checked anxiously to see if he had damaged the paintwork, but there were so many marks and chips that he couldn’t tell.

  Inside the flat, Justin set up two chairs, one on either side of the large Buddha’s head that stood where the TV used to be. What was it Gautam had said? Make sure the metal pins don’t fall out when you unfold them. But they seemed pretty sturdy, Justin thought.

  The cluttered living room seemed very small even with just two of the chairs unfolded. Justin put as many books as he could fit back on the shelves and stuck the rest in a corner. He collected a pile of pillows, shawls and clay-etching implements and put them in the bedroom. When you could see it, the carpet really was quite frayed, he thought.

  Justin stared at the room, trying to work out where all the guests would fit. He had never had this many people over before, apart from a couple of meetings of his letter-writing group, and they were usually happy to sit on the floor. They certainly didn’t judge his taste in soft furnishings. Well, it didn’t matter, did it? It was only a matter of not having much money. No one could condemn him for that, could they?

  Justin and Barbara ate their meals at a side table wedged against the wall behind the sofa. Justin moved the table into the bedroom and pushed the sofa back against the wall. That would work, wouldn’t it? Six chairs, and two people on the sofa. The coffee table wasn’t really big enough for eight plates at once, but he and Barbara didn’t mind eating off their laps.

  There was a grey, dusty patch of carpet where the sofa had been. Justin bent down to pick the pen caps and five-pence pieces out of the matted dust before getting out the hoover.

  With the machine on, he didn’t notice Barbara coming in until she walked past him into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, honey!’

  Barbara didn’t reply. Justin heard her turn the tap on. He went over to the kitchen, a narrow slit jutting off the end of the hall.

  ‘Are you all right? I didn’t know where you were.’

  ‘I was out.’

  ‘Your phone was off. I was worried.’

  Barbara didn’t reply. She was hunting through the fridge, irritably pushing aside the ingredients Justin had bought for dinner.

  ‘Have you seen my wheatgrass juice?’

  ‘It’s in there somewhere.’

  ‘There’s all this stuff in the way.’

  ‘That’s the stuff for dinner. I thought you were going to help me with the shopping.’

  Barbara poured herself a glass of juice.

  ‘I was going to start cooking soon. Do you want to do it with me?’

  ‘Not right now.’ Barbara walked back out of the kitchen without looking at Justin, even though he had to step back to let her pass.

  ‘It’s just that it would be great if you could do some of the chopping. Just at the beginning.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like it.’ Barbara put her juice down on the coffee table, leaving a wet mark on the weathered wood. ‘Where’s my shawl? I left it right here.’

  ‘I put it in the bedroom while I was tidying up.’

  Barbara gave an irritated sigh and marched across the hall to get it, forcing Justin to move out of her way once again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked when she came back.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You just seem a bit . . .’

  ‘I’m fine, OK!’ Barbara glanced at him quickly for the first time since she had got in, then settled on the sofa, tucking her legs up and wrapping the big shawl round her shoulders several times until only her head, feet and hands protruded.

  ‘I know you’re still upset about the exhibition,’ Justin began tentatively. ‘But it was more than a week ago now. Maybe it would help to talk about it?’ He let his voice rise into a questioning tone, hoping it would draw Barbara into filling the silence that followed. It didn’t.

  ‘It’s just that you’ve been like this all week and I don’t think it’s very productive. You can’t ignore everything, my love. There’s that letter from the Home Office, which I know you haven’t replied to . . .’

  ‘I need to be on my own for a bit,’ Barbara snapped at him without looking round. ‘OK?’

  ‘All right.’ Justin retreated quickly into the kitchen. He didn’t really understand what was wrong. To Justin’s eye, Barbara’s pots looked exactly the same this week as they had last week. She’d got upset about her work before, of course, declared it was all shit and stormed off crying, but usually everything was better by the next morning. He’d never seen it last this long before.

  Justin got the bag of plump, glistening aubergines out of the fridge and lined them up ready for chopping. The sight cheered him up. They looked delicious. Not for the first time, Justin wished you could eat aubergines raw – just pick them up and bite a big chunk of the purple flesh. He turned on the oven to heat and chopped quickly, throwing the neat rounds into a roasting tin and pouring over plenty of olive oil.

  He felt for Barbara, of course he did. But, as hard as he tried, Justin found it difficult to be properly sympathetic. After all, they were only pots.

  Oh God, that was a terrible thought, wasn’t it? Justin had always considered himself as a great respecter of the arts. They were a vital part of a flourishing society, and they could be such an important part of how a civilization understood its place in the world. He’d seen their value among traditional peoples, and knew the West could learn a lot from that. He had always respected Barbara’s decision to devote her life to cultural production.

  Still, though. It wasn’t as if she was worrying about starving children, was it? Might it not be a little bit self-indulgent to be moping about like this because you’d decided some ceramics didn’t express you properly? It wasn’t as if she was doing anything productive with the time, either. Where had she been this morning, for example? Justin had had to do all the shopping himself. Not that he resented that. But it had taken much longer than it would have done with two of them, so he hadn’t been able to look over the chief exec’s presentation to the donor conference on Tuesday. Now he wouldn’t get time, and that actually was about starving children. What if the AIDS project in Karonga District lost funding because Justin hadn’t spotted a mistake? He was already starting to feel guilty about it. Was Barbara?

  Justin concluded, with some disappointment, that she probably wasn’t. She was certainly a concerned and active citizen, and her moral clarity had been one of the things that had first attracted him to her. But for some reason, when it came to her work, the Barbara who went on anti-war marches and joined Free Tibet groups on Facebook disappeared. Whenever Justin asked her about the significance of her pieces, it was always something personal, always very close to her own experience. Self-centred, even.

  Maybe that was the problem! Justin was struck with the sudden thought. Maybe that was why she was so unhappy with her pots: she realized they weren’t going to change anything.

  Justin put the aubergines in to roast. They would sit happily in there for half an hour, giving him time to get started on the main course. He found some onions and chopped them roughly, while heating some more oil in a fryi
ng pan.

  But he hesitated before putting the onions in to brown. He turned the hob off, rinsed his hands vigorously, and left the kitchen.

  Back in the living room, Barbara was still curled up on the sofa in her shawl, reading a book. She didn’t look up as Justin came in. He walked round until he could see the title: Nourishing the Self Within: A Five-Step Journey to a Truer You.

  On the table beside her were a stack of other books: Romancing the Ordinary, Your Soul’s Plan, Everyday Greatness and Dare to be You.

  ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Justin asked carefully.

  Barbara didn’t reply.

  ‘It looks very –’ Justin paused – ‘interesting.’

  Barbara turned a page in silence.

  ‘Are they new? I haven’t seen them before.’

  ‘I borrowed them from Marcello.’ Barbara said this without looking up.

  ‘Oh right. Why was that?’

  ‘He thought I might find them useful.’

  ‘OK.’ Justin nodded. ‘But they’re . . . They’re self-help books, aren’t they?’

  ‘Marcello calls them psychological fulfilment manuals.’

  ‘Does he?’ Justin came across and sat next to Barbara on the sofa, putting himself in her eyeline so she had to look at him. ‘Barbara, are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Because you can tell me. Whatever’s wrong.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I mean, I’m sure those books are full of excellent advice, but maybe I could be of some help too . . .’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She started reading again.

  Justin nodded meaningfully. ‘In fact, I was just thinking while I was in the kitchen. I know you’ve been down about your work recently. I know it’s been making you miserable. And I wasn’t sure what I could do.’