Dinner at Mine

by Chris Smyth

  ‘Just give me some peace, OK?’

  ‘But then it occurred to me. Just now. Maybe you’re dissatisfied because you’re not being radical enough.’

  ‘Thanks, Justin.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. What I mean is – your pots are all very pretty, and I know they’re full of meaning to you, but none of your work is politically engaged. There’s no message.’

  Barbara looked up from her book. ‘They’re pots, Justin.’

  He pushed on: ‘So what I thought was that maybe you should make your art more strongly about animal cruelty.’

  Barbara let her book drop to her lap and stared at Justin. ‘Animal cruelty?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, it could be something else. Global poverty. Inequality. Homophobia. But I was just thinking how strongly we both feel about animal welfare, and how tonight is going to be such a great opportunity to show people the benefits of a meat-free diet, and I realized that maybe you could do that with your art too.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Justin.’ Barbara pulled off her shawl in three awkward tugs and jumped off the sofa. ‘Sometimes I just . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘“Make some pots about vegetarianism.” Fucking hell!’

  ‘What did I say wrong?’

  ‘I just can’t believe you. I really fucking can’t.’ Barbara snatched up Nourishing the Self Within and stalked out of the room.

  ‘Barbara, wait!’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ She crossed the hall and slammed the bedroom door behind her.

  Justin thought about going after her. But when she was in a mood like this it was usually best to let her cool off on her own. He returned to his onions.

  ‘Hello!’ Stephen opened the door to the babysitter. ‘How—’

  Lily was standing on the step with her phone clamped to her ear, and raised a shushing index finger to him.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, giving him a quick, distracted smile, before returning her attention to her phone. ‘Mmm-hmm . . . No! . . . He didn’t! . . . No, she did . . . What a bastard! . . . Exactly . . . And all the time he was . . . Poor Ellie! . . . No, where is she? . . . We should get her out . . . No! . . . Yes . . . I know!’

  Stephen left the door open and Lily followed him into the living room.

  ‘You’ve got to tell him . . . Is he going to be there? . . . No, I can’t. . I’m babysitting . . . Yeah, that’s right . . . No, they’re not that bad . . . Look, I’ve got to go . . . Yeah, I’ll text you . . . Bye’

  She ended the call without needing to look at the phone.

  ‘That sounded exciting,’ Stephen said.

  Lily shrugged. ‘You know, the usual,’ she said.

  ‘Er, right. Do you want anything to drink? Tea?’

  ‘Do you have squash?’

  ‘I’ll have a look.’

  Stephen went to search the kitchen. He couldn’t find any squash, so came back with a glass of organic apple juice. Lily was hunched over on the sofa, her thumbs moving in an instinctive rhythm over the phone. Stephen put the glass down next to her and sat waiting for her to finish. The silence would have been awkward, but she showed no sign of noticing he was in the room.

  Five minutes later she looked up, blinking. ‘Oh, right, sorry about that. I’ve just found out that Freddie is going to this party with Olly so I had to tell Beth that Nat would be there.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Stephen. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Beth was hoping to get together with Freddie tonight, so I had to warn her that he used to go out with Nat.’

  ‘Right. Well, I see the urgency, then,’ Stephen said. He didn’t know if it would be considered polite or creepy to ask more. ‘What an exciting social life,’ he said instead. ‘I feel like we’re very boring by comparison.’

  Lily shrugged, as if to say: Well, of course. You’re old.

  Stephen waited, hoping that Rosie would come down and save him from having to make any further conversation.

  Lily turned on the TV. ‘Got any food?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s stuff for sandwiches in the fridge. Or you can phone for a pizza.’

  ‘Great.’ She flicked through the channels. ‘How’s Jonathan?’ she asked. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘Rosie’s just putting him down now. He’s stopped screaming, so I expect he’ll be asleep soon.’

  Lily carried on flicking, up through the weird shopping, foreign and music channels that Stephen had never seen. He didn’t think he had been missing much.

  Soon he heard the reassuring creak of Rosie’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

  ‘He’s asleep!’ she declared in triumph as she came into the living room. ‘Stephen, are you going to wear that jumper out?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Why?’

  ‘OK, then. It’s up to you.’

  Stephen went upstairs to change.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming early,’ Rosie said to Lily. ‘I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t.’

  ‘S’all right,’ Lily mumbled, pausing at a hip-hop video in which girls in micro-shorts danced energetically in thick steel cages. Rosie pursed her lips at the TV.

  ‘I just refused to drive this time, you see. Stephen never does when we go out, and it’s not fair that I’m not allowed to have anything to drink. So we’re going to get the bus there.’ Rosie said this with some pride, but Lily didn’t seem to be interested. She began texting again.

  ‘Anyway, I hope we haven’t ruined your evening,’ Rosie went on. ‘I’m sure you’d much rather be out having fun.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll probably go to Gemma’s party later.’

  Rosie frowned. ‘You know we won’t be back until quite late? Maybe even midnight.’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. Only losers turn up before midnight.’

  ‘Goodness, how energetic! What time do these parties finish?’

  ‘Dunno. Depends on how good they are. Sometimes we go on to an after-club in King’s Cross.’

  ‘Gosh, I wish I had your stamina! I’m delighted if I make it past eleven these days.’

  Lily shrugged, as if to say: What do you expect? You’re old.

  ‘It must be fun, though. What sort of music do they play?’

  ‘Commercial Dance, Electro, Dubstep,’ Lily said, sounding bored. ‘A bit of R ’n’ B.’

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ Rosie said with a shudder of distaste. ‘Oh Stephen, that looks much better, doesn’t it? I bought that jumper for his birthday,’ she explained. ‘It’s cashmere.’

  ‘Yeah, great.’ Lily didn’t look up. Her eyes flicked from TV to phone.

  ‘OK, well, have a quiet evening. This bit, at least! Call us if anything goes wrong.’

  Lily waved the back of her hand in goodbye.

  As they walked to the bus stop, Rosie said: ‘Do you remember when we were that age and could go on partying until dawn?’

  ‘Seems like a long time ago,’ Stephen said.

  ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it, the way she seems to be permanently on the way to a party, or dealing with the fallout from the last one?’

  ‘It does make me feel old.’

  Rosie grabbed his arm as she was struck by a thought. ‘Oh God, Stephen, do you remember that club in Soho we used to go to when we first came to London?’ The dimple appeared on her right cheek as she broke into a wide smile.

  ‘The one where the jukebox was that fifties American car?’

  ‘That’s right, and that old man was always trying to sell everyone fake drugs.’

  ‘He can’t have been too much older than we are now.’

  ‘Oh don’t say that!’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I know.’ She laughed ruefully. ‘And who was that man who had the grotty flat in Mile End?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I just remember sitting for hours on bare mattresses, talking to weird drunken men with beards until the early morning.’

  ‘Yes, and there was that fight once. Ended with someone falling down
the stairs.’

  They walked on in silence for a bit towards the bus stop, a light breeze blowing an empty crisp packet along the pavement beside them.

  ‘God,’ Rosie said with feeling. ‘I’m glad we don’t have to do that any more.’

  ‘Me too,’ Stephen replied. ‘Shall we get a taxi?’

  Justin kept a wary eye on the onions. They hissed gently in the frying pan and he stirred them with the caraway seeds anxiously, looking for signs of blackening. Although a high proportion of his cooking began with browning onions, Justin had still not quite mastered the technique of achieving the right golden, caramel glow. Inevitably, some chunks of the onion would wizen to brittle shards, giving a faint but noticeable acrid taint to the whole dish.

  So far, it was going well. Justin gave the mixture another stir, releasing a pleasant scent of caraway tinged with nutty onion. There was no angry crackle as the ingredients moved in the pan, only the soft murmur of warm olive oil. Justin decided it was safe to leave for a moment.

  He turned away from the pan and fetched a chunk of feta, a tub of cream cheese, a pot of double cream and some eggs from the fridge. He crumbled the feta into a bowl, then stirred in the other ingredients. The result was lumpy, streaked with egg yolk, and looked very unappetizing.

  Justin began whisking. His fingers quickly became tired. At times like these he had to concede that a food processor would be useful. The mixture would have been smooth and fluffy within seconds and he could have gone back to stirring the onions. But really, how many times had he whisked anything in the past year? Almost never. And it was so wasteful to own something that you hardly ever used. Just another piece of plastic cluttering up the flat. Really, it was much more satisfying to do it this way. He carried on whisking.

  Out in the hall there was a loud click as the bedroom door was pulled open. Barbara exited at an aggressive slouch. Justin expected her to go back into the living room, but instead she came silently into the tiny kitchen.

  ‘Hi, honey,’ Justin said in surprise. ‘Have you come to give me a hand?’

  ‘No,’ Barbara said, opening the fridge. Justin was forced back towards the hob by the outward swing of the door.

  ‘It would be great if you could have a go at a bit of whisking. My wrists are really aching.’

  ‘Have you seen my rice milk?’

  ‘It’s in there, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve moved it.’

  ‘Let me look.’ Justin manoeuvred awkwardly round the fridge door and quickly located the carton.

  ‘Here you are, see?’ He handed it to Barbara, who had taken a box of cornflakes out of the cupboard. ‘Barbara, what are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘But we’re going to be eating soon. People are coming in about an hour.’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Didn’t you have any lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That was silly. I’m cooking a nice meal and you won’t be able to eat it if you stuff yourself with cereal.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me.’ Barbara splashed rice milk over her bowl of cornflakes and returned with it to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  Justin put the carton back in the fridge with a prickle of irritation. These were her friends who were coming over. The whole thing had been her idea. So why was he having to do all the cooking?

  As Justin went back to the laborious whisking, the irritation began to dig harder. It wasn’t as if he was asking her to do much. Just a bit of chopping and stirring. It had been a long week too. The Malawi project was entering its final stages and he was supposed to be sending it out for stakeholder review next week. If he hadn’t been trying to whisk cream cheese and eggs into a light, fluffy texture, he would have been incorporating the final comments from their in-country programme head. Ideally, he would have spent most of the day on it, but even a couple of hours while Barbara did some cooking would have been helpful.

  Really, it wasn’t as if she was busy. She didn’t seem to have done anything all week. Not even the washing up. He’d come home on Thursday night to find a huge stack of dishes waiting for him in the sink. That had annoyed him so much he had almost said something.

  Justin forced the whisk through the thick peaks of creamy cheese. Surely that was ready now? A familiar sense of tiredness began to close in around him, like butter enfolding an egg white. Why didn’t she just—

  The smell of burning onions cut off the thought. Justin dived across to the frying pan and pushed it off the heat, stirring quickly. A harsh sizzle flared up in place of the gentle hiss, releasing more of the bitter tang.

  Justin felt the frustration rising in him. He stood in the centre of the kitchen, eyes closed and hands splayed outwards at his sides, trying to force it down.

  One, two, three, he counted. One . . . two . . . three . . . It was OK, he told himself. Nothing to worry about. He was so lucky, compared to ninety per cent of the world’s population.

  With this effort of will, Justin stopped the anger boiling any higher. Don’t think about it, that was the key thing now. Concentrate on the good things. Look at what was going well.

  He sifted through the onion with a wooden spoon. Only a couple of chunks and a long stringy sliver were properly burned. He fished those out and threw them away.

  Now he could make the aubergine cheesecake. This was the enjoyable bit. Everything was OK, really.

  The discs of roasted aubergine were cooling on the side. They were exactly the right golden colour, Justin thought. He began arranging them in a baking tray, balancing them on their sides and filling the gaps with plum tomatoes and handfuls of oregano. Then he spooned the fluffy cheese mix over the top, watching it ooze invitingly into the space between the vegetables.

  Justin scattered more herbs over the top and took a moment to admire the dish before putting it in the oven. That looked good, didn’t it? He was already feeling hungry. This was going to be a real vegetarian feast. Thank God for Yotam Ottolenghi. His recipes were so original. Justin had heard that he wasn’t really a vegetarian, which was disappointing. But never mind. Justin’s dinner was going to show his guests that you didn’t need any meat at all to make a delicious, healthy meal that was a really good mix of flavours and textures.

  Justin still felt guilty about the argument at Matt’s. Sure, Charlotte had been a bit rude about pushing the point. But, really, he blamed himself. If he hadn’t let himself be provoked, the whole silly quarrel could have been avoided. Yes, she had been confrontational and aggressive about her views, but wasn’t he supposed to rise above that sort of boorish behaviour? To calmly and rationally explain his position, and refuse to see a point of principle become a shouting match? But instead he had got sucked in and let it all unravel into a meaningless argument.

  Well, tonight there would be no argument. Anyone eating these dishes would have to admit that vegetarian food was just as good as anything with meat in it. Better, even. Much more inventive than a great big lump of flesh. Even Charlotte and Marcus would be impressed, he felt sure. Justin wasn’t particularly interested in winning the competition; he didn’t think of himself as competitive like that. But he would be happy if he did his bit for vegetarianism.

  Justin smiled to himself as he poured boiling water into a pan to blanch some chard. He wasn’t necessarily hoping that anyone would be persuaded to give up meat – though maybe Sarah could be tempted? – just to end the mocking. Maybe, after they had praised the taste and freshness of the food, he would begin a little discussion about the moral benefits.

  There wasn’t much left to do for the stew now. Justin added the remaining ingredients – tomatoes, chickpeas, coriander and the chard – to the onions, and stirred them as they cooked slowly. When all the guests arrived, he would put everything in with the tamarind water to simmer together, and that would be that. He could do some rice while it was cooking. Only the salad to make now. Justin opened the cupboard to look for the quinoa.

  As he poured i
t out, he could see Barbara emerging from the bedroom. Justin was heartened to see that she wasn’t slouching any more. She was looking straight at him as she walked into the kitchen and put her empty bowl down with deliberate precision.

  ‘Great! You must be feeling better. I’ve done most of it, but you could give me a hand with clearing up.’

  ‘How long before they get here?’

  Justin looked at his watch. ‘Oh! Only about fifteen minutes now. I didn’t realize it was so late. I’d better get moving with the salad.’

  Justin reached for the boiling kettle and poured the right amount of water over the quinoa grains. Barbara stood watching him, without moving.

  ‘Do you want to help with this?’ he suggested. ‘You could shell some beans if you like.’

  ‘What are you cooking?’

  ‘This is just the salad,’ Justin replied, pleased that Barbara was now showing an interest. ‘Quinoa, Beans and Radish Salad. The main dish is Swiss Chard, Chickpea and Tamarind Stew, with Aubergine Cheesecake to start.’

  Barbara nodded slowly, as if she were thinking about this very deeply.

  ‘You’re cooking that for everyone?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but I think I’ve got it under control now. Although the whisking was a bit boring.’

  ‘No, I meant . . .’

  ‘Actually, you could put out some knives and forks on the coffee table. No point laying them out, there’s no room.’

  ‘So you’re not taking her advice, huh?’

  ‘What?’ Justin was puzzled. ‘Whose advice?’

  ‘Charlotte’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ He laughed. ‘You mean the stuff about the sausages? That was funny, wasn’t it? Could you pass the radishes? They’re by the fridge.’

  ‘You’re not making them, then?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Justin squinted in concern at Barbara. ‘Why on earth would I?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I . . . I just think . . . you know, she said she wanted something and you’re not even considering it.’

  ‘Of course I’m not. She wanted meat.’

  ‘What I’m saying is that someone coming here as a guest made a request of you.’