by Chris Smyth
Justin flinched and looked away. Marcus stood leaning over him. Justin picked up his fork. For one thrilling moment, Charlotte thought he was about to give up and dig in to the octopus.
But instead he set the fork down next to his knife, pushing them together in fastidious alignment.
‘You know,’ he said in a very solemn tone, ‘I’m getting worried that this whole contest is not very sustainable.’
There was an uncertain silence round the table. You can fucking say that again, Charlotte thought.
‘I mean, look at this,’ Justin continued, his voice getting firmer and louder. ‘Quails’ eggs, endangered cod, air-freighted asparagus—’
‘It is not air-freighted!’
‘Then more meat, overfishing, herbs from the other side of the world, and now a sea creature mutilated for fun . . . And how much of this is organic?’
‘As much as is practical,’ Marcus said.
Justin scanned the table with hard, unforgiving eyes. ‘What about Fairtrade?’
His gaze stopped at Matt. He leaned forward in his chair. Charlotte let him have the space.
‘What about you, Matt? I bet not much of your meal was Fairtrade?’
Matt relaxed pointedly in his seat and smiled in a superior way.
Christ, Charlotte thought. That was irritating. Even if he was doing it to Justin.
‘Come on, then,’ Justin pressed. ‘Was any of it?’
‘No, it wasn’t. You’re right,’ Matt said.
‘Why not? Did you even think of it?’
Matt paused before replying. ‘I’ve never really been convinced by the benefits of Fairtrade,’ he said.
‘Oh!’ Justin exclaimed in delighted shock. ‘Right. I see. So, as long as you’re getting your produce cheaply, who cares if the farmer makes a living? Is that right?’
‘No,’ Matt replied coolly. ‘It’s more that guaranteeing an artificially high price for basic goods only hinders the diversification of developing world economies.’
‘Ha!’ Justin sneered back at him. ‘The neo-liberal argument. Let multinational corporations do it all.’
‘That’s hardly what I said.’
‘God, I’ve heard this sort of thing so many times! Read a copy of the Economist and you think you don’t have to care any more.’
‘It’s not about who cares the most, it’s about what works,’ Matt replied in his calm and rational tone, which set Charlotte’s teeth on edge. He said something about oversupplied markets. God, he was irritating.
‘What a convenient way to make sure you don’t have to worry about where your food comes from!’ Justin went for heavy sarcasm. He wasn’t very good at it. Charlotte was finding it hard to decide which of them was being more annoying.
‘Some people would say,’ Matt replied, ‘that Fairtrade isn’t really about helping the poor at all, but helping liberals like you feel better about yourselves.’
Justin’s body began to shake slightly.
‘I’ve been there, you know,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been there. I’ve seen the difference it makes.’ He leaned towards Matt, his voice rising towards a shout. ‘You sit here, making your dinnerparty arguments, yet you know nothing about it! You’ve never been to a Ugandan coffee cooperative! Have you?’
‘Look, never mind the Ugandans,’ Marcus interrupted. ‘Can we focus on the octopus, please?’
Justin ignored him. ‘No. You haven’t. I have. And let me tell you something. I’d like to see you argue with the people there. I’d like to see you try. Because you can’t. You can’t argue with people whose lives have been transformed. With children going to school for the first time, elderly people retiring with dignity, mothers getting medical treatment at a brand-new clinic. Are you going to argue against that? Are you? I’d like to see you stand there looking at the smile on a farmer’s face as he tells you how he can feed his family properly for the first time, and tell him, “No, economic theory says it’s all a mistake.” How do you think he’d like that?’
The echoes died away slowly off the hardwood surfaces of the dining room. Justin was panting a little.
In the face of such vehemence, Matt was starting to look uneasy. ‘Maybe Marcus is right,’ he said. ‘Let’s enjoy the food.’
‘Thank you!’ Marcus said. ‘I haven’t heard any of you compliment it yet.’
Justin continued to stare at Matt. Charlotte could tell Matt was rattled. It was a glorious sight. The supercilious half-smile was gone, and the teeth on the left side of his mouth were bared in an uncomfortable grin. His shoulders had risen as he hunched forward. His eyes flicked sideways towards Barbara. Was he looking for support? But Barbara didn’t notice. She was gazing out of the window, and didn’t look particularly interested in taking sides. Though she too had declined the octopus.
Charlotte realized she wasn’t getting the best out of things. She was irked by Justin and was tempted to have a swipe at him. But that was entirely the wrong approach. Never mind what he was saying, look at the effect he was having. A few more hits like that and Matt would be on the ropes.
‘Yeah!’ she said slowly, making Matt look at her. ‘What sort of heartless wanker do you have to be not to like Fairtrade? I bet you’re the sort of person who asks for the twenty-five pence donation to be taken off the charity pizzas in Pizza Express.’
Matt looked pleasingly taken aback. ‘You can’t just rely on these silly emotional arguments,’ he said. ‘It’s ridiculous to do something if it doesn’t actually work.’
Oh yes. He was really needled now.
‘It’s not ridiculous if you’re a poor African farmer, is it?’ Charlotte said, trying to look serious. ‘Because it does work. Didn’t you hear the man? What a difference it makes to their lives?’
‘I didn’t realize you were that interested, Charlotte,’ Matt said.
Something about his voice meant that Charlotte found herself putting real feeling into her next words: ‘You see, I think you need to learn how to make sacrifices for others, Matt. You don’t know how to do that, do you? You just try something different as soon as you get bored, and sod the consequences.’
‘Come on, Charlotte,’ he said, uneasy now. ‘You can’t really pretend you care.’
‘You haven’t had the opportunity to find out, have you?’
Matt hesitated. Charlotte could hear Justin’s angry breaths getting louder as he prepared to say something. He drank some water, but it didn’t seem to calm him down.
When Justin spoke, there was an unexpected strength to his voice. ‘That’s the real problem, Matt: you don’t care about the results of your actions. It’s so convenient for you to pretend these things aren’t important. Then you can just carry on doing whatever you like, taking whatever you want, and never mind anyone else.’
‘Yes, well, it’s very convenient for you to be able to feel superior to everyone else, isn’t it?’
‘You know . . .’ Justin closed his eyes and seemed to have difficulty speaking. ‘This kind of . . . moral blindness really sickens me. I don’t understand how you can not see what this is about. What you’re doing is so clearly wrong. Morally wrong.’
‘Justin . . .’ Rosie said reprovingly.
‘No, it’s all right,’ Matt said. ‘Let him say it. I don’t know what happened to being non-judgemental, though.’
‘Some things are wrong. You have to be judgemental about that.’
There was a pause.
‘How’s the octopus?’ Marcus said.
‘Fuck the octopus!’ Justin shouted.
Marcus almost choked on his tentacle.
Thirty-two
Justin’s tense upper body tilted backwards to allow Sarah to clear away his untouched plate of octopus. Light flashed off an oily sucker and he caught a salty gust of warming flesh as it went past his nose, prompting a lurch of revulsion.
A deep-lying nausea began to rise up towards his throat. Justin’s surging feelings formed into an acrid bile that needed somehow to be expelled. He st
ruggled for breath.
How could they all sit there politely listening to the argument like it was a debate on Newsnight? This wasn’t a game; it was a matter of justice. Wasn’t it obvious? He was on the side of the powerless. He was the victim. Why wouldn’t they respect that?
His anger rose as he looked round the table. They all avoided his eye. Guilt. That’s what it was. His gaze stopped at Matt, with a shudder of loathing. The power of it was new and surprising. But, looking at him, Justin couldn’t understand why he hadn’t felt it before. Matt’s fat, beefy lips twitched upwards as he tried to hide a sneer. His elbows and forearms were braced aggressively across the table. Justin had no doubt that beneath it his legs were planted wide apart, his crotch jutting forward.
It was a type Justin had always despised. A man so arrogant that he barely noticed other people unless they were useful to him. Not even a bully, but something almost worse: the sort of person who saw the struggle between the oppressor and his victim as no more than an amusing game, treating both sides with the same easy condescension. He needed to see that selfishness did not always pay.
Justin couldn’t bear to look at Barbara. His eyes seemed to skate past her without being able to focus. If he tried to concentrate on her face he felt a queasy stabbing pain in his gut, like he had just eaten a pot of rancid yoghurt. She hadn’t looked at him all evening, either. Justin couldn’t see the pain on her face – if anything she seemed a little bored – but he knew that Barbara found it difficult to express these things.
In some ways, he didn’t blame her for what she’d done. She was obviously suffering from an artistic crisis, and what right did he have to insist that she carried on like that? He loved her. He wanted what was best for her. If that turned out to be someone else, it would be wrong of him to stand in her path.
In other ways, he was beginning to hate her. It wasn’t that he had never thought about something like this happening. He had, often. He had always suspected that, really, she was never quite at ease with him. So he’d always been careful, not pushed back too much against her bad moods, each time fearing that it could be the final shove.
He hadn’t tried to talk to her since last time. The thought of trying filled him with weariness. He could ask for an explanation, but what could she tell him that he didn’t already know? There was no point making protestations and pleas, either. If she didn’t want to come back, trying to persuade her would only make both of them sicker.
But Matt! That was where the bitterness cut through and began to make the wound sting. Someone who was, what? Richer? Taller? Stronger? Someone who stood for all he and Barbara had agreed they despised. It was almost as if she was deliberately insulting everything he valued.
Rosie broke the long silence as Marcus came in with a big casserole dish.
‘Wow, Marcus, that does smell powerful!’
He pulled off the lid and a cloud of heavy steam escaped, wafting thick, meaty aromas around the table.
Justin began to feel sick again.
‘Braised Oxtail with Salsify,’ Marcus announced with a satisfied smile. ‘A reason to be pleased it’s still so cold outside.’ He began ladling it out on to plates.
‘It does look very filling,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m not sure how much I can manage.’
‘The idea for the recipe came from Heston,’ Marcus went on, as if he had been asked. ‘But I’ve adjusted it with a couple of good ideas from Mark Hix and a few touches of my own. Justin, you’ve got some marrow coming.’
The sticky, sweet stench of stewing meat intensified as they began to eat. Justin began to feel even more disgusted.
Sarah placed in front of him a plate containing half a slightly shrivelled marrow. An unidentifiable liquid was seeping out across the china. But then he saw the same thing put in front of Barbara. Immediately, Justin felt a surge of hope. She hadn’t changed completely. There was, perhaps, still some solidarity there.
He picked up his fork and clenched it in his fist.
‘Shall I tell you, Matt,’ he said as he prodded the thick rind of the marrow, ‘what the problem with you is?’
‘If you like,’ Matt said, with a faint smile.
‘Yes, please do,’ Charlotte added.
‘The problem with you,’ Justin said, sawing the squeaking marrow-cheese with his knife, ‘is that you put your own interests first, and then you rationalize your behaviour into the only inevitable, logical response.’
Matt’s expression did not change. ‘Not like you, then,’ he responded quickly. ‘Your self-interest always has to become a moral crusade.’
The casual ease of the answer filled Justin with a stabbing fury. ‘I can’t believe you! You sit here and lecture me—’
‘I’m not lecturing anyone.’
‘After all you’ve done, you have the nerve to sit there and dismiss me – no, worse – dismiss everyone who—’
‘I’m not dismissing anything,’ Matt said with the same despicable calm. ‘I’m simply saying you shouldn’t be inflexible about your moral judgements.’
‘You self-centred—’
‘At best,’ Matt pushed on, ‘these kinds of arguments are a sideshow, a distraction from the real problems that need to be addressed.’
‘You selfish bastard! You don’t care about anyone else, as long as you get what you want!’
‘The oxtail’s very nice, by the way, Marcus,’ Matt said.
‘Thank you,’ Marcus said. ‘How’s the marrow, Justin?’
‘Bland and watery.’ Justin pushed his plate away. ‘Look at us all, sitting here, stuffing our faces and bickering. Is this really the most we can hope for out of life?’
‘God, I hope not,’ Charlotte said.
‘Why don’t we talk about something else?’ Sarah suggested.
‘Yes, good idea,’ Matt agreed. ‘Justin may be getting a warm glow of righteousness out of this, but he’s not making it much fun for everyone else.’
‘Who cares about having a nice time! We’re talking about the most important things in life, here!’
‘Yes, but Justin,’ Rosie said, ‘that doesn’t mean you have to be rude.’
‘That’s right, Justin,’ Matt said. ‘You can’t stop being polite just because people are suffering. They’re always suffering.’
Justin threw his fork down. The sound was muffled as it sank into the stuffed marrow.
‘I can’t believe such callousness! I can’t believe it. There’s no way I can eat while listening to this.’
No one else replied. They were all still eating. All concentrating on their food like it was the only thing that mattered. Justin was astonished. The last thing he could think of now was food. Look at Stephen, tucking into his casserole like that, eating it in great steaming forkfuls. What was wrong with these people?
‘Come on,’ Sarah said soothingly. ‘Let’s not let an argument spoil the evening.’
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Charlotte said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Justin said unapologetically, ‘but there’s no way I can keep silent while being provoked.’
Charlotte reached out and patted Sarah’s arm sympathetically.
‘It is a shame Matt’s fucked up your evening, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘That makes it pretty much everyone here that he’s screwed now. Doesn’t it, Barbara?’
Everyone’s eyes swivelled towards Barbara. Justin’s too. He couldn’t help it. Such disgusting crudeness. But on the other hand . . .
The tense pause lasted about three seconds.
Then Barbara pushed back her chair, scraping it sharply across the oak floor, and, without saying anything, stormed out of the room.
Justin felt his throat rise again in a whirlpool of curdled emotion as he agonized over what to do. Should he go after her? No, it was too late. She wasn’t going to come back. He could see that. It would be too painful. Was he going to make her spell it out?
But then, what did he have to lose? There were only a few things she could say that would make it worse.
Though what if she said them?
Seconds passed. He heard Rosie and Sarah say something, heard Charlotte interrupt them.
‘Well, we might as well stop setting a dessert spoon for her,’ she said. ‘This is becoming a bit of a habit.’
Justin scrambled away from the table, tangling his foot round the chair leg and almost tripping as he rushed to the door.
Barbara had her coat on and was standing in the hall. Was she waiting for him?
‘Barbara, I . . .’ he began.
‘I’m sorry, Justin,’ she said.
‘But do you . . . Will you . . .’ He struggled to get the words out.
‘I know I’ve been a bitch,’ she said.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘You’re a really sweet guy Justin.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Are you going to stay?’
‘I’m not staying here. I can’t.’
‘No, I understand. Can I come with you?’
Her hand reached for the latch of the front door. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘But . . .’ he began, thinking of so many things to say.
She pulled the door open, slipped through, and was gone.
The heavy wooden door filled his vision.
As it moved in and out of focus, Justin became aware that Matt was standing next to him.
‘Oh well,’ Matt said. ‘Looks like we both lost. No hard feelings?’
The flash of rage was so instant and powerful that Justin was already swivelling round before he realized what was happening. He felt his right fist clench and his left shoulder drop. There was still time to abort. But Matt’s fat lip was already beginning to curl. Justin put all his strength behind it.
Thirty-three
The impact was surprisingly painful. An angry scraping of lip impaled on teeth. But the blow was not hard and it was more the shock that made Matt stagger back several paces.
After the pain came astonishment, wonder, and then a slow, rising exultation. As he put his hand to his mouth and felt blood seeping through his fingers, Matt knew that he had won.
Justin was open-mouthed, blinking at him, as if not quite comprehending what he had done. Matt looked questioningly back at him, then saw to his delight that Rosie was standing in the doorway to the dining room, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. Her brow folded slowly into a reproving frown.