by Alexis Hall
“Not often. You know, once or twice a week maybe.”
I glanced at Oliver, who was scrutinising the menu as if he hoped he’d somehow missed the non-dead-animal option. Was this a fake boyfriend job? It was probably a fake boyfriend job. And if I did it right, he might start paying attention to me. Fuck, I was pathetic.
“I should have mentioned,” I said gallantly, “Oliver’s a vegetarian.”
“I’m so sorry.” Miffy gazed at him with genuine concern. “What happened? Is there anything anyone can do?”
Oliver gave a wry smile. “I’m afraid not. But please don’t worry, I’ll manage.”
“No no,” Alex protested. “I’m sure it’s fine. Let’s ask James.” He made a gesture and a completely different butling person who still, apparently, answered to the name James appeared at his elbow. “I say, James. Queer business. Seems I’ve accidentally brought a vegetarian.”
James did one of those mini-bows straight off Downton Abbey. “I’m sure the chef can accommodate the lady, sir.”
“I’m not a vegetarian.” Miffy’s eyes widened in outrage. “My father’s an earl.”
“I do apologise, madam.”
Oliver made a charmingly bashful gesture. “I’m afraid I’m the difficulty, James. If you could arrange something along the lines of a garden salad, that would be more than sufficient.”
He took the rest of our orders, and twenty minutes later we were surrounded by various meats, most of them roasted, some of them in pastry, and Oliver had an actually quite pleasant-looking pile of leaves. I mean, I wouldn’t personally have wanted it for dinner, but I guess it served him right for having ethics.
Alex regarded Oliver with a pained expression. “Are you absolutely sure you’re all right with that? Miffy and I have plenty of Wellington if you want some.”
“It’s fine. I’m enjoying my salad.”
“If it’s the meatiness that’s an issue, we could mix it up with the cabbage.”
“I think it would still contain meat?”
So, my cunning plan to win Oliver over by being sensitive to his needs and respectful of his choices? That had failed hard. I pointedly shovelled a large scoop of game pie into my mouth. After all, if food was going in, words couldn’t be coming out. Which, given my contribution to the conversation so far, was probably best for everyone.
Miffy reappeared from behind the beef Wellington. “Well, I’m sorry. I just think that’s silly. I mean, what would we do with meat if we didn’t eat it? Just let it go off?”
“Well, that’s actually quite a complicated question.” Oliver deftly speared a radish. “And the answer is mostly that we’d slaughter fewer animals.”
“Then wouldn’t there be too many animals? What would we do with all the cows?”
“I think we’d breed fewer cows as well.”
“Bit of a rum deal for the cows then, isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “To say nothing of the farmers. We have some jolly lovely farmers on our land. They make a beautiful showing at the harvest festival and give us such nice hams at Christmas. And here you are trying to put them all out of work. It’s rather rotten of you, Oliver.”
“You see”—Alex wagged his fork playfully—“you’ve set her off on one now. And she’s right, you know. I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”
Still determinedly masticating, I stole a peek at Oliver to see how was taking this, and he seemed surprisingly comfortable. Well, he was a barrister. He’d had a lot of practice being polite to posh people. “I do admit that the economic implications of large-scale shifts in the national diet are more complicated than people often give them credit for being. But the vast majority of meat we eat nowadays is unlikely to have been produced by the type of farmer you’re talking about, and industrialised agriculture is actually quite a significant threat to the countryside.”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” said Alex. “Maybe you have thought it through. Didn’t I say he was frightfully clever?”
Miffy nodded. “Yes, he’s splendid. I think you chose an excellent fake boyfriend, Ally.”
“Hang on.” I nearly choked on shortcrust. “He’s not Ally’s…I mean, Alex’s fake boyfriend. He’s my fake boyfriend. Also we should probably stop loudly saying the word ‘fake’ because it’s kind of giving the game away.”
Alex had reverted to his ordinary state of confusion. “Are you completely sure? Because I definitely remember it being my idea.”
“Yes, it was an idea for how I could fix my reputation.”
“It seems a shame.” Miffy had finished her beef Wellington and was making inroads into Alex’s. “Ally and Ollie seem to be getting on terribly well. Of course, their couple name would be Ollivander, which I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere before.”
“I think,” offered Oliver, “it’s the name of the wand-maker from Harry Potter.”
Suddenly, Alex let out a joyful yelp. “So it is. I should have spotted that immediately. I’ve read the whole series thirty-eight times. Didn’t mean to. Just, by the time I got to the end, I forgot how it started. Only thing I’ve read more is The Republic.”
“Yeah.” I tried to catch Oliver’s eye and failed. “I can see how those two fandoms overlap.”
Alex was still beaming like he had a coat hanger in his mouth. “It brings back such happy memories. When the films came out, I got all my college pals together, and we sat in the front row of the cinema and shouted ‘House’ every time the old alma mater popped up on screen.”
This was one of those gatekeepery anecdotes that you needed an English/Posh Git dictionary to make any sense of. Why was Alex’s house in a Harry Potter movie?
“Oh”—Oliver, of course, had read the English/Posh Git dictionary at the age of four and now had his tell-me-more face on, which I really preferred him to be directing at me—“so you’re a Christ Church man?”
That made more sense. Although if there was anyone I’d have believed went to Hogwarts, it was Alex.
“For my sins. Same as Pater. And Mater, for that matter. Bit of a family tradish, actually. Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great…” Alex started ticking them off on his fingers “…great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpapa used to go on the lash with Cardinal Woolsey. I mean, until he got exiled. No fun after that.”
Oliver was still attending courteously. Polite bastard. “No, I can’t imagine he would be.”
“So what about you? You didn’t go to the other place, did you? Could explain rather a lot.”
Miffy elbowed him.
“I mean,” Alex added hastily, “the vegetarianism. Not the homosexuality.”
“Oriel.”
And they were back to their private code. I’d just about worked out that House was an Oxford thing. So where was the other place? Was it hell? If so, Hi, weather’s lovely down here. And as far as I knew, Oriel was either a songbird or a biscuit. What was even happening right now?
This, right here, was why somebody like Oliver would never date somebody like me in real life.
Alex nodded approvingly. “Good show. Knew lots of splendid chaps from Oriel. Mostly rugger fellows, you know. Did you go in for that?”
“No,” said Oliver. “I was very committed to my studies. I’m afraid I was rather boring at college.”
“You’re rather boring now,” I muttered, perhaps a teensy bit louder than I meant to.
Which made Oliver look at me, finally. But not in the way I wanted.
“Luc,” cried Miffy. “I thought Oliver was supposed to be your boyfriend. That’s a beastly way to talk about him.”
Now Alex was glaring at me as well. “Well said, old thing. Can’t go around badmouthing the ladies like that. I mean, gentlemen. I mean, your gentleman.”
“If I were you”—Miffy patted Oliver on the hand—“I’d kick him to the kerb, girlfriend. Bo
yfriend. Oh I say, that doesn’t work.”
“I’m inclined to agree, Miffles.” Alex wagged his fork sternly. “I would never have suggested Luc get a boyfriend if I knew he was going to rag on the fellow. You should probably leave him and go out with me instead. Hashtag Ollivander.”
Miffy nodded. “Yes, do go out with Ally. I could have one of you on each arm. It’d be the most ripping lark.”
“For fuck’s sake”—once again, I was slightly louder than I meant to be—“stop trying to steal my boyfriend. You don’t even like men.”
Alex gave me a genuinely wounded look. “Of course I like men. All my friends are men. My father’s a man. You’re the one who’s being horrid to everybody. Telling Oliver he’s boring when he’s an Oxford fellow and has been dashed good company all evening. And now implying I’m the sort of chap who doesn’t get along with other chaps. When really”—here, Alex turned downright haughty—“it’s becoming very clear to me that you’re the sort of chap who doesn’t get along with other chaps. I really feel I ought to apologise, Oliver.”
“Do me a favour.” I stood up. “Don’t apologise for my behaviour to my boyfriend. I’ve had nothing but fucking Oxford talk for this entire fucking meal. I know it’s stupid to complain about feeling excluded from your little private club when we are literally sitting in a little private club but, sorry, it’s been long day and, yes, you’re trying to do me a favour, but I’m having the worst fucking evening and…and I’m going to the toilet.”
I stormed off, discovered I had no idea where the loos were, asked one of the Jameses, and made an embarrassing U-turn. Once I was safely in the gents—which were tasteful but simplistic like they were saying “Only Americans and the middle classes feel the need to put marble in a water closet”—I stood at the sink and did that thing people do in movies where they brace themselves on the counter and stare meaningfully at their reflection.
Turns out, it didn’t help. It was just a dick, looking at a dick, asking why he was always such a dick.
What was I even doing? Oliver Blackwood was a dull, annoying man I was pretending to date, and Alex Twaddle was an overprivileged buffoon who regularly stapled his trousers to his desk. What did I care if they got on with each other better than they got on with me?
Ooh, ooh, tally-ho toodle pip, which college were you at where did you sit at the annual duck following ceremony go fuck yourselves you self-satisfied pair of testes.
Okay, so calling them names didn’t help either.
And, actually, Oliver wasn’t dull. And he was only a little bit annoying. And Alex was terribly annoying, but he’d done nothing but try to help me. Maybe, and I’d suspected this for a while now, I was fundamentally unhelpable. Because somewhere along the line, I’d turned getting ahead of the story into a lifestyle.
When Miles had thrown me to the tabloid sharks, I’d been completely unprepared, and the only way I’d survived was by making sure that there was enough chum in the water that they’d only eat what I wanted them to. It had only half worked, but by the time I figured that out, the habit was so ingrained that I was doing the same with people.
The truth was, things were easier that way. It meant whatever happened wasn’t really about me. It was about this shadow person who partied and fucked and didn’t give a shit. So what did it matter if someone didn’t like him? Didn’t want him. Let him down or sold him out.
Except he wasn’t dating Oliver—pretending to date Oliver—I was. And so, suddenly it all mattered again, and I wasn’t sure I could cope with it mattering. The door swung open, and for a biscuit crumb of a second I hoped it might be Oliver coming to rescue me. And that was precisely the sort of crap I wanted out of my head. Anyway, it didn’t matter because it wasn’t Oliver. It was an old guy in tweed who looked like Father Christmas if Father Christmas only had a naughty list.
“Who are you?” he barked.
I jumped. “Luc? Luc O’Donnell?”
“Weren’t you once up before me for public defecation?”
“What? No. I defecate very privately.”
Evil Father Christmas narrowed his eyes. “I never forget a face, young man, and I don’t like yours. Besides, never trusted the Irish.”
“Um.” Probably I should have stood up for my mother’s father’s people but I increasingly wanted to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately Racist Santa was blocking the exit. “Sorry about the…face. I really need to—”
“What are you doing here anyway?”
“Using the…facilities?”
“Loitering. That’s what you’re doing. Lurking in a communal lavatory like you’re waiting for Jeremy Thorpe.”
“I really just want to go back to my friends.”
I managed to sidle past him with my hands in the air like I was being arrested. His head did almost a full exorcist as his cold, dead eyes followed me out. “I’m watching you O’Toole. Never forget a face. Never forget a name.”
Back at the table, my so-called companions were enjoying my absence.
“—quarter blue for tiddlywinks in the end,” Alex was saying cheerfully. “Miffy’s the real sportsman. I mean, sportslady. Suppose we’d better be politically correct about these things. Full blue for lacrosse, don’t you know. Invited to join Team GB but turned it down, didn’t you, old girl? Wanted to focus on… Oh I say, what is it you do, Miffy?”
I sat down, trying to figure out if I was relieved or pissed off that everyone was carrying on as if I hadn’t made an enormous scene.
Miffy tapped her perfect lips with a perfect nail. “Now you come to mention it, I have no idea. I think I’ve got an office somewhere, and I might be launching some kind of line, but mostly I just get invited to parties. Not like Ally, who’s got an actual, you know, job. Which everybody thinks is terribly funny. But he goes in every day, which is so good of him, isn’t it?”
This would have been a great time for me to be mature and say sorry. “I’m not sure,” I said instead, “‘good of him’ is the right phrase. Maybe more ‘contractually obligated’ of him?”
“Are you quite certain?” Alex tilted his head like a bewildered parrot. “That doesn’t seem quite cricket. Chap makes a commitment, chap follows through on it. One doesn’t need to get all legal about things—no offence, Oliver.”
“None taken.” Of course Oliver wasn’t taking offence. Oliver was an angel. While I was a slime demon from the planet Jerkface.
“Well, I say it’s splendid. And, of course”—here Miffy bestowed a dazzling smile on me, which in the circumstances felt an awful lot like a participation trophy—“you’re splendid too, Luc. Since you do the same job.”
Great. So now not only did Oliver know that my job wasn’t something I was passionate about, the way he was about his, but he was also going to think you could do it with about three functioning brain cells.
“Oh no,” exclaimed Alex. “Luc’s much more important than I am. No clue what he does, but it seems terribly complicated and involves, oh, what do you call them? Things with the little boxes?”
Miffy wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “Cricket teams?”
“Not quite, old girl. Spreadsheets, that’s the word. I just muck about with the photocopier, check we don’t have more than two meetings in the same room at the same time, and keep Daisy alive.”
“Who’s Daisy?” asked Oliver, still ignoring me but, let’s be honest, I probably deserved it.
“She’s the aloe vera I’m growing in the filing cabinet. Our social media chappie burns himself on the coffee machine quite a lot, and Nurse always used aloe vera on us when we were small and it’s jolly efficacious. In fact, I’m thinking we might need two because the poor dear is looking quite denuded in the leaf department.”
“On another topic,” I announced, changing the subject with all the grace and subtlety of someone saying Can we change the subject now, “a scary old man went for me
in the bathroom. I mean, yelled at me. Not, like, tried to hit on me.”
“Thank you for clarifying that.” It was Oliver’s driest tone. So far Operation Come Across as a Total Prick was running ahead of schedule.
Alex frowned. “How very rum. Did you do anything to provoke him?”
My apology window had closed an aloe vera ago. So I was basically stuck with sort of pretending I hadn’t been awful, even though I blatantly had, and trying to find the mythical middle ground between making it worse and overcompensating. “Nice to know you’re taking his side already. But, for the record, no. I was minding my own business by the sink when this mad old coot barged in and—”
“Alex, m’boy,” bellowed the mad old coot, materialising behind me like the serial killer in a horror movie. “How’s the old man?”
“Can’t complain, Randy. Can’t complain.”
“Very much enjoyed his speech in the Lords recently about, oh, what was it…”
“Badgers?”
“No, not badgers. Those other, what do you call them…immigrants.”
“Ah yes. Sounds like Daddy. Oh”—Alex gave a little start—“by the way, I should introduce you. You remember Clara, of course.”
“’Course I do. Never forget a face.”
“And these are my friends, Luc and Oliver.”
His eyes lasered over us and I wilted in my seat. “Pleasure. Any friend of a Twaddle is a friend of mine. But I should warn you, stay out the bathroom—there’s a mad Irish bastard ambushing people in there.”
“Actually, Your Honour,” said Oliver, in his best If it please m’lud, counsel is testifying voice, “we’ve met. I had a client before you last month.”
“Nonsense. Never forget a face. Got no idea who you are.” A pause. “Still”—he brightened—“did we get the bugger?”
“I was counsel for the defence, Your Honour, and the defence was, in this instance, successful.”
The judge scowled at Oliver, who met his look with studied mildness. “Well. Suppose we can’t catch ’em all. I’ll leave you to your dinner. See you at the Swan Upping, Alex, if not before.”