A weight grew in Kester's stomach, prequel to letting down a friend. He got out his Book, picked John from his favourites and tapped 'call'. It rang long enough that he thought it would go to answer-phone and then John picked up, surprising him.
'Hello, mate,' John said. 'You all set?'
'Oh, hi,' Kester replied, as if he hadn't expected to speak to John. 'Actually I'm just calling to say I can't –'
'You can't come,' John cut in and then paused before he continued. 'Typical. Dee's just cancelled on me too.'
'Oh, in that case…'
'Don't worry, I get it. Yes, you can still come. You guys are like children you know.'
'I know.' Kester laughed. 'But you know what she's like. Did you really want your dinner party to end in blood and snot?'
John laughed.
'I'll see you at seven.'
Kester looked at his watch again. He sat for five more minutes before he left, figuring that would make him just late enough.
Unfortunately, everyone else was late for real reasons – disorganisation, the tube – so Kester made a lonely entrance.
'Finally, a guest!' John said, smacking him on the back as he came through the door. 'I was beginning to think nobody was coming.'
'I brought some wine,' said Kester, passing a bottle to John, who added it to the row on the worktop.
'I got a bit overexcited in the wine aisle,' John said, shaking his head.
'I don't think it'll be a problem,' Kester said.
The door buzzer went and John rushed past him into the hall.
'Don't be mad!' John called as he pressed the button on the videocom.
'What?' Kester asked.
'Hiiiii!' Betta's voice screeched through the speaker.
'Nothing!' John called. 'Not talking to you!'
John opened the front door and then hovered in the hall, waiting for them to make their way up the stairs.
'So are things, you know…have you spoken to her?' John asked.
'To Dee?' Kester said. 'You must be kidding. She totally went off.'
'But she'll be OK though. I mean you guys were drunk – and you said the virus was nothing, really.'
Kester reached for the decanter close to him and helped himself to a glass of red. 'She doesn't quite see it that way.'
The hall was small with voices. Betta and Sienna bubbled past John into the kitchen.
'Kester!' Sienna rushed forward and gave him a hug.
'No men with you?' Kester asked.
'Nope,' said Sienna, 'we've given up on the men thing. Every one we invite to one of these stupid parties high-tails it quick sharp afterwards. It's our intimidatingly witty banter.'
'So we're each other's dates tonight,' Betta said, swinging an arm around Sienna's shoulders and kissing her on the cheek.
'Fair enough.' Kester laughed.
'No lady with you?' Betta asked.
'Touchy subject,' John said, pushing past to get to the wine. He filled two more glasses and handed them out.
'Ooh, lovely,' said Sienna. 'I was getting bored of cocktails.'
'Shh,' said Betta, blushing. 'We went for just a little one before we came round. Girl stuff, you know.'
'You don't say,' John said. 'I could smell the fumes through the intercom. Right, everyone go through, take a seat. Dinner's nearly ready.'
Kester counted the place settings as they sat down. There were six.
'Who else is coming, John?' he called through to the kitchen, where John was rummaging in cupboards.
'Just the old guard tonight,' came a muffled reply, 'but no Calvin. You know he's gone to the Max Planck in Freiburg?'
'Fancy!'
The buzzer went a second time.
'Don't be mad!' John called again.
Kester could hear him answering the intercom.
'Hello, darling – oh you brought him!' said John. A few moments later, as the flat door opened, he said again, 'Don't be mad!'
Kester could hear voices in the corridor. There was chattering for a moment and then silence. There was some hissed conversation, followed by clanking in the kitchen and then Dee came striding through the door. Kester started. Her eyes were golden. The effect was fading but was still there.
'Hello everyone!' she said.
She put her arms out, then dropped them and moved to a chair before anyone had a chance to get up and greet her. She was followed closely by a man that Kester didn't recognise. He had the air of a stag about him, chivalrous poise worn over a pungent masculinity. Kester noticed his suit – the fact that he was even wearing a suit, for starters. It was expensive, but not ostentatious, with colour-co-ordinated ads and looked more like it was made from a beige liquid than from fabric. He wasn't an academic.
The man's eyes darted between the three guests. Sienna grinned at him and Betta blushed and smiled. He swung his jacket from his shoulders to the back of his chair in one fluid movement, putting Kester in mind of a matador. As he sat down, Kester thought he could see the shadow of some marking through his shirt – a tattoo? Or was he wearing?
Dee introduced him. 'This is Sebastian.'
'Hello, everyone,' Sebastian said and then turned his attention to Kester. 'I won't pretend I haven't seen your picture here and there – nice to meet you, Doctor Lowe.'
'Please, Kester,' Kester said, standing slightly so he could lean across the table to shake hands. Sebastian's handshake was a little more firm than necessary, but the smile never left his face.
The conversation was stilted at first and was only just kept afloat by John as he drifted back and forth from the kitchen, bringing the starters and various extras he had forgotten to put on the table.
'Jesus, John, sit down,' Kester said eventually. 'There can't possibly be anything left to bring through.'
John grinned and sat down to begin the meal.
'Get stuck in everyone,' he said and snatched up his knife and fork.
After a few moments of clanking cutlery and appreciative noises, Sebastian sat back in his chair and picked up his glass. He looked like he owned the place, made it feel like there might be many rooms beyond this one, long halls, a sweeping staircase, a library.
'So, Kester, tell me about your viruses.'
Kester, in the middle of a mouthful, tried to swallow quickly so he could answer.
'Obviously I've seen what you did with Dee's eyes – it's most impressive.'
Dee cut in, 'I explained to Sebastian that you needed a test-case for your interview.'
'She's very brave to offer herself up as a guinea pig like that, don't you think?' Sebastian looked over at Dee.
'Yes.' Kester glanced between the two of them, trying and failing to read them.
'You say that,' Sienna said, waving her glass, 'but scientists are always experimenting on each other. I remember when Kester was developing a vaccine for some nasty and we'd run out of funding for human torsos. You remember John? Oh – you know what a torso is, Sebastian?'
'Yes. A person with no head, no consciousness – for testing on, right?'
'A person? Let's not get controversial,' Sienna said. 'They just call it a torso because of the obvious resemblance – it's just a bag of humanoid bits and pieces that acts like a body. Anyway, Kester's at the end of an important project, making this vaccine and he runs out of funding. His trials are stuck in the mud and he needs to do one more clinical test to get the numbers up to the required level before it can be licensed. So what does he do? He tests it on himself.'
'You make me sound like a mad scientist,' Kester said. 'We knew it was safe by then – it was just a matter of getting the admin right.'
Sebastian laughed. 'And it wouldn't be the first time a scientist who was sure of him or herself put themselves in the hot seat, right? It seems like quite a lot of pioneering scientists have been forced to test their own methods and theories on themselves. I've read a bit about it. It's pretty gripping stuff.'
'Yes.' Kester held Sebastian's eyes to see if he was genuinely interested but
it was Dee's face that confirmed it. She was pissed off that they had something in common. Kester smiled. 'I read a book about smallpox when I was doing my general education. That's what got me started down this path.'
'Yes,' Dee said, 'you were quite the idealist when you started out.'
'Yes, yes, it's fascinating,' Sebastian said. 'Jenner, wasn't it, who first managed to prevent it – he made a vaccine out of cowpox.' He turned to Dee as he said this. Misreading her expression, he added, 'But of course, you already know that.'
'Jenner made the first vaccine,' Kester replied, 'but it was actually a woman called Lady Mary something – a noblewoman who'd had smallpox herself – she started the ball rolling in the West.'
'Really?'
'She travelled to Constantinople – her husband was an ambassador, I think – and she saw people being inoculated against smallpox there.'
'Inoculated?' Sebastian said, puzzled. 'Isn't that the same thing?'
'They were using smallpox scrapings,' Kester explained, to various disgusted noises. 'You put a little bit of infected material into a person's vein. It's enough to produce a small scale infection and resulting immunity, but not enough to kill the host, usually.'
'Usually!' Sebastian laughed.
'Quite – that's why Jenner developed the vaccination as a safer option. In layman's terms vaccination uses weakened or dead viral matter to provoke an immune response.' Kester took a sip of wine. 'Montagu, that was it, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.'
'Wortley!' Sebastian laughed again. 'How fabulous.'
'I know. She was so sure of herself that she had her son inoculated to try and convince people of the effectiveness of it. And her daughter, I think.'
'Really?' Sebastian leaned forward. 'Did she ask them? Tell them what she was doing?'
'Smallpox,' said Dee. 'What charming dinner conversation.'
Kester ignored her.
'So what do you do, Sebastian?' he asked, sitting forward in his chair.
'I'm a fund manager,' Sebastian said.
Dee looked up at Kester, lifting her cutlery so that it rested upright in her clenched fists, pointing at the ceiling.
'Wow,' Kester said.
'You seem surprised,' Sebastian said.
'I am. You're not the sort of type that normally mixes in the scientific community.'
'That's mad,' said Sienna. 'Where on earth did she find you?'
'It was peculiar. We were both at an art exhibition launch. I'd had rather too much champagne and I commented on her eyes. We got talking. When she told me about her screens project I was fascinated.' He shrugged as if to say, 'and here we are'.
Kester raised his eyebrows. Her screens project.
'Her screens project. Yes,' Kester said, 'how is that going, Dee. Last thing I heard you couldn't get funding.'
'This latest application is different,' Dee said, lifting her nose in the air. 'They've fast-tracked it to the final round. Seems like I might be better off doing it on my own.'
Kester watched her closely. She was still strangling her cutlery, which must mean something: she was bluffing, she was angry, she was on the defensive.
'I can't believe you met at an art exhibition. How did you end up there?' Sienna asked.
'I'm a member of the gallery,' Dee replied. 'They send me free tickets to these things all the time.'
'You never take me!'
'You don't like art.'
'I like champagne.'
'Fund management,' Kester said. 'It's not the sort of thing I thought Dee would approve of. Not unless it's the kind of fund she could apply to.'
Sebastian looked surprised and Kester instantly regretted saying it.
'I was steaming when we met, you see.' Dee held Kester's eye as she said this.
'You were pretty drunk.' Sebastian laughed. 'You were mooning about some guy, I recall. She wasn't at all impressed by my job until I mentioned that I specialise in ethical funds.'
'Anyway.' Dee's smile was factory-made. 'We were both drunk. We slept together and guess what – top marks for compatibility.'
Sebastian's colour rose but he was too polite to say anything. He picked up his cutlery and started picking at the remains of his starter.
'You scanned him?' Kester asked, horrified.
'And you're telling us,' John said. 'How rude – really, Dee.'
'Everyone does it darling. Didn't you know that? Tell him Betta.'
Betta looked apologetic and held out for a few moments before crumbling under Dee's stare.
'I'm afraid so,' she said, nodding and giggling.
'Sienna?' Dee said.
'Always!' Sienna looked pleased with herself. 'Unless I already think I've made a mistake! No use finding out someone's super-compatible if you think they're a dog.'
'Or a moron,' Dee said.
'You scan everyone you sleep with?' Kester asked her. He took a long swig of wine.
'Sure. Everyone.'
Kester stared at her.
'Everyone,' she repeated.
'OK, you two.' John laughed a little too loud. 'I think we've covered that one. Who's ready for steak?'
Betta and Sienna reacted as if this was the best conversational gambit ever and launched into a discussion about the best steaks they'd ever had. Sebastian rose from his seat and offered help with serving. Kester and Dee sat opposite one another, Dee staring, Kester avoiding her stare until the main course arrived.
'So there's no Mrs Kester?' Sebastian said, attempting to revive some semblance of convivial conversation.
'No,' Kester said.
'What about your hot boss, Kester?' John said.
Everyone except Sebastian shot a glance at John, knives from every quadrant sharpened different ways.
'Yes, speaking of steak…didn't you say she had some share in a restaurant?' Sienna said.
'You're getting her confused with that woman from LayTech.' Betta picked up Sienna's cue and ran with it.
Kester ate in silence, letting the conversation garble on around him like a bad dream. Then, when Dee got up to go to the bathroom, he headed for the kitchen.
'More wine?' he asked John, picking up the two wide-mouthed decanters that lay within arm's reach.
'Yes – bring a white and a red will you?'
Kester swapped one of the decanters for a cooling jug, went to the kitchen, filled them and waited. As Dee walked past the doorway, back towards the dining room, Kester called her and reached out to catch her elbow. She followed him into the kitchen more freely than he had expected.
'What's wrong with you?' he asked.
'What's wrong with me? Asks the rogue scientist who sows the seed of his virus wherever he goes?' She had retreated behind blank, drunken eyes.
'You scanned me? Is that what that was all about?' Kester ignored her jibe.
'Kester,' she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper, 'you slept with that bitch at V, gave me a fucking virus and then dumped me. That's what this is about.'
'Dumped you? Dee, you kicked me out. And it was just one night. How can I have dumped you when –'
'You dumped me – dumped our dream.'
He looked again at the traces of gold still in her eyes.
'You liked them then?'
'What?'
'Your golden eyes. You only uploaded a few days ago. I can tell. It's been months.'
Dee slapped him. He didn't respond.
'You just disappeared into your new life. It was the only thing I had –'
'Dee!'
'– the only thing I had to remind me what a cunt you were. I didn't want to let myself forget too quickly,' she said, her face pale, two pinches of red on her cheeks.
With them both out of the room, laughter was flourishing next door.
'You scanned me,' Kester said.
'So? You don't have to ask permission you know.'
'Why would you do that after the fact?'
'For reassurance.'
'What?'
'For reassurance that you were bad news
.' Dee backed away into the corner of the kitchen where the decanter and the jug sat.
'And?' Kester asked, the anger falling out of his voice.
Dee turned away and picked up the two wine vessels.
'And?' Kester repeated.
'Red or white?' Dee asked him, turning round with one in each hand.
'He wants one of each. Now will you tell me?'
'Red or white?'
Kester shrugged his shoulders – she was playing some game he didn't know.
'White,' he said, backed by a roar of hilarity from through the house.
'For fuck's sake, Kester,' Dee screamed, cutting off the laughter, colour flooding her face. She threw the white wine over the front of his shirt, clattering the mouth of the jug off his breastbone. 'You didn't even have the decency to say red.'
She smacked the jug down on the worktop and pushed past John who had appeared in the doorway.
'Oh god,' said John, 'what was I thinking?'
Kester pulled his sodden shirt away from his chest.
'You need to practise your whispering,' John said.
Kester groaned and then winced as the front door slammed. Through the open kitchen window they could hear angry voices below, followed by high heels and leather soles clattering off down the street in opposite directions.
'She scanned me, John,' Kester said, sliding down the kitchen unit to sit on the floor.
John lunged forward. 'Not there mate.' He grabbed Kester's arm and pulled him up. 'You'll have a wine-soaked arse too and I'm not lending you a whole outfit. Come on, I'll get you a fresh shirt.'
'She scanned me.'
'They all do it. You heard them. You remember when we were in school they all played on that name-match compatibility site? Sarah loves Deter 76%? This is the real thing for them.'
Kester sighed. 'But why do it when you've already bust up with someone – when you haven't really even…'
'I don't know, mate. I don't know. But I'm not sure you should take it personally, either way. And for the record, that was bullshit about her funding proposal. She hasn't even finished it yet.' John looked a bit guilty for saying it. 'Do you want to stay here tonight?'
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