‘What’s the project?’
‘That’s the thing. It’s highly confidential. I’ve been working alone on it, but I need some help. I was waiting to see . . . well, I was waiting to see if you’d be suitable. But I think you will be. It’s—’ He turns away from her abruptly. ‘Fuck,’ he says, and a man appears in front of them, his hands held up in front of him as if to say he comes in peace. Lucy looks between the two of them, Edgar’s face wary, the other man’s challenging, one eyebrow raised, before the men wrap their arms round each other, in what could be an embrace or a death grip.
Lucy feels light-headed. The bubble has burst, and for a moment the noise in the bar threatens to overwhelm her.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Edgar says, stepping back from the embrace, his hands still on the stranger’s shoulders. The anger has faded from his face, but there’s still a trace of suspicion. ‘You’re the last person I expected to see here.’
Lucy swallows her disappointment. She was hoping to have Edgar to herself.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here?’ Edgar says.
‘I thought you might try and avoid me.’ The man speaks with a slight accent. There’s a shake in his voice. The sense of disappointment Lucy was feeling shifts, makes way for something different. She’s still in the inner circle, still privileged, witnessing what is clearly a deeply personal moment.
‘Forget all that shit. This is you and me. You know I’d always want to see you.’ Edgar turns to Lucy. ‘Lucy, meet Victor. One of my colleagues from – God, I don’t know, about ten years ago? Victor, this is Lucy, one of my masters students, though you would think she was a post-doc. She’s brilliant.’
Victor reaches out his hand and Lucy shakes it, taking him in at the same time. He’s younger than Edgar, she reckons, though not by too much. Less grey in his hair, fewer wrinkles. Also very good-looking. The hair-flicking around them has doubled in intensity. Lucy catches herself doing the same and grips her glass with both hands to stop it.
‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too,’ he says, smiling at her.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Edgar says. ‘We need to speak properly. Let’s go and get food somewhere.’
‘What about the conference dinner?’ Lucy says.
‘Fuck the conference dinner. This is more important,’ he says. He takes each of them by the arm and pulls them through the bar. The bubble is back around them, now expanded to include Victor. As Lucy clocks all the envious glances darting in her direction as she leaves with the two men, she’s happy to welcome him inside.
CCTV
Charybdis walks into the kitchen, bottle in one hand, a bunch of lilies in the other. She’s grinning, more a grimace than a smile. Drinking from the bottle as she goes, she takes a large jar and fills it with water before putting it on the table.
She arranges the lilies in the jar before sitting down at the table, bottle in front of her, waiting for someone.
A while later, Scylla comes into the room. She looks tired. When she sees the flowers, her face tightens, her mouth disappearing into a straight line. She goes straight for the jar and pulls them out, bashing their heads against the table until all the petals have been knocked off.
Charybdis laughs. She continues to drink from the whisky bottle, though it’s having no visible effect on her, other than the growing sneer on her face. Scylla lunges, grabbing the bottle and taking a long swig, coughing after she swallows before taking another swig. Charybdis tries to get the bottle back from her – Scylla takes two more deep swallows before handing it back.
When she has the bottle safely back in her possession, Charybdis goes through the door at the back of the kitchen and out of shot. Scylla stands in the middle of the room, swaying, before she sits down at the table and bursts into tears.
28
Although it’s Saturday night, the three of them manage to find a table at a restaurant easily enough. Edgar leads the way in, seating Victor opposite him and Lucy to his right. She’s pleased that she still gets to sit next to him, until he and Victor become engrossed in conversation. She might as well not be there. So much for her nonsensical fantasies of how the evening would play out.
A waiter appears beside them to take their order for drinks, and Lucy interrupts the men to draw their attention. Edgar turns to her almost with confusion when she taps at his arm, mouth still open, mid-sentence. He asks for a bottle of red wine without even checking what the other two are drinking, before waving the waiter away.
Lucy raises an eyebrow at his presumptuous behaviour, half-irritated, half-entertained, and Victor catches her eye, a similar expression on his face.
‘Still the same Edgar,’ he says, interrupting their conversation to include Lucy. ‘I haven’t seen him for ten years but nothing has changed.’ His words might be critical, but his tone is far from it, a fondness that’s survived all this time. Lucy is impressed; it’s yet another virtue of Edgar’s that he can inspire loyalty and friendship like this, not just the lust that so many have shown him.
Including her. She sits on her hands to stop them from reaching up inadvertently to her hair, smiling back at Victor.
‘We need to include our friend here in the conversation,’ he continues, gesturing at Lucy. ‘There will be plenty of time for all this.’
Edgar nods, no sign of annoyance that he’d prefer not to be interrupted. ‘Sorry, Lucy. Of course. It’s just been such a long time . . .’
‘How come so long?’ Lucy says. ‘I mean, pandemic aside.’
The men look at each other with rueful expressions, almost shame-faced, as if they’ve been caught doing something wrong. Then they speak, both of them at once, before Edgar prevails.
