Why hadn’t they just stayed in Bethnal Green? No one cared what you did there! You could drop dead in the street and people would just step over you! There was no Colin Carse, telling you the right way to unhang a door, or constant flyers being posted through the door asking you to sweep up your hedge clippings and not put bird food on the ground and whatever-the-fuck else – Vince loses track of it all. Suddenly he has an overwhelming urge to rewind the clock so they’d be back in their old flat, with Shawn and Jules from upstairs forever popping in and guzzling their wine and making Kate howl with laughter.
It doesn’t help that, earlier today, Deborah was plaguing Vince with messages:Could I pop round for some ras-el-hanout?
What the fuck? Was that code for some kind of exotic sex? In normal times he’d have been in a stew of excitement. But with all that’s happened lately, Vince wasn’t sure he could cope with any startling developments. His response was a curt ‘?’
A spice mix,she replied.Forgot to get some and am cooking now. Assumed you’d have some from making yours?
From making his what? Oh, of course. The mythical tagine that’s going to taunt him until the end of time.Sorry used ours up,he fibbed in reply.
Damn. Anything I can use instead?
What was this? Some kind of terrible test?
A blend of the major spices should do it,he replied. Then he tucked his phone away in his desk drawer where it could no longer harass him, and pictured his lies, stacked up like Jenga bricks: a great wobbling tower that the slightest wrong move could send toppling down.
Still, it’s no big deal, he reminds himself now, as he buttons up his smartest shirt and checks that nothing untoward is sprouting out of his nostrils or ears. (He’s let personal grooming slip of late.) It’s only a casual supper to chat about book festival stuff.
In fact, he decides, as he gives Jarvis a friendly head ruffle as he sets out, he doesn’t even have to stay for the duration. He can show his face briefly, explain that Kate’s been under the weather with a virus, and that he thinks he’s getting it too. Or – another idea hits him – she had to rush off to London to tend to her mother who’d fallen off a stepladder while trying to change a lightbulb.We’ve told her to ask a neighbour to help instead of insisting on doing it herself!
Does that sound feasible? As Vince heads down the street, clutching his bottle of red wine on this warm and somewhat humid Saturday evening, he decides instead to say that Kate’s away on a retreat. An open-ended retreat – meaning he doesn’t know when she’ll be home.
She’s taking a bit of time out to find herself.Never mind that he normally pours scorn on people who talk like that, about ‘finding’ anything that’s not a tangible object like, say, their car keys. Yep, that’ll do, he decides.
He’s the last one to arrive at Deborah’s. Everyone is already quaffing Prosecco and picking at ‘nibbles’ – tiny bread discs adorned with various daubings, as if squeezed from paint tubes. Obviously, Kate’s absence is commented upon immediately. Lacking confidence in his fibbing abilities, Vince mutters vaguely that something came up, and she’s sorry she couldn’t make it. Hopefully that’ll be that, he decides.
However, once dinner is served, and everyone is tucking into Deborah’s tagine, Vince senses gusts of suspicion wafting from her every time she glances at him.
She knows, he realises. Any minute now—
‘So,’ she booms – her voice is the kind that ‘carries’ – ‘whereisKate tonight, Vince? Is everything all right at home?’
His heart clangs like a can kicked into the road. He opens his mouth, about to spout hogwash about a retreat or a virus or elderly ladies teetering ill-advisedly on stepladders.And then she fell and dislocated her shoulder!But he can’t do it. It’s all tangled up in his brain (retreat? Virus? Stepladder?) and as his cheeks burn, it all tumbles out of his mouth. Not the tagine, which is probably delicious, even without the crucial spice mix. No, the truth is what splurges out, in front of his neighbours and platters of flatbreads and salads and glasses of red wine.
‘So, I might as well tell you. Kate’s actually gone.’
They’re all staring at him. Sporty Colin, Deborah, Gail and Mehmet, Radish Sue, and Agata and Lenny Kemp. All those eyes boring into his skull. Vince feels utterly exposed, as if he’s blundered into Deborah’s immaculate dining room having forgotten to put on his trousers.
‘Gone?’ Gail repeats. ‘You don’t mean...’
‘Oh, no. Notgone-gone,’ Vince blusters.
‘Oh my God, Vince.’ Deborah clasps a hand to her chest. ‘I thought... you know. Somethingawfulhad happened...’
Well, it has, of course. ‘No, she’s just left me. So maybe it’s notthatawful, when you think of alternative scenarios...’ His attempt at lightening the mood seems to miss its mark.
‘When did this happen?’ Colin asks, frowning.
‘Um, a couple of weeks ago...’
‘Vince, mate.’ He slaps an unwelcome hand on Vince’s shoulder. ‘Really sorry to hear that.’
‘You should’ve said something,’ adds Agata. ‘It’s far too much to carry around all by yourself. We’re all here for you any time. Honestly, Vince. You don’t have be alone with this.’ Her eyes widen with concern.
And now everyone’s commiserating, with Gail asking how he isreally, and if there’s anything he needs... ‘I mean, anything,’ she gushes.
‘I did wonder,’ Deborah offers, with a pained expression, ‘if Kate was all right at that party of yours.’
‘Didn’t seem like herself,’ Colin offers sagely, and Vince prickles with annoyance. He barely knows Kate. How dare he have an opinion on her!
