Dinner at Mine (12 page)

‘Just a bit.’ Rosie began pushing before Justin could object further. It was a bit rude of her, yes, but she wasn’t the host any more. ‘Thank you so much,’ she
said.

The other end of the table jutted past the fridge, deep into the kitchen where Matt was arranging something on to plates. Rosie noticed, with a sense of satisfaction, that two of them did not
match.

The fish glistened under the bright halogen kitchen lights. Rosie was unreasonably irritated to see that the non-matching plates had been given to the vegetarians, as if they were meant to look
different.

‘This looks lovely, Matt,’ Sarah said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Is it organic?’ she asked.

‘It’s fish,’ Marcus snapped back at her before Matt could respond.

‘So?’

‘It swims wild in the middle of the bloody ocean. How could it be organic?’

‘I don’t know. It’s about not having any nasty hormones and stuff in it, isn’t it?’

‘No.’ Marcus rolled his eyes. ‘It’s about how something is farmed.’

‘Well, fish can be farmed.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Is it farmed, Matt?’ Sarah asked.

‘It’s from the fishmonger Jamie Oliver uses,’ he said. This seemed to end the conversation.

Rosie took a forkful of fish. The flesh was firm and meaty, but as she bit into it she was pleased to discover that the citrus overpowered everything else; she could barely taste the delicate
flavours of the uncooked fish over the acrid tang of lemon and lime. She took another bite. No, this one was hardly better, the marinade still overwhelming everything else.

Rosie grew in confidence. The starter wasn’t a threat, and she couldn’t believe Charlotte’s pudding would be, so it would all come down to the main dish. And surely roast lamb
couldn’t compensate for two indifferent courses? It was reliable, yes, always likely to score well, but it was never going to be spectacular, was it? Rosie watched Justin and Barbara eat
their salad. Some kind of puffy grains dominated; they looked dry and bland. That surely wasn’t going to rescue Matt.

Rosie took a third forkful. The ceviche was almost half gone now. Just as well. That one tasted of nothing but lemon. Poor fish. To have died simply to become a way to mop up lemon juice. Rosie
pushed the last bit round her plate and smiled.

‘Mmm!’ Sarah said. ‘It’s so light and powerful at the same time.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s really subtle and refreshing.’

‘Yes, it’s very nice,’ Stephen added in a low mumble. ‘Very fishy.’

Well, Rosie thought, that was politeness, wasn’t it? It didn’t really mean they liked it.

‘I must say, Matt, this is actually pretty good,’ Marcus said. ‘Simple, but very nicely balanced.’

Rosie was thrown. That sounded sincere. Grudging, yes, but that only underlined the point. Not ‘It’s very lemony, isn’t it?’ or ‘Mmm, the lime really comes through,
doesn’t it?’, but straightforward praise. And if Marcus liked it, maybe Rosie was wrong. Maybe the others did too; maybe the course was going to put Matt out ahead. What hadn’t
she noticed? Was her palate missing some kind of subtlety?

‘Rosie, what do you think?’ Matt asked.

‘Oh it’s lovely,’ she said emphatically. ‘Really very good.’

‘It’s so easy to make,’ Charlotte said.

As they discussed the dish, Rosie began to feel better. She had praised it, but she didn’t like it; perhaps the others were doing the same. Marcus still had to cook, so there was no point
making himself unpopular by slagging it off. Had they all been lying when Rosie cooked? Surely not. They really had seemed impressed. Even Marcus had liked some of the pomegranate molasses . .
.

But that’s what they’d want her to think. How good was she at telling when her friends were lying? Pretty good, she thought. But then, they hardly ever lied, so . . . But of course,
maybe she was actually very bad at telling, and they lied all the time.

It suddenly seemed desperately important to have a way of knowing who wasn’t being honest. Rosie looked suspiciously round the table.

‘. . . but I’ve never been too bothered by the idea of getting older,’ Sarah was saying. ‘It just seems so trivial in the end, doesn’t it?’

Hmm, Rosie thought.

‘It’s the helplessness I can’t stand,’ Stephen said, unexpectedly animated. ‘Just drifting away from youth, quite slowly, actually, but watching it, examining it,
knowing there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.’

‘I like not having to pretend to be young any more,’ Justin said.

‘But you do, you do,’ Stephen said. ‘New generations spring up behind you, all optimistic and hopeful, and you’re expected to keep up with them.’

‘Jesus, Stephen, you’re not even the oldest here,’ Marcus said.

‘Who is?’ Justin asked. Everyone looked round the table. Justin continued: ‘Charlotte, how old are you?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Matt, what about you?’

‘Matt’s younger than I am,’ Rosie said.

‘No! Really?’

‘No need to sound so astonished, Justin. Some people are.’

‘No, I just meant . . . you know. I assumed he was older . . . Sorry, Matt, I only meant, sort of, late thirties.’

‘That’s all right. I don’t mind people assuming that. I can always put them right if I need to. Can’t do that if it’s the other way round.’

‘I suppose Barbara must be the youngest here,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re what, twenty-seven?’

‘Twenty-eight,’ Barbara replied without emotion.

‘A good age,’ Stephen said wistfully. ‘Old enough to feel mature and settled, but young enough to still feel unrushed.’

Barbara looked unimpressed. Stephen said nothing more. Rosie wondered what was wrong. Sometimes he got like that, but not usually after so little wine. She hoped he would enjoy himself tonight,
get into the swing of things. It always cheered him up if he could end the evening thinking he’d been witty and talkative.

Sarah looked tired. Was work getting her down? Or was it something else? Rosie felt like a bad friend for not knowing. She resolved to find out. Probably not this evening, and this weekend would
be difficult . . .

‘What about you, Marcus?’ Stephen asked with a touch of relish. ‘Does anything about the inexorable slide towards decrepitude and death bother you at all?’

‘Oh you know, not really,’ Marcus said with studied casualness. ‘Nothing beyond the usual waking up in the middle of the night sobbing over regrets and lost chances. That sort
of thing.’

‘Marcus gets depressed every birthday thinking about what he hasn’t achieved,’ Sarah said brightly. ‘Comparing himself to other people and the things they have done by
that age.’

‘What do you mean? Like, by my age Alexander the Great had conquered half the world?’ Stephen asked.

‘Not even Alexander the Great,’ Marcus replied. ‘I mean, you know, Norman Foster. Now that is depressing.’

‘Do you know what I always think when I worry about getting older?’ Justin said.

Something about his tone made Rosie very reluctant to hear the answer.

‘I think that, by my age, about a fifth of men in sub-Saharan Africa have already died.’

‘Well, I can see how that would cheer you up,’ Marcus said.

‘It’s a serious point. For one, it puts things into perspective, makes me feel lucky to have everything that I have. But it also makes me angry at the unfairness of it all. Drives it
home to me that it’s our job to go out and do something about it.’

No one seemed to know where to take the conversation after that. Rosie noticed that Charlotte was grimly emptying her glass. Of course, she probably was the oldest, Rosie realized. How old was
she? Rosie wasn’t sure. Thirty-five, perhaps? Did she look it? Well, probably not. Not until you thought about it anyway. There weren’t too many lines on her face, but the plumpness
helped with that.

Was that a bitchy thought? No, it was true, wasn’t it? She was flushed red now, which was giving her skin an uneven, blotchy quality, but it was probably just the wine.

Certainly, she didn’t look middle-aged, though. Not like Marcus. He was going bald at the front of his head and grey at the sides, and he had that odd, angular type of face which it was
hard to imagine ever being young. Those glasses didn’t help either. He looked about forty, but then he had done ever since Rosie met him. Maybe he would look exactly the same in thirty years
and people would start remarking on how well he looked for his age.

Sarah seemed so worn as well. It wasn’t really anything physical, although her skin was definitely sallow, but it was the expression her face had relaxed into as much as anything. Careworn
and nervous. Like fun wasn’t her natural state any more. Rosie wasn’t sure whether to feel sad that someone her own age could look so youthless, or secretly pleased that she looked much
better.

The conversation hadn’t restarted. After a while Matt stood up. ‘Has everyone finished? Shall I take the plates?’

Rosie watched him stand up. His face was naturally craggy, and his skin had a rough, worn sheen to it, but it was still taut. There was just such a focused, contained quality to him that young
people didn’t seem to have. Matt had always had it, though. There was none of the doubt that so many people had when they were young, and none of the buoyancy you saw in others.

Matt piled up all eight plates and began washing them up. Rosie realized these must be all the plates he had.

Charlotte wasn’t getting up to help him. What did that mean? Had they had some kind of falling out already? No, Rosie didn’t think so. When Charlotte didn’t like someone, it
wasn’t hard to tell. There was none of that tension. She was just distracted.

In fact, the body language was quite good. They had been sitting next to each other for a start. Close together too. Angled slightly towards each other. Wasn’t that a good sign?
That’s what it said in
Marie Claire
anyway. They weren’t quite touching, but there had been a couple of glances that suggested a private joke. They were definitely getting on
well.

It would be so much more convenient if they became a couple. Then Rosie could start inviting them to ordinary dinner things. It wouldn’t be a special effort to see either of them any more;
there’d be no more single-friend awkwardness. They could start going to the cinema together, or even the theatre. Rosie allowed herself a moment’s pride. Perhaps it had been some sort
of instinct.

Charlotte snapped out of whatever trance she had been in. ‘Who wants some more wine?’ she asked.

Justin looked round the table, silently asking if anyone wanted to take up his offer of a discussion on global inequality. No one did.

Marcus enjoyed the hush. Matt and Charlotte were over at the kitchen worktop and the others seemed content to let the conversation drift. He was in good spirits. It had been a satisfying day at
work; they hadn’t won the competition for the flats in Nottingham, but Piotr had agreed that they probably would have done if they’d gone with Marcus’s idea in the first
place.

A cloud of hot spice-laden air filled the room as Matt opened the oven. It was a thick, fatty scent that seemed almost edible itself, and Marcus realized how hungry he was. The starter had been
quite pleasant. He had been assuming that Matt would trip up somewhere along the line, but it was competently done. Nothing special, of course. There was no complexity to the flavours, just a
pleasing unity of fishy, lemony freshness.

But Marcus hadn’t been expecting much, and he had enjoyed it. Now he was looking forward to the lamb. The fish had been insubstantial, and a hearty lump of roast meat seemed a good way to
follow. Not much in the way of fine cooking, no, but that was ideal really; Marcus could enjoy a tasty dinner without worrying whether he could match it.

‘That smells gorgeous, Matt,’ Rosie said as Matt took the leg out of the oven and perched it on the front of the hob, swaddling it quickly in silver foil. ‘And it looks
amazing. I’m surprised you could fit it into the oven.’

Matt laughed briefly. ‘It was a bit of a struggle.’ He took the two odd plates off the drying rack and carefully loaded them up with paella from the casserole dish wedged behind the
lamb at the back of the hob. He handed them silently to Charlotte, who plonked them down in front of Justin and Barbara with all the enthusiasm of a geriatric nurse distributing bedpans.

‘Smells great,’ Barbara said. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Vegetables,’ Charlotte replied.

‘Peppers, onions, aubergine, fennel, artichokes, a bit of saffron, turmeric, parsley. That sort of thing,’ Matt clarified, still facing away from them as he took another tray out of
the oven – was that avocado Marcus could see roasting in there? – and tipped the contents into the salad bowl that occupied the only free bit of worktop. He handed that to Charlotte and
she put it on the table.

‘What’s this?’ Justin asked.

‘Salad,’ she replied.

‘Avocado, alfalfa, lettuce, some Monterey Jack . . .’ Matt tailed off as the lamb teetered on the edge of the hob as he removed the foil.

‘Do you need a hand with that?’ Marcus asked.

‘I think I’ll have to do it on the table.’ Matt picked up the leg of lamb on its carving board, manoeuvred it over an empty spot on the table, then put it down heavily in front
of a startled Justin and Barbara. Justin couldn’t keep his eyes off the steaming lump of meat.

‘It’s very . . . leg-like, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘It is a leg,’ Charlotte replied.

‘Sorry to dump it in front of you,’ Matt said. ‘But there wasn’t really space to carve over there. I hope you don’t mind.’

He picked up the carving knife and plunged it into the haunch, releasing a bubbling spurt of bloody juice. Justin flinched.

‘You all right?’

‘Well, actually, you know, I’d rather . . . but no, it’s fine.’

Marcus was a little disappointed to see politeness win out.

‘You sure?’ Matt asked.

‘Yes, fine.’

But Charlotte persisted: ‘No, what? What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on, what?’

‘Well,’ Justin shifted in his seat. ‘I suppose it’s just that I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that in front of us.’