Dinner at Mine (18 page)

Justin made it past Mrs McCluskey’s front door and started up the stairs with a great sense of relief. He had been dreading telling her he was having people over for dinner and with four
folding chairs over his arms there was no way he could lie about it. As he turned on to the first-floor landing, Justin accidentally scraped the chairs on his left against the wall. He checked
anxiously to see if he had damaged the paintwork, but there were so many marks and chips that he couldn’t tell.

Inside the flat, Justin set up two chairs, one on either side of the large Buddha’s head that stood where the TV used to be. What was it Gautam had said? Make sure the metal pins
don’t fall out when you unfold them. But they seemed pretty sturdy, Justin thought.

The cluttered living room seemed very small even with just two of the chairs unfolded. Justin put as many books as he could fit back on the shelves and stuck the rest in a corner. He collected a
pile of pillows, shawls and clay-etching implements and put them in the bedroom. When you could see it, the carpet really was quite frayed, he thought.

Justin stared at the room, trying to work out where all the guests would fit. He had never had this many people over before, apart from a couple of meetings of his letter-writing group, and they
were usually happy to sit on the floor. They certainly didn’t judge his taste in soft furnishings. Well, it didn’t matter, did it? It was only a matter of not having much money. No one
could condemn him for that, could they?

Justin and Barbara ate their meals at a side table wedged against the wall behind the sofa. Justin moved the table into the bedroom and pushed the sofa back against the wall. That would work,
wouldn’t it? Six chairs, and two people on the sofa. The coffee table wasn’t really big enough for eight plates at once, but he and Barbara didn’t mind eating off their laps.

There was a grey, dusty patch of carpet where the sofa had been. Justin bent down to pick the pen caps and five-pence pieces out of the matted dust before getting out the hoover.

With the machine on, he didn’t notice Barbara coming in until she walked past him into the kitchen.

‘Hello, honey!’

Barbara didn’t reply. Justin heard her turn the tap on. He went over to the kitchen, a narrow slit jutting off the end of the hall.

‘Are you all right? I didn’t know where you were.’

‘I was out.’

‘Your phone was off. I was worried.’

Barbara didn’t reply. She was hunting through the fridge, irritably pushing aside the ingredients Justin had bought for dinner.

‘Have you seen my wheatgrass juice?’

‘It’s in there somewhere.’

‘There’s all this stuff in the way.’

‘That’s the stuff for dinner. I thought you were going to help me with the shopping.’

Barbara poured herself a glass of juice.

‘I was going to start cooking soon. Do you want to do it with me?’

‘Not right now.’ Barbara walked back out of the kitchen without looking at Justin, even though he had to step back to let her pass.

‘It’s just that it would be great if you could do some of the chopping. Just at the beginning.’

‘I don’t really feel like it.’ Barbara put her juice down on the coffee table, leaving a wet mark on the weathered wood. ‘Where’s my shawl? I left it right
here.’

‘I put it in the bedroom while I was tidying up.’

Barbara gave an irritated sigh and marched across the hall to get it, forcing Justin to move out of her way once again.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked when she came back.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You just seem a bit . . .’

‘I’m fine, OK!’ Barbara glanced at him quickly for the first time since she had got in, then settled on the sofa, tucking her legs up and wrapping the big shawl round her
shoulders several times until only her head, feet and hands protruded.

‘I know you’re still upset about the exhibition,’ Justin began tentatively. ‘But it was more than a week ago now. Maybe it would help to talk about it?’ He let his
voice rise into a questioning tone, hoping it would draw Barbara into filling the silence that followed. It didn’t.

‘It’s just that you’ve been like this all week and I don’t think it’s very productive. You can’t ignore everything, my love. There’s that letter from
the Home Office, which I know you haven’t replied to . . .’

‘I need to be on my own for a bit,’ Barbara snapped at him without looking round. ‘OK?’

‘All right.’ Justin retreated quickly into the kitchen. He didn’t really understand what was wrong. To Justin’s eye, Barbara’s pots looked exactly the same this
week as they had last week. She’d got upset about her work before, of course, declared it was all shit and stormed off crying, but usually everything was better by the next morning.
He’d never seen it last this long before.

Justin got the bag of plump, glistening aubergines out of the fridge and lined them up ready for chopping. The sight cheered him up. They looked delicious. Not for the first time, Justin wished
you could eat aubergines raw – just pick them up and bite a big chunk of the purple flesh. He turned on the oven to heat and chopped quickly, throwing the neat rounds into a roasting tin and
pouring over plenty of olive oil.

He felt for Barbara, of course he did. But, as hard as he tried, Justin found it difficult to be properly sympathetic. After all, they were only pots.

Oh God, that was a terrible thought, wasn’t it? Justin had always considered himself as a great respecter of the arts. They were a vital part of a flourishing society, and they could be
such an important part of how a civilization understood its place in the world. He’d seen their value among traditional peoples, and knew the West could learn a lot from that. He had always
respected Barbara’s decision to devote her life to cultural production.

Still, though. It wasn’t as if she was worrying about starving children, was it? Might it not be a little bit self-indulgent to be moping about like this because you’d decided some
ceramics didn’t express you properly? It wasn’t as if she was doing anything productive with the time, either. Where had she been this morning, for example? Justin had had to do all the
shopping himself. Not that he resented that. But it had taken much longer than it would have done with two of them, so he hadn’t been able to look over the chief exec’s presentation to
the donor conference on Tuesday. Now he wouldn’t get time, and that actually was about starving children. What if the AIDS project in Karonga District lost funding because Justin hadn’t
spotted a mistake? He was already starting to feel guilty about it. Was Barbara?

Justin concluded, with some disappointment, that she probably wasn’t. She was certainly a concerned and active citizen, and her moral clarity had been one of the things that had first
attracted him to her. But for some reason, when it came to her work, the Barbara who went on anti-war marches and joined Free Tibet groups on Facebook disappeared. Whenever Justin asked her about
the significance of her pieces, it was always something personal, always very close to her own experience. Self-centred, even.

Maybe that was the problem! Justin was struck with the sudden thought. Maybe that was why she was so unhappy with her pots: she realized they weren’t going to change anything.

Justin put the aubergines in to roast. They would sit happily in there for half an hour, giving him time to get started on the main course. He found some onions and chopped them roughly, while
heating some more oil in a frying pan.

But he hesitated before putting the onions in to brown. He turned the hob off, rinsed his hands vigorously, and left the kitchen.

Back in the living room, Barbara was still curled up on the sofa in her shawl, reading a book. She didn’t look up as Justin came in. He walked round until he could see the title:
Nourishing the Self Within: A Five-Step Journey to a Truer You.

On the table beside her were a stack of other books:
Romancing the Ordinary, Your Soul’s Plan, Everyday Greatness
and
Dare to be You.

‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Justin asked carefully.

Barbara didn’t reply.

‘It looks very –’ Justin paused – ‘interesting.’

Barbara turned a page in silence.

‘Are they new? I haven’t seen them before.’

‘I borrowed them from Marcello.’ Barbara said this without looking up.

‘Oh right. Why was that?’

‘He thought I might find them useful.’

‘OK.’ Justin nodded. ‘But they’re . . . They’re self-help books, aren’t they?’

‘Marcello calls them psychological fulfilment manuals.’

‘Does he?’ Justin came across and sat next to Barbara on the sofa, putting himself in her eyeline so she had to look at him. ‘Barbara, are you OK?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Because you can tell me. Whatever’s wrong.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I mean, I’m sure those books are full of excellent advice, but maybe I could be of some help too . . .’

‘I’m fine.’ She started reading again.

Justin nodded meaningfully. ‘In fact, I was just thinking while I was in the kitchen. I know you’ve been down about your work recently. I know it’s been making you miserable.
And I wasn’t sure what I could do.’

‘Just give me some peace, OK?’

‘But then it occurred to me. Just now. Maybe you’re dissatisfied because you’re not being radical enough.’

‘Thanks, Justin.’

‘No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. What I mean is – your pots are all very pretty, and I know they’re full of meaning to you, but none of your work is politically
engaged. There’s no message.’

Barbara looked up from her book. ‘They’re pots, Justin.’

He pushed on: ‘So what I thought was that maybe you should make your art more strongly about animal cruelty.’

Barbara let her book drop to her lap and stared at Justin. ‘Animal cruelty?’

‘Yes. I mean, it could be something else. Global poverty. Inequality. Homophobia. But I was just thinking how strongly we both feel about animal welfare, and how tonight is going to be
such a great opportunity to show people the benefits of a meat-free diet, and I realized that maybe you could do that with your art too.’

‘Jesus Christ, Justin.’ Barbara pulled off her shawl in three awkward tugs and jumped off the sofa. ‘Sometimes I just . . .’

‘What?’

‘“Make some pots about vegetarianism.” Fucking hell!’

‘What did I say wrong?’

‘I just can’t believe you. I really fucking can’t.’ Barbara snatched up
Nourishing the Self Within
and stalked out of the room.

‘Barbara, wait!’

‘Leave me alone!’ She crossed the hall and slammed the bedroom door behind her.

Justin thought about going after her. But when she was in a mood like this it was usually best to let her cool off on her own. He returned to his onions.

‘Hello!’ Stephen opened the door to the babysitter. ‘How—’

Lily was standing on the step with her phone clamped to her ear, and raised a shushing index finger to him.

‘Hi,’ she said, giving him a quick, distracted smile, before returning her attention to her phone. ‘Mmm-hmm . . . No! . . . He didn’t! . . . No, she did . . . What a
bastard! . . . Exactly . . . And all the time he was . . . Poor Ellie! . . . No, where is she? . . . We should get her out . . . No! . . . Yes . . . I know!’

Stephen left the door open and Lily followed him into the living room.

‘You’ve got to tell him . . . Is he going to be there? . . . No, I can’t. . I’m babysitting . . . Yeah, that’s right . . . No, they’re not that bad . . .
Look, I’ve got to go . . . Yeah, I’ll text you . . . Bye’

She ended the call without needing to look at the phone.

‘That sounded exciting,’ Stephen said.

Lily shrugged. ‘You know, the usual,’ she said.

‘Er, right. Do you want anything to drink? Tea?’

‘Do you have squash?’

‘I’ll have a look.’

Stephen went to search the kitchen. He couldn’t find any squash, so came back with a glass of organic apple juice. Lily was hunched over on the sofa, her thumbs moving in an instinctive
rhythm over the phone. Stephen put the glass down next to her and sat waiting for her to finish. The silence would have been awkward, but she showed no sign of noticing he was in the room.

Five minutes later she looked up, blinking. ‘Oh, right, sorry about that. I’ve just found out that Freddie is going to this party with Olly so I had to tell Beth that Nat would be
there.’

‘Oh,’ said Stephen. ‘Why?’

‘Because Beth was hoping to get together with Freddie tonight, so I had to warn her that he used to go out with Nat.’

‘Right. Well, I see the urgency, then,’ Stephen said. He didn’t know if it would be considered polite or creepy to ask more. ‘What an exciting social life,’ he said
instead. ‘I feel like we’re very boring by comparison.’

Lily shrugged, as if to say: Well, of course. You’re old.

Stephen waited, hoping that Rosie would come down and save him from having to make any further conversation.

Lily turned on the TV. ‘Got any food?’ she asked.

‘There’s stuff for sandwiches in the fridge. Or you can phone for a pizza.’

‘Great.’ She flicked through the channels. ‘How’s Jonathan?’ she asked. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Rosie’s just putting him down now. He’s stopped screaming, so I expect he’ll be asleep soon.’

Lily carried on flicking, up through the weird shopping, foreign and music channels that Stephen had never seen. He didn’t think he had been missing much.

Soon he heard the reassuring creak of Rosie’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

‘He’s asleep!’ she declared in triumph as she came into the living room. ‘Stephen, are you going to wear that jumper out?’

‘Yes, I think so. Why?’

‘OK, then. It’s up to you.’

Stephen went upstairs to change.

‘Thank you so much for coming early,’ Rosie said to Lily. ‘I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t.’

‘S’all right,’ Lily mumbled, pausing at a hip-hop video in which girls in micro-shorts danced energetically in thick steel cages. Rosie pursed her lips at the TV.

‘I just refused to drive this time, you see. Stephen never does when we go out, and it’s not fair that I’m not allowed to have anything to drink. So we’re going to get
the bus there.’ Rosie said this with some pride, but Lily didn’t seem to be interested. She began texting again.