Dinner at Mine (35 page)

‘You got twenty and a half,’ he told her.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘So did you.’

They both looked at the scores again, as if they might suddenly change.

‘Well, what do we do now?’ Rosie asked.

‘It can’t be right,’ Marcus said.

‘Should we have some kind of tie-breaker?’

Rosie was clearly much happier with the draw. Sarah realized that Rosie’s main fear had probably been losing to Marcus, whereas Marcus was outraged not to have won. It was pathetic really,
Sarah thought, as he began aggressively clicking back through the e-mails, hoping for some kind of error.

‘Matt!’ Marcus shouted in triumph. ‘Your sub-marks don’t add up! If you look you’ll see they average to just over seven, but you’ve given me only a seven. So
I’ll just round that up, and—’

‘No,’ Matt said with easy firmness. ‘The mark’s a seven. The breakdown is just for your reference.’

‘Come on, at least make it seven and a half. That’s only fair.’

‘It’s a seven.’

‘But . . .’ Marcus struggled to get the words out. ‘I mean, I did more courses, so . . .’

‘Trying too hard!’ Rosie sang out cheerfully.

Sarah looked at Marcus’s score sheet. She noticed he hadn’t even bothered to add up Justin’s marks. He certainly didn’t look like he was about to do it himself, so Sarah
picked up the biro and did it for him. Six, plus six, then remember to average Matt and Charlotte’s marks, making eight and a half . . . There it was. Twenty-one.

‘OK, let’s settle this
MasterChef-
style,’ Marcus was saying. ‘Twenty minutes in the kitchen to make anything you want.’

‘That’s not really fair if it’s your kitchen,’ Rosie replied.

‘Excuse me!’ Sarah interrupted.

‘What?’ Marcus snapped. ‘We need to work out who won here.’

This heightened her enjoyment in the announcement.

‘Justin’s got twenty-one,’ she said. ‘He’s won.’

There was an incredulous pause. ‘Well,’ Sarah added. ‘Him and Barbara.’

Justin was still staring up at the curtain rail. He didn’t seem to have heard.

‘Justin!’ Sarah repeated louder. He turned round slowly. ‘You’ve won!’

He blinked at her.

‘Oh,’ he said, in a tone that she would not have described as victorious.

‘This can’t be right,’ Marcus said. ‘We all ate the same meal, didn’t we? Someone must have pressed the wrong button. Come on, what marks did you all mean to
give?’

Justin added: ‘Can I go now?’

Sarah experienced an acute pang of an emotion she struggled to identify. It was fiercer than sympathy, but not quite desire. Whatever it was, Sarah knew instinctively that she should feel guilty
about it. It wasn’t the sort of feeling you were supposed to have about someone who wasn’t your boyfriend.

‘Wait a minute,’ Marcus said. ‘Come on, Justin, even you can’t really think your cooking was better than mine. And honestly, if the rest of you do it shows you know
absolutely nothing about food.’

‘Shut up, Marcus,’ Charlotte said.

Sarah silently thanked her.

‘Face it, Marcus,’ Charlotte continued, ‘Justin won. You lost. You’re a loser.’ She went across and patted Justin on the shoulder. ‘Congratulations, Justin.
What does it feel like to be a winner?’

‘I don’t feel much like a winner,’ Justin said.

There it was. That feeling again.

‘I think we’re all finding it hard to believe,’ Charlotte said. ‘But I’m sure Barbara would be very proud. Now I think I’m going to dash.’ Her hand
whipped away from Justin as she made for the door. ‘Thank you for dinner, Marcus and Sarah,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you at one of Rosie and Stephen’s parties
sometime. Although perhaps not.’

She vanished into the hall. After a moment’s hesitation, Rosie followed her. Sarah could hear their brief exchange drifting in from the hall.

‘So nice to see you, Charlotte,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. Maybe you’d like to come round for dinner at ours
sometime, just the three of us. Maybe we could ask—’

‘No, Rosie,’ Charlotte interrupted. ‘Next time we see each other outside of work, it’s going to be in a pub.’

Sarah heard the door slam. She noticed that Matt was looking pensively out into the hall. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to go after her.

Rosie came back into the dining room.

‘I can’t believe I wasted all that effort!’ Marcus exclaimed, still fruitlessly studying the computer. ‘And those ingredients!’

This time Justin did get up to leave. He said goodbye, but Marcus had started adding up all Matt’s sub-scores again and didn’t bother to respond.

Stephen and Matt called taxis, but Justin insisted he would take the bus. He went out into the hall on his own.

Watching him slowly looking for his coat, Sarah suddenly felt choked with nerves. This was how she had felt the first time she had stood in front of a class.

Was she really going to do it? It didn’t seem possible. But it hadn’t seemed possible then, and she’d marched into the classroom and done it. She sneaked a look at Marcus. He
was muttering quietly to himself. She caught something about ‘double-suckered Mediterranean variety’ and knew he wasn’t going to stand in her way.

Sarah jerked back her chair, pushed past Rosie and rushed into the hall without looking back. She closed the door behind her.

Justin was zipping up his fleece.

‘Thank you for dinner, Sarah,’ he said without looking up at her. ‘I—’

‘Justin, before you go,’ she interrupted.

‘Yes?’ He looked at her now.

‘I . . .’ She hadn’t planned how to say it. ‘I . . . Look, maybe this isn’t the right time. Too soon or something, I don’t know. But . . .’ she tailed
off.

‘What?’

‘I want to see you again, Justin.’

‘Oh.’ He looked surprised, or maybe slightly nervous. ‘Well, um, maybe, you know, once things have settled down a bit, you and Marcus could come round to ours . . . mine. We
could . . .’

‘No, Justin,’ she said. ‘Without Marcus.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean just us. The two of us.’

‘The two of us?’

‘Yes.’

She held his gaze. His mouth opened. For a moment nothing came out. She braced herself. Then his brow wrinkled and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’

Sarah felt herself sinking. It wasn’t going to plan. The memory popped into her mind of the moment when the fat kid at the back of the class made a joke about her breasts, and she’d
blushed and stammered, and the whole of 5B had scented blood. She tried to blank it out.

‘I thought maybe we could go out somewhere,’ she said. ‘A meal maybe . . .’

Uncertainty flashed across his eyes.

‘No, not a meal. A film. We could go and see a film. How about the new Kiarostami?’

‘Oh. I mean . . . I don’t know . . .’

‘Don’t you like Iranian cinema?’

‘Yes! It’s not that . . .’

She couldn’t let a silence develop. She had to press on.

‘Or, I remember you telling me about your Amnesty letter-writing group. It sounded fascinating. Marcus isn’t into that sort of thing, so, if you don’t mind, I’d very much
like to come.’

Relief flooded his face.

‘Oh,’ he said, louder and firmer this time. ‘For a minute I thought you meant . . . Tuesdays. We meet on Tuesdays. It’s a really friendly group. I know you’ll like
them, and it’s great that you want to come along and help. It’s Burma next week.’

‘Great,’ Sarah said. She sounded flat and tired.

‘I’ll forward you the e-mail,’ Justin said, and closed the door behind him.

Sarah stood alone in the hall for a while. When the others came out, fussing for coats, Sarah barely noticed them as she said goodbye.

She trudged back into the dining room. Marcus was scowling at the leftovers.

‘What a travesty,’ he spat bitterly at the remains of his apple fritter. ‘An absolute fucking travesty! Justin! What was the point of any of this if Justin is going to
win?’ He sucked down the last of his wine without any sign of enjoyment. ‘He clearly knows nothing about food. He can’t even stop his own girlfriend walking out on him.’

Sarah studied the emerging bald spot on the back of his head. ‘Come on,’ she said, reaching for a bowl of half-eaten fritter. ‘Let’s throw all this away.’

Stephen let his eyelids droop and his head rest against the window of the taxi. His cheek was pressed against the glass, and he smiled sleepily at the kebab shops flashing by
outside as they accelerated up Junction Road. They slowed only briefly at Archway roundabout. The traffic was light and Stephen knew that within fifteen minutes they would be home. Rosie was always
in a hurry to leave, so within twenty minutes, half an hour at the most, he would be in bed. Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep ahead of him.

Feeling warm and affectionate, he reached across the vinyl seat and took Rosie’s hand. She was looking out of the other window with a pinched expression.

‘Well, that didn’t go very well,’ she said.

Stephen squeezed her hand.

‘I knew it was a bad idea to have Justin and Matt both there.’

‘Mmm.’

‘I should have asked Marcus to postpone, I suppose.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Matt behaved terribly, of course.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Barbara too. Although, to be honest, I’m not so surprised about her.’

Stephen closed his eyes. He knew he didn’t really need to reply.

‘Justin, though!’

Stephen chuckled drowsily.

‘I know! Exactly! Who’d have thought he had it in him!’

He stroked the back of her hand.

‘Such a pity Matt and Charlotte didn’t take to each other. I had a really good feeling about that.’

‘Mmm.’

‘There must be somebody we can set her up with, though. Are you sure there aren’t any of your friends at work who . . .’

Stephen grunted.

‘Yes, OK. Sorry.’ Rosie fell silent.

Stephen opened his eyes to see they were approaching the clock tower. Not far to go.

Ten hours. Jonathan rarely woke during the night now, and although he was always out of bed early, on Sundays it was Rosie’s job to look after him. By the time Stephen woke at nine or ten,
Jonathan would be watching his permitted allowance of cartoons and Rosie would come and bring Stephen a cup of tea.

When he got up, they would take Jonathan for a walk in Priory Park, or maybe up to Ally Pally if the weather was good. Perhaps for lunch they would try that new pub on the corner of the park,
the one that now had all those
Harden’s
and
Time Out
stickers on the door. It had been an old man’s boozer before, but the new owners had sanded down the floorboards and
started doing daily specials, written up on a big blackboard behind the bar. Stephen had heard it was good.

There was no DIY to do this week, so in the afternoon he could lie on the sofa and read, or maybe watch some of the box set of the American version of
The Office
that Rosie had got him
for Christmas. Then in the evening a detective show,
Foyle’s War
, maybe, or if they were feeling really adventurous, the Swedish version of
Wallander
.

He looked fondly at Rosie and lazily stroked her upper arm. Perhaps, when they got home . . . But no, she obviously wasn’t in the mood. Stephen didn’t mind. He was too tired anyway.
Maybe in the morning, though, during that really loud cartoon about lasers. Yes, that would be nice.

His hand moved slowly down the fabric of her dress. Next weekend, they would stay in. No more of these stupid dinner parties. On Saturday, he would cook for her. She would like that.
They’d have some wine, watch a film. He wouldn’t have to see any of these people for ages.

And Matt. Well, Stephen could no longer see what he had worried about. What did it matter what had happened a decade ago? Rosie was disapproving of Matt now, yes, but it was more than that.
There was nothing to envy. Matt’s life somehow seemed so unappealing. Tawdry, but tiring too. Stephen couldn’t see how he had the energy or why he would want it. Without the rivalry,
maybe they could go back to being friends. His hand moved further down Rosie’s dress.

‘Of course, I can’t help thinking it’s partly my fault,’ she said abruptly.

‘Mmm?’ Stephen’s hand stopped moving.

‘I mean, obviously I chose the wrong group of people.’ She was still looking out of her window. ‘That’s the first task of any hostess, you see, to get the mix right. But
it’s so hard when you don’t really know the partners.’

Stephen laughed silently.

‘Yes, all right. I know I can’t really make excuses when the guests have started hitting each other.’

She smiled in spite of herself and Stephen watched the dimple appear on her right cheek, as pleasing as always. Stephen closed his eyes again and felt the taxi slow and begin to turn. It lurched
over a speed bump. They were almost home.

‘I knew I should have invited Mike and Tony.’

Stephen opened his eyes.

Rosie patted his hand, still gazing out of the other window.

‘I know you did. And then there’re the Wilkinsons, who we haven’t seen for ages, and that nice couple from the nursery.’

She looked round at him now and picked his hand off her lap.

‘Yes,’ she said brightly. ‘Perhaps we should invite them all round for dinner?’