‘Of course,’ said Daniel as Plum kissed him on the cheek. ‘As do you, Plum.’
‘Barium irrigation,’ she said, reaching over to embrace Angelica while Sebastian waved awkwardly at Daniel across the hugging women. ‘I feel like superwoman.’
‘It’s amazing how much crap you can hold in your colon,’ said Angelica.
They seated themselves at the dining table, where Angelica had lit candles. The stereo was playing something Brazilian. Angelica went off to gather the meal.
‘Can I do anything, hon?’ called Daniel.
‘No,’ she called back, much to his disappointment. ‘Just stay and entertain, darling.’
Sebastian smiled. ‘You don’t mind me telling Ange how fabulous she looks, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Daniel. ‘How are you, anyway?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Plum.
‘Lots happening,’ said Sebastian.
‘That’s great,’ said Daniel.
‘And how about you?’ said Sebastian, flashing his teeth. ‘How’s life in the lab?’
‘I don’t work in the labs,’ Daniel replied, for perhaps the hundredth time.
‘Oh yes, I always forget. You don’t research, you just proselytise the research.’
‘Oh leave him alone, Seb,’ said Plum.
‘I’m just ribbing him a bit. You don’t mind, do you, Dan?’
Daniel did mind, and also disliked having his name abbreviated, but commented on neither transgression, since to do so would ruin the atmosphere. Angelica set great store by atmosphere, and woe betide anyone who was caught jeopardising it.
‘Well I think proselytising’s a bit strong,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s more a sort of educational capacity, really.’
‘You’re the minister of propaganda then,’ said Sebastian.
‘Not really, no.’
Like many in his circle, Sebastian determinedly equated anything he didn’t like with fascism.
‘You’ve seen the headlines, I assume?’ said Sebastian. ‘God, what am I saying? You probably wrote the headlines.’
‘Which headlines are we talking about?’
‘You know, the ones about The Centre.’
‘Oh, those,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes, we’re not sure where those are coming from, actually.’
‘I assume you’re about to tell me they’re untrue.’
‘Well I wasn’t actually, but since you mention it, yes, they’re totally false.’
‘Spoken like a true believer.’
‘Believing’s got nothing to do with it. The Centre is researching a sustainable crop source. Whatever’s going on with the cows is completely unrelated.’
‘But what if they’ve been eating modified crops? What if this is a glimpse of us in the future?’
‘If you think cows eat crops then you’re incredibly naïve. More to the point, if it’s true that this is a virus that’s capable of jumping the species barrier, which everyone seems to think it is, then that would rule out the food source as the infecting agent.’
‘Not really,’ smiled Sebastian, who hated being called naïve to the exact same degree as he loved labelling others as such. ‘It could be picked up in the food source, then passed to humans when they eat infected meat.’
‘Yes, but that only brings us back to the question of the food source. Don’t you remember Mad Cow? Cows eat mushed-up cows for breakfast, lunch and dinner.’
‘You know,’ said Sebastian, his lip curling. ‘You should work in PR.’
‘And you should spend your life picketing stuff you don’t understand,’ snapped Daniel. ‘Saw you out there the other day. You looked dreadfully cold.’
‘Warm in your office, was it?’
‘Yes thanks.’
‘Long way from that car park now, aren’t you?’
At this, Daniel simply laughed, even if it was only to mask his grimace.
‘We’re not onto this already, are we?’ said Angelica, carrying through the lentil thing and rolling her eyes. ‘I mean for God’s sake, boys, let it go.’
Sebastian spread his hands in a smug, blameless way. Daniel did the same in an equally smug, though slightly less blameless way.
The conversation moved on. Plum and Sebastian talked about Brighton. They always talked about places as if the people to whom they were speaking could never possibly have been there. Daniel had been to Brighton, but didn’t say anything. He’d already flirted with a spell in the doghouse during his exchange with Sebastian. He was usually, he thought, better at managing these occasions. Perhaps it was Katherine’s call, the stirring up of all those unpleasant memories and sensations. Perhaps it was the flu. Either way, he felt decidedly sharp-edged. Katherine would have said this was his true self. As far as she was concerned, conviviality was always a lie. You could fake being nice, she would say, but being a cunt came from the heart.
When Daniel tuned back into the conversation it had turned to politics and failures of government. It never ceased to amaze Daniel that, years after Blair’s departure, his shortcomings remained a fixture of dinner-party conversation. If that wasn’t a legacy, Daniel didn’t know what was.
‘I mean,’ said Sebastian, ‘just look at Afhanistan.’
‘Oh I know,’ said Angelica. ‘Afyanistan is a horror. To think that man actually took us there.’
It was, Daniel noticed, an unspoken agreement within the group that the names of foreign countries had to be pronounced with a slightly different inflection than was usual, delivered with such confidence that it implied ignorance on the part of anyone oafish and colonialist enough to say Afghanistan.
‘You know,’ said Sebastian, leaning forward in the manner that always presaged his saying something intense. ‘The Native Americans have this really fascinating approach to the whole concept of leadership.’
‘Oh I love their outlook on things,’ said Angelica. ‘Like their system of non-ownership and their whole attitude to the land? It’s so awful that we just crush these cultures without learning from them first.’
‘It’s true,’ said Daniel. ‘We should learn then crush.’
‘Oh you know what I mean. Don’t be pedantic.’
‘What they say,’ said Sebastian, quickly heading off any possible sidetracking, ‘is OK, you can be our leader, you can be our chief or whatever, but only until you start behaving like our leader. You see?’
‘Mmmm,’ said Plum. ‘God, that’s so beautiful.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Angelica.
‘Because what they’re saying,’ said Sebastian, ‘is that power corrupts, right? It’s like the … the inevitability of fascism.’ He clapped his hands once, quickly, clearly pleased with the phrase. ‘And the second they spot that you’re going over to the dark side …’ He drew a finger across his neck. ‘You’re finished.’
‘So who makes that decision?’ said Daniel. ‘I mean, is there a sort of matrix of warning signs or something? What are the key indicators? Buying a Porsche?’
‘I