Johnathan stopped eating. ‘Go on.’
‘Basically, if Topaz can’t decide whether or not she’s going sleep with someone, she invites him home and cooks for him. At the relevant moment, she plonks this thing down on the table in front of him. And if he makes a remark about the grinder resembling a large penis, she won’t sleep with him.’
Johnathan swallowed.
‘Topaz’s theory is that if they make that sort of fatuous remark that means they’re either hopelessly unoriginal or have very small dicks, or possibly both. Are you all right?’
Johnathan looked stricken. That was it. This was why. He even remembered the moment. He had thought he was being rather witty at the time. He stared blankly at his plate.
‘Hey, you two,’ called Topaz from the other end of the table. ‘Stop canoodling, you flirts. Have some salad instead.’
A few hours later the party had moved to Topaz’s sitting room, where people were drinking coffee. A smog of cigarette smoke hung over the room. The conversation had veered between a variety of obscure and unrelated topics. Kibby, Johnathan noticed, took little part in it, preferring instead to sit back and listen.
Kibby wasn’t exactly pretty. Not in the same way as Topaz. (Not many people were as pretty as Topaz, and those who were didn’t get invited to dinner.) She had big, unfeminine eyebrows, which Johnathan liked. She had laughter-lines stretching in tiny deltas away from the edges of her eyes. Her nose was a bit flat at the top. She had a large mouth. Overall, Johnathan thought, she was all right.
Gavin got up to go. He had not spoken another word to Johnathan since their opening exchange. He surveyed the room with a supercilious air. ‘Lift, anyone?’ Sibby and Libby stuck up their hands together, as if they were being worked by the same puppeteer. There was a general murmuring and shifting of bodies and suddenly everyone was standing, muttering their excuses and preparing to go in that odd way people do at the end of parties, as if they had just been waiting all along for someone else to mention leaving first.
‘Right then,’ said Topaz, ‘let’s form a leaving committee. Where did you put your coats?’ She got up and strode purposefully out of the room. Everyone else dutifully followed.
Just as Johnathan was about to go out into the hall, Kibby grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the sitting room, which had emptied. She looked him in the eye without letting go of his hand.
‘You’re not gay, are you?’ she said.
‘Er, no,’ said Johnathan.
‘Sure?’ said Kibby with a smile.
‘Christ, yes, sorry, no, of course. No, absolutely not.’
‘Do you fancy having sex tonight?’
‘What?’
‘With me.’
‘What?’ said Johnathan again.
‘You know. Sex. Having it off. A bit of the other. Rumpy-pumpy. Bonking.’
Johnathan reeled. ‘Well, I–’
‘It’s not a very difficult question,’ said Kibby.
‘No, no, it’s not, not at all,’ stammered Johnathan.
‘Well then,’ said Kibby coolly. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Er, OK.’
‘Your place or mine?’
They sat in the back of the taxi in silence. Johnathan looked at his hands and wondered what on earth was going on. Twelve hours earlier he had been celebrating his new-found freedom from Chloe and now here he was exercising it in the most obvious way possible. Such things, he mused, usually only seemed to happen to other people.
Kibby regarded him, amused. ‘You once made a remark about the pepper grinder to Topaz, didn’t you?’ she asked.
‘I don’t remember,’ said Johnathan.
‘Thought so,’ said Kibby.
Johnathan- changed the subject. ‘We should be there in a few minutes.’ He watched the deserted London streets pass by.
‘Good. It’s freezing in this cab.’ There was a pause. ‘Johnathan,’ said Kibby.
‘Yes?’
‘We’re only going to have sex together. That’s all. I’m not expecting you to propose marriage in the morning.’
‘I know.’
‘I just wish you’d relax. You look terrified.’
‘I am terrified.’
‘Why? Look, if you prefer, we can just play Scrabble.’
‘I haven’t got Scrabble.’
‘Monopoly?’
‘No.’
‘Oh well, looks like sex it is, then.’
There was another long pause.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Kibby, moving over the back seat and linking her arm through his. ‘If all else fails you must at least have a pack of cards.’
A few minutes later the taxi pulled up outside Johnathan’s flat. It was very late. Johnathan’s hands were trembling as he fumbled with the fare. The driver watched him with amusement. ‘Can’t wait to get going, can you mate?’ he asked jovially. ‘First time, is it?’ Johnathan regarded him with loathing, and halved the tip.
Kibby was waiting patiently on the pavement. As the taxi pulled away, Johnathan smiled at her nervously. ‘Right. Here we are.’
Kibby beamed at him. ‘Can’t wait. Have you got any coffee?’
To his surprise, Johnathan laughed. ‘Tons of it. Come on.’
He unlocked the front door and led Kibby into the hall. He took her coat. Kibby looked around, shivering slightly. Johnathan saw that the answer-phone was winking at him. He ignored it. It was probably Chloe again. ‘What’s that?’ asked Kibby, pointing at Schroedinger, who had just stumbled out of the kitchen, looking around blearily.
‘That,’ said Johnathan, ‘is Schroedinger.’
Kibby laughed her laugh. Schroedinger’s ears went back as his hair stood on end. ‘Hello Schroedinger.’ She bent down and picked him up. Schroedinger was too surprised to do anything. He had never been picked up before. Kibby wrinkled her nose up at him. ‘How are you? Have you missed Johnathan this evening? Do you mind that he’s come home with a strange woman?’ Schroedinger wagged his stump non-committally.
‘How about that coffee?’ said Johnathan.
‘Lovely.’ Kibby put Schroedinger down and walked into the sitting room.
‘Be with you in a minute.’ In the kitchen Johnathan set up the coffee machine in a daze. His brain was a whirr. What was Kibby doing here? Did she really want to have sex with him? If so, what was wrong with the normal channels, the usual procedure? There was a sort of etiquette, after all. You didn’t just ask. He clumsily arranged the cups and saucers on the work surface.
‘Sugar?’ he asked a few moments later as he walked into the sitting room with two full cups.
‘No thanks. I like it black and strong. Like my men.’ Kibby took her cup. There was a pause. ‘Johnathan, I’m joking.’
‘Sorry, yes, of course you are,’ said Johnathan, sitting down beside her on the sofa. Schroedinger sat by the door, eyeing them both suspiciously.