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‘Do I think too much?’ she’d ask, midway through some minor domestic task. ‘Like, I feel like I’m thinking all the time, and sometimes that’s really good? But other times it’s really bad. Like it’s really paralysing, just thinking about stuff all the time.’
Daniel wasn’t sure it was possible to think too much. He often found his private thoughts considerably more interesting than day-to-day events, to the point where he sometimes resented day-to-day events for interfering with his thoughts, an issue which Angelica had raised on more than one occasion, and on which he’d begrudgingly agreed he might need to work.
‘I need to be more spontaneous,’ she’d say. ‘We both do. Let’s be really spontaneous this weekend. Let’s agree we’re going to do something totally unplanned and nuts.’
She’d said this twice. The first time they’d spent much of Saturday debating activities that might be suitably nuts, and then deciding all of them were rather predictable, at which point they’d gone shopping. The second time they’d agreed not to debate anything and each ended up making completely separate and un-discussed plans, over which they then argued for the rest of the weekend.
Their sex life was, naturally, the most symptomatic area of all. It was constantly in a state of redress. Like some grossly over-ambitious architectural project, it always seemed to be propped up with scaffolding and obstinately deviating from plans. Intimacy was an issue. Intimacy and spontaneity and the balance of the two. Sometimes, for example, Angelica got it into her head that she wanted to tantrically merge for hours on end, seeking some semi-mystical state of union she’d read about in a second-hand book. At other times, she felt the whole dimming-the-lights-and-dousing-the-room-with-incense planning of the thing made it all rather moribund and predictable, at which point she just wanted to screw and be done with it. The difficulty was that Daniel never knew, so to speak, if he was coming or going, meaning he tended to get the timing wrong and find himself accused of having either intimacy issues or some sort of problem with spontaneity and passion. As far as his personal preferences went, suffice to say his heart pretty much sank whenever he saw Angelica fumbling for a joss stick.
High-minded though they were, frugality seemed always to escape them. The things they owned seemed to breed. Domesticity, it transpired, came down to a collection of products and a desire to continually augment those products until everything was just so, which of course it never could be, because what, then, would there be to work on? Objects broke, ran out, needed cleaning (which necessitated the use of further, more specialised products). Lacking children as they did, Daniel and Angelica needed something to tend to or they risked falling into the kind of vapid complacency they both professed to fear but also secretly craved. The rough, cluttered, faintly shabby look perfected by several of their friends wasn’t an option. They needed all the same stuff as normal people. Multi-surface sprays that fizzed on contact; moisturisers that toned and lifted and lightly tanned; shampoos that thickened and added shine. Daniel and Angelica dreamed of a better world but still baulked at the smell of each other’s shit, necessitating a variety of lavender-based infusions and, when merely masking the odour wouldn’t suffice, a reserve artillery of heavy chemistry that promised nothing short of a bacterial Armageddon. They had stuff for everything. There was a sense of carefully applied science. Their juicer was powerful enough to wring nectar from a breeze block; their bedding gave off scents designed to stimulate sleep. Their vitamin regimen was rigorous and complex. Daniel hadn’t smoked in months. Each morning before work, after an invigorating ylang-ylang-infused shower and a breakfast of carefully selected nutritionally balanced cereals, he threw carrots and apples and oddly shaped multi-ethnic fruits he couldn’t name into the gaping maw of his juicer and knocked back 250 ml of pure unadulterated well-being. Like so much in his life, it was healthily vile, but the sourness was sweetened by virtue: you could boast about it; it made you a better person.
All their friends were couples. Angelica had been in a long-term relationship (her phrase) and her ex had treated her so badly that she’d taken all their friends with her when they split. Daniel had few friends of his own. Her friends were their friends now. At weekends they took it in turns to play host. One couple cooked, the other brought wine. A sense of competition lurked amidst the camaraderie. The plurals were barbed. And we just had such a great time in New York, did you guys go anywhere this year? Or even the supposed simplicity of How are you two? Couldn’t one be up and one be down?
The most common visitors were Sebastian and Plum, who were visiting this particular evening. Plum was Plum’s given name. She had those kinds of parents. Her sister was called Nasturtium. Sebastian, rather ironically, was not Sebastian’s given name at all but simply a name he happened to prefer to what he’d actually been christened: Walter. Sebastian, much to his chagrin, had those kinds of parents. He’d been baptised and, for a while, home schooled, but had shaken it all loose at the age of eighteen by running away to Goa, where he’d undergone a tie-dyed transformation and returned as Sebastian Freud. His parents were outraged, but Sebastian was past parents. He was past a lot of things. Like Angelica, he’d worked through a lot of stuff. He was narcissistically altruistic. He bragged about his selflessness. His soliloquies were two parts arrogance to one part suggestive condescension. He thought Daniel was repressed. Daniel thought he was a prick. They’d tolerated each other during the days of doing good, which Daniel now thought of slightly more clear-sightedly as the days of impressing Angelica, but in the six months following Daniel’s acceptance of a position at the Jenssen-Meyer Centre, which Sebastian happened to be targeting with one of his protests, their ability to pretend to get along had, to say the least, waned.
Daniel was, broadly speaking, honest about his work in The Centre’s PR department, and honest about the work in which The Centre was engaged. What he was not quite honest about was how he had got the job and the moral flexibility he was encouraged to enjoy now that he had it.
Operating in the field of biochemical crop research, the Jenssen-Meyer Centre was run by two of the eighties’ more notable radical humanist biologists: Lens Jenssen and Colin Meyer. Their credentials when it came to life in the trenches of the nascent environmental movement were, as Daniel had grown adept at pointing out, pretty unimpeachable. Given their background, and the fact that the aim of their work was the creation of a sustainable food source, Jenssen and Meyer were understandably upset to find themselves the target of exactly the sort of protest they probably would have been part of twenty years ago, and so, when it came to selecting someone to manage their public statements, were keen to select someone who had what they slightly euphemistically called an understanding of the dreadlocked crusties currently frightening investors by touting banners in the car park. Daniel, who by that stage felt he had, if he was honest, done enough not only to impress Angelica but also to slough off the slash-and-burn anti-ideology of Katherine’s world-view, and who was beginning, much as he’d enjoyed what he would later think of as his gap-months, to tire of Angelica’s idealism and to miss the sense of professional advancement that had formed the bedrock of his life to date, saw an opportunity to balance one half of his life against the other, and so was excited to find himself shortlisted, which went some way to explaining the zeal with which he interviewed.
Jenssen and Meyer were seen as elitist, he told them. Their image had become secretive; self-satisfied. Their shared background in radical biochemistry; their once-alternative lifestyle which they’d always worn as a badge of pride, wasn’t actually cause for admiration at all. The hippies, far from seeing Jenssen and Meyer as kindred spirits made good, saw them as sell-outs. To them, all engagement with the powers-that-be was suspicious. Hippies didn’t want to achieve anything, Daniel said. They wanted to sit in rented halls and recapitulate old arguments, all the while comforting themselves with the notion that their inability to change anything was simply because society was tilted against them. This meant that Jenssen and Meyer had, in the eyes of the demonstrators outside their building, committed a kind of double sin. Not only had they sold out, they’d also accidentally demonstrated that selling out worked, and for that, Daniel said, the hippies were never going to forgive them. He understood that it might have been a point of personal pride to win over people they thought should have been their friends in the first place, but the truth was it was time to make new friends. Rather than selling the ideological integrity of their research to the alternative set, he suggested, they needed to sell the respectability of their research to the respectable set, because at the moment they were falling between two ideologically opposed stools and doing a grand job of pleasing neither. Just as the demonstrators used Jenssen and Meyer’s background as proof they had no loyalty to firm ideals, so the more conservative amongst the research communities used it as evidence of their potential flakiness. In the end, no one cared about the hippies and what they thought. If Jenssen and Meyer wanted to succeed, Daniel said, building to a crescendo, it was time for a clean break. Fuck the hippies.
From here, naturally, he pointed to his well-documented background in the corporate sphere as well as his less-documented background in the hippie sphere and suggested that if they found anyone with a more perfect balance of the particular elements that this role would require someone to juggle they should let him know. They offered him the job on the spot. He sold it to Angelica as a way of genuinely making a difference, and to her credit she’d given him the benefit of the doubt. Sebastian, on the other hand, had not only failed to stop demonstrating but, probably out of sheer spite, had stepped up his efforts, meaning that the façade of friendship they maintained for Angelica’s benefit was now thinner than ever. Nonetheless, every weekend Daniel had to smile his way through dinner, the phrase fuck the hippies sticking rather uncomfortably in his throat.
The evenings were all much of a muchness, and Daniel found them tolerable only in that they spared him having to spend another evening bonding with Angelica. Angelica always cooked – something lumpy and hearty and altogether heinous – and Sebastian and Plum always brought wine – something dry and unusual with impeccable political credentials.
Tonight was, naturally, no different. They arrived late enough to demonstrate their casual disregard for bourgeois punctuality yet not so late as to relinquish the right to get angry if anyone was ever overly behind schedule for one of their own gatherings. Plum was wearing a dress she’d fashioned herself from a collection of period cushion covers sourced, as she explained, from an amazing little charity shop they’d found while holidaying in Brighton. Sebastian was wearing brown boots with heels that were borderline Cuban, stonewashed jeans and a jacket with a Nehru collar. His long hair was tied back in a way that made it look like his smile was caused by tension across his scalp and face.
‘Ange,’ said Sebastian, kissing Angelica on the lips (cheek-kissing was repressed, everyone seemed to agree, and reserved only for uncomfortable or false situations). ‘Great to see you. God, you look fabulous. Doesn’t she look fabulous, Daniel?’
‘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 think that’s a very materialist way of looking at what is essentially a spiritual matter.’
‘Well I think the whole thing’s a very spiritual way of looking at what is essentially a practical matter. Don’t you want your leaders to behave like leaders? Don’t you want them to take responsibility?’
‘Mmhmm,’ nodded Sebastian. ‘But there’s the issue of the common good.’
‘Who decides that?’
‘Daniel’s a bit grumpy today,’ said Angelica, rubbing his back and pouting. ‘He’s had an ickle bit of fwoo.’
‘Oh fuck off.’
‘You’d be right out of the Native American leadership circle with that sort of behaviour,’ said Plum, winking at Daniel. She had a way of somehow joining in with the general conversational trend while at the same time suggesting a degree of sympathy with the underdog, meaning no one could ever justifiably get angry with her, meaning in turn that Daniel quickly became angry with her but had no idea how to express it without looking like an arsehole.
‘Illness is such a blessing,’ said Sebastian, helping himself to some more of the lentil thing. ‘It’s so cleansing.’
‘I’m full of snot. I don’t feel cleansed.’
‘Gwumpy wumpy,’ said Angelica, reaching down to pick up the cat, groaning a little as she heaved its formless mass onto her lap. ‘He’s gwumpy, isn’t he? Yes he is. Yes he is.’
‘I remember when I had dysentery in Sri Lanka,’ said Plum. ‘God, it was like being a new person at the end of it.’
Sebastian put his arm round her and kissed her temple. ‘You were so beautiful going through that,’ he said.
‘Gwumpy man. Gwumpy wumpy daddy man. Yes he is. Yes he is.’
‘Do you have to talk to the cat about me in that way? I mean really? Is it really necessary?’
‘Animals know our true selves,’ said Sebastian. ‘If you’re comfortable with your true self you have nothing to fear from the cat, regardless of what Angelica says to it.’
‘I’m not that concerned about the cat’s opinion, actually, it’s more the …’
‘I sometimes feel like he looks right through me,’ said Angelica, looking at Daniel but ostensibly referring to the cat. ‘Like he can just walk into the room and know, you know? Like the other day when I was feeling really negative, you remember, honey, over that whole thing with the phone and the … anyway, that’s irrelevant, I don’t want to go back to that space again, but he just walked into the room, and looked at me, and I just felt he understood, and he came and sat with me, and it was so calming, and I thought, all of this is happening without language, without words.’
‘It’s true,’ said Daniel. ‘He knows the pain of being mischarged on your quarterly BT bill.’
‘It’s not that literal,’ said Sebastian.
‘I know. I was sort of joking.’
Sebastian nodded as if this confirmed something very important to him. It was one of the things that Daniel had never quite understood about Sebastian and Plum and their ilk. For people who believed in freedom and expression and peace and love, who railed daily against the tyranny of the squares, they were oddly humourless, as if free expression and boundless emotional exploration were such a serious business that they left no room for actual fun.
‘Who wants more?’ said Angelica, pouring the cat onto the floor as she stood up to attend to the food. ‘Honestly, there’s loads.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Plum. ‘Really.’
‘Not for me,’ said Daniel. ‘Lovely as it was. I’m stuffed.’
‘Looks like it’s just you and me, Seb. Go on, have another spoonful.’
‘Absolutely don’t mind if I do,’ said Sebastian, passing his plate over. ‘You must give me the recipe.’
‘I’m so blessed to have a man who cooks,’ said Plum.
‘Oh, you are,’ said Angelica. ‘Daniel’s a bloody disaster area in the kitchen.’
‘How can you eat something if you don’t have a relationship with it?’ said Sebastian, dry-swallowing another wad of brownish paste.
‘Mmmm,’ said Angelica.
