chapter038
‘Should I still ask Declan to dinner given that I’ve seen him nude?’ Meg asked conversationally, over midweek cannellini, tomato, and kale stew, with sourdough toast.
They were doing a rewatch of the film Edge of Tomorrow. (Meg was a fan of the Emily Blunt character. ‘I am Sergeant Rita Vrataski,’ she declared. ‘I’m always training up men who are shit at my job, and then they get all the kudos.’)
‘I don’t think having seen someone nude generally precludes seeing them socially again? Sometimes, it makes it even more likely,’ Edie said, swapping from fork to spoon. Meg had bought them beanbag lap trays for TV dinners, and Edie loved them, though she’d not be using it around her film star boyfriend.
‘Yes, when you’re having regular sexual intercourse with them, not when you see their penis by mistake in the middle of making banana and Marmite crumpets.’
‘Continuity: it was almond butter crumpets,’ Edie said. ‘Banana and Marmite is a bit of a first trimester combo – do you have anything to tell me?’
Meg paused. ‘Have I not lived in the world enough, or was it huge?’
Edie almost spat her stew. ‘Hahahaha. No, you’re right. Huge.’
Edie’s mind drifted to how you’d feasibly accommodate it, and she shut the thought down fast.
‘I think, on balance, I will invite him,’ Meg said, with impeccable comic timing, and Edie screeched.
‘I promised him mashed potatoes! Seriously, when carnivores try my garlic and black pepper mash with coconut milk, they’re converted. And the lacto-ovo vegetarians love it, too – it might persuade them to stop being Nazi collaborators.’
Since they began cohabiting, Meg had toned down the politicisation of her legume-sludge and started trying to please palates as well as educate diners. It was a work in progress.
‘Megan,’ Edie said, standing up to feed Beryl and Meryl their nightly chef’s baby carrot treat, ‘you can invite him, but do not bring it up. He’s sensitive about it, as you would be. And don’t call anyone a Nazi.’
‘This Saturday? Would Hannah and Nick like to come? With their girlfriends?’
‘Ah, nice thought – I’ll ask.’
As it turned out, Declan, Hannah, and Nick RSVPed in the hearty affirmative, but without a plus one in Nick’s case.
When the evening arrived, while Meg laboured at the stove, Edie made sure wine was uncorked, candles were lit, music was on, and pitta corners and dips were plentiful, to make Declan’s assimilation smooth.
Nick, Hannah, and Chloe were their easy, chatty selves, and Declan as open and amiable as ever. He was in that category of people you could confidently throw in with anyone and trust that he’d find common ground, but Hannah and Nick’s sardonic unpretentiousness was his wavelength. Edie had the pleasure of seeing someone who’d intended to make an effort with a group of unknowns realising none was required. A state of flow, as Elliot had referred to it recently.
After they’d seen off their mushroom bourguignon and the fabled mash, Declan lavish in his praise, Nick announced: ‘Ros and I are kaput, by the way. I said she was busy on WhatsApp because I didn’t want to go into it until I saw you.’
‘Oh no!’ Edie, Hannah, and Chloe chorused.
‘If I don’t tell you why, those two’ – he gestured at Edie and Hannah – ‘will go on at me about how I didn’t give it my all, what with my ex-wife on my case. Ros doesn’t care who knows her business. So here it is: I liked her a lot. I welcomed the pet ferret. Schubert had a slight odour, but he was docile. I believe his review of me said much the same. The roller-skating was fine. The crystals woo and reiki healing was tolerable, although I didn’t get it. But turns out Ros was very into threesomes, and I wasn’t up for that.’
There was an astonished pause, during which only Lana Del Rey on the Bluetooth speaker dared contribute.
‘Threesomes?’ Hannah repeated. ‘With other men or other women?’
‘Yup. Either. I was offered both. I’m too old for shenanigans,’ Nick said. ‘When my father was approaching forty, he got into luxury motorhoming. He wasn’t worrying about pleasuring stranger’s G-spots with vibrating silicone nodules. Doing Clone-A-Willy for a wheeze, or what have you. I’m left cold by Satanic gadgetry.’
The company held their collective breath and then sank into quiet hysteria as Nick calmly prodded a leftover breadstick into his mash and crunched.
‘Clone-A-Willy? Is that a thing you can do?’ Meg said, and Nick explained plaster cast moulds while Edie studiously avoided meeting Declan’s eyes.
‘This was a dealbreaker for her?’ Chloe asked.
‘Yeah, pretty much. Never said in so many words, but it became clear she didn’t see long years stretching ahead of her with no “experimentation”. All I saw was a regular crate dig at Rob’s Records and pints. My kink: sonic truffle hunting.’
‘Making threesomes a basic ask is … a lot?’ Declan said, and Edie was secretly reassured that someone with Declan’s relative youth and options thought it was fruity. ‘Some of us are glad enough when one person agrees to sleep with us,’ he added. Modest, too.
‘Ros asked: “Well, what is on your sexual bucket list?”’ Nick said. ‘I said: “Susanna Hoffs,” and apparently that was the wrong answer.’
Declan almost slid sideways off his chair, and he and Edie’s eyes met in mirth.
‘In all seriousness, while I remain terrorised by the sex positivity, Ros is a great person and we’re staying friends. I’ll always be grateful to her for shaking me out of the drinking phase when I wasn’t seeing Max. I feel quite rosy about turning thirty-seven in a fortnight. Please join me in celebrating my two-person participant erotic lifestyle, two weeks from today.’
‘Oh yes,’ Hannah said. ‘One request, no venue with a “living wall” that is in fact plastic rainforest plants, full of pulsing LED lights or with a brainless phrase in cursive neon. An aesthetic abomination. They’ve turned neighbourhood pubs into kid’s soft play areas.’
‘Our own Nicky Haslam with her things that are “common” list,’ Nick said. ‘I was thinking the Mexican place in Hockley. Declan, you’re very welcome, too. Edie said you don’t know Nottingham? Here’s your ticket to its fast lane.’
‘Grand, that’d be great …’ Declan said. ‘A mate’s over from Dublin then – I could bring him, if that’s all right? Kieran’s mostly house-broken.’
‘Of course,’ Nick said.
Declan glanced at Edie for reassurance, and she smiled encouragingly.
‘You’re going to New York this weekend coming?’ Hannah said to Edie.
‘Yup. Would’ve been this one, but Elliot’s on his brother’s stag do in Dubrovnik.’
‘Are you flying First Class?’ Nick said. ‘I’ve always wanted to know what that’s like. Give me the turning left experience in detail.’
‘No, I’m splurging on Premium Economy. Walk-up bar, adjustable head rest and complimentary prosecco on take-off,’ Edie said, doing V for victory fingers.
‘You’re splurging? Elliot not treating you?’ Nick said, with the nosiness rights of a close associate.
‘He offered, but I wouldn’t let him,’ Edie said. She felt a gallery of eyes on her and was concerned in case they thought she was covering for him being tight or thoughtless. ‘Elliot offers to pick up the tab a lot, and it makes me uneasy.’
After Elliot had made a failed bid to cover her travel, she dwelled again on why money was disproportionately excruciating. She supposed it was because it was their greatest, forever unfixable disparity. It even bizarrely brought back long buried memories of hiding how poor they’d become after her dad’s breakdown as a schoolkid. She couldn’t fathom the connection until she remembered she thought other pupils wouldn’t want to be friends with her if they knew their phone sometimes got cut off and that she had a stale piece of cake in her lunchbox.
Obviously, Elliot would never judge or reject her, but every time finances came up, she felt it hung a lantern over how unlikely they were as friends. Edie couldn’t be his act of charity.
‘You’re so ethical,’ Nick said. ‘I’d be mincing about, dripping in jewels. Or at least the check wool coat I want from Private White.’
‘I shudder at being a kept woman,’ Edie said, grinning.
Declan rubbed his shoulder and studied her intently. His eyes had a heaviness, and Edie hoped she’d not misjudged how much of her private self she was parading in front of a colleague. He was a fantastic person, but Edie had made this mistake before.
‘May our great feminist forebears strike me down, but so what if Elliot pays for a few things, if you’re equal in general? He’s rich, so you don’t have to be,’ Hannah said.
‘It’s that …’ Edie said, looking at a flickering tea light, ‘I don’t ever want him to resent me or respect me less.’
‘He knows who you are,’ Hannah said, and Edie smiled at her in gratitude.
‘Anyone want a coffee?’ she said, getting to her feet.