9
She was being ridiculous. It wasn’t that fragile, was it – the Brian Club, the old gang? They’d simply reorganise, and the keynote gatherings would be divided up between Roisin and Joe like divorced parents negotiating access. This stuff happened all the time.
What are you afraid of?
The counsellor had to go and drop atomic bomb questions like that, didn’t she. Surely that wasn’t second session material. Roisin was ashamed of her reply. That ending it with Joe would make no sense to anyone else. And when it’s that impossible for anyone else to understand, isn’t it a clue that maybe you’re doing the wrong thing?
Why do other people’s opinions matter?
‘I don’t know,’ Roisin had said, privately thinking: is a creeping yet unfocused conviction your relationship is a hollow sham sufficient cause to ditch an entire future timeline? It might turn out that you were in fact self-indulgently pissed off at the realities of being a decade into cohabitation with a workaholic. She could hear her mother’s voice. ‘There are worse addictions, darling.’
No, that wasn’t it, either. She knew the correct answer to that was: ‘Yes, it is sufficient, because what you’re describing is loveless pragmatism.’
Here it was: the thing that kept her trapped. But somehow being away from home had shaken this revelation loose. Roisin simply didn’t know if Joe Now was also Joe Then – if one became the other, overwrote him like old video cassette, or if the former version was still there, available to return to her, if she was patient. Until she’d figured it out, she couldn’t make a move.
Roisin caught Meredith looking at her and quickly recovered her features from a worried scowl into pleasure.
Dev had decided to serve their meal in the kitchen, in part to distinguish it from Gina’s birthday celebration in the dining room the following day. It was by no means the lesser choice. The sturdy wooden table with black bistro chairs was in a dog’s leg around the freestanding Aga. They’d filled the table with a star-studded clutter of tea lights, wherever there was space around plate settings. The white china pendant lamps above had a lambent, firefly glow. The whole look could’ve been torn straight from an upmarket interiors magazine.
Roisin had forgotten how great a cook Dev was. He had that signature of the truly confident, in that he never tried to do too much.
Tonight, there was a cauldron of butter chicken on the stove, with stacks of paratha and a mound of plain rice the size of a Forest Hog, and a supporting act vat of saag aloo, which their resident vegetarian, Gina, could have as her main. The table held raitas and something shrimp-pink with beetroot, bowls of chutneys and pickles.
Dev, always a host by temperament, had found a setting worthy of his talents.
Everyone held their phones aloft to record the scene – the modern ritual.
She glanced at Joe for a moment’s connection, but he had stationed himself by the butter chicken with a serving ladle.
‘We’re not going to say grace, so instead let’s say thanks, Dev, and a cognac for the chefs,’ Roisin said, lifting her glass with a nod to Joe and then Matt, as others followed suit.
‘Oh God, do you remember that visiting manager from London who got us to describe “an interesting thing that happened to us recently”, at the start of any meeting? Peppy bitch,’ Meredith said, with theatrical shudder.
‘There is nothing worse on this blue planet than “team building”,’ Matt said.
‘I’ve got an interesting thing. Last month I was so hungover that my iPhone’s Face ID didn’t recognise me,’ Gina said.
She looked surprised when everyone burst into hysterics.
‘That’s not possible, surely!’ Matt said. ‘It’s biometrics.’
‘It wasn’t biometrics, it was mezcal.’
‘Ohhhh, was that the same night you called me weeping so hard you couldn’t speak, and I thought something terrible had happened …’ Meredith said.
Gina nodded. ‘I said, “I’ve finally accepted I’m never going to shag Jason Momoa.” It was like a bereavement.’
‘Woah. I’m still nowhere near ready to accept that,’ Matt said.
Once the snorting had subsided, there was a peaceful interlude of shovelling curry, punctuated by murmured fugging hell this is so good compliments.
‘I’m marrying well, aren’t I?’ Anita said.
‘That reminds me, an announcement,’ Dev said, dinging the pepper mill with his fork. ‘We’ve decided on a wedding destination.’
The wedding was next spring: Dev was not much one for delayed gratification. Roisin had vaguely wondered aloud to Joe whether a venue of sufficient majesty would be available to Dev on such a short lead time.
‘I can imagine Dev bribing someone to move theirs though, can’t you?’ Joe had said.
‘What, literally paying the whole cost of a venue hire twice, to get another couple to cancel?’
‘Yup. He doesn’t care about money for itself, only what it can do. Admirable really,’ Joe said.
‘Mmmm,’ Roisin had replied, feeling aghast and basic.
‘Destination?’ Meredith repeated now, tentatively voicing collective unease.
‘Lake Como,’ Dev said, spreading his palms like a television salesman with incredible reductions for you. ‘I’ll send you photos of the villa where we’re having the ceremony. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Honestly, that part of Italy.’ Dev made a chef’s kiss gesture before returning to tearing his paratha.
‘Cypress trees, frescoed walls, Murano chandeliers, faded peeling shutters,’ Anita said. ‘The whole aesthetic. I die.’
‘There are rooms available in the villa we’re getting married in, but if they’re too pricey there’s other options nearby. I’ll do a WhatsApp,’ Dev said, waving a hand. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Well. This is exciting. I best start sticking more in my ISA,’ Meredith said, in an upbeat way.
Roisin’s approach to her own finances had been designed by Meredith in their twenties, and she had learned lifelong good habits she’d forever be grateful for.
‘Does Lake Como have any Sofitels?’ Matt said. ‘This year for me is already very staggy.’
‘Wait, aren’t you loaded?’ Joe said.
Roisin tensed.
‘My family are loaded, I’m not,’ Matt said.
‘Very lawyerly distinction,’ Joe said, chortling.
‘It’s not lawyerly, it’s true.’
There was a strained pause that Roisin felt obliged to fill. ‘I’m imagining the kind of stags you get invited on, Matt,’ she said. ‘Tell me if I’m warm. Posh lads in straw trilbies, mirrored aviators and pink polo tops, drinking free pour rosé at cabana pool bars in Ibiza?’ She smiled at him, hoping to communicate that this was entirely friendly ribbing, unlike Joe.
‘Why are you so full of hate, Roisin? Perpetually flooded with rage, aren’t you?’ Matt said, with a real smile in return. ‘You are NOT cleared to board HMS Bants with Bags, Wills and Piggers.’
‘No worries, mate! If you can’t afford it, I can cover it,’ Dev said to Matt.
‘Uhm …’ Matt glanced quickly at other, similarly taut expressions. ‘I’d not feel OK about that, but thanks.’
‘Don’t be daft. All I care about is having you there! And … drum roll … as for my stag destination. We’re going to … MIAMI.’
There was a startled, if not shocked, pause. Any hope that Dev had picked up on the ambivalent response to his Italy reveal was dashed.
‘Is there a Miami in Northamptonshire we don’t know about, or do you mean Miami-Miami?’ Joe said.
‘Yeah, hoping there’s a Miami nightclub in Bolton,’ Matt said to Joe, who ignored him.
‘I’m getting the flights,’ Dev said, waving a palm. ‘Not a thing to concern you, my dudes.’
His dudes made polite noises of disbelief. Meredith skilfully changed the subject by demanding the butter chicken recipe, before Anita could announce a hen do in Australia.
Putting them on this spot, albeit inadvertently, did not feel good. They couldn’t really accept Dev’s lavish hospitality and push back on newly unveiled obligations to travel Europe and America at the same time. They were compromised and complicit. Taking with one hand and trying to say ‘stop’ with the other.
Dev had soared into a tax bracket that several of them didn’t share and likely never would, and he needed to come back down to earth if he wanted to spend time with them.
How had Roisin not grasped what was going on? She’d fretted this trip was over the top, yes, but in the familiar rhythms and patterns of their socialising in south Manchester, the situation hadn’t been so obvious as it was right now.
Had Dev replaced his addiction to narcotic excess with addiction to this excess: spending money? His Chase Sapphire card no longer chopped out the powder – it was the powder?
‘While we’re doing announcements,’ Joe said, ‘there’s one over this end of the table, too.’