“Not there. I always sink into those kinds of chairs. They’re too deep. How about the high stools?”
Bastian picks up his drink, which he had tentatively placed on the table, and leads Rebecca to the high stools.
Rebecca checks her phone. “They’re running two minutes late,” she says.
Bastian nods. He isn’t sure he has ever bothered to text someone about a two-minute delay. He sips his drink. It is too cold, and his molars begin to ache.
They are waiting for Rebecca’s work colleagues. She has a new job helping to value and market East Asian ceramics at one of the big auction houses. The people she has met so far move in similar social circles: it turns out they have mutual friends from school and university. Bastian hasn’t met them yet but has heard stories from Rebecca. A couple are bringing boyfriends, and one who, for some reason, is already married, is going to bring her husband.
“So you’ll have someone to talk to,” Rebecca said when she told him who would be there. Bastian wasn’t sure whether she meant the husband in particular or the men in general, but he felt uneasy either way.
The group of seven arrive together from a work event which Rebecca was too junior to attend. Bastian shakes hands with the men and kisses the women’s cheeks.
The women gather around Rebecca and relate tales from the party: news of eccentric colleagues, descriptions of the canapés and the venue, professions of how little they enjoyed the evening and how much they would have rather been here with her. The men ask Bastian about his work and then about his university and his school. The husband, Dave, remains largely silent.
The conversation continues beyond the first set of drinks and Bastian offers to fetch a round. The women order complex cocktails. The men order lager. Bastian has another gin and tonic. One of the women—the one who is married—comes over to Bastian to stroke his soft linen suit. “He’s lovely,” she says to Rebecca with a performative wink at her husband. “Can we swap?”
The women laugh. So do most of the men. The husband, Bastian notes with some discomfort, does not see the funny side, though his wife ignores him and has already returned to a conversation about vintage fabrics. Dave fixes Bastian with a threatening stare. Not wishing to cause a scene to satisfy any latent machismo, Bastian turns away and begins a conversation with someone else.
Half an hour and another round of drinks later, Bastian quietly makes his excuses and scouts for the loo. He has not been here before and is confused by the layout of the building. He searches the various rooms, first downstairs then upstairs, but sees neither signposting nor staff to ask. His search takes him along a dimly lit upstairs corridor, then through a heavy fire door.
He steps into a room. The squalor is vivid. There is a small coffee table, the kind that can be found in dentists’ waiting rooms, surrounded by chairs of a similar theme. The table is covered with boxes and cartons from pizzas and other sorts of delivered food. There are a couple of empty, scrunched cans and stacks of plastic glasses, sticky with multiple shades of sugar. Beyond the coffee table and armchairs there’s a space that looks like a makeshift campsite. There are four or five mattresses laid out across the floor with less than a foot between each of them. On the mattresses, there is a jumble of sheets and sleeping bags and a couple of blankets and pillows. Clothes hang on a rail at the back of the room and on the walls there are pictures, some photographs of people, some postcards showing white beaches, blue seas and skies.
Bastian notes that one of the mattresses is neater than the others. Its owner has pulled the sheets up to the top and tucked the corners beneath. He or she has then folded the blankets into squares and placed them on top of the pillow. Clothes and other belongings are stored in a green fabric suitcase in perfect alignment with the end of the rectangular mattress. This, Bastian guesses, is the occupant responsible for the small stack of plates and mugs that have been washed in the sink then placed on the plastic drying rack.
“Excuse me.”
Bastian turns to see a small woman, not more than five feet tall.
She studies him as he fumbles for words then looks past him into the room. She exhibits no surprise at the camp beds.
“Excuse me,” she says again.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The woman is wearing an apron and a pair of marigolds. There’s a bucket of dirty soap water at her feet, which is still swilling from having been set down a moment before.
“I was just trying to find the loo. It’s not clearly signposted.”
“Excuse me.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”
Bastian walks around the woman. She doesn’t come up to his shoulder. He hurries along the corridor, finds the loo, uses it quickly, washes his hands and makes his way back downstairs. As he takes the last few stairs he sees someone he knows. He speaks before thinking. “Glenda?”
Glenda stops on the first step so she’s the same height as Bastian, though he is now on the floor.
“How are you doing?”
He’s not totally sure the recognition has been mutual. Glenda seems confused by his presence. Maybe she doesn’t remember him.
“Oh, you know, all right,” she says. Then, after a pause, “How are you?”
“Yeah, good thanks. Really good.” Glenda doesn’t seem to have much more to say, so Bastian continues. “I haven’t seen you for ages. When did you move to London?”
“I’ve been here for a couple of years now.”
“Wow, I had no idea. Where are you living?”
“Right here in Soho, actually,” she says.
“I didn’t think anybody lived in
