Art hadn’t told me anything about Margo. Art had winked at her conspiratorially across the living room just when I walked in. What was that?
In the dark, I licked my finger and stroked it along my collarbone. The solidity of it brought me back to the room, the blankness of it, lit only with flickers of grey from my eyes adjusting.
The bell rang again, and I followed its siren call.
I opened the front door before even checking the peephole. In that split second after turning the handle I had a momentary panic – what if it was the bald man – and I had to decide whether to keep opening it or close it. I considered just standing there until confusion drove them off. Maybe I was having a breakdown, maybe they’d be frightened. But propriety won, and hands that didn’t belong to me guided the door wide in its unhurried arc.
Rosa stepped out of the night, her face obscured by her furry orange shawl. Behind her stood a behemoth, Mike it must be, a head like a planet, shoulders, and chest above Rosa. He wore a long leather jacket down to his knees and his scalp-skin shone under the streetlights.
I kept my eyes on him as Rosa gave me a curt hug. Rosa’s boyfriends were normally stand-offish, but Mike reached out his hand straight away, his pink face softened by a disordered smile. His boots were dirty, the heel flapping, but his eyes were sparkling, his teeth straight and glacier-white. As I looked up from his feet something in my head tipped, and I gripped the bannister, jesting that I’d already drank too much and could he take his shoes off please.
Once I’d issued them with beer, the three of us returned to the living room, Rosa sitting on the floor between Mike’s knees as he balanced himself on a kitchen stool. We didn’t own enough chairs to entertain. Art and Adam were deep in conversation, and so he didn’t notice that I’d left myself nowhere to sit. I leaned against the wall, trying to look as nonchalant as I could while standing in the middle of a room full of sitting people huddled in scrums.
“So what’s happened then, you lanky streak of piss?” Adam laughed at his own joke. “Norah’s blooming, but cohabiting looks like it’s doing you in.”
“Just a virus. Been a bit of bad timing,” Art shrugged. “Give me a month, I’ll be fine.”
“Better be. Time stands still for no man. Not even you.”
Georgie had laid her book on the carpet, and started scrawling the crayon backwards and forwards with her whole arm swinging like a metronome. Her eyes were on the blank TV in the corner. At the edges of the page, red hit carpet.
“You forget, love, this is exclusive real estate,” Margo nodded at Art. “Time stands quite still for these two.”
“Nothing stops time. It might be slower for them, but some of us don’t need the cheat code,” Adam kissed Margo on the nose, “We’re cool.”
Margo sipped at her wine and turned to me, “He hopes we are, anyway. We’re very careful – we do the organic thing, less time in the city, a top of the range purifier. But we’re saving for these two to join a Grove one day. It’s the least we can do, you know? Give them a head start.”
Adam peered at Mike and Rosa over his glasses, “Are you both members, too?”
Rosa shook her head and grasped Mike’s knee before he had a chance to reply. “It’s not for everyone. I’m not sure I’d want that.”
Adam leant his head to one side, a nosy crow. “Why? Why wouldn’t you want it?”
I watched Rosa from above. I could see her hair was parted neatly at the side to hide the patches where it was already thinning. Or was it her mousey roots, growing in the same shade as her skin? No, she wasn’t a member herself, but it was only because of money, I’m sure. I expect what she said next, she said because she didn’t want them to know how little she had. We’re so proud, aren’t we? We go out of our way to look like we’re one thing, when really we’re something else. But when we’re taken at our word – the difference between the out and the in doesn’t matter.
Rosa gave me a quick look before answering. “I don’t think it’s always ethical.”
Adam leaned forwards, sniffing the air for blood. “Ohhh, do go on.”
“Adam, stop.” Margo’s voice was a purr.
“No, let her speak. Free speech here. I want to know her problem.”
Rosa’s face was pale, her mouth a pursed navel. “It’s everyone’s problem. It’s symptomatic of a worldwide fucking problem. It’s a division of classes, all over again.”
“Ah, you’re a socialist.”
Rosa glanced at Mike before glaring back at Adam. “I’m bloody not. Why should money mean more life, more opportunity? More more more. I have no problem with Norah or Arthur doing this,” her wide eyes flicked over at me. “They’re just people. People looking out for themselves. It’s the world that’s wrong. There shouldn’t even be systems that divide people like this.”
Adam’s smile was of a puppeteer. “You mean every time I comb my hair, shave my beard, I’m making fun of those with alopecia?”
“Oh for God’s sake Adam, it’s New Year’s,” Margo interrupted. “Happy New Year everyone.” She took a heavy swig from her wine glass and punched the empty into the air, eyes closed. “Happy fucking New Year.”
Adam shifted and crossed his legs, still wearing his painted mask. While everyone still fed on what’d just happened, I saw the scene like a fresco. Mike kissing the top of Rosa’s head and whispering cooling words. Margo swilling her glass to join the last droplets. Jasper leaning back on Nut’s cushion, flicking his eyes from stranger to stranger, his jaw jutting. The cushion was squashed out of shape. He didn’t know that was Nut’s cushion. How could he?
No one was looking at me, so
