Just then, he received a text from Jim with the menu for that evening (the food sounding reassuringly posh—what, indeed, was kohlrabi?) and asking him to pick up some booze. He shook the doubts from his mind. He had to focus on everything going perfectly tonight, no matter what Peggy thought.
“I just need to make a quick detour,” he said, taking them into Sainsbury’s and heading for the alcohol aisle.
“That person you spoke to today—Kitty, was it?” Peggy said.
“Mmm-hmm,” Andrew said, distracted by reading the label on a pinot noir.
“She must’ve been the hundredth person you’ve heard saying ‘we’d rather fallen out of touch,’ right?”
“Probably,” Andrew said, reaching for a bottle of champagne and passing it to Peggy. “Is this classy?”
“Erm, nope, not really. How about this?” She handed him a bottle with some silver netting around the neck. “What I mean is,” she said, “it’s all very well doing what we do, but it all feels a bit ‘after the fact,’ you know? I mean, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone did more to at least give people the option of finding company, to be able to connect with someone in a similar position, rather than this sort of inevitable isolation?”
“Yeah, good plan, good plan,” Andrew said. Nibbles. Do we need nibbles? Or are nibbles passé these days? He hadn’t felt that anxious up until then, but he was really starting to feel the nerves bubbling now.
“I was wondering,” Peggy continued, “if there was, like, a charity that did that, or—I know this sounds a bit mad—whether we could actually look at setting one up ourselves. Or if not that, then finding a way to make sure at least someone other than one of us turns up to the funerals when we can’t find a next of kin.”
“Sounds great,” Andrew said. Why does paprika have such a monopoly on spice-flavored crisps, anyway? Fuck, what if someone is allergic to paprika, or any of the food Jim is cooking? Okay, just calm down. Deep breaths. Deep. Fucking. Breaths.
Peggy sighed. “And I’d also like to ride an elephant into the sea, naked, while singing the words to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”
“Mmm-hmm, good plan. Hang on, what?”
Peggy laughed. “Never mind.” She took the bottle out of his hands and replaced it with another. “So, tonight . . . ,” she said.
Andrew winked. “Got that all figured out,” he said.
Peggy stopped dead, waited for him to turn around and face her.
“Andrew, did you just wink at me?”
—
As soon as he got back to the office from the supermarket, he walked straight over to Keith’s desk.
Keith was eating a donut and chortling at something on his screen. But when he saw Andrew he dropped the donut and scowled.
“Hello, Keith,” Andrew said. “Listen, I just wanted to apologize for what happened the other week. Things got really out of hand, but I am so, so sorry for pushing you like that. I really didn’t mean to hurt you. I hope you can forgive me.”
He handed over the champagne Peggy had picked out and offered Keith a handshake. Initially, Keith seemed taken aback by this charm offensive, but it didn’t take him long to regain his composure. “Costcutter own brand, is it?” he said, ignoring Andrew’s hand and turning the bottle over to read the label, as Meredith hurried over to stand protectively at his side.
“Well, this doesn’t exactly make up for what happened,” Meredith said.
Andrew held his hands up. “I know. I agree. It’s just a little gesture. I really hope that we can all get together tonight at mine, have a lovely time, and put it all behind us. What do you think? Sound like a plan?”
Okay, okay, keep a lid on it, don’t sound so desperate.
“Well,” Keith said, clearing his throat. “I suppose that I was maybe being a bit out of order myself. And, well, I guess you weren’t trying to deliberately knock me out.”
“No,” Andrew said.
“Obviously given another day I’d have probably sparked you out for hitting me, if you’d not got that lucky shot in.”
“Definitely,” Meredith said, looking at Keith admiringly.
“But, for the sake of, you know, moving on, I’m happy to say bygones be bygones, and all that shit.”
This time Keith shook his hand.
Just then, Cameron walked past, doubling back to see what was happening. He had dark rings under his eyes and looked horribly gaunt.
“Everything okay, chaps?” he said, slightly warily.
“Yes, absolutely,” Andrew said. “We were just saying how much we’re looking forward to dinner tonight.”
Cameron searched Andrew’s face for signs of sarcasm. Apparently satisfied of its absence, he smiled, put his palms together and said, “Namaste,” before backing away into the corridor and heading to his office with a new spring in his step.
“What a weirdo,” Keith said.
Meredith, realizing that Keith’s label was poking out of his shirt collar, reached over and tucked it in. Keith, Andrew noticed, looked a little embarrassed at this.
“So, Andrew,” Meredith said, “do we finally get to meet Diane tonight?”
“No, afraid not,” Andrew said. “She and the kids have tickets for a show. Crossed wires on the dates.” Even though he’d rehearsed this line several times, it still took all his concentration to make the words sound genuine. As he sat down at his desk, a fresh pile of paperwork in his in-tray, a new lot of death to be tackled, he couldn’t help but picture Peggy’s reproachful look as he begged her to help him. Only you can change things. It has to come from you.
— CHAPTER 33 —
Andrew walked out of the office laden down with booze, looking both ways before he crossed the road, and promptly dropped the bag of wine on the pavement, where it landed with a crunch. “Unlucky, mate,” called a white-van man inevitably driving past at that moment. Andrew gritted his teeth and made his way to another Sainsbury’s. What was it about going into a supermarket already carrying a bag of shopping that made it feel like you were returning to the scene of a botched murder?
He just about remembered which bottles of wine he’d previously bought and added another bottle for good luck. The woman behind the till—Glenda, according to her name badge—scanned the bottles through and hummed approvingly. “Big night tonight, m’love?”
“Something like that,” Andrew said.
Innocent though they’d been, Glenda’s words opened the floodgates to Andrew’s nerves. He could feel his heart starting to race as he hurried along, sweat beginning to pool under his armpits. He felt like everyone he passed was giving him a meaningful look, as if there were something at stake for them too, and every half-overheard snippet of conversation seemed to be charged with meaning. His anxiety wasn’t helped by the fact that Rupert’s directions to his house seemed needlessly complicated. (He’d told them all to ignore Google Maps—“It thinks I live in a shop called Quirky’s Fried Chicken. I’ve sent several e-mails”—and go by his own instructions.) When Andrew did eventually find the place, sweat was pouring off him and he was out of breath. He jabbed at the doorbell and heard a slightly pathetic and oddly discordant response, as if it were on the verge of breaking.
The door was answered by a cloud of smoke, followed by Jim.
“Come in, come in,” Jim coughed.
“Is everything okay?” Andrew said.
“Yes, yes, just a minor accident involving a paper towel and a naked flame. I’m cracking on with the starters nicely though.”
Andrew was just about to ask whether there was a smoke alarm in the kitchen when it went off and he stood helpless, weighed down with the shopping, as Jim frantically flapped a tea towel in the air.