The screen shook as the couple who had been sitting behind it stood up. The girl was heavily made up, large-breasted and drunk. The man with her had his back to Kate but then he turned, and she felt the shock of recognition as she saw his profile. She ducked her head, stared down at her plate.
“Kate? What’s the matter?” Alex asked. She shook her head without looking up. The exit was behind her, she realised, sickly. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. Now she could hear them approaching, his heavier footsteps chased by the staccato tap of the girl’s heels. She lifted her chopsticks, made a show of interest in the food. The footsteps stopped by their table.
“Well, fancy seeing you here.”
She looked up. Paul had halted by the table. He had a lopsided smirk on his face as he stared down at her. The girl stood behind him, looking on with blowsy confusion.
“Hello, Paul.”
Even in the candlelight, she could see how flushed he was. His face was bloated and puffy. He looked from her to Alex. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
She felt surprisingly calm. “Alex, this is Paul.”
Alex gave him an uncertain smile. Paul’s grin was unpleasant. “You haven’t introduced us to your friend,” Kate said. “Sorry, no, I haven’t, have I? Forgetting my manners.”
Paul motioned with his head at the girl, who was swaying with the effort of standing still. “This is Kim. Kim, meet Kate. Kate’s an ‘old friend’ of mine. This is Alex, her ‘new friend’. So what do you do, Alex?”
Alex glanced hesitantly at Kate. “I’m, uh, I’m a psychologist.”
“A psychologist!”
Paul’s voice was growing louder. Kate was aware of heads turning in their direction. “Don’t tell me you’re finally seeing a shrink, Kate? Or is this just a social thing? One way of getting treatment without paying for it, I suppose.”
More people were turning to look now. Kate felt a cold detachment. “You were on your way out. Don’t let us keep you.”
“Yeah, I’m on my way out, all right.”
His smile was a thin mask. “Freud here doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for, does he? You watch your back, mate,” he said to Alex, without taking his eyes from Kate. “Little Katie here’s always mixing business with pleasure. Until she’s got what she wants out of you, and then boom! You’re out!”
Alex’s face was pale, except for patches of colour on his cheeks. “I think you’d better g-go.”
He said it quietly, and the syncopation was barely audible, but Paul picked up on it. “You thu-think I’d buh-buh-better guh-go? Why, so you can psychoanalyse her with your dick?”
The surrounding tables had fallen quiet. Kate saw the head waiter coming towards them. Alex clenched his fists on the table. “Ignore him,” she said, but now both men were focused on each other. Alex seemed to be almost quivering.
“G-get out!”
Paul leaned towards him. “Fuh-fuh-fuck off.”
“Alex, no!” Kate said, reaching across to restrain him as he began to stand. He glanced at her, and while he was still half in, half out of his seat, Paul hit him.
The punch caught him on the cheek and knocked him sideways, sending him sprawling almost full length onto the table. It tipped up, toppling Alex off in a cascade of candles, food and breaking crockery. The noise seemed to go on forever as dishes, trays and glasses crashed to the floor, and then, abruptly, it stopped.
A plate spun, lazily, in the ensuing hush, spiralling to a gradual standstill. The restaurant was utterly silent.
Then Kate was out of her seat and kneeling beside Alex, and white-coated waiters were converging on them from everywhere.
Alex let her help him sit up. His mouth was bleeding. Broken plates crunched underneath him. “Are you all right?” she asked. Dumbly he put his hand to his mouth. He blinked, staring at the blood on his fingers, and then glared up at Paul. Kate felt him tense. “Don’t, Alex! Please!”
She kept tight hold of his shoulders. Some of the tension went out of them, and then other hands were helping him to his feet.
Paul was surrounded by waiters. He looked surprised himself by what he’d done as he allowed himself to be hustled towards the exit. The girl, who hadn’t spoken throughout, tottered along behind on her high heels. Kate saw Alex staring after him with a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. Then Paul was roughly pushed out of the room, and the doors had closed and shut him from view.
One waiter brushed the worst of the debris from Alex’s clothes while another neatly stamped out the small puddles of blue flame that had spilled out from the alcohol lamps.
The table was swiftly righted and Kate and Alex were politely ushered along the aisles to the door as waiters set about repairing the mess. Some people stared openly at them as they passed, others ostentatiously kept their eyes averted.
There was no sign of Paul or the girl in the foyer. The head waiter solicitously sat Alex in a chair and had hot towels brought to wipe him down. Alex held a napkin to his mouth, saying nothing. A taxi was ordered, and the head waiter smilingly refused Kate’s offer to pay for the meal and damage. He was polite, but clearly wanted them to leave. Kate glanced back into the dining room as the door swung open. Their table was already fully set and covered with a fresh white cloth, candles glowing sedately as though nothing had happened.
She tried to persuade Alex to let the taxi go straight to his home, but he refused.
“I’d rather take you home first,” he said. His voice was thickened slightly by the swelling on the side of his mouth from where Paul had hit him. Something in his tone told Kate not to press.
Neither of them spoke again during the journey. Alex sat bunched in the corner, staring out of the window. Occasionally he dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the bloodstained napkin the head-waiter had insisted he take. Kate sat at the other side. There could have been a glass wall between them.
The taxi pulled up outside her flat. Alex continued to stare through the window as she opened the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said. He nodded. He looked as dispirited and dejected as a schoolboy who had lost a fight. Abruptly, she turned to the taxi driver. “We’ll both get out here, thanks.”
Alex turned to her, alarmed. “No, I’ll go home — “
“No, you won’t. I can’t let you go like this. The least I can do is let you get properly cleaned up.”
“No, really — ” he began, but she was already on the pavement, the taxi door standing open as she paid the driver. After a moment Alex got out. He waited behind her, silent, as she unlocked her flat and led him up the stairs. “The bathroom’s through there. If you want to change your sweater, I’ve got a T-shirt that’ll probably fit you.”
Leaving him, she went into the kitchen and set the coffee percolator on to boil. Then, rummaging in a drawer until she found a baggy T-shirt, she went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. Alex opened it a crack. He had taken off his sweater, and through the gap in the doorway she could see how white his skin was. The silver chain lay pale around his neck. “Can’t promise much for the style,” she said, passing him the T-shirt. He smiled, a little nervously, as he took it.
Kate went back to the kitchen. The coffee hadn’t started to bubble. She set out two cups. Then, taking a tumbler from a cupboard, she went into the lounge and poured a large brandy into it.
There was a noise from the doorway. Kate turned as Alex came in, pausing uncertainly in the doorway. It was strange seeing him in her lounge, wearing her T-shirt. She held out the tumbler. “I thought you could do with this. Coffee’s on its way.”