Ian was back. “Dan says you’re on the telly?”
“Sometimes, sometimes,” Adam said. (Don’t say “For my sins,”Coralie silently begged.) “For my sins!”
“And what do you do, Ian?” she asked.
“Nothing.” From the stove, Daniel tutted. “I used to be in the talent business,” Ian said. “Now I just keep myself busy.” He appeared momentarily inscrutable. “Bits and pieces.” (What did he mean? Crime?) “What about you, Coralie?”
“Oh, I work for an agency,” she began.
“Am I going to have to ask again about the name?” He gave her a sudden and very charming smile.
If she started telling the story of her name, which she hated, and she was interrupted again, which she hated, she would start to cry, and the night would be a failure. “Oh—” she began.
“Dan?” Ian interrupted. “Don’t forget the radicchio or whatever. The pink lettuce.”
“I won’t.”
“I might just…” Coralie got to her feet. “Is there…?”
“There’s like, four,” Dan said. “Go to the one on this floor—you’ll like it.”
She escaped gladly. At the back of the hall was a big door with colored glass, probably leading out to the garden. The bathroom was tucked under the stairs. Inside, the black wallpaper had an intricate design of insects traveling between, perhaps pollinating, vaguely sexual flowers, all generously endowed in the stamen department. The lighting was sophisticated and made her look beautiful. But the full wall of photographs, framed and unframed, was surely what Dan had been directing her to—she inspected them from her position on the loo. Big Man, back when he had hair, his arms around the Three Tenors. With Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. With Madonna—the singer, not the poodle. Amy Winehouse like a little doll. Rappers, girl groups, the Coldplay guy?
Alice, she WhatsApped urgently.Ask Nicky, does he know Ian Barbagallo? I’m at his crazy house.
By the time she’d washed her hands, Alice had written back.OMG. Barbie? Nicky says he’s a full recluse.
Nicky was himself extremely shy. Ifhethought Barbie was a recluse…
She’d been away from the table for too long. She slid her phone into her pocket and returned. Daniel was still at the stove, stirring. Adam and Barbie were hunched over a platter arrayed with various cold vegetables: slim carrots, both orange and purple; the promised radicchio; half-moons of roasted delicata squash, the skin still on; courgettes quartered lengthwise with stripes seared on from the grill. The men were hungrily dipping them into, and scooping them out of, a large bowl of yellow stuff: aioli.
“Yum,” she said. No one paid any attention.
“I just find that incredibly patronizing,” Barbie said.
“It’s the truth, I’m sorry to say.” Adam spread his hands. “It’s thoroughly irrational from start to finish. The sad fact is most Leave voters are the very people who will be hurt most by Brexiting.”
“You seem like a well-off guy. Author.The Times.Telly, and so on. You’ve got a home of your own, don’t you?”
“Not as big as this one.”
“But you’re still a homeowner in London; that’s top ten percent stuff. Have you voted Labour in the past?”
“I have. Obviously.”
“Then you were voting to pay more tax. Is that rational?”
Adam gave a quick laugh. “I suppose not. It’s about values, though, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” Barbie said. “And it’s the same for Leavers. Unlessyou’re saying that onlysomegroups of people get to live by their values?”
“Barbie,” Adam said, “I’m not saying anything. I have no thoughts. After this week, I’m officially brain-dead.”
“Here.” Barbie refilled his goblet. “This’ll help.”
Coralie pushed her chair back quietly and tiptoed over to the stove. “They’re like two silverback gorillas.”
“Barbie voted Remain, by the way,” Daniel said. “He loves a good debate. I try to…float above.”
