‘Downtown, near the West Village,’ said Kate, without great enthusiasm. She sighed. She wanted to see Betty, of course, but Betty was on a matchmaking drive and tonight, Kate feared, was to be the culmination of this. Since the last person Betty had set her up with turned out to be gay, and was only going along with Betty because he wanted her gallery to show his work, Kate didn’t hold out much hope.
‘So, will you stay in London?’ Betty wiped her fingers on the napkin and stared at Kate, who paused with a bowl of miso soup halfway to her lips. ‘I bet you will.’
‘Stay there?’ she said, in astonished tones. ‘Good god no, Bets. Are you mad? I’m going back to see Dad now he’s had the op, then I’ll wait till he’s on the mend ok, I’ll see Zoe and the kids and I’ll be back on the first plane that’ll take me. It’s Oscar’s sixtieth in three weeks, anyway. I can’t miss that. Can you imagine?’ Betty said nothing. ‘Come on.’
‘Hm,’ said Betty. ‘Well, I’m just saying, that’s all. It’s going to be weird. Three years!’ She turned to Andrew, who was next to her, and gestured at him. ‘What do you reckon?’
Kate and Betty had been friends since university, so Kate should have been used to her ways. Now she reminded herself, as she stole a glance at Andrew from under her lashes, that Betty – and Francesca, for that matter, so thank god she wasn’t here too – always said what they thought, always had done. It was funny, really. Most of the time. She blushed as Andrew suddenly met her gaze.
‘I hope she comes back,’ Andrew said. He coughed, awkwardly, and was silent again. Betty rolled her eyes significantly at Kate and made nudging motions at her. Kate ignored her. She was too astonished, and pleased, at what Andrew had said, for usually he said nothing, let alone anything conclusive.
Kate had known Andrew now for a couple of months purely because, since he’d moved into Betty’s building in January, Betty had wasted no time in throwing him into Kate’s path. This was made easier by Andrew’s eagerness to meet Kate when he heard she worked for a literary agency. For Andrew was that not-so-rare creature: the boy with a book inside him. Kate had met enough of them both in London, when she worked on various magazines, and in New York, working at Perry and Co, to recognize Andrew as conforming fairly typically to type: he was angry about a lot of things, not least the parlous state of the Great American Novel, and his novel was extremely difficult, both thematically and practically. He had thick hair he brushed back from his face a lot, mostly in anger. He hadn’t written more than a word since he had first started talking to Kate about it. He was ‘circling round the themes’, he had told her, when she’d asked.
‘Right,’ Kate had said, politely, when she first heard this. She had glanced at Betty, who was nodding hopefully as if, a mere few minutes after their first introduction, she expected Kate and Andrew to dive underneath the table and copulate.
‘Honestly, that’s not exactly true,’ Andrew had added with a rueful smile. He scratched his cheek. ‘Could also be that I’d rather be out having a few beers after work than writing.’ He smiled at her, and Kate had instantly liked him again.
She found that, over the following weeks, she alternated in the same way, not being sure whether she liked him or not. Sometimes he was really very funny, coruscatingly rude or charming about something. Other times – too many – he was moody, virtually silent, as if oppressed by the weight of matters on his mind. Betty was running out of excuses, of social events to ask him to. Sooner or later Kate was just going to have to make a move, she told her. Ask him out for coffee.
As Andrew got up to use the bathroom, Betty said this to Kate, in no uncertain terms.
Kate was horrified.
‘Ask him out? No, no way, Bets. I couldn’t. Get him to.’
‘He’s not going to,’ said Betty decisively. She looked around her, to make sure Andrew wasn’t on his way back and hissed across the table, ‘It has to be you. Come on. You’ve got to seize the moment. Otherwise it’ll be over, and – and then what? You could have missed the chance to get married. For ever. How would you feel then?’
‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘Relieved?’
Betty shook her head. ‘You are weird, did you know that?’
‘No I’m not,’ said Kate.
‘You’re like a metaphor for … argh. Intransigence.’
Betty worked in an art gallery in SoHo and was prone to remarks like this. Kate suppressed a smile.
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Damn.’
‘Don’t you want to get married?’ said Betty. She stabbed at a dumpling with a chopstick. ‘Is that what you want? Would you do that to me? To your mother?’
Kate stared at her in astonishment. ‘You’re from West Norwood, Betty. Stop talking like that. Anyway, I don’t want to get married.’
‘Why? Why don’t you?’ Betty said, but as she was saying it recognition flooded her face. ‘Oh my god. Kate, I’m sorry –’
Kate held up her hand and smiled, but underneath the table her foot beat a steady tattoo against the aluminium table leg. ‘It’s ok! It’s fine. Now –’ as Andrew came back to the table, ‘I kind of need to get an early night, I’m afraid, and I have to pack. Can I get out before you sit back down again?’ She shot up and scooted along the plastic bench.
‘Kate –’ Betty said.
Kate looked up at her.
‘Sure,’ Betty nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘Bye, Andrew,’ Kate said, turning to him as he stood next to her. They stood to one side against the table as a tiny Japanese waitress bustled past them, bearing a huge tray of sushi, and Kate felt the pressure of his arm against hers.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s fine,’ Kate put her bag on her shoulder. ‘So I’ll see you when I get back …’
‘Let me walk you outside,’ Andrew said, in a loud, rather unnatural voice. He cleared his throat.
Outside on the crowded sidewalk, the heart of the tiny Japanese district on East 12th Street, Kate cast around to see if there was a cab.
‘I’ve got something to ask you,’ Andrew said, staring intently at her in the evening gloom.
‘So, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you when I’m back –’
‘Kate, Kate,’ Andrew said, rapidly. ‘I gotta say this now.’
‘Oh,’ said Kate, with a dreadful sense of foreboding. ‘No, I should walk to the –’
He gripped her arms. ‘Kate, let me finish.’
‘No, really,’ said Kate desperately, stupidly hoping that if she warded him off then what was about to happen might not happen.
Andrew stepped back. ‘Look,’ he said, crestfallen at her apparent horror. ‘I just wanted to ask you out when you get back. Maybe see if you wanted to go for a coffee, see a movie some time. But I guess – I guess that’s not
