Chapter 42

“…using pheromone trails,” Dr. Fairclough was saying.

Oliver didn’t even flinch. “Oh, how fascinating.”

“If you’re attempting to employ sarcasm, I assure you I’m quite immune to it.”

He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know how to answer that without still sounding like I’m trying to employ sarcasm.”

She, too, seemed to think for a moment. “Yes, you appear to have identified a difficult paradox. If it’s any help, when I was an undergraduate, my housemates found it convenient to make this signal”—she laid a single finger on her cheek—“to indicate that they were not to be taken seriously.”

“I shall endeavour to make use of it. But please do continue.”

“Or,” I said quickly, “we could go and eat because they’re serving food now.”

Another thoughtful pause from Dr. Fairclough. “No. I’d rather stay here and talk to Oliver.”

“Um…”

“I believe…” Once again Oliver slipped into the conversation like…something lubricated. Or maybe a swan. Y’know, graceful and smooth “…Lucien was attempting to politely inform us that we need to go and eat now.”

“Well, why didn’t he say so?”

“Because not saying exactly what he means is his job. Otherwise he’d have spent the entire evening going up to people and shouting Give us your money at the top of his voice.”

“It worked for Bob Geldof.” She wrinkled her nose disdainfully. “I don’t see why everything has to be so complicated.”

And with that, she swept off to the staff table with me and Oliver trailing behind.

The food was one of the perks of the Beetle Drive. The donors had paid a lot of money to be here, so you couldn’t skimp on the catering, and while Barbara Clench had briefly tried to insist we should make separate arrangements for staff so that we didn’t have to waste good food on, well, ourselves, that did actually turn out to be more expensive. I had to eat really quickly so I could get back to the guests, but since it was nearly always nouvelle cuisine bullshit, I only had about three mouthfuls to get through on any given course.

Everybody was already settled in, mostly with their plus-ones. Alex had brought Miffy, of course, who was looking ravishing in an ensemble that probably cost more than anything I owned and which she almost certainly hadn’t paid for.

“Lovely to see you again, Clara,” said Oliver, claiming his seat. “Dior?”

She blinked. “Do my what? Oh, I mean yes. Good eye.”

“Fuck.” I threw myself exhaustedly down next to Oliver. “I need to do introductions again.”

Barbara Clench glared at me across the table. “Language.”

“I think I’ll stick with English, thanks.” To be honest, I should have been nicer to Barbara. Without her, CRAPP would probably have bankrupt. But hating each other was our whole deal, and you didn’t mess with a system that worked. I gestured at her. “Oliver, this is Barbara Clench, our office manager. And her husband, Gabriel.”

Probably the most impressive thing I’d seen Oliver do that evening was look in no way surprised that Barbara Clench’s husband was a six-foot, golden-haired Adonis, about ten years her junior, who seemed genuinely and mythically in love with her. It made no sense. She wasn’t rich, and I’d met her so it couldn’t be her personality. But, y’know, what? Fair fucking play to her.

“Alex and Miffy you already know. This is Rhys Jones Bowen. And…” Rhys always brought a different date. I had no idea where he got them from. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met?”

“This is Tamsin.” Rhys did his best game-show pose. “She’s from my Zumba class.”

I tried to process that. “You’re in a Zumba class?”

“It’s very good cardio.”

“Ahhh.” Alex made a sound of slowly dawning comprehension. “I assumed you’d met at work.”

“Alex,” I said, “we all work in the same building. And none of us have ever seen this woman before in our lives.”

“Yes”—Alex was nodding slowly—“it did seem a tad peculiar. But I didn’t recognise the one from last year either.”

I could feel myself about to step over the precipice of Alex’s nitwititude. But, for some reason, I let it go. And maybe I just didn’t want to be a dick to my colleagues in front of Oliver but, the truth was, they’d come through for me tonight. They always came through for me. Not in any way anyone else would recognise as helpful, but here we were.

“Look,” I began, not quite believing what was coming out of my mouth, “I know I can sometimes be—”

“A total bellend?” That was Tamsin. I’d never even met Tamsin. How did Tamsin know I was a total bellend?

I glared at Rhys Jones Bowen. “Rhys, is that the first thing you tell people about me?”

“Pretty much.” He was doing the beard stroking he did when… Actually I’d still not worked out what it meant. “I mean, to be fair, I usually say, ‘Apart from that, he’s a pretty decent fella’ straight after. But people do seem to get stuck on the bellend part. Then again, you don’t do yourself any favours.”

“Okay. Fine. As I was about to say, despite being a total bellend, I’m incredibly proud of all the work we’ve done, and tonight wouldn’t have happened without every single of one of you. So thank you and”—I actually picked up a fucking glass—“here’s to you lot.”

Everyone joined in with an only slightly reluctant chorus of “to us lot.” Except Barbara Clench, who’d been busily making out with her disturbingly attractive husband and looked up afterwards to say, “Sorry, Luc, were you trying to tell me something?”

While I was finishing off my artfully presented pile of seasonal vegetables and foam, and wondering if I could eat anybody else’s, Ben and Sophie drifted over as part of the general pre-dessert mill.

“Well.” She lifted her wineglass in a toast to me. “You got us.”

Oliver stood and kissed her cheek. “Lies. You just wanted another evening away from the kids.”

“That too. These days, I’d go to a fundraiser for the Society for the Abolition of Kittens if it got us out the house for five minutes.”

“I take it,” I said, “you’re having a nice time then?”

Sophie cackled gleefully. “Darlings, I’m going to give you all my money. I’m having the best evening. A ninety-year-old earl tried to get me to go to Vienna with him, a very strange woman told me we were all going to die unless we drastically increased our investment in entomology, and—as you quite rightly predicted, Luc—when I told my irritating leftie friends that I was supporting a dung beetle charity, they shit themselves with virtue envy.”