Idiopathy

She looked at him, fluttering her eyelids. ‘Were you really angry?’
    ‘Yes, I was really angry.’
    ‘Really really angry.’
    ‘Yes. Really really angry.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because …’
    ‘I mean, I just can’t understand why you’d be so angry about …’
    Daniel felt his brain, which up to this point had just about borne up under what was, he had to admit, a fairly ridiculous level of strain, suddenly and irreversibly implode. A red giant of gaseous rage, he leaned down in front of Katherine, his nose a mere quarter of an inch from hers, and went supernova.
    ‘I’M TELLING YOU HOW I FEEL,’ he screamed, his muscles clenched and shaking. ‘I’M TELLING YOU HOW I FUCKING
FEEL
. I’M FUCKING
TELLING
YOU HOW I FUCKING
FEEL
AND YOU HAVE TO
LISTEN
.’
    He leaned back against the wall, not looking at Katherine, running his hand over his face, which he now realised was drenched in sweat. Weakness replaced the anger. There was a moment when he thought he might not be able to breathe. When he removed his hand from his face, Angelica was in the doorway, beaming.
    ‘Oh baby,’ she said, lips a-tremble. ‘That was amazing. I’m so proud of you.’
    Katherine was staring at him with exaggerated, slow-blinking calm, smiling slightly, affecting, as she always affected in the face of other people’s rage, a kind of distanced anthropological interest: gently baffled and calmly superior; taking notes on another person’s weakness while simultaneously congratulating herself on her ability to have located it. The aim, of course, was to make Daniel more angry, but he was beyond that now, spent and embarrassed and quivering with the exertion. He looked over at Nathan, who was looking at the table, and then back at Angelica, who was still standing on the other side of the room, as if waiting for a safe moment to approach. Everyone, he thought, everyone he knew and had known, seemed suddenly very far away, and known to him only in the shallowest, most cursory sense. He knew people, and they did not know him back. He looked again at Angelica, and she held his gaze and smiled at him. She looked, he thought, awful. Her hair was matted; her jeans and coat were streaked with mud and cow shit. When he crossed the room and hugged her, he caught the deep scent of damp farmyard and days-old sweat.
    ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.
    ‘Missed you too,’ said Angelica. ‘What happened? Are you OK?’
    ‘I am,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing. It’s stupid. Forget it. What about you? How are you?’
    ‘I’m OK. I’m glad to be home. I’m sorry.’
    She squeezed tighter.
    ‘OK,’ said Daniel, breaking her grip and returning, as if after hypnosis, to the room. ‘I’ll start the shower running and get the kettle on. Go and get out of those clothes and I’ll get them straight in the machine.’
    Angelica nodded, releasing him with a degree of reluctance, then turned to Katherine and Nathan.
    ‘Hello,’ she said, giving a little wave. ‘I’m Angelica.’
    ‘Hello,’ said Nathan, who Daniel was, if he was honest, a little worried about, both in terms of his possible ongoing fragility and also in terms of the fact that he was almost certainly at this point considering leaving, although why that should have mattered now, Daniel couldn’t be sure. In many ways, totally humiliating himself had only made Daniel more determined to be a good host. He wanted the evening to be over; wanted everyone to leave, but baulked at being the cause.
    Katherine stood up from her chair and, smiling, crossed the room, wrapped her arm around Angelica’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek.
    ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.
    ‘So nice to meet you too,’ said Angelica, before turning slightly, cocking her head to one side, and fixing Nathan with a motherly smile that struck Daniel as at once horribly obvious and therefore possibly incriminating but also genuine and therefore rather endearing.
    ‘And you must be Nathan,’ she said, walking over to peck him on the cheek.
    ‘Hello,’ said Nathan.
    ‘I want you to know,’ said Angelica, resting her hand on Nathan’s shoulder and inadvertently causing Daniel’s stomach to freefall in the direction of his rectum as she did so, ‘that we’re really happy you’re here.’
    Nathan looked at Daniel, who immediately looked away, only to find he was then looking at Katherine, who looked back at him with disconcerting archness, causing him to look at the floor and briefly wish the