Idiopathy

the by now horribly familiar car a cry went up, followed by the sound of someone kicking against the hopelessly warped door for all they were worth.
    ‘
Babes
,’ came the well-known wail. ‘I’m coming, Katherine. Don’t worry. If I could just … I’m going to … Somebody help me. This is an emergency. We’ve got a … She’s carrying my baby. This is … I’m going to get out the passenger side, actually, because it’s … I’m coming, baby.’
    The passenger door flew open, and a crumpled, wild-eyed Keith emerged, wearing saggy jogging bottoms and a T-shirt that read
I Am the #1 Source of Greenhouse Gases
.
    ‘Oh,’ said Katherine. ‘For fuck’s …’
    ‘I’m here, baby,’ he said breathlessly, limping forward. ‘Everybody out of my way.’
    He surged forward a heroic six inches, then, putting his hand to his chest, sat on the bonnet of his car to catch his breath, his other hand raised as if signalling to the onlookers that he’d be with them in just a moment.
    ‘That’ll be my ride,’ said Katherine.
    ‘Baby?’ said Daniel. ‘What baby?’

    T he night air was damp and cold. It edged its way in through Nathan’s clothes and laid itself against his skin. His scars ached. His stomach heaved with hunger. The streets already had a morning-after feel, the abandoned kebabs and puddles of beery vomit beginning to congeal; a hard frost across car windows.
    He would not, he thought, be seeing Daniel or Katherine for a very long time, if ever. If he did see them, it would be years hence, and would be more out of mutual curiosity than any real sense of goodwill. He would not call them. They would not call him. It was a comforting thought.
    He found an all-night café on the edge of the city centre. It was quiet and warm. The walls were a soft yellow. The chairs were comfortable. The tables had everything a customer might need. He ordered a cup of tea and some chips. He was, he realised, starving, and in no particular rush to be anywhere at all. When he had finished, he paid and left, feeling awake and calm and happily lost. It was good to be lost, he thought. He had nothing, really, that might be endangered by staying lost a little longer.
    His mobile vibrated with a text. It was from Daniel.
Sorry about tonight. Just checking you’re OK
.
    Don’t worry
, he texted back.
I’m fine
. Then he dropped his phone into a bin.
    It was not yet light. The streets were empty, and they were his to walk.

    ‘W ell,’ said Daniel.
    Katherine nodded. They were sitting in the front room, on separate sofas. Daniel had ushered her there after the business with the cow, and in her momentarily dazed state Katherine hadn’t thought to refuse. Angelica had made the excuse of going to feed the cat.
    ‘Is there any value at all in saying I’m sorry?’ said Daniel.
    ‘Depends if you’re sorry.’
    ‘I am. Of course I am.’
    Katherine thought about it for a moment, weighing the statement as if it were an unusually shaped stone she’d found on the beach, deciding whether to keep it or toss it back to the waves.
    ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘There’s no value in it.’
    ‘Why did you make me say it then?’
    ‘I was just wondering if you would.’
    ‘If you could make me, you mean.’
    ‘Did I make you?’
    ‘No. I really am sorry.’
    ‘Well whoop de doo.’
    ‘Still,’ said Daniel.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Still.’
    They looked ahead of them for an indeterminate amount of time. Sitting perpendicular to each other as they were, it was possible to imagine a point in space at which their gazes might intersect.
    ‘Maybe one day,’ said Daniel. ‘We can …’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Katherine. ‘We could be friends, couldn’t we? Because, you know, we get along so well.’
    ‘Point taken.’ He paused, his mouth still open with a word stuck somewhere inside.
    ‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘Ask the obvious.’
    ‘What are you going to do about the baby?’
    ‘I think I’ll keep it,’ she said. ‘Why not.’
    Daniel nodded, then cocked his head towards the window, through which Keith could be seen, engaged in a titanic battle to straighten his car door with his knee. ‘He, ah, he seems like a decent chap.’
    Katherine snorted. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ll just tell the kid I reintroduced Daddy to the wild.’
    She followed Daniel’s gaze, taking a minute to study Keith’s straining form with dispassion. She thought of the baby, hoping that, just this once if never again, nurture would