Idiopathy

Daniel replied, for perhaps the hundredth time.
    ‘Oh yes, I always forget. You don’t research, you just proselytise the research.’
    ‘Oh leave him alone, Seb,’ said Plum.
    ‘I’m just ribbing him a bit. You don’t mind, do you, Dan?’
    Daniel did mind, and also disliked having his name abbreviated, but commented on neither transgression, since to do so would ruin the atmosphere. Angelica set great store by atmosphere, and woe betide anyone who was caught jeopardising it.
    ‘Well I think proselytising’s a bit strong,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s more a sort of educational capacity, really.’
    ‘You’re the minister of propaganda then,’ said Sebastian.
    ‘Not really, no.’
    Like many in his circle, Sebastian determinedly equated anything he didn’t like with fascism.
    ‘You’ve seen the headlines, I assume?’ said Sebastian. ‘God, what am I saying? You probably wrote the headlines.’
    ‘Which headlines are we talking about?’
    ‘You know, the ones about The Centre.’
    ‘Oh, those,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes, we’re not sure where those are coming from, actually.’
    ‘I assume you’re about to tell me they’re untrue.’
    ‘Well I wasn’t actually, but since you mention it, yes, they’re totally false.’
    ‘Spoken like a true believer.’
    ‘Believing’s got nothing to do with it. The Centre is researching a sustainable crop source. Whatever’s going on with the cows is completely unrelated.’
    ‘But what if they’ve been eating modified crops? What if this is a glimpse of us in the future?’
    ‘If you think cows eat crops then you’re incredibly naïve. More to the point, if it’s true that this is a virus that’s capable of jumping the species barrier, which everyone seems to think it is, then that would rule out the food source as the infecting agent.’
    ‘Not really,’ smiled Sebastian, who hated being called naïve to the exact same degree as he loved labelling others as such. ‘It could be picked up in the food source, then passed to humans when they eat infected meat.’
    ‘Yes, but that only brings us back to the question of the food source. Don’t you remember Mad Cow? Cows eat mushed-up cows for breakfast, lunch and dinner.’
    ‘You know,’ said Sebastian, his lip curling. ‘You should work in PR.’
    ‘And you should spend your life picketing stuff you don’t understand,’ snapped Daniel. ‘Saw you out there the other day. You looked dreadfully cold.’
    ‘Warm in your office, was it?’
    ‘Yes thanks.’
    ‘Long way from that car park now, aren’t you?’
    At this, Daniel simply laughed, even if it was only to mask his grimace.
    ‘We’re not onto this already, are we?’ said Angelica, carrying through the lentil thing and rolling her eyes. ‘I mean for God’s sake, boys, let it go.’
    Sebastian spread his hands in a smug, blameless way. Daniel did the same in an equally smug, though slightly less blameless way.
    The conversation moved on. Plum and Sebastian talked about Brighton. They always talked about places as if the people to whom they were speaking could never possibly have been there. Daniel had been to Brighton, but didn’t say anything. He’d already flirted with a spell in the doghouse during his exchange with Sebastian. He was usually, he thought, better at managing these occasions. Perhaps it was Katherine’s call, the stirring up of all those unpleasant memories and sensations. Perhaps it was the flu. Either way, he felt decidedly sharp-edged. Katherine would have said this was his true self. As far as she was concerned, conviviality was always a lie. You could fake being nice, she would say, but being a cunt came from the heart.
    When Daniel tuned back into the conversation it had turned to politics and failures of government. It never ceased to amaze Daniel that, years after Blair’s departure, his shortcomings remained a fixture of dinner-party conversation. If that wasn’t a legacy, Daniel didn’t know what was.
    ‘I mean,’ said Sebastian, ‘just
look
at Afhanistan.’
    ‘Oh I know,’ said Angelica. ‘Afyanistan is a
horror
. To think that man actually took us there.’
    It was, Daniel noticed, an unspoken agreement within the group that the names of foreign countries had to be pronounced with a slightly different inflection than was usual, delivered with such confidence that it implied ignorance on the part of anyone oafish and colonialist enough to say Af
ghan
istan.
    ‘You know,’ said Sebastian,