Idiopathy

said Dawn. ‘Something more zesty?’
    ‘How about Mace?’ said Katherine.
    ‘Oh I know,’ said Dawn. ‘You’d think with all this research they’d have come up with a reliable twat repellent by now.’
    Afterwards they did lunch. After lunch they did coffee. Dawn talked about her relationships, all of which had ended badly, but about which she was still, she said, hypothetically optimistic.
    ‘That must be nice,’ said Katherine.
    ‘It has its moments,’ said Dawn. ‘But anyway. Tell me about you.’
    ‘Ick,’ said Katherine.

    I t was, however, short-lived, just as Katherine’s occasional episodes of bad-faith niceness were always rather short-lived, and always left her, like her recent bumptious, bad-faith orgasms, feeling disappointed and faintly dirty after the event. Her suspension of cynicism was brief and incomplete. The more effort she invested in people, the less she seemed able to overlook their flaws. Jules was Too Compassionate. Dawn Smelled Too Much. Debbie’s Patience was annoying. They were all annoying. They nibbled their food in naughty little bites because they were watching their weight. They sent global emails listing fifteen things that make you glad to be alive. They thought capital punishment had its uses but only for really bad crimes and only if you could be really sure the person did it. The ones with husbands moaned about their husbands. The ones without husbands wanted husbands. They all definitely wanted more stuff but their houses and flats were very cluttered and they felt they should really get rid of some stuff because the minimalist look was in but then on the other hand it wasn’t
homely
, was it, the minimalist look. Many of them wanted to do something worthwhile because they admired people who did things that were worthwhile. They all agreed there was a lot of suffering in the world. Often one of them was coming down with something, and the others would worry that they were about to come down with something, although often they would not and then they would all agree that they were probably just run-down. Yoghurts had a lot more calories than any of them ever really imagined. Somehow, they had all been given computers that were particularly recalcitrant. They liked each other only to the extent that they themselves wanted to be liked. When one stood up to go to the toilet or make a cup of tea the others talked about her, about how she smelled too much or how her patience was wearing them all thin.
    For Katherine, a sense of connection with others was no different to the cashmere cardigan; the much-desired boyfriend. She pined for it; drew it towards her; felt herself open ever so slightly outwards, and then recoiled, convinced that the happiness she’d sought was now a responsibility to be managed in much the same way as she managed the height of chairs and the temperature of the air-con: a series of small adjustments which would result, as she made them, in the gradual erosion of her core.

    K atherine got caught in the lift with Keith, having wrongly assumed he was now committed to the stairs, and realised with sinking horror that she still wanted him to want to sleep with her.
    He said, ‘I’m in such a calm place right now. I feel like I’m getting back to the person I’ve always wanted to be.’
    ‘You look fat,’ she said. ‘Maybe the person you’ve always wanted to be is fat.’
    ‘You’re angry,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do?’
    ‘Maybe we could meet up sometime,’ she said.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Keith with a smile that was painfully kind. ‘I don’t think that would help.’
    ‘Don’t pity me,’ she said. ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’
    ‘You’re right. Better to just stalk around pitying yourself, right, princess?’
    ‘You prick.’
    ‘Right back at you,’ he called, as she got off on the wrong floor.
    Later, she saw him talking to Claire Demoines, who stood on tiptoe in her fuck-off-red fuck-me heels and gave him a love-me hug. Katherine went round and kicked the safety catches off four of the fire extinguishers so as to have a job to distract her in the afternoon.

    T he cows were endless. They went on and on. She went home every evening and caught up with their lack of movement.
    ‘You join us live and exclusive,’ barked Bill Palmer to camera, eyes wide above his protective face mask; rubber-gloved hands gesticulating excitedly towards the motionless cow behind him. ‘Behind me is Simone, the first infected