Idiopathy

reserved parking space he found himself briefly flirting with the idea of simply reversing back out; not even going home but absconding, skipping town. What with Angelica, Katherine, work, and now Sebastian and his imbecilic retinue, a fugitive existence seemed increasingly attractive.
    They were huddled in a little group, sharing coffee from a thermos and blowing on their hands, which were bound to be cold given what appeared to have been a group decision to wear fingerless gloves. Daniel locked the car and walked towards them, suddenly self-conscious in his well-shined black Oxfords and charcoal overcoat. He didn’t have a briefcase, though, having chosen instead to carry his papers in a battered canvas satchel. He liked the way it undercut both style and status; the way it hinted at an anti-authoritarian seam beneath the suave rock face of aspiration.
    ‘In the old days the generals used to meet on the battlefield,’ said Sebastian by way of greeting. Phrases like
the old days
annoyed Daniel. At what precise point in history did the old days end and the new days begin?
    ‘I try not to think of it as a battlefield,’ said Daniel, mustering a smile and at least a semblance of cheer. ‘It’s all a matter of interpretation.’
    ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ said one of Sebastian’s leering retinue. No one seemed sure what he meant. His grin hung briefly, like a ball reaching the apex of its flight, then dropped.
    ‘How’s the flu?’ said Sebastian.
    ‘Not too bad, thank you.’
    Daniel’s flu had, in fact, almost wholly abated, which, in much the same way as his boiler always sprang miraculously to life the moment he summoned a plumber, was what always happened whenever he went gratuitously public with an illness. So many things in life, it seemed, were cured by simple recognition.
    ‘Do thank Angelica for a lovely meal,’ beamed Sebastian.
    ‘I will,’ said Daniel, his annoyance operating on several tiers. Sebastian always thanked Angelica, then whenever he saw Daniel he asked him to thank Angelica too. Beyond his irritation that Sebastian pointedly never seemed to thank
him
for having them over for dinner, Daniel also got the sense that it was designed to imply, like much of what Sebastian said, that Daniel was somehow inattentive towards Angelica. On top of all this was the further annoyance that Sebastian only ever made these comments in the present situation, when there were onlookers; when the notion of them having dinner together seemed both odd and faintly inappropriate. He loved it, Daniel thought, this sense of moving between classes and agencies, of having a tentacle-like reach to all the major players. He probably pictured himself as some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel.
    Briefly, Daniel entertained a fantasy of kicking him in the balls, or strangling him with his own ponytail. He imagined Sebastian slowly winding down like a broken toy.
You’ve got a lot of hostility
, he’d croak.
You really need to work on your …
    ‘Busy day ahead?’
    ‘Yes,’ Daniel smiled. ‘And you?’
    ‘Oh, you know,’ said Sebastian, ‘same old same old. Not for much longer, though.’
    ‘Really? Are you giving up?’
    Sebastian laughed. ‘I take it you’ve been following the news?’
    ‘Mmmhmm.’
    ‘An escalating situation necessitates an escalation in action.’
    ‘Is that Sun Tzu?’
    ‘No, it’s Sebastian Freud.’
    ‘Ah. So you’re escalating?’
    ‘Onwards and upwards,’ said Sebastian.
    ‘When you say onwards, does that mean …’
    Sebastian tapped the side of his nose and smiled in what he clearly hoped was a knowing and inscrutable manner. ‘There’s an ancient Sanskrit expression,’ he said.
    ‘Well, work beckons,’ said Daniel.
    ‘Back to the grindstone,’ said Sebastian.
    ‘I didn’t know that was Sanskrit.’
    ‘No, it’s not. I was … The Sanskrit expression is …’
    ‘Don’t catch a chill,’ said Daniel, walking away.
    He felt the casual waft of disdain in the air, heard chuckling behind him, and then, just as the green-tinged glass doors hissed aside at the touch of his swipe card, the sound of Sebastian mimicking his voice, rendering it as a privileged whine. ‘
Work beckons …
’
    He was, he thought, angry. Was he angry? It was becoming difficult to tell these days. In a lot of ways, his relationship to anger was rather similar to his relationship with smoking. Having come to the conclusion that neither were good for him, he had given up both. Now,