Idiopathy

was there even any such thing as an accepted suicide method? There were definitely scars on his neck too. Hanging, maybe? But that didn’t explain the hands.
    ‘So,’ said Daniel. ‘How long have you been home?’
    ‘Few weeks,’ said Nathan.
    ‘Right. Cool, cool,’ said Daniel. ‘And, ah, like, how is that?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Being home.’
    ‘Oh. You know.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    They both nodded.
    ‘Sorry about you and Katherine,’ said Nathan.
    ‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘For the best.’
    ‘She’s coming, right?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Daniel looked at his watch. ‘Any time now.’
    ‘I hope that’s not, like …’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s fine. We’re, you know …’
    Nathan nodded. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘Because a lot of people just …’ He shrugged.
    ‘Part of me wonders if maybe we’ll actually be able to function much better as friends than we did when we were together,’ said Daniel, who appeared, as he often did, to be making pronouncements in which he had absolutely no faith.
    ‘That can happen,’ said Nathan, who Daniel already suspected might be losing interest. What a burden it was, Daniel thought, entertaining people. He wondered how he’d ended up being the linchpin of the whole occasion. Probably because he was always the sodding linchpin, he thought, sucking moodily at his beer bottle.
    He realised he was desperate for Katherine to arrive. Not for reasons of romance or nostalgia, but simply because there had always been times when her galloping obsession with being the absolute epicentre of existence offered Daniel the welcome opportunity to put his feet up, chug beer after beer, and free himself from all sense of social responsibility. Sometimes, naturally, letting Katherine be Katherine could prove embarrassing in the extreme, but after years of inwardly shrivelling while the woman he was sometimes highly reluctant to describe as his partner held stubbornly forth on such diverse topics as vaginal discharge, child molestation, the benefits of adultery and whatever partially concealed raw nerves she might be able to locate, like a beachcomber stalking the sands with a metal detector, in or among her assembled guests, he had found that it was actually much easier simply to switch off and enjoy the fact that no one gave a shit what he thought or said so long as Katherine was putting on her usual performance. It was, he found, oddly liberating and even, at times, surprisingly beneficial to his ego, as he kept one eye on Katherine and one on the pitying glances of their guests and came to understand that they were going to walk or drive home and, during the usual post-mortem of the evening, describe him as
long-suffering
to the point of heroism. Surveying the post-apocalyptic tundra of silence and awkwardness between him and Nathan now, Daniel felt he could use a bit of heroism, no matter what the source.
    ‘Another beer?’ he said, waving his empty bottle at Nathan.
    ‘Still working on this one,’ said Nathan. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’
    ‘No,’ said Daniel, creaking out of his chair and making that odd little noise he seemed to have started making whenever he tried to rise from a sitting position. What, he wondered, was happening to him? Was he decaying?
    The doorbell rang, then rang again three seconds later. After two more seconds Katherine’s voice bellowed at him to open the fucking door. Thank God, Daniel thought, striding through the dining room with his arm outstretched, that she was here to break the silence.
    ‘Katherine,’ he said, opening the door wide and affecting a smile he hoped would fill the space. ‘Come in.’
    The invitation carried a whiff of inadvertent irony, however, as she was already in, turning twice on her heel to take in the room, casting off a glance as she did so.
    ‘Love what you’ve done with the place,’ she sneered. ‘You must have spent weeks choosing just the right throw.’
    Daniel narrowed his eyes, but was spared the exchange, because Nathan had appeared in the doorless doorway that led through to the rest of the house. He had his hands behind his back and his head tilted to one side. He looked awkward, Daniel thought with a little heart-skip of pity, perhaps even embarrassed: a man still stinging from a fresh slap.
    ‘Hi Katherine,’ said Nathan.
    She stood and looked at him, semi-quizzical, a little on the back foot. She was smiling, Daniel noted, in a manner that suggested she’d selected the