Idiopathy

times on the face of his mother, noting the ease with which it came to him, and how unpleasant that ease made him feel.
    ‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘This … this is quite strong actually. Whoof.’ He flopped back in his chair and widened his eyes as if the lids were suddenly getting in his way.
    Katherine’s phone rang. She looked at it, swore, dropped it face down on the table, then clearly thought twice and picked it up.
    ‘Where’s your bathroom?’ she said.
    Daniel pointed and she marched off, answering on the way, leaving Nathan smiling awkwardly at Daniel, trying to forget the muscular flicker he’d seen in Katherine’s face as she looked to see who was calling.

    ‘W hat do you want?’ said Katherine, sitting on the toilet and speaking into her mobile in a barking whisper. ‘I’m busy. I can’t talk.’
    ‘Where are you?’ said Keith. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘That’s none of your business. What do you want?’
    ‘Look, babes. All due respect, OK? But you’re carrying our child.’
    ‘Don’t say that. Are you drunk?’
    ‘I feel like I’m seeing the world, like, what’s the word,
afresh
, you know?’ He paused. ‘I am a bit drunk, yes.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘You know I feel like sometimes you don’t take me seriously.’
    ‘Whatever gave you that impression?’
    ‘Well it’s just a sort of niggling feeling that you don’t really …’
    Katherine leaned back and looked at the ceiling a moment.
    ‘What do you want?’ she said.
    ‘I’ve been thinking.’
    ‘That can only be very bad news.’
    ‘I was at home. You know. Up to the usual. Watching a bit of television. And I was watching the news, right? You know, the national stuff, like what’s going on and everything.’
    ‘Is that what the news is? I had no idea.’
    ‘And I was looking at all the cows, you know, and I was thinking, like, what if we can all catch this? Like they’re saying? What if this is, like, it?’
    ‘What if what’s it?’
    ‘This. This whatever it is. This thing. What if this is the end of civilisation?’
    Katherine rested her forehead on her hand.
    ‘It’s just a bunch of cows, Keith,’ she said.
    ‘And sheep now,’ said Keith with a note of panic. ‘It’s sheep now too. What if we’re next?’
    Katherine didn’t have a pithy response for this, so she stayed quiet and distracted herself by examining Daniel’s bathroom. Either he’d cleaned up his act since they’d lived together, she thought, or Angelica was some sort of domestic powerhouse.
    ‘And then I thought, what am I doing? What am I doing here? What are any of us doing here? What’s the point?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine, still taking in the surface glint and atmospheric gloss of a room she was now very tempted to defile in some unspeakable way. ‘What is the point?’
    ‘And I was like, look at you, Keith. Look at yourself. There you are on your sofa. Sitting there. Watching the telly. With your feet up. And your shirt undone. Holding a beer. Looking, OK, maybe not so bad considering, but also not great. Because I’m not blind, right? I can see myself. Sitting there. Watching the telly. With my rubber band on my wrist in case, you know, any of the newsreaders happens to be foxy. And I said look at you, Keith. Look at you. Sitting there. Watching telly. What’s the point? What do you want? Is this where you want to be in five years? In ten years? Sitting there? Watching telly?’
    ‘That’s … I can see how that must have been quite a realisation,’ Katherine said diplomatically. ‘But I have to go now.’
    ‘No. Hear me out, OK? Just hear me out. Because I realised … I realised that, no, this is not where I want to be in ten years. I … Where I want to be in ten years is sitting there, watching telly,
with my family
. You see?’
    Katherine didn’t really know where to begin, and so chose not to try.
    ‘I don’t want to die alone, baby,’ said Keith. ‘I don’t want to go gently into the whatever with people saying, Oh, look at him, look at Keith, what did he do? Nothing. He just sat there …’
    ‘Watching telly.’
    ‘Exactly! Exactly! I knew you’d understand. Oh Katie-babes …’
    ‘Katherine.’
    ‘Will you be mine?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Will you be mine? To have and to hold? Until the end of time, or until we all die of this terrible cow thing, whatever comes first. I’ve been so stupid. I love you. You’re having our baby. I know it seems crazy, bringing a child into a world