Idiopathy

like this, but you see, this is what I was thinking. What if that’s why we’re here? What if it’s our responsibility to carry on civilisation? What if that’s us, Kate?’
    ‘Katherine.’
    ‘What if
this is it
? The big one. The whopper. And it’s shit or walk, motherfucker. Shit. Or. Walk. I’m asking you, babes. Are we gonna walk? Are we? Or are we gonna …’
    ‘Shit?’
    ‘Exactly. My God, you get me, princess. You really get me. No one gets me like you get me, you know?’
    ‘What about Claire Demoines? She seems to get you.’
    ‘Oh, Claire. Claire. Whatever. She’s nothing. Don’t you see? All my life, I’ve … I’ve … I don’t know what I’ve done, actually. I really don’t know. But I … I saw us, you know? I saw us in the future. Sitting right here. With our baby.’
    He went quiet, then exhaled at length. Katherine’s eyes finished their tour of the room and ended up fixed on the off-white linoleum and the pointless horseshoe of carpet around the toilet. Somewhere, in the midst of everything, Keith had become so irrelevant that she was no longer even interested in hurting him.
    ‘Keith,’ she said gently.
    ‘Yes babes.’
    ‘Keith. I’m not going to keep the baby. I’m sorry, but I’ve decided, and that’s the way it is.’
    There was a long silence, and then Keith said, ‘You don’t mean that though, princess. It’s just the hormones.’
    ‘No Keith,’ said Katherine. ‘I mean it. It’s not what I want.’
    ‘But …’ Katherine could practically hear the wobble in Keith’s lower lip, the triumph of independent thought now tragically vanquished. ‘But …’
    ‘Come on Keith,’ said Katherine. ‘Let’s be practical.’
    ‘You could give it to me,’ said Keith. ‘I’d take care of it, I swear.’
    ‘I know that,’ said Katherine. ‘But I’d still have to have it, wouldn’t I?’
    ‘I know what you think,’ said Keith. ‘I know what you think of me. I know I haven’t done everything right. But I thought about the baby and it made everything different. Doesn’t it make everything different?’
    ‘No,’ said Katherine. ‘It doesn’t. Sorry.’
    ‘OK,’ he said.
    ‘Bye Keith.’
    She hung up; switched off her phone. She sat for a few minutes, not so much thinking as allowing her thoughts to end. Then she stood up and washed her hands and went back outside, where she found that once again Daniel seemed to have steered all interaction into a place of glacial politesse. It was, she thought, more like old times than even the old times had been.
    Daniel had left three-quarters of the joint in the ashtray, clearly having reached his limit before even really getting started. She picked it up and lit it, dragging deeply, listening to the satisfying crackle as it burned.
    ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this fucking party off the ground. Who’s for another drink?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ said Nathan.
    ‘No you’re not,’ said Katherine.
    ‘Yes he is,’ said Daniel.
    ‘Oh fuck off,’ snapped Katherine. ‘Let’s make it a rule. No one’s fine. None of us are fine. We all need another drink.’
    She reached for the wine bottle and sloshed the dregs into her glass.
    ‘Is, er, is everything alright?’ said Daniel, smirking slightly, the
er
obviously for sardonic effect.
    ‘Peachy,’ said Katherine through her wine glass. She was fucked if she was going to be not-alright in the face of Daniel’s juggernaut of alrightness.
    Now Daniel’s mobile, which he’d left lying on the table in front of him, started to vibrate. A photo of some piteous little blonde flashed onto the screen, and beneath it her name: Angelica. Daniel pounced but was too late. Katherine had swept up the phone and pressed it to her ear.
    ‘Katherine don’t,’ said Daniel.
    ‘Hello?’ purred Katherine. ‘Daniel’s phone.’
    ‘I … Oh … Is that … Who’s that?’
    Katherine could hear the sound of a muffled car engine, the hushed swoosh of motorway traffic. The voice sounded pretty and out of its depth. Katherine thought of the spotless bathroom; the his-and-hers towels. Daniel was out of his seat and standing over her, threatening force he would never actually use. She blinked at him several times, then passed him the phone with ostentatious care.
    ‘It’s for you,’ she said.
    He took it with a withering look to which she could only respond with laughter and then walked quickly upstairs, talking as he went.
    ‘I … no, no … it’s no one. I’ll