The Post-Birthday World. Lionel Shriver

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СКАЧАТЬ her; she constantly cut her own gaze to her plate. It was a bit much for a first meeting, not presumptuous in a way you could quite put your finger on but presumptuous all the same. And Ramsey was lousy at casual chitchat; whenever she brought up the Democratic convention, or John Major, he plain stopped talking.

      Quietly, Ramsey picked up the bill. The wine, and there had been a lot of it, had been pricey. But snooker pros made a mint, and Irina decided not to feel abashed.

      That first birthday, his forty-second, as she recalled, he’d seemed perfectly nice and everything, but she’d been relieved when the evening was over.

      Irina collaborated on a second children’s book with Jude—the overt manipulativeness of the first, along the lines of I Love to Clean Up My Room!, appealed to parents as much as it repelled children, and had ensured that it sold well. Thus the foursome soon became established, and was repeated—often, for London circles—a couple of times a year. Lawrence, for once, was always up for these gatherings, and from the start displayed a proprietary attitude towards Ramsey, whose acquaintance he enjoyed claiming to British colleagues. Irina grew marginally more knowledgeable about the sport, but she could never compete with Lawrence’s encyclopedic mastery, so didn’t try. Tacitly it was understood that Jude was Irina’s friend and Ramsey Lawrence’s, though Irina wondered if she wasn’t getting the short end of the stick. Jude was a little irritating.

      The dinner that began the second year of their rambunctious foursome landed once again on Ramsey’s birthday. For secular Westerners ritual is hard to come by. Two birthdays in a row sufficed to establish standard practice.

      Self-conscious that Ramsey always footed the bill on his own birthday, the fourth July, in 1995, Irina had insisted on hosting the do. In the mood to experiment, she prepared her own sushi-sashimi platters, to which she’d noticed that Ramsey was partial. Unlike those precious restaurant servings of three bites of tuna and a sheet of serrated plastic grass, the ample platters of hand rolls and norimaki on their dining table in Borough left no room for the plates. She would have imagined that someone like Ramsey was used to being feted, and worried beforehand that her hesitant foray into Japanese cuisine wouldn’t compete with the flash fare to which he was accustomed. Instead, he was so overcome by her efforts that for the entire evening he could hardly talk. You’d think no one had ever made him dinner before. He was so embarrassed that Irina grew embarrassed that she had embarrassed him, exacerbating the painful awkwardness that had come to characterize their few direct dealings with each other, and making Irina grateful for the boisterous buffering of the other two.

      Ah, then there was last year. She and Jude had had a huge row, and were no longer speaking; Jude and Ramsey had had a huger row, and were no longer married. Though seven years was brief for a marriage, that was still a mind-boggling number of evenings in the same room for those two, and they were surely only able to stick together for that long because Ramsey spent such a large proportion of the year on the road. Had it been left to Irina, at that point she might have let their fitful friendship with Ramsey Acton lapse. She’d nothing in common with the man, and he made her uncomfortable.

      Yet Lawrence was determined to rescue this minor celebrity from that depressing pool of people—sometimes an appallingly populous pool, by your forties—with whom you used to be friends but have now, often for no defensible reason, lost touch. He might have slipped in the rankings, but Ramsey was one of the “giants of the game.” Besides, said Lawrence, “the guy has class.”

      Shy, Irina pressed Lawrence to ring, suggesting that he make a half-hearted offer to have Ramsey over; it was pretty poor form to ring someone up and ask him to take you out to dinner on his own birthday. Yet she expected Ramsey to decline the home-cooked meal, if not the whole proposition. A threesome anywhere would feel unbalanced.

      No such luck. Lawrence returned from the phone to announce that Ramsey had leapt at the opportunity to come to dinner, adding, “He sounds lonely.”

      “He doesn’t expect another sushi spread, does he?” asked Irina with misgiving. “I hate to seem ungenerous when he’s picked up so many checks. And last year was fun. But it was a lot of work, and I hate to repeat myself.” Irina was a proud and passionate cook, and never bought plastic bags of prewashed baby lettuces.

      “No, he begged that you not go to so much trouble. And think of me,” said Lawrence, who did the washing up. “Last year, the kitchen looked like Hiroshima.”

      Hence the fare had been, to Irina’s mind, rather ordinary: an indifferent cut of venison cubed in red-wine sauce with shiitake mushrooms and juniper berries, which constituted an old standby. Yet Ramsey was as effusive as before. This time, however, Irina wondered whether it was really the menu that captivated their guest. Perhaps in order to add one note of novelty to a meal she’d prepared several times, before he arrived she had dragged out a sleeveless dress that she hadn’t worn in years. The garment had almost certainly slipped to the back of the wardrobe because—as she discovered once more—the straps were a tad long, and kept dropping off her shoulders. The soft, pale blue cotton sized with latex stretched smoothly across her hips; the hemline was high enough that she had to yank it down her thighs every time she sat down. She’d no idea what had got into her, swanning around in such provocative gear before a man fresh from divorce. At any rate, it wasn’t the venison that Ramsey kept staring at all night, that was for sure.

      Mercifully, Lawrence hadn’t seemed to notice. What he did notice was that Ramsey wouldn’t leave. Even with snooker icons Lawrence’s social appetite was finite, and by two Ramsey had exceeded it by a good measure. Lawrence vigorously cleared the plates, and washed them loudly down the hall. As the censorious clank of pots carried from the kitchen, Irina was stranded with Ramsey, and panicked for lack of subject matter. Granted that Ramsey was overstaying his welcome, but she wished Lawrence wouldn’t do that with the dishes! Whenever they did get the ball rolling in the living room, Lawrence would interrupt the flow by brisking in to wipe the table, or to prize off melted candle wax, never meeting Ramsey’s eyes. Oblivious to his host’s rudeness, Ramsey refilled their wine glasses. He didn’t collect his cue case, and then with obvious reluctance, until after three.

      Thus the whole last year the trio hadn’t reconvened, as if Irina and Lawrence needed that long to recover. But Lawrence didn’t hold a grudge, agreeing with Irina that sometimes Ramsey’s social skills were as inept as his snooker game was elegant. Besides, Lawrence was well compensated for his lost sleep with free tournament tickets throughout the following season.

      It was July again. But this year was different.

      A few days ago Lawrence had rung from Sarajevo to remind her that Ramsey’s birthday was coming up. “Oh,” she’d said. “That’s right. I’d forgotten.”

      Irina chided herself. She had not forgotten, and it was foolish to pretend that she had. The slightest abridgments of the truth with Lawrence made her feel isolated and mournful, far away and even afraid. She would rather be caught out lying than get away with it, and thus live with the horror that it was possible.

      “Going to get in touch with him?” he asked.

      Irina had been chewing on this matter ever since she learned that Lawrence would be at a conference on “nation building” in Bosnia and wouldn’t return until the night of July 7. “I don’t know,” she said. “You’re the one who’s big buddies with Ramsey.”

      “Oh, I think he likes you.” But Lawrence’s tone imparted moderation, or even reservation, as in “I think he likes you well enough.”

      “But he’s so odd. I have no idea what we’d talk about.”

      “The fact that they’re thinking about dropping the bow-tie rule? Really, Irina, you should call, if only СКАЧАТЬ