Free Fearful Symmetry by Morag Joss Page B

I
haven’t
! And you’ve got a nerve! I have
not
slept with him. And so what if I had, anyway?’
    There was a muffled laugh, followed by a sigh.
    ‘James, tell Tom to stop that at once. James? James, you are the limit. Stop laughing at me. Why are you so chirpy, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be exhausted and stressed-out with that new works for piano thing you’re doing.’
    ‘Oh, I am, I am,’ James giggled. ‘I can’t think why I was asked to do it, after the things I’ve written recently about contemporary music, but there you are. Never again, though. I know now why they get someone different to do it every year: it’s because nobody would do it twice. I’ve got to do all these programmes, four recitals featuring three new young composers each, but for God’s sake, don’t ask me if they’re any good. I’ve no idea. In the end you might as well pick them out of a hat.’
    Sara protested, ‘Oh, come on, you must think they’re good.’
    ‘No, honestly, darling, what I’ve been through, trying to decide what to play. I got dozens of scores, mostly bollocks, and unreadable. And then you get all the misunderstood little wannabes ringing up, whining about the selection. There’s no pleasing them. You’ve no idea what some of these people would do to get their stuff performed. So, what’s Herve like in bed? You must have slept with him.’
    ‘I have
not
slept with him! Look, I just want to borrow your bloody flat. Is that so difficult?’
    ‘You haven’t? In that case you’re one of the few, from what one hears. Ah, wait, yes. Of course, I see. You’re
considering
sleeping with him, and having him as a house guest would be awkward in case you do and then it doesn’t work out. That terrible silence at breakfast. Yes, darls, I do see.’
    ‘James, you are the most smug married bastard I have ever known. You couldn’t be more wrong. I just want my house to myself. I never even actually invited him—he just kind of assumed.’
    ‘Whoa, whoa! Stop! Plenty! What? No, sorry, babe, that was me talking to Tom. He’s spilling. Trying to get me drunk.’
    ‘James, let him have Camden Crescent, please. I mean, it’ll mean a bit of rent, won’t it? And if I’ve got him somewhere else all lined up, it’s a fait accompli, it lets me off having him here, don’t you see?’
    She could hear his obvious glee, even though he probably had his hand over the receiver, and some more conversation in the background.
    ‘Are you there? Look, Tom says to say’—James’s voice grew wavery with laughter—‘on balance, we don’t mind taking Herve’s money, he must be making plenty. So, sure you can have the flat for Herve until we get back. It’s fine with us, as long as we get a blow-by-blow of what he’s like. You know, in bed. We think it’s
so
funny.’ He dissolved into laughter again.
    ‘Sometimes I hate you two, you big, ugly fairies.’
    ‘Love you to bits, babe, you are such fun to tease. Big snogs from Tom. Bye!’
     
    P EOPLE WHO live in English cities are actually proud of how little they know about other people around them, Sara thought. She was sitting at the Lambridge traffic lights on her way to James’s flat and looking straight ahead wishing, if not pretending, that all the other cars didn’t exist. Perhaps in cities everywhere it has become a virtue not to notice your neighbours. We didn’t like to ask, people say, having overheard screams and blows from next door for months before the fatal battering. We did wonder, they murmur after the hospice ambulance as it bears away someone in their street who, they’d noticed, had recently lost a lot of weight and all his hair. We never really saw her is the boast of those so careful of their neighbour’s right to privacy that they inadvertently uphold also her right to lie dead for weeks in a lonely house before either the stink or the buzzing eventually proves more compelling than the observation of good manners that forbade, at the