The Post-Birthday World. Lionel Shriver

their voices go tinny and mincing, like a radio playing in another room.

      Betsy folded her arms. “Doesn’t Ramsey live a few blocks from here?”

      “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Irina stirred her bag for her wallet.

      “Next question.” Betsy’s eyes were flinty. “Are you or are you not walking back with me to the Mile End tube?”

      “I might—take a cab.”

      “Swell. We can share one.”

      “Borough’s not on your way.”

      “I don’t mind the ride.”

      “Oh, stop it! Yes, if you must know, I am. We hardly ever get to see each other in the evening. I won’t have long, either.”

      “Did you really want to see me? Or am I just a beard?”

      “Yes, I really wanted to see you. Can’t you tell? Two birds, one stone is all.”

      “So you drag me all the way out to the East End—”

      “I’m sorry about that. I have warm associations with this place. We—well, the management isn’t into snooker, so they don’t know who he is. And I do like the food.”

      “That’s funny. You didn’t eat any.”

      “I told you, my appetite is crap.”

      “If Lawrence asks me when we wrapped things up here, I’ll have to tell him.”

      “He won’t ask.” This was true, but there was something sad about that.

      Irina tried to treat her friend, but Betsy was having none of it, as if refusing to be bought off. They split the bill. Walking down Roman Road, they said nothing.

      At Grove Road, where Betsy would turn left and Irina right, Betsy faced her. “I don’t like to be used, Irina.”

      “I’m sorry.” She was fighting tears. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

      “You’ve got to talk to Lawrence.”

      “I know. But lately we can’t seem to talk about anything.”

      “I wonder why that would be.”

      “He’s such a purist about loyalty. If I ever allow that I’ve been attracted to someone else, he’ll slam the door in my face. And I’d destroy his friendship with Ramsey. I don’t think I can say anything without being sure what I want to do.”

      “Lawrence is a good man, Irina. They’re thin on the ground. Think twice.”

      “You’re panting!”

      “I ran. We don’t have much time.”

      “Get in here, pet, you’ll catch your death. Your hands!”

      They crossed the threshold, hips locked like freight cars. Closing the door with his back, Ramsey massaged her fingers with his own.

      It was a minor malady, and common: Raynaud’s disease, which sent the small blood vessels of the extremities into spasm at even moderately cool temperatures. Now that September had kicked in, the problem had returned. When it was diagnosed, Lawrence had suggested, for working in the studio during the day, a pair of fingerless gloves.

      Not bad advice. But when she’d explained the ailment to Ramsey at Best of India last week, he’d instinctively reached across the table, working the corpse-cold flesh until its temperature conformed to the touch of a live woman.

      A minor distinction, or so it would seem. Lawrence came up with a technical solution, and Ramsey a tactile one. But for Irina the contrast was night-and-day. Oh, she’d rarely complained. Big deal, she got cold hands; there were worse fates. Lawrence had even bought her those fingerless gloves, which helped a bit. But on some winter nights out her hands got so stiff that she couldn’t turn the front-door key, and she’d have to knock with her foot. Yet not once had Lawrence massaged her fingers with his own until they warmed. He was a considerate man, ever drawing her attention to up-and-coming publishers, and she never lacked for little presents, sometimes for no occasion at all. But she didn’t first and foremost crave professional advice, or thoughtful trinkets. She wanted a hand to hold.

      “Brandy?”

      “Oh, I shouldn’t,” she said, accepting a snifter. “I was on edge at dinner, and went through a bottle of wine like seltzer.”

      As usual, he led her to the basement, where they nestled onto a leather couch with the light over the snooker table switched on. The expanse of green baize glowed before them like a lush summer field; they might have been picnicking in a pasture.

      “I feel awful,” she said. “I told Betsy about us, and—”

      “You oughtn’t have told her.”

      “I had to tell someone.”

       “You oughtn’t have told her.”

      “Betsy can keep a secret!”

      “Nobody keeps another git’s secret like they do their own—and most people can’t keep them. Not even you, pet, if tonight’s a measure.” He sounded bitter.

      “I can’t talk to Lawrence. You’re hardly objective. If I didn’t confide in someone I was going to go mad.”

      “But what’s between you and me is private. You’re turning what we got into dirt. What secretaries titter about over coffee. It’s soiling.”

      “It’s soiled anyway.”

      “That’s not my fault.”

      “It’s mine?”

      “Yeah,” he said to her surprise. “You got to decide. I might keep up with this carry-on, against my better judgment. If it weren’t for one thing. Irina, love—you’re making a horlicks of my snooker game.”

      Irina wanted to pitch back, Oh, so what? but she knew better. “What do I have to do with your snooker game?”

      “You’ve spannered my concentration. I’m lining up a safety shot, and all that’s running through my head is when you’ll ring. Instead of rolling snug up against the baulk cushion with the brown blocking the pack, the white ends up smack in the middle of the table on an easy red to the centre pocket.”

      “Oh, what a tragedy, that your practice game is off, when I’m repaying the kindest man in my life with duplicity and betrayal!”

      Ramsey withdrew his arm coolly from around her shoulders. “The very kindest?”

      “Oh, one of the kindest, then,” she said, flustered. “This isn’t a competition.”

      “Bollocks. Of course it’s a competition. Naïveté don’t suit you, ducky.”

      “I hate it when you call me that.” The way Ramsey pronounced the anachronism (nobody in Britain these days said ducky outside West End revivals of My Fair Lady), it sounded like anything but an endearment. She hugely preferred pet. The northern usage may have been equally eccentric, but it was tender, and—pleasingly—she’d never heard him address as pet anyone but her. “I have so little time. We shouldn’t waste it fighting!”

      Ramsey had retreated to the far end of the couch. “I told you from the off. I’m not into anything cheap. We been sneaking about for near on three months now, and that’d be three months longer than I ever meant to smarm round behind a mate’s back and roger his bird.”

      “But we haven’t—”

      “Might as well have. I had my arm up your fanny to the elbow. Tell that to Anorak Man and ask if it really matters that it’s not my dick. Fifty-to-one