Husband Material (London Calling #2)(112)

My vicarious coolness began leaking out. “No?”

She gave a vindicated nod. “Do the artists a favour. Try to actually look at a couple of pieces. And if you spill a drink on something, you buy it.”

I cast a guilty eye at The Birth of Twink Venus and tried to think of something appreciative to say. “Well, this is, um…nice?”

And suddenly I wished Oliver was with me. He’d have had something to say about a naked guy on a shell, about how it was, like, a commentary on the constructed nature of…beauty or something.

“It’s,” I tried, “like, a commentary on the… Like. Constructed nature of beauty.”

Priya put a hand on my shoulder. “Luc, we’ve known each other for ten years, and the most insightful thing you’ve ever said about a piece of my work was ‘Wow, isn’t it big.’ And that’s still more insightful than what you said just now.”

“So it’s not a…whatever I just said?” I asked.

“Oh, it probably is.” That was Theresa, taking a delicate sip from her glass of prosecco. “But it’s very gauche to say so.”

“It’s art,” said Priya. “It’s not a crossword puzzle. It’s not supposed to have an answer. It’s about what it makes you think and how it makes you feel.”

I glared at Twink Venus’s tiny penis. “It’s making me feel I have inadequate opinions about art.”

Andi grinned. “Yeah, that’s the other thing art is about. It’s about making you feel bad because you didn’t go to the right school.”

“I went to a fucking comprehensive,” put in Priya. “Just like you.”

“Yeah.” Folding her arms, Andi gave Priya a hard stare. “Then I went and got a job in a pub, while you went to art college.”

Priya glowered back in a way that felt more sexual tensiony than I was really comfortable noticing. “Why am I even dating you?”

“Because I’m amazing in bed,” Andi told her.

“Oh, not you as well.” I gave a groan. “Do you ever actually have sex, or do you just boast to each other about how great you are?”

Theresa made an I-don’t-know-these-people gesture with her free hand. “Ignore it, Luc. It’s their thing.”

Andi and Priya were still doing their sex glare at each other, and it was heating up the space. I turned to Abena. “Are you beginning to feel like a fourth-slash-fifth wheel?”

“Kind of,” she said.

We extricated ourselves from the get-a-room corner, and having taken the measure of me artwise, Abena drifted off. That left me free to scan the gallery for familiar faces. I saw James Royce-Royce and James Royce-Royce, uncharacteristically unbabied, standing with Tom by a grey papier-maché statue of a figure sitting hunched with its chin on its hands. Its body was covered in tally marks, and a stack of what looked like cherry stones were piled at its feet.

“Well,” James Royce-Royce was saying, “that’s rather melancholy, isn’t it?”

I wandered over and exchanged hugs with the three of them.

“Oh, don’t. I’ve just been talking to Priya, and she’s made it very clear that I can’t art.”

With a smile, James Royce-Royce put a friendly arm around me.

“Don’t worry, Luc, my dear. Neither can any of the rest of us.”

“Apparently,” I offered, “it’s about what it makes you think and feel.”

James thought and felt for a moment. “I’m mostly thinking, would it go well in the corner of the restaurant?” He turned to his husband.

“You know, by the door to the kitchen.”

“Too hot,” said James Royce-Royce. “And too humid. The paper would get soggy.”

“It must be…” James Royce-Royce stirred a hand in the air like he was whipping a soufflé. Assuming you whipped soufflés.

“Lacquered or something. I’m sure it would be fine. And it’d be nice to have a souvenir of Luc’s bachelor party.”

“Are the pieces even for sale?” asked Tom, who’d been busy texting while the James Royce-Royces had been doing comparative art shopping.

Turning, I scanned the room for Abena. “The owner’s over there.

You could ask her.”

Before anybody could move, Tom looked up from his phone again. “That was Bridge,” he said to none of our surprise. “She’ll be here soon. She got delayed because they sent one of their interns out to the ?ngelholm UFO-Memorial to look for that author who went missing, and now he’s gone missing too.”

That sounded basically normal once you adjusted for the Bridge’s life factor.

“Anyway, pumpkin”—James Royce-Royce gave me a squeeze —“you realise you’re officially joining the ranks of the tediously wed.”

“How tedious is it going to be?” I asked.

“Well,” said Tom with a smile. “I’m still in the honeymoon stage, so not tedious at all.”

James Royce-Royce managed to maintain hug contact while turning to face someone else. “You’re married to our Bridget. There are a number of problems I can anticipate in your future life, but tedium is not one of them.” His expression grew slightly marshmallowy. “In my experience, Luc, married life is rather wonderful. And, of course, now we have Baby J, which means every day is a fresh adventure.”