The French Girl(64)

“The King’s Head by the office. Leaving drinks. They’re firing half the bloody floor; there’s been leaving drinks for weeks . . . Then a bloody good wine bar in Knightsbridge. Then, God, I don’t know.” He peers across the room, as if struggling to see through darkness despite the kitchen being well lit, swaying slightly despite the support of the doorframe. “Kate, too? You know I just saw Lara on the way up the stairs.” His speech is slurred: he has particular trouble with Lara; it could be Lalla or Lulla.

“Hi, Seb.” I make no move to climb off the stool. He is not something I want to kiss hello.

“Come and have a glass of water,” Tom says, running the tap in the sink. He eyes the difficult stools. “On second thought, maybe we should move to the sofa.”

“Not water,” says Seb, shaking his head, but he lets Tom shepherd him through the open-plan room in the direction of the living room area. I take the water glass off Tom in return for a muttered thanks and then follow the pair of them. “Need something stronger. Wet the baby’s head. Alina’s pregnant. Going to be a dad. Fuck.” He sounds astonished, as if he can’t quite understand how he got to this point.

“Congratulations! Didn’t know—woah, there!—you had it in you.” I can hear the exasperation under Tom’s words as he tries to stop Seb ricocheting off the walls, knocking awry the photographic prints Tom has hung there.

I pause by the dining table that separates the kitchen space from the living room area and compose myself. Seb has collapsed onto one sofa, legs sprawled out, shoulders hunched over well below the line of the sofa back. Severine sits in the opposite corner of the same sofa, her feet curled up under her, eyeing Seb with unmistakable distaste. Tom switches on a couple of table lamps, then sits in the armchair.

“Congratulations, Seb,” I say, holding out the water. He doesn’t take it—I’m sure he can barely see it—so I put it on the coffee table. I can’t bring myself to sit on Severine—or near Seb for that matter, so I settle on the footstool. “How is Alina feeling?”

“Oh, fine, fine. She’s always fine.”

I think of Alina with the crumpled paper towel in the bathroom of the restaurant. No, Alina is not always fine.

“How far along is she?” asks Tom.

“Ten weeks. Not supposed to say yet, but . . .” He shrugs. I can barely discern the movement, his head is sunk so deeply into his chest. “Fuck. A baby.” A phone starts to ring from the depths of his suit jacket. He clumsily pulls it out, peers at the screen then leans forward to deposit it on the table without answering. He passes a hand over his face, then collapses back into the sofa again. Just when I think he’s passed out, he turns to me with an unexpectedly shrewd look. “What are you doing here anyway? Have I interrupted something?” He starts to laugh as if the idea is hilarious. “Sloppy seconds, huh, Tom?”

In that instant I detest him with a force that’s blinding. I actually want to physically hurt him. It scares me.

“You just saw Lara, Seb,” Tom reminds him evenly, but his jaw is clenched. He’s not looking at me. It feels deliberate. “You think I’m screwing them both?” Screwing. To screw, a verb. I screw, we screw, they screwed, screw you . . . it can never sound anything but cheap, sordid. Is that how he thinks of the corridor kiss?

“Ha-ha,” Seb snorts. “Don’t tell me it never crossed your mind. Certainly crossed mine once or twice.” In another world, in other circumstances, this would be harmless fun. The kind of flirting men do with attractive female friends that elicits a naughty giggle and a warm glow. But we’re not in that world. There’s a hard edge to Seb’s words, a nastiness. Was he always like this when he’d had a few? I recall Lara’s words: Definitely an obnoxious drunk, then. I can’t specifically recall it, but it doesn’t quite surprise me, either.

I stand up abruptly. “I think I’ll head home after all. The company’s better there.” Severine eyes me from the sofa, as close to a smirk on her face as I have ever seen. At least I’ve conjured up a figment of imagination that appreciates my sly digs.

“No, don’t,” says Seb. He struggles himself a little more upright and lunges out with an arm to try and stop me. “I’m sorry. Don’t take it like that. Was just having fun. Don’t have to take everything so seriously! Sorry, sorry . . .” His mumbles trail off, but he continues to look at me beseechingly, somehow both aggrieved and hangdog, a little boy mostly pretending to be ashamed of himself. This I remember. Seb is a master at apologies that somehow make you feel like the fault is more than likely your own.

The phone starts to ring again; he drops my arm. “Alina?” asks Tom, but from my vantage point of standing I can see on the screen that it’s not Alina calling.

“It’s Caro,” I inform them, but I think Seb knows that. He’s made no move to answer. I can see he’s missed eight calls; I wonder how many are from Caro. The phone subsides into sulky silence.

“Would never have met you if it wasn’t for Tom,” Seb rambles, as if there’s been no interruption. He seems to have found a philosophical bent. “That’s why we went to that party, you know, when we crashed Linacre Ball. Tom wanted to see some girl . . .” He trails off, smirking at Tom. I catch a glimpse of Tom’s face, set with tension. I don’t understand the undercurrent.