Dinner at Mine by Chris Smyth Page A

done.’
    ‘You are efficient.’ Charlotte sprawled into a dining chair, allowing Matt to move away from the sink. ‘What were we talking about?’ she asked.
    ‘You’re not going back?’ he replied.
    ‘No. You?’
    Matt sat down next to her. ‘I think it was books,’ he said.
    ‘Can we say it was TV shows? I was watching this brilliantly awful thing yesterday . . .’
    Soon, the doorbell went again.
    Charlotte sighed in irritation. ‘I’ll go and get it, shall I?’

Eleven
    There were several small Somali children playing football in the courtyard below the tower. Justin watched them approvingly. He had been feeling concerned since he first looked
up Matt’s address on Google Street View. The flat was on the top floor of a former local authority block halfway up St John’s Street in Islington, not far from Clerkenwell, and Justin
had always thought it was wrong for such places to be sold off, exiling the poor from anywhere nice, diminishing the stock of good-quality council homes and making central London a rich-only zone.
He had been worried about whether it was right for him to eat dinner there.
    But seeing the children use a tree tub and a dustbin for goalposts made Justin scold himself for being so judgemental. Maybe, in fact, Matt’s decision to move here showed a worthy
commitment to socially mixed living, a desire not to use money to run away from the less fortunate, but to join them in pushing the authorities to make conditions better for all. If it was right to
send your children to a state school, perhaps it was right to buy in to a council estate as well. Justin took the working lift as confirmation of this. He resolved to apologize at a suitable point
in the evening.
    Surprisingly, there was no one else there when he arrived. Charlotte seemed in a bit of a huff as she poured him a drink. Perhaps she had quarrelled with Matt. Was she actually his partner?
Presumably she was, although she didn’t seem to know where the wine glasses were. Perhaps she hadn’t moved in yet.
    When they were sitting down, facing each other over glasses of wine, Justin asked, ‘So how long have you two been together?’
    ‘We’re not.’
    ‘Oh. I . . . Well, I thought . . .’
    ‘It’s Rosie’s fault.’
    ‘Is it? I’m not sure I understand how . . .’
    ‘Never mind. Where’s your wife? I’ve forgotten her name.’
    ‘Barbara. She’s not my wife. We have decided not to get married until gay couples everywhere in the US have the right.’
    ‘Oh.’ She looked at him with obvious mystification.
    ‘Barbara feels very strongly about it and I’m fully in support of her,’ he explained.
    ‘Right,’ Charlotte said in a tone he couldn’t read. ‘Is she coming?’
    ‘Yes. But she’s launching her new ceramics exhibition first.’
    ‘Oh.’
    There was a pause after that. Justin thought Charlotte might ask a bit about the exhibition, but she didn’t. So instead he asked, ‘What kind of work do you do?’
    ‘I’m an accountant.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Justin didn’t want another silence, so he thought he should carry on. ‘Is that for one of the City firms?’
    ‘No. It’s the same place Rosie works. We design and manufacture kitchen appliances.’
    ‘I see. Do you enjoy it?’
    ‘No. Not particularly. But that’s work, isn’t it?’
    Justin was a little shocked by this, and couldn’t think of anything to fill the next silence. The humming of the Sky+ box seemed to be unusually loud. Charlotte took several sips of wine
while Justin fiddled with his glass.
    After a while, Charlotte asked, ‘Are you a fan of Come Dine with Me ?’
    ‘Oh we don’t have a TV.’
    ‘Right.’ That tone again.
    ‘We both feel it tends to be a distraction from the more important things in life, you see,’ he explained.
    ‘Can I get you another drink?’ she asked.
    ‘Oh, er, no, thanks. I’ve hardly even started this one.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes, honestly, I’m fine.’
    ‘How about some nuts,