Sequela (21 page)

'Usually!' Sebastian laughed.

'Quite – that's why Jenner developed the vaccination as a safer option. In layman's terms vaccination uses weakened or dead viral matter to provoke an immune response.' Kester took a sip of wine. 'Montagu, that was it, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.'

'Wortley!' Sebastian laughed again. 'How fabulous.'

'I know. She was so sure of herself that she had her son inoculated to try and convince people of the effectiveness of it. And her daughter, I think.'

'Really?' Sebastian leaned forward. 'Did she ask them? Tell them what she was doing?'

'Smallpox,' said Dee. 'What charming dinner conversation.'

Kester ignored her.

'So what do you do, Sebastian?' he asked, sitting forward in his chair.

'I'm a fund manager,' Sebastian said.

Dee looked up at Kester, lifting her cutlery so that it rested upright in her clenched fists, pointing at the ceiling.

'Wow,' Kester said.

'You seem surprised,' Sebastian said.

'I am. You're not the sort of type that normally mixes in the scientific community.'

'That's mad,' said Sienna. 'Where on earth did she find you?'

'It was peculiar. We were both at an art exhibition launch. I'd had rather too much champagne and I commented on her eyes. We got talking. When she told me about her screens project I was fascinated.' He shrugged as if to say, 'and here we are'.

Kester raised his eyebrows. Her screens project.

'Her screens project. Yes,' Kester said, 'how is that going, Dee. Last thing I heard you couldn't get funding.'

'This latest application is different,' Dee said, lifting her nose in the air. 'They've fast-tracked it to the final round. Seems like I might be better off doing it on my own.'

Kester watched her closely. She was still strangling her cutlery, which must mean something: she was bluffing, she was angry, she was on the defensive.

'I can't believe you met at an art exhibition. How did you end up there?' Sienna asked.

'I'm a member of the gallery,' Dee replied. 'They send me free tickets to these things all the time.'

'You never take me!'

'You don't like art.'

'I like champagne.'

'Fund management,' Kester said. 'It's not the sort of thing I thought Dee would approve of. Not unless it's the kind of fund she could apply to.'

Sebastian looked surprised and Kester instantly regretted saying it.

'I was steaming when we met, you see.' Dee held Kester's eye as she said this.

'You were pretty drunk.' Sebastian laughed. 'You were mooning about some guy, I recall. She wasn't at all impressed by my job until I mentioned that I
specialise
in ethical funds.'

'Anyway.' Dee's smile was factory-made. 'We were both drunk. We slept together and guess what – top marks for compatibility.'

Sebastian's
colour
rose but he was too polite to say anything. He picked up his cutlery and started picking at the remains of his starter.

'You scanned him?' Kester asked, horrified.

'And you're telling us,' John said. 'How rude – really, Dee.'

'Everyone does it darling. Didn't you know that? Tell him Betta.'

Betta looked apologetic and held out for a few moments before crumbling under Dee's stare.

'I'm afraid so,' she said, nodding and giggling.

'Sienna?' Dee said.

'Always!' Sienna looked pleased with herself. 'Unless I already think I've made a mistake! No use finding out someone's super-compatible if you think they're a dog.'

'Or a moron,' Dee said.

'You scan everyone you sleep with?' Kester asked her. He took a long swig of wine.

'Sure. Everyone.'

Kester stared at her.

'Everyone,' she repeated.

'OK, you two.' John laughed a little too loud. 'I think we've covered that one. Who's ready for steak?'

Betta and Sienna reacted as if this was the best conversational gambit ever and launched into a discussion about the best steaks they'd ever had. Sebastian rose from his seat and offered help with serving. Kester and Dee sat opposite one another, Dee staring, Kester avoiding her stare until the main course arrived.

'So there's no Mrs Kester?' Sebastian said, attempting to revive some semblance of convivial conversation.

'No,' Kester said.

'What about your hot boss, Kester?' John said.

Everyone except Sebastian shot a glance at John, knives from every quadrant sharpened different ways.

'Yes, speaking of steak…didn't you say she had some share in a restaurant?' Sienna said.

'You're getting her confused with that woman from LayTech.' Betta picked up Sienna's cue and ran with it.

Kester ate in silence, letting the conversation garble on around him like a bad dream. Then, when Dee got up to go to the bathroom, he headed for the kitchen.

'More wine?' he asked John, picking up the two wide-mouthed decanters that lay within arm's reach.

'Yes – bring a white and a red will you?'

Kester swapped one of the decanters for a cooling jug, went to the kitchen, filled them and waited. As Dee walked past the doorway, back towards the dining room, Kester called her and reached out to catch her elbow. She followed him into the kitchen more freely than he had expected.

'What's wrong with you?' he asked.

'What's wrong with me? Asks the rogue scientist who sows the seed of his virus wherever he goes?' She had retreated behind blank, drunken eyes.

'You scanned me? Is that what that was all about?' Kester ignored her jibe.

'Kester,' she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper, 'you slept with that bitch at V, gave me a fucking virus and then dumped me. That's what this is about.'

'Dumped you? Dee, you kicked me out. And it was just one night. How can I have dumped you when –'

'You dumped me – dumped our dream.'

He looked again at the traces of gold still in her eyes.

'You liked them then?'

'What?'

'Your golden eyes. You only uploaded a few days ago. I can tell. It's been months.'

Dee slapped him. He didn't respond.

'You just disappeared into your new life. It was the only thing I had –'

'Dee!'

'– the only thing I had to remind me what a cunt you were. I didn't want to let myself forget too quickly,' she said, her face pale, two pinches of red on her cheeks.

With them both out of the room, laughter was flourishing next door.

'You scanned me,' Kester said.

'So? You don't have to ask permission you know.'

'Why would you do that after the fact?'

'For reassurance.'

'What?'

'For reassurance that you were bad news.' Dee backed away into the corner of the kitchen where the decanter and the jug sat.

'And?' Kester asked, the anger falling out of his voice.

Dee turned away and picked up the two wine vessels.

'And?' Kester repeated.

'Red or white?' Dee asked him, turning round with one in each hand.

'He wants one of each. Now will you tell me?'

'Red or white?'

Kester shrugged his shoulders – she was playing some game he didn't know.

'White,' he said, backed by a roar of hilarity from through the house.

'For fuck's sake, Kester,' Dee screamed, cutting off the laughter,
colour
flooding her face. She threw the white wine over the front of his shirt, clattering the mouth of the jug off his breastbone. 'You didn't even have the decency to say red.'

She smacked the jug down on the worktop and pushed past John who had appeared in the doorway.

'Oh god,' said John, 'what was I thinking?'

Kester pulled his sodden shirt away from his chest.

'You need to
practise
your whispering,' John said.

Kester groaned and then winced as the front door slammed. Through the open kitchen window they could hear angry voices below, followed by high heels and leather soles clattering off down the street in opposite directions.

'She scanned me, John,' Kester said, sliding down the kitchen unit to sit on the floor.

John lunged forward. 'Not there mate.' He grabbed Kester's arm and pulled him up. 'You'll have a wine-soaked arse too and I'm not lending you a whole outfit. Come on, I'll get you a fresh shirt.'

'She scanned me.'

'They all do it. You heard them. You remember when we were in school they all played on that name-match compatibility site? Sarah loves Deter 76%? This is the real thing for them.'

Kester sighed. 'But why do it when you've already bust up with someone – when you haven't really even…'

'I don't know, mate. I don't know. But I'm not sure you should take it personally, either way. And for the record, that was bullshit about her funding proposal. She hasn't even finished it yet.' John looked a bit guilty for saying it. 'Do you want to stay here tonight?'

'No. No thanks. I'm going home. But first, we're going to get very, very drunk.'

-o-

As Dee unlocked the door to her flat, her Book beeped. It was a message from Sebastian saying,
Not sure what happened there. Will call you in the morning.
He was perfect, but she'd scanned him. He wasn't perfect. Infuriatingly, they were incompatible. Not a complete travesty, but a genetic mismatch nevertheless; there was high potential for a serious genetic condition in any offspring. She was stupid to have done it. To have scanned Kester too. Nature was perverse. Why not just make it if they were attractive to you, then they were right – if the body could do it with immune complement, why not with genetic compatibility?

Inside, Dee took a bottle of scotch into the kitchen and started to make herself a whisky sour. Unable to find any lemons, she gave up and drank it neat, standing at the worktop. She tried to call Betta but she was still at the party. Turning on her heel, Dee saw her laptop sitting on the kitchen table, half finished funding proposal open on the display. She lunged forward, slammed it shut and swept it off the table with an animal cry. It landed on a pile of A4 and went skidding into the kitchen doorway, sheets of paper fanning out behind it.

'Fuck,' she said, then stepped over her laptop through the doorway into the lounge, swiping the bottle from the counter as she went. As she entered she noticed the flashing voicemail icon on her wall display. She slumped down on the couch, reached out with a toe and touched the red icon. The room swilled around her.

'Hello, Delilah darling!' It was Kester's mum. Again. 'I just wanted to see how my
favourite
girl was doing. And wondered if you'd seen my wayward son recently. Tell him if he doesn't call me soon I'm going to get myself a pass and come and find him at his fancy new office. That'd embarrass him! Speak to you soon, darling.'

The message ended with a kissing noise.

Exasperated, Dee refilled her glass and fumbled around for her Book. She flicked over to movies and, grimacing, searched the chick flicks. There were hundreds to choose from but it seemed like she'd seen them all. The ads down the side of the display were all for helplines aimed at pathetic creatures like her, she thought. People who had come back late and drunk, in need of a soppy movie. Infuriated, she aimed her Book like a gun at the second ad and selected it. It didn't ring, but segued into a soothing welcome speech with calming visuals to match.

The Real Church. Here to help you when you need it. Here to listen. Tending the path to heaven for seventy-five years.

'
I just want to rant at a real human! Is that too fucking much to ask?'