It was the first time Zoe had seen Adam since Kathryn’s visit and she was nervous. She’d been round to Laura’s the night before to avoid Richard’s parents and ended up staying on the sofa, piqued that Nick had come over, so she couldn’t sleep in Laura’s bed. She was tired and didn’t particularly feel like going out, but this meeting felt significant, charged. She needed to know if anything had changed between Adam and Kathryn, because that would mean something would have changed for her too. The foolishness of her going to the dance class would occasionally swell up and she was terrified Adam would find out somehow. Her hands shook as she put on her eyeliner.
She heard her phone and swooped towards it, thinking about Adam or Laura. It was Alice; she never rang Zoe. Zoe guessed Peter had asked her to do it; maybe he thought it was more likely Zoe would take her call. She felt guilty as she watched the phone dance on her bed but couldn’t make herself answer. The voicemail alert was like a little jab in the ribs; she put her phone into her bag. She would listen to it later.
She met Adam, where they always met: the pub just behind the warehouse. He kissed her on the cheek the way he always did, affectionately and discreetly. They were cautious at first, feeling their way, but there was no ‘I’ve got something to tell you’ or ‘we need to talk’. They began to soften into each other again. After they’d had three drinks, he looked around the pub and kissed her on the mouth. The furtiveness with which he did it was beginning to irritate her, even though she couldn’t expect anything else.
They walked back to the warehouse together. It was crowded: Oscar was finishing supper at the kitchen table with Katy, Ursula was on the sofa with one of her friends, and Cora was making a stew. Adam took two glasses from the cupboard and they retreated into his room. She sat on his bed, while he poured her some whisky from the bottle on his shelf and as he handed it to her, he said, ‘I’ve actually got some good news: I sold a piece at the private view. The copper pipe one?’
‘Oh, that’s great! Congratulations.’
‘Yeah, thanks. It was amazing to have a sale on the first night, but I was sad about it in some ways. I lived with that piece for ages. But you’ve got to let go. You know, when Ai Weiwei was in New York in the eighties, he would make work and just throw it away? He said the process was the most important thing.’
You’ve told me that before, she thought. But she smiled politely and said, ‘Amazing.’
He sat down next to her. ‘And anyway, that’s my rent paid for a couple of months.’
They’d avoided talking about money in any concrete way. Zoe was always curious about how it all worked – how he made a living. She supposed his rent was cheap, and she knew he gave lectures and ran workshops and wrote articles for online art magazines, but she was surprised it added up to an income. He never seemed to have problems with money, but then, they never went out anywhere – she didn’t know if that was because he couldn’t afford to or because they weren’t properly seeing each other. She told herself not to try to find out; it was more romantic not to know. But now she was asking.
‘How often do you sell work?’
‘I don’t know – a couple of pieces a year maybe? It’s not really about that though.’
‘No, I know. But you’ve got to make a living.’
He spoke as if he’d explained this many times before. ‘I don’t make much money from selling work. The majority of practising artists have another income stream. Making art’s expensive. I mean, yeah, I do know artists who scrape by on nothing and just spend twenty-four hours a day in the studio, but I don’t think it’s that healthy, you know? It’s not for me, anyway.’
‘But what’s the other income stream; what do you actually do?’
She wasn’t asking gently or sympathetically. She was starting to dislike herself.
‘You know, lectures and stuff. Like the one I did today. Professional practice. Teaching people how to have a career as an artist.’
‘You make money teaching people how to make money as an artist? Isn’t that a bit meta?’
‘No, it’s just – look, I’ve been in the art world for a few years now. I understand it. And if someone’s just graduated from art school, the stuff I’ve got to say is useful.’
He was getting defensive. You should stop now, she thought. Leave it, get it back to before again. You can still get back to before if you stop. Instead, she said, ‘OK, sure, but I still don’t see how that makes enough money for you to live on.’
He gave a forced smile. ‘What, do you want to see my bank statements? I don’t get what you’re accusing me of.’
‘I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m surprised doing the lectures makes enough for you to live on. That’s all.’
‘OK, well, I also have a bit of help from my parents.’
‘Your parents give you money?’
‘Just a bit every month. It’s not like a salary or anything, it’s just enough to, you know, stop me going under.’
She laughed unkindly.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t know you had a trust fund.’
‘It’s not a trust fund. That’s ridiculous. I still have to work. Look, it’s really fucking hard to have any sort of career as an artist, OK? So what if I have help?’
‘But you told me your parents don’t get your art.’ She’d imagined a couple, with working-class roots and staunch, useful careers, bemused by the London art scene, unable to comprehend why their son had chosen to bang nails into things as a vocation. She didn’t know where that image had come from, but she didn’t think she’d reached it independently.
‘They don’t. That’s why they don’t come to my shows.’
‘But they get it enough to fund it.’
Something was starting to shift, already. Everything looked different now. His career stopped being glamorous, the warehouse was no longer exotic and marvellous. It was just a playpen for rich kids. It was irrational, it shouldn’t matter, she should just shut up and yet:
‘I mean, why don’t you just get a job, like everyone else?’
‘I do have a job! I earn money—’
‘Just not enough to live on. Pocket money.’
‘Jesus Christ, at least I’m actually doing something! You think you’ve got such integrity because you work in a shop, but you never actually do anything. Why don’t you get a proper job?’
‘Because of my . . . stuff, my writing!’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ He sank back against the wall.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just . . . I don’t want to get into this.’
‘No, tell me.’
‘Well, you’re not a writer, are you? You work in a shop. You just write sometimes. Everyone writes sometimes.’
‘No, I—’
‘If you want to be a writer, you should be a writer. But you never talk about it. I think you like hanging around with me and the others and working in the shop, but you don’t mean it. I think if you were a real writer, you would – I don’t know, talk about it more, be serious about it, try and get stuff published, or something.’
‘Oh, fuck off!’
She really wanted another drink. Without saying anything, she got up and poured herself more whisky. She sat back down on the bed. Everything was moving too fast; she couldn’t make sense of it. All she knew was that this wasn’t supposed to be happening – she’d chosen Adam because he said she was beautiful and irresistible. She didn’t want to hear all this. They were quiet for a moment.
‘Zoe, is this really working?’
She didn’t say anything. It cut her that he was asking, even though she knew the answer.
‘I mean, between us,’ he said, unnecessarily.
‘I know.’ She curled back against the wall.
‘I don’t know what to do. Maybe it’s not the right thing any more.’
‘Maybe not.’
They sat in silence a little longer. She looked down at her hands in her lap; it was as if she’d never seen them before. Then she asked, ‘What about Kathryn?’
‘I don’t know. I need to think about things with Kat properly. It was probably stupid of me to think that I could do that when I was seeing you.’
She downed her drink. She felt exactly as she had when she’d found out about Kathryn at the party. Mistaken. She’d got him wrong. And now nearly six months later, she was back in the same place, only a small amount of dislike had grown between them. She would never get that time back.
Adam started violently jolting his head back.
‘What—? What are you doing?’
His neck was arched back, his face strained. ‘I’m having a nose bleed.’ She saw red forming in his nostrils and starting to run towards his mouth. He was looking up at the ceiling, jerking uselessly.
‘Zoe, can you fucking do something?’
‘Oh, OK – sorry! What do you want me to do?’
‘Do you not have any tissues in your bag?’
She laughed. ‘I’m not your mum!’
‘OK, fine – can you go to the bathroom? I don’t want all of them to see.’
She leapt up and ran into the living room, avoiding his flatmates’ eyes, muttering something about spilling a drink. She came back with a cloud of loo roll. He leant forward gratefully, holding the tissue with one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. She watched in fascination as the scarlet bloomed on the rough white paper, soaking it.
‘Can I . . . do you need anything else?’
He said something muffled through the tissue paper. They waited. Then he said, ‘It’s OK. I think it’s over. Sorry.’
He pulled the tissue away from his face and a huge dark shining clot pulled out of his nostril. It was repulsive but strangely cathartic to watch.
He looked up at her. ‘Is my face OK?’
‘Not really.’ She went back out and ran the tap over some more tissue. She came back, knelt in front of him on the bed and washed his face. Sitting back down, she saw there were tiny shreds of tissue around his nose, and decided not to say anything.
‘I didn’t know you got nosebleeds.’
‘When I’m stressed.’
‘Right.’
‘Oh, Zoe, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said all that stuff just then, about you not being a writer. I was just annoyed with you.’
‘It’s OK. I wasn’t being particularly great either.’
‘I don’t know why I had a go at you about it because it’s always been one of the things I liked about you. You seem really laid-back and kind of easy-going about life. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but sometimes it feels like everyone I meet is networking and ambitious and trying so hard to be something, and I just get tired of it.’
He was still furtively touching his nose.
‘And with Kathryn, it’s like she’s got this drive – it’s exhausting to be around.’
Zoe ached with jealousy.
‘I used to feel really lucky that I was with someone whose art I respected. And then I just thought, is this actually ever going to work? Are we really going to both be able to have our own careers? And you know, art is the most important thing in the world to me, so at the end of the day, I need someone who can support me.’
He turned to look at her.
‘It’s funny cos, lately, before this evening – well, I’d been thinking that I might need someone more like you.’
She wondered if, six months ago, she would have found this appealing. She imagined herself folding into him gratefully, happy to be needed. But now she felt herself resisting.
Still, she was polite when she said, ‘I’m not sure you do.’ And she didn’t say what she was thinking: I don’t think I need someone like you.