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Dominic rang the doorbell at precisely 7.43p.m. The instruction Emily had given him was 7.30p.m. for eight, and he’d been pacing the adjacent streets since twenty past seven. Never be too early. That had been one of his father’s many number one rules for life. Apparently if you were too early they would know you were keen and have the advantage over you. Dominic was unclear about who the great never-specified they of whom his father lived in fear of might be, but was increasingly concerned that Dominic, himself, might have become one of them.
Theo’s fiancée answered the door. Dominic arranged his face into a smile and held out the bottle of wine he’d bought on the way. She took it off him and glanced at the label. Dominic wondered whether it was good wine, and whether she would know any better than him if it wasn’t. He was more of a beer man himself.
‘Lovely.’ Tania smiled at the wine and smiled at Dominic. ‘Come in.’
They negotiated the niceties of greetings and jackets being taken and squirreled away. Not being allowed to hang up one’s own jacket seemed, to Dominic, to be the middle class’s way of ensuring their guests stayed a respectable amount of time. “You can’t leave,” the gesture intimated. “We have your coat.”
He settled himself on the sofa while his hostess excused herself in the direction of the kitchen. So, here he was. All on his own. Where was Emily? Where was Theo? Was he early? Had he committed the sin of looking too keen after all? He glanced around the room. It was a room. It was what his mother would term, “a bit modern”, but that simply implied that it had been decorated in a style this side of 1983. Actually the house, he guessed, was Georgian. It was a big, generous town house, that had probably only cost Professor Midsomer a few thousand pounds back in the 1970s. Dominic tried not to think about what percentage of his academic’s salary got eaten up by the mortgage on his much smaller home every month.
A photograph on the fireplace caught his eye and he stood to take a closer look. It was a town, with what looked like a Roman amphitheatre in the background. Tania and Professor Midsomer were standing together in the centre of the frame, hands clasped, huge smiles across their faces.
‘Where we met.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Dominic dropped the photograph back onto the mantelpiece and turned.
Professor Midsomer was standing behind him. ‘That’s quite all right.’
He moved to shake the younger man’s hand. ‘They were wonderful days.’
Dominic glanced back at the shot, and remembered the story from the engagement party. ‘Verona?’
Tania’s voice cut in from the doorway. ‘On holiday.’
‘I wasn’t on holiday!’ There was a touch of indignation in her fiancé’s tone. ‘It was a conference.’
She laughed. ‘Of course. It looks like he was working hard, doesn’t it?’
They fell into silence. Dominic swallowed. He was supposed to be making a good impression on Professor Midsomer, but was without his usual artillery for impressing the boss. Bringing a copy of your most recent published work to dinner seemed wrong, and it wasn’t really the right moment to launch into a Powerpoint outlining strategies for improving student retention. What could he do that would say, ‘good enough for Daddy’s little princess’? Conversation. He probably ought to try to make some.
‘So ... Professor.’
‘Oh, call me Theo for goodness sake.’
‘So, Theo.’ Theo? Of course he knew the professor’s first name. It was just that he’d never actually heard any of his colleagues use it. Anyway ... ‘Theo, erm, wedding plans going well?’
Theo laughed. ‘Oh Tania has all that under control.’
Tania nodded. ‘Actually, we’re sending out the invitations this week.’
Theo smiled. ‘And Emily’s been helping.’ Theo gestured for Dominic to sit on the armchair before joining his fiancée on the sofa.
Tania nodded. ‘Yes. Emily’s been very involved.’
A noise came from the doorway. ‘Well, Daddy doesn’t have time for things like wedding planning, do you?’
Theo chuckled indulgently, as Tania turned slightly away and stood. ‘I’ll check on dinner.’
Emily watched her stepmother-in-waiting leave the room, before taking her place on the sofa next to her father.
Dinner, when it was served, was a Quorn mince chilli with corn bread. Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You know Daddy likes steak.’
Tania popped on a smile. ‘His arteries might not agree.’
Emily turned to Dominic. ‘It’s crazy. Yoga and Reiki and half of what we eat seems to be made of seaweed!’
‘Well this is delicious.’ It really was. He wouldn’t have known it wasn’t beef if Emily hadn’t kept going on about it.
Emily continued. ‘And what was that thing you were doing when I came in on Saturday?’
Tania’s face coloured slightly. ‘Meditating.’
‘Yeah but with all the scarves and stuff.’
‘Colour meditation. Different colours invoke different moods. That was green.’ Tania raised her gaze towards Emily. ‘It’s for serenity.’
Dessert was brought and eaten. Theo started a conversation about a research paper he’d recently reviewed, allowing Dominic to chime in on safer ground. It was a paper about the cultural significance of the image of the bowman in medieval popular culture. Dominic listened to himself arguing that the notion of the principled bowman was a Tudor construct, and had one of those out of body moments. He sounded interested, passionate even, but the Dominic listening was bored senseless by the Dominic talking. The bowmen were all several centuries dead.
He made his excuses soon after dinner. Being in the midst of someone’s family felt good, but also alien. It reminded him of visits to his aunts and uncles houses when he was younger. They always felt a few degrees warmer than his own home. He liked that feeling. If he ever had a family of his own he wanted it to feel like that. He wanted children running in and out and no stress about people being too loud or too clumsy.
Emily walked him to the porch, and paused, leaning on the door frame. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Thank you for inviting me.’ There was something else he ought to say. ‘And sorry.’
She looked up, straight into his eyes. ‘What for?’
‘I know I’ve been a bit off since my father ...’
‘I know.’ She took his hand. ‘We’re okay though, aren’t we?’
He understood what she was asking. That was one thing he and Emily definitely had going. He understood her need for reassurance, even if neither of them ever spoke of it out loud. ‘Of course we are.’
He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘You could come back to mine, if you wanted? I can give you a lift to work tomorrow.’
She nodded. ‘Give me two minutes to get some stuff.’
He waited on the doorstep looking out into the cold, black sky. For a second he fancied he could feel himself spinning away into the night, cut loose from his moorings, drifting beyond his own control.
‘Are you ready to go?’
Emily was back at his elbow. He nodded, and gripped her hand. It was something, at least, to hold onto.