Waiting for Doggo by Mark Mills Read Free Book Online Page B

flapping to pump my hand.
    He’s a good man, Duncan, the sort of chap you’d want beside you in the trenches, the sort of chap to whom you could say, ‘Duncan, old man, the Captain asked if I’d make a quick recce of no-man’s-land but I’ve got the most dreadful headache.’ Duncan would happily go in your place, return unscathed and probably earn himself a medal in the process. He’s utterly unlike all of Emma’s previous partners, the string of feckless boyfriends who taught me to swear and smoke and listen to Bob Dylan when I was younger.
    ‘Sorry to hear about you and Clara,’ he says awkwardly. ‘I’d have offered five to one on you’d go the distance.’
    Duncan has always been a betting man. He sees life in probabilities. He doesn’t gamble any more; Emma doesn’t allow him to, except at work, where he trades bonds for an Italian bank.
    ‘Maybe you still will,’ he adds.
    ‘Unlikely.’
    I mean it. I’ve spent a couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself – confused, wounded, even vengeful – but I refuse to become one of those sorry fools who carries a guttering torch for someone who wants rid of them.
    ‘Just took off, huh?’ asks Duncan, a wistful look in his eyes. ‘Still don’t know where?’
    ‘No.’
    He goes back to his flapping. ‘I rather liked her.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Absolutely. Well, mostly.’
    ‘I’m sure she’d be touched to know you rather liked her mostly.’
    As long as I’ve known Duncan, he has laughed like a bad actor performing to order. ‘Ha ha ha,’ he chortles stiffly. ‘I could tell she wasn’t always easy.’ It’s his polite way of saying she was several sandwiches short of a picnic.
    I’m the first to arrive, but I’m not the only guest. There’s a couple I’ve met a few times before, Hugo and Lucinda, as well as my date, Fran, who works as a research analyst at Duncan’s bank. I’m assuming she’s my date because she’s my age (or close enough) and single. She’s also sullen, chippy and caustic. She’s rude about Doggo, dismissive of Islington (where we are all gathered), and she drops a snide comment about parents who drone on endlessly about their children. It’s quite a feat, to alienate every person present within twenty minutes or so of arriving.
    While Duncan fights to keep the butterflied leg of lamb from becoming a burnt offering, I find myself looking at Fran across the teak table in the garden and wondering what makes an intelligent person like her tick so out of time with everyone else. It’s as if she’s consciously committing social suicide. This makes her extremely intriguing, of course, but only because she’s also extremely attractive. Without her looks, she’d be sitting alone at home right now.
    When she takes a swipe at the middle-class obsession with organic food, it pops out of my mouth unbidden: ‘Without your looks, you’d be sitting alone at home right now.’
    ‘Dan!’ chides Emma.
    ‘Don’t I know it,’ says Fran, fixing me with an amused look. ‘And thank you. That’s the first honest thing I’ve heard since I got here.’
    ‘There’s more to life than honesty,’ blusters Hugo.
    Fran ignores him, her eyes still fastened on me. ‘Say something else.’
    ‘Quid pro quo.’
    Fran drops another slice of salami into Doggo’s mouth. ‘Why did your girlfriend run away?’
    ‘That’s cheating.’
    ‘You never said it couldn’t be a question.’
    ‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘Because I don’t believe in angels.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because there’s no evidence for them.’
    ‘Ah, an empiricist. Maybe you’re blind to the evidence. Maybe you’re looking for halos and wings when you should be looking for other things.’ She pauses briefly before adding, ‘Maybe I’m an angel.’
    I can’t resist it. ‘Great disguise.’
    Fran laughs loudest of all.
    Duncan keeps a fine cellar, and as the claret flows, Emma finally begins to relax. So does Fran. She has set out her stall – Hi, I’m Fran, your