‘She’s lost weight,’ said Carl. ‘And she dresses miles better these days. You should have seen the nonsense she used to wear. Plus, she wears contact lenses and make-up now – makes a big difference. Christ, when she was at university she didn’t even use deodorant.’
‘That’s all true,’ said Adam, sipping his brandy judiciously. ‘But there’s something else about her now. She seems a different person. Much more confident and self-assured. She knows exactly what she wants from life, and that always makes a woman attractive. She looks more Jewish as well. I know she always was, but these days she actually looks it.’
‘Really? I don’t think she’s very pretty at all,’ said Olivia.
But Olivia, who clearly didn’t have a fucking clue about anything, was wrong. Alice did look good – really good. And Adam was right. It was more than her clothes and figure. There was a prettiness that didn’t just accompany her cleverness – it was part of it. Her dark eyes glimmered with bright curiosity, her nose curved intelligently. Even her fringe that evening had been witty. She was altogether a vastly better proposition than she had been all those years ago when, once upon a time, James had gone out with her.
‘I don’t think she’s all that different,’ said James. ‘She’s still very political.’
‘Yes, but not in the same way,’ said Adam. ‘She isn’t banging on all the time about Palestine and women’s rights in Timbuktu. She’s discovered irony. She’s become a modern feminist, or maybe a post-modern one. I don’t know – a better one anyhow.’
‘I’m sure her breasts have got bigger as well,’ said Carl.
‘So has she got a boyfriend?’ asked Felix.
‘Oh a few of them, I imagine,’ said Adam. ‘But I’m not sure if there’s anyone in particular.’
So now they were talking about girls. But not, thought James, in a good way. They were talking about Alice in much the same way that they had been talking about the global economy – with poise and expertise, and also with great detachment. The others could afford to be objective on such matters – they had never gone out with her, and besides Adam was engaged to Justine, a highly attractive all-rounder whose selection as a life partner resolved at a stroke many problems, and Carl was in a relationship that he described as messy, but actually sounded brilliant. And not having a girlfriend, which could be liberating and exciting, was actually becoming a major fucking problem.
But it was only now that the worst part of the evening, the bit James had really been dreading, was upon them. The bill. It was every bit as bad as he’d feared – a truly astounding amount of money. There had only been six of them, and Olivia had barely ordered a thing, and yet there it was: £713 plus service. It was just as well that Olivia had eaten so little, for it seemed she had no intention of paying anything, and nor did anyone else have any intention of asking her to. That was okay, James could understand that, but what was really unacceptable was that they had no intention of asking him to pay anything either. Instead, it was something to be settled by the grown-ups, and paid for by the private sector. He was being subsidised.
‘Okay,’ said Carl. ‘Let’s toss for it.’
‘Good idea,’ said Adam.
James should have expected that. Gambling, which for moral and psychological reasons was just about his least favourite thing, was also one of the things that nowadays Carl most liked doing. He had recently joined a private casino in Knightsbridge and started to lose glamorous amounts of money playing poker with comedians and actors, which he then won back from foolish young Arabs. Before too long, he would doubtless be joining a golf club and taking up pheasant shooting.
‘Hold on,’ said Felix. ‘How’s this going to work? There are three of us.’
Carl began to expertly arrange things. It was, after all, what he did for a living. He was a broker and it wasn’t his job to make money – although he did, in fact, make a great deal of it – but to efficiently facilitate ways in which other people could win or lose even larger amounts.
‘Okay, this is how it works. Adam – if you call it right, you get to buy dinner tonight. If not, then I do. But first, Felix gets the chance to call on your call. If he’s right, then he’s lucky enough to pay for the drinks. If not, then one of us gets that privilege as well.’
As he spoke, Carl tossed the coin, neatly caught it in one hand and slapped it flat against the back of the other. Adam and Felix nodded. James couldn’t even begin to follow all this, but he had grasped the substantial point. Those atrocious fucks weren’t playing a game of chance in order to avoid paying for dinner. They were playing for the right to buy dinner. They actually very badly wanted to spend more than £700. They wanted to demonstrate their kindness and senseless generosity, to do to him exactly what he’d done to the toilet attendant.