When it reached a quarter to five, there was a metallic shudder and a whine outside, as if some old tin beast had hauled its carcass onto my drive to breathe its last. I sympathised, and wrung out the only shred of scouring pad to have survived the exodus over a now pristine sink, save for a few scratches where I’d been a little over-enthusiastic. My knee returned to its rightful place with a sickening thud and, laying aside my scouring shred, I tested its flexibility with some optimism as I descended the staircase. I could make out Vivian’s willowy silhouette behind the glass, distorted and dark. My anxiety increased, and I opened the door to greet him. He was smiling, genuinely, an act I couldn’t bring myself to contemplate under the circumstances, and he asked if I was ready. I shook my head.
‘I’m not coming,’ I said.
‘Yes you are. I’ve just driven all the way here to pick you up.’
‘I’m sorry, Vivian. I can’t go. I don’t want to.’
‘You aren’t seriously expecting me to just turn round and go, are you? When I’ve just arrived?’
‘I’m sorry. I was going to call, but I could tell you weren’t going to take no for an answer. I thought it might be easier just to do it like this.’
‘Easier for whom?’ His smile had vanished.
‘Sorry, Viv. It’s not you, it’s me.’ I felt like I was breaking up with him. ‘I’ll make it up to you. How about, instead, you come round on Saturday? I’ll cook for you then.’
The smile had been replaced by a frown. I began to panic that I had upset him.
‘Sorry, Viv, sorry. Do you want to come in now? I’ll make you something now, how about that? It’s no trouble; it’ll only take half an hour. We can still have dinner, just here, and not with –’
The next thing I knew he had seized my wrist in a vice-like grip and was dragging me to his car, the frown one I now recognised not as upset, but grim determination. I wailed as he opened the car door and attempted to bundle me in, my latex glove slipping out of his grasp as though it were coated in butter.
‘What’s all this? Lube?’
‘Please, Vivian –’
‘We’re going to dinner. I’ve fucking booked.’
At that moment I felt eyes burning a hole in my back and we glanced up at the same moment, to catch sight of a fat lady watching us from afar, her round face creased with concern.
‘You alright, love?’ she called, with a voice that could’ve grated cheese.
‘We’ve got a date,’ Vivian smiled back.
The good lady pointedly addressed herself to me.
‘I said, are you alright, love?’
I looked at Vivian. He was glaring and I started to feel even more terrible. The utter bastard. So I sent over a cheery wave and gave her the benefit of some teeth.
‘We’re going on a date,’ I said. ‘He’s treating me.’
She looked decidedly unconvinced, but some of the creases left her face and she moved on. Vivian jammed the last of my leg into the mobile prison and slammed the door behind it. The whole thing shook. This is because Vivian is not only a writer, but that peculiar species of writer that set themselves apart from the rest: the PENNILESS WRITER. He received a car for his seventeenth birthday and it has never since seen a mechanic. It has not passed its MOT. It is unroadworthy and illegal.
For some reason I felt extremely self-conscious of my latex glove as we headed towards the corner. I noticed that Vivian gave it a disparaging glance, but he didn’t say anything. I thought about taking it off but there was nowhere to leave it, and since Vivian hadn’t suggested anything else and this was his car I felt obliged to leave it where it was. Besides, there was something very slightly comforting about it; a sort of reminder that outside of this filthy death trap there was another world, a cleaner world, a safer one to which I would soon be able to return and feel at ease.
As it was, my anxiety levels were through the roof by the time we made it to the car park. Vivian was talking but it sounded like it was coming out as white noise. I looked for a remote to turn him off. There wasn’t one. I thought about hitting him but seeing as he was treating me it might’ve risked looking ungrateful. He might slip a Sickener into my pudding.
‘I won’t have a pudding,’ I said.
‘Whatever you like.’
For a moment I was almost taken in by this show of complicity, but then I realised the True Intention behind it. I saw my eyes widen in the rear view mirror as I recognised my dire predicament. He wasn’t going to get me a pudding. He wasn’t going to get me a pudding because I would be dead by the second course. Vivian was a traitor. It was all pre-arranged. The requirement to eat a mushroom, the lack of dessert, him and his criminal mindset. He was going to poison me. Now I knew why my housemaid’s knee had been twinging: it was a warning.
Suddenly everybody was after me. If I couldn’t trust my best friend then who could I trust? I was alone against the world. And this was the spot they had chosen for my demise: a faux eye-tie joint run by a swarthy east Londoner whose only connections with Italy, if he had any, were definitely through the Mafia. I felt very insecure.
Vivian opened the door for me with a dreadful smile of deceit.
‘You’ve got here. One step down.’
I smiled back and tried not to cry. The worst thing was not knowing what angle he would come at me from. Of course I knew it would be a mushroom because he’d brought me here with the express intention of curing me – fatally – and this was the only place he could manage it without arousing suspicion. But would the waiter be in on it? The chefs? This bastard from east London? I didn’t know who was an innocent bystander and who was a would-be assassin. Why me? I hadn’t done a thing…
We were shown to a table by a spotty teenager who kept throwing glances at my latex glove. I didn’t much care for his staring but I was far too concerned with other matters to give him a piece of my mind, and Vivian clearly agreed with him, so nothing was said. The glove was the only thing on my side here.
I wondered which mushroom would be used.
Pope Clement stiff on a slab in the Vatican morgue. I saw it all.
‘THE DEATH CAP,’ I suddenly said out loud.
Of course it would be the Death Cap. One of the most poisonous mushrooms on earth, no known antidote, almost always fatal. Responsible for the majority of death-by-mushrooms cases and for the demise of some of the world’s most powerful figures. I didn’t stand a chance.
Vivian didn’t so much as blink as I uttered the fateful name, which I took to be an immediate sign of his guilt. Anybody else would’ve asked me what the fuck I was talking about, but not Vivian. He had rapidly become less of a friendly face and was developing into a nightmare caricature of The Mushroom Man. I was growing very warm. I didn’t know which way to look. Did he know I was onto him?
He’s clever, this one.
I know. I know he is.
Educated at King’s College, London.
I know. I was there too.
Privately schooled, though.
Money doesn’t make intelligence.
They’re used to subterfuge; they’ve been doing it since the Dark Ages.
I like subterfuge as much as the next man.
He’s ordering you a soup.
No! No, no, no, I need to choose my own or I’m just playing into his hands.
‘I ordered you the tomato soup. It’s the special. You looked a bit out of it.’
I could’ve screamed.
‘Tomato soup sounds lovely, thank you.’
If by some miracle you survive this you’ve really got to grow a backbone.
‘Fuck off.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Wonderful,’ I smiled. ‘I love soup.’
I saw a look of what can only be described as worry flit across his face. He knew I was onto him. I would have to tread quite carefully here…