‘It was honestly bliss,’ Vivi said, backed up by Roly. ‘Although my favourite Bloemaert was away for restoration. But on our last day we visited the Moco.’
‘Oh-oh!’ Michelle made a disappointed face. ‘Emperor’s new art.’
Vivi nodded sadly. ‘What a shame.’
My eyes stayed fixed on my plate. I’d loved the Moco when I had gone a few years back, but best to keep that to myself around here.
‘What is it, Rachel?’ Sharp-eyed Vivi had noticed. ‘You disagree?’
I looked up and grinned. ‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘But do!’ Michelle urged.
Not a chance. I’d have loved to say, ‘I like it, you don’t, let’s leave it at that.’ But a dissenting opinion at the Quinlivan dinner table led directly to a debate – they adored that lark, me ‘defending’ my position while being savaged by a hail of philosophical questions: ‘But what is it saying?’ ‘Will it have merit in two hundred years’ time?’
For them, it was a simple intellectual exercise but one they really did like to win. To me, though, ‘debating’ felt too similar to confrontation. I just wanted to get in, eat my stroopwafel and get out again. Alive, preferably.
Quin’s family were really nice people, not a bitchy bone between them. Their confidence was the problem. They were so sure of who they were that they expected the world to reshape itself around them. Whereas I – being like everyone else – was in a constant process of recalibration, trying to negotiate emotional harmony with every new person I met.
Meeting Quin’s family had explained so much to me: until Shiv had fallen out of love with him, life had always delivered exactly what he wanted – a great job, healthy kids and a tight circle of friends, many from his days in junior school. Shiv’s departure had humbled him. Slightly. Like, you could never call him meek or self-effacing. But I was certain that if I’d met him in the Before Times, I’d have found him far too obnoxious.
32
‘… So there’s this hotel in the desert, it used to be a French Foreign Legion fort and –’ While we were waiting for Line of Duty to come on at 9 p.m., Quin was at one of his favourite pastimes: researching amazing holidays. This time, Morocco was in the spotlight.
While any sensible person yearned for a gorgeous riad, replete with fountains and lush gardens, in the centre of Marrakech, Quin had to be awkward.
I’d often told him that his perfect holiday location would be an enclave nestled between seven competing warlords, boasting Michelin-starred street food and a Zegna store operating from a crashed Boeing 747.
‘French Foreign Legion?’ I asked. ‘Don’t tell me. One of the “Local Attractions” would be the chance to undergo some light torture?’
‘Haha.’ He liked that. ‘It doesn’t mention it, but who knows. So Danny, this guy I met in Taos, said they mix it up a little. Take you out into the desert and leave you there.’
‘I’m not … loving this, Quin.’
‘We’d be in a luxury tent, obvs, but they mess with your sense of safety. No phones, no roads, no other people. Danny says we’ll experience real fear that we’ve been abandoned. The guys from the hotel are back at base camp, getting stoned out of their heads and won’t fetch us until they’re able.’
‘Quiiiiiiiin …’
‘So, on our third day, just when we’re freaking out about having no water left, that’s when I’ll ask you to marry me.’
I laughed. Quin’s grandiose proposal fantasies – touching lightly on the truth that we were both wary – was a running joke.
‘And the moment I accept, the Toyota flatbed truck from the hotel will appear over the top of the sand dune, where it’s been hiding all along. Great!’
My phone lit up – Luke, again! What the hell? These days he was ringing me more often than when we were married.
I snatched it up and answered with a snippy, ‘Yes?’
‘Rachel? Look, just say no, but I said I’d ask.’
‘What?’
‘Kallie says maybe we should get together, the four of us, you and your partner, me and her. Go for a pizza or something.’
No fucking way. Quin had predicted this – and I hadn’t believed him.
‘I … Look … I don’t know.’
Anxiously, I looked at Quin who was mouthing What?
Say yes.
My head was racing through all the permutations. But I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do – and I didn’t want to do this. ‘I don’t think so.’