Day 1,699
I haven’t been to a dinner party in over four years. Four years. I keep telling myself there’s a limit to how much dinner parties can have changed over the last four years, but that’s not very helpful actually because I didn’t like them very much before the Plague. My outfit’s never quite right—too short? Too hot? Can’t do layers, they make me look like an organized hippie—and the only good bit about them used to be getting ready while Anthony drank a glass of wine sitting on the bed chatting with me, and then dissecting what everyone said on the tube home.
But Anthony’s not here and I am Making an Effort so here I am, in a green velvet dress I already sort of know I’m going to be too warm in, ringing the doorbell of Phoebe’s beautiful Battersea home.
Her husband, Rory, opens the door and for a moment everything feels completely normal. White wine is proffered, I make awkward small talk with people I don’t know. But, looking even slightly below the surface, everything is different. No Anthony by my side. The numbers are all off; out of ten, there are only two men. Rory and a friend of his called James.
“What do you do?” I ask James, eyeing his wife, Iris, jealously. I don’t want James but I ache to have my husband by my side too.
“I used to be a marketing analyst before everything but now I work in public affairs for the government’s Male Relations Department.”
The conversation around us stops and there’s a chorus of “oohs” and “how interesting.” James blushes; this is not the first time he’s had that reaction. “How intriguing,” I say, indulging the mood in the room. “Why did you choose to move there?”
“I realized how differently I was being treated by women and I wanted to make sure that men were having their voices heard.”
“In what way are you treated differently?” I ask. I have an awful feeling that, pre-Plague, James was the kind of man who “just expected” his wife to take his name because of tradition and described himself as the Head of the Household.
“Romantically, it’s . . . a lot. I get approached at least a few times a day—as I’m traveling to work, when I get coffee, if I’m in a restaurant with a friend. It’s very rarely aggressive. Ninety-five percent of the time it’s just a nice lady coming up to me with her number written on a piece of paper, or striking up a conversation as I wait for my coffee to go, or coming up to my table and asking if I want to get a drink sometime.”
“And the other five percent?”
“They’re more problematic. It’s a desperation that, I suppose on one level, I understand, and on another level, I think, ‘This isn’t my fault. None of this is my fault. Why don’t I have the right to just sit and wait for my train without being hassled?’ When I complained about it to some of my sister’s friends they were divided. One group thought that I had every right to complain—it was harassment! It’s an outrage! You’re wearing a wedding ring! The other half smiled ruefully and explained that they knew exactly how that felt and it was part of their daily life until a couple of years previously.” Iris is nodding furiously along with everything James is saying. Is she a wife or a cheerleader? Perhaps he thinks they’re the same thing.
“And how did you two meet?” I ask Iris and him. “We started going out on March 6, 2027,” he says with a smile. I’ve never met a couple before who started their relationship after the Plague.
“How was it dating, after the Plague?” I know my question is testing the boundaries of good manners but I can’t help it. I’ve missed being nosy at dinner parties. I forgot how impertinent I could be with people I don’t know.
“Everyone kept telling me, ‘Oh, you have so much choice, James, you could choose anyone. Any woman would be lucky to have you.’ It was a bit like being a contestant on a reality show.”
“So how did you choose Iris?”