Nero d’Avola trickled into a floral glass, diluting a vacant glare at the menu’s serif text. Ovum, with its fashionable concrete furnishings, and ceiling-high windows, was characteristically chilly, rich with the aroma of sliced, cured pork, by the faintness of emulsion matte paint. The very fact that Mabel knew each line of the menu’s contents by heart, along with the specificity of what she would be inevitably ordering, didn’t stop her from leering over every item an obligatory three times, as she did every week. Chicken Arribiatta, sans the chicken, plus the rocket salad— dressing on the side. She longed to appear a mystery to a man as familiar as her own shadow, and pitied herself for the desire. The man was her husband, Bram.

Mabel did not wish to be present. Not there in the moody, half-empty neighbourhood joint, nor beneath the seething heat of the industrial light fixture, nor in the sexless marriage that had fast become a yoke over her in no less than five years. Having spectacularly quit her job as a secondary art teacher at Cardinal Livingston, following a surprise confrontation by a parent, Magda O’Sullivan, who threatened to slash her fucking slag face (following her son's exclusion for throwing a chair at a prefect), she simply went for her lunch break, and never returned. As much as the attempt at reclaiming a semblance of life-control was admired by her parents and sister, the strain of unemployment was bending an already frail relationship, and as she sat there in placid silence, pondered whether her credit card would go through this week or not, for her half of the meal. Bram, originally from a nothingy mining town in America’s Midwest, knew well of struggle, but his newfound artistic success, articulated by the surreal manifestations of silver-capped incisors and sheened Christian Dior slacks, had corrupted his patience. His glances at her were shorter, but also longer at times; his silences, more piercing.

The couple’s recent graduation from an impressive, yet mouldy, renovated flat in Stepney to a spacious maisonette in Lower Clapton, with its Lululemon-lined expectant egg-bellies, and gong baths, had all the hallmarks of a fresh start— one funded in part by the auctioning of a gigantic gauche piece that the husband produced, on the semi-speculative whim of being an investment. Yet, soon enough, it was all the same: arguments about dishwasher stacking, locked horns over patronising tones, awkward genitals clutches in heavy lightlessness, lacklustre meetings of alien mouths complete with irate tongues.

The wife surveyed the map of her husband’s face. Even in the dim light, his swarthy cheeks bore the sign of being due a shave, frustrating strays of white dotted across his chin indiscriminately. She’d once thought of him as Jeff Goldbloom’s doppelganger, but those years had long passed. Still, through the years of destitution, he had made it: representation, commissions, art fair invites from well-funded institutes, the same who snubbed him only months before. His new agent, Cindy Langdon of Blake Langdon— a suffocatingly luxurious blue-chip gallery, housed in an old tyre warehouse within a newly gentrified Pico Gardens, Los Angeles, was an old university buddy. By all accounts, nothing had happened between the two during those wild years, yet Mabel could not bring herself to ignore the electricity in the husband’s eyes, or flare in his nostrils when speaking about her. His paintings, now industrial in moodiness and Machiavellian in scale, graced the home pages of many of the très cool magazines globally, and yet, despite the years of supporting him, she felt resented— for wanting more for herself than to teach inner-city kids how to mix paint. To simply be a cheerleader. Mabel was marooned.

Signalling to the beanpole of a waitress, Mabel ordered, amidst the corner table’s crippling tension. Bram followed, immediately submitting to his mobile’s beam of rectangular blue light.

‘She must be new,’ Mabel said, nipping at chipped fingernails. ‘Have you seen how she folds napkins? God, she’s so tall. I would have loved to have been that tall when I was her age. How tall do you think she is?’

‘No, I think I’ve seen her here before,’ replied Bram, disinterested. ‘Doesn’t look new to me. Besides, that’s just how they fold napkins here.’

‘Surely there’s only one way to fold napkins?’ she replied, but the husband remained silent.

Soon enough, the teenage girl returned with their meals. When they finished, Mabel wiped at her mouth.

‘What sort of question was that, earlier?’ she asked, hesitantly. ‘Like, who even asks that? Of course, I still want to come with you to Turin. Why wouldn’t I?’

Bram itched his ashen beard. He smirked, arms falling behind his head.

‘You just haven’t spoken much about it, is all. Cindy’s sorted my tickets— she says you haven’t got back to her about yours, and time is ticking. It’s fine if you don’t want to come— I mean, I get it. We all just want to know.’

‘Well,’ started the wife, scanning for an excuse, ‘I just need to sort out my outfit. Can’t be sticking out with all your new fancy art pals, can I?’

‘Babe, Cindy can sort that. It’s all good— her PR guy, Paolo, over at Gucci. He’s a bona fide—‘

‘I think I’m capable of choosing an outfit... babe. If that’s alright with you… two? Is it?’

The husband, unmoved, mouthed his glinting fork.

‘You do you,’ he sneered. Rising, he headed for the door.

‘Wouldn’t be the first time, now, would it?’

In the shadowy avenue outside, it had begun to rain. Back and forth, Bram paced beneath the cover of the viridian awning, engrossed with his phone, laughing every other second, smoking what the wife knew to be yankee Marlboro’s. The wife felt sorry, and pondered blurry thoughts as she sipped. One single late night of work at his studio was all it had taken, for half a year later, him sleeping there amongst cardboard boxes and turpentine canisters, their new norm. Within the idle delirium of joblessness, Mabel often found herself fantasising, perversely: walking in on him, snug between a pair of well-exercised thighs owned by some impossibly proportioned female, dragged from an nauseating Instagram reel. Vengefully, she’d shred his every last piece of clothing, flinging shards out the window, before driving down to Dover, en route to Paris, filled with hasty dreams of being passed around a seedy nightclub.

When he returned, two new glasses of wine had been poured. A bemused face hung above his Deftones T-shirt. Mabel smirked. Her mouth was warm, gritty and loose with ferment.

‘Peace offering,’ the wife said, sensing the confusion. ‘Better down it. The offer does expire.’

‘Well, I’d best not waste any time, then,’ said the husband. He drank it with three eager gulps.

The two sat, and slowly, miraculously, began conversing as if it was the most normal thing between them, swelling: holiday memories, unbelievable gossip— predictions of known relationships in peril, unwanted pregnancies, and existential addictions that prompted the services of family lawyers. When ten o’clock came, and the waitress could barely ask them politely again to leave, they stepped out into the rain.

‘You know, husband— I don’t want to go home,’ Mabel confessed, adoringly tipsy.

‘Neither do I, wife,’ agreed Bram. A rare, tattooed forearm snaked around his wife’s shoulder, the two swaying in the drizzle.

They headed towards their local, and entered. It was rammed. Glasses of ale clanked; somewhere a baby was crying, while an energetic punk off-beat crackled over the tightness of bottles clinking, dogs barking, orders being hollered, twice, thrice. Bram ordered at the bar, while Mabel secured a wooden table, flagging him over to the semi-covered decking of the smoking area. All around them were the enviable conversations of pissed-up, worriless, fashionable twenty-somethings, loved-up couples, impassioned old boys, all pork-pie hats and tatty blazers, huddled beneath the finite orange rays of horizontal heaters. The husband and the wife sat adjacent, each with awkward sips.

‘Don’t they just make you feel so old?’ he said, leering with trace bitterness. He thumbed over his shoulder at the trio of teens. ‘I mean, I don’t remember looking that good at that age. That generation— they’re just so clued up, huh?’

‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘Speak for yourself on the old part, though. I feel ready for prom.’

‘Who did you go with to prom?’ asked Bram, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever told me.’ So, she did.

An unexpected layer of delayed drunkenness hit her, she felt giddy; perversely mischievous.

‘Want to come and sit next to your lovely wife, then?’ She egged, winking, ‘Or are we going to sit like we’re in an interview, all night? Don’t worry: I won’t bite. I’m not Cindy. Ha—ha— ha.’

Holding her about her waist, his mouth trailed up and down her dainty, tattooed neck. At some point, his hand was clutched, and lower, and lower, it was guided until placed beneath the hem of her skirt. Nobody around noticed.

‘You’re gonna get us kicked out,’ Bram joked, with a cautious whisper. ‘Any moment now, some poor barmaid is going to be scarred for life.’ We’ll be sensationalised, and I’ll have to grow a beard.’

‘Well, perhaps you’d better take me home,’ the wife suggested, yet nervous of the reaction. The husband nodded.

After being led through swathes of locals and the thickness of drunken rants, swaying cheers, lonely tables for one, they reached the entrance. The amber-lit, half-deserted street was heavy with a deluge of solemn rainfall. Bram looked worried, and patted his pockets.

‘My phone,’ he said over the din, patting his pockets frantically. ‘I need to go back. You go to the house, and I’ll catch up.’

‘Oh. Alright.’

‘What have I done now?’ A garbage truck hissed by.

‘If this is moving too quickly— if you’re not ready, I won’t be offended. I’m sure the teenage barmaid in there with the low-cut top is dying to have you ask for her number, anyway. Go on— make someone’s night, at least.’

Bram shook his head.

‘That’s fucked up, Mabel. Look— I’m going in. Go on, ahead. Wait here. Or don’t. Whatever.’

Beneath the awning’s shelter Mabel leaned on a row of bottle green tiles. The comedown from the chase was coursing through her body, along with the heaviness of familiarity, regret and guilt. She felt hungry.

One by one, desperate vehicles passed by in perfect intervals, crowds of patrons filtering out— jolly phantoms. Five minutes passed, then ten, and Bram still had not returned. Then, swinging open violently, so much so that it banged against its facade’s tiles, the entrance produced a figure. It wasn’t the expected apologetic face of her husband, but rather a woman. Silk scarf tied tightly around her head; strands from a short, wet fringe of sorts, trailed outwards. Five and a half feet, a beige trenchcoat trailing down to her calves, brown, ornate cowboy boots that clopped across the damp paving slabs. Resting beside a hanging planter two metres from Mabel, she sniffled, as if she had been crying, rooting through the void of her handbag, swearing under her breath. Mabel wanted to laugh. Something about her drew out her tipsy eyes, yet her face remained shadowed beneath the layer of fluttering silk. When they were face-to-face, Mabel couldn’t believe her eyes. Then, trying to hide her shock, stared up at the androgynous curls, instead. The woman rolled her eyes, as if to say how about this weather, chuckling slightly in a way that, exposed a row of large, brilliant teeth. Sure as hell, it was her. It had to have been. In drunken disbelief, the wife watched as the stranger began waving a retrieved black bar above her head, high to the rainy heavens like a votive to an ever-distant god.

‘I’m so sorry,’ the stranger began, ‘but I don't suppose you could be a love and lend me your phone? I need to order a cab, and mine’s only gone and packed in. It’s just my luck.’

***