Archie Grieve, Angie's boss, and liked even less her accepting the invitation before asking him. Archie Grieve was one of the breed of tough young Scottish journalists who had infiltrated the media south of the border. They all had pedigrees as spot-welders in the Clydeside shipyards or as Labour party activists, though to judge by Archie, whom Chase had met only once and had nothing in common with, he'd been no nearer to an oxyacetylene torch than Chase had.
For the sake of peace and harmony, however, and because it wasn't fair to curtail Angie's social life because of his personal prejudices, he shrugged and nodded and even managed a smile. But she had some gall. What if he'd accepted an invitation without consulting her? Ah-ha! Different story.
"It isn't a dinner party, I hope?" Chase said, sitting down on the couch and brushing black strands of hair from his eyes.
"No, darling." Angie gave him her sweetest smile, all dimples, with a slightly muzzy look in her large gray eyes. That was her second large one, he'd bet. "Just a few friends and a buffet and drinkies."
"Of course, drinkies. Where would your lot be without drinkies? I suppose they'll all be your media chums in T-shirts, earrings, and Adidas training shoes."
Angie pouted. "You speak of them as if they weren't people. They do a job, you know, just like you. I think you're jealous."
"Yes, I'm green with it. Or is that envy?"
"They'd like to meet you. I'm sure they'd be fascinated to hear what it's like in the Antarctic. It's not everyone who's had--"
"They know about that?"
"Of course." Angie took a deep swallow, wiped the residue from her lips, and licked her fingertips. "I didn't think I was giving away a state secret."
Chase groaned. It was going to be worse than he feared. A lot of frightfully interesting questions about penguins and polar bears and was it true that Eskimos went around grinning with their gums?
They ate a cheese-and-mushroom omelet in the small kitchen and watched Angie's news program on the portable TV. She didn't appear on screen, but they heard her cultured tones in voice-over talking about proposed mortgage relief for one-parent families. It seemed to Chase that he'd seen that same story at least twenty times before--or perhaps it was simply that all such stories sounded exactly the same.
Angie firmly believed that television had a "morally responsible role" to play in exposing social injustice, for the most part by pointing the finger at the faceless bureaucrats in local government, who were invariably, rightly or wrongly, cast as the villains of the piece. Chase's attitude was more sanguine. He couldn't whip up enthusiasm for the socially deprived, even though he readily acknowledged that they probably got a raw deal.
"If you don't want to go, then we won't," Angie said, noticing his pensive expression. "I just thought you might like to get out and meet some people. You work all day in the lab, come home, and collapse in a chair."
"I'm an unsocial slob," Chase agreed, collecting the plates and stacking them in the sink. "Sure, let's go. Just as long as they don't expect me to give a lantern slide lecture on the mating habits of the walrus."
"What does the walrus do that's so different?"
Chase thrust out his jaw. "Very difficult to describe. But I could demonstrate if you like."
Angie slapped his wrist. "Not on a full stomach, darling."
He made a grab for her and she ran off, squealing.
Three months ago they would have made love without a second bidding, he thought, standing at the sink and mechanically washing up, full stomach or not. In the first month he couldn't remember doing much else. He was hanging up the dish cloth when the phone rang. Angie's voice floated through the hiss of water in the shower as he took the call in the corner alcove at one end of the L-shaped livingroom. "I heard it," he yelled back, picking up the phone.
"Hello, Gav, how are you?"
He recognized the voice; and only one person called him Gav.
"Hello, Nick. How's the Lebanese Red?"
Nick chuckled. "Too bloody expensive. I'm thinking of trying glue-sniffing. What are you up to these days?"
"The same," Chase replied, flopping down crossways in an armchair. "Developing a squint from staring down a microscope all day. What's happening with you?"
"That's what I'm calling you about. How do you fancy a holiday, absolutely free, all expenses paid?"
"You've gone into the travel business?"
"There's a conference in Geneva in two weeks time, the ninth onward for four days. The UN is sponsoring delegates from British universities and I've put my name down, but there are still a few places open. How about it? You could take a week off, couldn't you?"
"What kind of conference?" "The International Conference on the Environmental Future. The usual gab, rich food, plenty to drink, and the rest."
"The rest?" Chase said obtusely.
"Chicks. Like the sound of it?"
"I'm a happily kept man."
