They had been shown into a small alcove, wooden banquette's piled high with golden cushions. A candle flickering in it's red glass holder sent voluptuous shadows darting across the table.

Syed's mouth watered as the waiter slid a plate in front of him.

"Mmm, the Pollock looks delicious."

"Thank you…" Christian smiled at the waiter and unwrapped his cutlery from the napkin.

"Always good to sink your teeth into a Pollock. You're glad you went then?"

Syed nodded, his mouth full.

"And what do they all do now, your friends? Are they all successful? Captains of Industry? Is Simone a lap dancer?"

Syed swallowed, realising guiltily that he hadn't asked what she was working at, is she was married, happy.

"Might be. Michael's a photographer, he was a model.."

Christian cut a potato in two, slowly and deliberately.

"No surprise, good looking boy that one. So you only know what he does? You didn't talk to anyone else?"

Christian's tone was calm, no trace of the brittleness he felt inside.

"Hakim's an accountant, he married Yasmina. Mum had her earmarked for me, her parents were very well thought of in the community. I knew Hakim out of school too, though I don't expect he wants to be my friend anymore after seeing…"

"After seeing what?"

Christian quartered the potato and moved it around the plate.

"Well you.."

"Oh. Is that why you didn't introduce me?"

The potato was in sixteenths now. Christian crushed the pieces with the back of his fork.

"No, I don't know…"

Syed paused, a forkful of food halfway to his mouth.

"Or were they the couple I saw scuttling into a taxi, the one that passed me when I was waiting.?"

Christian turned his knife over on the plate.

"Maybe.."

"So they didn't see me then. You must have told them.."

A silence hung between them. Syed was aware of Christian's scrutiny, looking at him with mild, concerned eyes.

"Yes… Or Michael said something..."

Syed stiffened, confused as to why he didn't just tell Christian what they had seen. Christian shifted slightly against the cushions and adjusted his napkin.

"That'll be it. Does Michael have a partner?"

Syed cleared his throat nervously.

"No, he's a bit like you were before we got together. Cruising and clubs and stuff…In fact I wondered, worried, if maybe you two had met? Without knowing?"

Christian hadn't considered the possibility, he cast his mind back through his many conquests, the dark back rooms. If they had met, he couldn't recall it.

"No. He's younger, we wouldn't have been at the same places at the same time."

Syed grinned with relief and Christian wondered, if, by some random chance of fate, they had happened to fuck each other, who Syed would be most jealous about, him or Michael?

"So you didn't know he was gay? At school? Was it an unrequited crush?"

Syed thoughtfully pulled a fish bone from between his teeth and placed it on the side of his plate.

"He was my best friend, we just had a laugh. Everyone wanted to be him, be like him. He had all the girls after him, especially the ones who had finally got fed up with me.."

"Your sloppy seconds?"

"Hardly. The one's who's brains I'd fried from being weird and cold."

Christian took a small mouthful of fish and mumbled;

"That doesn't sound like the Syed I know, well maybe the weird bit.."

"Shut up. I wasn't the Syed you know, not the man I am now. Anyhow, enough about me, how was your day?"

"Thrilling. I burnt Janine's pie."

Syed laughed.

"Is that a euphemism? How was the delectable Dolores?"

"Insufferable. She wants us to go to one of her dinner parties so she can parade us about to her ghastly friends, to show how right on she is."

Syed placed his cutlery together on his empty plate and wiped his mouth.

"Double points for me. I hope you told her no."

Christian tried to spear a pea, but the prongs of the fork screeched across the china and sent it rolling across the tablecloth onto the floor.

"Oops. I told her you'd love to go."

Syed surveyed the mess of Christian's meal, the fishes head staring up with glazed dead eyes.

"You'd better not have. Aren't you hungry?"

"It keeps staring at me, it's put me off. Sometimes things I see make me lose my appetite…I'll get the bill."