Another Country (13 page)

‘The guy with the beard?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Oh, really,' Richard said. He didn't lift his head from the magazine; he continued to read, massaging his earlobe. ‘Where did you meet him?'

‘At the printers. We went to check on the January issues, you know, sign the pages off.'

‘Oh, okay.'

‘Yeah, they sometimes have last-minute changes. Judy went to look at everything again, and I went as well, partly in case they needed someone from edit, you know, to change stuff.'

‘Mm?'

‘Yeah, so we bumped into him there.'

‘What was he doing there?' He was still reading.

‘No idea,' Leela said. It bothered her. Why hadn't she found out?

‘Oh yeah, now I remember. He owns that furniture business, doesn't he?'

‘Does he?'

‘Yeah, quirky upholstered chairs or something. He has a thing, in west London somewhere. Notting Hill, somewhere like that.'

‘Oh, okay. So why the printers?'

‘Catalogue?'

There was a silence. Richard broke out, with a resurgence of passion, ‘
Prospect
is so well edited. It's such a great magazine!'

Eleven o'clock. Leela got up to go to the cafeteria, came back with a cup of horrible coffee and a fruit salad that she would eat too quickly and which might give her indigestion but would fend off hunger. The kiwi would be surprisingly tasty. The pineapple would be unripe. The orange would be insufficiently peeled. The grape would be sour.

She opened the flimsy plastic box and yellow juice spurted onto her newspaper. She wiped it away, sat down, stuck the little fork into the grape and realised she had an email.

The grape turned out to be sweet.

The email's sender was Roger.

‘Dear Leela,' it began, and she read other words, ‘the other day', ‘see you', and a mobile number. Her immediate feeling was delight, the usual mysterious intimation that the world did in fact agree to her desires, that she was as magically connected to it as she had always sensed, while sometimes fearing this was not the case; this was followed by sorrow that possessing the content of the email meant losing the promise it retained while unread.

She read the words several times.

She moved to call Judy to her desk, then remembered Judy was on leave for a couple of days. She thought. How could she get to Notting Hill? And when?

She must reply immediately, but she must also not reply immediately in order not to appear as though she had been waiting for the email.

Forgetting she already had a cup of coffee, she went to the cafeteria for another, and only the bemused, slightly irritated expression of the cashier, a wisp of dyed blonde hair escaping from her polyester cap onto her tired face, brought her back to herself.

The next morning, when leaving and putting a cup of tea into a bleary Richard's hand, she said, ‘I might go for coffee with Roger some time. From the wedding.'

‘Oh, did you bump into him again?'

‘He has a studio in Notting Hill,' Leela said. Though this didn't answer the question, Richard nodded. ‘Today?'

‘Not today.'

‘Okay. See you later then?'

‘Sure.'

She left his house, feeling that things between them were strange, and yet satisfied with the way in which they were strange.

A series of short, flirtatious emails with Roger resulted in an appointment to have a drink after work in Notting Hill. Leela dressed with care. She told Richard where she was going. He would be out with three school friends. Leela had been staying more in the flat in Marylebone, squeezing her existence between Dee Dee's strictures of domestic hygiene. She felt harassed and at home, and enjoyed her aloneness. She would read a bit, go out to buy food, and cook something simple: half a packet of little pasta envelopes stuffed with a sticky mixture of cheese and vegetables, and half a tub of sauce. She would wash the dishes, wash and wipe the sink, make a cup of tea and retreat to her room. Its small window and view onto more brick and backyard made her think of the backs of houses, which had always meant an entry into London, through suburbs of terraced housing: brick buildings, bare and set in gardens that held small squares of grass, flower beds, a woman sunbathing, a man listening to the radio, children, a paddling pool, a dog, a tree-like drying rack spinning in the wind.

She thought of herself as more distinct from Richard. With the absence of anger came a lack of attachment.

On the day she was supposed to meet Roger the February issue of
Construction Monthly
experienced a glitch; one or more of the files turned out to be corrupted, and she had to stay late at work. There was then a delay on the Metropolitan line, and the train sat at Harrow-on-the-Hill. She realised she didn't have Roger's number with her. When she got home she sent him a text explaining why she was late. ‘Another time,' he suggested.

Richard was still out. Leela, in her lamp-lit room with thoughts of escape, freedom, irony at her own desires, and the usual subterranean pleasure at finding herself alone when she had expected to be out, daydreamed, read a magazine, ate her pasta, and felt sleepy.

Walking from the tube on a misty evening ten days later, she put a hand deeper in her coat pocket. It was cold; the night sparkled. Notting Hill Gate was different at this time, its cheerful, rackety shops shuttered, and the stream of people from the tube absent.

She held her A–Z and scanned it. A right, then a left, then a small mews – there it was on the map, its name in letters so cramped they didn't fit in the street. She began to walk. There was a large house on the first corner. Near it, a thuggish tomcat sat flexing his shoulders. When he saw her, he let out a rising cry, prrrk? He minced over, back arched, asking to be patted. She chuckled, paused, and obliged. The animal, brow furrowed, intent on his own need, purred loudly, and rubbed against her calves.

‘I have to go. Be good,' she said after a minute. She patted the top of his head.

He blinked, and sat down comfortably to wait as she walked on.

The street's stucco houses were set back, with abundant hedges, wrought-iron railings, and intricately organised gardens that mimicked pastoral profusion. She imagined going up one of the paths, a well-liked visitor, and being welcomed into a lighted ground-floor room lined with bookshelves.

The mews entrance was a dark corridor leading into a back area of coach houses. Which number was it? The door above a small, fire-escape-like staircase opened, and a man emerged. The light behind him threw out his shadow, wavering, implausibly tall. He paused.

‘Hello there,' said Roger quietly.

‘Hi,' Leela said. ‘I wasn't sure which house it was.'

He remained silhouetted for a moment. Then he said, ‘Come up. I thought we'd have a drink then maybe go out.'

‘Sure,' she was saying, but he'd already stepped back, and opened the door wider. She made her way up the thin iron steps. A vine covered part of the building.

‘Hello,' he said again when she got to the top.

‘Hi,' she said. He stepped in, and bent to kiss her lightly on each cheek. He smelled lemony. In the partitioned space inside, light shone off amenable surfaces: wood, a rug, the spines of books.

‘It's nice,' Leela said.

‘The workshop's downstairs. When I say workshop, it's converted from a garage.' He smiled. She smiled back. Roger walked to a wide, pale wooden kitchen counter and took out two glasses. ‘White? I have some open. Or I can open a bottle of red.'

‘White's great.' She watched him pour the cold, faintly green liquid into each glass.

‘Cheers,' he said, extending his glass.

‘Cheers.'

He was dressed in slightly nicer versions of normal clothes: navy cotton trousers, a white shirt that looked soft, a brown belt and shoes. She had an almost superstitious feeling towards his possessions.

The warm light was pleasant.

‘Let's go and sit down,' he said. He walked to the living room. Leela sat on a couch with a kilim in front of it. He put on a CD. A trumpet sounded: a pop song of the moment.

‘Oh, I like this song,' she said with pleasure.

‘Yeah? Lucia, who works next door, keeps playing it. She gave me a copy. What sort of thing do you like listening to?'

‘Oh,' Leela squirmed, ‘you know, mostly, er, stuff from the sixties and seventies. I love Nick Drake. I've been listening to the Supremes. Some Motown.' Adolescent fears of being uncool led her to sound bored.

Roger looked disappointed.

‘What about you?' she asked quickly.

‘Oh, some seventies stuff. Some folk, some jazz. I like finding new things.'

She nodded, crossed her legs, held in her stomach, smiled. Carefully, she held the wine glass by its stem.