Another Country (14 page)

Roger removed a pouch of tobacco and a packet of papers from his pocket.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?' he asked.

‘No, of course not.'

‘Are you sure?' His large eyes were hazel, she saw. ‘I can smoke out of the window.'

‘Don't be silly, it's your house.'

‘No,' he murmured, ‘it matters that you're comfortable.'

‘How about if I pinch one?' Leela asked with a grin.

‘You smoke?'

‘Sometimes. I used to, in Paris.'

He smiled, a flash through the beard. ‘Smoking in France doesn't count.'

‘I know. That's what you feel, because everyone's doing it. It seems positively health-giving. Can I have a skinny one please?' she asked. His fingers were parcelling out a little bundle of the brown and yellow fibres, teasing them into a line on a cigarette paper.

‘Is this skinny enough?' He held up the cigarette.

‘Thanks.' She looked down at it. ‘You do it so neatly. I'm no good at it.'

‘You could try one of those machines,' he suggested. He rolled another. As he licked the gum, his eyes met hers.

‘I guess. I didn't want to smoke so much anyway, it doesn't suit me.'

He dimpled and smiled again. ‘Doesn't suit your image?'

‘Oh no, not that. I love it as an image. Especially rollies.'

He held out the lighter. She put the cigarette in her lips and leant forwards, mocking herself for the self-conscious eroticism of it. The cigarette caught; she inhaled immediately, and began to cough. Roger, who had lit his and taken a sharp, long inhalation, raised his eyebrows while blowing out.

Leela laughed and coughed. ‘I know, could I be any more sophisticated?'

He smiled. ‘You're adorable.'

She was both thrilled and mildly miserable. She shouldn't be doing this. He smoked, then stood up.

‘Let's open the window anyway, it'll be nicer.'

‘Okay.'

He threw open the window, and she stood near him smoking and shivering in the night air.

He smiled.

‘What?'

‘I've never seen anyone smoke a cigarette with such concentration. You make it look like it's a joint.'

She grinned. ‘I don't smoke that much any more.' She wished the irritating complications of having a boyfriend hadn't existed. She imagined a later stage, of freedom, and the right thing appearing. A nicotine rush lifted her on a wave of euphoria and nausea. She conscientiously smoked the cigarette till its end.

Roger took large, silent inhalations. When he'd finished he put out the cigarette, picked up the ashtray and took it with him to the kitchen. His glass was empty, and he came back with the bottle.

‘Shall we put this out of its misery?'

‘Okay,' Leela said. She felt slightly sick, and a little drunk.

He poured more of the cold, metallic wine into her glass, and the rest into his. They stayed at the window.

‘I like it here at night. The yard's busiest in the day. I have the workshop, and there are other workshops here. One guy who lives here, in the biggest flat, is a banker. See there?' He made Leela lean half out of the window, and took her elbow to push her further, till she could see the corner house, which extended over the cobbled pathway.

‘So he's not at home during the day.' She put her foot back on solid ground and leaned against the sill again. Roger smiled.

‘He's not home. Then there's Derek, he's a cabinetmaker, he's opposite me. And in the middle, Lucia. She makes clothes, really cool stuff, and reconditions vintage dresses.'

‘Oh, cool.'

‘Yeah. She is very cool. You see these amazing women coming to her door,' he said, and smiled. ‘Models, women with rich husbands. Amazingly dressed. High heels, great clothes.'

‘Right.' She was slightly put out, and revised her earlier guilt about Richard.

He closed the window. ‘Shall we go and get a bite?'

‘Sounds great.'

‘I'm starving,' Roger said.

Chapter 17

‘I can't believe it,' said Richard. He clutched his hair. ‘I thought things were going better?'

Leela tried to be attentive. She sat in the chair and watched him pace around. Earlier, she thought, I would have cared that he was upset. I would have worried about whether he loved me.

What was the relationship between these two states, each of which could be filed under her name as behaviour that belonged to her?

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I think things just went on like that for too long. It's not anyone's fault or anything.'

She began to wonder how long this would have to continue. It was darkening outside; Saturday afternoon, miserable buses threaded their way north from the West End.

He came to sit near her; he began to pull a more assertive manner about him. ‘You'll have to give me time,' he said. ‘It's not going to be easy, getting over this.' He was planning, organising, not regretting. ‘What about if I said we could think about living together after a year or two? And decide then?'

She looked at him, slightly incredulous. ‘There's no point,' she said. ‘Aren't we both sick of this?'

A few days later, a moment when he stood in front of his wardrobe, taking off his shirt. ‘You're going to do it again,' he said.

‘Do what?'

‘Find someone else who's in awe of you and then dump them.'

‘Who's in awe of me?'

‘Everyone. All your friends look up to you,' he said.

She sat on the bed staring at him. He'd asked her to stay the night. She'd agreed to spend time with him as he wanted, during the process of their separation, though the promise gave her a tug of dread. Still, it would have been too unkind, wouldn't it, not to do what another, especially someone so close, wanted in this situation?

They lay in the darkness, and she began to fall asleep, still aware of her silence and rigidity.

In the middle of the night, he said, ‘Is there someone else?'

‘What?'

‘Is there someone else?'

She was lulled by the hours of dispassionate, almost comradely conversation. ‘No,' she said.

‘Oh. Because I told my dad, and that's what he asked.'

She considered. ‘Nothing happened, but I realised that I was attracted to Roger, that time I went out with him, and that made me feel things were over with us.'

He, ordinarily so languid, moved in a whirlwind of duvet and anger, and was standing. ‘I knew it. You complete whore!'

‘What?' But he wasn't pretending to be angry. He picked up the bedside lamp and threw it against the cupboard. ‘Just fuck off. Bitch!'

‘But I didn't do anything. Why did you ask if you didn't want to know?'

‘Get out!'

She was already near the door, her bag and clothes in her hands, dressing. She quickly put on her underwear and a sweater, picked up her bag, skirt and shoes, and ran out of the door. On the landing, in the clean, lit corridor of the mansion flats, with its blush carpet and waxed woodwork, she stopped to put on her skirt and shoes, wondering if a businessman with a small suitcase or an elderly woman would pass on the stairs, and look reprovingly at her.

In the street she stood irresolute. It was dark and cold; her phone said 03:20. She called a cab firm: it would take half an hour. ‘I'm on my own,' she told the man in the office, ‘please send it as soon as you can.' She felt pity for herself, as an abstract proposition, a woman alone in the middle of the night in a deserted part of the city. She saw a black cab and ran to wave it down. The driver stopped; Leela opened the door, and gave her address.

When she was in her room, shivering back to warmth, she sent an email to her parents, telling them briefly what had happened, and a longer one to her sister. She'd call Neeti the next day. She changed the password for her email account, unplugged the telephone, and turned off her mobile. She woke at midday to knocking on the door. Dee Dee ushered in Richard. He looked haggard.

‘Where have you been?' he said. ‘I haven't slept.'

Leela looked at him and her landlady, who disappeared down the corridor rather slowly, still smoking.

She closed the door of her room behind Richard. He had not showered, she thought; or he smelled of himself more strongly than usual. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and his woollen jacket.

‘I was worried, I tried to call you,' he said.

‘Isn't that a bit post-fact? You threw me out in the middle of the night.'

He looked briefly embarrassed. ‘I was very angry,' he said.

‘Why are you here?'

‘Look, you can leave your things in my place for as long as you need to,' he said. He seemed to have made a list of things to say. He half sat, half leaned against the edge of her MDF pine-finish desk. ‘I know it won't be easy for you to move them, it's not even that big,' he peered around, ‘in here.' He stopped. ‘Are you going tell people what you've done?'

‘How do you mean?' She sat on the bed cross-legged.

‘With Roger.'

‘I didn't do anything with Roger. I didn't even hold his hand. I made it clear we were together.'

‘But you will now, won't you?'

The usual instinct to please was quiet. ‘That's my business.'

‘Don't, Leela,' he said suddenly. ‘Don't for a while. Three months, six months. Don't go out with him.'

‘You can't keep telling me what to do. I said I wanted to break up two weeks ago.' The muscles in her legs grew tense with the absurdity of it.

He seemed to relax. ‘I'm meeting Johnny for lunch,' he said for no reason. ‘Sushi. It should be nice.' They had discussed, the previous night, before the conflagration, how he might move forward, see his friends, and rebuild a sense of his life independently from her.

‘Are you.' But why was he telling her this now?

He nodded. Abruptly, he said, ‘It hurts, you know. It really hurts.'

‘You threw me out at three in the morning, and the only reason I was there was because you asked me to be.'

He got up. ‘I thought I'd buy a new mattress,' he said. ‘Make a new start.'

‘Okay.' She sat, uncomfortable in her pyjamas; he felt like a stranger.

‘I found a place … Mattresses turn out to be pretty fucking expensive.'

She nodded.

‘Do you want to come for a coffee with me? For an hour? I've got to kill some time before lunch. Johnny can't make it till two.'

Leela blinked. She said quietly, ‘No. No I don't.' Ought it to have made her triumphant, or angry, this ridiculous situation? I have longed for this indifference, she thought, and not found it, and now I have it but without enjoyment or sadness either.

‘Okay.'

She stood, and reluctantly he began to move towards the door of her room. She opened it, and walked to the front door. An intrigued Dee Dee looked out from the kitchen.

Leela opened the door.

‘Well, bye,' Richard said. ‘It feels strange not to call you sweetie, or dear,' he added.

Leela pushed the door a little wider, and he went through it.

He paused just outside. ‘Are you sure about coffee?'

‘Yes. Thanks.'

She shut the door on his retreating back, and walked past Dee Dee.

Chapter 18

‘He threw you out in the middle of the night? What a gent!' Alan began to laugh. At his familiar giggle, Leela started laughing too. It was in fact quite funny.

‘He said I should stick around until he could slowly push me away. So he wouldn't feel bad about being rejected. Then I went out with someone else for a few weeks, but he dumped me.'

Alan roared with laughter. ‘That's genius! Well, you have to have a rebound thing. It's the rule.' He laughed more. Leela looked at him with some disbelief, but then she chuckled too. They would reappear, these people, through the years, unexpectedly and infrequently, and sometimes they would be comforting. Especially the boys you had never been attracted to, and who had never been attracted to you, but who accepted you as a familiar part of their earlier life.

She glanced at Alan, whom she hadn't seen for a few years. What would he be like as he grew older, with a wife, children? Would he remain so laughing and pleasant, so simple? There were the other familiar but strange faces around the table, and near the bar in a knot. Amy was there. Leela saw a flash of her red hair, and heard her laugh; she was telling a story in the middle of a small circle.

A packet of crisps lay open on the table: it had been torn along one side and opened out. Just a few morsels of crisp remained, and shiny tracks of fingers on the foil.

The second time she sent her email of resignation it was accepted. She was told to leave by the end of the week. She called some of the temping agencies she had earlier worked for. She went to reregister, at Fenchurch Street, at South Molton Street, at Berners Street. She typed sample texts, and got eighty per cent accuracy, seventy per cent speed.

There wasn't much work going, the agency representatives said. They looked her over. Pencil skirt, white shirt, high heels. ‘You must wear heels,' Amy had hissed, in an exasperated moment of drunken candour. ‘Otherwise people won't take you seriously.'

‘How long are you available for?' asked Estelle at South Molton Street.

‘Six months at least, though I'm looking for a permanent post, obviously,' said Leela firmly. This, she knew from experience, was the optimum lie. Less than six months was too little for the rep to make much commission; wanting to temp forever marked you out as feckless. ‘It gets harder to get a temping job when you're over thirty,' she remembered a woman at the reinsurer's office telling her, as though these typing and filing posts, paid hourly without sick leave, were exceptionally desirable.

The morning after Leela had reregistered in South Molton Street and Estelle had pursed her lips and said, ‘There's so little right now – but are you available for the odd day if someone's off sick?' and Leela, again mendaciously, had said, ‘Oh totally, of course, just call', her mobile buzzed at 8:14.

It was cold and dark. She had her head under the duvet, where she preferred to keep it these days. It best allowed her to smell her own fetor, to keep her eyes closed, to cry and scream silently into the padding, to pretend that the disappointing world did not exist.

Now the phone was ringing.

She lifted her head. To be sure, it was cleaner outside the duvet. It was colder too, and she heard a medium-weight rain falling with dreary regularity in the backyard.

She remembered her promise of willingness to Estelle and wanted to laugh.

‘Hello?'

‘Leela?' Estelle's voice was sharp. The phone had been ringing nearly long enough to go to voicemail; she would have had to call other people if Leela hadn't picked up.

‘Speaking,' said Leela brightly.

The job was in Notting Hill, quite near Roger's flat. For the next three weeks she trailed there, waiting to be humiliated when she bumped into him. She replayed the moment when he'd turned to her gravely and said, ‘I know this is going to hurt you but I have to say it. I don't want a relationship.'

‘I know,' she had said quickly, but he'd prolonged the conversation anyway. She hadn't cried then, and he'd stopped her near his door to give her a lingering, unwanted hug, after which he'd pulled back and appraised her with his large, hazel eyes. ‘You don't seem that upset,' he'd noted.

After three weeks, Leela called in sick, filed her time sheet, and on Sunday sent Estelle an email saying that her grandmother – she had none left, but felt a warm, sentimental pang for herself as she typed it – had been taken ill. She had to go to India.