Another Country (4 page)

‘Sure.'

‘Goodnight!'

‘Goodnight!'

‘Goodnight!'

Leela looked back. The figures of Patrick and Stella, seen from behind, were far away, self-contained as though in a painting. A fine drizzle began to fall, giving the air a lovely indeterminacy.

‘Brr!'

Leela smiled. She pulled her thin jacket around her. They carried on walking, away from the others and into the pools of light under streetlamps. And now, nagged a voice inside her, now what will you do? She ignored it.

The pavement glittered with moisture.

Simon put a hand on her shoulder; she tried not to jump. He smiled. ‘What were we talking about, anyway, before we were so rudely thrown out of that bar?' He released her shoulder, but not before his hand had been there long enough to signal deliberateness. It was a charming gesture, and made her nervous. She took refuge in seriousness.

‘I guess the waiting staff wanted to go home …'

He shrugged. ‘Oh well. It's not like we didn't leave in time.'

‘No.'

They walked on. She made an effort. ‘You were telling me about when you lived in Dublin. What were you doing when you were there?'

He smiled. ‘Work, for the company before this one. I do some consultancy, you know. It's business development essentially. Boring, boring –' He waved it away. Leela was still examining him; it struck her there was something grave, disciplined about him, perhaps also something adamantine. She scolded herself: there was no need to narrate the experience before it happened. Her feet, in sandals, were cold; she stumbled. Simon put out a hand and caught her elbow. The hand rubbed her back between the shoulder blades, rested on one shoulder. He was good at doing this, she noted – touching in an exploratory fashion that managed to seem merely friendly. Perhaps, argued her brain, it
is
merely friendly. ‘Dublin,' he said. The hand cupped her scapula and smoothed it out, let it go, rested warm and innocuous on the muscles aside it. ‘It's a great city, we had some really good times there.'

‘Where else have you lived?'

The hand smoothed the side of her upper arm.

‘Lisbon for a bit – a long time ago. South America for a while.'

‘Where?'

‘Rio … Here.' They turned up the rue Vieille du Temple. It was late, a weekday evening, and the bars and cafés whose life bloomed onto the narrow street in the day were shut now, pulled into themselves. The pavements were clear, only lamplight shattering on damp macadam. She followed its Deco starbursts. They passed the café called Les Philosophes, and another place she and Nina had once gone, an odd little bar with sun lamps, where Belgian white beer was served in litre tankards.

‘You're quiet,' Simon said. ‘Here, we should take another right. I'll show you where I live, then you can drop in if you're passing.'

Up a silent street, where old buildings leaned into the darkened road. They passed massive doors. Simon paused outside one. A traffic sign, a white circle ringed in red, said ACCÈS with a red diagonal crossing it.

Simon wasn't holding her arm any more. He stood in the street, not far away, his face more than half in shadow, and his voice slightly nervous. ‘Come in for a drink?' he said. ‘See the flat?'

She hesitated, but the next day was a respite without classes; she always timed a weekly adventure or crisis for this night, and slept half the free day away, as though from nerves, or loneliness. ‘Sure,' she said.

He grinned, she thought, in the dark, and turned to put in the digicode. The lock clicked, and he pushed one of the great doors. Leela stepped over the threshold.

The stone stairway was cold and damp; the flat was on the second floor, with a burgundy door. Simon used his key, and Leela went in. A dark crowded hallway – a small wooden table, boots near a closet with a half-open door, and, ‘Here,' said Simon, ‘come into the main room.'

It was very large, with two big sofas, and a white wall of shelving, in which were neatly arranged paperbacks, and various other objects: cigarettes, a road map of the Île-de-France, a glass ashtray, a box of mints, black and grey plastic film canisters, keys, coins, and a scuffed copy of
In Cold Blood
, splayed open on its front. The room reminded Leela of a larger, airier version of an Oxbridge fellow's study, and she felt impersonally indulged, welcomed in the way students always were in those rooms – seated on a sofa and given coffee or a drink to sip.

‘Beautiful room,' she said. She looked up at the high ceiling.

‘Isn't it great?' Simon's hand rested briefly on her shoulder. He walked past, to the coffee table, and removed a mug, piled up a few large books, flicked at a cushion. ‘This room is really why I took the flat. Well, that and the upstairs. Come with me, I'm going to the kitchen to get us a drink.'

He walked out, and Leela followed him, into the hallway and then a small, plant-filled kitchen. ‘The lady whose house it is asked if I'd be willing to look after the plants,' he said, smiling at Leela. She brushed gingerly past a large spider plant, whose leggy babies, each on a long stalk, were reaching for the floor tiles.

Simon was opening a cupboard. ‘Would you like a drink-drink? A gin and tonic, or a vodka?'

Leela hesitated. He grinned, his hand on the cupboard door. ‘You can have anything you like. Even if it's non-alcoholic.'

‘Do you – can I have some tea?'

‘Tea?' His grin was wide, but not without warmth. ‘Sure you can. With milk and sugar? Real tea?'

She nodded. He smiled to himself as he filled up the kettle. ‘A cup of tea.' While it was boiling, he got out tea bags – Assam, she noted sadly – a jar of sugar, and a tall glass. She watched him move around the kitchen, and, looking at the red melamine counter, scored in places, she felt a fleeting affection for the family life that might have gone on here earlier.

Simon worked methodically, unhurried: he took tonic out of the fridge, and a lime, sliced it, got the ice cubes and so on as he made his drink. Leela watched. She was aware that he didn't really care whether or not she had been there, and this made her relax and warm to him in a way she would have found difficult to explain.

He took out the tea bag, smiled at her, put in milk, and – which also made her warm to him – two and a half spoons of sugar without comment, stirred it, gave her the mug. He picked up his own glass.

‘Let's go through to the other room.'

Leela followed him, and he put on a floor lamp near the back sofa and sat down. The room was dim, hospitable. The enormous windows gave onto a damp, dark blue night.

Leela sat on the same sofa, and sipped her tea. It was too hot. She put it down.

‘Just a second.' Simon got up and went towards the kitchen. He was gone for a little while, and she reached for the heavy art book in front of her, a collection of photographs entitled
Doorways
. She leafed through it randomly: entrances in what looked like Mexico, some that seemed to be here in Paris, London, she thought …

Simon returned, smoking, carrying another ashtray. He stood looking down at her. ‘Like the book?'

She smiled at him. ‘It's interesting. Lots of, well, doorways.'

He laughed, and ruffled his hair. It made him look older, and slightly wild. ‘Yeah, it's always good to have an eye at the exit, isn't it?' He put the cigarette in the ashtray, put the ashtray down, eyed Leela with a quick calculating glance that the quiet part of her consciousness noted – but wait and see what happens, urged the rest of her mind – sat down, leaned quickly over and kissed her. He took one shoulder to keep her steady, and she cooperatively kissed him back, noticing that his lips were soft, that he pushed his tongue into her mouth too soon but withdrew it as quickly, that he was good at this, that it wasn't having any effect on her beyond the most automatic physical arousal, and that he tasted of both cigarettes and mint.

He pulled back, smiled at her, a smile of elation with himself. ‘Stay here tonight?'

Leela, the eternal wanderer with no destination to aim for, said, ‘Okay.'

‘Come and see the bedroom.' He jumped up, pulled her with him, raised his eyebrows, mocking the moment. She laughed. He came back for his drink. The cigarette had gone out. Leela followed him, turning at the door to look at her abandoned mug of tea.

The staircase was narrow, the carpet plush and thick; she followed Simon up it, looking at his bum and wondering with the usual self-amusement if she was really about to become better acquainted with it. His trousers looked vaguely dad-like, she worried. Atop the stairs was an opening. She stepped into a large attic, with two skylights and pale blue walls. The bed was a white, messy island.

‘It's a lovely room,' she said, but Simon was bending to kiss her again, more intent, and his expression – she kept her eyes open, alarmed at herself – was completely serious, admitting of no humour. She felt self-conscious, she wanted to make a joke; she put up her arms to hold his upper arms, and he put a hand up her top, moved aside her bra to rub her nipple, a gesture that made her flinch, or shiver, she wasn't sure.

When she woke it was early. Cold morning came through the skylights. Simon slept on his back, his breathing audible, like a standing fan. One arm came out of the covers. His hair was rumpled. She felt no desire to touch him, and recollected their long and exhausting feints in bed – the various things he'd done, with which she'd cooperated, increasingly wishing she'd gone home: his putting his fingers roughly into her to feel her wetness, then licking her, something she found intensely embarrassing, and this time, not particularly arousing, and finally sex. She had thought she might come, but hadn't; had wondered whether to pretend, however that was done, but hadn't; he had persisted for a long time before finishing. After that he'd tried to touch her, instructing her to move against his hand, but she'd said instead that she was tired, and he had rolled over. How was it possible, when you'd had an apparently urbane, socially competent time earlier, to find yourselves behaving so ineptly when unclothed? She had failed, she supposed; yet, obstinately, she still wanted to be loved.

Confused, parched, and with an incipient headache, she got up from the edge of the bed where she'd lain all night for fear of being caressed in sleep, or the desire that if this happened it should be done deliberately. There were her clothes, strewn about the floor. She picked them up, looked back at Simon, who snuffled and moved the arm that hung off the bed. There was a book on the floor. She moved it to the armchair, then tiptoed down the stairs with her clothes clutched to her. In the beautiful living room, hunched near the bookshelves where she was least visible from the street, she put on her clothes, first her bra, then her pants, wincing at the slight soreness. She looked round the room when dressed, as though to gauge its expression – would she and this place meet again? In the bleached light, the furniture was impassive.

Near the hall table, next to Simon's desert boots, she found her shoes and pulled them on. She managed to slide back the door bolt, and shut the door behind her. The landing and stairwell were now those of many Parisian buildings. As she walked through the cold interior courtyard, the stone was slimy with dew; black plastic bags gave off overripe odours.

She briefly feared the outer door wouldn't let her leave, but she found the button to press and slipped into the street. It was raining, and cold. She walked slowly home, reassured by the quotidian misery of the Monoprix, with its fluorescent lights on against the dim day. It was eight o'clock. She bought bread, milk, and coffee. As she crossed the road towards her building, she saw in the alcove of the Crédit Lyonnais the mad old woman, wrapped in her layers of clothing, sitting on the stone ledge. She held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in claw-like fingers. Leela walked towards her, trying not to look, and angry eyes burned into hers. The old woman spat.

In the studio, Leela took a shower, then made coffee. She turned on the television, the lights, the electric heater, and sat on the floor cushion. Late episodes of
The Bold and the Beautiful
, dubbed into French, were airing, and she watched one, depressed by the huge jaws of the men, their suits, the women's heels and tans and bouffant hair. The rain became louder, smashing on the thick pane of the single window. Leela imagined floods, people's cold, wet stockinged feet on the tarmac outside, bus horns, Paris cursing. She didn't have to go to work. She thought of Simon, when they'd been chatting in the kitchen, saying he kept his car in a garage nearby, that they should take it out and go for a drive in the country one weekend, and she wondered abstractly and yet inquisitively, as a child to whom something has been promised, whether this would happen. Maybe Simon would be her boyfriend? She imagined them doing the things couples did – being seen here and there – and she pictured Patrick's face when he saw them. But she could see it as nothing other than pleased, if surprised, and she stopped thinking of it and hunched tighter on the floor cushion.