Another Country (8 page)

One cold afternoon, when she was in between jobs, Leela had gone to her house and surfed porn on her flatmate Jon's computer. The images of women with exaggerated breasts, tans, and open orifices presented to the viewer had aroused her, but in a way she found embarrassing, as though she'd protested a lack of hunger, then, pressed to eat junk food, overeaten anyway. There was no elegance to this desire.

Still, since that conversation, she'd found herself trying to replicate Richard's ruthless gaze; in public places, she let her eyes rifle women's bodies. Breasts? A bit saggy. Bum? Large. But the girl over there had buttocks that rose in a high curve like those in underwear advertisements. She now turned, as though subliminally aware of Leela's thoughts, and gave Leela a hard look. Leela, embarrassed, turned away. The tube thundered through its endless tunnel.

‘Hi sweetie.' Tall, friendly, he opened the door for her, ran a hand through his hair, smiled. Leela leaned across for a kiss. She was seething.

‘How was the day?' she asked.

‘Good. I thought I wouldn't get off early but I did. We've submitted the presentation, so they've got to get back to us.'

‘Great.'

She followed him to the kitchen.

‘Do you want a drink?'

‘Mm.' She put down her bag. ‘I'm thinking I'll pack and get to my place tonight.'

‘Oh, really? Dad isn't getting here till around lunchtime tomorrow.'

‘Yeah, but, whatever, it'd be nice to wake up at home, have the day.'

‘Okay.'

Glass in hand, she went to the bedroom and began to take clothes out of her drawer.

Richard appeared in the doorway, hand in hair. ‘I could put some stuff in the spare room under the bed if you want.'

Leela, on her knees amid a collection of Tesco bags, ground her teeth. ‘Why?'

‘If you don't want to carry it all back.'

‘Oh, I think it's simpler.' She stuffed the errant leg of a pair of tights into another bag, and began to carry several of them towards the hall.

‘You don't have to go tonight,' Richard repeated.

‘I'd rather.' She turned on her heel and went back towards the bags.

‘Okay.'

They sat with plates of saffron risotto in tiny servings. Leela drank more, and poured more wine into Richard's glass, then into her own. She didn't care, anyway. The wine's taste altered; from dry and reminiscent of lemons, it became sourer. Richard went to the kitchen to get the next dish, skate with capers and tomatoes. They'd eaten something similar in France in the summer, when they'd gone to the wedding of one of his friends. The bride had asked Leela if she and Richard planned to marry.

‘I don't know if he wants to,' Leela had said.

Catherine had looked at her directly, and tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Set yourself a time limit,' she advised. ‘I did that with Tom. I told myself, three years and you're out. By the time he asked me, I was mentally dividing up our furniture.'

Leela had laughed, but the conversation had stayed with her.

‘Why can't we just move in together?' she now asked Richard for the millionth time.

He grinned. ‘We basically do live together.'

‘But this isn't my space', a term he favoured, as in, “I like what you've done with this space”.

‘You have your stuff here.'

‘I have to move out when your dad's here.'

‘He's hardly ever here.'

‘That's not the point.'

They sat down with the fish, which was excellently cooked.

‘The fish is nice,' Leela said.

Richard looked troubled.

‘What?'

‘I feel like you're never satisfied.'

‘What?' She felt apprehension mixed with the usual rage.

‘You're never grateful.'

‘
What?
'

‘I think you should think about all the things I do for you,' he said doggedly.

‘What about all the things I do for you?'

He looked doubtful, in the slightly aquiline way only a thin person with a long nose can. ‘My point is, you only look at the things that upset you,' he said. ‘I think you should look at all the things I do that are nice. Like cooking for you.'

‘Practically speaking I cook for you more often.'

‘You virtually live here.'

‘Is that supposed to be some sort of favour?' She shot up from the sofa.

‘Well,' he said, quietly indignant, ‘you probably have a better lifestyle than you otherwise would because of it.'

‘What's wrong with my
lifestyle
?'

‘This flat. It's nicer than yours.'

‘There's nothing wrong with my flat. At least I don't have to shunt out of it every time your dad comes to town.'

He folded his arms. The oval glass table, which he'd coveted for weeks before he bought it from the antiques market, stood between them like a punctuation mark.

‘Oh, hi. I thought I heard you come in last night.' Jon walked past a still-sleeping Leela, fumbling for the coffee powder in the kitchen, and opened the fridge. The phone began to ring. He bounded out. ‘Jesus! More people trying to sell me something.'

It struck Leela that these calls were the result of marketing strategies like those Richard and his colleagues put in place, with much plying of PowerPoint, for their clients. Jon, she heard, was having an animated conversation.

‘No, he's not. He's away. Where? Uh … he's skiing. Yes. Well, in Colorado. It's a different season there.'

Leela grinned.

‘But what's it about?' Jon enquired tensely, a man on the scent of a falsehood.

The kettle boiled. Leela tipped a small mountain of coffee into her individual-sized cafetière. A bird sang outside. The day was grey.

‘Okay, I'll tell him, but he's pretty fucking acute, yeah?' Jon ended. Leela giggled, spilling coffee powder. The kitchen needed cleaning.

‘Did you mean “astute”?'

‘Thank you,' said Jon reprovingly. He took the kettle from her and poured hot water into a mug containing a single round tea bag. Immediately the water became dark and rank-smelling.

Leela sat on the counter, rubbing her eyes and waiting for coffee powder and water to turn into coffee.

‘Time for a drastic change?' Jon said.

She started. His face was innocent of anything sly.

There was a long pause. Leela ran a hand through her short hair. ‘Oh. You mean the hair. Yeah – dunno. It seemed like a good idea.'

‘Well, it'll grow,' Jon pointed out. He looked at her again, as though deciding whether to speak. ‘So Richard's away?'

Leela felt herself blush. ‘His dad's here, so he's spending time with him.' She wondered if she'd left any of her plastic bags in the hall.

Jon nodded, and smiled at her. He stopped stirring his tea, and went back to his room.

Leela spent a quiet day, each part unfolding with tedious languor. She regarded the bags she'd deposited in her room, and considered unpacking. She cleaned the bath. She went to the small supermarket on the High Road, and bought avocadoes, bread, butter, lemons, coffee, milk, cereal. She came home and put away the food. She phoned Amy.

‘It's not so much that I miss him. It's that I resent that he doesn't miss me.'

‘Maybe he's just not as insecure as you.'

Leela brooded. She sipped her tea. ‘Can I have sugar?'

‘Oh, sorry. It's in the kitchen.'

Amy was often free at weekends, because the man she was seeing was attached. Leela, however, was usually busy, having an absorbing, miserable weekend of social engagements, arguing, and sex, with the odd good meal thrown in.

‘Do you actually want to spend all your time with him?' Amy asked.

‘No. I just feel better when he's there.'

Richard usually took Leela along when he met his friends. ‘There's nothing I'd say to them if you weren't here that I wouldn't say when you are,' he said. As if in retribution, he tended to come along whenever Leela met a friend; this went down badly with her friends.

She put in the sugar, stirred it, went to the mirror over the mantelpiece to check how her hair looked today, then turned away before she looked. ‘How are things going with Andrew, anyway?'

Amy made a face. ‘He's away for the weekend, with Laura.'