The Trouble with Henry and Zoe (15 page)

I’m unsure of the proper etiquette when cycling with a lady for the first time, but the sun has set, and the traffic is easing off, so for the most part we are able to
cycle two abreast. I try not to fall behind, because I don’t want Zoe to think I’m checking out her bum, although this is occasionally unavoidable, and whether it’s the cycling or
not, she does look good out of the saddle. At the same time, I don’t want to forge on ahead, forcing the pace and intruding my own backside upon Zoe’s view. We cycle at a speed easy
enough to allow conversation, but say little besides commenting on the occasional landmark, oddity or idiot driver. Whereas I’m inclined to hop up the curb, squeeze between cars and sneak
through the lights, Zoe abides by the rules, signals correctly and stops on amber.

As we approach the river, Albert Bridge twinkles above the water as if it’s waiting for Christmas. Two months after I started working with Gus, I bought a bicycle so that I could follow up
on recommendations beyond his small shop in the South West Triangle. I must have covered hundreds of miles, criss-crossing the river in the shortening nights, and there’s something magical
about all of London’s bridges after sunset. But this one, like something out of a fairytale, is my favourite. My clients live on both sides of the dirty water, east and west, but whenever I
can, I cross here, riding slowly and imagining the air isn’t thick with fumes. The bridge inclines deceptively, and tonight, as we crest the centre, the light thrown from its constellation of
strung bulbs bounces up to meet us, reflected back from a loose mass of glass and polished metal. Parked on the opposite side of the road are maybe a dozen or two dozen motorcycles, all chrome
cylinders and fat gas tanks. Without discussing it, we slow to a roll as we approach this gathering of ostentatious hogs. The riders are standing around, talking, comparing gaskets and drinking
coffee from a nearby burger van that I have never seen here before.

‘Buy you a coffee?’

‘You think it’s safe?’ says Zoe, laughing.

‘We’re bikers, ain’t we?’

‘Sure,’ says Zoe, steering her bike across the road. ‘Let’s do it.’

And this is no mean measure of burnt instant in a Styrofoam cup. To our mutual amazement, this small snack van on the Albert Bridge offers five varieties of beans and three kinds of milk,
covering everything from a flat white to a decaf soya mocha. We order two white Americanos and take them to the railings so we can look at the lights reflected in the water.

Zoe unclips her helmet and runs her fingers through her bob. ‘Is it ruined?’ she asks.

‘Nothing a wash won’t fix. You look . . . it looks good. Really good.’

Zoe smiles, looks away. ‘On the road again tomorrow?’ she asks.

Tomorrow I am swapping my scissors for a drill; I have appointments from 9 until 6.30 including three root canals and a tricky filling. But I’m not about to admit it; it’s too
complicated. Too weird. ‘I only do the mobile stuff in the evenings.’

‘You work in a salon, too?’

I nod.

‘What are you, a workaholic or something?’

‘Hah! No, not really, but I do need to pay the rent.’

‘Tell me about it,’ says Zoe. ‘Does it have a’ – air quotes – ‘funny name? The hairdressers.’

‘The Hairy Krishna.’

‘That’s just weird. Is it a Buddhist thing?’

‘It’s a Gus thing. He’s the owner.’

And all of a sudden I experience a nudging impulse to tell Zoe about my mother’s salon, the mix up with the name, the way she taught me to cut a graduated bob. It might endear me to her;
it might even make her laugh. Her mouth has a natural pout, and there is something both cartoonish and seductive about the way she smiles while she’s waiting for an answer. Full in the
middle, her lips taper towards the corners, where they curve gently upwards, giving her an air of wry amusement. But there’s something else; something held back, and it’s magnetic and .
. . something more, sad perhaps. But if I tell Zoe about Love & Die, what then? What if she laughs and asks where I’m from, what if she asks what it’s like and why did I leave? How
do I answer that line of enquiry? If I liked her less, perhaps I’d risk it.

‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘What do you do?’

Zoe shrugs. ‘Kids’ books.’

‘You write them?’

‘No, no, publishing. I’m an editor. But . . . I did have an idea for one once.’

‘Tell?’

Zoe appears to think about this for a moment, leaning over the railings and staring through the black water. A light breeze ruffles her hair and she shivers back to herself. Zoe takes off her
backpack and removes the camera. ‘One for the album?’

‘I thought there was no film,’ I say.

Zoe shrugs, grimaces apologetically. ‘Well, it’s only black and white,’ she says, aiming the lens at me.

‘Make sure to get my good side,’ I say, and I cringe a little at the obviousness of it.

‘Which one would that be?’

‘Anything that hides my nose.’

‘In which case,’ says Zoe from behind her camera, ‘I guess you’re all out of luck. Anyway . . . gives you character.’

‘Fine. How do you want me?’ I ask, hoping she’ll miss the inadvertent double entendre.

‘Just try and look cool,’ she says, laughing. ‘Just drink your coffee and look at the river.’

I do as I’m told and listen to the solid click of Zoe’s camera as she moves around me, finding her angle.

‘What happened to your eye?’ she asks.

‘A plumber hit me.’

‘Seriously?’

‘He does it every week,’ I say, still staring out over the Thames. ‘Boxing.’

‘Tough guy, huh?’ Zoe says, trying out what is probably meant to be a New York accent.

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘Show me your tough guy face,’ she says, closing in with the camera.

And when I laugh, I hear the shutter click.

Zoe packs away her camera, fastens her helmet and climbs onto her bike. I follow her over the hump of the bridge, and then she surprises me by popping up the pavement and veering left into
Battersea Park.

‘I thought you were straight on.’

‘Detour,’ she says, following the path east along the line of the river.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Japan.’

‘Isn’t that a little out of our way?’

‘Yes,’ says Zoe, smiling at me over her shoulder. ‘But only a little.’

I am both literally and figuratively lost, but I have nowhere better to be, so I pedal on to wherever Zoe is leading me. After no more than a minute, the silhouette of a structure –
angular, layered and almost as tall as the trees – comes into view.

‘It’s a peace pagoda,’ Zoe says, circling clockwise around its perimeter. ‘Sometimes in the morning, if you’re early enough, there’s a monk.’

About twenty pedal pushes in circumference, the pagoda is accessible by about a dozen steps on each of three sides. At the centre is a broad white column, inset with four gilded panels or
statues, each as big as a man and glowing warmly in the lamplight.

‘What does he do? This monk.’

‘Walks, bangs a drum. Monk stuff, you know. I cycle past here if I’m going in early, but I’ve only seen him once.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I thought you might appreciate it. What with you working at a Buddhist hairdressers, and everything.’ She smiles at me teasingly.

‘I do.’

On our third revolution, Zoe peels away, heading back towards the traffic and the bustle of late night London. I make one more circuit of the peace pagoda then follow after her.

I’ve had more dates in the last four months than in my whole life leading up to them. Some have ended in bed, one in tears, and one or two have resulted in brief follow-ups. Confident,
ambitious, funny, attractive women for the most part, but no one I’d walk out on a wedding for. And on more than a dozen of these dates, I’ve gone home wondering if I didn’t
suffer some kind of synaptic malfunction seven months ago in that cold castle. But these last two hours with this funny, reticent, awkward editor – I’ve enjoyed them more than all those
dates and drunken fucks placed end to end. Maybe because this isn’t actually a date; no contrivances and no expectations.

After ten minutes of slow riding, Zoe coasts to a stop. ‘This is me,’ she says, pointing her handlebars in the direction of a long side street disappearing into a pinpoint of
converging street lamps.

‘Right,’ I say, stopping beside her. ‘You want me to . . . will you be alright?’

‘Thank you. And thank you again for the . . .’ She flicks her eyes up towards her helmet.

‘You’re welcome. Look after it for me.’

‘Okay,’ says Zoe.

‘Plans for the weekend?’ I ask, a little abruptly.

Zoe takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. ‘Not much; working.’

‘The books?’

Zoe shakes her head. ‘Pub. The Duck and Cover,’ she says, swivelling her handlebars so her lights point down the quiet high street. ‘Got to pay the rent,’ she says,
playing my own words back to me.

‘It won’t pay itself,’ I say inanely, buying time and trying to draw this moment out.

Zoe laughs politely. ‘You? Plans, I mean.’

‘I er . . . well, I’m supposed to have a date on Saturday.’

Zoe nods at this. ‘Supposed?’

‘Well, I could . . . cancel?’

Zoe winces. She actually winces, her teeth coming together, eyes tightening, head withdrawing away from me by maybe an inch.

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I just . . .’ but there’s no easy way of ending that sentence, so I opt instead for closing my eyes and trying to make myself vanish. When I open
them again, Zoe is still there, but at least she is smiling now.

‘No,’ she says, ‘it’s fine, I . . .’ She nods her head from side to side, as if rehearsing a line inside her skull. ‘I’m going travelling.’

‘What, this weekend? I thought you were working.’

Zoe laughs. ‘September.’

‘Like a holiday travelling, or
travelling
travelling?’

‘The last one.’ She smiles apologetically at this. ‘So . . . you know.’

‘Sounds amazing,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Where to?’

Zoe shakes her head. ‘I really need to decide.’

‘You going there for long? Sorry . . . I sound like I’m interrogating you.’

Zoe laughs. ‘It’s fine. Maybe a year? More, less, I . . . I dunno.’

‘Okay . . . well, I guess I’d better . . . cut and run.’

‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

My intentions are modest as I lean in to kiss Zoe, aiming for nothing more than a peck on the cheek. Perched on our bicycles, it’s a slow, cautious approach requiring a good deal of
balance and concentration. I put my hand against the side of Zoe’s face, and the additional contact seems to ground and stabilize us; she leans into me, increasing the pressure of her cheek
against my lips. As my hand slides to the nape of her neck Zoe turns her head towards me and my lips glide across her cheek, bringing our mouths together.

Two seconds, maybe ten . . . and Zoe – slowly – withdraws.

‘I should go. I have to . . . go.’

I’m inclined to ask Zoe if she’s sure, but the look in her eyes has already answered. ‘See you around . . .’ I say, trying to pitch it somewhere just west of a
question.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Enjoy your date.’

Enjoy your date?
Damn.

On the last two hundred metres of my ride home, I replay the conclusion to my unusual night. The pleasant awkwardness, that slow opportunistic kiss. And my smug sounding farewell:
Enjoy your
date
.

Why didn’t I go the whole hog and invite him to have a nice life? In the grand scheme – the scheme in which I travel the world, find myself, become independent, develop a deep
all-over tan – I suppose it doesn’t matter. Even so, I can’t help but wonder how it would go if I’d met him two years from now – what the new, found, Zoe would make of
Henry and his don’t-ask eyes. What she would make of that kiss?

It’s been seven months since I lost Alex and the small house still feels too big when I wheel my bike through the front door. For a while I found the silence terrifying, walking from room
to room, checking behind the doors, in the wardrobes and under the bed for intruders. Sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and doing the same, clutching a broken banister rail that we
never did get around to replacing.

There’s mail on the mat and I pick it up with an acquired sense of trepidation. Mostly junk, but a postcard from my parents who seem to be visiting a different European city every month at
the moment. So far this year they have done Rome, Madrid and – the origin of this postcard – Zagreb. They invite me each time, but I’m yet to take them up on the offer.

There is just one envelope addressed to Alex today. I can get them stopped, fill in some forms and enclose one of my remaining photocopies of his death certificate. But perversely, I like
receiving these offers of low-interest credit cards, invitations to wine clubs, or, like this one, an opportunity to insure my property against damage caused as a result of a burst water main. I
add the envelope to the small pile on the shelf beside the front door, slip off my backpack and hang up my helmet. My bike stays in the house most nights – after all, it’s not like
it’s in anyone’s way.

There’s a message on my phone from Rachel, asking if I made it home okay.

I send one back, reassuring her that I’m alive, but keep the rest of the details to myself.

Walking upstairs, I pause in front of the photograph taken on the day we moved in, me laughing at some comment from Alex. I touch my finger to his face . . .

Goodnight, Alex.

. . . and in the moonlight hazing down the stairs through the open bathroom door, the glass is smudged with fingerprints. I’ll clean it on Sunday. While Henry is waking up next to his date
and wondering whether he made a mistake or not.

It has nothing to do with me, but as I inspect my new graduated bob in the bathroom mirror, I hope he decides that he did.

After I’ve taken off my make-up and brushed my teeth, I change into my pyjamas and climb into bed. Some mornings, but it’s becoming less frequent now, I wake up
expecting to find Alex lying beside me. On those days, I roll over onto his side of the mattress, feeling the cold of the sheets where they should be warm. Some mornings I cry, and on other days I
simply feel a numb absence. Sometimes when I wake to the fresh realization that he isn’t there, I experience an awful skewering guilt for not missing him more. I roll over onto his side of
the bed now, open his bedside drawer and remove the iPad. I turn it on with the same sense of apprehension that I experience on finding a pile of mail inside the front door. Worse today, because
she always mails him in the first week of a new month.