Another Country. Anjali Joseph
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or I’ll call you.’
‘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