SEVEN

      FOR THE FOLLOWING nine Sundays I made that journey. I saw less and less of Honor and Roxy, despite only being with Luke once a week. But, although I resented him for it, that time had become increasingly central to my life. The job in Wilkinson’s finished in late October and I was on social security again. I hated the dark evenings, the rain keeping me isolated in my flat and the secrecy of our relationship.

      I know it is irrational, but some Sundays I varied my connection from Angel and changed at Euston instead of King’s Cross. I knew no one was following me, but such manoeuvres formed part of a mental foreplay, adding to the illicitness of our encounters. I had done the same after leaving Harrow, convinced my grandparents were searching for me.

      At first I had once or twice arrived late, just to let Luke sweat. But recently my anxiety that he mightn’t turn up had grown so acute that I hated the uncertainty. We were crazy to cling to this location, where Luke might be spotted, but we seemed unwilling to initiate any change. The temporariness of the hotel suited us, keeping further commitment at bay. Yet this arrangement couldn’t be indefinite. Eventually one of us would arrive and instinctively know that the other wasn’t late, they had simply ceased coming.

      It was early December before we quarrelled. My period wasn’t quite over yet. The receptionist eyed us more inquisitively every week and, although I wasn’t bothered by her glances, I didn’t want her prying at bloodied sheets after we left. Sex had been the reason for our dates and so, although I wanted to see Luke, I almost didn’t turn up that week. Perhaps I was afraid of the vacuum its absence might leave, but Luke said that the sex wasn’t important, for him at least, and it would be nice to talk for a change.

      We did so in bed with the light out, smoking and sharing a bottle of gin. I wanted to roll a joint but Luke was old-fashioned about something as harmless as dope. As always, Luke talked while I probed. Our conversations had become a contest of wills where I tried to needle him into revealing more than he wished to. I told him almost nothing of myself and, although Luke initially appeared open, I soon realised how tightly he defined the world he chose to tell me about.

      His talk was mostly about childhood in Dublin, yet the younger self he described seemed removed from the Luke I knew. Silences punctuated his stories so that they made little chronological sense, while nothing was said about the current occupations of his two brothers, who populated every story he told, and his own life in London might not have existed.

      ‘Why did you really come over here?’ I asked as we lay, with the bottle half-empty. Somehow the sensation of being in bed without having made love felt more intimate than anything we’d done before.

      ‘You get sick of living in people’s shadows,’ he replied, taking another slug and staring at the ceiling. ‘Over here you’re nobody, everyone lives their own life. My neighbour has stupid bloody pillars outside his house with ornate balls on top. Last Christmas I was reversing into my driveway when I knocked into one them. He came running out and it was the first time he’d bothered speaking to me after eight years there.’

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘How dare you reverse into my balls!’ Luke’s English accent was perfect. I laughed.

      ‘He did not.’

      ‘No.’ Luke agreed. ‘Nothing as original as that.’

      ‘What would it be like in Dublin?’

      ‘Different.’ The humour drained from his voice.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘It just would be. People think they have your measure there, they point the finger.’

      ‘All the same, would you be happier there?’

      ‘Happy?’ he snorted. ‘What the fuck has happy got to do with it? I came here tonight to forget that shite, all right.’

      I knew by his tone that the conversation had steered out of bounds. Luke turned, his hands sliding down my back and probing into my knickers. But I also knew he didn’t really want sex, he just wanted any intimacy kept at bay. It made me feel cheap and I pushed him off.

      ‘We agreed,’ I told him, ‘so don’t start.’

      ‘A few specks of blood never hurt nobody,’ he replied. ‘Besides, there’s more ways than one.’

      ‘Just go and fuck yourself.’ I began to climb from the bed, angered by his deliberate mockery. ‘Fuck off and play with yourself.’

      I started getting dressed, as angry with myself as with him. I had helped set these rules, knowing our relationship couldn’t survive beyond these walls. I had never wanted soppy confessions or post-coital angst. But I didn’t know what I wanted any more.

      ‘Listen, Tracey.’ Luke’s tone was conciliatory. ‘I didn’t mean …’

      ‘You did,’ I said. ‘Be honest, that’s all you see me as, a tart, a piece of fluff on the side.’

      My back was turned. I had just ripped my skirt in my haste to put it on. I didn’t want him looking at me half dressed.

      ‘Is that how you really see yourself?’

      I turned, my hand holding closed the blouse I hadn’t time to button up. I was trembling.

      ‘You’re so clever, aren’t you?’ I sneered. ‘You always know how to shift it back on to me.’

      ‘You should never think of yourself like that.’ Luke sounded like a concerned father. He had retreated into his watchful, non-committal self.

      ‘Just how do you think