The Invitation(70)

He repeats his question.

‘Oh,’ I say, improvising. ‘I’m looking for a pen.’

‘A pen? Why would you want a pen?’

‘I—’ I try to think, but my mind is a blank. ‘I wanted to write a note.’

‘What sort of note?’

‘To … to thank you. For everything you’ve done for me.’

‘Ah. But you aren’t going anywhere – are you?’

‘No.’

He smiles, kindly. ‘You don’t need to write me a note, then. You can simply tell me.’

‘Of course. Thank you.’

In the morning, a wrapped parcel is left outside my room. I lift the layers of tissue to reveal a dark-blue fountain pen, exquisitely made.

For the first few weeks, I see the city through the windows of the sitting room, which look out onto a wide thoroughfare of shops and traffic. He does not want me to go out alone, at least for now. He is worried I might get lost, or picked up by the police. I could be deported. I am aware that my status in this new country is hazy. He arranged all of it: the passage out of Spain and into France, the flight from there. I have seen nothing of my new country other than the airport and a blur of streets, filled with people, on the drive to the apartment.

Then, one day, he tells me that we are going shopping. He wants me to have everything new, he says, as I am draped by the shop assistants in silk and chiffon, cashmere and tweed. He wants me to be transformed.

Looking in the mirror, back at the apartment, I am filled with wonder and a kind of horror. The person before me is not someone I recognize. I look several years older, several degrees more beautiful. I have never been beautiful before. I have never worn make-up before, and am fascinated by its transformations. The red lipstick, in particular, that has made my mouth into a symbol. And there is the French eau de parfum that leaves its voluptuous impressions upon my clothes, in my hair.

I move differently in my new clothes. Or, rather, I move less: they are cut tight about the body, in fabrics quick to stain or crease. These are garments for one who lives a rarefied indoor life: my new existence. My old clothes withstood many daily abuses. These clothes are a beautiful forbiddance.

And there is the lingerie too. He left the boxes on the dressing table of my room: wisps of silk and lace held together by boning and ribbon that bite more fiercely than one might expect, stockings as fine as cobweb. They weigh almost nothing, and yet I am more aware of them than of any other aspect of my dress.

Does he think about me wearing them, these items that he has selected?

He hasn’t touched me, yet. I’m not sure why, because certainly he looks. Though sometimes I cannot help thinking that there is something in his look that is less like appreciation than a qualified sort of appraisal. He will make remarks – always with the greatest possible tact: do I really want to wear this scarf with this blouse? Don’t I feel that it would be better to wear my hair swept back, my hemline longer? Perhaps drink the wine a little more slowly, with my hand held just so? Ah, no – always patient – that’s not quite it. Like this, yes, exactly.

I am becoming someone new – no longer an almost-woman, but a definite person. And yet who that person is, exactly … of that I am unsure.

‘Sometimes I think about it,’ she says. ‘If I had stayed, in Madrid. I had no home, no money, no family. I think I would have ended up selling myself – if I was lucky.’

‘If you were lucky?’

‘Or I might have ended up dead. After, when Madrid fell. If they had found out who I was, who my father was.’ She sees his expression. ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I think you would have found a way of surviving – without any of those things having to happen.’

‘I think you have more faith in me than I do in myself.’

‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘But it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.’

She seems about to say something, but stops herself. As they look at one another, the silence between them shifts. It becomes like the silence of the night before, when he had waited for her to knock on his door. It becomes like the silence of that night in Rome, when she had shrugged out of her clothes, her eyes on his.

The woman appears to collect their coffee cups. As soon as she sees them, she stops, and begins to retreat – apologizing as profusely as if she had caught them in a state of undress. So, Hal thinks, it is not only in the imagination then, this thing that is happening between them. It is visible to a stranger.

The last part of the walk is along a coastal path, close to the water’s edge. The sea is more agitated now, and every minute or so there is a wave powerful enough to send spray foaming up into the air, speckling them with seawater. On one occasion Hal hears a curse behind him, and turns to see Stella has been got by a wave, her hair drenched. They stare at one another for several seconds, and then they begin to laugh. The laughter is a surprise, like the sudden hit of some euphoric drug.

He has a light pullover with him, and he unties it from about his waist, so that she can dry herself. He is about to hand it to her when she inclines her head toward him. Her eyes are on his. He doesn’t know what it means, so he focuses instead on the task. Slowly, he begins to dry her hair for her with the gentlest movements possible. There is a peculiar intimacy to the act. He notices at this proximity the soft, downy hair at her temples, paler than the rest, and the way her freckles cluster in the skin nearest to her hairline. He notices the white creases in the corners of her eyes, the blonde at the tips of her eyelashes like a fine gold dust. Her mouth is slightly open. He could kiss her. Or rather, he could try – and he thinks she might not prevent him. The thought goes through him like a dart. He hasn’t wanted anything like this, not for as long as he can remember. His desire in Rome was uncomplicated, little more than instinct. It was the simple excitement of the unknown. This is something altogether more complex. For this reason, he steps away.