ONE DAY(115)

Instead he watched silently as she reached for a book on the dressing table, a large well-thumbed French/English dictionary. She began to leaf through the pages then stopped suddenly, her head slumping forwards, both hands spanning her brow and pushing her fringe back as she groaned angrily. Dexter laughed at her exasperation, silently he thought, but she glanced towards the door and he quickly stepped backwards. The floorboards popped beneath his feet as he pranced absurdly towards the kitchen area, running both taps and moving cups around uselessly under running water as an alibi. After a while he heard the ting of the old-fashioned phone being picked up in the bedroom, and he turned off the taps so that he might overhear the conversation with this Jean-Pierre. A low, lover’s murmur, in French. He strained to listen, failing to understand a single word.

The bell sounded once again as she hung up. Some time passed, then she was standing in the doorway behind him. ‘Who was that on the phone?’ he asked over his shoulder, matter-of-factly.

‘Jean-Pierre.’

‘And how was Jean-Pierre?’

‘He’s fine. Just fine.’

‘Good. So. I should get changed. What time is he coming round again?’

‘He isn’t coming round.’

Dexter turned.

‘What?’

‘I told him not to come round.’

‘Really? You did?’

He wanted to laugh—

‘I told him I had tonsillitis.’

—wanted to laugh so much, but he mustn’t, not yet. He dried his hands. ‘What is that? Tonsillitis. In French?’

Her fingers went to her throat. ‘Je suis très désolé, mais mes glandes sont gonflées,’ she croaked feebly. ‘Je pense que je peux avoir l’amygdalite.’

‘L’amy . . . ?’

‘L’amygdalite.’

‘You have amazing vocab.’

‘Well, you know.’ She shrugged modestly. ‘Had to look it up.’

They smiled at each other. Then, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to her, she quickly crossed the room in three long strides, took his face between her hands, and kissed him, and he placed his hands upon her back, finding the dress still unfastened, the skin bare and cool and still damp from the shower. They kissed like this for some time. Then, still holding his face in her hands, she looked at him intently. ‘If you muck me about, Dexter.’

‘I won’t—’

‘I mean it, if you lead me on or let me down or go behind my back, I will murder you. I swear to God, I will eat your heart.’

‘I won’t do that, Em.’

‘You won’t?’

‘I swear, I won’t.’

And then she frowned, and shook her head, then put her arms around him once more, pressing her face into his shoulder, making a noise that sounded almost like rage.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. Oh, nothing. Just . . .’ She looked up at him. ‘I thought I’d finally got rid of you.’

‘I don’t think you can,’ he said.





Part Four

2002–2005

Late Thirties

‘They spoke very little of their mutual feelings: pretty phrases and warm attentions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.’



Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Monday Morning


MONDAY 15 JULY 2002

Belsize Park

The radio alarm sounds as usual at 07.05. It is already bright and clear outside, but neither of them move just yet. Instead they lie with his arm around her waist, their legs tangled at the ankle, in Dexter’s double bed in Belsize Park in what was once, many years ago now, a bachelor flat.

He has been awake for some time, rehearsing in his head a tone of voice and phrasing that is both casual and significant, and when he feels her stir he speaks. ‘Can I say something?’ he says into the back of her neck, his eyes still closed, mouth gummed with sleep.

‘Go on,’ she says, a little wary.

‘I think it’s crazy, you having your own flat.’

With her back to him, she smiles. ‘O-kay.’

‘I mean you’re here most nights anyway.’

She opens her eyes. ‘I needn’t be.’

‘No, I want you to be.’

She turns in the bed to face him, and sees his eyes are still closed. ‘Dex, are you? . . .’

‘What?’

‘Are you asking me to be your flatmate?’

He smiles and without opening his eyes, he takes her hand beneath the sheet and squeezes it. ‘Emma, will you be my flatmate?’

‘Finally!’ she mumbles. ‘Dex, it’s all that I’ve lived for.’

‘So, what, yes?’

‘Let me think about it.’

‘Well let me know, won’t you? Because if you’re not interested, I might get someone else in.’

‘I said, I’ll think about it.’

He opens his eyes. He had expected a yes. ‘What’s there to think about?’

‘Just, I don’t know. Living together.’

‘We lived together in Paris.’