of snooker. Impetuously, he had gone with the turn and kept going. His voice sounded measured; the discussion itself was out of control. She could already sense where this was leading, and her cheeks drained. It was all she could do to keep from leaping across the sofa to clap a hand on his mouth.
“I don’t want to see you again before the Grand Prix,” he said. “And that’d be no love notes neither, nor blubbing on the blower. When I come back to London, I only want you to rock up on my doorstep if you told Lawrence you’re in love with me, and him and you are finished.”
If Ramsey was being melodramatic and had had a fair bit to drink, his it’s-him-or-me ultimatum made unpleasantly good sense. Yet he couldn’t resist taking his levelheaded proposal that one step further that would make it hasty, foolhardy, and scandalously premature: “And that ain’t all, ducky. When you leave Lawrence, if you leave Lawrence, you don’t tuck in upstairs as my in-house personal slag. You marry me. Got that? You marry me, and toot-sweet. At forty-seven, I got no use for long engagements.”
As proposals go, this one was less bended-knee woo than assault. His delivery had been cruel, his clear intention to make what was already a terrible choice only the more stark. There would be no “trial separation” from Lawrence, no sampling of Ramsey’s wares like one of those small squares of Cheshire at Borough Market with no obligation to buy. On the other hand, no man had ever asked Irina to marry him before, in any tone of voice. His furious demand, flung at her from three feet like a wet rag, prickled the back of her neck.
“Ramsey—I didn’t even marry Lawrence, after nearly ten years.”
“I rest my case.”
On return to the flat, Irina made little effort to disguise the fact that she’d been crying. Since it was past midnight in a town with cosmopolitan pretensions but provincial transport, the tube was shut. Flaunting the coldness of his newfound absolutism, Ramsey hadn’t rung her a cab, but had abandoned her on his steps to make her way home however she saw fit. The handshake at the door was the limit, instigating such a torrent of sobs on her flight from his house that when she finally flagged down a taxi on Grove Road the cabbie had to ask her to repeat the address three times.
Ramsey was not the only one inclined to make a show of his indifference. Failing to comment on her puffy red eyes, Lawrence said stiffly in the living room, “It’s late.”
“I missed the tube. Took forever to find a taxi.”
“You, spring for a cab? Since when do you not look at your watch every five minutes to make sure you can catch the last train?”
“Time got away from me. It’s a Friday night, and the minicabs were all booked up, so I had to wait.” As long as she was lying, she might as well go all the way, and disguise the fact that she had hailed one of those exorbitant black taxis off the street.
“Why didn’t you call to let me know you’d be so late? I might be worried.” He didn’t sound worried. He sounded as if he’d have gladly paid a hoodlum to biff her over the head on the way home.
“Finding a working pay phone would have delayed me even longer.” Her delivery was fatigued, and her heart wasn’t in this.
“If you rang a minicab,” said Lawrence, “you’d already found a working pay phone. And that’s assuming that Betsy didn’t have her cell.” His pronunciation of Betsy cast doubt on whether Irina had seen the woman at all. Apparently one of the sacrifices of lying, however selectively, was the ability to tell the truth.
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