It’s grotesque. I want something to happen. They must be lesbians.’
‘They’re not lesbians, they are Czech.’
‘Well, it rather turns out to be practically the same thing. What is wrong with women these days? Why can’t they just admit they want to and get on with it? Why the need for all this senseless prevarication? Those two up there are worse than bloody English girls.’
‘Get rid of them then. Tell them you’re sorry but it’s way past your bedtime and that you are a priest and that because it is Sunday tomorrow you have to go to work. Or you could thank them very much for their company, but say that now you are drunk you fancy going upstairs with me and so if they wouldn’t mind leaving –’
‘Will you stop being such a fuckpig and think of a plan? And I am not tight. I just refuse to let them leave after they have had so much of my wine. They are drinking their way through the fucking Loire Valley and what are you doing about it? Fuck all. Except cowering in this wine cellar like a penis.’
‘I am enjoying my evening.’
‘Jasper, you may laugh but I intend to sleep with one of those girls within the hour and I am holding you personally accountable if I don’t. Come on. Think of a plan. I’ll sit very still and let you concentrate.’
‘Perhaps you could try talking to them instead of going on about vintage cars like a tit. Or at least listening to them. Where do they live?’
‘How the bloody fuck should I know?’
‘If they live in separate places we could order two cabs – but stagger them on the quiet. I’ll pretend I’m near Annette – wherever that is – and share the first with her. Then you’ve got half an hour alone with Sara and well … you’ll just have to see how you get on. If things take a turn for the better you can always give the driver a tenner and tell him to fuck off.’
‘It’s an awful plan. And I hate it. And I don’t see why you should be heading into the night with the lissom Annette either.’
‘Because, Will, I have asked her, and she says that she hates you.’
Annette and I kissed all the way back to Bristol Gardens, breaking off only for the speed bumps. The driver, a truly revolting human being, insisted on four million pounds for the journey and the night would brook no argument so I handed over all my earthly possessions and reluctantly offered my limbs when it became clear he was refusing to leave without a tip.
Once inside, we sat up talking about nothing and drinking tea for an hour while some local radio station played soft. Annette was funny and told me about her home near Ostrava and her first boyfriend, who was called Max and designed submarines, even though Ostrava was about as landlocked as it is possible to be in Europe. Eventually, she asked if she could borrow a T-shirt and I found the shortest one that I had and (pretending innocence and the devout intention of decency) we went to bed, whereupon, aside from being generally attentive and instantly reciprocal, I left all the big decisions up to her. Such is the modern man’s lot.
Afterwards, she slept halfway down the bed with her red-brown hair spread crazily on the pillow and I remember that I lay as the light turned slowly blue, listening to her murmuring in her sleep. In Czech.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sand, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
I awoke to the acid jazz of a secular London Sunday: cars, buses, dogs barking, the air traffic, the street shouts, the stereos, the swearing, the sirens, the scaffolding clang, the Paddington clank … But Annette’s breathing was as regular as waves and so I set my pulse by that.
Of course I knew nothing of what the day was planning to unleash and though Lucy’s legacy still lingered, I am mildly ashamed to report that I was feeling quite happy to be back in my old routines. More fool I.
Though I sensed I was on safe ground with croissants, I decided against bringing breakfast into the bedroom as I guessed it wasn’t really Annette’s thing. Instead, when I knew she was awake, I got up and offered her a cup of tea. In a voice both businesslike and bashful, she said that yes, she’d love some tea – milk and one sugar – but that she liked it quite strong and to leave the bag in for quite a while please. I left her to get dressed in privacy and tarried in the kitchen the better to give her time and space.
In any case, making a cup of tea is not as quick or as straightforward a matter as it may at first seem. (Au sujet de: I must mention that my explorations in the magnificent garden world of tea came to an end two or three years ago when I at last beheld the regal splendour of Darjeeling. In my youth, I laboured on the pungent terraces of Assam – distracted, perhaps, by a certain brutal charm – until, in my middle twenties, I found myself quietly seduced by the more aromatic company offered by a passing Russian Caravan – still my favourite blend. Eventually, after further wanderings in both China and Ceylon, I pledged myself to lifelong service of the true Queen. Of course, in my Lady Darjeeling’s realm there are many mansions and it took me a few months of delicate experimentation to discover which of these was to be my chosen dwelling place. In the end, I settled on Jungpana, the tea garden of all tea gardens, and thereafter I have served only the first flush from the upper slopes thereof – uniquely supplied, I should add, by the excellent Tea Flowery on Neugasse in Heidelberg.) No no no – making a cup of tea is by no means quick or straightforward. As with so much in life, it has become principally a matter of protracted disguise. Annette, for example, having lived in London for three years, was quite understandably more familiar with the muddy sludge of a mashed-in-the-mug teabag – that nameless mixture of grit, sand and wood chip so beloved of the curmudgeonly Britisher – and did not expect her tea to contain any trace of actual tea leaves at all. Consequently, my task was to arrange matters covertly by abandoning my usual methods of infusion in favour of stewing the ill-fated Jungpana to buggery before straining it from my treasured pot and into a mug, whereupon (tears gently welling) I added the required milk and sugar. In this way, I hoped she would not notice anything suspect and the unflustered mood of the morning would be preserved. I even went so far as to take a little milk myself.
My efforts to try to make everyone feel more at ease must have worked reasonably well because, after we had both gone about our separate ablutions, we enjoyed a mock-formal breakfast during which she called me Mr Jackson and I had to call her Miss Krazcek. This lasted a pleasant hour or so but then she had to leave; she was due, she said, to meet someone (her boyfriend, I guessed) for lunch. We kissed at the top of my stairs – two friends – and then she was gone.
It was one of those mornings during which the light is forever changing – as though they are testing the switches in heaven. Absolutely fucking useless for calligraphers. Especially shagged out ones. So I returned to my bed.
Not until nearly two, after a scrupulous assault on both bathroom and kitchenette, as I was crossing the hall (eating a pear as it happens), did I realize that the telephone wasn’t ringing.
For a second or two, I simply stared at it. In all the excitement, I had completely forgotten about the Lucy situation. Could it be that I was saved?
Warily,
