it tight while he looks deep into my eyes. Unblinking dark, narrow eyes search mine as though he’s trying to find something. The intensity hurts. I try not to blink as some sort of defiance to his ocular rape of me, but don’t manage it. The intimate examination lasts only two or three seconds, but I haven’t been breathing. As he lets go of my hand I suck in air.
He is about forty-five, my height, neatly side-combed hair, thin lines around his eyes—probably from all the examinations he carries out—and despite his red and white Hawaiian shirt, no sense of humour about him whatsoever.
‘Come.’ He leads me to the buffet and waves his hand over the food. ‘Eat what you want. Drink the wine, it is flown in from France, the cheese too.’ He slices a piece of Brie and takes a bite. ‘The other food is also from Europe and Australia and the States. All good. Please eat what you want.’ He is already walking back to his seat. ‘The children come soon.’
He lowers himself slowly into his chair by the TV, where, sitting upright and regal, he returns his attention to Mr Beckham and friends.
The old adage of there being no such thing as a free lunch troubles me a little, but sod it. I pick up a plate from a pile on the table and cut myself some Stilton, perfectly soft Brie, a slice of crusty white bread, avoid the king prawns, lobster and plates of ham, beef and chicken, take a spoonful of mixed salad and another of garlic mushrooms, a slice of some sort of white fish and then pour from a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape into a crystal wine glass. The lesson is going to be worth doing for the food alone.
I stand with the plate in one hand and the wine in the other and am wondering what to do next when a teenage girl and young boy come out of a door near the gamblers. They come straight over to me.
‘I am Fitri,’ says the girl, about fifteen and about to become beautiful.
‘I am Benny,’ says the boy, about ten and about to become chubbier as he grabs a plate and piles on most of the beef and five tiger prawns.
Their father says something to them in Chinese without looking away from the TV.
‘My father says we should go to the games room. Please, this way,’ says Fitri as she leads me and little brother towards the steps. At the top of the steps I swig a large mouthful of wine as I take in the pool, which is half covered by a roof and half open to the blue sky. It’s about twenty-five metres in length and surrounded by the rest of the building. There are five doors which go off from it into other parts of the house.
‘Bring your shorts next time,’ says Fitri, going on ahead down one side of the pool, ‘we can swim.’
Benny sucks the internal workings of a prawn into his mouth.
I follow them through a door at the far end of the pool and enter a large games room containing a full-size snooker table, dartboard, ping-pong table and jukebox. In the corner is a pile of beanbags, which is where Fitri leads us. She slumps onto one, Benny falls backwards into another, losing his remaining prawns over his shoulder. He picks them up off the floor and puts two onto his plate and one into his mouth. Fitri slaps him across the head.
‘My brother is a pig.’
‘My sister is a bitch.’
I place the wine and plate next to my beanbag and flop into it.
‘First English lesson: bitch is a bad word.’ I wriggle around until I’m stable and then pick up my wine. It tastes better than anything Sainsbury’s back home has to offer.
‘But she called me a pig,’ says Benny, as he pulls the remains of prawn number three from his mouth. He wipes his lips on his arm.
‘Well pig isn’t exactly polite, but sometimes it is suitable for little boys.’ I shove a handful of mushrooms into my mouth. ‘And for grown men.’
Benny laughs, opens his mouth wide, tilts his head back and slowly lowers the last crustacean into the chasm.
‘Oh great,’ says Fitri, ‘two idiot pigs.’ Then she laughs.
‘So,’ I say, ‘I think your English is already very good. Why is that?’
‘My father speaks very good English and he often takes us to Australia and sometimes America,’ Fitri says with a tone of superiority. ‘He goes there on business.’
‘And what is his business?’
‘He owns discos. Also he does import and export.’
‘What does he import and export?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh.’
‘He is very important,’ adds Benny.
‘I’m sure. So what should I be teaching you two expert students?’
The wine is very good. My glass is already nearly empty.
‘You are the teacher. What do you think?’ asks Fitri.
‘OK. Why don’t you just ask me questions about anything you want and I’ll try to answer. Any mistakes you make I’ll try to correct and explain.’
They both agree and we start a question-and-answer session.
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ asks Fitri.
—Good start, says Laura, what are you going to say to that one?
—You’re my girlfriend.
—Oh am I? I thought I’m dead and you were trying to forget me.
—Don’t remind me.
The wine suddenly turns bitter in my stomach.
‘Well?’ interrupts Fitri.
‘Well?’ adds Benny.
‘Yes. No. I used to have.’
‘Was she beautiful?’
‘Very.’
‘Do you miss her?’
‘Very much.’
—Oh, get over me. You know you want to.
—I wish I could.
—What happened to New You? I thought he was supposed to be shot of me.
‘Why did you break?’
‘Break up. The proper way to say it is break up.’ My voice crackles. ‘Why did you break up?’
‘She left me.’ Barely audible.
—Liar. Face the truth. I’m dead, numbnuts.
‘She died.’ I drain the last of the wine from my glass and smile at the two children in front of me. ‘She died,’ I whisper. I swallow. I blink blurriness from my eyes. There is something big and painful ballooning in my chest.
—Well said.
‘That
