Unnatural Order. Liz Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ what have you been photographing this morning?’ said Karl, biting gingerly into a potato. He was hardly eating, probably out of pique with her for paying so much attention to Oliver.

      ‘Women mostly.’ Oliver leant forward to take another sardine. ‘In alleys where the houses are so close together that two lovers could reach across the street and touch fingers.

      ‘A Portuguese poet, Frederico de Brito, wrote about it once. In English, it goes…’ he paused, and looked at Caroline.

      ‘Your house is so close to mine,’ he declaimed, one hand over his heart. ‘In the starry night’s bliss, to exchange a tender kiss, our lips easily meet, high across the narrow street.’

      ‘Of course.’ Karl speared a sardine and shook it on to his plate. Caroline was aware of him trying to catch her eye. Instead she kept her glance fixed on the upper-storey window of the house opposite, where a bent old woman was holding a magnifying glass up to a luridly-coloured magazine.

      Why was she behaving as if she were captivated by Oliver? All he had done was talk too much about himself, and she had hung on to his every word. It was more than his beauty that attracted her; it was that bullshit sense of invulnerability that womanisers like him radiated. And women who ought to know better continued to succumb to it.

      Caroline knew what her friend Anna would make of this little scene. Anna wasn’t the sort to be dazzled by the glister of men like Oliver. Or so she claimed.

      Anna said she had barely noticed her husband Christopher’s good looks on the night, ten years earlier, when she had first met him at a Cambridge May Ball. Instead, she had been attracted by his aura of reliability and honesty, both qualities that had been lacking in the boyfriend immediately before him. Ashley was a performance poet who had written to Anna daily for months, swearing undying devotion and enclosing appropriate chunks of John Donne’s love poetry.

      When Anna had finally given in and slept with him, Ashley had said he was the happiest man alive. For the next seven days. On the eighth day, he had complained that Anna was trying to domesticate him and stormed out, taking his battered copy of The Collected Poems of John Donne with him.

      He had then started reading them to the girl who, until then, had been one of Anna’s best friends. Caroline had met Ashley, now writing theatre reviews for a London newspaper, at a party a year ago. She had been unaware, at that stage, of his connection with Anna, but she had heard enough of his reputation to know that she should treat him as if he were a cat rubbing its body against her leg. But he was so attractive. Stupidly, she’d thought she could beat him at his own game.

      So she’d postponed sleeping with him for a month and often ‘forgot’ to respond when he sent her flowers and wrote her poems. She needn’t have bothered. A week after they first slept together they had gone to see the play Les Liaisons Dangereuses. After the show their lively supper discussion about the difference between love and conquest had turned into an argument.

      ‘I thought you were an intelligent woman,’ he had sneered. ‘But under that carapace of wit and detachment, you’re pure Mills and Boon.’

      ‘And under your carapace of wit and detachment,’ Caroline had replied, ‘there’s another carapace. Then another. Inside that, there’s nothing.’

      She had felt proud of herself as she stalked out into St Martin’s Lane in search of a taxi home. But depression had set in by the next Monday, when she told Anna and found out that they had more in common than previously recognised.

      ‘Why do I always pick the creeps and the bastards?’ she had moaned. ‘A room could be full of men who are the salt of the earth. But there’ll be one bastard – and I’ll go straight to him.’

      ‘Look on the bright side,’ Anna had said. ‘It only took you a month to work through the usual three phases of a relationship with Ashley Carlton. I wasted more than six months of a university year on him. And it taught me a lesson. Beware of charismatic men. Give me someone solid and dependable every time.’

      Caroline watched Oliver as he drained his glass of wine. Anna would value Karl for his warmth and sincerity and dismiss Oliver as the callow youth he was. But that was Anna.

      ‘Anyway, Caroline, what are you two doing tonight?’ Oliver broke into her thoughts. ‘The girls want to see some fado music, and I know a good place. It’s not touristy and it’s just on the edge of the Alfama, about ten minutes’ walk from here.’

      Caroline looked at Karl. ‘I’d love to. What do you think?’

      ‘Of course,’ he said stiffly. ‘That would be very interesting.’

      When Oliver went inside to pay the bill, Karl rounded on Caroline.

      ‘Why did you say yes? He’s such a… A wanker? Isn’t that the English word?’

      ‘I thought it would be fun. I’m sorry,’ said Caroline.

      But she wasn’t. Karl was right. But Oliver appealed to her, despite his self-centredness. Or because of it. She liked his energy. And so what if his family history was interesting enough to be partially invented?

      What she liked most about him was that he wasn’t in love with her. It made her feel free.

      She concentrated on feeding the cats the leftover sardines while Karl and Oliver conferred about the place and time to meet that night.

      Karl looked at his watch, strode over and picked up his bag. ‘Come on, Caroline.’ His tone was proprietary. ‘I think it’s time for our siesta.’

      Too embarrassed to protest, Caroline avoided Oliver’s glance. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him raise one eyebrow, then wink.

      ‘See you later,’ she said.

      ‘Ate logo,’ he corrected.

      As they set off down the street, Karl put his arm around her shoulder. Caroline was sure Oliver was watching. But she didn’t turn around to see.

      Chapter 3

      ‘Our siesta, eh?’ said Caroline as soon as they had turned the corner. ‘I didn’t know we were in the habit of taking afternoon siestas. But how silly of me. This is the second day, counting Mykonos, that we’ve spent together. Plenty of time to develop the little routines of a lifetime.’

      Karl looked away. ‘Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it. I just did it to remind him that you were with me.’

      ‘Are you reminding him or me?’

      ‘Both of you, I suppose.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, well, I suppose he’ll be useful tonight. He’ll be able to translate all the fado lyrics for us. He’ll insist on it, it’s such a great chance for him to show off his Portuguese.’

      They walked back to the car in silence.

      ‘Anyway, let’s not talk about him. And having a siesta is still a good idea. You’re tired. I’m tired.’ His breath was warm on her neck. ‘Look how quiet the streets are now. Even the cats are asleep. Just think. Behind those closed shutters people are making love.’

      Karl put his arm around Caroline and squeezed her to him.

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