A Secret Worth Killing For. Simon Berthon

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СКАЧАТЬ sometime we should climb one,’ he suggests shyly.

      ‘Yeah, be great,’ she replies almost under her breath, then buries her eyes in her plate.

      ‘And you,’ he says after a second or two. ‘How was Battle of Algiers?’

      ‘Brilliant.’ He expects her to go on but her eyes stay silently down.

      ‘Yes, it is,’ he agrees.

      ‘It sorta manipulates you,’ she says, looking back up with a smile. ‘You know what they’re doing is wrong, but you kinda feel it’s right.’ She feels a tiny thrill at coming up with the judgement out of the blue.

      ‘Like here?’ he asks. She doesn’t answer and itches to change the subject.

      ‘So tell me ’bout youse,’ she finally says.

      ‘Not as much to tell as there should be,’ he replies. ‘Irish father, as it happens—’

      ‘Would be with a name like yours,’ she whips in.

      ‘Though they left a long time ago. The family did OK.’

      ‘I can see that.’

      He blushes modestly, then casts his most beguiling grin, his eyes twinkling. ‘My mother was English, though. Bit of French blood. She was a good-looking woman.’

      She notices the tension. His smile disappears. ‘Yeah, both gone.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘There we are, nothing to be done.’

      She thinks of asking how and why, but decides from the sadness in his expression that he doesn’t really want to discuss it.

      ‘So it’s me alone against the world,’ he continues, proclaiming it like a manifesto.

      ‘No brothers or sisters?’ she asks.

      ‘Just me. A lonely orphan in Dublin.’ He reverts to his default mode of self-mocking. She sees him as the standard male who deals with past regrets by avoiding them. Silence follows for a second or two of memory and consolation.

      He’s chatty enough and reticent only about himself – she understands that’s in a boy’s nature. Above all, he’s a good listener and she finds herself chattering away in all sorts of unintended directions.

      ‘So what about you?’ he pipes up.

      ‘Not much to tell either. Not yet rags to riches. My da’s a mechanic, never had a proper academic education.’ He watches her break into a smile of fondness. ‘Mind you, the wee man’s now a self-taught philosopher king.’ Unlike him, she’s not holding back. ‘Ma’s a classroom assistant since my brother and I grew up. Working-class Catholic. They reckon they never had a proper chance so they were damned – well, my da used another word – if it was going to be the same for my brother and me. They pushed me. Scholarships mattered. That’s what got me here.’

      ‘And your brother?’

      ‘Oh. He’s a clever boy. Committed to the cause. You know.’ She sounds embarrassed. ‘He’s the philosopher windbag. Hot air and purple prose.’ She feels she’s gone too far and tries to row back. He concentrates fiercely on his pizza and eats hungrily.

      ‘I’d have been the same,’ he says between mouthfuls.

      ‘Not that he’s ever up to anything, just a whole load of blather. Gets boring after all these years.’ She forces a grin. ‘Thank God I got away.’

      ‘I’m glad you did.’

      His hand creeps slowly across the table and ends up resting on hers. She lets it linger. She means to pull hers away, but, if she’s failing at that, there’s no way she’ll let him know where she lives. She imagines Mrs Ryan, cigarette hanging from lip, looking down on her through the curtains of the front bedroom.

      He offers to drop her home, but she declines, giving him a peck on the cheek before setting off down the dimly lit lane. There’s a spring in her step. He’s nice. Really nice. Pity she can’t let it go anywhere. But there’s no reason not to be friends.

      Imperceptibly, they fall into a routine, controlled by when he happens to appear at the library – lunch breaks together when he’s there, sometimes supper out when she’s ahead of her work and doesn’t have the kids to do. Though she only ever uses work as an excuse for being busy – she’s not going to mention her life as a childminder.

      Occasionally they see a movie – he loves discussing them as much as she does. Schindler’s List keeps them going for hours – he’s fascinated by the different ways a ‘good’ man can behave in the face of evil. At his suggestion, they go to Indecent Proposal – she feels her cheeks going redder and redder as the story unfolds and Demi Moore undresses. He turns to her, appears to notice despite the darkness, chuckles, pats her on the thigh, then withdraws his hand.

      She’s impressed by how hard he’s working, and his sympathetic understanding that she needs space and time for her own studies. Sometimes they walk round the city; on cold days he might hold her hands to warm them. They give each other chaste kisses as they part. He offers no hint of sex or love.

      As these days and early weeks pass, a puzzle begins to trouble her. She’s thrown by how much she’s liking this man – as she now sees him – and how much she wants to spend time with him. He’s amiable, relaxing, interesting. There’s no side to him. He’s also gorgeous – she feasts on him every time she sees him. There’s no avoiding it – she wants him and has tried at times to convey it in her eyes. The puzzle is how slowly they seem to be moving – or, rather, he is.

      She’s sure he’s attracted to her. She thinks she sees the desire in his eyes – yet he seems content to go on playing it for friendship. Perhaps that’s one reason why she’s grown to like him so much. Over a supper out – he’s not short of money and will never allow her to contribute, which is a relief – she tries a gambit to move it on.

      ‘It’s great eating out, but sometime I’d like to cook for you myself,’ she begins.

      ‘That’d be good,’ he says, ‘another of your talents to explore.’

      ‘Trouble is,’ she goes on downcast, ‘where I live is girls only and the landlady’s a witch. No men allowed.’

      ‘That’s Stone Age.’ He grins.

      ‘I blame the priests,’ she says.

      ‘Well never mind, we’ll just have to live on pizza.’

      Why doesn’t he take the bait and invite her to his place instead? A nasty thought surfaces. Has he got a girlfriend hidden away somewhere? But on that her instinct is certain: he hasn’t. So what’s stopping him? Is there something she’s missed? God, maybe he’s not even into girls. No, he is. She’s sure of that too.

      If, in those early days, they’d ended up in a pub, had a few drinks, gone back to where he lives – even checked into a cheap hotel or behind the bushes on a rug for God’s sake, warmed by alcohol – desire would have taken over. That would have suited her after such long abstinence – an escapist СКАЧАТЬ