Another Country. Anjali Joseph

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СКАЧАТЬ table was small, and cuboid leather stools were wedged around it. Stella threaded her way in, then Patrick. Leela sat next to Simon, their legs folded like jackknives, knees touching.

      ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m not sure. What are you drinking?’

      ‘A beer.’

      ‘Is it weird to have a kir after drinking whisky?’

      He looked down at her, amused. ‘Not if you want to.’

      She asked the waitress for a vodka tonic. Simon and she sat watching her slender back as she walked away.

      A song Leela knew came on. She began to hum along indistinctly. Simon grinned. She grinned back. ‘Shit. Shouldn’t sing in public. I may be slightly drunk.’ He laughed, and patted her knee, a brief touch of a warm dry hand. The drinks arrived.

      Simon was saying something, and she was distracted, smiling and leaning closer to hear, and also looking across the table where Patrick was partly hidden by Stella. He was laughing. Leela half closed her eyes to hear what Simon was saying. She glanced up to see Patrick looking at the two of them. He smiled at her, a smile so depressing that a hard resolve formed in her.

      ‘There’s something in your voice – a slight Irish accent,’ she told Simon.

      ‘Really?’ He looked sceptical. ‘I did live in Dublin for a couple of years, but that was a long time ago.’

      ‘No, but the way you pronounce some words – something you just said, I can’t place it but it was there. Dublin, how was that? I’d love to live there.’

      ‘Have you been?’

      ‘No … I’ve just read lots of books set there.’

      ‘Joyce?’

      ‘Joyce, and Beckett, and a couple of more recent things. This writer called Dermot Bolger.’

      ‘The Journey Home? It’s a great book.’

      ‘It really is.’ She was carried away with enthusiasm, a quiet part of her noting that the music had faded, and the bar seemed darker, or the lights travelling through space more blurry, slowing on their way to her. But if that’s what he wants, she thought vindictively of Patrick, then decided to forget him. ‘I’ve never met anyone else who’s read it. Such a good book.’

      ‘It is. And this other book I read when I was there – I suppose a sort of dumbed-down version of Joyce in a way,’ he said. ‘But I had a friend who read a lot and recommended it to me, very funny, The Ginger Man.’

      ‘I loved it. That scene where he’s trying to leave his wife and he’s wearing her sweater …’

      ‘And it’s unravelling?’

      ‘Yes.’ She laughed. ‘I read that when he was writing it he went to pubs and cafés with people and wrote down their stories and that’s what he used for the book.’

      Simon smiled at her. She smelled something, perhaps his scent – cologne, and under that, a fundamental smell of musk and perspiration, not unpleasant. An excited if uninvolved part of her noted it: You are smelling a new man. Another part, more sceptical, preserved a silence. Meanwhile, she was still talking. ‘… when I was younger, I mostly used to read American writers. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joseph Heller. A bit of Saul Bellow. I loved Salinger.’

      ‘There’s a perfect age to read all of that,’ Simon was saying. She looked up at his face, skin a little tanned, lines around his eyes and mouth; he had delicate European skin that couldn’t stand the sun. And his hair, sandy and thick, was tangled, a bit dry. His shirt looked unironed. But he was tall, broad-shouldered. She made these observations to herself, and a delight rose up in her: this was a reasonably handsome man, and he appeared to be interested in her. She coaxed herself: isn’t this a good thing?

      ‘So what were you doing in Dublin?’ she was asking him, but the bar was closing. Or they were leaving. Definitely they were leaving. The bill appeared, and Simon, still talking to her, paid it. They were now outside, where the air was colder. Patrick lit a cigarette. He and his dark woollen jacket made a tall, familiar presence that caused Leela to ache.

      Stella came up and patted Patrick’s elbow. ‘You’ll walk me home, won’t you?’ she said.

      ‘Of course.’ He took a puff of his cigarette and smiled at Simon.

      ‘I’ll make sure Leela gets home,’ Simon said.

      How well they were arranging everything. Leela smiled, unsure whether to feel touched or irritated.

      Stella came forward, smiling with genuine warmth. She kissed Leela on both cheeks, and said, ‘Bye. It’s been a horrible day, but it’s over now. Just forget it.’

      How does she know? Leela wondered, then remembered her earlier story. Oh yes. ‘Thanks,’ she managed.

      Patrick patted her on the shoulder. ‘Bye Leela. Call me, or I’ll call you.’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Goodnight!’

      ‘Goodnight!’

      ‘Goodnight!’

      Leela looked back. The figures of Patrick and Stella, seen from behind, were far away, self-contained as though in a painting. A fine drizzle began to fall, giving the air a lovely indeterminacy.

      ‘Brr!’

      Leela smiled. She pulled her thin jacket around her. They carried on walking, away from the others and into the pools of light under streetlamps. And now, nagged a voice inside her, now what will you do? She ignored it.

      The pavement glittered with moisture.

      Simon put a hand on her shoulder; she tried not to jump. He smiled. ‘What were we talking about, anyway, before we were so rudely thrown out of that bar?’ He released her shoulder, but not before his hand had been there long enough to signal deliberateness. It was a charming gesture, and made her nervous. She took refuge in seriousness.

      ‘I guess the waiting staff wanted to go home …’

      He shrugged. ‘Oh well. It’s not like we didn’t leave in time.’

      ‘No.’

      They walked on. She made an effort. ‘You were telling me about when you lived in Dublin. What were you doing when you were there?’

      He smiled. ‘Work, for the company before this one. I do some consultancy, you know. It’s business development essentially. Boring, boring –’ He waved it away. Leela was still examining him; it struck her there was something grave, disciplined about him, perhaps also something adamantine. She scolded herself: there was no need to narrate the experience before it happened. Her feet, in sandals, were cold; she stumbled. Simon put out a hand and caught her elbow. The hand rubbed her back between the shoulder blades, rested on one shoulder. He was good at doing this, she noted – touching in an exploratory fashion that managed to seem merely friendly. Perhaps, argued her brain, it is merely friendly. ‘Dublin,’ he said. The hand cupped her scapula СКАЧАТЬ