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The lecture is over. After a brief moment of silence, a roar of applause. Samantha has never seen a lecturer applauded before. Afterwards, the students pack up their notebooks, throw their bags over their shoulders and leave talking nineteen to the dozen.
Samantha sits perfectly still, last night a foggy dream to her now. On his leather sofa in the firelight, Peter promised he would take her to Rome. This morning, he has. Now they will return to his beautiful house on the hill together. There is no doubt in her mind that this will happen. She watches him fend off the gaggle of female students who flock around the lectern like geese around a bucket of cornmeal. Peter will drive her to his house and he will press his hand to the small of her back as they step inside. The door will close and she will turn to him, and finally—
‘Ready?’ Bloody hell, he moves quickly.
‘Yes,’ she says.
He leads her to the car. Brushes his fingers across her thigh and starts the ignition. Her throat is dry.
‘Let’s go home,’ he says.
Four
‘Move in with me,’ Peter says.
They are propped up on pillows against the headboard of Peter’s white king-size bed. They are drinking freshly ground coffee as stripes of weak sunlight filter through the Venetian blinds, and Samantha has no idea how to reply. Yesterday is like a dream. She can’t believe she’s even had that thought, framed it with that word. But it really was like a dream, that’s the problem.
On the way back to Peter’s house, she found yesterday’s knickers balled up at the bottom of her coat pocket. All she wanted was to grab a fresh pair of pants, her razor and a few toiletries, maybe a change of top.
‘Is it too out of your way to call at my flat?’ she asked.
He’d put on an album by that old band that was still quite cool, The Chemical Brothers, was it? Cousins? Whatever, he’d raved about them anyway, asked her if she’d seen the filmTrainspotting, which she hadn’t, and again she felt the keen stab of her own ignorance.
‘Why do you want to go to your place?’ he asked, turning the volume down.
‘I need a change of clothes, that’s all. You know, if we’re going back to yours.’ A hot flare of near panic; she’d assumed too much.
He gave a slow nod of understanding. ‘Sorry, I should have thought.’
But he didn’t take her home. Instead, he drove into Richmond and took her to House of Fraser, the big department store on George Street. In the women’s department, he told her to choose an outfit and some underwear and stood at a distance looking into his phone. She flicked through the rails, barely seeing anything but the tags. Everything was too expensive. She didn’t know what he meant by an outfit. Not wanting to keep him waiting, she chose a dress she thought he’d like: short, black, strappy. She didn’t try it on.
‘Is this OK?’ she asked.
He looked up from his phone, took the dress from her and, hooking the hanger on one finger, held it out in front of him. ‘You’re not going to want to wear that tomorrow, are you? Buy something practical. Jeans, a sweater, whatever. It’s cold out.’
He chose some designer indigo jeans, three tops by a brand she’d only ever looked at online and a merino wool sweater with a label she’d never even heard of, and waited while she tried them on. With a loose wrist, he flipped his bank card at the shop assistant, keyed his number into the terminal as if bored. When she looked in the bag, she saw he’d included the strappy black dress she’d originally chosen. It was all a bit weird. But the feeling was not unpleasant. And it’d been years since she’d bought clothes from anywhere other than charity shops and the cheapest high-street chains.
In the underwear department, again he stood at a distance, looking elsewhere. She sidled up to the racks of bras, traced the lace contours with the tips of her fingers. The colours conjured up saloon bars, the Moulin Rouge, busty, confident women laughing in red lipstick. But what was the right thing to pick? They both knew why they were going back to his place. She didn’t want to seem naïve. But she didn’t want to seem like a slut either. He was being so nice, but it felt like a trap. She would never have worried about any of this with boys of her own age. She’d never have found herself in this situation, full stop. She was a feminist, she was, but … It was like that podcast she listened to: she was a feminist,butshe wanted to look hot when she took off her clothes. There. A rubbish feminist. Tentatively she lifted a turquoise and acid-pink set from the rail and walked over to where Peter was waiting.
‘Are these OK?’
He frowned. ‘If you like them, we’ll buy them. But don’t buy them for me. I would never objectify you, Samantha, you must know that.’ He looked away, then back at her, his intense brown eyes on hers.
‘I … Sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve got it wrong. I don’t know how to be.’
He gripped her wrist and put his lips to her ear, as if to threaten her. ‘Yourself,’ he said softly. ‘That’s all you need to be. That’s all you ever need to be. If you’re not sure, I’ll help you.’
Together they walked over to the more practical underwear: packs of five, sensible schoolgirl neutrals. He waved his hand over the selection.
‘Choose something comfortable. Choose for yourself. You’re the one that’s going to wear it, not me.’
Again he paid, with the same unceremonious wave of his card, as if money were an unlimited commodity to be exchanged for … well, for whatever he happened to want. And later, much later, when she looked back with the wisdom that only comes from experience, she realised that what he wanted that day was her. But this was not later, there was no hindsight; her thoughts had not refined themselves quite yet. Dreams are blurry realities – time slips, shrinks and warps; opinions are but embryos.
‘For you,’ he said, handing her the bag. ‘If you like the fancy stuff, wear it. But wear it for yourself.’
Later, at the house, before the door had fully closed, she pushed him against the coats and kissed him hard on the mouth.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t wait another second.’
