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‘So, Pope?’ he says. ‘Addison, Fielding et al.?’
She laughs. Like all academics, his breadth of learning is intimidating, as if he has an entire library index stored in his head.
‘Sheridan, Goldsmith,’ she says. ‘Loads. There’s loads of reading.’
‘Loads.’ He gives a brief chuckle, though she’s not sure why. ‘You’d expect that, wouldn’t you? Reading English? Clue in the verb there.’ That laid-back irony again, the gentle tease of it. They are circling now around the packed Soho streets. Sharp-suited men and chic city women dawdle across the road without looking, spill from the doors of bars and restaurants she can’t imagine ever being able to afford.
‘Chaucer?’ he asks, turning right into Frith Street for the second time.
‘That was last year. It’s all Vikings this year. Eddas and sagas and all that.’ She is downplaying her knowledge so as not to appear too up herself. She hopes this will make her seem more intelligent. A double bluff, that’s what she’s going for. That’s the idea, anyway.
The car stops. In front is a pushbike rickshaw, a polite chaos of pedestrians.
‘Human traffic.’ She frowns wisely. This time, an attempt to appear worldly, like someone who knows about these things.
He too frowns, mirroring her. ‘This is hopeless, isn’t it? Thursday’s the new Friday; I didn’t think it would be so busy.’ He adjusts his position, leans against the steering wheel; one arm stretches over the back of his seat. He is looking at her. He is looking right at her. ‘Tell you what, seeing as you’re such a fan of all things vintage, why don’t we blow the dust off one of my bottles of red, pour it into some decent glassware and talk where it’s quiet and calm? If you don’t object, that is.’
Oh my God. This is it. And so much better thanHey, I’ve got some cans in my room if you want.
‘I don’t object,’ she says, attempting a small shrug.
‘Fantastic.’ He settles back into the driving seat, pushes his index finger to the stereo. Soft music fills the car. She thinks about her flat in Vauxhall. Marcia is literally going to die when she hears about this. She reaches into the footwell for her bag, but then remembers that Peter threw it onto the back seat. She should definitely text Marcy, let her know she won’t be back, possibly not until tomorrow –eek. She’ll do it when she gets to his place. Definitely. Oh my God, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing, why she’s in this car. And yet she does know; she totally, completely knows.
From the stereo Marvin Gaye asks, ‘What’s going on?’
Too right, she thinks. What is going on?
He lives in Richmond, it turns out. For some reason, she’d assumed that he lived in the centre. But no, they drive for around an hour and she feels the city recede behind them, give way to lower buildings, darker, lonelier streets.
His house is a Georgian mid-terrace. She doesn’t phrase it like this to herself, doesn’t know that this is what it is; it is he who tells her as he unlocks the door, who told her a moment ago that they were in Richmond Hill, pointing out the kink in the Thames, the dark cloud of trees in Marble Hill.
‘My father left the house to me when I was in my late twenties,’ he says as they step inside. ‘Along with a bit of money, which I used to fund a move from secondary-school teaching to university. I bought time, essentially.’ He gestures for her to go ahead, into the hall. ‘Time is expensive.’
‘Your mother?’ she asks, placing her coat into his waiting hands.
‘She died when I was twelve. The big C, I’m afraid. You’re not a smoker, are you?’
She shakes her head, as if shocked by the very idea. No need to mention binge-smoking Marcia’s roll-ups on drunken nights out, the odd packet of menthols.
‘Good.’ He indicates a door further up, on the left. ‘Go through to the living room.’
The hallway is wide. Her Docs squeak on the black and white diagonal squares. Her shoes are clean, at least, though she wonders if she should have taken them off at the door. Too late. She passes beneath an arch. Two plaster faces stare down at her: one angel, smiling; one devil, leering. Then a door on the right beneath the staircase. A moment later, she senses him behind her, turns in time to see him disappear into the dimness beyond. A wine cellar, must be. Oh my God, he wasn’t even joking. He has an actual wine cellar. She edges towards where he has disappeared, hovers there. The steps lead down into semi-darkness. There is a bulb on a wire. She can hear him whistling below. Classical music, she is sure, though she doesn’t – wouldn’t – recognise the piece, the composer, anything about it really.
She steps back into the hall. Peter Bridges is a man with a wine cellar, she thinks. He is a man who whistles classical music, who drives a vintage sports car and lives in a beautiful house on a hill. It’s literally the cheesiest thing ever, like a fairy tale or a dodgy romance. But still, if she’s honest,thisis the kind of guy she’s half fantasised she might meet since she escaped the village, the grubby scandal of her father, the pathetic jokes of boys at the bus stop, off their bonces on weed. Until now, her degree has shown her only other boys. Boys with better vocabulary, better jokes, perhaps, but whose idea of a good time is still to get stoned, lit, or wasted on cheap lager in the union, enough to make groping, wet-lipped passes.
She shudders.
The whistling stops. The slap of leather sole on stone.
She shrinks back into the living room, warmed by the amber glow from a lamp in the corner. It must have been on a timer, she thinks. A precaution against intruders.
‘Amarone.’ He is at the door, holding up a bottle, dusty as promised. He places it on the smoked-glass coffee table, and when he releases his grip there is a burgundy handprint against the patina of pale grey. ‘Glasses,’ he adds and disappears once again.
He has a real fireplace. Smaller than the one at the farm, this one is surrounded by a tiled hearth, a blackened iron mantel. There are steel fire irons and a wicker basket of chopped logs. In the grate, a wigwam of kindling stands around screwed-up balls of newspaper. It is all waiting to go, prepared in advance, as if he knew she was coming.
A clink of glass comes from the kitchen. The running of a tap. She peruses the built-in bookshelves, the books in alphabetical order. One side is stocked with reference books – contemporary art, Caravaggio, masters of the Renaissance – the other side holds novels, contemporary and classic, and an eclectic selection of poetry: Tony Harrison, Dylan Thomas, William Wordsworth. There is no television. On the unit beneath the shelves sits a record player with a black Perspex lid. She tiptoes across the polished floorboards, the old – vintage? antique? – patterned rug and silently lowers herself onto the studded leather couch. She has never been in a house as elegant as this. Never seen such confident taste. And the proportions! White skirtings thirty centimetres deep, the ceiling miles away. The pictures on the walls are not even prints, she suspects. They are actual art. She studies an ink drawing of a man playing a trumpet, leans forward, squinting to read the signat—
‘Here we are.’ Here he is. He has taken off his jacket. His loose shirt is a fluid, soft denim and she wonders if he has undone a button since they were at the faculty; she can’t remember noticing his chest hair earlier. The dust vanishes from the bottle stripe by stripe as he cleans it with a damp piece of kitchen roll, which he throws into the fireplace with one perfect shot. She is aware of how silent she is, they are. Her hands are clenched into fists, she realises, her knees pushed so close together they have started to ache. Where is her bag? It must be in the hall with her coat. She’ll ask for it. In a minute. She really should text Marcia.
