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The bottleneck chatters on the edge of the glass goblets. He pours a shallow measure in each, offers one to her. She thinks of her friends: the tumblers – mugs, even – of cheap Cabernet Sauvignon, the pillow-sized bags of tortilla chips guzzled in minutes, the cigarettes extinguished in empty beer cans.
‘To you.’ He meets her eye and chinks his glass lightly against hers.
To you– who even says that? No one her age, that’s for sure. Her stomach heats. She suppresses a giggle. At the hit of the wine on her tongue, she closes her eyes. She doesn’t usually drink wine, or much at all really, but this is no cheap plonk.
‘It’s delicious,’ she says, licking her lips.
‘Yes, it’s not bad. I’ve been waiting to open this one for a long time.’
They leave that there.
He pulls a small plastic bag from his trouser pocket. In it are sweets – or pills, coloured pills. Oh my God, theyarepills. He places the bag on the coffee table but says nothing. A year from now, when she thinks back to this evening, she will remember how nonchalantly he did this, as if it were perfectly normal to bring out a stash minutes after meeting someone. As it is, in the moment, she presses her lips tight and pulls her eyes away, back to his.
‘I can’t explain why,’ he is saying, throwing out his hands as he talks. ‘Call it superstition if you like, but you … this … us coming here like this … What I mean is, the way we just … took off like that.’ He laughs, shakes his head. ‘Look at me, I’m a wreck.’
She frowns, as if to give this her serious consideration when in reality she can’t think of a single thing to reply. He is not a superstitious man, she thinks. And he is definitely not a wreck. But isn’t this what she has wanted, to find a man who knows what he’s doing? And deeper still, there is the hope that this is more than sophistication, that he really has identified in her something special, something unique. She was worried that she’d let herself be led away too soon. Now she thinks it was the right move, that he finds her interesting as a result: daring, as free-spirited as a heroine in a black-and-white French film – Jeanne Moreau or Catherine Deneuve.
He runs his fingers through his hair. She makes herself hold his gaze, ignores the heat it triggers on her neck. He has crinkles at the edges of his eyes yet not one hint of grey. There’s no getting around it: he’s gorgeous.
‘I know you’re here in my house,’ he says. ‘I can see you. You’re right in front of me and you are … you are … I’m not objectifying you in any way but you’re really beautiful, and maybe that’s why I can’t believe you’ve come. I knew you would, from the moment you let me take that bloody awful wine from you, but at the same time I don’t know why and maybe that’s why I can’t believe it. Knowledge and disbelief, all bound up together. It’s … it’s … well, it’s worth celebrating.’
Her scalp tingles. Being permitted over the threshold of his private realm – and God knows, this house is like a kingdom – feels like a privilege reserved only for those whose behaviour is exemplary, like the time she was invited to the head teacher’s office to be congratulated on a Shakespeare essay she wrote in sixth form.
‘I feel the same.’ It seems like the right thing to say.
‘You do?’ He appears to sigh with relief. ‘Well, that’s … that’s everything, isn’t it?’
She wants him to take her face in his hands. She wants him to bring her lips to his right now, but at the same time she wants to delay the moment. Her chest hurts.
But Peter doesn’t kiss her. Instead, he stands up and heads towards the record player. A moment later and he’s put a match to the kindling, slid a disc whispering from its sleeve and, with the precision of a surgeon, lowered the needle to the black vinyl. And now they are listening to what sounds like old jazz.
‘Miles Davis,’ he says in answer to her unspoken question, crouching by the fire and reaching for the tongs. He checks his watch and, carefully, places a log on the burning pile.
‘We had an open fire when I was little,’ she says.
‘And where was that?’
‘Yorkshire. I grew up on a farm. There was no mantelpiece; it was just, like, a square cut out of the wall.’
‘Yorkshire,’ he says. ‘I thought I detected a slight accent.’
She giggles. ‘That’s nowt. Should ’ear us when I go ’ome.’
‘Very good.’ He laughs and places another log in the fire. An orange glow is establishing itself at the base. Another log and he stands and chafes his hands together before returning to join her on the sofa.
‘Your house is so lovely,’ she says. Lovely? That was lame.
‘It’s too big, really, for one.’ He drains his glass, tops it up, offers her more. She lets him pour another splash; he stops when she raises her hand, which she finds respectful.
He reaches for the bag of pills and takes one out. ‘Shall we indulge, as it’s a special occasion?’
Indulge. It’s the first time he’s sounded old. But he’s probably being ironic. Yes, ironic, definitely.
‘Are they …’ she says. ‘Are they drugs?’
He grins and shakes his head, affectionately, as a parent might. ‘Come on, you’re what? Twenty?’
‘Twenty-one.’ Nowshesounds older than she is.
