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She shrugs. ‘I’d like to teach, maybe use writing in some sort of therapeutic capacity, you know, to help people? I write poetry, so maybe one day I’ll get a collection published. That’s a ridiculous fantasy, obviously.’
‘I bet your poetry’s brilliant,’ he says. ‘And we all need fantasies, don’t we? I went through a phase of socialist song-writing, angry young man stuff, back in the day. And I know what you mean about cities. They’re noisy, dirty places. People are rude. But one day I’ll show you Rome.’ He takes her hand in his. His second touch. It doesn’t feel like a move. If anything, it’s affectionate, nothing more, and the loosest knot of disappointment lodges in her belly.
‘Ah, Sam,’ he almost whispers. ‘I can show you so much.’
Her eyelids are heavy. He fills his own glass but not hers. The bottle empties.
‘It’s weird,’ he says from somewhere far away. ‘I feel like I know you. Or knew you once.’
She doesn’t have a clue what time it is, but she’s drifting. He is talking, then not. He plays a record by Massive Attack, another jazz one she misses the name of. He is so nice. Gentle. Kind.
The music plays: classical now, has been for a while. The fire is an orange glow in her peripheral vision, a caress of warmth on her left side. They are listening to Bach now, or was that the last one? She knows no one who listens to Bach. She knows no one who lives in a house like this, with a wine cellar with dust on the bottles. No one who would say that her poetry was wonderful. Her whole life seems trivial; it has fluttered up in smoke. She strains to keep her eyes open, but the sofa is pulling her down. He said half a pill was safe, so it can’t be that, although she’s not used to it. And it’s not the wine; she’s drunk no more than two glasses, although those bowl goblets can be deceptive. So maybe the wine, actually, a bit, and maybe the drugs, a bit.
And something else, something deeper. He is kinder than she thought he’d be. Empathic. Safe. Or perhaps she is drugged on the effect she can see she has on him, the way his eyes slope at the edges when he looks at her. She never called Marcy, but it’s OK, it’s all right. He is safe. He is lying top-to-tail with her, his bare feet tucked against her side. She has no memory of him taking off his socks, herself taking off her boots, nor snuggling up together in this childlike way. Her eyelids close against the last image of him draining his glass. He said he wanted to find out about her, and that’s literally all he’s done. There will be no inexpert lunging, no wet mouth, no limbs trapped at awkward angles against the sofa cushions. She will not have to blurt her excuses and scuttle out of a bedroom that smells of trainers and socks and worse. Peter’s house smells clean – scented, even. Peter is a man of culture. Peter is a man of the world.
She should go and see her father, she thinks. It has been a long time.
‘Hey.’
Samantha opens her eyes. She is lying down. Peter is sitting beside her, looking – actually, no, not looking,gazing. Peter is gazing at her. In the daylight, the brown of his eyes is more complex, flecked with rich autumnal shades. She shifts, hears the creak of leather. Art on the walls. This is not her home. This is—
‘I’ve brought you some tea,’ he says. ‘It’s Darjeeling. I hope that’s all right.’
She raises herself onto her elbows. A soft grey blanket falls from her shoulders. She is fully dressed, which is a relief, though she can’t say why.
‘Did I fall asleep?’ She pulls herself up to a sitting position.
‘I woke up when the record finished, so I grabbed you a blanket.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘What for?’ He hands her the tea in a white china mug. ‘It’s lovely that you’re still here.’
‘I should text my friend; she’ll be worried.’
‘Is that Marcia?’
She stares at him, alarmed, but he laughs.
‘Your phone was ringing. I didn’t want to answer it, but it kept going, so eventually I took it out of your bag. That was probably the wrong thing to do, but I was a bit out of it and I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘You spoke to her?’ It is then that she notices her phone on the coffee table.
‘Don’t panic. I told her exactly who I was and that we’d got talking and you’d fallen asleep on the sofa and it was too late and too far to send you home. I gave her my address. She seemed to know about the department drinks and she knew my name. Even so, I think you should give her a call, tell her I didn’t take advantage of you. Yet.’ He gives a wicked grin, hands her phone to her. ‘I’m making waffles. Do you want some?’
Her stomach answers before she does – a loud, drain-like gurgle. She giggles. ‘Yes please. Thanks.’
He kisses her on the forehead. ‘And then I have to go. I’m lecturing later. Come with me if you like. It’s a juicy one. “Caravaggio: sex and death, life and art”.’
He leaves her. She listens a moment, hears cupboards opening and closing, the clank of pans. It is still odd to her to think of a man cooking. She never once saw her father so much as boil an egg.
She calls Marcia.
‘Oh, thank God,’ her friend says without saying hello. ‘Honestly, I leave you on your own for one night … I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve gone from thinking you were celibate or something to thinking you were dead in a railway siding.’
Samantha giggles; Marcia always makes her giggle her head off.
‘Nothing happened,’ she says.
