Exciting Times(4)

One evening when he was abroad, I came home to the Airbnb and Emily ambushed me before I could get to my room.

‘We haven’t seen much of you lately,’ she said.

‘We can’t all be here at once,’ I said. ‘It’s claustrophobic.’

‘Let’s go for drinks, then.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘When?’

‘Tomorrow?’

Julian was back from Singapore then. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m having dinner with a friend.’

‘Is this the friend you stay over with?’

‘I don’t have that many friends.’

Emily began to tidy the ugly couch cushions, as if hoping I’d notice how good she was for not asking me to help. The fabric had a talent for gathering hairs: hers and Freya’s mostly, since I was never there, but they blamed me anyway.

‘You can’t drop everything for a guy,’ she said.

‘I’m not with him.’

‘Why are you always at his place?’

I’d stopped listening. If she wanted to complain about me never being there, but offer extensive notes whenever I did make an appearance, then no wonder I preferred Julian.

*

The next evening, I narrated the argument to Julian. Between drags of his cigarette, he nodded and of-coursed in all the right places.

‘Have you ever had flatmates?’ I said.

‘Yes, of course, at Oxford, and when I was starting out in London. Most of them were fine. One guy was a complete nutter. This was my final year of uni. He was doing his dissertation on some existential quandary. You’d hear him pacing around all night muttering about it. And he never ate solid food – he put everything in this big fucking blender. Lived on smoothies. I think he got the top first in his year.’

‘So having your own place is better?’

‘Substantially better.’

Neither of us pointed out that he didn’t really live alone anymore. We finished the wine and he went to get another bottle. My jeans had a hole on the inseam near the top of my thigh. I picked at it, then jerked my hand away when I heard him returning.

I said: ‘What was your last girlfriend like?’

He twirled his glass. ‘She was fine. She got sent back to London.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘A few months.’

‘Any regrets?’

‘No, none at all. I don’t tend to look back.’

We drank our wine and enjoyed each other’s silence. His cushions, I noticed, were beautiful: pebble corduroy, gold and ivory sateen. I picked one up and hugged it to my chest.

‘That thing you said before about wanting to be a history teacher,’ I said, ‘were you really just bullshitting me?’

‘Completely. I’m glad other people do it, but for my part I’d rather hang on to the dim prospect of owning a house.’

He’d said that thing about teaching history the first time we met, and I hadn’t been sure if he was joking. I still wasn’t. I said: ‘What if you could own a house no matter what you did?’

‘I’ve never thought about that because it’s certainly not happening in our lifetimes. Possibly I’d have stayed at Oxford and done more history. But there’s no point dwelling on it. I have every respect for people who follow their passions, but I prefer stability.’

I wondered if he meant his comment to have point.

‘It could be worse,’ I said. ‘You could have no passions and also no stability.’

‘To be clear, Ava: we’re both dead behind the eyes, but at least I can pay rent?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘We really are the new belle époque.’

‘Arsehole bankers and deadbeats.’

‘Not all bankers are arseholes.’

‘Yeah, just you.’

‘Just me.’

‘I like talking to you,’ I said – quite stupidly, I realised. ‘It makes me feel solid, like someone can confirm I’m real.’

‘Good.’

‘Do you like having me here?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re good company. And if I’ve got this space and I like sharing it with you, there’s no reason not to.’

‘You mean it suits you.’

‘Not “suits”. You’re making me sound calculating. I’m saying it makes sense.’

He seemed closer to me on the couch than he had a moment ago, although he hadn’t moved.

‘If it stopped making sense, would you stop asking me over?’ I said.

‘You mean would I do something that didn’t make sense to me?’

I leaned over to refill my glass. Our legs touched.

‘Here, let me get it,’ he said, and he hovered close as he poured it.

I waited.

In his room he ran the errands – pulled the blinds, dimmed the lights, shoved things off the bed – while I took off my necklace, dropping it slowly on the nightstand so the steel wouldn’t rattle against the wood. Aware that he was watching me, I tried not to appear curious about his possessions.

My hair got in the way. He caught some of it in his mouth and then it jammed in my zip at the back and he said: ‘I hope this doesn’t end in A&E.’ ‘Really,’ I said, ‘because I hope it does.’ ‘You say the weirdest fucking things,’ he said.