‘Perfect. Now I’m going home,’ she said, kissing him briefly on the mouth and turning away.
‘I’ll get your coat,’ said Alex, remembering.
He was actually vaguely relieved that they were not going home together tonight. He had said — or at least he had written — that he wanted to go to bed with Sahra which was true but as yet he felt no lust for her. He wanted to go to bed with her so that he could begin lusting after her. He knew immediately when he fancied a woman but what did it mean, this fancying? It meant he wanted to sleep with her, become her lover, fuck her — but lust played no part in it. He only lusted after women he had already slept with. He lusted after his old girlfriends but Sahra, he looked at her and felt. . what? A longing. An ache — not even an ache really, something more abstract than that, an abstract ache if that was possible: an absence. He felt incomplete, insubstantial without her. And yet, at the same time that there was no lust in this feeling, it contained the seed of what, once they had begun sleeping together, would become overwhelmingly focused on sex. He had to sleep with her so that he could begin wanting to sleep with her.
Sahra arrived at two o’clock on the dot, when Alex was still preparing the salad. He greeted her at the door, holding a bowl of lettuce, just washed.
‘Punctuality,’ he said. ‘A great quality in men and women alike.’ She kissed him on the mouth, exactly as she had the night before.
‘Let me take your coat,’ he said, standing behind her.
‘You’re very gallant all of a sudden. Thank you.’
‘You got home OK?’ said Alex, hanging up her coat.
‘No. I was raped and murdered actually. How about you?’
‘Are you in a bad mood?’
‘Just playing.’
‘I walked. Ten minutes, that’s all. I was quite drunk.’
‘Me too. Do you have a hangover?’ she asked.
‘No. Surprisingly. You?’
‘No. A little. We’re speaking in short sentences. Have you noticed?’
‘Yes. Why? I mean why do you think that is?’
‘Because we are due to go to bed together, probably.’
‘That was a longer sentence,’ said Alex. Sahra was standing at the window, leaning with her back to the light. She would have been silhouetted had the room not been filled with light from all sides. It poured in.
‘It’s a nice apartment,’ she said. ‘Very light.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Of water, yes, please. Tap water is fine. And you have a lovely view.’
‘Almost down to the Bastille. Yes, I love it.’ The water took a while to run cool. He handed her a glass. She was wearing slacks. He supposed that’s what they would be called. Light, tight-fitting around the ankles: difficult to take off, he thought.
‘What is this music?’ she said. She was looking along his shelves, at his books and stuff. ‘Do you mind if I look?’
‘It’s the radio. No, you can look.’ He dried the forks and knives he had just washed, put plates and bowls on the table.
‘Why are you so tense?’ she said.
‘I’m not tense,’ he said. ‘Except now I am, of course. That was an unfair remark, guaranteed to make me tense. You said it because you’re tense.’
‘Well yes, I am tense. I thought I wouldn’t be but I am.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of this fucking sex thing, I suppose.’
‘We can eat if you like.’
‘Yes, I’m hungry. Actually I’m starving.’
They sat opposite each other. He broke the loaf of bread in half.
‘It was fun last night, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, I enjoyed it.’
‘In spite of the music.’
‘The music was bad.’
‘Let’s eat. Add oil. Pepper, too, if you like. Then it’s just a question of chewing.’
The tomatoes were over-ripe, as Sahra liked them. The basil was dusty with its own scent. Deep Purple were on the radio. Alex turned up the volume, played a little air guitar. They duetted on the chorus:
‘Smoke on the water. .
Fire in the sky.’
By the time the song had finished Sahra was mopping up the tomato-pipped residue of olive oil on her plate with a piece of bread. When there was nothing else to mop up she poured in some extra oil.
‘There’s more salad if you like.’
‘No thank you.’
‘Fruit?’
‘Do you have any?’
‘I can get some.’
‘Oh don’t bother going out. Shall I go?’
‘It’s no bother.’ He seemed eager to procure fruit.
‘What would you like? An orange?’
‘An apple would be great.’
‘I’ll get you one.’ Sahra followed him as he walked across to the open window.
‘Hey, Louis,’ he called down to a man working at the fruit stall across the street. ‘Passe moi une pomme. Je te paierai plus tard.’
‘Pour la demoiselle?’
‘Oui.’
Louis reached back, selected a good apple, held it up.
‘Celle-là va bien?’
‘Parfaite.’
Louis threw it up and Alex caught it in both hands. He gave the apple to Sahra and the thumbs-up to Louis. Sahra smiled down at him, waved.
‘Was that off the cuff or up the sleeve?’
‘Ideally I would have caught it in one hand.’
Sahra peeled her apple, quartered it, cut out the pips, handed Alex a piece. They munched noisily.
‘How is it?’
‘Quite good.’
‘Not crisp enough?’
‘Too crisp. I like soft apples. The sort they give to pigs.’
‘No one likes apples like that.’
‘That’s why they give them to the pigs. But I love them.’
After they had finished chewing Alex went to the bathroom. When I get out I must kiss her, he said to himself over and over. When he got out, she had gone. Then he looked over at the bed. She was under the duvet, making exaggerated snoring noises. He looked over at the chair to see if she had taken her clothes off. He saw her trousers and top, he wasn’t sure about her underwear.
‘Nice clean sheets,’ she said. The sheets were pulled up to her neck. Only her head was visible.
‘If we’re being absolutely frank I changed them specially.’ He wasn’t sure what to do.
‘You can get in too, if you like. It’s your bed, after all.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Except that would involve me taking off my clothes, in broad daylight. Crucially, I wouldn’t know whether to take my underpants off. Are you wearing your underwear?’ It would be inappropriate, he felt, to lift her clothes off the chair to check.
‘No.’
‘Basically, not to beat about the hedge, you’re naked.’ Disseminated by Luke, Nicole’s almost correct English expressions were becoming standard.
‘Yes,’ said Sahra.
‘I see. So that would involve me taking off all my clothes in broad daylight.’
‘Yes. And I’ll watch. To see how you cope. Like this I don’t feel so nervous. In fact I don’t feel nervous at all now. How about you?’
‘Oh I’m pretty nervous, yes. So I think first I’ll draw the blinds.’ He walked over to each window in turn, lowered the blinds and tilted them so that the walls and floor were lined with gold stripes: the kind of lighting effect seen in commercials. The large window was still open, the blinds clinked in the breeze. The atmosphere in the room thickened, as if the sky had suddenly become dense with rainclouds. Sahra watched Alex take off his T-shirt and toss it on to the chair where her clothes were piled. He removed his socks.
‘Well remembered,’ said Sahra. ‘No pot belly either.’ Alex unbuttoned his jeans, climbed out of them, wobbled slightly. Without taking his boxers off he walked over to the bed and climbed in beside Sahra. She put her arms round him. ‘And no hairy back,’ she said. ‘A perfect specimen in fact.’