When I arrived he was already there — slumped in a corner beneath the poster for the peach-flavoured aperitif called Sex Appeal. As a caption, it hardly applied to him, not as he was then. He looked up as I went over and it was obvious he wasn't in the best of health. His eyes were bloodshot, his stubble hadn't seen the edge of a razor for several days, and there were flaky patches on his face. The ashtray in front of him was brimming. It didn't take long to work out that the only way he could stop his hand from shaking was by moving a cigarette up and down like an automaton. Most of the time he forgot to flick off the ash, and it kept falling on to the table.
I said hello, and sat down and stared, searching again for those telltale signs. He wasn't sitting by the window, it was true, but he wasn't turning away from the light, or anything. I asked how he was, but couldn't help answering the question myself. 'You don't look too good.'
'I don't feel too good,' he admitted, squinting at me through a miasma of cigarette smoke. 'But you look great, Dora. Hey, you look terrific.'
I was pleased he'd noticed, and told him I'd stopped eating the buns. We gave our orders to a surly Italian waiter, and I brought him up to date with news from college until the food arrived. The conversation was one-sided, and the food killed it off. We both started picking at our plates. 'How's Violet?' I asked, trying to make the enquiry sound casual.
He shifted uncomfortably. 'Fine. We're both fine.'
I waited, not saying anything. The pause lengthened and grew awkward. Duncan lit up another cigarette — neither of us had got very far with our food — and sighed. Finally, he said, à propos de nothing in particular. 'We were thinking of going to Paris.'
I was surprised by an almost physical pain which swept through me. Paris. Oh yes. He had promised to take me there. He had promised to show me Pere Lachaise. He had promised me lots of things.
If any of this showed in my face, Duncan gave no sign of having noticed. He had more pressing concerns. 'I booked a hotel,' he said. 'I went out and bought tickets, I had it all set up, but then she suddenly decided she wouldn't be able to come after all.'
'What did you do with the tickets?' I blurted, thinking perhaps, even now, I could persuade him to take me.
'Tickets? Oh, I got a refund. But there's something wrong. I don't know why she backed down. I don't know what it is, but there's something she's not telling me.'
I took a deep breath. 'You're right. There is something she's not telling you. That's why I asked you here today. It's something dreadful, Duncan, something you have to know.'
He fixed his red eyes on me. I could see him trying and failing to work out what I knew, and how I knew it. But the effort was too much; he gave up and stared down at his lasagne, which by now had acquired a light sprinkling of ash. 'Don't tell me. She's married.'
I couldn't help it — I laughed. 'Oh, Duncan. What would you do if I said she was married? Or if you found out she was having an affair with someone else?'
'I'd kill myself,' he said, smiling so I could see he was joking.
'Don't be silly. If you felt that strongly about it, you should kill her.' I smiled so he could see that I too was making a joke. 'But it's academic, because that isn't the problem. It's something much worse.'
He regarded me sceptically. 'What could be worse than that?'
Even though the only other diners in the place were a couple of deadbeats wolfing down plates of cheap spaghetti, I leant over the table towards him, trying to close the gap between us, because I didn't want anyone else to hear what I was going to say. I'd rehearsed it in my head so often, but once it was out in the open it sounded preposterous and lame at the same time. 'Violet is not human. She's a vampire.'
Duncan's reaction was unexpected. I'd been prepared for him to laugh in my face, or blow his top, or just be bewildered. Instead, he dropped his cigarette and clapped his hand over his mouth, scraping his chair back from the table and sitting there with his eyes bulging.
'Are you all right?' I enquired, thinking perhaps he was about to be sick. He responded from deep within his throat; impossible to tell whether it was yes or no. 'Duncan…?'
After what seemed an eternity, he took the hand away from his mouth. Even his lips had turned pale. He picked up the cigarette, extinguished it, and immediately lit another. Then he said, much too late, 'I don't believe you.' His voice was steady, probably too steady. He didn't seem to be having a problem with vampires per se — just with the idea of Violet being one.
'Yes, she is,' I said.
He shook his head. 'You're wrong. Not her.' And he smiled a secret smile to himself. I had never expected persuasion to be an easy task, but in all my rehearsals of this scene I'd concentrated on the brief history of the species, its nocturnal habits, dietary requirements, recorded sightings et cetera. Now all this information was redundant. 'You know what a vampire is, then,' I said.
'Of course.'
'You believe…' I began, but he cut in. 'My father did a series of paintings when I was about five or six. I asked him all about them, and he told me. Kids liked scary things, he said.'
'Then you'll know it's true. About Violet, I mean. She only comes out at night.'
'Don't be absurd. You don't know what you're talking about.'
'But I saw her!' I blurted out. 'I followed her.' Duncan's face went from colourless to flushed in an instant. He took a quick look round the room, but no one was showing the slightest interest in our argument. 'Jesus Christ, I don't believe this. You've been following her? Jesus Christ, Dora, you're sick.'
He scraped his chair back again, even further away from the table, preparing to get up. The finality of the movement and the accompanying screech of wood against lino cast me into despair. I'd blown it, and it was Grauman's fault. Duncan may not have been acknowledging my existence before, but at least I'd had my pride. Now, I had nothing. He was going to stomp off in a huff and I'd never see him again, and if I did see him he would despise me. The future stretched ahead of me like a vast grey nothingness. The idea of it was overwhelming, and I burst into tears.
'Oh, Christ,' said Duncan. He handed me a grubby paper tissue. There was a pause, which I filled with snivelling. 'I'm sorry…' he said haltingly. 'I haven't been fair…' His voice had lost its harsh edge.
But now I was sobbing convulsively, and his change of heart made it worse. All the pent-up emotions of the past few weeks came bubbling to the surface. I thought about the tickets to Paris, and the unfairness of everything, and great spasms of sorrow welled up and forced their way out of my mouth. Wave after wave, until I no longer cared if people stared.
Duncan paid for the lasagne and coaxed me towards the door. 'Come on,' he said. 'What you need is a nice cup of tea.' I found this protectiveness comforting, and rather seductive. As he led me outside and hailed a taxi, I made an effort to calm myself down, but this led only to a fresh outbreak of sobbing. In the cab, though, a part of my brain was congratulating itself. The crying jag had been a brilliant move. Grauman would have been proud.
Chapter 5
Duncan's flat wasn't so very different from the last time I had seen it, except that now everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. I sat on the sofa and took nervous sips of tea, wondering how to steer the conversation back to Violet when there wasn't any conversation to begin with.