Not a chance. The reality, when I saw her, far exceeded my memories: the wonderful face framed by the raised collar of a long black overcoat; some sort of old-fashioned dress beneath it, rust red; carefully made-up; dark eyes, lips to match her dress. The scampi platter at the Rat and Parrot had ceased to be an option.
We kissed a little awkwardly, an earlobe for me, hair for her. ‘You look very glamorous.’
‘This? Oh, I have to wear this for work,’ she said, as if to say this isn’t meant for you; eight seconds gone and already a botched kiss, an imagined slight. The evening stretched before us like a tightrope across some vast canyon. To mark the importance of the occasion, I was wearing my best jacket, raffish chocolate brown corduroy, and a knitted tie, dark plum. Her hand travelled to the knot and adjusted it.
‘Very nice. Good God, you actually have a pen in your top pocket.’
‘As a scientist, I have to. It’s my uniform.’
She smiled. ‘Is this where you work?’
‘Over there, in the lab.’
‘And the fruit flies?’
‘They’re inside. Do you want to come and see?’
‘Am I allowed? I always assumed all labs were top secret.’
‘Only in films.’
She grabbed my arms with both hands. ‘Then I have to see the fruit flies!’
She stared at the clouds of flies, her face close to the muslin, quite bewitched. It was as if I’d taken her to the unicorn enclosure.
‘Why fruit flies? Why not ants or beetles or stick insects?’
Whether her interest was genuine, exaggerated or feigned, I couldn’t say. Perhaps she viewed the insectory as some kind of art installation; I know such things exist. Whatever the reason, ‘why fruit flies?’ was the kind of question that I longed to hear, and I explained about the fast breeding, the low upkeep, the conspicuous phenotypes.
‘Which are …?’
‘Observable characteristics, traits, manifestations of the genotype and the environment. In fruit flies, shorter wings, eye pigmentation, changes in the genital architecture.’
‘“Genital architecture”. That’s the name of my band.’
‘It means that you can see indications of mutation in a very short time. Fruit flies are evolution in action. That’s why we love them.’
‘Evolution in action. And what do you do when you want to examine their genital architecture? Please, please don’t tell me you kill them all?’
‘Usually we knock them unconscious.’
‘With tiny truncheons?’
‘With carbon dioxide. Then after a while they stumble back onto their feet and get on with having sex.’
‘My typical weekend.’
A moment passed.
‘So can I keep one? I want …’ She pressed a finger to the glass ‘… that one there.’
‘They’re not goldfish at the fairground. They’re tools of science.’
‘But look — they really like me!’
‘Perhaps it’s because you smell of old bananas!’ Another moment passed. ‘You don’t smell of old bananas. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said you smelt of old bananas.’
She looked over her shoulder and smiled, and I introduced her to Bruce, our pet fruit fly, to show that it was not only the art-school crowd who knew how to have a good time.
The tour continued. I showed her the cold room, where we remarked on how cold it was, and the 37-degree room.
‘Why 37 degrees?’
‘Because it’s the temperature inside the human body. This is what it feels like to be inside someone.’
‘Sexy,’ said Connie, deadpan, and we moved on. I showed her dry ice, I showed her the centrifuge in action. Through a microscope we looked at cross sections of the tongue of a rat that had been infected with parasitic worms. Oh yes, it was quite a date, and I began to note the amused faces of my colleagues working late as usual, mouths open, eyebrows raised at this lovely woman peering into flasks and test tubes. I gave her some Petri dishes, to mix her paints in.
When she’d seen enough we went, at her suggestion, to a tiny Eastern European restaurant that I had walked past many times without ever imagining I might enter. Faded, dimly lit, it was like stepping into a sepia photograph. A hunched and ancient waiter took our coats and showed us to a booth. At Connie’s suggestion, we drank vodka from small, thick glasses, then ate velvety soup a shade of burgundy, delicious dense dumplings and pancakes and syrupy red wine and sat side by side in the corner of the almost empty room, and soon we were fuzzy-headed and happy and even almost at ease. Rain outside, steam on the windows, an electric-bar fire blazing; it was wonderful.
‘You know what I envy about science? The certainty. You don’t have to worry about taste or fashion, or wait for inspiration or for your luck to change. There’s a … methodology — is that a science word? Anyway, the point is you can just work hard, chisel away and eventually you’ll get it right.’
‘Except it’s not quite as easy as that. Besides, you work hard.’
She shrugged and waved her hand. ‘Well, I used to.’
‘I saw some of your pictures. I thought they were amazing.’
She frowned. ‘When did you see them?’
‘Last weekend. While you were asleep. They were beautiful.’
‘Then they were probably my flatmate’s.’
‘No, they were yours. Hers I didn’t like at all.’
‘Fran is very successful. She sells a lot.’
‘Well, I don’t know why.’
‘She’s very talented, and she’s my friend.’
‘Of course, but I still loved yours. I thought they were very …’ I searched for some artistic term. ‘Beautiful. I mean, I don’t really know much about art—’
‘But you know what you like?’
‘Exactly. Also, you can draw terrific hands.’
She smiled, looked at her own hand, splayed the fingers and then placed it over mine. ‘Let’s not talk about art. Or fruit flies.’
‘Okay.’
‘How about last weekend instead? What happened, I mean.’
‘Fine,’ I said and thought, here it is, the bolt gun. ‘What did you want to say?’
‘I don’t know. Or rather, I thought I did.’
‘Go on.’
She hesitated. ‘You go first.’
I thought a moment. ‘Okay. It’s very simple. I had an amazing time. I loved meeting you. It was fun. I’d like to do it again.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s all.’ It was by no means all, but I didn’t want to alarm her. ‘You?’
‘I thought … I thought the same. I had a happy time, unusually. You were very sweet. No, that’s wrong, I don’t mean that, I mean you were thoughtful and interesting and I liked sleeping with you too. Very much. It was fun. Your sister was right — you were what I needed.’
I had found myself in this situation often enough to recognise the imminent arrival of a ‘but’ …
‘But I don’t have a very good track record with relationships. I don’t associate them with happiness, certainly not the last one.’
‘Angelo?’
‘Exactly. Angelo. He wasn’t very nice to me and he’s made me … I suppose, I want to be … cautious. I want to proceed with caution.’
‘But you want to proceed?’
‘With caution.’
‘With caution. Which means?’
She considered for a moment, biting her lip, then leant forward. ‘Which means that if we got the bill right now and went outside, if we found a taxi and went home to your bed, then I’d be very happy.’