And I would have listened at this point, I really would, for my curiosity was aroused, apart from anything else, but my brain was spinning, all my senses were in a whirl, because she had used my name, she had actually called me by my first name, Michael, she had said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking this, Michael,’ and I can’t tell you how long it was since anybody had called me by my name, it can’t have happened since my mother came down — two, maybe three years — and the funny thing about it was that if she knew my name, then in all probability I knew hers, or I had known it once, or I was expected to know it, we must have been introduced at one time or another, and I was so busy trying to put a name to her face, and to put her face into a context where I may have seen it before, that I completely forgot to pay any attention to her slow, loud, deliberate speech, so that as soon as she finished I knew we were in for something more, something much more and something much much worse than just another long and difficult pause.
‘You haven’t been listening to a word of this, have you?’
I shook my head.
‘I get the sense,’ she said, rising quickly to her feet, ‘that I’m wasting my time here.’
She stared at me accusingly; and not having much to lose any more, I stared back.
‘Can I ask you something?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Who are you?’
Her eyes widened, and it felt as though she had taken a step away from me, although as far as I could see she didn’t actually move.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I don’t know who you are.’
She gave a mirthless, incredulous smile.
‘I’m Fiona.’
‘Fiona.’ The name dropped into my mind with a heavy thud: there were no echoes. ‘Should I know you?’
‘I’m your neighbour,’ said Fiona. ‘I live just across the hall from you. I introduced myself to you just a few weeks ago. We pass on the stairs … three or four times a week. You say hello.’
I blinked, and came a little closer, gazing rudely into her face. I steeled myself to make an enormous effort of memory. Fiona … I still couldn’t remember having heard the name, not recently, and if it seemed that something about her was starting to take on a distant familiarity, the origins of this feeling were obscure, and tasted less of day-to-day encounters on the staircase than the sensation, perhaps, of being presented with a photograph of a long-dead ancestor, in whose sepia features it might just be possible to detect the ghost of a family resemblance. Fiona …
‘When you introduced yourself to me,’ I asked, ‘did I say anything?’
‘Not much, no. I thought you were rather unfriendly. But then I don’t tend to give up very easily: so I’ve kept trying.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and sat down in an armchair. ‘Thank you.’
Fiona was left standing by the door. ‘I’ll go then, shall I?’
‘No — please — if you could just bear with me a little longer. We might get somewhere. Please, sit down.’
Fiona hesitated, and before coming to sit down on the sofa opposite me, she opened the door to the landing outside and left it ajar. I pretended not to have noticed this. She perched on the edge of the sofa, her back arched and her hands folded unhappily in her lap.
‘What were you saying just now?’ I asked.
‘You want me to go through all that again?’
‘Just briefly. In a couple of words.’
‘I was asking you to sponsor me. I’m doing a sponsored bike ride, for the hospital.’ She passed me the sheet of A4 paper, roughly half of which was covered with signatures.
A few lines at the top of the paper explained the nature of the event, and what the money was being raised for. I read them quickly and said, ‘Forty miles sounds an awful long way. You must be very fit.’
‘Well, I’ve never done anything quite like this before. I thought it would get me out and about.’
I folded the paper in two, laid it aside and thought for a moment. I could feel a new energy rising in me and the temptation to laugh, odd though it would have seemed, was quite powerful. ‘Do you know what the funny thing is?’ I said. ‘Shall I tell you the really funny thing?’
‘Please do.’
‘This is the longest conversation I’ve had — the most I’ve talked to someone — for something like two years. More than two years, I think. The longest.’
Fiona laughed in disbelief. ‘But we’ve barely spoken.’
‘None the less.’
She laughed again. ‘But that’s ridiculous. Have you been on a desert island or something?’
‘No. I’ve been right here.’
A confused shake of the head. ‘Well how come?’
‘I don’t know: I just didn’t want to. It hasn’t been a conscious decision or anything, it’s just that the occasion’s never arisen. It’s easy, you’d be surprised. I suppose in the old days you’d have to have talked to someone: going into shops and things. But now you can do all your shopping in the supermarket, and you can do all your banking by machine, and that’s about it.’
A thought occurred to me, and I got up to lift the receiver on the telephone. It was still connected.
‘Does my voice sound strange to you? How does it sound?’
‘It sounds fine. Quite normal.’
‘What about this flat? Does it smell?’
‘It’s a bit … close, yes.’
I picked up the remote control for the television and was about to switch off. The young boy with the locked, expressionless eyes, his back as tense and rigid as Fiona’s when she had sat down on my sofa, was no longer on the screen: but the avuncular man with the big grin and the heavy black moustache was still stomping around, this time in full military uniform and surrounded by men of the same age and nationality and bearing. I watched him for a few seconds and felt another memory beginning to recover its shape.
‘I know who that is,’ I said, pointing and clicking my finger. ‘It’s — whatsisname — President of Iraq …’
‘Michael, everyone knows who that is. It’s Saddam Hussein.’
‘That’s right. Saddam.’ Then, before turning the television off, I asked: ‘Who was that boy with him? The one he was trying to put his arms around?’
‘Haven’t you been watching the news? That was one of the hostages. He’s been parading them on television, as if they were cattle or something.’
This made little sense to me, but I could tell it was not the moment for elaborate explanations. I switched the television off and said — listening with interest to my own voice—‘I’m sorry, you must think I’m being very rude. Would you like a drink? I’ve got wine and orange juice and beer and lemonade, and even a bit of whisky, I think.’
Fiona hesitated.
‘We can leave the door open if you like. I don’t mind about that at all.’
And then she smiled, and sat back on the sofa, and crossed her legs, saying, ‘Well, why not. That would be very nice.’
‘Wine?’
‘I think orange juice, please. I can’t seem to shake off this dreadful sore throat.’
My little kitchen had always been the cleanest room in the flat. I never dusted or used a vacuum cleaner because dust is not easily visible to the casual observer, it’s possible to turn a blind eye to it, yet I could not tolerate the sight of smudges and splashes of dried food caked to my brilliant white surfaces. When I withdrew into the kitchen, therefore, and turned on the two 100-watt spotlights which sent their beams of pure brightness fearlessly exploring every gleaming angle and corner, it restored my self-confidence. The night was slowly darkening, and from the kitchen sink the first thing I could see was my own reflected face, hovering like a spectre outside my fifth-floor window. This was the face that Fiona had been addressing for the last few minutes. I took a good look at it and tried to imagine how it would have appeared to her. The eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and bloodshot from too much glassy staring at the television screen; deeply scored lines were beginning to appear around the corners of the mouth, although these were partially obscured by two days’ worth of stubble; the jaw-line was still reasonably firm, but another three or four years would probably see the onset of a double chin; the hair, once tawny, was now streaked with grey and stood desperately in need of cutting and re-styling; there were the shreds of a parting, so tentative and wasted that the onlooker might easily have been forgiven for not noticing that it was there at all. It wasn’t a friendly face: the eyes, a deep, velvety blue, might once have suggested wells of possibility but now seemed guarded, fenced off. But at the same time it was honest. It was a face you could trust.