13. PAUL

As we stepped out into the London night, Fitzrovia revealed itself as even quieter area than I had thought before. Despite its proximity to the noise and activity of Soho and Oxford Street, its little backstreets, lined with high Victorian buildings and even older townhouses, were dark and largely quiet.

Jack led the way. Here and there were discreet, candlelit bistros, where people who looked like lovers hunched forward over tables. But elsewhere, it was a world of silent alleys and shadowy doorsteps and archways. Soon, though, we were getting closer to the lights and noise beyond.

At night, Soho was ablaze with activity. Drinkers now stood outside old pubs or inside exclusive bars in even greater numbers. Restaurants that had been empty a few hours before now were rammed full, and people wandered in the street looking for a table. There was a huge theatre with a long queue outside, its billboards ablaze with lights.

We wandered on past little boutiques, vintage stores, art-supply places, little bookstores, and a Japanese fashion place with a long line of young shoppers outside, even at night. In the window, artistic displays of sneakers were arranged to make their mouths water and their credit cards pay.

Eventually, we came to a very busy warren of pedestrian side streets, and I recognized one as Carnaby Street, once home to the world’s fashion scene. Now, it was filled with tourists taking pictures. But on the other side were lines and lines of restaurants, and presently, we came to Dishoom, its name picked out in a simple orange sign.

Inside, the restaurant was all low lights and dark wood, with mysterious but intriguing historical images and slogans from India’s past. People sat around at tables with wonderful, unfamiliar takes on that country’s food on their tables. Long shadows fell across the polished wood floors. There was no music, just the animated chatter of well-heeled patrons.

We were escorted first to have a drink at the bar. The long wooden expanse of it exuded sophistication, with a warm amber glow of recessed lighting coloring the many drinks bottles lined up on shelves and polished, ancient-looking mirrors behind.

We settled into a cozy corner booth, the dim lighting creating a sense of intimacy. A waiter came over and recommended what sounded like Indian versions of familiar cocktails but spiced or flavored with things named black salt and sandalwood, of which I had not even heard before. Jack and I accepted the waiter’s recommendations.

We began to unwind. The drinks arrived, and we each tried the other’s, twice in fact. Jack asked me if I didn’t mind his spit; he asked it as a joke as he turned his glass to mine. I laughed and said I would survive.

Our conversation flowed effortlessly, as before, punctuated by bursts of laughter. We talked about the London office, sharing our initial impressions, discussing where we felt the gaps or priorities were.

“Ah,” Jack went eventually. “Let’s stop talking about work. Tell me a bit about your background.”

I shrugged.

“What do you want to know?”

“Where you grew up, what you were like as a kid.”

“I grew up in Maryland, not far from Baltimore. I was just a suburban kid. A bit lonely. A bit arty in a place that didn’t like arty, lonely kids.” I laughed.

“When did you move to New York?” he asked.

“For college.”

“And you stayed?”

I shrugged again.

“Where else do you go?”

“Lots of places, Paul. Lots of places.”

I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t want to tell him that I had recently been feeling unsettled, with New York, with the place I lived, the place I worked.

“What about you, Jack?” I asked.

“Very small-town Illinois. Chicago was like the moon. You could see it up there but didn’t know how to get to it.”

“It felt like you needed a rocket to get there.”

“Exactly. It was as far away as the moon.”

We had that in common. I felt that about Baltimore and maybe DC.

“What was your childhood like?” I asked.

I think I had expected him to say he was captain of the team, loved by everyone, popular all through high school, girlfriends, cars, and summer jobs, all that.

“Unhappy,” he said instead. “My parents were very strict, but for no great reason. I think they just didn’t like having kids. I think that may be why I never had any of my own.”

“You never wanted them?”

I shook my head.

“Neither of us did. Not me, not Emma…that’s my wife.”

I nodded. He had mentioned her before, of course, but somehow, this was the first time I had thought of her as an actual person, with a name, who wanted things, made decisions – made them with him.

“I think my childhood being unhappy and my parents being so hard on us, me and my siblings, was what drove me to the ambition I’ve had, in setting up the company and making it work.”

“That’s worth something,” I said, for want of anything more insightful to say. He smiled happily.

“It’s worth a hell of a lot, to me, what I have achieved.” His smile grew a little sadder. “But success isn’t everything. Success doesn’t hold your hand in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon, you know?”

When he said that, I felt a thud in my chest. The image of just that – him holding a hand, maybe my hand, just like that – who wouldn’t want that?

A waiter appeared and said that our table in the main restaurant was ready. She told us that our drinks could be taken up, but Jack laughed and shook his head, saying we were big boys, we could carry them ourselves. The waiter smiled and asked us to follow her.

At the table, she talked us through the menu, which seemed so unfamiliar, explaining that this was the cuisine of cafés in the Indian city of Mumbai, one of hundreds of different culinary traditions in the subcontinent.

“You know, as you get older,” he began to say, “on the one hand, you look at your life and you say, ‘I am happy with this. I don’t need to be a rock star or a famous Hollywood actor. I have achieved a lot. I can’t complain.’”

“But?” I asked.

“But you also see that things you accepted for a long time, especially in a marriage, or any long relationship, you begin to wonder, ‘Is that enough? The small stuff of everyday life, is it enough?’”

“I guess when you’re getting divorced, you have to see things anew.”

He shrugged.

“It’s funny,” he said. “For me, the last two years of my life, slowly realizing that my marriage was a lot less happy than I’d imagined and then, eventually, that it was ending, that was when I saw things anew.”

“And now?”

He smiled.

“Now I just want to be ready for the new thing, I guess.”

He had been looking down at his drink briefly but now looked up directly at me and gave a small shrug of the shoulders. His gaze fell back to his drink. I watched him for a moment. I felt we had got closer, and I could ask him for something closer to the truth.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said.

“What would you say if Emma asked you to try again?”

He gave a small, rather bleak laugh.

“She won’t.”

“But if she did?”

He shook his head.

“It’s better for me not even to think about it. She won’t ask me back, so what’s the point? It’s just over between us. I want to accept that. If I don’t, I won’t move on. And I want to move on.”

Eventually, the food arrived in a collision of plates and condiments: deep-fried okra with different chutneys, a take on the traditional Anglo-British chicken curry (called a Ruby Murray, which was some kind of cockney rhyming slang joke), a bun filled with highly aromatic mashed vegetables and a pool of chili salt in which to dip it, different breads, an Indian salad. I didn’t even know there were such things as Indian salads!

It was all so delicious, and Jack talked about the food intelligently and knowledgeably. I joked that we should eat here every night.

“It’s all right for you, man,” he said. “Look at your body.”

I didn’t understand what he meant.

“My body?” I asked.

“Yeah!” His eyes, across the table, were inspecting my physical frame. “You’re so slim. Me, if I ate this food every night and couldn’t hit the gym the next morning, I would be the size of a truck when we got back to the States!”

He was joking, of course. I had had a slight glimpse of hard, ripped body in the bathroom, but I could imagine it might only get sexier with a little dad paunch on it. I had to shake myself, stop these images.

We finished up, and Jack paid. I said thank you, and he shrugged. “Company card, man.” As we strolled through the streets back toward home, the city seemed on the verge of chaotic now, with people in a high, boozy mood.

As we strolled back into Soho, I asked him about places he had visited in his life, which had most intrigued or surprised him. Jack regaled me with tales of his adventures around the world, from the bustling markets of Istanbul to the mix of chaos and high-tech in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur. His eyes sparkled with excitement as he told me about the cities, the culture, the food, the people.

“Is there anywhere you would like to visit now?” I asked. “Either business or pleasure.”

“Oh, India has been on my bucket list for ages,” he said, his voice filled with genuine enthusiasm. “Delhi, Mumbai, Agra, sampling the food, the temples and palaces, just the whole human din of it.” I nodded eagerly, captivated by that enthusiasm. “What about you?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Anywhere you’d like to visit?”

I shrugged.

“Oh, everywhere. I have hardly even been out of North America.”

“Until now,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Until now. But I’d love to travel. I’d love to have the opportunity.”

Jack’s eyes gleamed as he looked at me. “You might have it yet,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He shrugged.

“Who knows what the future holds?”

We were outside a very fashionable-looking bar, having stopped while talking.

“Do you want another drink?” he asked. “A nightcap?”

I smiled.

“Great.”

I think it was his idea to drink more cocktails.

***

Upon reaching the apartment, we woozily realized we still had one more task ahead: the dreaded assembly of the sofa bed. But we were already quite tipsy by this stage and ended up falling around laughing as we tried to work out how on earth to do it.

Having removed the seat cushions, we – two intelligent, physically fit men – could not work out how the frame snapped out. With each tug and pull, the sofa bed seemed absolutely to resist our efforts, until it felt like we were almost pulling it apart. It did not shift one bit.

Maybe because of all the cocktails, I started laughing and laughing. He kept telling me to be serious, and that made me laugh all the more.

Then Jack cried aloud.

“Oh, shit.”

I looked at him, a smile still plastered all over my face.

“What?”

He laughed and pointed to the side of the metal frame, still folded within the seat. There, the same color as the painted metal, was a small latch, hardly visible. He leaned forward, chuckling to himself, and flicked it, and in one move, the whole bed moved out into shape.

Jack looked at me with his bright, dark eyes, slightly hooded, intense but kind.

“Well, I’m okay from here,” he said.

“Okay?”

He pointed toward a cupboard next to the seat.

“The linens and the covers are in there. I found them earlier.”

I nodded. I felt pretty drunk, and I was ready to go to bed.

“Oh, okay. If you’re sure.”

He smiled.

“Good night, then,” he said.

We gazed at each other for a moment.

“Good night,” I replied.

Retreating to the bedroom, I lingered for a moment, watching Jack begin to get out the bedding. His silhouette, framed by the soft glow of the living room lights, seemed large, muscular.

I imagined him doing it in his underwear or even naked, standing there like some Renaissance painting of a classical hero. He had that form, that shape.

Jeez, I thought to myself, snap out of it, Paul!

I closed the bedroom door. The gentle click of the latch echoed in the stillness and formed a boundary that separated us. But we were both there, in the same space.

I did not feel drunk anymore. I felt alive.