Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I found him on the sofa by the windows: the Nairobi sunset sliced him in half like a magician’s trick. He put down Ulysses and stood to greet me. His skin was warm like he had been lying in the garden.

You’re reading Ulysses again?

Honey, you know it’s my favorite book.

I told him that I was going to make risotto, and he made a sharp sibilant sound. I hit his arm, and he drew me closer. He smelled like the house, comforting and warm. Come on, he said, I’ll make the risotto. He led me to the kitchen, where he pulled out the chopping board that Ruth got us as a wedding present with Enola you couldn’t tell where the fabric ended and my skin began. Ruth, as if preparing to be stuck on a fridge, was making a face like a disruptive toddler, and Emily was smiling nicely.

How is Emily?

Oh, you know. Working up until the wire, Catherine answered proudly.

Ruth made a noise and then pretended that she hadn’t.

Part of the reason that Ruth lived like she was being chased was because her sister, Emily, didn’t. A doctor in Maidenhead. Her husband, Samson, worked in finance. All her appliances matched. Her walls were shades of beige.

There’s some food on the stove for you girls.

Catherine looked to me. Enola, please do not let Ruth go at it with a spoon. It needs to be heated. She said that our rooms were made up, and I knew there would be a book on my bedside table—a poetry book or something obscure and Russian or a contemporary prizewinner that she would pretend not to have bought new.

She kissed us both, tightened her dressing gown, and left, calling: Lights off when you’re done. I turned back, and Ruth was perched by the stove, swinging her legs and eating out of the pot with a spoon. Texted him yet? she asked, mouth full.

W HEN I ARRIVED OUTSIDE the tube, he was already there, and he made a joke about lateness. He walked ahead but didn’t seem to think that was rude. When I questioned it, he said it was so that he could smoke. I trotted behind, dress riding up and a sheen appearing above my lip.

I had been anxious all day remembering his arrogant gait, his lined face, his unpredictable smile. I had also changed my outfit five times. You clearly want to be there , Ruth pointed out. Fight or flight . I had asked her if there was a third option. She said: Fuck ?

Entering the pub, I relaxed, because nineties music was playing. I commented that the song reminded me of school discos, and he remarked, dryly, that it reminded him of Freshers Week. I tried to think of a witty retort, but the moment passed.

He sat us next to a bookshelf of board games and went to the bar. I checked my phone to give myself a task. There was a message from Ruth:

Need rescuing?

I looked to where he was waiting to order. There were people on either side of him who were there first but he was taller and his elbows were splayed, as though being served were a competition.

I replied that I wasn’t sure, and Ruth said that she was having dinner at the warehouse. She suggested that I join later if I wasn’t otherwise engaged, and then sent the plane emoji.

He returned, placing down two old-fashioneds.

Oh, I—

Was it stranger that I hadn’t told him what I wanted or that he hadn’t asked?

I hated whiskey. My mum used to drink it on the holidays. She might have drunk it other times, but after she moved to France, I only saw her on the holidays, so that was when she drank it. Christmas. Easter. The occasional week in the summer.

We clinked our glasses and I thanked him for the drink. Sláinte, he said.

Are you Irish?

No, he answered.

He took a sip and sighed. Perfect, he said, referring to the drink. Then: I fucking hate dates. He said that he couldn’t think of anything worse than meeting a boring person in a boring pub to hear about their boring hobbies. I looked around the pub to make a point, and he said: Ah, but this pub is a good pub. Settled, his face was cantankerous, angry even, and I remembered Ruth’s words: What do you think about him ?

Flight.

Ruth had all sorts of ways of ending a date. The main one was just being honest and leaving. But there was something about how his hands gripped the glass.

Fight?

I took a large sip of the drink I hated and tried not to be boring.

But is a date even a date if no one talks about hobbies? I asked.

It’s much like the tree in the wood, he replied.

FUCK.

He laughed, and it was as unruly and brilliant as I remembered. He was two very different, equally disarming things. He removed his denim jacket to reveal a black wool shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I wanted to touch the mole on his forearm.

Shall we?

He set up the Scrabble board. I arranged seven tiles on my rack so that they almost made a word, and we began. He placed down the first word: “NOW.” I added an “S” to make “SNOW.” Before I could take a replacement tile, he spelled “WHISTLE” on a triple letter score.

Wolf or tin?

That’s not the game, Enola.

We played, and I watched him study the board like it mattered more that he won than what I thought of him. It was sexy, his confidence, his ability to exist in every moment.

Jump out that plane, Laa.

You know, I’m actually glad that tonight isn’t a date, I said.

He looked up. Oh?

I nodded. I’m not wearing date underwear.

His face reddened, and it was thrilling. I knew then that I wanted him to win. I asked why he had come to our writing group last week.

Fuck knows, he said. Maybe I wanted my ego stroked, maybe Mat said he would fucking be there.

Are you and Mat close?

Not really. We did a three-month writing thing and he was the only person I didn’t want to punch.

Because his entrance into my life had been a truck crashing into a house, it felt more like he had been compelled to our writing group by forces of the universe—the way that I always felt Ruth and I had been brought together for those same four years in Nairobi. It seemed impossible that he had just entered my life on a whim.

I said that he had missed a window to say something smooth. He asked me for an example. Like… you were hoping to meet me? I said, and immediately cringed. I had hoped to sound sexy, like with the underwear comment, but this felt wrong.

His eyes didn’t light up, but he chuckled, slightly.

I’m not smooth, he said.

No?

Apart from my body, which feels like a baby seal.

I noticed the dark hair where his shirt met his chest; there was nothing smooth about his body. I can’t comment on the seal thing but I think you’re smooth, I said, because it felt like a good thing to say. And it must have been, because he made a face, like the one my dad used to make when I did something silly.

He replied that he was glad he had fooled me, but that I looked like someone who was easily fooled. I asked why he thought that and he asked if that was another window. It was my turn to ask him for an example, and he said that I was blushing. I said that I wasn’t, but he pointed to my face, which instantly warmed under scrutiny, and said: See.

That’s not a window, that’s a trap.

We spent the rest of the evening debating every choice. You can’t use slang. That’s not slang. It’s absolutely slang. You’re slang. When the board was full and he had won, we ordered two more drinks that we didn’t need. The conversation slowed, and I realized the whiskey had gone to my head. He was staring at me like he was scrutinizing my face, and so I asked a stupid question about how many times an old-fashioned needed stirring, and he leaned across the table, placed his hand on my cheek, and kissed me.

Everything stopped.

The anxiety. The pressure. The world.

It all stopped.

Pulling away, he whispered: There, now that’s taken care of.

I N THE BATHROOM , I pressed my lips to my hand to re-create the sensation of kissing him. I wondered what it had felt like for him. I texted Ruth:

Sorry for lateness. Won’t come by. Got a bit drunk. Kissed him and it was the best kiss of my life. Don’t make fun of me for saying that.

My mouth tasted stale from the whiskey. (Was it stale when he kissed me?) I put some gum in my mouth. Ruth replied:

You gonna stay with him tonight…?

Did I want to sleep with him tonight? (I had lied about the underwear; I was wearing a black lace set.) My mum’s voice, uninvited: Enola, women wear underwear for themselves, not for a man. Did she wear nice underwear in France for Paul? Did she wear it for my dad? But it was only date one, and something about him made me uneasy. And it wasn’t just his large frame or the gray in his hair, it was him, how he spoke, how he placed the tiles on the board like he knew what I was going to do next.

I came back out, and he was leaning by the door with his arms folded, like that photograph of James Dean. You ever played two truths and a lie? He wound my hair around his finger. One: I have an enormous bed. Two: I have a bottle of champagne in my room. Three: I have no interest in you coming over tonight.

I’m not coming over tonight, I said decisively.

Come on, let me see those granny pants. Or are you a date-three girl?

I pushed his chest, but he wrapped my hands around his waist. The texture of his jacket. The warmth of his face. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted it more than food or sleep or water.

So, this was

a date?

Semantics. Come on , he repeated. Don’t you want to see how big my bed is?

I told him that I had to write, and he said that he was taking a break from his novel because he was stuck in a writing k-hole. I asked him what a k-hole was, and he said that it was when you took too much ketamine and wandered around in a circle. I told him that I had only taken ketamine once: Ruth gave me a corner at a festival and we were mermaids. He pulled me closer and whispered: What sort of creature are you?

The sort that’s not easily fooled…

He shook his head. Gay, yours is a face that a con man would target.

It’s not!

You look like someone who plays Candy Crush.

It’s good for mindfulness!

I bet your favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla.

Stop!

I pressed my hand over his grin. Fine. I’ll bite. How big is your bed? He pressed his lower body into mine. That pulse between my legs. That spice in my blood. Kiss me. Fuck it. I lifted onto my toes and kissed him.

You’ll just have to wait and see.