For almost an hour I try to fall asleep. But sleep refuses to come.
Maybe I should take a pill. I go into the bathroom and take one of my little pills. After a while I feel relaxed and floaty. Nothing matters anymore. I no longer feel sad that I will never again see Shane, or Saumur, or the magical fireflies.
Five
SNOW
When I wake up, the sun is filtering in through the gap I left in the curtains. I sit up and hug my knees. What shall I do today? Last month, for the first time since Lenny installed me in this apartment, I woke up and thought, I have nothing to do. I need a job. I need to meet new people.
But Lenny doesn’t like me to meet people. He says I am a bad judge of character. ‘Look what happened to you the last time you made a friend,’ he points out.
But, more and more, I feel I am fading away within these walls.
After I have brushed my teeth and dressed, I sit in the kitchen and have a bowl of cereal. The apartment is so still I can hear the sound of my teeth crunching the flakes of corn.
The letter flap clatters and I leave my bowl and run to the front door. I pick up three envelopes from the floor. A bill, a menu/leaflet from a local Chinese takeaway, and a letter from one of the boutiques where Lenny has opened an account for me.
The letter I am waiting for did not arrive.
With a heavy heart I put the bill aside for Lenny to give to his secretary, and I open the letter from the boutique. There is a sale this weekend and they are writing to invite me to arrive an hour earlier and join the champagne pre-sale party. I throw the invitation away with the leaflet.
Then I sit down to finish the rest of my solitary breakfast.
When I have washed the bowl and spoon and put away the breakfast things, I walk over to the drawer that I swept the money into last night. I take out the wad and count it. Two hundred pounds. Wow! My tears must have moved him.
He is not usually so generous with cash. He prefers to open accounts for me in different shops that he pays for at the end of the month. I don’t know what limits I have in those stores but I haven’t yet come across one, even though once, in a state of deep depression, I unthinkingly picked up a dress worth three thousand. However, my credit card has only a two hundred and fifty pound limit.
I keep aside forty pounds. The rest I neatly arrange so that all the heads face upwards. Then I get down to the side of the mattress and gently unpick the slash I have sewn up. I add the new notes to the growing brick of money. It makes me happy to see it. I have more than half of what I need. Quickly, I sew it back up so it is almost impossible to tell that my mattress is my piggy bank.
Afterwards, I do what I do every day.
I set about thoroughly cleaning the apartment. I vacuum, I brush, I wipe, I wash, I shine and finally I walk around plumping and smoothing the cushions on the sofas so that there is not a single wrinkle in any of them.
The doorbell rings and I look out of the peephole and see the girl from the local florist holding a large bunch of long-stemmed red roses. I open the door and thank her for the flowers. I close the door and I put my nose to them. There is no scent. I take them into the kitchen and remove the wrapping.
There is no card. Cards are not necessary.
I get a bouquet every time Lenny fucks me.
I put them in water and carry the vase to the coffee table in the living room. They are not what I would have chosen, but they brighten up the place. Later I will pop by the florist on my way back from lunch and get myself a fragrant mix of gardenia, honeysuckle and sweet pea.
I glance at the clock. It is lunchtime. So I get into my jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a hood and go out into the bright sunshine. Usually I buy myself a sandwich and go down to the park and eat it on one of the benches. But today I feel more lost and homesick than I normally do, so I walk the down the road, and turn into a little side road.
At the end of it is a small Indian restaurant. I open the nondescript door and enter it. It is a small place with grand ideas borrowed from India before colonial times. Checkerboard black and inky blue floor tiles, fans hanging from a dark-lacquered oak ceiling, an aged brass bar in one corner, cut-glass wall lamps, hunting trophies from the days of the Majarajahs and bitter chocolate, leather love booths and banquettes.
Muted classical Indian music is playing in the background. The smell of cardamom, spices and curry fill the air and I breathe in the familiar scent. The restaurant is deserted. It almost always is at lunchtime. I used to worry that the business was going to go bust, but Raja, the solitary waiter they have working during the lunch shift, assured me that they get very busy at night.
Raja pops his head up from whatever he was doing below the bar, and smiles broadly at me. ‘Hello,’ he calls cheerfully.
I smile back and take a seat in my usual corner.
‘How are you today?’ Raja asks when he brings my bottle of mineral water, a basket of poppadoms, and a silver container with condiments and pickles.
‘I’m fine, thank you. How are things?’ I say.
He nods. ‘Very good. Busy tonight. We have a big birthday party.’
‘Oh! That’s good.’
‘Yes, the boss is very happy.’
I smile.
He holds on to the menu in his hand. ‘Same as usual?’ he asks.
‘I think so.’
‘OK. Two minutes and I will bring your food,’ he says as he walks away.
I go into the women’s toilet and wash my hands. When I return to my table, I break a piece of poppadom and, after spooning a tiny amount of sweet mango chutney on it, place it on my tongue. And as it does every time that I do this, the scent and taste take me back in time.
I think of our cook, her wrinkled, cinnamon hand holding out a freshly fried poppadom. But back home we called them appalam. They were hot and, because they were fried in new oil, they did not have any aftertaste. I chew the poppadom slowly. But something is different today. I can’t ignore the aftertaste.
It is the beautiful man from last night.
I can’t stop thinking about him, and he has infected me with a sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction. I suppose it is to be expected. I lead such an uneventful and dull life, meeting him was like touching a live wire. He invigorated my entire system. And that voice—deep, sexy, cheeky.
I start thinking about him.
He was different from everybody else at the club. Tall with broad shoulders, he alone wore a scruffy T-shirt, worn jeans, and the cockiest grin I’ve ever seen. A man like him did not need any adornment. He stood alone at the bar. How strange that no dancers tried to accost him. Perhaps it was because he is poor. But he owns a chateau in France so that can’t be it. Perhaps he exaggerated. Maybe it’s just a run-down farmhouse. Even so I would have liked to have seen the fireflies.
I take a sip of mineral water.
I should stop thinking of him. He is gone. I have no way of contacting him, and he has no way of contacting me. I lean back with that feeling I cannot shake no matter how many times I have tried since last night: I have lost something irreplaceable. Which is madness, really. Of course I haven’t lost anything important. That was lost a year ago.
At that moment the door opens and I look up at the intrusion. I have begun to think of this deserted restaurant at lunchtime almost as my own personal space. The door pushes farther in and I freeze with shock.
Impossible! How can it be? What the hell is he doing here?
Inside my body, my hearts starts dancing like a wild thing.
In the daylight Shane’s eyes are so bright they are sparkling blue jewels in his face. His mouth is full and sensual, his jaw classically chiseled, and his hair thick and glossy. My eyes pour down his body. He is carrying a motorbike helmet and wearing a blue T-shirt and faded black jeans low on his lean hips. I guess he is what they mean when they say someone is rocking muscles.
I have two seconds before he sees me.
Six
SHANE
I spot her straightaway. She is tucked up in one of the dark brown booths and staring at me with saucer eyes. Her hair is up in a ponytail and her face is devoid of any make-up. She looks even more vulnerable and childlike than she did last night. There is something in her eyes, something that hides and feeds on her.
I know I shouldn’t be here.
She’s broken. I can see that a mile off. Injured people cling. They are needy. I’m not the kind of guy she needs. Someone like me, I take what I want and I walk. I’ve never looked back. Never promised anyone anything. My way or no way. But she poses a challenge. A threat. And a promise. And I cannot walk away from her. This is just something I have to do.
I go up to her table and sit opposite her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she gasps.
I grin. ‘Having lunch with you?’
‘How did you know I’d be here?’ Her voice is breathy. It gets under my skin. Everything about this woman gets under my skin.
‘I paid someone to follow you last night, Snow.’
She inhales sharply. ‘Why?’
‘Because I promised you a trip to Saumur and I didn’t know how else to contact you.’
It’s amazing the effect my words have on her. Saumur and the fireflies shimmer like a magical promise on her lovely face.
‘If you had me followed then you must know that I’m with some—’
I place my finger on her lips to silence the rest of her words. She could have moved back, but she didn’t. Her lips are so warm and soft, it sends my dick rigid against the zipper of my jeans. Jesus. I have it bad for her. Her eyes close, but they hold closed for a second longer than it takes to blink. Why, she’s savoring my touch. I stare at her. Her eyes open. The green is a few shades darker.