She feels strangely detached from the rest of the world, aware of her skin and her pulse and the heat between her thighs in a way she has no recollection of experiencing before. So this is what the fuss is about, she thinks. I thought I was experienced, but all I was was only someone who’d fucked a lot. She wants to run a long, warm bath and reflect on what’s passed between them, but she doesn’t want to miss it when he comes back, doesn’t want to miss a moment. She runs a hand over her throat where he kissed her, and closes her eyes. Oh, God, Hossein. Why did it have to happen now?
Beyond the door, she hears footsteps approach. Someone tries the bathroom door, and she tenses. She’s seeing a lurker round every corner, now. Knows she won’t feel safe in London again. The footsteps turn and go away, and a door closes. Just Gerard Bright, wanting a leak. Not everyone who tries a door handle wants to do you harm. She heaves herself from the water and wraps herself in Nikki’s old pink towel.
Back in her room, she pulls the rumpled bed back together, puts on eggs to hard boil. She doesn’t have much food – just the eggs and some bread and cheese, a few ripe plums. For the first time, she digs through the sorry collection of previous tenants’ leavings and tries to put together some poor show of hospitality. She has three plates, a couple of bowls, not much else. But she lays her wares out in what she can find and, after thinking for a moment, lays out the bedspread on the floor and puts them there, like a picnic.
He knocks, respectfully, on the door, and she rushes to let him in. He’s clean and shaved, his black hair slicked back and smelling of shampoo, his breath of toothpaste. He smiles at her, and she feels a strange liquid sensation in her guts. Suddenly, she feels shy in front of this man who’s touched every inch of her, who’s been so far inside her she thought they would actually combine. She lets him in and crosses the room in front of him, looking at the floor. Then he comes to her and puts his arms round her, kisses her face, her eyelids, her mouth, and she feels safe, like a child.
‘I brought some things,’ he says. ‘It’s not much, but…’
He hands her a cotton shopping bag with some strange script across the front. Farsi, she assumes, though it could be Arabic for all she knows. Inside are pistachios, halwa, a jar of what looks like home-made amba, little pots of sumac and black paprika, and a container of olives. She smiles at the gift.
‘So funny,’ she says. ‘You say it’s not much, but they’d be paying a score for this lot in Clapham. I can’t believe you’ve got amba, just, you know, in your room.’
‘You know amba?’
‘Of course. I’ve been a few places in the last few years.’
‘Where did you have it?’
‘Israel,’ she tells him.
Hossein hisses in through this teeth, then laughs. ‘I didn’t know they had amba in the Great Satan.’
She looks at him suspiciously for a moment, then sees that he is joking. ‘Well, I didn’t know your lot were so big on Iraqi condiments myself.’
‘You have a point,’ he says, and sits down cross-legged on the bedspread. She sits beside him, so she can press her upper arm against his, so she doesn’t have to look full in his face. She’s not ready for that. Not while she’s longing to feel his hand caressing her breasts.
He taps an egg on the side of a bowl, rolls it between his fingers and peels. She takes a small handful of nuts and cracks them open, one by one. They’re wonderfully fresh, sweet and salty on her tongue. I can’t let this carry on, she thinks. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I have to tell him.
‘Hossein?’
She closes her eyes for a moment and feels a wrench of sadness.
‘We can’t do this.’
He sighs and puts his egg down, uneaten. ‘I knew you were going to say that.’
‘But you understand, don’t you? You must see that…’
‘Yeah, I see. But that doesn’t mean I think you’re right.’
‘I can’t stay.’
He rubs his face like a kid, looks like he’s shut his finger in a door.
‘You should, Collette,’ he says. ‘You really should.’
‘Not after yesterday. Come on. You must be able to see that. It’s not safe. It’s just not safe.’
‘He doesn’t know where you are, Collette. We lost him. Don’t you remember?’
‘For now. But look, he’s got so close, I…’
‘Not so close. He was at the home. He must have been. We just weren’t looking. I’m sorry. I should have been a better bodyguard.’
‘It’s not you. It’s not your fault. But you don’t understand. Once they’ve got my scent, it’s only a matter of time. They found me in Paris, and Barca, and Tunis, and Prague… I’m so stupid. I should never have come back.’