I closed the door and for a moment stood leaning against it. Damn it. What the hell was the matter with me? Why was I so affected by her? I walked over to my desk drawer and, taking my bottle out, poured myself a large drink. I brought it to my lips. The liquid hit my roiling stomach like petrol taking fire.
Fuck! I needed that.
5
Beryl knocked on the door and opened it. Her eyes were shining brightly. Obviously she was hoping I’d throw her some little gossipy tit-bit.
‘Forget it,’ I told her before she could even come in.
‘She is beautiful, though, isn’t she?’ she said, coming in and perching on one corner of my desk.
I sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you have any success at all?’ she tried again.
‘Beryl,’ I said warningly.
She clasped her hands to her chest. ‘It’s me. Beryl. I’m not about to run off and sell the story to one of the tabloids.’
‘No,’ I said firmly.
‘You don’t have to say anything. Just nod or shake your head.’
I looked at her blankly.
‘All right. Be like that then,’ she said sulkily and flounced out of the room. She popped her head around the door again wearing her apologetic face. ‘Oops, it appears in all the excitement I forgot to mention that your cleaning lady called. She couldn’t make it today. An emergency of some kind. She has to go up and see her sister in Brighton. She’ll be around tomorrow.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
‘Well, I’m off then. See you tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, see you tomorrow.’
I heard the front door shut and the place took on the waiting silence of abandoned houses. I poured myself three fingers of whiskey, and took a large swallow. Soon everything would become mellow. I leaned back in my chair and swiveled it around to face the window. People were hunched into their coats and hurrying home. Sitting here alone, I had watched this scene so many times. Until the streets emptied¸ and then I would pack up and go out for a solitary meal. Usually the Italian around the corner. They knew me there. Il Americano—the American—they called me.
I always had the same. Penne arrabiata to start and then Franco would bring out the day’s special, whatever it was, fish, rabbit, pig’s trotters, sweetbreads.
After a few meals Franco had said, ‘Always you eat alone. Big, beautiful man like you. Why?’
‘Nobody wants me,’ I joked.
He had jerked his head back with exaggerated violence as if recoiling from a striking snake. ‘Nooooo,’ he cried. It was the longest, most horrified no I’d ever heard. ‘Big, beautiful man like you. Not possibile.’ He pulled a chair out and sat beside me and with a conspiratorial nod said, ‘I have beautiful girl for you.’
‘Just the penne arrabiata tonight, I think.’
He moved away toward the kitchen with a wounded air. It was a few weeks before he forgave me and I became il Americano again. But I like Italians. Everything is so dramatic. They behave as if they are in an open air opera. Everything can be solved with a passionate declaration of love.
On the days I did not go to Franco’s I would go to the gym and work out for two hours then end up somewhere more glamorous.
But one thing never changed. I always dined alone. I always went home alone.
Tonight my dick felt heavy and turgid. I was not in the mood for food. I phoned Jenny. That’s not her real name by the way. Her birth name was unpronounceable.
‘Marlow,’ she answered immediately, her voice husky and full of promise. It never failed to strike me, every time I heard it at the end of a phone, how deceiving it was. In truth she was a simple, uncomplicated girl to whom life had been horribly cruel.
‘Can I come around?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can you come in…say, one hour?’