‘I can’t believe it,’ said Richard. He clutched his hair. ‘I thought things were going better?’
Leela tried to be attentive. She sat in the chair and watched him pace around. Earlier, she thought, I would have cared that he was upset. I would have worried about whether he loved me.
What was the relationship between these two states, each of which could be filed under her name as behaviour that belonged to her?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think things just went on like that for too long. It’s not anyone’s fault or anything.’
She began to wonder how long this would have to continue. It was darkening outside; Saturday afternoon, miserable buses threaded their way north from the West End.
He came to sit near her; he began to pull a more assertive manner about him. ‘You’ll have to give me time,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to be easy, getting over this.’ He was planning, organising, not regretting. ‘What about if I said we could think about living together after a year or two? And decide then?’
She looked at him, slightly incredulous. ‘There’s no point,’ she said. ‘Aren’t we both sick of this?’
A few days later, a moment when he stood in front of his wardrobe, taking off his shirt. ‘You’re going to do it again,’ he said.
‘Do what?’
‘Find someone else who’s in awe of you and then dump them.’
‘Who’s in awe of me?’
‘Everyone. All your friends look up to you,’ he said.
She sat on the bed staring at him. He’d asked her to stay the night. She’d agreed to spend time with him as he wanted, during the process of their separation, though the promise gave her a tug of dread. Still, it would have been too unkind, wouldn’t it, not to do what another, especially someone so close, wanted in this situation?
They lay in the darkness, and she began to fall asleep, still aware of her silence and rigidity.
In the middle of the night, he said, ‘Is there someone else?’
‘What?’
‘Is there someone else?’
She was lulled by the hours of dispassionate, almost comradely conversation. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Oh. Because I told my dad, and that’s what he asked.’
She considered. ‘Nothing happened, but I realised that I was attracted to Roger, that time I went out with him, and that made me feel things were over with us.’
He, ordinarily so languid, moved in a whirlwind of duvet and anger, and was standing. ‘I knew it. You complete whore!’
‘What?’ But he wasn’t pretending to be angry. He picked up the bedside lamp and threw it against the cupboard. ‘Just fuck off. Bitch!’
‘But I didn’t do anything. Why did you ask if you didn’t want to know?’
‘Get out!’
She was already near the door, her bag and clothes in her hands, dressing. She quickly put on her underwear and a sweater, picked up her bag, skirt and shoes, and ran out of the door. On the landing, in the clean, lit corridor of the mansion flats, with its blush carpet and waxed woodwork, she stopped to put on her skirt and shoes, wondering if a businessman with a small suitcase or an elderly woman would pass on the stairs, and look reprovingly at her.
In the street she stood irresolute. It was dark and cold; her phone said 03:20. She called a cab firm: it would take half an hour. ‘I’m on my own,’ she told the man in the office, ‘please send it as soon as you can.’ She felt pity for herself, as an abstract proposition, a woman alone in the middle of the night in a deserted part of the city. She saw a black cab and ran to wave it down. The driver stopped; Leela opened the door, and gave her address.
When she was in her room, shivering back to warmth, she sent an email to her parents, telling them briefly what had happened, and a longer one to her sister. She’d call Neeti the next day. She changed the password for her email account, unplugged the telephone, and turned off her mobile. She woke at midday to knocking on the door. Dee Dee ushered in Richard. He looked haggard.
‘Where have you been?’ he said. ‘I haven’t slept.’
Leela looked at him and her landlady, who disappeared down the corridor rather slowly, still smoking.
She closed the door of her room behind Richard. He had not showered, she thought; or he smelled of himself more strongly than usual. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and his woollen jacket.
‘I was worried, I tried to call you,’ he said.
‘Isn’t that a bit post-fact? You threw me out in the middle of the night.’
He looked briefly embarrassed. ‘I was very angry,’ he said.
‘Why are you here?’
‘Look, you can leave your things in my place for as long as you need to,’ he said. He seemed to have made a list of things to say. He half sat, half leaned against the edge of her MDF pine-finish desk. ‘I know it won’t be easy for you to move them, it’s not even that big,’ he peered around, ‘in here.’ He stopped. ‘Are you going tell people what you’ve done?’
‘How do you mean?’ She sat on the bed cross-legged.
‘With Roger.’
‘I didn’t do anything with Roger. I didn’t even hold his hand. I made it clear we were together.’
‘But you will now, won’t you?’
The usual instinct to please was quiet. ‘That’s my business.’
‘Don’t, Leela,’ he said suddenly. ‘Don’t for a while. Three months, six months. Don’t go out with him.’
‘You can’t keep telling me what to do. I said I wanted to break up two weeks ago.’ The muscles in her legs grew tense with the absurdity of it.
He seemed to relax. ‘I’m meeting Johnny for lunch,’ he said for no reason. ‘Sushi. It should be nice.’ They had discussed, the previous night, before the conflagration, how he might move forward, see his friends, and rebuild a sense of his life independently from her.
‘Are you.’ But why was he telling her this now?
He nodded. Abruptly, he said, ‘It hurts, you know. It really hurts.’
‘You threw me out at three in the morning, and the only reason I was there was because you asked me to be.’
He got up. ‘I thought I’d buy a new mattress,’ he said. ‘Make a new start.’
‘Okay.’ She sat, uncomfortable in her pyjamas; he felt like a stranger.
‘I found a place … Mattresses turn out to be pretty fucking expensive.’
She nodded.
‘Do you want to come for a coffee with me? For an hour? I’ve got to kill some time before lunch. Johnny can’t make it till two.’
Leela blinked. She said quietly, ‘No. No I don’t.’ Ought it to have made her triumphant, or angry, this ridiculous situation? I have longed for this indifference, she thought, and not found it, and now I have it but without enjoyment or sadness either.
‘Okay.’
She stood, and reluctantly he began to move towards the door of her room. She opened it, and walked to the front door. An intrigued Dee Dee looked out from the kitchen.
Leela opened the door.
‘Well, bye,’ Richard said. ‘It feels strange not to call you sweetie, or dear,’ he added.
Leela pushed the door a little wider, and he went through it.
He paused just outside. ‘Are you sure about coffee?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
She shut the door on his retreating back, and walked past Dee Dee.