AS SOON AS Abe had left the room and was out of earshot, Kirsty picked up her phone. She found the number of the previous dialler and called back. The woman who replied was hesitant. She said she was Vivienne Epworth. She confirmed that she had rung a few minutes ago. Kirsty placed one bare foot on top of the other. ‘I think you need my brother, Abe Rivers,’ she said. ‘He’s not here now. I’ll tell you where he’ll be tomorrow, though.’ She gave her Abe’s mobile number and the name and address of Karumi, the sports injury treatment centre in Shoreditch.
After the call, Luka came in from the garden. He showed no curiosity about whom Kirsty had been speaking to, though her voice had been audible through the open door. She switched off the phone. Luka went across to the small canvas rucksack that he carried around with him. It was hanging over a chair. ‘I’ve bought you a horse. Do you want to see it?’ he said. So far he hadn’t paid for anything, apart from six cans of ginger beer and a packet of economy bacon. Luka put his hand in the rucksack and took out a tiny black-and-white object tufted with yellow hair. He was turning a key on the toy’s underside and placing it on the table. The mechanical horse stuttered a few centimetres and stopped. Its mane covered its face and its tail stuck out like a brush. ‘It was working before,’ Luka said.
‘Let’s go and sit upstairs. I’m fed up with being down here,’ Kirsty said. She was still furious with Abe. The woman’s polite tone and her own abrasive one echoed in her head.
‘Don’t we eat?’ Luka said. ‘No food?’
‘No food. I’ll bring the wine. You carry the glasses.’ Kirsty moved to the table and picked up the bottle, which had now lost its chill. She took her time opening it, turning the corkscrew slowly.
Kirsty went upstairs to the living room, carrying the bottle. She stood it on the mantelpiece and glanced at herself in the mirror above that hung from a huge iron nail. She remembered how she and Marlene used to sunbathe, splayed out on the sports field, their skirts hitched up and their school ties, worn like Alice bands, holding their hair back from their glowing faces. By the end of the summer term her hair and skin were only a subtle shade apart. Now she looked pale and her eyebrows were witchily fierce. She filled the two glasses and handed one to Luka. He was sitting on the floor nursing the toy horse.
‘Is it a palomino?’ Kirsty said, making an effort.
‘They have blond hair, yes. But their bodies are not black and white,’ Luka said.
‘What is black and white?’
‘Friesian. Or is that cows? I will find out on the Internet.’ Luka crouched down, turned the key in the horse. ‘I got it in the market,’ he said, looking up at her. Kirsty suspected the ‘under a pound’ shop. Luka had said market because he knew she liked markets. ‘It will work,’ he said. He put the horse on the rug, then on a bare piece of floor. It still didn’t move.
Kirsty finished her glass of wine and poured herself another. ‘Is it dead?’ she asked. ‘Or asleep? I know how it feels.’ She knelt down beside Luka. The floorboards were warm from the afternoon sun. It was late now and growing dark but the boards retained the heat. Kirsty was tired and had drunk too fast on an empty stomach. She leant forward and rested her forehead on her folded arms, making a neat, prayerful shape. After a few minutes she drifted into a hazy state, half asleep, half awake.
An articulated lorry clattered to a stop outside the house. Kirsty surfaced and wondered how long she had been dozing. She felt relaxed but no longer dead. She was aware of Luka nearby, the flimsiness of her short skirt, her bare legs tucked underneath her and the good feeling of the skin of her thighs on the back of her calves. In her sleepy state the warmth of her flesh and the proximity of Luka merged into the same sensation – a kind of tactile humming. Keeping her eyes closed, she moved a fraction nearer. Why complicate life? and Why not? she thought. She repeated both questions in her mind until they made no sense. She shifted herself so that her legs were touching the edge of Luka’s jeans. She could feel the stitching. He still wants me, she thought. She opened her eyes and looked sideways at Luka. He was turned away from her, she couldn’t see his face. She raised herself on an elbow and touched his bare back with the tips of her fingers.
‘Sodding horse!’ he said, banging it down on to the floor.
Kirsty sat straight up, as if she had been burnt.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she answered.
‘Why is it broken?’
‘You must have overwound it,’ she said dismissively, sitting on the hand that had reached for him.
‘That’s terrible,’ Luka said. ‘Not even crap goods. My own fault.’ He held out the horse to Kirsty. ‘You try.’
Kirsty snatched it from him. The key wouldn’t budge going clockwise. She tried anticlockwise but there was no bite to it. The winding stem got looser and looser and dropped out.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Kaput.’
They sat crossed-legged and looked at each other. Kirsty had nothing to say.
‘What did Abe do?’ Luka asked.
‘What did Abe do when?’
‘To make you so angry.’
Kirsty shrugged her shoulders. ‘He gave my number to someone – instead of his own. I assume that’s what happened anyway. He’s done it before.’
‘Why does he do this?’
‘He doesn’t like to be harassed.’
‘So you are harassed. Great.’
‘That’s the general idea. Once he gave my number to the economics teacher at school who fancied him. Mr Owen.’
‘You shouldn’t allow him, Kirsty. It’s wrong.’
‘That’s Abe. He’s always been like that.’ Kirsty did her best to sound nonchalant.
Luka stretched his hand along the floor towards her feet without making contact. ‘Sorry for the horse,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry about it. Why be sorry?’
‘It was a present for you because I know that I’m a nuisance,’ he said, slowly and correctly.
Kirsty took a deep breath. ‘I like anything with hair. I’ll take it anyway,’ she said. She got up from the floor, tweaking the yellow mane between her fingers. She went over to the bookshelves and squashed the horse in between Neil’s tatty collection of thrillers. Her own newer and still unfaded books were on the shelf below. Luka was watching her. The horse wasn’t well displayed, so Kirsty spent a few minutes rearranging the paperbacks to give the creature more space. She heard a voice in her head, saying, ‘You, Kirsty Rivers, would be good with children.’ She struck a tableau vivant pose, spreading her arms wide, introducing the arrangement. She glanced at Luka. He was looking serious. What else was she supposed to do with the bloody horse? She remembered this about Luka, that when she was trying her hardest to keep him happy over some minor thing he seemed cosmically disappointed, as if the thing, whatever it was, had eternal significance that was beyond her grasp. She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Do you still like my hair?’ Luka asked.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ Kirsty said briskly.
Luka smiled.