11

The trouble is, the day after, the haze arrives like a night mist. You’re sitting in the National Theatre with Isaac, amongst cold bricks and concrete, warm, fever unbroken. You’re having difficulty concentrating. You long for her touch. The night before, you held each other in the same way.

‘Do you have to leave?’

‘I should. I have to return all this equipment kinda early.’

‘How early?’

‘He wants it by seven.’

‘Shit, that is early.’ She nestled closer, if that were possible. ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’

‘Definitely,’ you said.

The trouble is, and let’s explain this trouble, yes: you are tumbling in the heat of a fever dream, and you surface only to plunge once more. Donatien Grau’s words: When the mind is lost in ecstasy, there is no condition for ­self-­reflection, ­self-­questioning. You’re not asking yourself questions. You’re not asking yourself about the conditions under which you and she met. You’re not thinking of the night in the pub when you urged Samuel to introduce the pair of you. You’re not thinking of the night you all found yourselves in her flat, your own attraction bright like a small flame. You’re not thinking of the fact that that friend no longer considers you so, will not return your calls or text messages. You’re not thinking of what it looks like. You’re not thinking. You’re feeling. You are in a memory of something yet to happen. You want to sigh with hunger sated. You want to hold her in the hot darkness. You ­want –

‘You hear me? Wanna go to a show tonight?’ Isaac asks.

‘I’m meant to be seeing my friend,’ you say.

‘Your friend, huh?’

‘My friend,’ you insist, though who are you trying to convince? Isaac or yourself ?

‘Let’s get drinks before, then. What time you seeing her?’

‘How’d you know it’s a woman?’

‘This isn’t my first rodeo.’

‘What you mean?’

‘You look like you got hit by a bus, and you dusted yourself off, and did it again for the hell of it. You look like you’re wondering when the next time you can get hit by that bus is.’

‘What a strange analogy.’

‘Am I lying?’

No, he is not. You are back again, in a memory of something yet to happen. You want to sigh with hunger sated. You want to hold her in the hot darkness. You want your bodies to say what cannot be otherwise said.

Later that evening, she asks you to join her drinking in Bethnal Green. You don’t think, announcing to your friends that you are leaving. Isaac looks on with a knowing glint in his eye, and says nothing.

‘But you just bought a ticket to the show,’ another friend says.

‘Can I have it?’ his companion says, having joined your group in the past few minutes.

‘Done. Problem solved.’

You leave your friends, setting off at pace, through Soho towards Piccadilly Circus. Brown line to Oxford Circus, red line to Bethnal Green. You’re drawing a line towards her. No, the line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re trying to reinforce, to strengthen.

Your phone lets out a loud ping as you emerge from the Underground station.

Where are you?

Be there soon.

‘I’m drunk,’ she says when you slide alongside her at the restaurant. The sheen on her eyes is a giveaway, silver like mirrored glass. She takes your hand in hers, and rests it in your lap. In this way, she is drawing a line towards you; she has done so since this fever dream started. Or no, you drew the line towards her when you asked for an introduction. She drew the line back when she asked you to get an Uber to her house. The line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re both trying to strengthen it.

It’s happy hour at the bar, and she introduces you to her friends, Nicole and Jacob. An assortment of cocktail glasses clink and clunk and bump against one another, the tinkle of laughter a chaser. You’re settling in, curling into each other, her head lolled on your shoulder, when Jacob points at you, then at her.

‘So you two are a thing, right?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You two are . . .’ He winks, obtusely.

If only he knew. This crude white man who has spent most of the time you have been at the table explaining his ­self-­importance – he’s in advertising, he tells ­you – is he to be your witness? Were you to lean over and explain that you and she were not a thing in the way that he thought, but in a way in which neither of you could comprehend? To tell him that the seed you pushed deep into the ground has blossomed in the wrong season, the flourish of the flower a surprise for you and her both?

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘What’s obvious?’ she says.

‘You two are fucking.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘You are.’

‘We are not.’

‘We’re all friends here,’ he gestures to the table. ‘Two ­good-­looking people, I don’t see what’s to hide.’

Perhaps this is not the witness but the man sent for you to confront yourselves.

‘We’re not having sex,’ you say.

‘Hmm,’ the man says, taking a sip from his beer. ‘Well, you’d make a good couple.’ He smiles to himself. Her grip tightens around your hand. You hadn’t noticed that you had been facing this man together until that moment.

‘Wait, how did you two meet?’ Jacob asks.

‘A friend introduced us.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Nicole asks, unhelpfully.

‘Your boyfriend introduced you two?’ Jacob is in danger of making his way to your side of the table.

‘We’re not together any more.’

‘Oh dear,’ he says, taking real pleasure.

In the fresh night air, walking hand in hand, she pulls you short. She takes a moment to steady herself, her eyes silver like mirrored glass, the reflection of yourself warped and warbled. You’re standing here, on Brick Lane, on a Monday evening. She arrived on Saturday night, and you didn’t think when you drew a line towards her. Did not think about continuing to return each day. Did not think as you reach a hand to her face and she nudges against your palm, a brief pleasure crossing her features. She stops and takes both your hands in hers.

‘You have to promise nothing will change,’ she says.

‘I can’t promise that.’

‘You have to. I love you too much for this to change. You’re like my best friend,’ she slurs. ‘You’re so much more.’

‘OK, OK,’ you say, trying to steady yourself. ‘I promise.’

Dim darkness of her room, blind pulled, curtains drawn. A bottle of water atop her chest of drawers to ward off a hangover. Rarely enough, but no harm in trying. Anyway, she announces that she has to change into her pyjamas, and you turn away from her, because right now, the thing you crave to be lost in is not her flesh. She taps your shoulder and slips a hand onto your waist to turn you back to face her. She stands on your feet and lays her head against your chest, listening to your heart thud like a bassline.

‘Slow. It’s really slow. It must be peaceful in there.’

She climbs into the bed and leaves the duvet open like a door. Like the night before and the time before that, she waits and watches as you strip off any inhibitions at this midnight hour. You go to clamber in beside her and she shakes her head.

‘Light. Please.’

Before you flick off the lamp, your eyes meet in the silence. The gaze requires no words at all. It is an honest meeting.

‘Goodnight,’ she says.

‘Goodnight.’ And for a moment, you surface from the fever dream, only to plunge once more.

Tonight is different, but the same. She slides a leg in between yours and pulls herself close and her deep breaths soften and round. You feel your body begin to slacken and sink towards sleep when she slips her leg out, turns away from you. You lie on your back facing the unmoving blackness of her ceiling when you feel her hand tapping against you.

‘You OK?’

‘Arm,’ she says.

‘Huh.’

‘Arm.’

The arm which isn’t trapped between her body and yours stretches towards her, and she pulls it across her body like a blanket, curling in tight. With her foot, she traces lines across your own, finally settling her lower limb between your calves. She slides down her bed a little, so she can tuck herself in the space between your chest and your chin, the mane of soft curls ticklish against your neck. You fit together, like this is an everyday. The hand holding your arm reaches for your own, spreading your digits between hers. Locking in. Tonight is different, but the same. Under what conditions does the uncontainable stay contained? Things unsaid don’t often remain so. They take shape and form in ways one doesn’t expect, manifesting in touches, glances, gazes, sighs. All you have wanted to do was hold each other in the darkness. Now, you have opened the box and left it unguarded in the night. You have both placed faith in the other that you will wake up intact. You have acted on a feeling. You are in a memory of the present. You are tumbling through a fever dream, surfacing only to plunge once more.