There is something about this girl.
Although exactly what, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m imagining it, but there seemed to be a chemistry between us for a moment. But now, for no reason I can detect, she has become suddenly awkward and quiet. Maybe it was all that dopey talk of physical attraction.
While I had been hoping Rachel would take her time, it’s a welcome relief when she comes downstairs, towelling her hair, and dispelling the tension.
‘My God, Zo,’ she says. ‘Your hair!’
Zoe grimaces. ‘What? Is it . . . what?’
‘It looks amazing. I love it!’
‘Almost done,’ I say, ‘hold still.’
‘Honestly,’ Rachel says, handing me a fold of ten-pound notes, ‘you turn your back for ten minutes. Do I get commission?’ she asks.
‘Sure,’ I say, winking at Zoe, and I’m relieved to see her return it with a smile. ‘Fifty per cent.’
‘Deal,’ says Rachel. ‘I’m making tea. Anyone else?’
‘I’d love to,’ says Zoe, ‘but I’m flagging and I’ve still got to ride home.’
‘Henry?’
‘Riding too,’ I say.
‘Where to?’ Rachel asks. I tell her. ‘That’s near you, isn’t it, Zo?’
It’s an innocent enquiry, but Zoe seems discomfited by it. ‘Well, kind of,’ she says. ‘Not exactly.’
‘And you’re done.’ I lift the mirror so Zoe can better see her hair, watching her reaction as she inspects her reflection from various angles. Her hand goes to the white streak flowing from her temple, she pulls it through her fingers and smiles, but there’s something behind her expression that’s hard to read. ‘I’ve had better reactions,’ I tell her.
Zoe appears to come back to herself. ‘I love it,’ she says, and she turns from her reflection to me. ‘Thank you. I love it.’ And then, almost as if she doesn’t trust herself to speak, she mouths the words again: Thank you.
The sound of a boiling kettle echoes through from the kitchen. ‘You two sure you won’t join me?’ says Rachel’s disembodied voice.
I wait for Zoe, and when she answers in the negative, I do the same. I brush the hair from her shoulders and help her remove the gown.
‘Suit yourselves,’ says Rachel, walking into the room with a steaming mug of something herbal. ‘So, Henry, what are you doing in August?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Thursday the fifteenth of August.’
‘Nothing as far as I know.’
‘Good, because I’m getting married on the Saturday, and if I don’t look exactly like Meg Ryan, I’ll be holding you responsible.’
Weddings, even the mention of them makes my feet itch. The thought of being associated with one makes me feel vaguely bilious.
‘Right,’ says Zoe, bending at the waist and shaking her hair over the pile of clippings. ‘I had better be going.’
‘I’d ask you to come on the day,’ Rachel says, and I all but heave, ‘but it’s in France, so . . . no offence.’
‘None taken.’
It’s a cool spring evening, so despite it being a little out of my way, I offer to cycle Zoe home. We’re both heading south of the river, so she has little option but to accept.
I’m unsure of the proper etiquette when cycling with a lady for the first time, but the sun has set, and the traffic is easing off, so for the most part we are able to cycle two abreast. I try not to fall behind, because I don’t want Zoe to think I’m checking out her bum, although this is occasionally unavoidable, and whether it’s the cycling or not, she does look good out of the saddle. At the same time, I don’t want to forge on ahead, forcing the pace and intruding my own backside upon Zoe’s view. We cycle at a speed easy enough to allow conversation, but say little besides commenting on the occasional landmark, oddity or idiot driver. Whereas I’m inclined to hop up the curb, squeeze between cars and sneak through the lights, Zoe abides by the rules, signals correctly and stops on amber.
As we approach the river, Albert Bridge twinkles above the water as if it’s waiting for Christmas. Two months after I started working with Gus, I bought a bicycle so that I could follow up on recommendations beyond his small shop in the South West Triangle. I must have covered hundreds of miles, criss-crossing the river in the shortening nights, and there’s something magical about all of London’s bridges after sunset. But this one, like something out of a fairytale, is my favourite. My clients live on both sides of the dirty water, east and west, but whenever I can, I cross here, riding slowly and imagining the air isn’t thick with fumes. The bridge inclines deceptively, and tonight, as we crest the centre, the light thrown from its constellation of strung bulbs bounces up to meet us, reflected back from a loose mass of glass and polished metal. Parked on the opposite side of the road are maybe a dozen or two dozen motorcycles, all chrome cylinders and fat gas tanks. Without discussing it, we slow to a roll as we approach this gathering of ostentatious hogs. The riders are standing around, talking, comparing gaskets and drinking coffee from a nearby burger van that I have never seen here before.
‘Buy you a coffee?’
‘You think it’s safe?’ says Zoe, laughing.
‘We’re bikers, ain’t we?’
‘Sure,’ says Zoe, steering her bike across the road. ‘Let’s do it.’
And this is no mean measure of burnt instant in a Styrofoam cup. To our mutual amazement, this small snack van on the Albert Bridge offers five varieties of beans and three kinds of milk, covering everything from a flat white to a decaf soya mocha. We order two white Americanos and take them to the railings so we can look at the lights reflected in the water.
Zoe unclips her helmet and runs her fingers through her bob. ‘Is it ruined?’ she asks.
‘Nothing a wash won’t fix. You look . . . it looks good. Really good.’
Zoe smiles, looks away. ‘On the road again tomorrow?’ she asks.
Tomorrow I am swapping my scissors for a drill; I have appointments from 9 until 6.30 including three root canals and a tricky filling. But I’m not about to admit it; it’s too complicated. Too weird. ‘I only do the mobile stuff in the evenings.’
‘You work in a salon, too?’
I nod.
‘What are you, a workaholic or something?’
‘Hah! No, not really, but I do need to pay the rent.’
‘Tell me about it,’ says Zoe. ‘Does it have a’ – air quotes – ‘funny name? The hairdressers.’
‘The Hairy Krishna.’
‘That’s just weird. Is it a Buddhist thing?’
‘It’s a Gus thing. He’s the owner.’
And all of a sudden I experience a nudging impulse to tell Zoe about my mother’s salon, the mix up with the name, the way she taught me to cut a graduated bob. It might endear me to her; it might even make her laugh. Her mouth has a natural pout, and there is something both cartoonish and seductive about the way she smiles while she’s waiting for an answer. Full in the middle, her lips taper towards the corners, where they curve gently upwards, giving her an air of wry amusement. But there’s something else; something held back, and it’s magnetic and . . . something more, sad perhaps. But if I tell Zoe about Love & Die, what then? What if she laughs and asks where I’m from, what if she asks what it’s like and why did I leave? How do I answer that line of enquiry? If I liked her less, perhaps I’d risk it.
‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘What do you do?’
Zoe shrugs. ‘Kids’ books.’
‘You write them?’
‘No, no, publishing. I’m an editor. But . . . I did have an idea for one once.’
‘Tell?’
Zoe appears to think about this for a moment, leaning over the railings and staring through the black water. A light breeze ruffles her hair and she shivers back to herself. Zoe takes off her backpack and removes the camera. ‘One for the album?’
‘I thought there was no film,’ I say.
Zoe shrugs, grimaces apologetically. ‘Well, it’s only black and white,’ she says, aiming the lens at me.
‘Make sure to get my good side,’ I say, and I cringe a little at the obviousness of it.
‘Which one would that be?’
‘Anything that hides my nose.’
‘In which case,’ says Zoe from behind her camera, ‘I guess you’re all out of luck. Anyway . . . gives you character.’
‘Fine. How do you want me?’ I ask, hoping she’ll miss the inadvertent double entendre.
‘Just try and look cool,’ she says, laughing. ‘Just drink your coffee and look at the river.’
I do as I’m told and listen to the solid click of Zoe’s camera as she moves around me, finding her angle.
‘What happened to your eye?’ she asks.
‘A plumber hit me.’
‘Seriously?’
‘He does it every week,’ I say, still staring out over the Thames. ‘Boxing.’
‘Tough guy, huh?’ Zoe says, trying out what is probably meant to be a New York accent.
‘Yeah, that’s me.’
‘Show me your tough guy face,’ she says, closing in with the camera.
And when I laugh, I hear the shutter click.
Zoe packs away her camera, fastens her helmet and climbs onto her bike. I follow her over the hump of the bridge, and then she surprises me by popping up the pavement and veering left into Battersea Park.
‘I thought you were straight on.’
‘Detour,’ she says, following the path east along the line of the river.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Japan.’
‘Isn’t that a little out of our way?’
‘Yes,’ says Zoe, smiling at me over her shoulder. ‘But only a little.’
I am both literally and figuratively lost, but I have nowhere better to be, so I pedal on to wherever Zoe is leading me. After no more than a minute, the silhouette of a structure – angular, layered and almost as tall as the trees – comes into view.
‘It’s a peace pagoda,’ Zoe says, circling clockwise around its perimeter. ‘Sometimes in the morning, if you’re early enough, there’s a monk.’
About twenty pedal pushes in circumference, the pagoda is accessible by about a dozen steps on each of three sides. At the centre is a broad white column, inset with four gilded panels or statues, each as big as a man and glowing warmly in the lamplight.
‘What does he do? This monk.’
‘Walks, bangs a drum. Monk stuff, you know. I cycle past here if I’m going in early, but I’ve only seen him once.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘I thought you might appreciate it. What with you working at a Buddhist hairdressers, and everything.’ She smiles at me teasingly.
‘I do.’
On our third revolution, Zoe peels away, heading back towards the traffic and the bustle of late night London. I make one more circuit of the peace pagoda then follow after her.
I’ve had more dates in the last four months than in my whole life leading up to them. Some have ended in bed, one in tears, and one or two have resulted in brief follow-ups. Confident, ambitious, funny, attractive women for the most part, but no one I’d walk out on a wedding for. And on more than a dozen of these dates, I’ve gone home wondering if I didn’t suffer some kind of synaptic malfunction seven months ago in that cold castle. But these last two hours with this funny, reticent, awkward editor – I’ve enjoyed them more than all those dates and drunken fucks placed end to end. Maybe because this isn’t actually a date; no contrivances and no expectations.
After ten minutes of slow riding, Zoe coasts to a stop. ‘This is me,’ she says, pointing her handlebars in the direction of a long side street disappearing into a pinpoint of converging street lamps.
‘Right,’ I say, stopping beside her. ‘You want me to . . . will you be alright?’
‘Thank you. And thank you again for the . . .’ She flicks her eyes up towards her helmet.
‘You’re welcome. Look after it for me.’
‘Okay,’ says Zoe.
‘Plans for the weekend?’ I ask, a little abruptly.
Zoe takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. ‘Not much; working.’
‘The books?’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘Pub. The Duck and Cover,’ she says, swivelling her handlebars so her lights point down the quiet high street. ‘Got to pay the rent,’ she says, playing my own words back to me.
‘It won’t pay itself,’ I say inanely, buying time and trying to draw this moment out.
Zoe laughs politely. ‘You? Plans, I mean.’
‘I er . . . well, I’m supposed to have a date on Saturday.’
Zoe nods at this. ‘Supposed?’
‘Well, I could . . . cancel?’
Zoe winces. She actually winces, her teeth coming together, eyes tightening, head withdrawing away from me by maybe an inch.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I just . . .’ but there’s no easy way of ending that sentence, so I opt instead for closing my eyes and trying to make myself vanish. When I open them again, Zoe is still there, but at least she is smiling now.
‘No,’ she says, ‘it’s fine, I . . .’ She nods her head from side to side, as if rehearsing a line inside her skull. ‘I’m going travelling.’
‘What, this weekend? I thought you were working.’
Zoe laughs. ‘September.’
‘Like a holiday travelling, or travelling travelling?’
‘The last one.’ She smiles apologetically at this. ‘So . . . you know.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘Where to?’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘I really need to decide.’
‘You going there for long? Sorry . . . I sound like I’m interrogating you.’
Zoe laughs. ‘It’s fine. Maybe a year? More, less, I . . . I dunno.’
‘Okay . . . well, I guess I’d better . . . cut and run.’
‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’
My intentions are modest as I lean in to kiss Zoe, aiming for nothing more than a peck on the cheek. Perched on our bicycles, it’s a slow, cautious approach requiring a good deal of balance and concentration. I put my hand against the side of Zoe’s face, and the additional contact seems to ground and stabilize us; she leans into me, increasing the pressure of her cheek against my lips. As my hand slides to the nape of her neck Zoe turns her head towards me and my lips glide across her cheek, bringing our mouths together.
Two seconds, maybe ten . . . and Zoe – slowly – withdraws.
‘I should go. I have to . . . go.’
I’m inclined to ask Zoe if she’s sure, but the look in her eyes has already answered. ‘See you around . . .’ I say, trying to pitch it somewhere just west of a question.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Enjoy your date.’