Page 5

Outside the pub, she stopped. “God, why is it so cold? Which way are you going?”

“I live on Wilton Way—up past the park. What about you? Was that your flat next to the Cat and Mutton?”

“Don’t tell any murderers, but yes.” They started walking in the same direction. “It’s been awful, actually,” she found herself saying. “I thought British pubs had to close by eleven. But the noise kept me up until one last night. I can’t wait to get home to bed.”

She knew if they found themselves alone somewhere private, it would be game over.

She didn’t have any The Rules– ish worries about not seeing him again if they had sex.

It was more that she wanted the chatting and laughing to go on forever.

Equally, she craved being alone, to take out her memories of their long afternoon and evening together to pore over—she could spend days going over these hours.

Weeks. She didn’t say any of this out loud, but she saw him take it in, make sense of it, and agree.

They walked, their shoulders touching. As they got closer, Adam groaned. There was an A-frame chalkboard on the pavement in front of her flat.

GOOD FRIDAY?

GREAT FRIDAY!

TUNES TILL LATE

They turned to face each other. She could see their breath hanging in the cold air. “Why don’t you sleep at mine?”

She inspected him carefully. “But where will you sleep?”

“Um? At yours? I don’t care about noise.”

“I don’t even know your surname.”

“It’s Whiteman. Not Adam John Whiteman, who killed his grandmother. I’m Adam Alexander Whiteman. That’s for when you google me. Do you need anything before I drop you at my house? Toothbrush?”

“Drop me at your house?”

“Oh, is that bad? Are you worried it’s a ruse? I lure you in, and then—”

“You Adam John Whiteman me.”

“Ha! This is like the riddle. The fox, the chicken, and the sack of grain. They all need to be on the other side of the river. There’s a single raft.

” He closed his eyes. His face really was so beautiful.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “You go up into your flat, get whatever you need, and prop the door open so I can get back up. You keep your keys. I’ll give you my keys—my only keys.

You go to my place…have a bath and a lovely sleep… .”

“A bath,” she said, almost lustfully.

“A bath. And guess what—I have a guest bed. It’s not made up, but there are sheets in the cupboard outside the bathroom. Which has, as I say, a bath.”

“And in the morning, if you survive, we can meet at Climpsons.” She nodded across the street. “And swap back.”

“Perfect. I need one more thing: Tell me your number. Actually.” He pulled his phone from his coat pocket. “Call your phone from my phone.” The lock screen was a selfie of him and his daughter, squinting, wreathed in sun. “I’m just going to Sultan to buy a toothbrush,” Adam said. “Okay?

“Okay!”

“See you soon!”

“See you soon.”

···

Upstairs, she gathered what she needed. She looked around the flat with her eyes and then with his.

The landlord had removed every period feature in her Victorian flat.

Even the fire-surround had been taken off and the fireplace blocked up.

It would be more relaxed, more cool, if it was all a bit less spotless.

But it would be artificial to stage the scene.

The papers had to go, her notebooks, the drafts of her manuscript she’d printed off at work.

She bundled them up, lifted the seat cushion of the sofa, and shoved them out of sight.

On the way out, she propped the door open with Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Long View .

Abruptly, she turned, pushed back through the door, and rushed to the front window.

Outside, a black cab drew to a stop. More revelers were disgorged.

No sign of Adam. Who was he, anyway? One thing to talk about the fox, the chicken, and the sack of grain.

What if it was the scorpion and the frog?

The scorpion begs the frog to take him across the river.

“Why would I sting you? Then we’d both drown.

” The frog believes him, the scorpion climbs on.

Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog.

“Why?” the frog sobs. “I’m a scorpion,” the scorpion says.

People hurt other people. Bad things happen, and for no real reason.

The music from the pub was so loud now it made the chimney breast vibrate. Specks of plaster came away and floated onto the books she’d stacked below. She closed her eyes, alone and in hell.

When she looked out the window again, he was there.

···

Halfway across the park, she pulled out her new phone with the intention of searching “Adam Whiteman journalist.” The screen was lit up with an incoming call.

“Is it too loud?” she asked. “Do you want me to come back?”

“God, no. I can’t even hear it.”

“I can hear it through the phone!”

“I have a few questions,” he said. “If you don’t mind?”

“Go ahead.”

“Can I eat two of these eggs and…” She heard the crumple of paper and two loud taps. “This very appetizing brick-hard nub of sourdough?”

“Of course!”

“More questions.” In her flat, the kitchen was at one end of the modest main room.

She could sense him turn around and face the blocked-up fireplace at the other end.

To his left were the two narrow windows overlooking Broadway Market, beneath them the sofa that hid her (also modest) life’s work.

To his right was the table with two chairs and the door through to the narrow hall and small bathroom and bedroom.

She’d never sat at that table with someone else in her entire seven months in London.

“The books,” he said. “Ever heard of shelves?”

“No,” she said wonderingly. “I’d love you to explain what they are.”

She was smiling and she could tell he was too.

“Are the piles organized in some way?”

“Sort of—can you work it out?”

“Let me put the water on for these eggs. Then I’ll crack the code. Where are you now? Is your hand cold from holding the phone?”

She was right next to London Fields Lido, an outdoor swimming pool that claimed to be “heated.” (It was not, or not warm enough for an Australian.)

“I’m at the Lido—I’m about to walk out past the school. Is that right? I can’t look at Maps while I’m talking to you.”

“Go on till you get to Greenwood Road shop and the Spurstowe. Turn left and go past Violet, the cake shop. If you get to the next pub, you’ve gone too far.”

“Why did you come to the Dove? If you live so close to two pubs?”

“Actually, three pubs.” She heard the clatter of the saucepan on the hob. “Okay, let’s see. We’ve got Woolf, Virginia. Jean Rhys. Elizabeths—Bowen and Taylor. Barbara Pym. Iris Murdoch. A. S. Byatt. Did you read what A. S. Byatt’s children call her? It was in The Guardian .”

“Mum? Mummy? Antonia?”

“They call her A. S. Byatt. Those green-spine books by women. Mitfords. Who’s Helen Garner?”

Coralie gave a strangled cry.

“We’re getting more modern here,” Adam said.

“Ali Smith, Monica Ali—I interviewed her on the podcast! Zadie Smith—my friend snogged her at uni. Allegedly! A bunch of Americans in a clump together. Wow, it’s all women, isn’t it?

No, wait a minute. The Line of Beauty . A Single Man . Maurice . Is this a gay pile?”

“It’s a gay pile!”

“I see! Girls and gays.”

“That’s it! No straight men.”

“Did you bring all of these from Australia? Didn’t it cost a fortune?”

“Well.” She sighed. “It’s a long story. I’m outside the shop. Is there anything to eat at yours?”

“Spaghetti, onions, garlic, tinned tomatoes, cheese.”

“Perfect.” She kept walking.

After a while he said, “Aren’t you going to tell me the long story?”

“About the books? Well, it’s not really that long or interesting. It’s just a bit sad.”

“Go on.”

“I went to boarding school in Canberra, as discussed. Every year, there was a famous book fair put on by a charity called Lifeline, whose number you call if you’re depressed.

Amazing books. Canberra must have been filled with feminists clearing out their shelves, or maybe their kids doing it when old feminists died—how sad!

I didn’t think of that before. First-edition hardback Anita Brookners…

I got a whole set of the Claudine books, by Colette, amazing pastel covers.

I went to uni in Canberra, too, and I kept going to the fair.

The books came with me from college to my share house.

Then my boyfriend at the time got a job in Melbourne.

I’ve always loved Melbourne; I moved with him.

The books came with us to our flat. Then, when we broke up—when I was twenty-six—I had no idea what to do.

I felt so lost and crazy—it was like I didn’t want the books to see me like that.

I packed them all up and had them freighted to Darwin, where my mum lived, still lives.

She put them in her spare room, which she hardly ever used.

I moved to Sydney and got on with life, working, et cetera.

But I always had this idea that the books were my real self, and I’d come back to them when I was ready. Is this boring?”

“It’s the opposite. I’m getting the eggs out. This is like my Tigey and Cuddles story, isn’t it? What terrible thing happened to the books?”

“Is it past Elrington Road?”

“A few up on the left. Red door.”

“I wish I hadn’t started talking about this, but okay.

My mum had quite a big cancer operation.

She had to go down to Brisbane for it, and I flew up from Sydney to help her.

It was a week in hospital, then a week in hospital accommodation for lots of checkups.

After that, I had to go back to work, so Daniel, my brother, who was living in Melbourne by then, took her back to Darwin and moved into Mum’s spare room.

” She peered at each tall, gray Victorian terraced house as she went past. “I think I’m here.

I’ll stand on the step so I don’t have to take the story inside. ”