Four New Words for Love (28 page)

The decisive look vanishes and then reasserts itself.

‘If not I’ll get one. Let’s make it a long weekend.’

‘A week. Give them a chance to spend some time together.’

‘Five nights. I don’t want to leave the dog too long. And not too far mind.’

‘You’re so masterful. I’ll even book us single rooms.’

This aspect of the trip hadn’t occurred to him. Something suddenly does.

‘Do you think I should invite her friends as a surprise?’

‘No. Look what happened with her mother. I think we should give her dates and let her know it’s an opportune time for her to have the girls there. I’m only sorry I can’t
meet them myself. They sound good fun. And I’m stuck with you.’

* * *

On a Tuesday night in mid February, two taxis arrive. One rolls up to Christopher’s front door and spills out two girls who abandon the luggage and driver to run towards
the figure standing framed in the lighted doorway with the dog sitting at her feet.

The other makes slow progress up the ascent of the Malá Strana in Prague. The night is crystalline. The stars look brittle. Frost coats the cobbles.

Lolly’s stumbling because she’s been crying on and off since Euston. The preliminaries are nothing compared to what happens to her when she recognises the lighted silhouette. She can
barely see as she runs towards the light with Ruth at her elbow, and kicks over a potted conifer in her haste. The driver purses his lips and blows air through them. He can just tell that this is
going to be one of those reunions. Women are the worst. If only he’d kept the meter running.

The concierge from the small hotel carries Christopher and Vanessa’s luggage from the taxi into the vestibule. Christopher pays the driver off while Vanessa registers for them. She borrows
his passport to pass across the details. The same porter follows them with the luggage to the tiny lift. He presses the floor button for them and retreats back. He will have to follow because
there’s not enough room for them and the cases. The little cage is a gem of Art Nouveau intimacy, hoisting them up. They wait outside the room till the porter arrives. He opens the door and
gestures them inside. Subdued lights have been put on and the large window purposefully left with the curtains open, giving a view down the hill. Steeply gabled roofs descend towards the river in
tiers of glinting frost. The crescent of lighted globes arching across the Charles Bridge forms an irregular oval with its reflection in the dark water. Behind the blazing river frontage twin
spires of the old town square are illuminated against the night sky. Beyond that Prague hums. He thinks if someone contrived to manufacture this panorama it couldn’t be bettered. It’s
improbably beautiful. He hands the porter a note without turning around and misses the snort at the derisory tip. Vanessa hands him another on the way out. She always gets the best out of
people.

He turns and is arrested by the prospect of the enormous double bed, commanding half the floor, that he somehow missed in his preoccupation with the view. He looks at Vanessa.

‘I lied,’ she says, imitating Gina.

Lolly has cradled Gina’s face in her hands. They’re all crying – with the exception of the taxi driver. No one has said anything. In a moment of profound awareness Lolly
becomes conscious of the fact that this drama isn’t restricted to her and Gina. With her left hand she reaches across and cups Ruth’s right cheek. Then she gathers her in and leans
towards Gina so that their three faces form a triangle, each with a cheek touching the other two. Thinking that this will be a long fucking night the driver gets the luggage from the boot. He
crunches across the driveway towards them, cases dangling from either wrist. Within twenty feet he can tell there’s a different quality to this. It isn’t the excessive hen-party
explosion of shrieks, recriminations and tears he’s seen more times than he can care to remember. None of them is making a sound. It’s not his fault he misjudged. That orange one with
the big tits has been crying on and off since the station. No, there’s something different to this. Something he feels he’s interrupting and shouldn’t. He drops the bag on the
stones and clears his throat almost apologetically. The one who had been standing in the door hands him a crumple of notes. They’re hot. She’s been holding them for some time. The tip
is excessive. He’s about to ask her if she’s sure when she smiles at him through a face he won’t forget for a while. He’s sure she’s sure. It’s some kind of
delivery bonus he knows he’ll never understand. He’s trespassed long enough.

Christopher looks at the bed, and at Vanessa, and feels both flattered and apprehensive. What does ‘seen it all’ really mean? What is his capacity to disappoint? But then she did
choose him.

‘Dinner?’ she suggests.

It’s a basement place of vaulted ceilings that looks as if it’s been here for centuries. The menu is carnivorous. They eat duck and wash it down with a local tannic wine. It’s
only a five-minute walk back up the hill, past frontages that have seen out the Hapsburgs, the Nazis, the Communists and now bear witness to an old man ambling up the hill to a nervous tryst.

When one starts to talk they all do. Three conversations pile in from the front door to the kitchen. The two Glasgow girls are too preoccupied, or happy, to notice anything. The three of them
eat defrosted and scorched pizza. Gina didn’t have it in her to cook tonight, or to time the cooking. Before they sit down Ruth flourishes a piece of paper.

‘A letter,’ she announces.

‘No one’s ever written me a letter,’ Lolly complains.

‘Did you ever write anyone a letter to expect one back?’ Gina asks.

‘Not so much a letter as a note,’ Ruth says. Even in this state of being happier than they’ve ever been the other two have it in them to start an argument. She flattens it out
in front of her and reads, very slowly.

‘If you’re reading this then you’ve opened the envelope (obviously) and that was under the strict condition you are all three together. There are three special bottles put away
for your reunion. They’re in the shed. Gina knows where. They should be cold enough.’

They rush out. The dog rushes with them and barks. They rush back. The dog rushes back and barks some more. They open three bottles of Veuve Clicquot almost simultaneously, racing drivers on the
podium, soaking one another. There isn’t much left to taste but there are lots of bottles of Prosecco downstairs.

‘That Christopher,’ says Lolly, turning the bottle upside down and draining the frothy drips into her mouth. ‘Diamond geezer. He didn’t...’ she makes poking motions
with the neck of the bottle. The look she receives back leads to the second moment of awareness she has had that night. ‘All right. Keep your hair on. Only asking. Since when did you become
Mother Superior?’

The bathroom is an acoustic cavern. He waits till she uses it first, looking down the hill. Will she have packed a negligée? When she comes out he can see her reflection, behind his
reflection, superimposed on the roofs of Prague. She is wearing some kind of simple slip.

‘Close the curtains, Christopher.’

He takes his pyjamas into the bathroom. There isn’t the same unflattering overhead glare of the bathroom at home, those intense lights he replaced once Marjory died. She had insisted on
their installation. Why? They compelled remorseless scrutiny. He doesn’t remember her ever knowing herself any better as a result. If she ever did she was ready to forgive herself, exonerate
all those faults she itemised so scrupulously, without acquittal, in others. Why is he thinking about her now? Perhaps because she is all he knew. And on the other side of that wall is a woman of
vaster experience. He reminds himself that this isn’t a competition. And it suddenly occurs to him as sad that his only touchstone was as grudging in this as in all the important things.

He thinks, I’m glad I’ve still got my teeth, as he rinses and spits.

Lolly has found the Prosecco. The blaze of emotion has died to something less combustible, more capable of being managed. Gina knows this is Ruth’s doing. Something about her presence is
soothing. She can see the change a year of Ruth’s company had brought about in Lolly. If it had just been the two of them here, without Ruth, then on Lolly’s side there would have been
tears, tantrums, recriminations, reconciliation, elation, despair and relief all in the first half hour.

Lolly hasn’t noticed anything of their surroundings yet, besides locating the booze. Ruth’s been looking around. She goes to the French windows and steps outside, takes in the
darkling trees, swaying in whispers. Gina joins her.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Ruth says. ‘He’s kind. If you can’t be with us I’m glad you’re here.’ They stand side by side, looking. Lolly feeds the
dog some chorizo she has found in the fridge.

Christopher emerges from the bathroom.

‘Who were you talking to?’

‘Was I talking?’

‘Something about your teeth.’

‘I didn’t know I said it aloud.’

‘You’ve been alone too much.’

He pushes aside the duvet and climbs in. The light is on his side. He reaches across to turn it off and turns back towards the centre of the bed. She rolls towards him in synchronisation. It is
all easy, effortless, the unlearned automatic dance. He is so relieved there is nothing to worry about that the pleasure takes him by surprise. His body has been so clamorous of late he is
surprised at how it works by itself. This, he thinks, is as easy as easy digestion. She is generous.

Lolly pops the Prosecco in another frothy burst.

‘Well that’s that then,’ she says afterwards. ‘No need to be nice to you anymore now that I got what I wanted.’ And she bursts into a raucous laugh that he’s
never heard before. It’s so full of life it makes him even happier than his relief at their successful rhythm. She props herself on her elbow. He can sense she is looking down at him in the
darkness. ‘You lovely... no,
my
lovely man.’

He feels he’s spent his life pursuing the path of least resistance. He doesn’t see what he’s done to deserve this.

The next afternoon Gina drags the girls into the city. On point of principle she’s determined to show them some culture. She suggests the National Gallery. Lolly puts up a fuss. There
are
paintings back home, she reminds them. And what’s so good about art? It’s all a bunch of wank. They settle for St Paul’s. It’s quicker to get round. Lolly
bridles at the suggested donation. It echoes down the Nave.

‘At least the other place was free.
And
they had paintings.’

After a shower and breakfast the couple find themselves on the pavement. The sky is clear. Their breath levitates. Behind them the hill rises to the Castle, site of three
‘defenestrations’ that excites Christopher, not for the building’s historical significance but as the pretext for including a word he’s only ever encountered in
dictionaries. Below them is the baroque froth of St Nicholas he has been reading about, five sauntering downhill minutes, and beyond the prospect of the undiscovered city, to be explored in
café-stopped instalments. She is smiling at him in the sunshine. Her grooming is perfect but he is pleased to see she looks older in the morning light.

‘What would you like to see?’ he asks.

‘What would
you
like to see. This is more your thing. I’ve watched you absorb that guidebook and all the plaques we’ve passed so far. You have to find yourself in a
setting. I don’t care. I’m just here for the sex.’

She takes his arm. They begin to walk towards the dome he can see rising from the surrounding rooftops. She’s right. She knows him better than he suspected she did. He does have to locate
himself, in a place, in the context of its past, at the bow-wave of its history. This is middle Europe, a place of intermittent purges, of soaring buildings to the glory of God and horrors enacted
for the sake of liturgical niceties. Blood has run like gesso down the walls around here. And yet, with her at his side, he can’t feel the sense of thwarted expiation, of something seeking
atonement that such old places usually inspire. It’s a beautiful morning. They’ll amble in a radius dictated by his hip and bladder till their first coffee, or drink.

And there’s something else the weight of her arm in his makes him realise. Being with her has freed something else. Suddenly he doesn’t feel the same obsessive concern for Gina. He
doesn’t love the younger woman any less, but he has the compensation of knowing that if she were to leave again he wouldn’t feel as if she had taken all the colour with her.

* * *

When he gets home she’s at work. He puts his case in the hall and sits to pat the dog. The place gleams. He imagines Lolly’s departure had required a complete
cleaning. After he has rested and had some tea he takes the dog out. He is walking towards the common when he sees her coming from the opposite direction. The dog has rushed on to greet her. He
stops about ten feet from them and looks at her intently. She’s in a half crouch, patting the dog. She looks up. Nothing has prepared him for the onrush.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘How was Prague?’

‘I’ll tell you tonight.’ She slits her eyes appraisingly, the way he imagines George Coleman would enjoy being looked at. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m on my lunch. I just wanted to check you’d got home and were all right.’ She straightens. ‘No need now. Walk me back. I’ll bring in dinner. Should I bring
enough for Vanessa?’

‘Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.’

‘Or perhaps you’ll go there?’

‘Perhaps.’

A week later he visits the building society. The mortgage is long since redeemed but they continued to make deposits, saving up for Marjory’s ostentatious widowhood. The office
paraphernalia he was once familiar with has vanished. No staccato typing. He misses the tactility of passbooks, of banknotes transacted, the solidity of cash registers, of jingling coins in the
shunted drawer. He’s invited to sit at a veneer desk among muted office furniture. He imagines cables underneath carpet tiles, the hum of subterraneous transactions, of electronic money,
flowing like corpuscles.