Another Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

want to walk home and worry about him following me, because we were so close to my house by then, so I did.’ She closed her eyes for a second. What she hadn’t been able to recount, and felt queasy admitting even to herself, given the loathsomeness of Guillaume, for that was his name – was that when his hand had slid over hers in the bus, her first sensation, and perhaps the thing that had made her lurch, had been of its warmth and heterogeneity – the fact of being touched by someone else, who wanted to evoke something in her body. It had not been unpleasant. And yet, of course, she hadn’t wanted it, a conflict that brought about inner revolt, and made her jump off the bus as it stopped.
    â€˜So what did he want?’
    Leela sighed. ‘I think he’s just lonely. And weird. He wanted to talk about his wife, who’s leaving him. He can’t see his son and daughter, he’s upset about that, naturally. He tried to persuade me to go for a drink with him.’
    â€˜I hope you didn’t say yes?’ Stella said.
    â€˜No, ugh, no. I told him it’s against the rules of the school. He tried to argue and stuff but I said I had to go. I didn’t want to walk towards my house, just in case. So I came back this way, and that’s when –’ Leela indicated Patrick ‘– I phoned. I hope I’m not intruding.’
    â€˜Leela, not at all. It sounds like a horrible day.’ Patrick was as warm as ever, in as generalised a way; Stella too, in a way that both comforted and desolated Leela, for Stella sat close to Patrick and an unspoken complicity was between them. She was half aware also of Simon, watching her steadily and with some amusement. She looked at Patrick’s hands on the table, square, reddish (‘I have Irish farmer’s hands,’ he would declare) and at Simon’s, curled around his glass. She couldn’t read his expression; it was neither sympathetic nor indifferent, and this drew her to him.
    â€˜Leela, we were thinking of going out for a drink when you called. How does that sound?’
    â€˜Uh, yeah, sure.’
    â€˜We were thinking of going down the road to the Lizard Lounge.’
    â€˜Okay,’ Leela said. She’d passed the bar, and marked it as too fashionable for her. But they walked down in pairs, Stella and Leela ahead, and Patrick and Simon behind, smoking. Leela was aware of Patrick talking and Simon laughing, then responding, and Patrick guffawing. She envied their ease. Stella was being sweet, though. She tucked her hair behind one ear and touched Leela’s arm. ‘I hope you’re not feeling too weirded out by that creep,’ she said. Leela wondered how much to play up the incident. Would it work? Would being wronged or vulnerable endear her to Patrick?
    â€˜It was a bit creepy,’ she said. ‘Especially because it happened near where I live. But I think it’ll be all right.’
    â€˜That sort of thing keeps happening when you first move away,’ Stella was saying as they neared the bar, from which dance music could be heard thumping. ‘I remember when I was in South America –’
    They were inside now, looking for a place to sit, and though the bar was dark and the music loud, the atmosphere was essentially civilised. The table was small, and cuboid leather stools were wedged around it. Stella threaded her way in, then Patrick. Leela sat next to Simon, their legs folded like jackknives, knees touching.
    â€˜What are you drinking?’ he asked.
    â€˜I’m not sure. What are you drinking?’
    â€˜A beer.’
    â€˜Is it weird to have a kir after drinking whisky?’
    He looked down at her, amused. ‘Not if you want to.’
    She asked the waitress for a vodka tonic. Simon and she sat watching her slender back as she walked away.
    A song Leela knew came on. She began to hum along indistinctly. Simon grinned. She grinned back. ‘Shit.