*
For all this, she wasn’t quite sure what he wanted from her. What meaning did he attack to their liaison? She hadn’t got round to asking him the question, but she was sure she should. He was far too robust to lie around droning on about the self. He was too young, too optimistic, too fixed on his as yet nonexistent career as an actor. He was reasonably interested in the contemporary novel, he said. He was good at entertaining himself. Other than jazz he liked Wagner and The Pixies. That seemed a contrivance to Rosa, but she didn’t mind. He moved with the grace of someone whose gestures have not yet become habitual, as if he would be quite capable of casting off his ways of speaking and moving, switching them suddenly for another mode.
*
Now she was at the peeling door of his flat. There was a Moroccan sitting on the balcony above, smoking a cigarette. She nodded at him, and he bowed his head. A mother and child were playing in a multicoloured playground behind her. She heard childish squeals, adult congratulations. ‘Very good!’ ‘Very very good sweetie!’ A TV was on in the flat next door, and she saw the colours shifting in the glass. She waited while the day continued, and when Andreas answered the door he said, ‘ROSA!!’ and weighted the word with exclamation marks. ‘It’s so nice when you come round,’ he said, smiling and kissing her cheek. ‘How are you? And what, what has been happening?’
‘Nothing at all. And to you?’ That was their chaste opening, and they stood in the hall with their hands in their pockets. He was wearing the whitest shirt she had ever seen. His body felt warm, and she grasped his hands. There was the cuckoo clock behind him and she saw her face was red in the distorting mirror.
‘It’s so boring, but I have to go out any minute,’ he said. ‘So boring. Just to the dentist, but I have to go. I’ve waited a month for the appointment and I’m in agony. My mouth is disgusting, I’m ashamed.’ He gestured at a tooth, and made a grimace. ‘But can I walk you some of the way home? The dentist is just by Ladbroke Grove. So you see, it’s perfect, if you don’t mind going back that way? Did you have something else to do over here? Are you on your way somewhere?’ A few stories came to mind, but she said, ‘No, I just did some shopping on Portobello Road, and thought I’d drop by.’
‘What did you buy?’ Her hands were empty.
‘Oh, window shopping, nothing.’
‘So you’ll walk back with me? As an unexpected treat before I go to my torture.’
‘OK, that would be nice.’
‘Just wait here, wait here just a second.’
He vanished along the corridor, and she heard him switching off a radio.
*
Hand in hand for a while, and then walking apart, they passed along the crescent of balconies, satellite dishes hammered up on the walls and washing floating on invisible currents of air. They neared the metal haunches of Westbourne Studios. She thought of Whitchurch at her meeting, speaking in a soft voice. She would be poised, convincing. Then she would leave, safe in the knowledge of her continued relevance.
She said, ‘How are you?’ and he said, ‘Good, good. I’ve been thinking about you this week.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ she said. ‘Depending on the way in which you have thought of me, of course.’ They arrived under the concrete slur of the Westway. She saw the sign scrawled on the bricks. TEMP — it ran over and over again — TEMP TEMP TEMP TEMP — in red spray paint. Next to it were some stencils of a man walking backwards. What the TEMP, she thought. She saw the day spread out, the trees and the sky.
‘Oh, mostly about the curves of your ass, I’m joking,’ he said. ‘But how are you? Are you tired? You look a bit tired.’
‘No no I’m fine.’
He kissed her nonchalantly. He had a hand on her back, and she could feel his breath on her skin.
‘I was thinking that when I have more money, we should go away,’ he said. ‘You’d love it. A weekend in Berlin. We should go when my parents are away and we can have the run of their flat. It’s a gross place, in many ways, terrible furnishings, but you’d probably enjoy it. We have a few really dreadful family portraits, painted by my sister, who has no artistic talent at all.’
‘Of course,’ said Rosa. But that made her laugh. ‘Well, that sounds good.’
‘Would you really like to come?’
‘Oh yes, that sounds great.’ And she thought she would.
‘When?’
‘Well, soon. Soon would be great,’ she said.
‘Soon, well, I’ll check my diary and see what I’m doing. Anything more specific?’
‘You know, I’m between jobs, I can fit in almost any time. You’re the one with the packed schedule,’ said Rosa.
‘Yes, I’m pretty in demand. An audition here, a phone call here, another rejection here. Though I do have a job — I’ll tell you about it later. Not now though, it’s a real yarn.’
‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘A job, that’s great!’
‘Great!’ he said, mocking her. ‘Great!’ and now he seized her arm again. Here they were trimming the trees, and their conversation was drowned by the sound of a chainsaw. Anyway it was a very short walk, hardly supplying enough time to pose the question. She was wondering if she could slip it in. It would change something, if she said it. She wasn’t even sure how she could phrase it. Andreas, funny thing to ask. Bit of an embarrassment. Row with my flatmate. Just need a place for a few days, until I sort myself out. You can say no. But that would involve a full-on confession, revealing much that she had not yet told him, the fact that she was debt-laden and generally adrift, more adrift than he thought she was.
‘I really don’t think you’re being entirely honest,’ he was saying, which made her snap her head towards him. Now the sound of the saw had died away.
‘Why?’ she said, caught out.
‘I think you’re just fobbing me off, and thinking you’ll find an excuse another time. Is it my sister’s art that’s putting you off? We don’t have to look at her portraits, I promise. I know I haven’t really made the flat sound so nice. But it’s fine really.’ She realised he was joking, and smiled.
‘Really, it sounds fantastic. I can’t wait,’ she said.
‘Still not convincing. Perhaps it’s me? You’d like someone older and fatter, some ancient relic, really yellow in the gills?’
‘Green about the gills,’ she said, automatically.
‘Thanks, thanks so much.’
So she laughed like a drain and turned away. She stared out at the patchy, greying branches of the trees, the pale washed sky.
‘Do you really mean it?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to go away?’
‘Yes, I always mean what I say,’ said Rosa. That really was a lie. With Andreas, she almost never meant what she said. It was a shame, but she had discovered that when she spoke to him she was usually incapable of telling the truth. She saw the word again, TEMP, sprayed on the stone rafters. And she saw billboards with words on them — THE KILLS: LOVE IS A DESERTER. HEY LYLA — A STAR’S ABOUT TO FALL. Vowing readily, she followed him along. Ask Andreas. Clean the kitchen. Explain to Jess. But ask Andreas. Ask him for somewhere to stay. Get a job. Read History of Western Philosophy. Read the later plays of Shakespeare. Clean the bathroom and scrub the toilet. Really, explain everything to Andreas.