Chapter 11: If You’re Eager, It Makes Other People Less Eager
Every human being, of course, remains a mystery to every other. But what had unnerved Marianne most was that, after Joe had said hello – with clenched eyes and defiant look – he had shrugged and sauntered upstairs. And she couldn’t chase him for an explanation because Archie would see them. Joe was cunning.
The warm glow of the pub could not soothe her. And now they were on the pavement, as alienating as if she had stepped out onto a new planet, in that first-date purgatory between the end of dinner and the night ahead.
Archie looked at her. “Are you OK? You’ve gone quiet.”
“Sorry, just a bit tired. First day at work, you know?”
“You can’t go back to Dalston by yourself.” He held her delicate shoulders, paternal rather than amorous. “Stay at mine, I promise nothing will happen. I’m a gentleman.”
“OK.” She cast him a smile, took his arm, and they started to walk. The road curved through Gospel Oak, just as rough as Dalston, Marianne thought, perhaps rougher still, with its gangs like crows outside kebab shops, or teetering on the backs of benches. Ambulances flooded towards the hospital; a violent evening. She shuddered.
At a green arch by a pet shop they turned left down a deserted street, a little like Ridley Road, but its silence seemed piled so high it might at any minute fall on them. Archie, enthused by his neighbourhood, pointed out his favourite shops (“There’s the Cypriot tailor’s, she’s lovely, and Al Magreb, where you can buy a whole bowl of veg for a quid.”)
Benedict and a friend were leaving Archie’s flat. “This is Hanif,” he said. “He came round for a drink – hope that’s OK?”
“I see.” Archie raised an eyebrow. “Ben, this is Marianne.” She held up a hand and waved nervously. “And how do you like my apartment, Hanif?”
“Very nice.”
“Anyway,” – Ben glanced at his date – “listen, we’re off to the Black Cap for one. See you later, yeah?”
Marianne watched as they giggled down the dark street. “Flatmate?”
“Old uni mate who’s staying with me. Now: nightcap.”
As Archie turned the key in the lock, Marianne’s handbag slipped onto the pavement. Picking it up, she sensed eyes on her from the fried chicken shop opposite.
She flung her arm round Archie’s shoulders as they entered.
*
So Joe was, apparently, in Kentish Town. The guesthouse offered a single room for £17.50 which seemed good value. Here, he could decide his next move.
He paid upfront in the white light of the reception, where a small group of English people and foreigners sat on orange formica chairs, some knocking back cans of strong beer, others playing cards or fiddling with plastic pot plants. Blue mugs lined the counter and a couple of sunflowers drooped out of a vase. Actually, he realized, hardly anyone here was speaking English, which was humiliating, because he wasn’t some kind of immigrant, like they must all be, trying to claim asylum; he was just sleeping here because it was cheap – and he had nowhere else to go. At least he could return to his Dad if he chose.
A woman in a veil, who spoke with a London accent, showed him to a box room, whose door opened out directly onto the street, an uncomfortable feeling. He kicked off his trainers, unzipped his hoodie, the mattress frowning as he sat. The pillowcase was stained. It would do. He reached into his bag for his own can of cheap beer and outlined the facts in his mind: Marianne had slept with him last night, admitting her love for him. Now she was being unfaithful, in an act that was pre-meditated. Anyone would be upset, wouldn’t they? How could he ever trust her again?
He stood, chest out, like a king surveying his kingdom, and gazed into the mirror on the back of the door, his complexion fish-belly white. He poked his nose in the bathroom, which smelt of urine. He was so tired. Shadowing someone was a full-time job – but not without its highlights: freaking her out in the pub, for example, and, even better, catching those frightened eyes from the chip shop.
The bare bulb flickered and the room went dark. Headlights from shapeless cars blurred beyond the net curtains. He sat still for longer than he intended, as if he realized there was now no turning back. Danger lurked beyond, its current overpowering. He peeled his jeans off and climbed under the cold sheets.
*
Sleep is like a performance, thought Leonard Mulberry as he answered the door: if it goes well there is absolutely nothing more satisfying! It was Tuesday morning, and on the porch hovered Marianne, basking in his smile. Did two lonely people equal two happy people?
“Come in, come in. Let me take your coat.”
The living room, with its intended aromas of coffee and baking, shone with light, as he announced: “I’ve just made cup cakes.”
She took one – so delicately-iced – and perched on a Queen Anne chair. She breathed in and smiled again.
“So,” he began, fingertips pressed together as if he were praying. “How good’s your typing?”
She had told him.
“You are ambitious, aren’t you? I can tell.”
She nodded. “What does the job involve?”
“Why, helping me write my autobiography, my dear.” And, as a taster, Leonard launched into his life story: how he had been a hit author in the seventies – “I suppose you weren’t even born then!”– before struggling to follow his debut novel Larger Than Life, depending instead on journalism. (He didn’t tell her something else on his mind: that Vivienne’s boy Ben, who was arriving shortly, may be his son. It had been 1975, they were young, and there had been those couple of times before she met Yoav and moved to Israel. Ben had been born less than a year later. Unlikely but−)
“Mr Mulberry?”
“Sorry, dear – call me Leonard, Leonard. I lost my place, like you do in a book. Anyway, in the late eighties, the novel was filmed and became what, in the industry, we call a sleeper hit. My sequel Even Larger came out at the turn of the millennium, and was filmed for BBC4 in 2007. So I’m in demand again! But what will really make my memoir so compelling is that I’ve had a…a slew of famous lovers, both male and female−”
The buzzer went.
“Excuse me-”
Leonard’s heart beat like a wild horse as he prepared a smile in the hall mirror, the buzzer sounding again, as urgent as a battle-cry. And there grinned Ben: dark hair and eyes, a strong chin, shadowy stubble. He has my ears, he thought, as they hugged. “The last time we saw each other,” he said, ushering the young man in, “you were this high.”
Ben and Marianne checked each other up and down, like reality show finalists, or soldiers in a field.
She gasped. “You’re Archie’s friend, aren’t you?”
*
I love it here, Marianne thought. People have stories. The meeting with Leonard had gone well (and how funny that he knew Archie’s friend) and now she was back in Dalston, sitting outside a bar on Gillet Square, reggae music drifting like smoke through the air. At its top end, street drinkers in caps hunched on a low wooden seat around pine trees, clasping plastic bags, some shouting, others staring out into the silence. The sky was darkening over the terraces of Kingsland Road, as well-dressed cyclists sped across the diagonal, their children bobbing behind them in baskets like baguettes.
Was she wrong to have declined Archie’s offer to stay last night? They had sipped that last drink, and kissed, but she had detected a change of mood, and asked him to call a cab. She couldn’t explain it any clearer than that. She had discovered long ago that if you’re eager it makes other people less eager. And if you’re less eager it makes people more eager. And it particularly worked with boys. So she was sure he would call.
But Joe was like a cloud over everything. Happiness can flutter so near, can’t it? She had nearly warned him by text to stay away, but any communication would encourage him, justify this silly performance. Had he followed her today, to Leonard’s, and now here? She peered, blinking, into the café’s interior. Her eyes scanned the square. No sign of him. She hoped he had finally gone back to Deal.
Her phone beeped. Meet me at Monkey Chews bar, Queen’s Crescent. 7pm. Have something exciting to ask you. Archie x
