Glover’s Mistake. Nick LairdЧитать онлайн книгу.
in this thing together. It was seductive, that, to be appropriated to someone’s side. He could imagine that his interests tied in entirely with hers. As to what she saw in him, he wasn’t sure. He knew she thought him entertaining. He was one of the amusingly crucified, and plainly devoted to her. He figured that she might enjoy his obvious delight when the conversation turned to art, to books, to anything that might broaden and sustain the mind. And maybe she was lonely too.
Out on the street she slid her arm into his. He squared his shoulders and straightened his back, possessive of this creature by his side. A cairn of black bags was heaped on the pavement by an overflowing litter bin and they swerved to avoid it. The last few yards had passed without speech. David was in a small reverie of contentment, thinking how he had, belatedly at thirty-five, met someone he found interesting, met someone who was doing something. His life had turned a corner. Their footsteps made a pleasing beat, which he was about to mention when she drew his arm a little tighter and said, ‘I need to say something. I know you’re going to think it’s crazy, and I do too…believe me…’
Her tender tone and the wished-for words accelerated regions in his heart. He squeezed her arm back as she whispered, ‘Do you think…I mean I think there might be something…’
She paused and David felt the shiver rise within him. He lifted a hand to his chest as if that might be enough to keep the blood pumping and the whole thing in place.
‘Something between James and me…’ She stopped walking then, pulling him to a stop, and looked up into his face to examine his reaction. He yanked a fierce smile from somewhere. He felt cold, distant from himself: the real David was a many-legged scuttling thing, climbing up inside his body and now peering out with sad despair through the windows of his eyes.
‘Oh God, you’re outraged, right? Is it outrageous? I know it’s a little crazy, but…’
‘The thing is…’ He started walking again, looking forward, almost dragging her down the street. ‘And I know, because we’ve talked a lot, he finds it hard to trust…’ David made a preposterous gesture of holding a weight in his open hand. It might have been his ousted heart.
‘Yes. He’s told me about that, about college.’
Had he? When? Each time David left the room did they change gear to intimacy, then slow up again to casual acquaintances when he returned? Were they telepathic? Email. They were chatting on email. How nice for them.
‘He’s such a sweet man. He’s so…sincere.’
‘Earnest, you mean? Yeah…not like us.’
She turned her head and gave David a curious look—it was almost a flinch of injured pride; but then she saw the vanity of that move and turned the thing into a joke on herself.
‘No, exactly, not like us. We’re cynical old things.’
David wanted to disentangle his arm from hers but thought that might reveal too much. He succeeded in jollying himself along, but all he wanted was to be out of her presence, to get home and climb into bed with a pint of wine and a spliff. Things began to draw clear. She had asked questions about the two of them living together, about how David had met him, about where Glover was from, but stupidly, idiotically, shamefully, he had thought he was the focus. She chattered on emptily now about how ridiculous it was, and she was sure that nothing would transpire but she just wanted to say something, she needed to say something, she felt something between them, and what did he think? Over and over. And then the childish denouement: he was sworn to secrecy. Then they were standing at the bottom of the rock face of her apartment block, and over-eager to prove himself unfazed by the news, David found he had asked her round for dinner next week. When they had settled on Thursday, he added, ‘And I actually will cook for us.’
Ruth laughed and then there was an elongated pause, as the first person plural hung in the air and both of them wondered if it might include Glover.
David decided not to tell James about dinner, but it made no difference. Maybe she emailed him and mentioned it, or maybe Fortuna, in the earthly guise of the Bell and Crown rota, decided to give him the night off. David didn’t know and never asked. By the time he’d dragged the shopping home on the Thursday evening, he was sweating and tired and dejected. The shower was running and a few minutes later Glover appeared in the kitchen doorway. Relaxed, barefoot in jeans and a T-shirt, he seemed fresh and new, the hair glossy and spiky, and he watched as David unpacked the groceries. On hearing that Ruth was coming for dinner, he acted neither surprised nor especially pleased, rubbing a palm up and down the door frame as if sanding it. He offered to help with the cooking but David said no, he was fine, and the TV went on. When the intercom gave its buzz of static David ignored it and Glover took the stairs down one by one, in no particular hurry.
He was listening hard as they ascended but heard nothing until they entered the flat. The dynamic felt immediately different. When he came out from the kitchen Glover had already taken her coat. Her perfume seemed stronger, a pleasant, singed citrus, her hair was newly cut and dyed, and he was sure her make-up was more pronounced. Black form-fitting satin trousers showed off her trim behind. Leather stack-heeled boots added an inch or two of height. A large tiger-stone pendant drew the eyes to the V of her grey cashmere V-neck, and its deep cut of tanned cleavage. Time had been taken. Money had been spent. It was premeditated, David thought, like the worst kind of crime, but she did look good, and she did smell good, and when he kissed her hello and gave her a hug, platonically quick, she felt wonderful too.
As he finally slotted the casserole dish in the hot yawn of the oven, David thought that this was easily the nadir of his year so far. He had another month for it to get worse, of course, but tonight he was on a date, as the chaperon, in his own living room. He was about to watch the only woman he’d been even vaguely interested in for years make a play for his flatmate. And he was cooking for them. He downed a glass of Something Blanc and reluctantly went in. The conversation was about Suffolk. Ruth tended to talk, David knew, to one person. When you were chosen you became her solace, her intimate confrère in some subtle plot against the whole thick-witted world. She watched you and read you, responded only to you. Such was the exclusive nature of her consciousness, operating in daily life through a series of mini-love affairs. David knew the intense joy of being concentrated on like that! Together they would sit and worry at a subject until something, however small, was clarified, but if you weren’t elected, if you were secondary, then it meant you had to sit and wait, woebegone, and watch, and throw remarks like popcorn at the principals.
He flopped down by the stereo and scanned his eyes up and down the stacked CDs. They were so taken with their conversation they hadn’t even turned the music on.
‘But when you were growing up, did you think the town was dying?’
Glover noticed David looking at the CDs and said, ‘My Blood on the Tracks is there somewhere.’
‘Oh yes, play that,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s his best.’ A male thing to say, so definitive and presumptuous. David saw she was taking charge with Glover. Whatever would happen would happen tonight. As she plucked at the stitching of the red cushion on her lap, she was scrutinizing Glover’s profile from beneath her calculated lashes. David found the CD and set it in the stereo’s extruded tray, intruded it, pressed play. The opening chords of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ came through the speakers.
The evening went slowly. David found himself irritated when Glover cracked some joke that made her laugh, and laugh excessively, or when she asked him yet another question. He was too familiar with the sense of being overlooked not to feel it keenly. When he went to check on dinner, he unzipped his hooded top and took it off, and wished emotions were like clothes, that he could remove them, fold them, set them somewhere. He laid the table and stood at the sink, then