'Call your office. Tell them you may be able to sell the good burghers of Amsterdam a few more of your buses. A day and a night and a day. You can go home on Sunday night. The plane won't be so crowded then.'
Gil hesitated, and then kissed her. 'All right, then. What the hell. I'll call the airline after breakfast.'
'And your wife? You have to call your wife.'
'I'll call her.'
Anna stretched out like a beautiful sleek animal. 'You are a very special gentleman, Mr. Gil Batchelor,' she told him.
'Well, you're a very special lady.'
Margaret had sniffled: that had made him feel so guilty that he had nearly agreed to come back to England straight away. She missed him, everything was ready for him at home, Alan kept saying, 'Where's daddy?' And
In the end, it was her whining that gave him the strength to say, 'I have to, that's all. I don't like it any more than you do, darling, believe me. I miss you, too, and Alan. But it's only two more days. And then we'll all go to Brighton for the day, what about that? We'll have lunch at Wheeler's.'
He put down the phone. Anna was watching him from across the room. She was sitting on a large white leather sofa, wearing only thin pajama trousers of crepe silk. Between her bare breasts she held a heavy crystal glass of Bacardi. The coldness of the glass had made her nipples tighten. She was smiling at him in a way that he found oddly disturbing. She looked almost triumphant, as if by persuading him to lie to Margaret, she had somehow captured a little part of his soul.
Behind her, through the picture window that was framed with cheese-plants and ivy, he could see the concrete promenade, the wide gray beach, the gray overhanging clouds, and the restless horizon of the North Sea.
He came and sat down beside her. He touched her lips with his fingertip, and she kissed it. His hand followed the warm heavy curve of her breast, and then he gently rolled her nipple between finger and thumb. She watched him, still smiling.
'Do you think you could ever fall in love with somebody like me?' she asked him, in a whisper.
'I don't think there is anybody like you. Only you.'
'So could you fall in love with me?'
He dared to say it. 'I think I already have.'
She set her drink down on the glass and stainless-steel table next to her and knelt up on the sofa. She tugged down her pajama trousers so that she was naked. She pushed Gil on to his back and climbed on top of him. 'You like kissing me, don't you?' she murmured. He didn't answer, but lifted his head slightly, and licked all the way down that liquid crevice from top to bottom, and swallowed.
The house was always silent, except when they spoke, or when they played music. Anna liked Mozart symphonies, but she always played them in another room. The walls were white and bare, the carpets were gray. The inside of the house seemed to be a continuation of the bleak coastal scenery that Gil could see through the windows. Apart from the houseplants there were no ornaments. The few pictures on the walls were lean, spare drawings of naked men and women, faceless most of them. Gil had the feeling that the house didn't actually belong to Anna, that it had been occupied by dozens of different people, none of whom had left their mark on it. It was a house of no individuality whatsoever. An anxious house, at the very end of a cul-de-sac that fronted the beach. The gray brick sidewalks were always swirled with gritty gray sand. The wind blew like a constant headache.
They made love over and over again. They went for walks on the beach, the collars of their coats raised up against the stinging sand. They ate silent meals of cold meat and bread and cold white wine. They listened to Mozart in other rooms. On the third morning Gil woke up and saw that Anna was awake already, and watching him. He reached out and stroked her hair.
'This is the day I have to go home,' he told her, his voice still thick from sleeping.
She took hold of his hand and squeezed it. 'Can't you manage one more day? One more day and one more night?'
'I have to go home. I promised Margaret. And I have to be back behind my desk on Monday morning.'
She lowered her head so that he couldn't see her face. 'You know that — if you go — we will never be able to see each other any more.'
Gil said nothing. It hurt too much to think that he might never sleep with Anna again in the whole of his life. He eased himself out from under the quilt and walked through to the bathroom. He switched on the light over the basin and inspected himself. He looked tired. Well, anybody would be, after two days and three nights of orgiastic sex with a woman like Anna. But there was something else about his face which made him frown, a different look about it. He stared at himself for a long time, but he couldn't decide what it was. He filled the basin with hot water and squirted a handful of shaving-foam into his hand.
It was only when he lifted his hand toward his face that he realized he didn't need a shave.
He hesitated, then he rinsed off the foam and emptied the basin. He must have shaved last night, before he went to bed, and forgotten about it. After all, they had drunk quite a lot of wine. He went to the toilet, and sat down, and urinated in quick fits and starts. It was only when he got up and wiped himself by passing a piece of toilet paper between his legs that he realized what he had done.
Anna was standing in the bathroom doorway watching him. He laughed. 'I must be getting old, sitting down to pee.'
She came up to him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was a long, complicated, yearning kiss. When he opened his eyes again she was staring at him very close up. 'Don't go,' she whispered. 'Not yet, I couldn't bear it. Give me one more day. Give me one more night.'
'Anna… I can't. I have a family; a job.'
With the same directness she had exhibited in the bar of the Amstel Hotel, she took hold of his penis and clasped it in her hand. His reaction was immediate. 'Don't go,' she repeated, massaging him slowly up and down. 'I've been waiting so long for somebody like you… I can't bear to lose you just yet. One more day, one more night. You can catch the evening flight on Monday and be back in England before nine.'
He kissed her. He knew that he was going to give in.
That day they walked right down to the edge of the ocean. A dog with wet bedraggled fur circled around and around, yapping at them. The wind from the North Sea was relentless. When they returned to the house, Gil felt inexplicably exhausted. Anna undressed him and helped him up to the bedroom. 'I think I'm feeling the strain,' he said, smiling at her. She leaned over and kissed him. He lay with his eyes open, listening to Mozart playing in another room and looking at the way the gray afternoon light crossed the ceiling and illuminated the pen-and-ink drawing of a man and a woman entwined together. The drawing was like a puzzle. It was impossible to tell where the man ended and where the woman began.
He fell asleep. It started to rain, salty rain from the sea. He slept all afternoon and all evening, and the wind rose and the rain lashed furiously against the windows.
He was still asleep at two o'clock in the morning, when the bedroom door opened and Anna came in and softly slipped into bed beside him. 'My darling,' Anna murmured, and touched the smoothness of his cheek.
He dreamed that Anna was shaking him awake, and lifting his head so that he could sip a glass of water. He dreamed that she was caressing him and murmuring to him. @
He dreamed that he was trying to run across the beach, across the wide gray sands, but the sands turned to glue and clung around his ankles. He heard music, voices.
He opened his eyes. It was twilight. The house was silent. He turned to look at his watch on the bedside table. It was 7:17 in the evening. His head felt congested, as if he had a hangover, and when he licked his lips they felt swollen and dry. He lay back for a long time staring at the ceiling, his arms by his sides. He must have been ill, or maybe he had drunk too much. He had never felt like this in his life before.
It was only when he raised his hand to rub his eyes that he understood that something extraordinary had
