not sorry you phoned.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. What a hell of a resistance, she thought.
‘If this were Cambridge we could go out for a drink’, he said. ‘Remember the wine bar opposite Kings?’
‘Very much,’ said Ann. A million years and a million happenings ago.
‘I got a new shipment of books today,’ he said. ‘There’s an Anthony Burgess and a couple I haven’t read by Paul Scott. And Updike’s latest.’
‘Maybe I could borrow something, when you’ve finished?’
‘I can’t read them all at once.’
Were they adults? This was kids’ stuff, first-kiss-and-fumble behaviour, she thought. ‘Why not come over?’ she said.
‘You sure?’
No, she thought. She wasn’t sure about anything except perhaps that she was out of her mind. ‘Why not?’ she said.
She realised he must have been waiting for the invitation because he arrived within fifteen minutes, with no indication of any hurried preparation. He’d made an effort at the pretence, bringing a book. Updike, she saw. She would have preferred Burgess. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘That’s all right.’
They stood facing each other in the short corridor leading into the living area. He went to kiss her but abruptly she turned, presenting only her cheek. He hesitated and then finished, his lips briefly touching her. She backed away and turned into the room. ‘I started without you,’ she said, indicating the glass. It was vodka and already her glass was half empty in her sudden need for courage.
‘The same,’ he accepted.
He sat on the couch – a couch much like the one in his apartment where it had begun – and Ann began going positively towards a bordering chair and decided that was ridiculous and so she sat beside him.
‘What were the thoughts?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘When I telephoned you said you’d been sitting, thinking.’
‘And you agreed it was a stupid question.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Of course I’m sorry! Aren’t you!’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You haven’t got so much to be sorry about.’
‘I don’t think I would be, even if I had.’
‘That’s stupid, too,’ she said. ‘It’s also the most appalling syntax I’ve ever heard.’
He put his arm along the back of the couch, like he had before, but this time he didn’t let it stay there but played his finger through a coil of her hair.
‘Don’t,’ she said. She only pulled away fractionally. Determinedly she said, ‘It was a mistake.’
‘Was it?’
‘Of course it was,’ she said. ‘Please don’t be so difficult.’
‘I’m not trying to be difficult.’
‘Well you are! It was a mistake and I think we should regard it as such.’
‘OK,’ he said.
‘Just that? OK?’
‘What else do you expect me to say?’
‘That you’re sorry.’
‘I said I didn’t think I was. Maybe it was my bad syntax.’
‘It’s not a joke!’
‘I wasn’t joking.’
‘Do you realise what we’ve done!’
‘Is it a capital offence?’
‘Yes,’ she came back at once. ‘In some countries it is.’
‘Only if you get caught. And this is Russia, not the Middle East.’
‘We should recognise it as the mistake it was.’ Ann set out again, positively. ‘Recognise it and then try to forget about it.’
‘Now you’re being stupid.’
‘Why!’
‘We’re not going to be able to forget about it, are we?’
‘We’re going to have to,’ she insisted.
‘Put our heads in the sand and wait until it goes away!’
‘Stop treating it as if it weren’t important!
He teased her hair again and this time she didn’t pull away. ‘Jokes are forgotten,’ he said. ‘You’re the one making it important.’
‘Wasn’t it, to you?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
It was like wandering in the desert, thought Ann, desperately; they’d lost direction and were coming back upon themselves. ‘What are we going to do?’ she said, pleadingly.
Instead of replying Brinkman put his hand further around her head and drew her to him. There wasn’t the fumbling of the first time. They kissed, a lot, and then Brinkman stood, pulling her up, not wanting the clumsiness of the couch. The thought of making love to somebody else in her own bed halted her momentarily, at the point of entering the bedroom, and then she continued on, recognising the hesitation as hypocrisy. If she was going to do it, did it matter where? The betrayal was just as great. The lovemaking was better than before, because they were more used to each other and Brinkman didn’t feel as inadequate as he had then. Brinkman went on longer than he ever had before and when he finally had to stop, exhausted, he said, ‘You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever known.’
‘Don’t you think I’m a whore?’
‘What!’
‘A whore.’
‘Of course I don’t think you’re a whore.’
‘What then?’
Brinkman thought a long time before replying, wanting to get it right. ‘I think you’re very lonely. I think you’re very unhappy. I think you’re looking for something you haven’t got: maybe can’t have. I think you are very beautiful. And I think you are a fantastic lover.’
The remark about wanting something she couldn’t have didn’t refer to a baby, thought Ann: there was no way he could have known. Unless Eddie had told him and she didn’t think that was likely. ‘What about you?’ she said.
‘I think we should stop trying to follow the principles of Freud and analysing everything,’ he said.
‘So it’s a casual fuck?’
‘No,’ said Brinkman. ‘It isn’t a casual fuck. And it isn’t Romeo and Juliet, either. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘For being honest, at least.’
‘Wasn’t that what you were insisting upon?’
‘Oh Christ!’ she said hopelessly. ‘I don’t know what I want!’
The telephone sounded from the other room, startling them both. Ann hesitated and then got up, walking naked from the room, conscious of his watching her. She had to raise her voice and so Brinkman knew who it was and because he could hear her side of the conversation he knew, too, what it was about before she came back into the bedroom.
‘It was Eddie,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘He’s coming home.’ Whore, she thought; whore and slut.
The feeling of relief that Orlov had expected finally came, when he initiated the divorce. From the curt, almost dismissive attitude of officials it was obvious that it was not going to be difficult and there was the
