“I mean that...”
“Sorry,” she said, “maybe I’m confused. I thought you were asking me out.”
“I did. I was,” I said, leaning a little closer so I could hear her above the music.
“Very well,” she said, smiling again, and she smelled of soap and newly washed hair.
“Sorry, it’s loud in here,” I said. “So can I have your phone number or email or something?”
Anna took a small step back, and I realized I was leaning into her. “Yes, although on one condition.”
“Okay,” I said, still thinking about her “that Rob” comment. “What is it?”
“You give me my phone back.”
I looked down and realized I was still holding her Nokia. “Oh, shit, sorry.”
She smiled and put her phone in her bag. “Okay,” she said. “It’s Anna Mitchell-Rose at yahoo.co.uk. All one word. Two l’s in Mitchell, no full stops or hyphenation.”
* * *
A week later, the cinema. Watching the trailers, I could feel the warmth of her body and I wanted to reach out and touch her, to put my hand on her bare leg. I glanced at her a few times and hoped she might turn toward me and our eyes would meet, but she just stared at the screen, her back straight as if she was sitting in church, her thick-framed glasses perched on her nose. The only movement she made was to silently take sweets from her bag of pick ’n’ mix. I had watched her count them out when she bought them: five from the top row, five from the bottom.
I fidgeted through the movie, about an insufferable drifter who hitchhiked around North America and then died in Alaska. I couldn’t wait for it to end. Anna, however, seemed to be enjoying it—judging by how still she sat, how her eyes never left the screen.
When the movie ended, I thought that she might be one of those people who sit in a reverential silence until the last of the credits rolled, but the moment the screen turned black, she stood up and picked up her coat.
“So what did you think?” I said, as we hurried down the stairs toward the cinema bar.
“I hated it,” Anna said. “Every single minute of it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It was absolutely awful.”
In the little lobby bar, we sat down at a table next to an antique piano. “It’s funny,” I said, “I thought you were enjoying it.”
“No, I hated it. I found him to be very unpleasant. Traveling all over the place, not letting his family know. He didn’t give two hoots about anyone but himself.”
Two hoots. I imagined for a moment introducing her to my friends back home.
“You didn’t think it was cool when he renounced all his possessions and burned his money?” I said, enjoying egging her on. Anna took her glasses off, wiped the lenses with a small cloth, then put them in an ancient-looking case.
“What on earth was ‘cool’ about that?” she said, her cheeks flushing. Then she squinted a little, as if she needed to put her reading glasses back on. “Oh, you’re joking,” she said, smiling. “I see. But really, though. His family worked hard for what he had and he gave it all up, because of...because of what, some tedious teenage philosophy. He was utterly, utterly self-indulgent.” She suddenly seemed a little self-conscious and stopped speaking as the waitress brought over our drinks.
“Did you like it then, the movie?” she said, when we were alone again.
“No,” I said. “I absolutely hated it.”
Anna beamed. “Good. I’m so glad.”
“What was it he was always telling people? ‘Make each day a new horizon.’”
“God, yes,” Anna said. “Preachy New Age rubbish.”
“And you know what was funny?” I said.
“What?”
“The one thing—the only thing really—that he wanted to do, which was live in the wild, well, he wasn’t very good at it, was he? He failed.”
“Exactly,” Anna said, laughing, her blue eyes flashing in the dim orange light of the bar. “God, you’re right, he was even rubbish at that. The thing is, if he had actually listened to advice from those who knew better, people who had experience living in the wilderness—wilderness experts, for example—then he might still be alive.”
“Wilderness experts?”
“Yes, wilderness experts,” she said, looking at me sternly. “I believe that’s the official name for them.”
I looked at Anna as she took a sip of her drink. She really was beautiful, her mouth always on the cusp of a smile, her eyes sparkling like a promise. She was too good for me. She would go to London and end up with the type of guy who was invited to her high-school dances.
“And what about you, where do your parents live?” Anna said, and I realized I was staring at her.
“My dad still lives in Romford.”
Anna hesitated, took a sip of her drink. “Are your parents divorced?”
“My mom died. When I was fifteen.”
“Oh,” Anna said. “I’m very sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “it’s not your fault.” It took her a moment to get my little joke, and I grinned and she smiled back, a little more at ease.
I didn’t like talking about that morning, when Dad was waiting for me outside the school gate. For some reason, he was wearing his best suit. He didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. Mom had collapsed at work, he said, a massive stroke. They had always joked that he would be the one to go first.
“So where’s home?” I asked Anna.
“Oh, the main house is in Suffolk, but we’ve not really been there enough for it to feel like home.”
“Ah, the hard life, so many houses...” I didn’t know why I said it. It was meant to be flippant, a quip, but it just sounded petty and unkind.
Anna scowled at me and took a hurried sip of her drink as if she had to leave. “Actually, Rob, if you must know, I was on scholarship at Roedean, and my parents don’t have two pennies to rub together.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean...” I stammered. She was frowning, and I could see she found it