‘So you feel guilty.’
‘Yes. I feel cheap and nasty and dirty.’
She put her hand on my arm. ‘And that’s good, Richard.’
‘Good?’
‘Of course. What if you’d been unmoved? The fact that you feel . . . unclean shows that you’re not desensitised.’ She smiled at me. ‘I sensed that when we first met. Beneath that cynical facade, you’re a good person.’
I looked out at the sea. ‘So it’s good to feel bad.’
‘Put that on a T-shirt and you’ll make . . . well, maybe a fiver.’
We shared a laugh. I noticed her eyes slip upwards to the sky, where a half-moon hung among a gallery of stars. I followed her gaze. ‘Were there any more sightings on the hill after that night?’
She shook her head. ‘Andrew says that maybe they found what they were searching for the first time they came, so they didn’t need to come back.’
‘I see.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Are you and Andrew an item?’
She found this hilarious. ‘Me and Andrew? What made you ask that?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just the way you talk about him. I thought maybe . . .’
‘Andrew’s a great man. He’s taught me a lot. But we’re definitely not an item.’
‘What about Pete?’
I’d gone too far.
‘What is this?’ she asked, irritated.
‘Sorry.’ I tried a disarming smile. ‘When you hang out with journalists they start to rub off on you. All the questions, you know?’
‘Hmm. Well, in answer to your journalistic query, Pete and I are not seeing each other either. He’s gone off on his travels again, anyway, so even if I did want to fuck his brains out I wouldn’t be able to.’ She rolled her eyes then smiled at my sheepish expression. ‘This is where I live.’
We crossed the road. She lived in a block of flats next to a gutted Victorian hotel. This whole row of hotels, B&Bs and flats needed cleaning up. In old photographs of the town this row of buildings looks so grand, but years of sea air and neglect had faded the paint and rotted the wood, and most of the old places had been converted into bedsits. Marie lived in one of them.
We stood outside her front door.
‘Thank you for walking me home.’
‘No, thank you. For telling me I’m a good person.’
‘Despite the cynicism. And being so nosey.’
I longed for her to ask me inside for a coffee. I was about to miss my second chance. She looked up at me through her eyelashes while I struggled to think of something intelligent to say.
‘Goodnight, then,’ she said.
Before she could close the door on me, I blurted out, ‘Can I see you again?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow?’
She gave me a long, searching look, then nodded. ‘I’ve got college until five. I could meet you after.’
‘Six o’clock at the Coffee Bean?’
I floated all the way home.
4
I sat in the Coffee Bean, stirring damp Demerara sugar into a latte and looking out of the window. Marie was late, but only by five minutes. I sipped my coffee, feeling the caffeine add to the buzz of anticipation.
It had been a while since I’d had a serious relationship, or any relationship at all, for that matter. Three years since Mikage left me. We had lived together in the house where I still lived. It lasted for two tempestuous years. Two years in which all we ever seemed to do was fight – real screaming matches, thrown crockery, thrown punches (her fists, my body), the works. Mikage was dark and pretty and half-Japanese.
I loved her but we brought out the worst in each other, and when the passionate fights turned to snide remarks and bickering, when the fights ceased to be an intense form of foreplay, it was time to call it a day. It turned out she already had another man lined up and she moved in with him. They’re married now, with a baby.
I missed the feeling I’d had when Mikage and I first got together. That pounding, heart-squeezing feeling. The way I felt now, waiting for Marie. Just this side of sickness. Not that I thought about love, not right then, not until a little later, but I think I fell in love with Marie almost as soon as we met. Love at first sight. It’s easy to be cynical about such things. But sometimes, maybe once or twice in your life, if you’re lucky, you meet someone and it’s like planets colliding.
I looked at my watch again. She was fifteen minutes late. I had finished my coffee. I looked out of the window, trying to see if there was any sign of her. I had definitely said the Coffee Bean at six, hadn’t I? What if she had just been trying to get rid of me when she had agreed to meet me? She might be laughing about me this very minute with one of her friends. In a few short seconds my paranoia grew from a tiny seed to a full bloom. I told myself to stop being so stupid. I would give her another quarter of an hour.
Fifteen minutes passed.
I slurped the sugary, cold dregs of my coffee and went out into the street. I was embarrassed and disappointed. I saw a girl with light red hair walking towards the cinema and my heart jolted, but it wasn’t Marie. I considered walking along to her bedsit but decided that would be too humiliating, too much like begging.
I made my way past the cinema, past the pretty but shabby Georgian terraces of Wellington Square, and as I looked up from the dusty pavement I saw her. She was about twenty feet away, sitting on a bench outside McDonalds. She was with Andrew and they were arguing, quite animatedly. I could see both their faces: he looked angry and hurt; she wore a shocked expression. I hesitated for a moment then walked up to them.
‘Fancy bumping into you here,’ I said.
They looked up at me, startled. Marie got to her feet. ‘Oh, Richard . . . I was on my way. Am I late?’
‘Only a bit.’ My annoyance evaporated at the sight of her. She looked wonderful, fresh and bright, and her freckles had come out in the sun.
Andrew gave me a look that I couldn’t read. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve made Marie late. It’s entirely my fault.’
I shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
The tension between them crackled. They avoided looking at each other, and I noticed that Marie’s fists were clenched.
‘I’d better get going,’ he said to Marie, who still didn’t look at him, pretending to be fascinated by a one-legged pigeon pecking at a discarded chicken nugget. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He nodded goodbye to me and walked off, holding himself straight, his hands in his trouser pockets.