‘I’m really sorry,’ she said again.
‘Don’t worry, honestly.’
I waited to see if she would say any more, tell me what the argument had been about. After a long pause I said, ‘So what do you want to do? Eat, drink? Play Crazy Golf?’
She laughed. ‘You really know how to spoil a girl.’ She took hold of my hand and said, ‘Let’s just walk.’
We walked down to the beach and trod along the pebbles, still holding hands. Hers was very warm. My heart was doing all sorts of strange acrobatic things in my chest. There were still people sunbathing, even though most of the heat had gone out of the sun by this time of the day.
‘What were you and Andrew arguing about?’ I asked, unable to hold back any longer.
‘We weren’t really arguing,’ she replied. ‘We were having a discussion. We’re going to a convention in London tomorrow and we were talking about which train to catch. Andrew wants to leave ridiculously early to get there before the doors open, but I don’t see the point.’
It seemed a rather petty thing to be arguing so vehemently about, but I didn’t want to push it. I asked, ‘What kind of convention?’
‘It’s called Encounters.’
‘Let me guess – it’s about online dating.’
‘Very amusing. It’s actually a convention for people who are interested in UFOs and alien abductions. It should be really interesting. There are some visiting American researchers who are going to give some lectures, and there’s this guy who used to work for the FBI . . .’
‘A real-life Fox Mulder!’
‘Sort of. And basically people can get together and discuss their beliefs and experiences and hopefully learn something.’
‘And buy the merchandise.’
‘You really are a cynic.’ She stooped to pick up a pebble that had caught her eye. It was smooth and round and green. She offered it to me. ‘Here, have a present.’
Her face took on a serious expression. ‘Please don’t mock me, Richard. If you want to be my friend, you don’t have to believe too, but you do have to accept that it’s what I believe. Do you think you can cope with that?’
She fixed her huge eyes on me and I felt myself melting.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I do respect your beliefs. Really.’
‘OK,’ she said, after a long pause. ‘Though you’re right to be cynical about these conventions. They do attract some real weirdos. But Andrew thinks this will be a good one.’
‘I would like to know more about what you believe in,’ I said.
She gestured across the road. By accident or design she had led us to her flat.
‘Come in and I’ll tell you.’
The hallway smelt of fried eggs and dog hair. We climbed six steep flights of stairs to reach Marie’s front door. ‘Welcome to paradise,’ she said, pushing open the door.
She lived in a box-room with just enough space for a single bed and a wardrobe. A door to the left revealed the smallest bathroom I had ever seen: just a sink and a shower in a space the size of an airing cupboard. She had a Baby Belling cooker and a tiny fridge – more a coldbox, really. The walls were papered with pictures of extraterrestrials, stills from the Roswell autopsy among them. An ancient-looking PC gathered dust on the floor beside a litter tray. There was a cat sitting on the bed, purring and dribbling on the quilt.
Marie sat beside the cat and stroked its beige and brown fur. ‘This is Calico.’
‘Hello, Calico,’ I said, stroking the cat, which looked pretty old. Its purr rattled like an old motorbike that needed attention.
‘I’ve had him since I was nine,’ Marie said. ‘When I left my mum’s house I couldn’t bear to leave him behind. Not with her.’
‘How old are you now?’ I said.
‘Twenty-three.’ She kissed him between his ears.
‘Isn’t it unkind to keep a cat locked up in a little place like this? He can’t get any exercise.’
Marie smiled. ‘He does. Look, I’ll show you.’ She leant over and pushed up the sash window. ‘Go on, Calico, go play.’
The cat stood up, blinked, stretched and jumped out through the window. A broken fire-escape stretched up to the roof. Calico ascended the twisted black metal, then leapt onto a piece of drainpipe and finally jumped onto the roof, where he had plenty of room to run around and chase seagulls.
‘Cool cat,’ I said.
She nodded proudly. ‘Very cool.’
‘I bet your Facebook page is full of pictures of him.’
‘Uh-uh. I don’t use Facebook, or Twitter, or any social networking sites.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘They’re New World Order tools. A perfect way to monitor us.’
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
She opened the mini-fridge and produced a bottle of wine. ‘I only have plastic cups, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘and the wine is very cheap.’
‘What are you studying at college?’ I asked. There was no sofa in the room so we sat on the bed, very close to each other. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating.
‘Coding.’
‘I thought you seemed like a geek . . .’
‘Hey!’ She slapped me playfully.
‘Have you got a job too or do you live off your student loan?’
‘A job, kind of. Andrew and I offer a consultative service. Sounds grand, doesn’t it? All it actually means is that we offer people help and advice and charge them for it.’
‘What kind of help?’
‘Well, say somebody’s seen something that’s worried them, or is having strange memories, or thinks they’ve been abducted – anything along those lines, really – we talk to them and either put them in touch with others who have had the same experience, or just try to make them feel better. For example, I had an email yesterday from a man in Scotland who believes his wife has been, um, tampered with by aliens. Apparently she’s gone off sex, her eyes keep glazing over when he’s talking to her and she spends a lot of time staring out of the window at the sky.’
‘And he sees this as evidence that she’s been abducted?’
‘Well, it’s possible! I gave him a list of other possible things to watch out for and took his credit card number.’ She smiled.
‘So you make a lot of money out of this?’
She exhaled a thin stream of smoke. ‘Not much. Just enough to cover my rent, my broadband and phone.’