Breaking and Entering (54 page)

He took a step towards her. She immediately shrank back as if he were infectious, but he continued through the doorway; half-triumphant and half-panicky that he was actually inside. As he pushed the door shut, a new rush of apprehension flooded over him. This flat was full of memories – full of
him
, for heaven's sake. He had sat so many times on that elegant chaise-longue, or eaten at that bijou table, which always seemed too cramped. He had made coffee in her kitchen; showered in her dauntingly feminine bathroom (everything shell-pink, even her toothbrush and the weighing-scales); rumpled her neat bed. Yet all she could do now was turn on him with venom.

‘You've got a bloody cheek, you know, showing up like this when you told me loud and clear that things were over between us – finished, dead, kaput.' She gave each word a clipped sarcastic emphasis. ‘And you might at least have phoned first. I could have had a visitor.'

Another lover, you mean, he thought. The notion made him irrationally jealous. Was
that
why she was wearing a new scent? It was so heady and oppressive, he could almost taste it on his lips; its musky flagrance provoking the whole flat. He couldn't take his eyes off her; completely unprepared for the maelstrom of emotions the mere sight of her aroused: guilt, fury, lust, desire. He glanced at her breasts, their curve only just discernible beneath the ivory silk blouse; then down at her long legs, made longer still by flimsy gold-strapped sandals with impossibly high heels. He felt attracted and repelled at once, seeing her not only through his own lascivious eyes, but also as Claire would view her: affected, superficial, and absurdly overdressed. The immaculate red talons (and matching scarlet toenails), the elaborate make-up, even the perfection of the flat itself, all riled him in a way he could barely understand. How dare she criticize his own unkempt appearance when she would never have lasted five minutes at the camp?

‘I thought you had something important to say? I'm still waiting, Daniel.' She subsided into a chair, giving the impression that she was infinitely wearied, and crossing one leg over the other with an alluring flash of black-stockinged thigh.

He cursed himself for looking, started pacing restlessly around. All the speeches he'd prepared seemed utterly inadequate. Yet he was uneasy at the silence, the sense of things unspoken on both sides. He stopped in front of the sideboard, suddenly catching sight of himself in the gold-framed antique mirror on the wall. Yes, she was right, he
did
look a mess: gaunt and almost haggard, with purplish circles under his eyes and a deep scratch on his chin which hadn't healed. He could imagine what she was thinking: he had spent three weeks with a healer and returned sickly and exhausted.

‘Look,' he said, at last, ‘I … I owe you an apology. I came to say I'm sorry.' That wasn't true at all. He had come because he craved her naked body; longed to feel her magnificent hair swathing his stiff cock. But she had cut her hair, castrated him. He could hardly bear to look at it; felt it was a desecration, almost an act of spite. It changed her face, emphasizing her cheek-bones and making her look older, yet also somehow vulnerable; her neck too pale and slender, an exposed and fragile stalk.

‘Sit down,' she urged, less harshly, gesturing to the chaise-longue.

He perched on its velvet edge, feeling, however inanely, that he was defiling it in some way. His swarthy skin with its bumps and bites and bruises (all a further legacy from Wales) seemed as inappropriate here as Juliet's own stylishness would have been in Rainbow Lodge. He cleared his throat, tried to hide his navvy's hands. ‘I should have said sorry before.'

‘Yes, you should.' She tossed her head disdainfully, the tiny pearl-drops in her ears twitching in reproach. He remembered her birthday earrings (pearls as well, ironically) which now sat, unworn, in Penny's drawer – another source of reproach.

‘Things were difficult – at home, I mean.'

‘So I gathered.'

‘And it was hard to write that letter.'

‘It wasn't particularly easy to read it.'

He registered the hurt in her voice; lapsed again into silence. It did now seem reprehensible to have ended things between them so abruptly. He had written a second time, in fact, to tell her he was going to Wales, but had kept it short and curt; whereas
her
second letter had covered three whole sides. Its accusing phrases were flooding back, fuelling his embarrassment and guilt. It surprised her, she had written, in a caustic but still measured tone, that his family meant so much to him – that was certainly not the impression she'd received. Indeed, had he forgotten how he'd begged her to make more time for him, to keep every weekend free, not to book a summer holiday because the two of them must go away together, spend more time together overall? He blushed as he remembered those wild impassioned pleas (usually whispered desperately when he was forced to leave her bed and return guilty but well-gratified to an unsuspecting Penny).

He stared down at the carpet: a thick plush pile in an impractical shade of cream. He had treated them both badly, his mistress and his wife, yet neither had sought vengeance. Penny was still in ignorance, of course, but Juliet could have made trouble for him; even phoned his home and created a furore by revealing the affair. He felt an overwhelming urge to apologize again, to make it genuine this time – ungrudging and unambivalent. Did he dare to take her hand, even prise her from her chair and persuade her to sit beside him? Such gestures had been so easy before, but were now impossible or dangerous.

She appeared to read his mind, forestalled his overture by reaching out her own hand and offering him a cigarette.

‘So you still smoke Camels?' he observed.

She had changed to his brand a few weeks after meeting him, complaining at first that they were far too strong, and only smoking them on sufferance because she had run out of her Silk Cut. But she had soon become accustomed to that strength and started buying them herself. In fact, it had created a further bond between them, along with their mutual taste in books and wine and music.

She was still holding out the packet, her hand all but touching his knee. He was sorely tempted to take one. A refusal would seem churlish, as if he were rejecting any peace-offering, not just the cigarette. Yet it would be crazy to give in after a full nine weeks of abstinence, not to mention Claire's encouragement. Claire had helped him more than anyone, praising his strong will and constantly reminding him how much good he was doing himself. He could imagine her disappointment if she were ever to find out; her sense of almost betrayal. But why in God's name had his thoughts returned to Claire? Her presence in Juliet's flat only added to his confusion, especially when he realized that he was still seeing his past mistress through her eyes; his excitement undercut by disapproval.

‘Daniel! D'you want a cigarette or not?'

‘N … no, thanks, I've given up.'

‘What, again?' She raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Yes. And I'm serious this time.'

‘Congratulations! Will it worry you if
I
smoke?'

‘No,' he lied, slumping back on the uncomfortable chaise-longue. It was an ordeal to watch her light up. The smell was tantalizing enough, but, worse, it evoked those ritual-times they'd smoked together – after meals, and especially after sex – lying naked on the duvet, still flushed, elated, damp; his heart thumping out its gratitude and guilt. She exhaled a wisp of smoke, which drifted slowly past him, dispersed to airy nothing. Had their whole affair been as tenuous as that, as fleeting and insubstantial?

‘You won't say no to a drink, I hope?'

‘No,' he smiled; quite ludicrously relieved that she no longer sounded cross, and was even treating him like a normal guest.

‘No drink, or no “no”?'

‘No “no”,' he replied. ‘I'd love a drink.'

‘Your usual?'

‘Please.' The phrase jolted him as the Camels had done. ‘Your usual' implied that nothing had changed; that those cold, accusing letters had never actually been written; that he was here to take her out to dinner as a prelude to making love. Perhaps she was secretly glad to see him, pleased that he'd come back. Her initial anger had subsided remarkably quickly, considering his audacity in turning up on her doorstep. (He was astonished now that he had ever found the courage.)

Warily he followed her to the sideboard, where she was pouring his Martini; put his hand on her arm; the silky coolness of her blouse enticing him with memories of her coolly naked body. ‘Juliet …'

He stalled. He seemed to have lost the knack of talking to her; could hardly believe they'd once spent hours discussing Africa, or music, or even footling things like the respective merits of Swiss and Belgian chocolate. Yet she hadn't shrugged his hand off, was standing so disarmingly close, he could see the faint gold down on her cheek, smell her smoky breath.

‘Let's have dinner,' he blurted out. ‘I'll take you to Chez Antoine's.' The best restaurant in Hampstead, with prices which would bankrupt him – but what the hell? Somehow he had to bribe her, keep her with him longer.

‘I'm already going out to dinner. In fact, I mustn't be too long.' She pushed up her cuff to consult her small gold watch, removing his hand in the process. ‘I'm being collected at eight-fifteen.'

He recoiled as if she had slapped him in the face. So there
was
another man: a man who liked short hair and had persuaded her to cut it; a man who had no commitments, no wayward wives or moody, silent daughters; a man who bought her earrings and was able to present them to her, instead of using them as a sop to ingratiate himself with his wife.

‘Look, you can't!' he almost shouted. ‘We've got to talk.'

‘What d'you mean, I “can't”? You really have got a nerve, Daniel! You finish things between us in the most high-handed way imaginable, then start behaving as if you own me.'

‘I'm sorry, I was wrong – I mean wrong about finishing things.'

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘So I'm expected to follow your every whim, and chop and change along with you? Can't you see how unreasonable you're being?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I can. But …'

‘But what?'

‘I don't know.' He sank back on the chaise-longue, aware that he was saying things he had never planned to say and probably didn't mean. He, too, glanced at his watch – a quarter to eight. How on earth could it be so late? He had thirty minutes left with her – less if she got rid of him well before her visitor arrived. As far as he was concerned, his rival was already there, haunting him, disturbing him, overlaying his own traces in the flat – worst of all, displacing him in her bed. No doubt the wretched man could stay the night, make love to her next morning, instead of being forced to leave at some schoolboy hour and sneak ignominiously home.

She was advancing from the sideboard with his drink, leaning forward to give it to him; another waft of her seductive perfume sapping his good sense. He took the glass, then grabbed her wrist, his fingers snapping round it like a padlock. ‘I've just got to see you, Juliet.'

‘You
are
seeing me. You're here. But there's no need to hold me captive.' She shook her hand free, grimacing at the faint red weal he'd left. ‘I'm already hanging on your every word without your having to resort to violence. I just wish you'd get on with it.'

‘It's not that easy,' he countered. ‘We can't pick up where we left off, as if nothing's happened in the interim.'

‘Well, that's your problem, isn't it? No one asked you to come back.'

It would be impossible to talk at all if she took that hostile tone. ‘Look, all I'm saying, Juliet, is that I need to see you for longer than five minutes.'

Studiously, she checked her watch. ‘We have twenty-seven and a half, which seems extremely generous for someone who told me a couple of months ago that he had nothing more to say.'

He ignored this second taunt, swallowing his pride to plead, ‘Is there any chance you … you could cancel your dinner?'

Her angry exclamation was deserved. He knew the suggestion was preposterous, and only sparked by jealousy. If he wasn't careful, she'd throw him out. He had better keep away from the minefield of the past and embark on humdrum conversation – find out how she'd been, ask her how her job was. He watched as she returned to her chair, noting with annoyance how she edged it away from his own.

‘So how have things been going?' he asked.

‘Fine,' she said, noncommittally, taking a long luxurious drag on her cigarette, as if it were considerably more satisfying than anything he could say.

His next words fared no better, drowned this time by the shrilling of the phone.

‘Excuse me, will you, Daniel? I'll take that in the other room.'

Decisively, she closed the bedroom door. He suspected it was another man, since she was so keen he shouldn't hear. Or perhaps it was the suitor expected at eight-fifteen, phoning to say he'd be late – or early – and should he bring red roses (or a priceless antique pendant to match the new pearl earrings), and could he move in permanently?

Look, stop this nonsense, he told himself, appalled at the way he was overreacting. He'd assumed he'd cut all emotional ties, so the intensity of his present feelings had left him severely shaken. He strode to the open window and took a breath of calming air. There was no proof whatsoever that the caller was a man. It could just as easily be Juliet's aged mother, or a colleague from work, or a casual friend ringing for a chat. He picked up a small bronze on the windowsill – a young child's head, sculpted with great energy and vigour. That was new, as well. Another gift, perhaps? There was no sign of his own presents, which he had chosen with such loving care. Had she consigned them to the dustbin?