In the Kitchen (18 page)

'I know what you will say.'

Gabe removed his hand from her l
eg.
He was accused, but of what? He reached for the lamp and switched it on. 'What am I going to say?'

Lena snapped upright as if jolted by her own internal current. 'You say you did not find. I am right or not?'

Was she saying that he had not bothered to look, or that he had taken her money for himself ? He looked into her eyes, trying to gauge the level of her anger, but he could not see inside her, could as soon see her liver or intestines as the state of her heart. 'You're right,' he said. 'I didn't.'

'No,' said Lena, drawing up her knees to form a barrier. 'No.' She plucked at the rings in her ears, stretching the lobes.

There was another possibility. The money never existed. She was working some plan to twist cash out of him. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'Why sorry? For what?' She pulled harder at the earrings. 'How I was so stupid, leave money like that?'

Gabe took hold of her wrists. 'Don't,' he said, 'you'll make them bleed.'

Gently, he lowered her arms and held her hands, or rather her fists. 'I've got some money saved,' he said. So what if it was her plan? He didn't care. 'I can let you have some, we'll call it a loan but you can pay me back whenever that's going to be possible for you. OK? Lena, OK?'

She turned her sharp face up to look at him. Her beauty had a fragile quality; it could break at any moment. 'If you think ...' she said, trailing off. She released her fists and they held hands.

'I think that would be fine. How much do you need? How much did you have?'

Lena hesitated. He imagined the calculations running through her head. How much to ask for? How much was too much? How much not enough? 'Two thousand,'

she said, finally. 'But ... is up to you.'

'Two thousand?' Gabe whistled. 'OK.'

'I accept this offer,' said Lena, and Gabriel understood the attempt to make it real, binding, a done deal.

He pulled her into his chest and they sat for a while in silence, Gabriel smelling the anxious, unwashed smell of her hair, so different from Charlie's, which was safely fresh and citrus, as full as Lena's was thin.

'When?' said Lena. She said it softly. 'When you will make this loan for me?'

'I have to ... you know, make the withdrawal. I have to actually go into the bank. Can't get that kind of cash out of the machine.'

Lena pulled away. 'Yes. I understand, yes.' She smiled. He could see the tension in her neck, the way the tendons stood out. 'When you will go?'

'Soon as I can,' said Gabriel. They were walking the high wire, both of them, facing each other over the canyon of their conflicting desires. 'Might be tricky the next couple of days, lot on at work.' He wanted her to go, of course he did, as much as she wanted to leave, but he didn't want it now, not yet.

'Two days,' said Lena, 'is nothing. I wait.'

In bed, while Lena finished up in the bathroom, Gabriel looked at the furniture: the pine chest, the melamine stacking chair, the home-assembly chest of drawers, and thought about putting them into storage. He should get some furniture of his own, choose stuff that was more 'him', though he was not sure of his taste in furniture, and it would be better to get Charlie to help.

This room was so anonymous. But maybe he liked it that way. In Plodder Lane every chair, every object had a history so that nothing was just what it was.

Lena came in wearing her blouse and pants. She hadn't brushed her hair. She sat down beneath the pastel-framed print of the water lilies, half in, half out of the circle of lamplight, back bent, hands on thighs.

He looked at her serious little face. He said, 'Have you heard the one about the chef and the kitchen porter? The chef says, see these pans here ...'

'You want to make fun for me. I am not care,' said Lena, her accent thickening. 'I am not give shit.'

Gabriel patted the empty pillow at his side. 'Come here. I'm not making fun, I was trying to, you know, keep it light.'

Lena stared at her knees.

'You can't sit there all night. Come on, hop in.' He lifted the duvet. She sat still, resisting, wretched, and he decided to be firm with her to put her out of this self-inflicted pain. 'Get in bed, Lena, now. Stop pissing around.'

She got in bed and he covered her with the duvet. Lying propped on one elbow, he traced the lines of her thin high eyebrows.

'When you were growing up,' he said, 'when you were a little girl, what did you want to be?'

'I don't know,' said Lena. She looked directly at him. Her eyes were a clear, dark blue but he saw nothing in them, as if they were clouded by cataracts.

'Ballerina,' said Gabriel, 'princess, acrobat, Eskimo.'

She made a dismissive sound. 'Tchh.'

If he could make her laugh, he decided, there was nothing to be sorry about.

Though she had started it, touched him, she was behaving as if he had taken something from her.

'Astronaut, actress, lion tamer, mystic. Bank manager, accountant, florist, mortician. Am I close? Damn.' He rolled on to his back. 'Got it,' he said, punching the headboard. 'Kitchen porter at the world famous Imperial Hotel.

Your dream came true.'

'You are bad man,' said Lena, but she gave a short, dry laugh, and it was she who came to him, sliding across the bed and fitting under his arm.

There were footsteps in the courtyard. People went out there sometimes in the night to smoke. The traffic maintained a steady rumble, a soft underblanket of noise on which to float off to sleep. When she spoke again he realized he had been drifting.

'Italy,' she said. 'I want for long time, go to Italy.'

'Oh, Italy. Why not? Italy is beautiful.'

'For work in care home, be carer for old people. Is not dream. Little girl dream ... I don't know, not this. But now, seem like dream, even this.'

'London's not so bad,' said Gabe. 'We'll get you back on your feet. You'll see.' The police weren't looking for her. Even if they interviewed her they wouldn't care if she was illegal or not. There was no need for her to hide. He thought about telling her but it was almost the middle of the night and he didn't want to think about all of that. Something else to keep in the bank, sterling currency in his gift. 'What do you think of this room? Bit characterless, would you say?'

Lena sat up. She looked into the middle distance but whatever she was seeing it was not the pine chest, the stacking chair, but something in her head that made her pinch her arms. 'In my home, in Mazyr, there is gypsy woman. She have big gypsy nose and one eye green and one eye blue. This gypsy woman she tell for me fortune. You know what is fortune? Yes, future. She use tea leaves for this. She tell me, you will meet man, beautiful man, tall and dark hair, yes, like fairy tale, and beautiful man he have mark on neck, back here, is mark from birth, yes, birthmark, and he will take you to your life.' She rocked gently, back and forth. 'He will take you to your life.'

Gabriel ran his hand up and down her spine. She grew still.

'There's time,' said Gabriel, 'your life's only starting. What are you, twenty-five? Twenty-four?'

'My father say, in old days, Soviet days, is easy to tell what is l
ie.

Everything is l
ie.
Now, he says, is more hard. What is truth and what is lie?

How we can know?' She pulled her shoulders up by her ears and let them drop.

'But he is wrong. There is no truth. Is only a new kind of l
ie.
'

'My father,' said Gabriel, not realizing what he would say until the words left his mouth, 'is dying.'

She wormed down and lay on her side, their bodies not quite touching. 'He is old?'

'Seventy-five.'

'He is old,' said Lena.

Gabe looked into her cold blue eyes.

'But is sad,' she said, without a flicker of emotion.

Gabriel took her hand and pressed her fingers to his mouth. He kissed the bitten nails. He kissed the palm. She was hard and cold, and he was grateful for it. Their exchange, after all, was equal. They wanted something from each other, and what was theirs was theirs to trade freely, they didn't need to deceive themselves.

He descends again into the aquarium glow of the catacombs. He is drifting on the light, and the light is not light, it is dark like the sea, the night sea but lit from within, a current of dark-light that sucks him down, sucks him in, and he is nearly at the place though he would turn from it if he could. He crouches over the body and begins with the feet, yellowing nails, a bunion, dry skin on the heel. He tries to move to the legs but is held, and must consider the feet again. Hair on the big toes, left little toe is bent, insteps white and purple with an eggshell texture, a wedge of tissue under the right big toenail to stop it growing in. Why must he look? They are only feet.

He has seen feet before. And he is hungry. Oh, he is hungry. He calls for food. Who will feed me? I, who have fed so many, am hungry. Bring me food. Let there be food. Oysters on a silver salver. He drinks them from their shells.

Sweet skewers of pork with a peanut glaze. He tears them with his teeth. Filo parcels of feta and spinach. He breaks them with his hands. His prayer is answered. The feast surrounds him. He is loved. He is loved. In gratitude, he weeps.

'Caught you,' said Charl
ie.
'Admit it.'

The phone was at his ear. He must have answered it in his sleep. He tipped out of bed and went to the kitchen, leaned a forearm on the cool black granite.

'No,' he said. 'What?'

'Sleeping and what time do you call this?'

'I missed you, sweetheart. What time is it?'

'Ten thirty. I called you at work.' Charlie laughed. 'Oona covered your arse, said you'd probably gone straight into a meeting, but that's after she'd said you hadn't turned up.'

'Oona,' said Gabriel, putting his hand in his boxers, weighing, arranging, freeing, making his habitual adjustments to start the day. 'Never mind Oona.

How was it? Tell me everything. I missed you, sweetheart.'

'I know,' said Charlie, 'you just told me. Tell me again.'

'I did. I do. I want to see you. Why aren't you here with me?' He meant it, every word. Except the part about Charlie being here right now, because that would be difficult with Lena still in his bed.

'Cheap flight,' said Charlie, 'bloody Luton in the middle of the night.

Listen, baby, if you're not working, I'll ...'

'I wish. Oh God, do I wish.' He still had his hand inside his pants. His penis, he noted, concurred with his expressed desire. He gave it a consolatory stroke. 'I overslept, that's all, late one, and it's going to be a fuck of a day.'

'Be like that, then,' said Charl
ie.
'Know when I'm not wanted.'

'Oh, you're wanted, believe me.' He had a full erection now and turned to face the cupboards so that Lena, if she walked in, would not catch him. He knew Lena would not affect his desire, his anything, for Charl
ie.
That was why he could let it happen. No one could touch his relationship with Charlie, not Lena anyway. 'So tell me about Sharm el-Sheikh.'

'I spoke to you practically every day.' She stifled a yawn. 'Maybe I got up too early. Might go back to bed. Did I tell you about the golf buggies? The hotel's all spread out, you know, bungalows, and you ride round the marble paths on these little carts. I drank pomegranate juice and detoxed, think I lost about a stone.'

'You'd better not.'

'One of the security guards was Mossad, Israeli secret service, apparently the Egyptian resorts are crawling with them. Everyone said it, but no one really knew. You know how it is in hotels.'

'Aah,' said Gabriel, 'mmm.'

'You with me, Gabe?' said Charl
ie.
'Oh, and how's your dad?'

His hand stopped what it was doing. He removed it from his shorts. 'Well, you know, no change.'

'You've spoken to him, though?'

'Yes, spoken, of course.'

'The phone is useless, though, isn't it? We'll talk ... I'm not working tonight.'

'Shit,' he said, 'tonight. Tonight's not good, there's a launch party, big bash, goes on really late. And tomorrow there's ... a ... um ... PanCont.

Directors' conference, banquet and stuff, got to show my face.'

'If I didn't know better,' said Charl
ie.

'Sweetheart,' he said, 'sweetheart.' They laughed, she blew him a kiss, they made an arrangement, he hung up the phone. When he turned he saw a ghost in the doorway, Lena in his white shirt. 'What is name?' she said, twisting her skinny fingers. 'Your girlfriend, what she is called?'

When he walked into his office, Oona was sitting in his chair. 'Praise be,'

she said, 'the wild rice and buckwheat finally on they way.'

Gabriel sighed. 'Praise be?'

Oona extricated herself from the chair and spread a buttock over the desk.

'Giving tanks to the Lord. Go on, darlin', settle yourself down.'

'You're not thanking JD Organics?'

'The good Lord,' said Oona, 'provides.' She shifted her weight and released it, getting comfortable, making herself at home.

'Is there anything else, Oona?'

'We muddlin' through,' said Oona happily. She was roosting like a pigeon, all swelling chest and sleepy eyes, bedding down amid the paperwork for a little bill and coo.

Gabriel thought he should thank her for this morning, for holding the fort while he slept. What he said was, 'Have you thought about retiring? You know you could after all these years.'

She looked at him as if he had suggested they start planning her funeral. Then she smiled and her gold tooth caught the light, a little sunburst, sparkly as false hope, and she said, 'Retirement? Hoo! Not me, darlin', I goin' stay here 'til I drop.'

Gabe grabbed a notepad and took the back stairs on his way to the communications meeting. The meeting would be a farce, as usual, dressed up as a worthy ensemble play about Working Life. Word was that the menus had to be rewritten in the PanCont house style, with a maximum of five ingredients listed and a minimum of three. It was another Initiative. Initiatives were generally designed to remind you that you shouldn't show any of your own. He'd give Lena a call afterwards, she must be bored out of her skull. She owned a mobile, it had turned out, when he told her not to answer his phone. She had been sullen this morning and they'd rowed about the phone business. 'I have phone,' she said. 'I am not give shit. I am not need nothing from you.' He'd only told her not to answer it in case Charlie called, or Jenny, or Dad. He let her be angry. It was kinder to let her be angry. She needed her anger right then.