Another Country

by Anjali Joseph

  After lunch Leela fished out her notebook. Near the end, she had written the numbers from one to a hundred, each above a small box. In some of the boxes she’d drawn a symbol denoting a smiling face; in others, the box had been coloured black. It was rare for there to be a line of smiles longer than four or five; there was one stretch of eleven but, she thought, the black squares that followed it probably ought to have swallowed half the page.

  Today’s square was still blank. Nothing had happened; she had risen early, given Richard a kiss, smiled at him as he made sleepily for the bathroom while she was on her way out, and she had gone to the gym. The tension that always seemed to buzz between her neck and shoulders, and which resulted either in tears or bitten-out words of anger, had been allowed to dissipate somewhere between the stair climber and the scent of the gym’s shower gel, a generic green smell that might have been called Alpine Fresh, or Forest Morning.

  The secret, strange ways her day passed, her frustrations when the photocopier kept jamming, and she had to produce reduced-size, double-sided copies of annotated documents for Mike to take away with him on a business trip, and it was after five thirty and everyone else had left, and she fretted about how long the tube journey back would take, were things she tried to tell Richard about. He sympathised, but she knew he didn’t understand.

  She stared at today’s blank square.

  ‘If we could just have a while without arguing,’ he had said, head in hands. ‘I hate it when we argue.’

  Leela’s jaw had begun to ache. They had been sitting on his sofa on a Sunday night, the sky outside black. The weekend had passed in the usual way: late-night arguing, matinal apologies, interminable resentment.

  She said nothing for a bit. ‘You want us not to disagree?’

  ‘Not that, but not have these horrible arguments.’

  She considered it coldly. There had been other things that had frightened her, but which she had dealt with: final exams, or moving to a new city. This too could be done.

  ‘Are you angry?’ he enquired apprehensively. It was their pattern: when she became self-sufficient, he would break her down with affection or argument till the usual imbalance was restored.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. Later, when he was on the phone, she drew the set of squares, crazy in their alignment, each row tilting hopefully upwards.

  After that, her zeal for achieving, in a new but similar way to the meaningless achievements of the gym, made her manage to be pleasant and, at worst, a little withdrawn for ten days. They had a spat one Saturday at a party when Richard allowed a dull and not very attractive woman to flirt with him, while a silent, increasingly enraged Leela looked on; he then tried to talk to Leela’s friend’s very attractive girlfriend before she drunkenly disappeared to the bathroom. ‘You always get paranoid when I talk to anyone more beautiful than you,’ he observed. They had a teary row on the road towards her house; he grabbed her satchel and slung it over a wall into the garden of a block of council flats.

  He climbed over the wall, and returned with the satchel, and they continued up the road in sullen silence, but she ended up apologising the next day. On Monday, her bitterness at the usual betrayals – his, of her; hers, of herself – were compounded by having to record a black square in the notebook. She coloured it in with grim satisfaction – for a part of her was not sorry that the initiatives to control it had failed.

  Chapter 13

  ‘What are you doing today?’ Richard asked. For a moment, she saw him as he was – tall, slightly geeky, pleased to see her. She was so used to viewing him as the author of all her disappointment and frustration.

  ‘I’ll ring the agency. But I’ve got to fill out my tax return as well. I wonder if I’ll find all the papers. Nightmare.’

  The morning was pretty. Through the streaky kitchen window, sun flooded; the water-stained steel sink was bright.

  ‘I don’t have anything to do,’ he mused.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Javier’s on leave, the proposal’s with the client. Clara said she might not come in.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She agitated the cafetière and plunged it. She poured carefully into a white bone china mug. Things always had to be a certain way in Richard’s house.

  ‘I suppose I could work from home,’ he said. He chuckled.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We could hang out for a while, have a picnic or something.’

  On the way from the deli, his hair blew across his face. He looked younger, more defenceless than when he was dressed for work; he wore a baggy shirt with flowers climbing over it in faded rows.

  They stopped at the small park halfway up the road.

  ‘What about here?’

  ‘Isn’t this for kids?’

  ‘But there aren’t any here.’

  She followed him. They sat on mushroom-shaped stools amid the wood chippings, under the pleasant leaves of early summer.

  ‘Do you want some olives?’

  He ate half a sandwich, in sunflower-seed bread. He grinned at her with satisfaction and she, eating the other half, fingers slippery with oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, smiled too. She leaned back. The springy stool allowed her to look up and behind; only a few leaves were between her and the blue sky.

  ‘It’s going to be summer.’

  ‘It is summer.’

  ‘Late May?’

  ‘Pretty much. We’ll have a few warm days then it’ll be over anyway.’

  ‘That’s true.’ She sighed.

  ‘Try the cheese.’

  She passed him the lemonade. ‘No, I’m full.’

  ‘Sure?’

  She nodded resignedly.

  Leela texted Amy: So are we still on for today?

  Amy: Yes! But Andrew won’t be free till slightly later. Is that okay?

  Leela, heart sinking: When?

  Amy: About 8.30. We could meet a bit before, if I get done with work.

  It was the middle of an uninspiring week. The date had been set up on Sunday – Amy had rung, Leela hadn’t picked up, then Amy had left a teary-sounding message. Weekends were difficult for her, and Leela sometimes avoided the resentful telephone calls that Sundays brought. She rang back, and Amy asked her to come for a drink and meet Andrew.

  ‘He’s definitely going to be there, he’s got a meeting before that, he’s definitely staying over on Wednesday.’

  She often sounded angry when she talked about him.

  ‘Right, okay. Wednesday?’ Leela said. She rolled her eyes at Richard, who was reading a magazine in the background. She raised her eyebrows; he nodded.

  Now, she sighed. She’d have to hang around in town and wait for Andrew to be done with his meeting. Amy, she had a hunch, wouldn’t appear much before. Richard had gone to see a school friend in Hampstead, at the flat he shared with his girlfriend. Leela had a mild pang. Not because the girlfriend was particularly attractive, but because Richard went to see them from time to time, when Leela happened to be busy, probably because there was a freedom and simplicity in their company that her presence would have impaired.

  She wandered around the centre of London, killing time, and remembered again how pointless and depressing areas like Leicester Square were. Finally Amy rang. There turned out to have been a missed call.

  ‘Where are you?’ Amy’s well-bred tones enquired.

  ‘In Leicester Square, waiting,’ said an irritated Leela.

  ‘What are you doing there? We’re here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘In the pub. On Whitehall. Get here when you can.’

  She had a silent, sarcastic conversation with Amy on her walk past lit-up late-evening windows and hurrying figures. There was a shadow in the sky as it darkened; a wind blew dust.

  Turning into the door of the pub, she left behind an emanation of the city – traffic fumes but also a scent of summer, perhaps from trees coming into flower somewhere near the Mall. She went into the classic atmosphere of a pub in London: carpet s
pray, crisps, smoke, beer, damp suiting.

  Inside she became lost amid the repeated motifs of overcoats and work shirts, pink and blue and white, the features above them as alien as the clothing. Fucking drones, she thought, but was intimidated by their raw, pink faces.

  She saw an attractive young woman, then a man’s shoulder – his back was to her, he had close-cut grey hair. He leant into the girl, and she laughed. Leela’s first impression was of her charisma; then the woman waved and the world slid into focus and became unforeign. It was Amy.

  ‘Leela!’ she cried.

  ‘Hi,’ said Leela, diffident, moving closer, but unable to help grinning as her friend, like a toddler, threw up her arms for a hug. Leela kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Good to see you!’ said Amy, an utterance both formal and heartfelt that reminded Leela of Amy’s father.

  ‘Hi,’ she said again, so aware of being the new arrival that it was hard to look at Andrew properly. Now she saw the cropped silver hair and blue eyes she recognised vaguely from TV. ‘I’m Leela.’

  ‘Hi Leela, great to meet you. Look, let me get you both a drink. Darling, another glass of wine?’

  ‘That’d be lovely,’ Amy said. She beamed. Leela was taken aback.

  ‘Leela, what’ll you have?’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘No, absolutely not.’

  ‘Um, a gin and tonic please.’

  Amy was still beaming. Leela sat next to her, ran a hand through her hair, which was growing in unruly ways, and took in the table: Andrew’s mobile; Amy’s wallet; a near-empty glass of white wine, and an empty pint glass. She picked up a beer mat and put it down again; it was damp.

  ‘He seems really nice,’ Leela said. She knew Amy believed her to be hostile to the relationship and wanted her friend to be happy, or continue to be happy.

  She began to hear murmurs of the chat around them.

  ‘Ha ha ha! You fucking idiot!’ An Australian accent. Someone thrust out his elbow; Leela moved her stool. Someone else laughed. A few tables away was a throng of standing people.

  ‘Oh yeah, Andrew has amazing manners. Obviously. You won’t have to go to the bar all night,’ Amy said. Leela felt slightly diminished, embarrassed as well as aggrieved, as though she’d either desperately wanted to be there or to consume drinks paid for by Andrew. Where would she have been if she hadn’t been here? At Richard’s, perhaps, with a magazine and a takeaway while he was out, or angry with him, looking at the time, or at her house, either absorbed in something or discontented; she couldn’t decide which.

  Andrew was back. ‘There’s a booth over in the other side, shall we go there?’ he asked. They picked up their stuff and followed him.

  The side room, behind panelled screens, was nicer. The people who had been in the booth were leaving; they waited, then slid in, Amy in the corner, and Leela opposite. In the snug she felt less antagonised.

  ‘Leela, Amy tells me you’re a great reader,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ve been rereading lately, Our Mutual Friend. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘Is this Dickens? Am I wrong?’ Amy’s clear voice cut in.

  Leela grinned at her.

  ‘The descriptions at the beginning – the river, and London. It’s amazing. I’d forgotten it completely, I now realise.’

  ‘What did you do at university? I mean, what did you read?’

  ‘English.’ He smiled at her.

  ‘Oh, really?’

  He nodded, his face eager. ‘It stays with you, you know. The love of books, and the things you learn about how to read. You lose the knowledge, or at least I have. Terrible verbal memory. I can’t quote anything I read more than a week ago.’ He grimaced.

  ‘I know, me too,’ Leela said.

  ‘What are you reading right now?’

  ‘I’m in between stuff,’ she said. She was finding it hard to face a book; she subsisted on magazines, weekend supplements, and the internet. Now, she had a sudden enthusiasm for going to a second-hand bookshop. ‘I decided I had too many books,’ she went on. ‘I thought I should stop buying them for a while.’

  Andrew smiled. It was a smile of great flexibility and understanding. ‘Ah, but books,’ he said.

  ‘Books are things too,’ said Leela, without believing it.

  His azure eyes softened. He smiled as though he had enough grace not to believe she meant it either.

  Leela got into bed.

  Richard kissed her. ‘How was the evening?’

  ‘Really nice actually.’ Her voice was warm.

  ‘Really?’ He looked up from the book.

  ‘Yeah, I really liked him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He’s great. I think he might be amazing for Amy.’

  ‘Even though he’s married?’

  ‘It was weird,’ Leela said. ‘He mentioned his wife at one point – really naturally. I thought I’d hate him for it, but it made me feel he was less of a bastard. I do think he really cares about Amy.’

  Richard looked at her for a little longer. ‘You really liked him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Leela slowly. ‘I did. I was surprised.’

  At Trafalgar Square, when she’d left them to go for her bus, Amy had hugged her, and Andrew kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s really great to have met you, Leela,’ he said. ‘Really nice to talk, and I know how important you both are,’ he looked at the two women, ‘to each other.’

  ‘Leela’s my best friend!’ said a slightly drunk Amy. Leela grinned. ‘That’s big shit!’ Amy pointed out.

  ‘It is big shit,’ Andrew agreed, with only a little irony.

  Leela half turned when she’d gone a few paces. The others were talking intently, and Andrew’s arm was around Amy. She drew her cardigan about her, and wished she had a scarf; it wasn’t that warm at night.

  Now, as Richard continued to read his book on marketing techniques, she lay back, one arm under her head, and listened to the traffic pass outside the partly open window. Summer was coming, that was plain, but it wasn’t here yet. She looked at Richard, reading, and pinching his earlobe, as he always did when concentrating. She thought of Andrew, his infinitely understanding smile, and his warmth; of Amy, and her reckless happiness; and she was aware, too, of the room around her, its artifices, the rustle of the duvet cover, and the almost animal sound of the occasional car on the road.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Sweetie, are you ready?’ Her voice was getting an edge. Early July, a Sunday evening. She had not gone to the gym; he had spent part of the afternoon on the telephone, just as they’d been about to go out to the flea market together, and she had begun to read but not been able to; a small argument, a make up, a stint in bed, and she was wondering with irritation where the time had gone.

  Richard was ironing a shirt.

  ‘I’ll just be a couple of minutes,’ he said, grinning at her.

  Leela went and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was growing out, and she had put some stuff in it. She’d put on eyeliner, and a dress she liked.

  She turned again. Richard was painstakingly ironing the back of the left sleeve.

  ‘You’re only going to put a jumper over it anyway,’ she said.

  ‘But I might take the jumper off inside.’

  The figure in the mirror turned away from itself in exasperation. It folded its arms; the shoulders went up, towards the ears.

  An hour later, out of the tube, they walked for a long time around a small area, repeatedly consulting the A–Z.

  ‘Shit, we should have brought something,’ Leela said. She was feeling uneasy. ‘We’re really late.’

  They were near a dark square. She was suddenly filled with rage, and tears. ‘Why couldn’t you iron your fucking shirt earlier?’ Her hands balled up; she began to cry.

  Forty-five minutes later, they got to Ellen’s door. It was open, the party had spilled into the corridor. Richard was smiling; he held a bottle of wine. Leela felt shaken. She was
smiling too – she didn’t know what she was feeling: hatred, fear, or merely the hope of release.

  ‘Leela!’ Amy grabbed them as soon as they came in. Leela got caught, to her surprise, saying hello to smiling, diffident Doug, an ex-boyfriend of Amy’s: they’d been in a play together in their first year at college. Amy grabbed Richard’s arm and began to have an intent conversation with him, still holding his arm, which irritated Leela, who remembered Amy pinning her to the wall of a women’s toilet and hissing ‘Stop flirting with Doug!’ Leela had been baffled; she hadn’t even been attracted to Doug, who equally certainly wasn’t interested in her.

  Doug was saying something: he brought over a blonde Canadian girl who was his girlfriend, and Leela, thinking the other woman was sweet, talked to her for a while.

  Amy grabbed Leela’s arm and dragged her outside. ‘Stop being so fucking disloyal!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Stop talking to that bitch!’

  ‘Why’s she a bitch?’

  ‘Fucking blonde, blondie, blonde bitch!’ said Amy.

  ‘You’re ratted.’

  ‘Yeah yeah, whatever. The point is, you shouldn’t have been talking to her.’

  ‘But why? You don’t still care about Doug.’

  ‘That’s not the point. He rejected me, he rejected me.’

  ‘I’m going inside.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What about Andrew?’ Leela tried.

  ‘Andrew’s obviously much better than Doug. Obviously. He’s like a nine or ten, and Doug’s a six. But,’ and Amy’s voice rose, ‘he’s married, right, so whassthepoint? Whassthepoint of it all? And anyway, you’re my best friend.’ Her hand tightened around Leela’s arm. Some of the girls on the balcony looked at them and grinned.