An Absence of Natural Light Read Free Page A

more than an actual tune. It’s jazz, sort of mournful, a trumpet as the lead. It must be coming from a neighbour’s basement.’
    Rebecca frowned. ‘I wasn’t lying to you when I said those walls are very thick.’
    â€˜I’m sure you weren’t. In fact I know you weren’t, from when I had the survey done. The surveyor kept commenting on the building spec. And it’s faint like I said, barely audible. I kind of wish I could place it, but I’m no authority on jazz.’ He took a sip of his beer and blinked and looked at her brightly and said, ‘That’s me all over, just an ex-pro player beating on the doors of the knacker’s yard, ignorant as they come, knowing bugger-all about anything except kicking a ball, which I can no longer do.’
    â€˜What is it you’d like to know more about?’
    He was still looking at her. He looked out of the window to his right, to the glittering night vista of the river, with its black water and reflected, floating shimmers of Embankment light. He turned back to her. ‘Everything, Rebecca,’ he said. ‘All of it.’
    He walked her home along the river. Thirty seconds into their progress she hooked her arm through his and leant into him. It was late by now and dark but there was enough light from the orbs atop the ornamental lampposts for them to see and be seen. People approached them going the other way, some of them double-taking as they recognized the man she was with. Of course they did; he’d led his country as well as his club and had played all over the world. Millions had seen him from the tiered seats of stadiums. Hundreds of millions had watched him on their TV screens.
    The run of elaborate lights to their left were known as the dolphin lampposts. This was a misnomer because the fish coiled around their cast iron bases were apparently modeled on sturgeon. They didn’t look like sturgeon to Rebecca. They looked mythic, she thought, wondering whether any of this was known to Tom and deciding probably none of it was. Did it matter? It did, only, though, because knowledge mattered so much to him.
    â€˜Do you know what an autodidact is?’
    â€˜No. I don’t. I’m guessing it might be something to do with sleepwalking.’
    â€˜That’s a somnambulist.’
    â€˜Show-off.’
    â€˜An autodidact is someone who educates themselves by reading the contents of a library alphabetically. They learn everything, just by ploughing indiscriminately through the whole bloody lot.’
    â€˜Good word.’
    â€˜It’s what I imagine you doing, at night, in that sitting room of yours, as the phantom jazz creeps up the stairs.’
    He stopped, obviously offended. She wondered if the wine had loosened her tongue further than it would have gone completely sober. He shrugged himself free of her and she blinked and was about to mouth an apology when he turned to face her fully and lifted his hands and cupped her head in the cradle of his fingers, his thumbs light against her cheeks. And pulled her to him and kissed her, properly.
    â€˜There,’ he said when the kiss eventually broke.
    â€˜Why did you do that? Was it to shut me up?’
    â€˜Because I wanted to, because I’ve wanted to since you walked into Costa that afternoon three weeks ago with your hair all damp from the rain and I saw you for the first time.’
    He kissed her again. And they kissed a third time at her front door before she closed it and he turned for his virtuous journey home, still able to taste her, wishing the sensation would last longer than he knew it would.
    Tom heard the music again that night. He got to the flat only after midnight. He’d walked back along the Embankment and over Lambeth Bridge and hailed a cab on Horseferry Road. Jaguar had said they would give him another car, which had been good for his ego but had done nothing much to affect his daily routine. After three weeks