Antarctica Read Free

‘You’re a sneaky one.’
    ‘I –’
    ‘You want to sneak off to lunch and get drunk?’ He pushed her into the booth and kissed her, a long, wet kiss. ‘I woke this morning with your scent in the sheets,’ he said. ‘It was beautiful.’
    ‘Bottle it,’ she said, ‘we’ll make a fortune.’
    They ate lunch in a place with six-foot walls, arched windows and a flagstone floor. Their table was next to a fire. Over plates of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding they got drunk again, but they didn’t talk much. She drank Bloody Marys, told the waitress to go heavy on the Tabasco. He started on ale then switched to gin and tonics, anything to stave off the imminent prospect of their separation.
    ‘I don’t normally drink like this,’ she said. ‘How about you?’
    ‘Nah,’ he said, and signalled the waitress for another round.
    They dawdled over dessert and the Sunday newspapers . The landlady came round and threw more wood on the fire. Once, while turning a page of the newspaper, she looked up. He was staring intently at her mouth.
    ‘Smile,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Smile.’
    She smiled and he reached over and pressed the tip of his index finger against her tooth.
    ‘There,’ he said, showing her a tiny speck of food. ‘It’s gone now.’
    When they walked out on to the market-place, a thick fog had fallen on the town, so thick she could hardly read the signs. A straggle of Sunday vendors, out to win the Christmas trade, were demonstrating their wares.
    ‘Done your Christmas shopping?’ she said.
    ‘Nah, got nobody to buy for, have I? I’m an orphan. Remember?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Come on. Let’s walk.’
    He gripped her hand and took her down a dirt road that led into a black wood beyond the houses.
    ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said.
    He loosened his hold but he did not say sorry. Light drained out of that day. Dusk stoked the sky, bribing daylight into darkness. They walked for a long time without talking, just feeling the Sunday hush, listening to the trees straining against the icy wind.
    ‘I was married once, went off to Africa for a honeymoon ,’ he said suddenly. ‘It didn’t last. I had a big house, furniture, all that. She was a good woman too, a wonderful gardener. You know that plant in my lounge? Well, that was hers. I’ve been waiting for years for that plant to die, but the fucking thing, it keeps on growing.’
    She pictured the plant sprawled across the floor, the length of a grown man, its pot no bigger than a small saucepan, dried roots snarling up over the pot. A miracle it was still alive.
    ‘Some things you just have no control over,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘She said I wouldn’t last a yearwithout her. Boy, was she wrong.’ He looked at her then, and smiled, a strange smile of victory.
    They had walked deep into the woods by now; except for the sound of their footsteps on the road and the ribbon of sky between the trees, she could not have been sure where the path was. He grabbed her suddenly and pulled her in under the trees, pushed her back against a tree-trunk. She couldn’t see. She felt the bark through her coat, his belly against hers, could smell gin on his breath.
    ‘You won’t forget me,’ he said, smoothing her hair back from her eyes. ‘Say it. Say you won’t forget me.’
    ‘I won’t forget you,’ she said.
    In the darkness, he ran his fingers across her face, same as he was a blind man trying to memorise her. ‘Nor I, you. A little piece of you will be ticking right here,’ he said, taking her hand and placing it inside his shirt. She felt his heart beneath his hot skin, beating. He kissed her then as if there was something in her mouth he wanted. Words, probably. At that moment the cathedral bells rang and she wondered what time it was. Her train left at six but she was all packed, there was no real hurry.
    ‘Did you check out this morning?’
    ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘They think I’m the tidiest guest they’ve ever had.