Full Stop Read Free Page A

got her for my last birthday. I’m sorry about the mess,’ she apologised again, looking helplessly at the untidy heaps of clothes. ‘Term’s over but I had to rush out and see one of my graduate students one more time before he went home to Kansas. He lives midtown so we generally meet up in a café instead of trailing all the way up to Columbia.’ She leaned back on the bed, supporting herself on outstretched arms. ‘This kid,’ she said, still not answering Loretta’s original question, ‘he’s very bright but he will
not
concentrate. It’s all free association, if we go on like this he’s gonna turn in the first stream-of-consciousness thesis. One week he tells me – OK, this is how I do my first chapter, then I take up this point, then I go here ... Two weeks later it’s like the whole conversation never happened.’
    â€˜What’s his subject?’
    â€˜Huh, you tell me. I mean, Carver, that’s the one thing we’re all agreed on ...’ She sat up straight. ‘Loretta, can I get you a drink? You like tea, right? Or maybe you’d prefer something cold? How’s everyone at St Frid’s?’ It was a while since Toni had spent a term as a visiting fellow at St Frideswide’s, the Oxford college where Loretta taught part-time, and she was still trying to work out who had left or published books or done anything else of note when Toni got up. ‘Kitchen’s in here,’ she said, crossing the room and pushing open a door, ‘bathroom’s next door. I put out some clean towels, and I changed the sheets on the bed.’
    Loretta heard a tap being turned on, presumably Toni filling the kettle. She got up and went to the window, stooping to examine the air-conditioning unit. It was turned up high and Loretta wondered if there was any setting which would keep the room cool without making such a din; there were several dials and buttons, and she would ask Toni later. She straightened and looked out of the window at a modern building across the street — not much of a view, she thought, relinquishing her fantasy oflooking out on to the Guggenheim Museum or the Art Deco spire of the Chrysler building. The flat was fifteen floors up, high enough to make her slightly queasy as she looked down on to a broad avenue jammed with almost stationary traffic. Loretta wondered which it was, vaguely remembering names on the Upper West Side from her map — Columbus, Amsterdam, West End Avenue.
    â€˜What street are we on? I mean, what avenue?’ she asked, moving away from the window as Toni came back into the room carrying a mug.
    â€˜West End. Riverside Drive’s over there,’ she added, pointing towards the door of the apartment. ‘You take sugar?’
    Loretta shook her head.
    â€˜I didn’t think so. Listen, Loretta.’ She put the mug on the coffee table in front of the sofa and went back to the bed. ‘I hate to do this to you on your first night. What it is, Jay ...’ She paused, and Loretta remembered that Jay was Toni’s boyfriend. She knew he played tenor sax in a jazz band, but nothing else about him. Toni said rapidly: ‘Jay totaled his car two nights ago, he was driving back from an out-of-town gig in New Jersey.’ She saw Loretta’s expression and hurried to reassure her. ‘He’s fine apart from a whole lot of bruising. But it’s messed up the weekend, I don’t have a car so we’re gonna have to take the jitney to Long Island –’
    â€˜The what?’
    â€˜The jitney. The bus. And it’s full tomorrow, all booked up, so we have to leave this afternoon. The other thing is, now we don’t have the car, Honey isn’t so used to people that I totally trust her. Not for three hours, which is how long it can take to the Hamptons at this time of day. All you need to do is walk her twice a day, her food’s in the kitchen