The Temporary Read Free Page B

front door. As usual the flat was darkwhen she let herself in, but along the hall she saw a glow hint seductively from beneath the sitting-room door at Janice’s presence and she went automatically towards it. Janice looked blankly up at her from the sofa when she entered the cave of the room’s warmth, with the mild amnesia which Francine was always required to penetrate even after the smallest separation.
    ‘It’s ever so cold outside,’ she said.
    ‘Is it?’ Janice received the message with wonder. ‘God.’
    ‘I went to that park, but it was pretty boring,’ Francine confessed.
    Janice picked up a packet of cigarettes which lay beside her and offered one to Francine. The gesture conveyed a certain intimacy and Francine took one gratefully. As she did so, Janice touched her arm lightly.
    ‘Ralph called for you,’ she said, keeping her hand there as if it were the conduit for her information.
    ‘Ralph?’
    Janice had pronounced the name with such familiarity that for a moment Francine was confused.
    ‘Ralph.’ She nodded darkly. ‘He says can you call him back.’
    Francine felt the pleasurable anxiety of an emergency. Janice held a lighter towards her and in its piquant illumination she ignited her cigarette and inhaled deeply. How had Ralph got her number? A dim memory of giving it to him promoted itself faintly but she pushed it back, enjoying instead the dramatic movement of Ralph from the shadows of her thoughts to their foreground. His assertion constituted a surprise, administering a forceful shock to her vanity. For a moment he glittered, but then his glory began to ebb as she admitted disappointment to her calculations. Why hadn’t Stephen called? She summoned her memory of the evening’s final exchanges from its confinement. It had been outside, onthe pavement, while she was waiting for a cab with Julie, and Ralph had just been standing there on his own. Julie had written her number down on a piece of paper and given it to him, and he had acted as if he were surprised and then asked if he could have hers too. On the way home Julie had asked her what she thought of Ralph and she had shrugged.
    ‘He’s OK. I prefer his friend.’
    ‘They both like you,’ Julie had said miserably.
    ‘He’s got a heavy energy,’ Janice said now through a thoughtful cloud of smoke. ‘I could tell, even over the phone.’
    Francine had looked for Stephen, glancing around secretly, but he had disappeared towards the end of the party and hadn’t come back to say goodbye. She had given her number to Ralph, the moment dulled by disappointment, and then realized afterwards that Stephen could always get hold of her that way. It was probably for the best, she had thought on the way home, while Julie stared mournfully from the window of their cab. If she had given him her number herself, he would have thought she was desperate. This way he might even get a bit jealous. She had felt the satisfaction which customarily arose from the discovery of a personal advantage in the work of forces outside her control, and before long had gained the impression that the work had been her own.

Two
    Ralph Loman woke to find he had become his best friend Stephen Sparks. The room – Stephen’s room? Yes, he supposed it must be, although he had never been in Stephen’s room before, an odd thing really – the room was cold, deathly cold, and blue with too-early light. It had been such a long night, a night busy with dreams. What a lot he had done! Just now he had been at a party – he had only just left, in fact – in a great glass place, a glass beehive filled with people. Everyone had been so kind. At one point a girl had given him an injection and for a while he had been terrified as something crept unstoppably along his veins, about to invade his heart; but then he had remembered that he was Stephen and felt an inquisitive rush of joy. It had gathered in him while the party murmured distantly, a beautiful, refracting thing, a