The Book of You - Claire Kendal

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set the Bellinis on the table, and a bottle of French beer for yourself. ‘Let’s all have fun now.’ But you already are: the most fun you’ve had since November. ‘I hope you like Bellinis too, Clarissa.’ You look at me, then at the naked woman on the wall above the table.

      She is sitting on a stool, her legs together at the knees to stop it being too graphic. She is wearing a suspender belt, stockings, high heels and nothing else. There’s a riding crop across her lap. You gesture towards the painting and arrange your face in a grimace of fake embarrassment. ‘Sorry. I’d forgotten about the décor here.’ But you and I both know you’re getting off on this public porn: on seeing me surrounded by these pictures. That’s why you chose this place.

      ‘I think it’s beautiful. Tasteful.’ Rowena reaches for her glass.

      I wonder again about the wine you fed me in November. ‘Don’t drink that.’ I grab her hand but she snatches it away. I try again and she actually smacks my wrist – hard – and picks up the glass. After an absurd struggle I spill her peach Bellini all over the basket of dried-out baguette slices.

      ‘You’re being insane, Clarissa,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

      ‘I think Clarissa isn’t well.’ You manage to appear sorrowful. ‘She needs our understanding and support.’

      ‘She needs professional help,’ Rowena says.

      I pick up the other peach Bellini. I don’t want to leave it on the table now that I’ve made Rowena so determined to drink it. I grab my bag and coat from the back of my chair. Like you – because of you – I have a habit of keeping my things close, so I can make a quick getaway. I consider rushing out of the restaurant, but I know you’ll only come after me and I’ll end up alone on the dark street with you. There’s only one place I can think of where I can call a taxi and hide until it’s here. And I have a plan, formed crudely only in the last few seconds. It means facing you once more, on my own, but it’s fairly safe and because of Rowena I can’t see an alternative.

      You start to rise and my hand flies up in warning, like a traffic policeman’s. ‘Don’t you dare follow me.’ I can count on you to ignore my wishes. You always do. I’m so loud the people at the tables around us stare. I choke out a goodbye to Rowena but she doesn’t answer. I speed towards the metal stairs that spiral down to the basement, where the cloakroom is.

      There’s another piece of fake Art Deco porn down here, just outside the cloakroom. This one is of a man and woman together, to show that the cloakroom is unisex. In keeping with the rest of the art, they’re both naked. He’s standing, looking down at her. She’s on her knees before him. The view of her is from behind; her head blocks the centre of his body.

      The cloakrooms are so trendily dim I feel blind again. I head towards a stall, hurling the peach Bellini into the chrome sink as I move. The stall has the kind of door with no gaps at its top and bottom, so there’s no chance of you crawling under or peering over. I phone for a taxi. The dispatcher tells me a driver will be along in ten minutes. I plan to stay behind this locked door for the first nine of them.

      When I emerge you’re in the room, just as I expected. You’re barring the exit. The cloying smoke of the incense they’re burning down here makes it hard to breathe, and you’re blocking what light there is. My head is pounding, maybe from eye strain, or maybe because I’m being choked by a poisonous fog of synthetic jasmine. I remind myself that the taxi driver will come into the restaurant any second to ask for me. I calculated before I came down here that someone was bound to walk in, so I don’t think you’ll risk doing anything too uncontrolled. Still, I don’t want to be trapped here long enough to find out; I’ve staged this collision with you as exactly as I could, leaving the smallest amount of time possible to say what I need to without Rowena hearing.

      I get straight to it. ‘I’m not going anywhere near Rowena again. Hang around her all you want. I don’t care. It’s not going to help you get near me.’ I know you. I know Rowena won’t be in any real danger from you. Rowena is throwing herself at you. You’re not interested in women who actually want you. Only the ones who clearly don’t.

      ‘I care about what you care about, Clarissa. I want your friends to be my friends. I want to help Rowena. For you, Clarissa. I’m only interested in her because you are. Don’t be jealous.’

      ‘I’m not—’ Your last point is so outrageous I begin to deny it, but I manage somehow to bite back the end of the sentence. I start again, trying to sound indifferent and cold. ‘Rowena and I have grown apart. It’s been too long. She doesn’t interest me any more. I don’t even like her any more.’

      As soon as the forced betrayals are out of my mouth I want to disavow them. But I can’t, despite my spasm of grief for Rowena. It’s impossible for me to try to help her as a friend should. Or her me. Not now that you’ve hijacked her. Saying these things is all I can do for her: I need to make sure she’s of no use to you. But she won’t thank me for it.

      I take a small step towards the door. ‘Get out of my way.’

      You don’t move.

      ‘If you don’t get out of my way I’ll make you.’ It sounds ridiculous as I say it. We both know I can’t make you do anything.

      You smile, indulgently. ‘You’re charming when you’re angry, Clarissa.’

      My hand is curling around the frosted glass soap dispenser. It’s heavy. It’s as ludicrous as everything else in this supposedly atmospheric, irritatingly trendy unisex cloakroom.

      ‘It pleases me that you’re jealous, Clarissa. I want to pull those clips out of your hair and run my fingers through it and kiss you. I want to see what you’re wearing beneath that dress.’

      I raise the soap dispenser as if it were a weapon.

      You actually laugh out loud. ‘You’d never be able to hurt me, Clarissa. I know you.’

      My hand stops doing what hands are supposed to do. The soap dispenser slips from my fingers, shattering like a bomb on the monochrome-tiled floor just as the main cloakroom door slams into you, propelled by Rowena. You stumble and then skid on the mess of liquid and glass, only just catching yourself by grabbing the sink. The whole evening has been a surreal nightmare, but the unintended choreography caused by Rowena’s entrance is straight out of a slapstick comedy.

      ‘I have to go, Rowena.’

      She seems not to know what to do. For an instant, her face softens, and her eyes fill with tears that she manages to keep in. Then she says, ‘Nobody’s stopping you.’

      I stagger up the twirly stairs and out of the restaurant and into the waiting taxi. My lips taste of salt because I’m crying; I realise I must have been biting them, because the tears are stinging. Rowena is lost to me. Lost to herself. I saw that in my first few minutes with her. Even before you walked in and did what you did.

       Thursday

       Thursday, 5 February, 8.02 a.m.

      There is another envelope from you this morning, waiting for me on the mat inside the front door. You must have pushed it through the slot very early for it to have escaped Miss Norton’s notice. I hurry along the path to the taxi, relieved that at least you aren’t actually here.

      As the taxi zooms down the winding hill I dial Rowena’s hotel. She’s going back to London today. Out of your reach, I hope. But also out of mine.

      She answers with a slurred, ‘What?’

      ‘It’s me.’

      ‘He’s not here, if that’s why you’re calling. He only stayed in the restaurant long enough to tell me he can’t help me with my writing any more, or have anything to do with

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