‘Usually we knock them unconscious.’
‘With tiny truncheons?’
‘With carbon dioxide. Then after a while they stumble back onto their feet and get on with having sex.’
‘My typical weekend.’
A moment passed.
‘So can I keep one? I want …’ She pressed a finger to the glass ‘… that one there.’
‘They’re not goldfish at the fairground. They’re tools of science.’
‘But look — they really like me!’
‘Perhaps it’s because you smell of old bananas!’ Another moment passed. ‘You don’t smell of old bananas. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said you smelt of old bananas.’
She looked over her shoulder and smiled, and I introduced her to Bruce, our pet fruit fly, to show that it was not only the art-school crowd who knew how to have a good time.
The tour continued. I showed her the cold room, where we remarked on how cold it was, and the 37-degree room.
‘Why 37 degrees?’
‘Because it’s the temperature inside the human body. This is what it feels like to be inside someone.’
‘Sexy,’ said Connie, deadpan, and we moved on. I showed her dry ice, I showed her the centrifuge in action. Through a microscope we looked at cross sections of the tongue of a rat that had been infected with parasitic worms. Oh yes, it was quite a date, and I began to note the amused faces of my colleagues working late as usual, mouths open, eyebrows raised at this lovely woman peering into flasks and test tubes. I gave her some Petri dishes, to mix her paints in.
When she’d seen enough we went, at her suggestion, to a tiny Eastern European restaurant that I had walked past many times without ever imagining I might enter. Faded, dimly lit, it was like stepping into a sepia photograph. A hunched and ancient waiter took our coats and showed us to a booth. At Connie’s suggestion, we drank vodka from small, thick glasses, then ate velvety soup a shade of burgundy, delicious dense dumplings and pancakes and syrupy red wine and sat side by side in the corner of the almost empty room, and soon we were fuzzy-headed and happy and even almost at ease. Rain outside, steam on the windows, an electric-bar fire blazing; it was wonderful.
‘You know what I envy about science? The certainty. You don’t have to worry about taste or fashion, or wait for inspiration or for your luck to change. There’s a … methodology — is that a science word? Anyway, the point is you can just work hard, chisel away and eventually you’ll get it right.’
‘Except it’s not quite as easy as that. Besides, you work hard.’
She shrugged and waved her hand. ‘Well, I used to.’
‘I saw some of your pictures. I thought they were amazing.’
She frowned. ‘When did you see them?’
‘Last weekend. While you were asleep. They were beautiful.’
‘Then they were probably my flatmate’s.’
‘No, they were yours. Hers I didn’t like at all.’
‘Fran is very successful. She sells a lot.’
‘Well, I don’t know why.’
‘She’s very talented, and she’s my friend.’
‘Of course, but I still loved yours. I thought they were very …’ I searched for some artistic term. ‘Beautiful. I mean, I don’t really know much about art—’
‘But you know what you like?’
‘Exactly. Also, you can draw terrific hands.’
She smiled, looked at her own hand, splayed the fingers and then placed it over mine. ‘Let’s not talk about art. Or fruit flies.’
‘Okay.’
‘How about last weekend instead? What happened, I mean.’
‘Fine,’ I said and thought,
‘I don’t know. Or rather, I thought I did.’
‘Go on.’
She hesitated. ‘You go first.’
I thought a moment. ‘Okay. It’s very simple. I had an amazing time. I loved meeting you. It was fun. I’d like to do it again.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s all.’ It was by no means all, but I didn’t want to alarm her. ‘You?’
‘I thought … I thought the same. I had a
I had found myself in this situation often enough to recognise the imminent arrival of a ‘but’ …
‘But I don’t have a very good track record with relationships. I don’t associate them with happiness, certainly not the last one.’
‘Angelo?’
‘Exactly. Angelo. He wasn’t very nice to me and he’s made me … I suppose, I want to be … cautious. I want to proceed with caution.’
‘But you want to proceed?’
‘With caution.’
‘With caution. Which means?’
She considered for a moment, biting her lip, then leant forward. ‘Which means that if we got the bill right now and went outside, if we found a taxi and went home to your bed, then I’d be very happy.’
Then she kissed me.
…
…
…
…
…
‘Waiter!’
The party started at a time you might reasonably expect most parties to stop, the usual treble and bass boom-tsk of electronic music soon replaced by a low-frequency oom-pah oom-pah with a distinctive comb-and-paper buzz.
‘Is that … an accordion?’
‘Uh-huh,’ mumbled Connie.
‘Albie doesn’t play the accordion.’
