Now he was here, she had no idea how to act. Should she be furious, welcoming, excited, sad, happy? What? She was a little of all of them.
“So I can come in?”
“Oh. Yes. Come in.”
She stepped back, allowing him over the threshold. He stamped his feet on the doormat and peered around the living room, into which the doorway led directly.
“My God, you live here?”
He put down the violin case and a plastic bag containing, it seemed, a great many bottles, and began to take off his jacket.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said tightly.
For the first time, he looked at her directly.
“You are no beggar,” he said, lowering his voice.
What was that supposed to mean?
“I feel like one. And the first thing I’m begging for is something—anything—in the way of an explanation.”
“Ah, you are angry with me.” He handed her his jacket.
She stared down at it, feeling like a servant. This wasn’t the way she wanted to feel. She needed righteous indignation, and lots of it. Otherwise it would be too easy to forgive him.
“How do you expect me to feel?” She slung the jacket over the top of her coat, hoping it wouldn’t cause everything to fall off the single peg. “Did you even consider me? Or don’t I matter anymore?”
She flinched at his hand at her elbow, but he held on to it, standing behind her like a barrier between her and her sanity. If he was going to touch her, she couldn’t do this. She needed her resolve. Where was it?
“Lydia, there was no time. And I did call your father’s house. You had gone.”
“Oh! Did you?”
She twisted her neck to face him.
He drew her over to the sofa and sat her down, reaching inside the plastic bag for one of the bottles.
“You have glasses?”
“In the kitchen. Hang on.”
She filled cheap supermarket glasses with a rather expensive brand of red wine, then they sat down beside each other.
“Only two days ago, we made the deal,” said Milan. His body angled towards hers, one elbow resting on the back of the sofa.
She felt nervous, like it was a first date or a job interview. There seemed to be the potential for some kind of failure.
“Then I called your father’s house, but he tells me you have gone to London, just that day.”
“I do have a mobile phone, you know.”
“I couldn’t reach it.”
“Oh!” She put her hand to her mouth, remembering that it had been out of charge for the best part of two days. Thinking she would never hear from him again, she had grown neglectful, where once she had been obsessed with keeping the battery topped up. “Shit! I’m sorry.”
There, it had happened. Already, she was apologising to him and feeling like a fool. How did he do this to her, every time?
“I thought you are not speaking to me.”