I sit in my eleven o’clock lecture wondering if I have actually mislaid my mind. Sinclair doesn’t even like me. If he’s considering a trip into my knickers, he needs to plan his itinerary a bit better. Less slap and more tickle. Although on the other hand…I lean back against the bench, squirming delicately on my tender backside and finding myself revelling in the feeling. It’s as if it makes me his, somehow, and so conversely him mine. Oooh, he has marked me as his property…I try to snap out of this, not wanting to leak all over the ancient wood of the lecture theatre, nor yet distract any sensitive male noses in the vicinity with my aromatic effusions. God, it is hard to avoid thinking about though. Especially as Dr Blakey is giving the lecture. Was he giving her…lectures? Is it really over between them? Did he ever..do the same things to her?
The e
ndless stream of carnal thoughts takes my head hostage and I have to give up any hope of essay-writing for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow I will spend all day writing yonder essay. Unless Sinclair has ravished me so thoroughly over the passion fruit mousse that I can’t move from the house…mmmm. You see? Useless. Can’t think.
At four o’clock I race out of my lecture before Dearbhla can collar me and demand a blow-by-blow account of my first night chez Sinclair and head straight to Sainsburys. They don’t have oysters! Or chanterelles. Or whole sea bass. Or…anything. What am I going to do? Would Sinclair see the funny side if I rolled up with two portions of chips with curry sauce? Gah, rethink, rethink.
I leave Sainsburys at half past five with a jar of pasta sauce, a bunch of bananas and four bottles of wine. Overdoing it with the wine? I’ll have to compensate for the lousy meal somehow. And besides…a drunken Sinclair. What could be funner?
*
Back at the flat half an hour later, Sinclair is not yet on the scene, so I make the most of the uninterrupted boudoir time to slink into my new foxy lingerie and make with the scented body lotions. I hear his key turn in the lock just as I light the gas to heat the water for the pasta. I picture him walking into the kitchen and falling into a dead swoon at the sight of me in my one posh frock, wearing make-up. What actually happens is that he calls, “I can’t smell cooking,” from the living room, and then appears to shut himself in his sinister study of doom. I shrug and pour the pasta into the bubbling water, hoping my minimal activity in the kitchen will preserve my maquillage intact. I skitter about laying the table…and picturing another kind of laying on the table…and lighting candles in giddily high spirits. When Sinclair walks into the room, to my extreme excitement, he does do a mild double-take.
“Dressed for the occasion?” he says, and I’m not appreciating the hint of derision in his tone. “It’s just supper, Beth; there was no need for…all this.”
I flush heavily. “Just thought…you know, just a thank you. For keeping me off the streets.” I run back into the kitchen, where the sauce is popping and roiling like molten magma and see to the serving up. Sinclair strolls in behind me and checks the fridge for wine, raising his eyebrow at the bountiful supply therein.
“What are we having?” he asks, checking over my shoulder. “Oh.” I slump at the obvious disappointment. “Pasta in a mass-produced sauce. White then.”
He uncorks a bottle and sails haughtily into the living room with it. How rude, I think, but I can’t seem to sustain the righteous indignation. I so want him to stop thinking of me as this terminal idiot with no redeeming features, but it’s as if failure is written in my DNA at the moment.
Sinclair makes a sterling effort to eat the dinner, though the pasta is several shades the wrong side of al dente and the sauce not to his taste. Best stick to the wine…
“Well, then, Beth, I take it from the convenience food dinner that you have been far too busy studying to think of anything else. How is the essay going? May I look it over after supper?”
Eek!
“Oh no,” I say. “I’d rather wait…till it’s…a bit more coherent.”
His eyes bore into me. I hate my transparency, and his acuity. “Until you’ve actually started it, you mean?” he says.
I wring my hands in despair, the fork landing with a clang in my bowl. “I was so anxious about cooking tonight…I couldn’t concentrate….” I launch into the story of my recipe browsing and the disastrous shortage of upmarket sophisticated ingredients in Sainsburys. His face relaxes into benign amusement at my plight and he tuts at me when I finish my tale of woe.
“Beth, there was no need to get into such a state about something as mundane as cooking supper, was there? Something simple would have done just as well. Have you ever cooked before?”
“Yes!” I insist defensively.
“Real cooking, I mean. Not just cheese on toast.”
“Oh..uh…not really.” I stare into the bottom of my wine glass prior to draining its contents.
“Getting drunk will scarcely help.”
I beg to differ. “So sausages and beans from a tin next time then?” I say gloomily.
He laughs. Ah, that’s a sound. A tingly glow warms the cockles and I feel tight with love for him.
“I’ll straighten you up, Beth. By the time I’ve finished with you you’ll be almost fit for decent society.” There is a look in his eye that makes me fear for the gusset of my new undies. Oooh, melt, my lover, melt.
“Decent…” I echo softly, daring to hold his predatory beam. The air thickens and blocks my vents.
The phone rings.
Damn. Sinclair raises his eyes bad-temperedly to the ceiling, refusing to answer the belligerent bleeping. His answerphone message cuts in. It’s very manly. “This is Sinclair; please leave a message.” Beeeep.
“Eliot, I know you’re there. Please pick up. This is ridiculous.”
Dr Blakey! Wahey! Scandal!