Page 34 of 56 Days
“His age. Which is abouteighty-five, I’d say.”
Oliver laughs.
They’ve already had the exes talk. She told him that she only has one even worth mentioning: Jack. Met in college, started as friends, stayed together for eighteen months after graduation. When things went south, he told her the problem was that she didn’t want a nice guy, but the actual problem was that he wasn’t one.
Oliver said there’d been a girl that he’d met at his university. For a long time, he thought she wasthegirl. But then she’d gone to work abroad for a year. They’d carried onlong-distance, or so she’d led him to believe—but the day she came back she told him she’d met someone else and that was that.
If you discountshort-livedflings with roommates (and they both do), neither of them has ever officially lived with anybody. Neither of them has any faith in dating apps; they’ve already traded their best horror stories. Both also claim to be crap at flirting—at everything, really, associated with convincing other people to be with you above anyone else—but yet it’s been three weeks and here they are.
“So,” she says. “Would you like a tour? I should warn you it could take as long as ten whole seconds.”
“I like it,” he says, looking around. “It’s...”
“Claustrophobic?”
She doesn’t find it claustrophobic. Not really. Or at least she hasn’t until now. But this is the first time she’s ever had a visitor in here, and it’shim, all six feet of him, and all she can think about is how claustrophobic it must be makinghimfeel and how different it must look to where he lives, and she wants him to know that she knows that, that she isn’t naive, that she isn’t stupid.
And that bed. That bloody bed. She’s almost certain he’s too long for it. She could nearly plot this whole evening out with certainty now: it’ll be nice, and he’ll stay, but from now on they’ll resume their routine of staying at his bigger and better place.
And she won’t object.
“I was going to saycompact,” he says. “And it’s well designed, really. You don’t see windows this size on other blocks this age.” He sets the bag and bottle on the dining table and lifts his hands. “The, ah, bathroom?”
She points. “Just in there.”
He goes, and she takes the bag and the bottle and carries them into the kitchen.
The bathroom is on the other side of the wall behind her now. As she unpacks the food she listens to the gush of water from the tap. It goes on for ages: he’s doing it properly. When he returns, he brings the lemony scent of her antibacterial handwash with him.
“Where do you sleep?” he asks.
She points. “That’s the bed, there.”
“It comes down from thewall?” He looks childishly excited about this fact.
“Trust me, the novelty wears off in about five minutes.”
“Everything’s so neat. Where’s all your, you know,stuff?”
She explains she came to Dublin from Cork with one large suitcase and her laptop bag. One of her friends was supposed to come up in his father’s van with the rest, but...essential travel only. There were a few bits and pieces already here—pots and pans, an iron and ironing board, that kind of thing—and whatever she needed that she didn’t have she picked up at Primark before they closed. Until things go back to normal herstuffwill be sitting in boxes in the garage of her parents’ house.
“But actually, I kinda like it this way,” she says. “I might not even bother bringing up that much of it.”
He’s stopped at some fancy deli near his place and got them aready-mademeal for two that only needs to be heated up in the oven. The foil tray looks like it’s filled with lasagna but the label saysbobotie. Ciara has no idea what that is. The price is on there too and she can’t help but think about how much more food the same amount of money could buy in a supermarket if you were just willing to cook it yourself. There’s also a plastic bowl ofbistro saladand two individualtartes au citron. The wine has won a gold sticker from somebody.
She steals a glance at him.
He’s bent at the waist, head to the side, reading the spines of her books.
She sets the oven to the temperature the bobotie’s label dictates. It’ll take ages to heat up; maybe she should’ve done this before he arrived. She puts the wine bottle on the counter and wipes it with an antibacterial wipe. She does the same with the food cartons. She throws the wipe in the trash can and washes her hands. She takes the wine glasses out and pours two glasses before putting the bottle in the fridge.
Then she washes her hands again.
The new normal, which is in absolutely no way normal at all.
She doesn’t actually believe that the bottle or cartons present a danger, buthebelieves it. He told her he heard something about it on the radio during the week and she’s since read a couple of articles online. The shops are so busy now that all the stuff on the shelves was probably just put there, and customers pick stuff up and put it back, and one of them might well have coughed on it...
Better to be safe than sorry, Oliver says. He has asthma. That’s anunderlying condition. He doesn’t want to risk getting this thing, and she certainly doesn’t want to be the one to give it to him.
