The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [74]
Her room was small but perfectly adequate. The walls bore an innocuous wallpaper, brass wall sconces. There was a desk and a bed, a trouser press, an alcove where one could make a cup of coffee or tea.
She showered, changed her underwear and blouse, and brushed her hair. Looking into the mirror, she put her hands to her face. She could no longer deny that something was waiting for her here in this city.
Sometimes, she thought, courage was simply a matter of putting one foot in front of another and not stopping.
The pub was dark, with wood-paneled alcoves. Irish music played from overhead. Prints of horses, matted in dark green and framed in gold, were hung upon the walls. A half-dozen men sat at the bar drinking large glasses of beer, and pairs of businessmen were seated in the alcoves. She spotted Robert across the room, comfortably slouched against a banquette cushion. He looked contented, perhaps more than contented. He waved to her.
She crossed the room and lay her purse on the banquette.
“I took the liberty of ordering you a drink,” he said.
She glanced at the ale. In front of Robert was a glass of mineral water. She slipped in next to him. Her feet brushed his, but it seemed rude to pull away.
“What happened to you?” she asked suddenly, gesturing toward the water. “I mean with the drinking? I’m sorry. Do you mind my asking?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “My parents were both professors at a college in Toronto. Every evening, they held court for the students — a kind of salon. The tray with the bottles on it was always the focal point of the gathering. The students loved it, of course. I started joining them when I was fifteen. Actually, now that I think of it, my parents probably created a lot of alcoholics.”
“You’re Canadian?”
“Originally. Not now.”
Kathryn studied the man beside her. What did she know about him, except that he had been kind to her? He seemed good at his job, and he was undeniably attractive. She wondered if accompanying her to London was somehow part of his job description.
“We might have come here for no good reason,” she said, and could hear the note of hope in her voice. Like finding a suspicious lump in your breast, she thought, and then having the doctor tell you it was nothing, nothing at all. “Robert, I’m sorry,” she said. “This is nuts. I know you must think I’m out of my mind. I’m really sorry to have dragged you into it.”
“I love London,” he said quickly, seemingly unwilling to dismiss their joint venture so quickly. “You need to eat something,” he said. “I hate Irish music. Why is it always so lugubrious?”
She smiled. “Have you been here before?” she asked, acquiescing to the change in subject. “To this hotel?”
“I come here fairly often,” he said. “We liaise, I believe the word is, with our British counterparts.”
She studied the menu, laid it down on the polished but slightly sticky veneer of the table.
“You have a beautiful face,” he said suddenly.
She blushed. No one had said that to her in a long time. She was embarrassed that she had colored, that he could see it mattered. She picked up the menu again and began to reexamine it. “I can’t eat, Robert. I just can’t.”
“There’s something I want to tell you,” he began.
She held her hand up. She didn’t want him to say anything that would require her to respond.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing away. “You don’t need this.”
“I was just thinking about how enjoyable this is,” she said quietly.
And she saw, with surprise, that he couldn’t hide his disappointment at the tepid offering.
“I’m going to go now,” she said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No,” she said. “I have to do this alone.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Be careful,” he said.
She went out onto the street blindly, moving now with a momentum she didn’t dare to question. The taxi dropped her in front of the narrow town house she had seen little more than an hour before. She surveyed the street, studied a small pink lamp in a ground-floor window. She paid the driver and was certain, as she stepped out onto the curb, that she had given the man too many coins.