Part 41 (2/2)

'Okay, but will you come and get a coffee, talk to me? There has to be a shop along the road, so we-'

'Patrick, I don't want a stupid coffee! I have no desire to talk to you! I've just driven home from Birmingham. The traffic was horrendous. I want to go to bed.' She found her cell. 'What part of go away right now do you not understand?'

'I do understand you, but please don't call the cops.'

'Why shouldn't I?'

'You need listen to me please?'

ROSIE.

You need to listen to me please?

'Why's that?' I asked.

'So I can explain what happened.'

'I don't wish to hear your explanation. It doesn't interest me.'

'Rosie, may I have a drink of water?'

'I suppose so.' I unlocked the door. 'But stay here on the step. I'll fetch you one and bring it out. Then you must go.'

As I filled a gla.s.s, my heart was racing. It had been so easy well, comparatively easy to hate him while he wasn't here in London.

But when I saw him standing right in front of me, tired and dirty and unshaven, obviously exhausted, looking like he'd hitch-hiked from Heathrow, which I suppose he might have done, I wanted to invite him in and feed him and do other things. Okay, okay, okay. I never thought that it would be as difficult as this to tell a man to go to h.e.l.l.

PATRICK.

'Rosie, it was all a big mistake.'

'But I think you were right to finish it. After all, it wasn't working out. Long-distance friends.h.i.+ps seldom do.'

'You know you don't mean that.'

'I don't mean what?'

'You and I, we have a way to go before we're finished. We have our whole lives.' As I gave the gla.s.s back, I decided I would risk it. So she called the cops? So I got arrested and then I was deported? So I lost my job at JQA? I took her by the shoulders. 'Rosie, I'm so sorry-'

'Yes, I know.' She turned her head aside and wouldn't look at me. 'You didn't mean those things you said. You've changed your mind. You want to try again. I've heard all that before from other men. You're such a bunch of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, cowards, opportunists, s.h.i.+ts. You men say women cheat, lie and deceive, but you-'

'I didn't send that email.'

'What?' She clearly hadn't been expecting this. She jerked her head up, met my fuddled gaze, her own eyes blazing. 'What are you trying to say?'

'I did not send that email!'

'But it came from your account! Of course you sent it! Do you think I'm stupid?'

'I didn't write it and I didn't send it.'

'Then who did?'

'Rosie, give me five? Just five little minutes, please?'

'All right five minutes. You'd better come inside.' She sounded like her mother, the Justice of the Peace. She checked her watch. 'I'm timing you.'

'I know.'

'Do you want a coffee?'

'Yeah, that would be absolutely great, but may I use the bathroom first?'

'I suppose so. Get yourself a towel and have a shower. You d.a.m.n well need one.'

'I'll take more than five minutes to get myself a shower.'

'You won't, because I'll turn the water off.'

It took some persuading, but finally she started to believe me.

'You mean you didn't log out of your account?'

'I didn't log out of my account.'

'Patrick, you're I don't know what to say.' She shook her head at me and sighed, all what-are-men-like, as women love to do. 'After that big lecture you gave me about security and stuff? You left your own door open with a message Scotch-taped to the bell-push, saying come right in?'

'I did.'

'You're such a fool.'

'I know.'

'You're the biggest w.a.n.ker in the world.'

'I know that, too.' I leaned across the kitchen table and kissed her on the mouth. 'Now you slap my face, like in the movies.'

'Oh, Pat, you're such an idiot!' She shook her head again. But she was smiling now and it was like the sun came out after a storm. 'I don't want to slap you anywhere.'

She let me kiss her and finally she kissed me back and we got up and walked into the living room and sat down on the couch and kissed some more.

I stayed the night.

'When's that conference in Colorado?' she asked the following morning. 'I suppose it must be fairly soon?'

'Yeah, it must be tomorrow,' I replied. 'Come on lie down again for half an hour? It's only twenty after seven. You don't need to get up yet.'

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