The call light at his desk lit up. Robert realised that he must be sitting in someone else’s seat. He glanced around, then got up and left the reading room. He took the tube home. As he walked down the path to Vautravers he saw lights in the windows of the middle flat, and his heart contracted in joy. Then he remembered it was only the twins. Today was a one-off. Tomorrow I’ll knock on their door and introduce myself properly.
The next morning he followed them to Baker Street and paid twenty quid to wander around Madame Tussauds at a discreet distance from the twins as they made fun of wax versions of Justin Timberlake and the Royal Family. The day after that they all went to the Tower and then took in a puppet show on the Embankment. Robert began to despair. Don’t you ever do anything interesting? Days passed in a blur of Neal’s Yard, Harrods, Buckingham Palace, Portobello Road, Westminster Abbey and Leicester Square. Robert sensed the twins’ determination: they seemed to be circling London’s most public spheres, looking for a rabbit hole into the real city underneath. They were trying to construct a personal London for themselves out of the Rough Guide and Time Out.
Robert had been born in Islington. He had never lived anywhere but London. His geography of London was a tangle of emotional associations. Street names evoked girlfriends, schoolmates, boring afternoons playing truant and doing nothing in particular; rare outings with his father to obscure restaurants and the zoo, raves in East-London warehouses. He began to pretend that the twins were taking him on school outings, that they were all three attending an exotic public school with odd uniforms and a curriculum of tourism. He stopped thinking about what he was doing, or worrying very much about being caught. Their obliviousness frightened him. They lacked the urban camouflage skills young women ought to have. People stared at them all the time, and they seemed to be aware of this without making very much of it, as though being the objects of constant attention was natural to them.
They led and he followed. He went to the cemetery intermittently. When Jessica asked, he told her he was working at home on his thesis. She looked at him curiously; later he noticed the messages piled up on his answering machine and understood that she thought he was avoiding her.
Then the twins stayed in several days running. One twin did little errands by herself. Robert worried. I should go up and check on them. By now he felt that he knew them well, but he had never spoken to them. He missed them. He berated himself for becoming immersed in their lives. Still, he hesitated to begin. He found himself spending whole days sitting quietly in his flat, listening, waiting, worrying.
Sick Day
VALENTINA DIDN’T feel well that morning, so Julia went to the Tesco Express to buy chicken soup, Ritz crackers and Coke, which the twins considered to be the proper cuisine for invalids. As soon as Julia left, Valentina dragged herself out of bed, threw up in the toilet, went back to bed and lay on her side, knees pulled to her chest, burning with fever. She stared at the rug, tracing the gold-and-blue shapes with her eyes. She began to fall asleep.
Someone leaned over and looked at her closely. The person did not touch her; she merely had the feeling that someone was there, that this person was concerned about her. Valentina opened her eyes. She thought she saw something dark, indistinct. It moved towards the foot of the bed. Valentina heard Julia come in the front door, and she woke up completely. There was nothing at the foot of the bed.
In a little while, Julia came into the room with a tray. Valentina sat up. Julia put the tray down and gave her a glass of Coke. Valentina rattled the ice cubes against the glass, touched it to her cheek. She took a tiny sip of Coke, then a bigger sip. “There was something weird in the room,” she said.
“What do you mean?” asked Julia.
Valentina tried to describe it. “It was like a smudge in the air. It was worried about me.”
“That’s nice of it,” Julia said. “I’m worried about you too. Want some soup?”
“I think so. Can I just have the soup part and not all the noodles and stuff?”
“Whatever.” Julia went back to the kitchen. Valentina looked around the bedroom. It was just its regular morning bedroom-self. The day was sunny, and the furniture seemed warm and innocent. I must have dreamed it. How bizarre, though.
Julia came in and gave her the soup in a mug. She put her hand on Valentina’s forehead exactly the way Edie did. “You’re burning up, Mouse.” Valentina drank some soup. Julia sat at the foot of the bed. “We should find you a doctor.”
“It’s just the flu.”
“Mouse…you know you can’t not have a doctor. Mom would freak. What if you have an asthma attack?”
“Yeah…can we call Mom?” They had called home yesterday, but there was no rule that said they couldn’t call twice in one week.
“It’s 4 a.m. at home,” Julia said. “Later we can.”
“Okay.” Valentina held out the mug. Julia put it on the tray. “I think I want to sleep.”
“’K.” Julia drew the curtains, took the tray and left.
Valentina curled up again, content. She closed her eyes. Someone sat next to her and smoothed her hair. She fell asleep smiling.
Valentina and Julia Underground
VALENTINA DIDN’T like the underground. It was dark and fast and dirty; it was crowded. She didn’t like being pressed against people, feeling someone’s breath on her neck, hanging onto a pole and being pitched against sweaty men. Most of all, Valentina did not like being underground. Somehow, the fact that the whole thing was called the underground made it worse. She took the bus whenever she could.
She tried not to let Julia know that the tube frightened her, but somehow Julia guessed. Now, every time they went out, Julia would spread out the tube map on the dining-room table and plot out elaborate routes that necessitated at least three changes. Valentina never said anything. She trudged along beside Julia, rode endless escalators into bottomless underground stations. Tonight they were going to the Royal Albert Hall to see a circus. They began at Archway. At Warren Street the twins had to change from the Northern line to the Victoria line, and found themselves moving with a number of other people down a long white-tiled corridor. Valentina held Julia’s hand. She mentally checked the zipper of her purse, thinking of pickpockets. Valentina wondered if everyone could tell they were Americans. The crowd moved like syrup.
Valentina noticed a man walking in front of them.
He was quite tall and had ear-length, brown wavy hair. He wore a white button-down shirt tucked into brown corduroy trousers and carried a thick paperback book. He wore wingtip shoes without socks. The man walked with the long, loose-jointed stride of a Labrador retriever or a tree sloth. He was soft-bodied and pallid. Valentina wondered what he was reading. The twins followed him onto an elevator. He walked ahead of them through tunnels and then they stood behind him on the escalator, one of the long ones that made Valentina feel as though the world had tilted, as though she were subject to some new, weird gravity. Finally they found the platform for the Victoria line.
Valentina tried to catch a glimpse of the book’s title. It ended in sis. Kafka? Too thick. He wore small gold wire-rimmed glasses and had a kind face, a face with lots of jaw and a long narrow nose, which he proceeded to stick into his book. His eyes were brown and hooded, heavily lashed. The train was coming. It was packed, and the doors opened and shut without anyone getting off or on. The man glanced up and resumed reading.