Eighty Days Blue (15 page)

Dominik had only seen photos of the loft, so Summer, once she had moved in, described the space to him.

‘Apart from the bedroom, which has been partitioned off on one side, it's all one large area, with shiny wooden floors. It feels like a ballroom.'

‘Really?'

‘The kitchen is so hi-tech. I've never had a kitchen like that, with granite worktops and all the latest gizmos. Space-age stuff! Not sure if I'll manage omelettes and beans on toast there, though – it would feel like an insult to cooking technology.'

‘We can eat out,' Dominik said.

‘No,' Summer said. ‘I want to cook for you. I've so seldom done that for a man, a lover.'

‘Good. So no more corsets or vintage violins now, I see. I'll have to get you cookery books full of abstruse recipes, no?'

Summer chortled. ‘There are huge bay windows. So much light. But no view: it just looks out on the vast grey
façade
of the building opposite. No windows there whatsoever, pipes and metal grilles. A bit ugly. As a result, though, it's deathly silent at night, even though there are so many restaurants on the street outside open late. Eerily peaceful.'

‘And private?'

‘Totally,' she confirmed.

‘Wonderful. I'll want you to rehearse naked, of course, when I'm around.'

‘I was beginning to think that was the only reason you chose the place.'

‘Exactly,' Dominik confirmed.

Unbidden and without his knowledge, Summer had already quickly grown into the habit of wandering the loft in the nude, whether playing the Bailly or just hanging out. It felt right, on the edge of arousal, natural, the loft a new garden of paradise, a playground of innocence.

She liked the space's bare atmosphere, its minimal lines and white walls, and the naked brickwork peering out artistically between the steel ceiling beams and at regular intervals like splashes of dark paint in the landscape of the immense walls.

Summer bought a few orchids, which she scattered around to bring a shy touch of colour to the loft. She hesitated about whether she should bring one of the tropical plants into the bedroom. She was unsure how Dominik felt about flowers. She still had so much to learn about him.

What would living together be like?

By arranging to come to New York, Dominik had confronted her with a brand-new situation altogether. It had been a major decision to live with him, although Summer couldn't quite remember actually consenting. It had sort of
happened
, out of sheer inertia, as if her body had made the decision without consulting her brain.

It had been ages since she had lived with a lover. She had for years shared apartments on her travels: Australia, London, New York . . .

Would it work?

Could it work?

‘It'll be nice to have you here,' she said.

‘I'm looking forward to it,' Dominik responded.

A thought occurred to her. ‘Are you shipping some of your books out, for your research?' she said. ‘Maybe I should get some shelves, at Ikea or somewhere. I'm happy to look for some.'

‘No need,' Dominik said. ‘There will be everything I need at the Public Library. More than I require.'

‘OK.'

‘Just a month to go,' Dominik said.

‘Yes.'

‘One thing, though . . . You know our understanding. If you feel you have to go with someone during these coming weeks . . .'

‘Yes?' She skipped a heartbeat.

‘Go to theirs or elsewhere, not the loft.'

‘I understand.'

She was unsure whether it was an instruction or encouragement.

The best intentions are often confounded by coincidence. The woman in the window seat on his left on the flight from London to New York was reading
The Great Gatsby
, which gave Dominik the perfect opening for a conversation. It was a book he could almost recite unaided from memory
end
to end, having pored over it for so long on many occasions. Her name was Miranda.

Would the conversation have quickly become so flirtatious had it been another book, or had Summer's amusing tale about her one-night stand in Manhattan not lingered in his brain, festering quietly for a few weeks now?

Dominik knew he was not a jealous man. He was a realist.

This was the reason he had made the terms of their current relationship perfectly clear to Summer and agreed to this form of non-exclusivity, but the heart sometimes denies reason.

Unlike Summer, it seemed, he did not go out of his way to initiate matters (and the fact that she had, to a large extent, provoked the meeting with – what was his name, Gary or Greg?) and preferred to let the ebb and flow of life and human interaction intervene instead. Many years ago, when he was still in his early twenties and funds were so limited he couldn't afford the full-price plane fare between London and Paris, he had used a cheap coach service operating between the two cities, from Waterloo Coach Station to the Place de la République, and had found himself sitting next to Danielle, a young French girl with dark hair. Maybe she had also been reading a book he was familiar with; he couldn't recall. The conversation had been easy.

She was returning from London, where she was in the process of conducting a long-distance affair with an Indian medical student that was now seemingly on its last legs. Dominik was between relationships. They had both enjoyed their chat and exchanged phone numbers and addresses before going their own way on arrival. It was
obvious
she was somewhat promiscuous and carefree. Within a week, he had called her up and they had ended up in bed and became regular lovers over an eighteen-month period. Or, at any rate, Dominik had joined the list of her numerous lovers, as Danielle granted her favours with uncommon generosity and was quick to admit he was not the only man she was bedding on a regular basis. There was even one night when another man came knocking at her door as they lay exhausted in bed, in her small flat near La Santé Prison, and she'd gladly invited him in and they had ended up all three between the covers, both men taking turns to mount her as she moved from one to the other.

After he'd returned to live in London, he'd lost touch with Danielle until she'd called him in a panic one afternoon while he was still working, having somehow been thrown out on the street by another man she was sleeping with because she'd stolen his wallet. She was now penniless and badly needed Dominik's help. In dire straits, alone in London and with not even spare clothes, as the man had held on to her suitcase, she'd been desperate and had even attempted to whore herself in Soho backstreets, with no success. He'd found her a small hotel room in Bloomsbury at two in the morning and loaned her the money for the fare back to Paris the following day. It had been too late for him to get home that night, as he no longer had enough cash on him for a taxi, so he'd joined her in the narrow hotel room and they'd fucked until the early hours, Danielle in tears for most of the time. One thing had led to another, as they both knew this would be the last occasion they would see each other, and they had had anal sex. His first time. He'd left early in the morning as he had to be at work, Danielle soundly asleep in the bed, her make-up smudged,
the
dark areola of a breast peering above the messed-up sheets. She'd always been an intense lover and sometimes her recklessness scared him. He didn't even say goodbye, a fact he would regret for years.

He'd always suspected that Danielle would end up badly somehow, but a decade later, out of curiosity, he'd Googled her and found out she was now teaching sociology in Bordeaux and had even produced a thesis on some highly specialised academic subject that he had, however, little interest in reading.

It had been total coincidence that their coach tickets happened to have sequential numbers and this had thrown them together and eventually, unexpectedly, led to his first experience with anal sex. Ever since, Dominik had been relaxed enough to allow life's currents to take him in all unplanned directions, never resisting the flow.

Did he carry the smell of books with him that so many of his chance encounters had academic connections? Miranda, his seat companion on the flight to New York, was an administrative assistant at Hunter College, uptown. Dominik had always been a quietly charismatic public speaker. It was one of his strengths as a lecturer. If he felt in tune with the subject, he could happily improvise for ages, spinning theories, random thoughts and left-of-field ideas with particular aplomb without ever falling into pedantry or being a show-off. When it came to Gatsby, he was very much on home territory, so the flight went by painlessly as he engaged in light-hearted banter and conversation with Miranda. The seven hours quickly fell away. Less time to think about Summer and how they would manage to live together in New York.

Miranda wore a grey business ensemble, her skirt
reaching
to her knees, but gradually moving up to mid-thigh as she shifted in her seat. Her tight white blouse gaped a little between buttons, stretched by the black bra she visibly wore underneath. Her neck was wonderfully delicate, flushing ever so pink as the flight progressed and the heat in the plane rose.

She was divorced and lived alone on the Upper East Side, Dominik learned. Absorbed in their conversation, she would regularly extend her fingers and touch his lower arm when trying to make a point and even, on a couple of occasions, his knee. Dominik was no expert on body language, but knew it was something he often did himself, quite innocently and instinctively. Only with women he was attracted to, however.

On arrival at JFK, they swapped details and agreed to stay in touch. Dominik wrote down her number on the back of one of his business cards. He was planning to get a new phone for New York, as his London number would not be practical here, which left the ball in his court, Miranda-wise. He had deliberately not informed her he would be living with another woman during his stay in the city.

By further coincidence, their respective luggage arrived almost together on the carousel. The smile on Miranda's face as this happened was worth a thousand words. It appeared she also believed in coincidences.

Pretexting geographical distance, Dominik insisted in the taxi rank that they should take separate cabs. Deception comes easy.

This time, the driver was Vietnamese and struggled to understand Dominik's English accent when he asked for Spring Street.

The road unfolded. A familiar litany of outer boroughs, the Southern State Parkway, the obligatory detour by Atlantic Avenue, followed by the Van Wyck Expressway and its cortege of concrete pillars supporting the AirTrain, then Jamaica Hospital and the final rush towards the Midtown Tunnel. How many times had he taken this road and survived the traffic jams in either direction?

Dominik took a deep breath.

This time it would be different.

Summer was at the end of the journey.

By the time the cab reached SoHo, a spring shower had broken. There was no shelter between the taxi and the unprotected front door of the building. Dominik rang the bell.

‘It's me.'

Summer, as planned, was home and she buzzed him in.

The elevator was already on the ground floor, doors open, industrial in appearance. Years ago, he had learned, the building had been host to floors full of workshops peopled by migrant labourers, until the schmutter business had moved further uptown to what became the Garment District. The vast empty spaces had been occupied by artists attracted by the light and by cheap property values. Today, few artists could afford SoHo lofts any longer, and they were being swooped up by investment bankers, hedge-funders and business folk.

The fifth floor had been divided into three apartments, and the one Dominik had arranged to rent was at the end of the corridor when he exited the elevator.

The door was half open.

Gripping the handle of his suitcase, he pushed it further open with his foot. The varnished wooden floor led up to a
slight
ramp, which ran in parallel to the outer corridor, to the right of which was the kitchen area. Beyond it was the wide open space of the loft, all the way down to the bay windows, through which a curtain of rain cushioned today's grey skies.

Because of the inclement weather, Summer had switched on the lights. A series of recessed spotlights ran the full length of the ceiling, bisecting the loft space.

At the very centre of the loft's living area, bathed in a puddle of light, Summer stood.

Naked.

Holding her precious violin in one hand, by her side.

A knowing grin spread across her face.

Dominik's eyes rushed from her painted lips to the explosion of curls crowning her head, then to the shocking red of her nipples. She had used lipstick to enhance herself, just as he had done all those months ago.

His gaze fell lower. Her pubic hair was growing back, but he could see she had also painted her lower lips.

His heart skipped a half-beat and he let go of his suitcase.

Summer ceremoniously brought the violin to her chin, a slave to this private ritual they both recognised as their very own, and began playing.

The second movement of Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
.

A wave of emotion swept over Dominik.

He stood still, overcome by a complex maelstrom of feelings.

Startled by her offering. Her greeting. This overture to their future time together in Manhattan.

Every single note was both familiar and new to him,
evoking
memories, past events, visions of Summer in all her splendour. Oh, how tender this spring would be . . .

As the music swirled across the walls of the loft, and Summer retreated into the music, she closed her eyes. As ever she needed no partition. The Vivaldi notes were now a part of her. Of them?

Dominik kicked off his shoes. He was wearing black stretch socks, as he always did. He pulled them off; these wooden floors were made for bare feet. Stepping closer to Summer, he felt the gentle heat radiating outwards from her body, the underlying green smell of her perfume, the faint undercurrent of sweat breaking through to the surface of her skin as the violin-playing warmed her measure by measure.