Page 10 of Close to You
I’m not sure that’s true, but we clink glasses anyway and I have a sip. I half expect David to ask me what I can taste. People bang on about peat and floral aftertastes, but wine tastes of wine to me. It’s not complicated. Luckily, David says nothing of the sort.
It’s not long before the food arrives. David tells me how he once came across an early SupermanAction Comicsissue that he bought for a pound and sold for ‘six-figures’. Then there was some early Ferrari memorabilia that he picked up from a flea market in Italy that he sold for ‘the cost of a car itself’.
We spend most of the time talking about David, which is fine as it takes the focus away from me. Conversation comes easily and, though there’s more than a hint of the grandiose about his boasts, it’s not the worst trait. If I’d bought something for a pound and sold it for six-figures, I’d be telling people, too. His last name is ‘Persephone’, which he insists does not rhyme with ‘telephone’. He brings it up without prompting, but says the name with pride, as if it’s Windsor, or something like that. A moniker of which to be honoured. Perhaps it’s why he says it, like it’s a tactic or something, but I find myself running the name Morgan Persephone through my mind. I can already hear people mispronouncing it and having to correct them.
In a blink, the evening passes. We share a tiramisu and then I realise the restaurant is largely empty. The staff are hanging around with little to do. It doesn’t take a psychic to realise that they’re ready to go home.
The waiter brings the bill unprompted, presenting it in a smart leather booklet as if it’s a treasured first edition. The type of thing David might buy cheaply and sell on.
David reaches for the bill, but I’m not the sort to give too much ground and passively allow him to pay. Our fingers brush and it feels like that jolt of knowing the correct answer to a question.
There is a brief moment in which we both freeze and I know he feels it, too. It’s only a second, perhaps not even that, and then he slides the bill away.
‘I’ve got this,’ he says.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘It’s fine.’
He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and then checks the other side. His brow creases and then he tries the two outer pockets on his jacket, before he stands and checks his jeans.
‘I can’t find my wallet,’ he says. ‘I had it when I left the house.’
He pats all his pockets once more and then takes off the jacket and tries again.
‘All my cards were in there,’ he adds. ‘I’m so sorry about this.’
I assure him it’s fine, though the waiter has noticed there’s a problem and comes across to ask what’s wrong. David asks if anyone’s handed in a wallet, though there is no such luck.
‘I’ll pay,’ I say, digging out my purse from my bag.
David starts to argue, but it’s not as if we have much choice. ‘There was that thing about pickpockets in the news the other day…’ he adds.
He’s still patting his pockets, not concealing that spark of panic when something valuable is lost.
‘I’ll pay you back,’ David says.
I tap my PIN into the card machine and wait for it to process. ‘You can pay next time,’ I reply.
There’s a momentary gap and then he gets it: ‘There’ll be a next time…?’
The machine starts to spit out a receipt as I remove my card with a smile: ‘I have to get my money’s worth somehow.’
Five
THE NOW
Monday
I’m still awake at quarter past two in the morning when the text arrives from Jane.
Got home safely! Congrats on the win! Sleepy time now! Zzzzzzzzzz
I put down my phone and twist over in the hotel bed, facing the other side of the room. The lights are off but there’s a disrupting hint of white creeping under the door from the corridor. It’s an itch that can’t be scratched. I can somehow see it even with my eyes closed. I roll back the other way but my feet are caught up in the covers and there’s an orangey glow from the street light creeping around the curtains. More distractions. There’s no way I can sleep here.
I reply to Jane:
Think I’m going to drive back too. Can’t sleep here
