by Rachel Cusk
The doorbell rang, and Ralph jumped in reflex as the loud voltage pealed through him. Its alarm dispersed slowly into silence, and it was a while before it reconstituted itself in his thoughts. Francine was at the door. Everything seemed foggy and submerged, and he stood up heavily, realizing that he felt quite drunk. He set off down the hall, his footsteps loud as earthquakes in his ears.
Five
Francine stood outside Ralph’s front door and used the delay between her ringing the bell and his answering it to make some last-minute adjustments to her appearance. She unbuttoned the jacket she had been forced by cold to fasten during the walk from the Tube station – she had compared the two styles several times during the day, before the large mirror in the ladies’, and had concluded that the open front was more flattering – and inspected the blouse beneath to make sure it had not been deranged by its period of enclosure. It was slightly flattened and she plucked at it expertly until it hung in a more becoming fashion, casting as she did so a keen eye over the glimmering vista of her stockinged legs. They appeared undamaged by their journey, but she craned her head and twisted first one leg and then the other to afford her a view from behind, just in case. She had debated bringing a set of different clothes in a bag to work so as to change into them at the end of the day and thus appear more casual, but when she considered that the tailored suits and high-heeled shoes she wore to the office revealed her to her best advantage, the necessity of travelling directly from the City to Ralph’s flat appeared to provide the perfect excuse for remaining in them.
The street was quiet and motionless, and in the absence of its activity Francine felt the thin, freezing night air penetrate her clothing and touch her skin. Ralph was taking a long time to answer the door. The thought of his panic pleased her, but in view of the fact that she had lingered shivering at dark shop windows on the way to ensure the expiry of a full half hour beyond the time on which they had decided, she had expected him to be straining with anxious readiness for her arrival. She turned on her heel in irritation so that her back was to the door – he would certainly get the message when he finally decided to open it! – and wearily assumed an aspect of contemplation towards the street. It was really very cold now, and she knew that the pale skin on her nose and chin tended to become inflamed in such conditions. The thought kindled a flame of indignation at her predicament, and she had just turned to ring petulantly a second time when she heard a sudden thunder of footsteps and the rattling of locks as the door opened.
The hall behind him was dark, and Ralph seemed different standing there from the person Francine remembered. In the grey illumination of the street lamps his face looked severe, almost unfriendly, and there was something complex in his unfamiliarity which sent a tremor of aversion through her. For a moment he didn’t say anything at all, and without his direction Francine found herself unable to act. Experience had created the expectation that her reception would be a warm and windless affair, a meteorological certainty brought about by the constant current of her attractions, and she naturally shrank from the coolness of Ralph’s greeting.
‘Hello,’ he said finally, still standing in the doorway as if he had no intention of permitting her to progress beyond it. A strong instinct informed Francine that things were not proceeding in the correct way.
‘I thought you weren’t in,’ she said. Her voice twanged unkindly in her ears, forgetting its recent lessons in intonation, but the sight of Ralph made her feel horribly as if she didn’t care what he thought. In fact, the situation was growing every minute less acceptable – why was he making her stand there in the cold, looking at her with that rude expression? – and had the rejection it implied not compelled her to endure it for the purposes of investigation, she felt sure she would have turned around that minute and gone home. All at once, as if sensing their arrival at the threshold of an impossibility, Ralph, although apparently at the expense of some effort, underwent the necessary transformation.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, the pale plate of his face breaking into a smile. He turned and switched on the hall light. ‘I was on the phone when you rang the bell and I couldn’t seem to get away – sorry, do come in.’ He stood back to allow her in, his cheeks suffused with colour as he ran a hand over his hair. ‘Sorry, you must be frozen – sorry, come in. How are you?’
In the light of the hall, Francine felt the situation returning once more to dimensions she recognized. She looked at Ralph and was alarmed to notice a curious dark stain on his lips, like blood. He smiled again reassuringly, ushering her with his arm towards an open door on the right.
‘It’s just through there,’ he said. ‘Go ahead.’
Her inability to comprehend it, as well as Ralph’s belated restitution of the appropriate behaviour, encouraged her to forget what had just happened. She followed his directions and found herself in a large, warm room glowing with lamplight. Its welcoming atmosphere exerted an immediate improvement upon her spirits, and she even managed to summon some enthusiasm for the thought of how flattering the gentle light must be to her complexion.
‘I’ll just get you a glass of wine,’ said Ralph from the doorway. ‘Make yourself at home.’
He disappeared and moments later she heard the proper sounds of the kitchen, the thump of cupboard doors and the clink of glasses. The room was really quite elegant, and although Francine thought the presence of heavy curtains and shelves full of books and what looked like second-hand furniture a bit old-fashioned, still it had a kind of authority which she judged to be pleasing. The floor was wooden – a feature she knew from magazines to be fashionable, and for which she awarded Ralph credit, notwithstanding the fact that she secretly thought the effect somewhat miserly – and there was a fireplace at the other end with a mirror over it. She immediately crossed the room and stood in front of it to see if the ordeals of the interlude between her last reflection in the office toilets and her arrival here had wrought any unwanted changes. Surprisingly, she actually looked improved by the exercise, and she peered more closely, suspecting the dim light of concealment. Magnified, the image was still pleasing and Francine regarded it with satisfaction. She had never known her appearance not to be well behaved, but she was wiser than to let this consideration relax her discipline of it.
Ralph’s footsteps sounded down the hall behind her and she lowered her gaze to the mantelpiece, where she was confronted by a photograph of Stephen Sparks in a silver frame. His presence surprised her, and she greeted it with mingled bitterness and excitement. It was a close-up of his face, although she could see his hair, which was much longer than it was now. It looked unfashionable and rather silly, she thought disappointedly.
‘Here we go,’ said Ralph, putting two glasses on the table.
The stain had disappeared from his lips, and the sight of his short hair made Francine warm to him. He came and stood beside her at the fireplace.
‘Stephen in his hippie era,’ he said, nodding at the photograph.
‘I like your flat,’ said Francine. The presence of the photograph suggested something complicated which might interfere with the now-smooth transmission of Ralph’s interest in her. Unconsciously, she hoped that Stephen would be admonished from the mantelpiece by the sight of them together. ‘How much do you pay?’
‘What? Oh, I don’t – I mean, I do, but I own it.’
‘Really?’
Francine’s sense of her own foolishness was ameliorated by her pleasure at his ownership. She felt the reassuring thirst for conquest rise in the wake of this newly ingested information.
‘Well, it’s only small,’ Ralph said. ‘Here, have some wine.’
He handed her a glass. The wine was red, and she felt a slight cooling of her admiration as she wondered why he hadn’t given her a choice, or at least offered her something like a gin and tonic instead. When he had suggested drinks she had vaguely imagined them having cocktails, with a lustrous cherry speared by a parasol. Red wine tasted bitter to her, and in any case she thought peo
ple only drank it at dinner-time, not before. The memory of their unpleasant doorstep encounter began to rally from its consignment, and with it came the recollection of their telephone conversation, in which Ralph had been abrupt and not at all polite. At the time she had been quite impressed by his assurance, though, and this factor, along with Ralph’s flat, his now improved manners, and his really not unpleasing appearance, rose in battle against Francine’s disaffection. She waited to see what his next move would contribute to the conflict.
‘Do you know, I didn’t even ask you if you wanted red wine,’ he exclaimed suddenly. He made a gesture with his hands which suggested impatience with himself. ‘It’s just that it’s all anybody seems to drink these days – sorry, would you have preferred something else?’
‘No, I love it,’ said Francine, immediately taking a mouthful as if to mark it territorially. It tasted acrid and rather dirty.
Ralph glanced at her and then looked down. He wasn’t looking at her as much as she had expected: when she had met him by chance that time in Camden Market his eyes had kept bounding towards her, two shining, hungry dogs straining on a leash, and she wondered why the more comfortable element of his ardour had been exchanged for this new atmosphere of restraint. It proved difficult to locate a solution to this mystery which pleased her, and she abandoned it with the thought that the very darkness of Ralph’s motives at least guaranteed an intensity of which she was confident of being the object. He drank from his glass, tipping back his head slightly so that most of the wine drained down his throat. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then looked at it.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ said Francine.
‘No, please do – please, go ahead.’
She put down her glass and crossed the room to find her bag with a sense of liberation in the movement and the noise of her heels knocking against the wooden floor. The commotion seemed also to arouse Ralph.
‘Have you come straight from work?’ he said, raising his voice behind her.
She rummaged gracefully in her bag and came back across the room towards him before she answered. His eyes, awaiting her reply, were fixed on her as she approached.
‘Oh, yes. I often have to stay late. Would you like one?’
‘Oh – OK, why not?’
His tone was warmer now, and the exchange of the cigarette manufactured a successful intimacy. He met her eyes, and Francine felt confident that she had magnetized his thoughts and was drawing them out of their dark recess towards her. She was unused to having to do so much to secure her victories: the normal pattern of such engagements invariably permitted her a defensive position, from which she would admit or repel foreign advances. Ralph’s seclusion, however, demanded some form of attack, and the discovery of a small but none the less unexpected body of resistance barring the path to his surrender was beginning to inspire in Francine the idea that what lay beyond it must be of greater worth than she had thought.
‘What exactly is it that you’re doing?’ said Ralph. He seemed to comprehend the stiffness of his own question, and added: ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever even asked you.’
‘I work for the director of a company in the City,’ said Francine. She waved her cigarette distractingly. ‘I don’t have a light.’
‘Oh – let’s see, there’ll be some matches in the kitchen. Come on, I’ll give you a guided tour.’ He led the way across the sitting-room. ‘So is your director a bit of an ogre?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It sounds like he works you very hard.’
‘He does.’ Francine followed him. ‘But a lot of it’s my own work too.’
‘How’s that?’ said Ralph.
‘Well—’ Francine was glad that he couldn’t see her face. ‘I’m trying to learn a bit about the business.’
‘So is this a long-term thing?’ They entered the kitchen and Ralph began searching the counter-tops. ‘For some reason I thought you did temporary work.’
He opened and shut drawers loudly. The end of a metal bottle-opener flew up and jammed at a right-angle from one of them, and Ralph tried unsuccessfully to slam it shut two or three times without noticing the impediment. His face was red, and in the strong light Francine could see it was covered with a boisterous mask of sweat.
‘I can’t seem to find them – oh, hang on, I can just light it from the cooker, can’t I?’
He put the cigarette in his mouth and bent down over the hob, turning a knob with his hand. A ring of blue flame leapt up towards his face and he shied slightly, straightening up seconds later with the smouldering cigarette still hanging from his lips. An oddly sweet smell of burning drifted towards Francine in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and she saw that Ralph’s face was screwed up as if a bright light were shining in it.
‘There we are,’ he said, handing her the cigarette. His voice wavered with physical strain. ‘Can you light yours from that?’ He rubbed his hand across his face as she lit her cigarette and then touched his eyebrows tentatively with his fingers. ‘Oh dear,’ he said.
‘It’s a nice kitchen,’ said Francine, looking around to avoid giving the situation her attention. Suddenly she remembered a time, a few years ago, when she had gone to meet a man in a bar which was in a basement and had a long, steep flight of steps down to the entrance. She had stumbled and fallen all the way down, and although the pain had been severe, she had picked herself up, examined her clothing to make sure that no trace of her accident remained, and had walked into the bar as if nothing had happened. Fortunately, there had been no one else on the stairs at the time to witness her mishap. When she got home that evening, she had found large, black bruises across her back and legs which had taken weeks to disappear.
‘Thanks,’ said Ralph, composing himself. He leaned against the cupboards and drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘Which business is it that you’re learning?’
For a moment Francine couldn’t think of what he was talking about.
‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t want to talk about this,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s pretty boring.’
‘No, I’m interested,’ said Ralph. ‘I don’t know anything about the City. I just twiddle my thumbs on the Holloway Road all day writing things that no one’s ever going to read.’ He laughed, as if to himself. ‘Tell me what your company – what’s it called?’
‘Lancing & Louche.’
‘There you go! You’d never find Lancing & Louche on the Holloway Road. Tell me what they do.’
‘They’re financial,’ said Francine. Her thoughts writhed against the bent of the conversation.
‘What, an investment bank?’
‘That sort of thing.’ She looked around her as if she had lose something. ‘I think I’ve left my glass in the other room.’
‘Oh, sorry – let’s go and sit down, shall we?’
Francine headed gratefully for the hall. For a minute Ralph didn’t follow her, and when she looked back she saw him rubbing his face. He blinked his eyes fiercely several times, his eyebrows moving up and down as if in astonishment, and then turned to the oven and opened it. Sensing Francine standing there, he straightened up guiltily.
‘Look, I’ve got a confession to make,’ he said. ‘I know I said we’d go to a restaurant, but then I thought it might be nicer to have something here instead. What do you think?’
The news of a confession had set Francine’s heart thudding and it was a minute before she could understand the meaning of what he had said. When it came, the revelation was something of a disappointment. She was immediately gripped by the suspicion that he had lost interest in her, and didn’t want to be put to the expense or effort of taking her out. The sundry collection of clues which, when amassed, testified to Ralph’s odd and irrational character reinforced this conclusion; but vanity told a different story, and Francine shortly found herself more attracted to the idea that he wanted her all to himself, in a shuttered seclusion where developments could be allowed freely to unfold.
‘Oh, I’m not that hungry anyway,’ she said, weighin
g up the sacrifice of a restaurant’s glamour, with its opportunities for public appreciation and its tokens of private expense, against this new and uncertain plan. ‘Don’t go to any trouble on my account.’
‘But I want to!’ Ralph replied. ‘I mean, I already have, it’s in the oven – I don’t know if you’ll like it very much, that’s all. It’s only a risotto.’
His presupposal of her agreement to having dinner in his flat was held in the balance, Francine felt, by his already having prepared it. She had heard of girls beings asked to dinner and expected to help, or worse still to do the whole thing themselves. It was not what she had hoped for, but nevertheless Francine could see how Ralph’s behaviour could be construed as heroic when she described it to Janice and perhaps one or two of the secretaries at work. That it was ‘only’ a risotto was more unsettling, but her ignorance of risotto, combined with its admittedly exotic sound, left her no choice but to attribute his qualification to modesty.
