Felix cocked his head as if expecting her to clarify the joke. As in, he believes in Jesus?
he said.
Yeah.
Fucking hell, seriously? He’s weird in the head or something, is he?
No, he’s quite normal, said Alice. He won’t try to convert you or anything, he’s low-key about it. I’m sure you’d like him.
Felix sat there shaking his head. He laid his fork down, glanced around the restaurant, and then picked the fork up again, but didn’t resume eating right away. And would he be against gays and all that? he said.
No, no. I mean, you should ask him about that, if you meet him. But I believe his idea of Jesus is more friend-to-the-poor, champion-of-the-marginalised kind of thing.
Here, I’m sorry, but he sounds like a headcase. In this day and age a person believes all that? Some lad a thousand years ago popped out from the grave and that’s the whole point of everything?
Don’t we all believe silly things? she said.
I don’t. I believe what I see in front of me. I don’t believe some big Jesus in the sky is looking down on us deciding are we good or bad.
For a few seconds she surveyed him and said nothing. Finally she replied: No, maybe you don’t. But not many people would be happy, thinking about life the way you do –
that it’s all for nothing, and there isn’t any meaning. Most people prefer to believe there
is some. So in that sense, everyone is deluded. Simon’s delusions are just more organised.
Felix started sawing a slice of steak in two with his knife. If he wants to be happy, couldn’t he make up something nicer to believe? he asked. Instead of thinking everything’s a sin and he might go to hell.
I don’t think he’s worried about hell, he just wants to do the right thing on earth. He believes there’s a difference between right and wrong. I suppose you can’t believe that, if you think it all means nothing in the end.
No, I do believe there’s right and wrong, obviously.
She raised an eyebrow. Oh, you are deluded, then, she said. If we’re all just going to die in the end, who’s to say what’s right and what isn’t?
He told her he would think about it. They went on eating, but presently he broke off again and started to shake his head once more.
Not to harp on about the gay thing, he said. But would he have any gay friends, this guy? Simon.
Well, he’s friends with me. And I’m not exactly heterosexual.
Amused now, even mischievous, Felix answered: Oh, okay. Me neither, by the way.
She looked up at him quickly and he met her eyes.
You look surprised, he said.
Do I?
Returning his attention to his food, he went on: I just never really had a thing about it.
Whether someone is a guy or a girl. I know for most people it’s like, the one big thing they really do care about. But for me, it just doesn’t make any difference. I don’t go around telling people all the time because actually, some girls don’t like it. If they find out you’ve been with guys they think you’re a bit not right, some of them. But I don’t mind telling you since you’re the same yourself.
She took a sip from her wine glass and swallowed. Then she said: For me I think it’s more that I fall in love very intensely. And I can never know in advance who it’s going to be, whether they’ll be a man or woman, or anything else about them.
Felix nodded slowly. That’s interesting, he said. And it happens a lot, or not that much?
Not that much, she said. And never very happily.
Ah, that’s a shame. But it’ll go happily for you in the end, I bet.
Thank you, that’s kind.
He went on eating, while she watched him from across the table.
I’m sure people must fall in love with you all the time, she said.
He looked at her, his expression open and sincere. Why would they? he said.
She shrugged. When we first met I got the impression you were always going on dates, she said. You seemed very blasé and cool about everything.
Just because I go on dates doesn’t mean people go around falling in love with me. I mean, we’ve been on a date together, you’re not in love with me, are you?
Placidly she replied: I wouldn’t tell you if I were.
He laughed. Good for you, he said. And don’t get the wrong idea, you’re welcome to be in love with me if you want. I would have to put you down as a bit of a lunatic, but I kind of think that about you anyway.
She was mopping the remaining sauce off her plate with a piece of bread. You’re wise, she said.
/
On Thursday morning an assistant from Alice’s publishing house picked her up outside the apartment at ten and took her to meet some journalists. Felix spent the morning wandering around the city looking at things, listening to music on his headphones, taking pictures and posting them in a WhatsApp group. One photograph showed a narrow, shaded cobbled street, and at the end a resplendent white church in the sunlight, with bright green doors and shutters. Another showed a red moped parked outside a shopfront with old-fashioned lettering over the door. Finally he posted a photograph of the dome of St Peter’s, creamy blue like an iced cake, seen in the distance from the Via della Conciliazione, sky blazing in the backdrop. In the group chat, someone with the username Mick replied: Where the fuck are you lad??? Someone with the username Dave wrote: Hold on are you in ITALY? what the fuck haha. You not at work this week. Felix typed out a reply.