from him, the breath knocked out of her when she entered a room to find him there. The day all three of them cycled to the woods and left their bikes in a clearing together.
Dark clouds surreal-looking behind bright sunlit treetops. Lola telling a long, embellished story about someone who had been murdered in the forest, Simon murmuring things like, Hm, I’m not sure about that, and, Oh dear, that’s a bit grisly, isn’t it? Eileen absorbed in kicking a pebble along the path before her, occasionally glancing up at Simon to observe his face. Stabbed so many times she was almost decapitated, Lola was saying. Gosh, said Simon, I’d rather not think about it. Lola laughed and told him he was a mouse. Well, if it comes to that, I am a bit, he said. It was starting to rain then and Lola untied her jacket from around her waist. You’re like Eileen, she said. He looked over at Eileen and said: I’d like to be more like her. Lola said that Eileen was only a baby. In a quick, heated, strangely loud voice, Eileen said: Imagine someone saying that to you when you were my age. Lola looked around at her sympathetically. But to be fair, she answered, when I was your age I was a lot more mature. Simon said he thought Eileen was very mature. Lola frowned and said: Don’t be creepy. Simon’s ears were red then and his voice came out sounding different. I meant intellectually, he said. He didn’t say anything else and neither did Lola, but neither of them were happy. Lola put her hood up against the rain and walked ahead.
With fast long strides she marched on around a bend in the path, out of sight. Eileen looked down at the path, which had been dry dirt and was now turning to mud, little streams running between the stones. The rain was growing harder, making a pattern of dark dots on the front of her jeans, wetting her hair. When they came around the next bend, Lola still wasn’t visible. She might have been further ahead, or she might have gone down some other path. Do you know where we are? Eileen asked. Simon smiled
and said he thought so. We won’t get lost, he said, don’t worry. We might get drowned, though. Eileen wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Hopefully no one will come along and stab us thirty-eight times, she remarked. Simon laughed. The victims always seem to be on their own in those stories, he said. So I think we’ll be fine. Eileen said that was all very well unless he was the murderer. He laughed again. No, no, he said. You’re safe with me. She glanced up at him again, shyly. I feel that way, she said. He looked around at her and said: Hm? She shook her head, wiped her face with her sleeve again, swallowed. I feel that I’m safe, she said, when I’m with you. For a few seconds Simon was silent. Presently he said: That’s nice. I’m glad to hear it. She watched him. Then with no warning she stopped walking and stood under a tree. Her face and hair were very wet. When Simon noticed she was no longer beside him, he turned around. Hello, he said. What are you doing? She gazed at him with intense concentration in her eyes.
Can you come here for a second? she said. He walked toward her a few steps. Very quietly but with some agitation she said: No, I mean here. Where I’m standing. He paused. Well, why? he said. Instead of answering she merely went on looking at him with a kind of pleading, distressed expression. He came toward her, and she put her hand on his forearm and held it. The cloth of his shirt was damp. She pulled him a little closer, so their bodies were almost touching, and her lips wet, rain streaming down her cheeks and nose. He didn’t pull away from her, in fact he stood very close, and his mouth was almost at her ear. She said nothing and her breath came fast and high. Softly he said: Eileen, I know. I understand. But it can’t be like that, okay? She was trembling and her lips looked pale. I’m sorry, she said. He didn’t pull away, he stood there letting her hold on to his arm. There’s nothing to be sorry for, he said. You haven’t done anything wrong. I understand, okay? There’s nothing to say sorry for. Can we walk on
now, do you think? They walked on, Eileen staring down at her feet. In the clearing behind the gate Lola was waiting, holding her bicycle upright. At the sight of them, she kicked one pedal impatiently with her foot and sent it spinning. Where have you been?
she called out as they approached. You ran ahead, said Eileen. Simon retrieved Eileen’s bike from the grass and handed it over to her before lifting out his own. I hardly ran, said Lola. With a strange look on her face, she reached out and tousled Eileen’s wet hair. You look like a drowned rat, she said. Let’s go. He let them walk on together.
Silently with his eyes on the wheel of his bicycle he prayed: Dear God, let her live a happy life. I’ll do anything, anything, please, please. When she was twenty-one, she went to see him in Paris, where he spent the summer living in an old apartment building with a mechanical lift shaft. They were friends then, writing each other amusing postcards with famous nude paintings on the front. When they walked together along the Champs-élysées, women turned their heads to watch him, he was so tall and beautiful, so austere, and he never looked back at them. The night she arrived in his apartment she told him the story of how she had lost her virginity, only a few weeks before, and while she was talking her face was so hot it felt painful, and the story was so terribly bad and awkward, but somehow perversely she liked telling it to him, she liked the funny unshockable tone he took with her. He even made her laugh. They were lying close together, their shoulders almost touching. That was the first time. To be held in his arms and to feel him move inside her, this man who kept himself apart from everyone, to feel him giving in, taking comfort in her, that was her whole idea of sexuality, it had never surpassed that, still. And for him, to have her in that way, when she was so innocent and nervous, trembling all over, so unconscious it seemed of what she was giving him, he almost felt guilty. But it could never be wrong with her, no matter what