Another Country. Anjali Joseph

      Leela squirmed. ‘Why not? Why not this?’ she pursued.

      Silence.

      She put an arm under her head, slid a little away from Simon, and examined him. The skin around his eyes frightened her in the mornings; it looked so old and belaboured. When they were both awake, cooking, drinking, talking, even in bed, the presumption of parity in their ages held; she was never certain enough of herself to know how they related to each other. Now, though, she was appalled by what time could do: how it gathered and stayed in the skin.

      Simon woke and sighed. He lay gazing at the skylight then suddenly put a hand on the far side of Leela’s waist and rolled her over. He looked into her eyes, closed his, sighed, kissed her, felt her bottom.

      ‘Morning,’ she said self-consciously.

      ‘Morning,’ he said at length, the dry politeness of his voice a considerable interval from what his hands and body were doing.

      ‘Right,’ he said, swinging up and out of bed. He began to dress at once. Now she saw him wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, a flannel shirt on top. He frowned, sitting on the bed to put on socks, his shoulders tense. The abruptness with which he peeled himself away from her, and the way her skin, which had been warm against his, was left exposed to the cold air, disconcerted her.

      ‘I’m gonna make some coffee,’ he murmured, and began to disappear down the stairs.

      Leela, alone under the skylight, picked up her clothes then went to the bathroom to shower – the water was never quite hot or plentiful enough – and dress. She examined her face in the mirrored bathroom cabinet and was surprised by its youth, how unmarked it was. Her hair sat flat. She fiddled with it and gave up.

      In the kitchen, she found Simon plunging the top of the cafetière. Seen from behind, he in every way signified a man: his height, the dishevelled hair, his wide shoulders and the swoop of his back and shirt into his jeans.

      She came to rest at his side, and he handed her a cup of coffee. She followed him to the living room, and remembered with a movement of shame, but also amusement, her relief of the evening earlier this week when he’d phoned, his voice both lazy and nervous, to ask if she were free. Leela, clutching the blue receiver, had been abruptly lightened: the world had become less cruel.

      She carried an immoderately-sized bag and struggled through the Gare du Nord, away from the suburban trains and the orange 1970s decor and with relief onto a sleek glass-sided escalator, towards the Eurostar. A ticket slid into a machine at the turnstile, a space-age version of the métro. She queued along airport-like corridors and passed shining pillars, walked down a smooth cream slope into the train.