Attachment by Isabel Fonseca

Author:Isabel Fonseca [Fonseca, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9781554689149
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Saturday evening. Jean was quick to Waterloo. When she emerged from the Underground, she saw that the rain had stopped. Or paused. She gave her magazines to a young woman sitting cross-legged by the entrance, begging with a puppy in her lap, and in the pink early evening she approached the theater with time to spare. She wandered around the leaking concrete complex, feeling shame for the decade of her childhood—the ugly sixties—and in no rush to meet the “total predator.” At five to seven she arrived at the National Film Theatre. No Dan.

She stood with her arms crossed and her knees locked together, wishing she’d worn something warmer. She had on her brown suede boots, black tights patterned with holes like chair caning, a thin brown dress, and her mac, still puckered from yesterday’s downpour.

The last film lovers were moving into the cinema when Dan appeared, running, his olive-drab T-shirt faintly pricked with sweat, leather jacket flapping behind him. “I’m so sorry,” he panted, combing his fingers through wind-bent hair, guiding her into the semidarkness with a flat palm on her back. “Appalling traffic.”

Was there any other kind, she thought, furious she’d let herself in for this but maintaining a dignified silence—at least until she saw the near-empty theater. “Good thing we prebooked,” she said. Dan’s chest was heaving as the lights dimmed to black. With her eyes not yet adjusted, she leaned toward him and asked, “Did you run all the way from Sussex?” Still too winded to reply, he squeezed her forearm instead.

Apparently he’d been playing rugby all day. “My fortnightly Old Fucks’ game,” he explained when he caught his breath. “And then tea with the godchild.”

“What position do you play? And just how old are you?”

“Wing. Thirty-one. Anything else you’d like to know, Mrs. H.?”

Yeah, she thought, what exactly did Maya Stayanovich mean by “genius”? Instead she smiled her serene boss’s wife smile, silently doubting the discernment of the breathless, eternally embroiled Maya Stayanovich. Finally, the film was about to begin—no reminders to turn off cell phones, no jingles or trailers, just the scratched countdown of numbers. Jean glanced around. Adult education, she thought gloomily, her stomach rumbling.

She leaned and whispered to Dan, “They only sell drinks out there, right?”

“’Fraid so. Can I get you one?”

“Sure, g and t if they’ve got it.” And then, in a scarcely audible whisper as Dan ducked back down the aisle, she tried out “rugger bugger.” It was her own fault, of course. She’d been counting on some popcorn to keep her going. But all hunger and irritation was soon crowded out by incredulity. The film was in black and white. Three hours long, he’d said, and the first four minutes felt like fifteen: a long panning shot of Chinese trees in colorless blossom… Unzipping her boots, she prepared to nap.

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