A Dry Spell Read online

  It was a month since the field trip to that damp, disease-ridden hostel in Yorkshire, and Nina and Martin were now firmly on the scene as a couple. She couldn’t quite believe how well Jean had taken it, and how little criticism they had attracted for sneaking around behind her back while she was in bed, sick. ‘No worries. I’ve never been into that whole jealousy/possession thing,’ Jean had said. Nina wasn’t entirely convinced by this and similar declarations, but she was grateful nevertheless. She was sure she wouldn’t have been nearly so magnanimous in Jean’s place. As she made it quite clear to Martin, she, herself, was into that whole jealousy/possession thing, so he needn’t get any ideas.

  Nina threw down her pen. There. By means of some transparent waffling her essay had limped on to its fourth side. She had earned a rest. Sitting cross-legged on her chair with a cushion in the small of her back had deadened her lower legs, and she winced as she flexed her ankles and felt the blood seething back into the veins. As she pulled on her coat and plucked her keys from the desk it occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She remembered a natural yoghurt in the fridge that was hers and some bread that wasn’t. Perhaps she would pinch a slice or two and have some toast, just to line the stomach. It was surprising how often she could get to the end of a day without having eaten anything substantial. What was that French saying about not living on love and fresh water?

  Nina pushed open the door of her room to be greeted by a tantalizing smell of cooking: garlic, rosemary, wine, toasted cheese, something sharp and citrus. She felt dizzy with hunger. That natural yoghurt would never do. She made her way towards the source of the smell, breathing deeply. Normally the communal kitchen stank of tinned tomato soup, or Lemon Vim if the cleaner had been round. This was something quite different. What was going on in there was cuisine.

  On the table was a single place setting: two knives, two forks, a glass of wine and a white linen napkin. A half-empty bottle of red wine was open on the work surface which was cluttered with used pans, bowls, chopping board and implements. A wide shallow pan simmered on the stove. Beyond the streaked glass of the oven door and lit by a greasy bulb sat a soufflé, perfectly risen and golden and high as a chef’s hat. There was no one about so Nina approached the stove to have a better look at the contents of the pan, which turned out to be joints of some sort of poultry in a syrupy sauce with shallots and mushrooms. The liquid had almost all evaporated and was starting to crackle as though it might soon stick. Nina was just wondering whether she ought to give it a stir when a voice behind her said, ‘Don’t open the oven. Please,’ and she leapt away as if she’d been burnt.

  The speaker was a man of around Nina’s age, with shoulder-length wavy hair and thick glasses. He was on the plump side, with a paunch that strained against his shirt buttons and rested on the waistband of droopy flared jeans. His lips were full and wet-looking. He was holding a white, fine china plate. ‘It’s just that the souffle will sink,’ he went on. ‘It’s got another . . .’ he checked his watch ‘. . . minute and a half to go.’ He took Nina’s place at the stove, fractionally adjusting the heat under the pan and agitating the contents gently. Bread, thought Nina, her heart beating a little fester.

  ‘I wasn’t going to open the oven, actually,’ she said, taking courage from the fact that he didn’t look anything like as malevolent as his reputation. ‘I was just worried that your chicken was going to burn.’

  ‘It’s duck,’ the stranger corrected her. ‘I’m trying to get it to caramelize. I’ve never tried this recipe before – it’s one I’ve adapted, so I don’t know how it will turn out.’ He had a South African accent, as thick as clotted cream. He turned on the hot tap and held his plate under the jet of scalding water for half a minute before wiping it dry.

  ‘Well, it smells very nice,’ Nina admitted, retrieving her yoghurt from the fridge. Someone had punctured the foil lid, and the sell-by date had elapsed some days ago. She wavered for a moment and then dropped it in the bin.

  ‘Best place for it,’ said Bread, opening the oven door to release a rush of hot, cheese-scented air. He carried the monstrous, trembling soufflé to the table, his pendulous lower lip pegged between his teeth.

  ‘I think we’re neighbours, aren’t we?’ said Nina, without taking her eyes off the dish.

  ‘Are we? Which side?’

  ‘Left. West. Number Sixteen,’ said Nina.

  ‘Oh, it’s you who plays the loud music then,’ said Bread, without appearing to be joking. He hovered awkwardly by the table, waiting for her to go.

  ‘Someone left a note on your door which said, “You’re dead”,’ she mused.

  ‘Well, his optimism was unwarranted, as you can see.’ The soufflé was beginning to sag. ‘Oh damn. Look – are you hungry?’ he said, almost accusingly.

  Nina hesitated. It was a filthy night: the idea of traipsing the streets in search of Martin and the others was looking less and less attractive. In fact, now she came to think of it, she couldn’t understand the point of a pub-crawl. No sooner were you comfortably installed, beer in hand, than you were being urged to drink up and herded out into the cold again.

  ‘I’m starving,’ she admitted, throwing her coat off.

  ‘Well, go and find yourself a plate and a knife and fork and you can have some of this. And a glass if you want wine. You don’t mind if I start, do you? Only timing’s everything.’

  Congratulating herself on this coup, Nina turned up a chipped plate and some scratched cutlery in one of the cupboards, while her companion helped himself to a large spoonful of soufflé. Wait until I tell the others, she was thinking. Breaking bread with Bread, notorious rapist and drug-pusher. She rinsed a smeared tumbler at the sink.

  ‘This looks yummy,’ she said, when she was finally seated and served. Bread did not look especially pleased with her choice of compliment. ‘Ten o’clock’s an odd time to be eating, if you don’t mind my saying,’ she went on, less confidently. ‘Do you always eat late?’

  ‘Only because it means I get the kitchen to myself. Usually.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a silence as they carried on eating. Nina finished her wine and accepted a refill. Taken on an empty stomach it made her feel instantly euphoric and flushed. ‘Is that why they call you Bread? Because of the cooking?’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Bread. ‘But apparently it’s because my head looks like a loaf.’ Now that he’d pointed it out Nina couldn’t help noticing that it was rather square. There was something doughy about his complexion, too. ‘My name’s Hugo,’ he added as an afterthought, dividing the last piece of soufflé between them.

  ‘I’m Nina,’ said Nina, pleased to have moved the relationship on a millimetre or two. ‘Why did your friend want to kill you?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Hugo with his mouth full. ‘I often seem to have that effect on people.’ He put the empty dish with the pile of used pots on the worktop and turned the heat out under the pan. He tasted the sauce with a wooden spoon and then ground pepper furiously over the duck before bringing the whole lot to the table. He gave Nina the breast joint and himself the leg and then spooned some of the sticky glaze on top. Nina dug her fork into the crispy skin and the whole thing came away in one piece. ‘You know,’ she said, nibbling one corner and letting the flavours explode on her tongue, ‘you aren’t a bit like I imagined.’

  Hugo, who was pulling bone from flesh with his fingers, looked baffled at the idea that he should have figured in Nina’s imagination at all.

  ‘You hear such conflicting reports.’

  ‘And which of these reports do you believe?’ Hugo asked, helping himself to more wine. ‘The one about my conviction for arson. Or is it GBH? Am I a transsexual this week or a Neo-Nazi? I can never remember.’

  Nina laughed. ‘They say you’re a good cook,’ she said. ‘And a genius. It’s not all bad, you see.’

  ‘And what do you think?’ She could sense him beginning to thaw.

  ‘Well, I’d obviously need some more ev
idence before I decide you’re a genius, but they didn’t exaggerate about the cooking. Hugo – do you mind if I call you Hugo? – this is the most delicious meal I’ve ever had. Honestly.’

  ‘Really?’ said Hugo, looking momentarily animated. ‘You don’t think I’ve overdone the cardamom?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Nina, who wasn’t even sure what it was. A relative of the pappadom, perhaps?

  ‘Well. I think it needs some work. I’m still ambivalent about the black treacle,’ said Hugo, his brows furrowing.

  Nina burst out laughing. He was surely having her on. But he didn’t join in; he merely looked bewildered. ‘I’m glad you like it anyway,’ he said finally. ‘I wouldn’t normally offer someone a meal that was still at the experimental stage.’

  ‘But I sort of gatecrashed my way in.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you don’t mind now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In fact you’re secretly pleased that you asked me to stay,’ she went on, determined to wring some banter out of him.

  ‘Your input has been useful,’ he conceded.

  Nina’s laugh pealed out again. Really, he had no idea how comical he sounded. She’d never met anyone so useless at flirting and so immune to her charms.

  ‘Why do you hide away in your room so much?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I’m out and about all the time and I’ve never seen you.’

  ‘To avoid having to make conversation with all the other assholes out there. Since we’re speaking plainly,’ said Hugo, giving her a brief smile before gathering up the plates. ‘Would you like some Brie?’

  Nina nodded. ‘But they might not all be assholes. Some of them are, I admit. But some are really nice. You could be missing out.’

  ‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’ Hugo produced an oozing triangle of Brie from a wicker box on the side. ‘Anyway, I’m not hiding. My friends know where to find me.’

  ‘Most of the people on this corridor are pretty much like me,’ Nina went on, feeling bound to defend them. ‘And you like me, don’t you?’ she wheedled, accepting a fresh plate.

  ‘It’s a bit early to have formed an opinion,’ replied Hugo, seriously. He was peeling a very ripe pear with a small fruit knife and the juice was running over his hands. ‘I don’t dislike you. Here.’ He passed her a pear-half on the end of the blade and Nina fumbled it with slippery fingers. ‘I once sat up until three in the morning waiting for a pear to ripen,’ he mused.

  ‘Was it worth it?’ asked Nina.

  ‘I didn’t have much else to do in those days. At boarding school.’

  ‘I went to boarding school, too,’ said Nina, throwing herself on this speck of common ground. ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘No. I hated it. Until the very end when it started to get better. Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I was very happy, actually,’ Nina confessed, almost guiltily. In the presence of strange and troubled souls like Hugo she couldn’t help feeling that her unafflicted upbringing and tendency to enjoy herself were deficiencies which needed explaining. ‘The girls were nice, the teachers were nice. I’m afraid I missed out on all those character-building experiences like canings and homesickness and bullying. It’s probably why I’ve got no personality.’

  ‘I was never homesick,’ said Hugo, entirely failing to come to the defence of her personality. ‘Holidays were even worse than term-times.’

  ‘Why? Didn’t you get on with your parents?’

  ‘My mother died when I was ten. My father and I didn’t make a very good job of consoling each other. “If only it had been you instead,” I think he said.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Nina. ‘That’s appalling.’

  ‘I probably said the same thing to him first. I certainly thought it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Nina. ‘Did he ever hit you or anything?’

  ‘No. He threw things at me occasionally. Books and the odd bottle. But fortunately he was rather a poor shot. It was more neglect, really. He just didn’t want me and didn’t know what to do with me.’

  ‘Weren’t there any other relatives you could stay with?’ asked Nina. She had finished eating now and without any discussion they started to clear away the plates. She wasn’t sure if this was the sort of subject that could be pursued over the washing-up, but he didn’t seem to mind her questions, and, besides, he never asked any of her, so she couldn’t offer any personal revelations in return.

  ‘My mother’s parents live in Cheltenham and there was an aunt in Portsmouth. I used to be passed around like a Christmas present nobody wants. But sooner or later I’d have to go home to the old man.’

  ‘Which was where?’ Nina asked.

  ‘South Africa,’ said Hugo, adding a few more dollops of cream to his accent.

  ‘Of course,’ said Nina. ‘Silly me.’ She ran hot water into the sink and started to wash up with an ancient, balding plastic brush. ‘I always hated the journey home. Sitting in transit lounges on my own,’ she went on, having ransacked her memory in vain for any childhood traumas.

  Hugo nodded agreement as he wiped the dishes and replaced them in the only one of the cupboards with a padlock, but he didn’t ask her where she was from or exhibit any curiosity about her life at all.

  ‘What’s your subject?’ she asked, at last, when it was clear he wasn’t going to come up with a question.

  ‘Geography,’ said Hugo, locking the last of the pots in the cupboard and pocketing the key.

  ‘Same as me. But you’re in the second year?’ said Nina, thinking that she might have tapped a useful source of lecture notes.

  Hugo nodded. They had finished clearing up now and stood loitering by the empty table. Nina certainly had no wish to return to her essay, and Hugo didn’t look as though he was in a tearing hurry to be gone. ‘Have you any idea what you’ll do next?’ she asked. She herself hadn’t a clue about careers.

  ‘I thought I might go back to my room and drink brandy,’ said Hugo, misunderstanding her. ‘If you want to come.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Perhaps this was how he lured his victims back to his lair, Nina thought. Perhaps everything I’ve heard about him is true. Presently curiosity overcame all her scruples. ‘Why not?’ she said. It would give her a chance to have a good snoop around. ‘Actually, when I said what are you going to do next I meant after university,’ she said as they walked back down the corridor to Hugo’s room. ‘You could be a chef.’

  Hugo pulled a face. ‘I don’t like taking orders,’ he said. ‘No, I’m intending to be a perpetual student. I’ll do a PhD on some aspect of desert morphology, extended over many years.’ He unlocked his door and pushed it open. The room was still dark and the bedclothes were twisted up and trailing on to the floor as if he had fallen out of bed. He drew the curtains against the rain and hit a switch.

  A single, unshaded lightbulb gave out a sickly yellow light. A bin in the corner was piled high with flattened beer cans and empty wine bottles, and there was a musty masculine smell of unwashed clothes. A winged armchair in black padded vinyl faced out of the window, its back to the room. The walls were bare, apart from a cork noticeboard above the desk to which a couple of scrolls of paper were attached with a single drawing pin. Against the longest wall were some precarious bookshelves made of planks supported at each end by bricks and sagging in the middle under the weight of hundreds of books. Nina inspected the titles with growing astonishment. No wonder she could never find any decent books in the library – they were all here. ‘Isn’t there a limit on borrowing?’ she asked, as Hugo kicked a few odd shoes and crumpled items of clothing under the bed and straightened the sheets.

  ‘I’ve got more than one ticket,’ he replied, cryptically.

  Oh really? thought Nina, adding FORGER to the list of allegations against him. At least she would know where to bring her reading list in future.

  From a cardboard box beneath the desk Hugo produced a bottle of Courvoisier and a pair of dusty goblets into which he poured two huge measures.
r />   ‘Do you think there’s a geography of women?’ Nina asked casually.

  Hugo laughed. ‘I’ve done that essay,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it somewhere.’ He dragged a box file from under the desk and thumbed through the papers until he found it. ‘Here.’ He handed her a dozen pages, densely covered in the most minute handwriting Nina had ever seen. ‘You can borrow it if you like.’

  ‘Are you sure? That will really get me out of trouble,’ said Nina, taking it from him gratefully. If she didn’t hang around here too long she could copy it out before she went to bed. She rolled it up and tucked it in the pocket of her smock. ‘What’s in it for you, though?’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, I’ll call in the favour sooner or later,’ said Hugo, handing her a brandy glass. ‘I always do.’ He spun the black vinyl armchair round so that it faced into the room and offered it to Nina, who sat in it, cross-legged, holding her drink in her lap, while Hugo sat on the floor leaning against the end of the bed. He took out a crushed packet of Camels and a lighter from his back pocket and tossed them up to her.

  ‘Do you know Martin Shorrocks?’ she asked, thinking that now might be a good time to invoke her absent boyfriend, just to make it quite clear that she was unavailable. Not that Hugo had shown any interest in that direction, it had to be said. He hadn’t even committed himself to liking her yet. And she was certainly in no danger from herself: physically he was only just the right side of repulsive. That wet lower lip . . .

  ‘He’s your boyfriend,’ said Hugo, neutrally.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen you together. And heard you.’ He glanced at the party wall.

  Nina was annoyed to find herself blushing. ‘We were supposed to be going on a pub-crawl tonight,’ she said, throwing back the Camels. ‘A whole load of us. You could have come.’

  Hugo shook his head. ‘No thanks. I always feel like a performing bear or something when I’m in a crowd of strangers. As if I’ve got to cavort around and entertain people and make a pratt of myself – which I usually do.’