The In-Between E-Book

Christos Tsiolkas

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 486

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

'[Tsiolkas's] most heartfelt novel to date' Financial Times 'A love story par excellence...he's simply one of the great writers of our time' Irish Times 'Warm and rewarding...it triumphantly succeeds' Guardian It's been a long time since I've been on a date,' he says, pocketing his own phone. 'Please ignore anything I say for at least the first ten minutes.' Ivan's laugh is loud, delighted. 'I know, mate, I'm bloody terrified.' Two middle-aged men meet on an internet date. Each has been scarred by a previous relationship; each has his own compelling reasons for giving up on the idea of finding love. But still they both turn up for the dinner, feel the spark and the possibility of something more. How can they take the risk of falling in love again. How can they not? A tender, affecting novel of love, of hope, of forgiveness by one of today's most fearless and truthful interpreters of the human heart, the acclaimed bestselling author of The Slap and Damascus.

Leseprobe

Praise for Christos Tsiolkas:

‘One of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today’ Colm Tóibín

‘A scorching, mythic work with a heart of the sweetest intimacy’ Helen Garner on7 ½

‘Rejecting the rage of contemporary politics for a tender celebration of sensuality, nature, memory and love, 7½ makes a defiant claim: that even now, as the world burns, beauty is worth our attention’ Charlotte Wood on 7 ½

‘Christos Tsiolkas’s bestselling novels have addressed modern mores, gay culture and immigrant life … Yet Damascus, a narrative of Christian origins, may be the novel that Tsiolkas was born to write’ Financial TimesonDamascus

‘The best writing you are likely to come across on the shifting boundaries between love and friendship … A blistering, accomplished collection’ IndependentonMerciless Gods

‘I finished Barracuda on a high: moved, elated, immersed … This is the work of a superb writer who has completely mastered his craft but lost nothing of his fiery spirit in so doing. It is a big achievement’ GuardianonBarracuda

‘Fond, fractious, lit from within by flashes of casual lust and malice, it’s like Neighbours as Philip Roth might have written it’ Sunday TimesonThe Slap

Also by Christos Tsiolkas

LoadedThe Jesus ManDead EuropeThe SlapBarracudaMerciless GodsDamascus7½

For Chris Brophy

First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2024 by Atlantic Books,an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

First published in Australia by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd in 2023

Copyright © Christos Tsiolkas, 2023

The moral right of Christos Tsiolkas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Lyrics from ‘I Got You’ used by permission. Words and music by Neil Finn. © Copyright Roundhead Music. All Rights administerd by BMG Rights Management Australia Pty Ltd. Print rights administered in Australia and New Zealand by Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd ABN 13 085 333 713. www.halleonard.com.au. Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorised Reproduction is Illegal.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 80546 185 2E-book ISBN: 9781805461869

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic BooksAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

‘Two people do not lose themselves at the identical moment, or else they might find each other, and be saved. It is not as simple as that.’

Patrick White, The Tree of Man

1

He’s fumbling, his heart is beating too fast; he has to sit on the bed. With a deep breath, he comes to. It is just the adrenaline. ‘Concentrate! You’re being a dickhead!’ he tells himself: he has spoken the command in French, cursed himself in Greek. He gets up and returns to the open wardrobe.

A multitude of ties dangle over a wooden coathanger at one end of the wardrobe, coils of rayon and wool and cotton and linen. Perry marvels at how he has amassed such a collection over the years. He lifts a silk blade, feeling its sleekness. Where had he bought that tie? The memory is lost. Yet in trying to remember he glimpses a ghost of one of his former lives, a young man barely into adulthood, wearing a white dress shirt and black trousers made of fine wool, part of a suit that Perry’s father had brought over on the ship from Alexandria to Fremantle. The memory of his much younger self has quietened the anxiety he’d been feeling, bringing with it a wave of pleasure almost euphoric in its intensity: he is in a dark subterranean club, and there is dance music blaring—that time when disco was mutating into house, with the percussive kinesis of post-punk being the trigger for the transformation. And he is wearing the tie that he holds now, as a much older man. The scarlet and white diamond pattern, the black sheen of the lining. He wore it regularly in the mid-1980s. He can’t recall when he last put it on, or where he got it, but it has stayed with him through all the following decades, across oceans, from Melbourne to Athens to Rouen to Amsterdam to Tokyo and back to Melbourne.

Perry shakes his head. He hardly ever wears a suit; rare is the occasion that requires a tie. So why has he kept this collection? It seems almost mad. He runs his fingers over the seductive smoothness of the silk. It won’t do—too formal, too elaborate. He sees one in simple dark blue linen, not too wide nor too thin. He has chosen to wear a simple cornflower blue shirt tonight. That tie will do.

Perry is going on a date. The word itself strikes him as ridiculous, inappropriate for a man of his age. But if he were not to call it a date, then what the hell was it? The struggle to find a word that can adequately describe the night’s forthcoming adventure proves a calming diversion.

He lays the outfit on the bed: black denim jeans beside the shirt. He glances at the digital clock on the bureau beside the bed. He has an hour and a half before he has to be at the restaurant, before he meets Ivan.

No, that’s not right either, he thinks, as he walks down the corridor to the bathroom. It’s not a meeting. Is it an assignation? He likes the old-fashioned charm of that word.

After his shower, he wipes the condensation off the bathroom mirror, and looks at his reflection. He wants this self-examination to be ruthless, yet his eyes slide away as soon as they settle on his image. He breathes deeply and steadies his gaze, noticing gratefully that both eyes are remarkably clear, marked only by the faintest red lines. It has been a long time since he has indulged himself in the vanity of such an assessment. His irises are the colour of light grey slate; he is the only member of his immediate family with such pale eyes. His sister, Cleo, still teases him that some Celtic sailor or mercenary—a red-headed Belgian working on the docks of ancient Constantinople, perhaps, or an Irishman cajoled into joining the Crusades—had swept through an ancestral village and seduced and impregnated their young great-greatgreat-grandmother. That joke had long become family lore, so when Perry came back to Australia after twenty years, he discovered that even Cleo’s children believed in the veracity of that myth—her youngest, Cerese, claimed that she too had ‘Celtic eyes’.

He looks younger than his fifty-three years. And with that thought, he hears the words: ‘You will always look younger than your age—it’s because you don’t have children.’ Gerard had spoken them on Perry’s forty-ninth birthday, over dinner at that small Neapolitan café near the university in Rouen. He had been pissed off then, had taken Gerard’s observation as a slight, a cruel reminder to Perry that Gerard’s connection to his children would always overshadow the love between them. But now, looking at his body in the mirror, at the sly silvering of his chest hair, at the paunch gathering at his waist, he realises that Gerard was probably preoccupied only with the inescapable fact of his own ageing. He had been sixty-three when Perry had turned forty-nine.

Perry turns, critically assessing his body; the protuberant belly button he has always hated, the short droop of his cock. He turns further to see whether the hair across his lower back is spreading. He has never been particularly hirsute, yet the last few years he has on occasion been reminded of the wantonness of hair growth on the middle-aged male body, of how it suddenly appears in the very places it is least welcome: on the shoulders, on the back.

With a shake of his head he collects himself and turns away from the mirror. Earlier in the week he’d had a haircut. He has trimmed his nails, has brushed his teeth three times today, and he shaved that morning. A shadow of bristle is already appearing across his chin and cheeks but he decides that it accentuates the golden tint of his skin tone. He opens the cabinet and splashes a few drops of cologne across his face, shakes a few more into his armpits. He combs his hair flat across his scalp. He will style it when he has finished dressing.

He is whistling as he walks back to the bedroom, pleased to feel his anxiety dissipating. He is comforted, as well, that thinking about Gerard has not resulted in the expected pain that has wearied him over the last few years. He is sad, yes, and maybe that unhappiness will be forever yoked with his memories of Gerard, but he is not gutted. He continues whistling as he gets dressed.

He has decided against cabbing it into town. Instead, he walks the short distance to the railway station. Though daylight savings is to end that coming weekend, there is no premonition of winter in the weather. Even with the day’s fading, the breeze is soft and warm, and Perry carries his linen jacket over his arm. He walks at a steady pace. He knows that the shirt he is wearing looks good on him—he has been told that approvingly by friends—yet he is conscious of its light colour and the delicacy of the material, and doesn’t want perspiration to darken the fabric.

On the platform, the sun is dropping into the western horizon, but the remaining light is still gently radiant. He regrets not taking his sunglasses. He moves further up to escape the sun’s glare. Further along still there is a family of five. The grandmother is short, with a wizened, ancient face and bright, suspicious eyes. She sees Perry looking at them and frowns, turning away and pulling her purple sari more tightly around her body. The man—her son? her son-in-law?—is wearing an ill-fitting navy suit over a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He is carrying a large present wrapped in sparkling rainbow-coloured paper. The younger woman, slender and in high-heeled white shoes that elevate her to the same height as her husband, is looking down at her daughters, both dressed in identical white dresses with ballooning tulle skirts. The youngest, still with the chubby calves of an infant, is asking when the train will be coming. The oldest points to the electronic board: ‘It’s two minutes away.’ The smallest child frowns. ‘Two minutes!’ she wails. Though their mother is wearing large dark sunglasses that completely screen her eyes, the smile on her lips suggests both bemusement and pride.

A disembodied mechanical voice announces the arrival of the city-bound train. It isn’t too crowded in the front carriage and Perry finds a seat. As he does so, he catches the ghost of his reflection in the window. Maybe it’s pompous to wear a tie? He sits straight-backed, absent-mindedly focusing on the blue and green swirls of the fabric on the seat opposite. His mind, however, is a whirl of feverish activity. Should he loosen the tie, take it off? He thinks back to the young father on the platform, at the appealing insouciance of the man’s unbuttoned collar. Perry’s right hand rises to his throat. Then another, more stinging thought: that man is at least twenty years younger than him. He doesn’t want to look slovenly. He wants to show that he is taking this—this date? this assignation?—that he is taking it seriously.

He takes his phone out of his pocket, taps the screen, and quickly logs on to the dating site. He clicks on a thumbnail icon. Ivan’s face flares across the screen.

A broad brow and high, sharp cheekbones suggest the Slavic heritage of the man as much as his surname does. His head has been completely shaved, the scalp glistening, and it is impossible to tell if he is naturally bald. His eyes are guarded, his mouth neither smiling nor stern. There is a saturnine aspect to him, undeniably so; and also, a surprising intimation of vitality. Though it is only a headshot, Perry can see that he is wearing a white shirt whose open collar is expertly ironed. His face is cleanly shaven. These last two factors made Perry decide that dressing up would be appropriate.

Ivan is attractive, almost brutally handsome. The curt biography stated that he was two years older than Perry. That, too, had been appealing: to converse with a man of a similar age and circumstances to his own. The initial messages they had sent each other were brief, hesitant, and then when Perry had sent him his number and Ivan had called, the details of where and when to meet for dinner had been canvassed quickly, the conversation lasting only a few minutes. Ivan’s voice had been seductive, with a rolling cadence to his speech that elongated his vowels. The accent had been stridently Australian. Only a certain brittleness in his tone had bared his nervousness.

A platform guard blows a whistle. The train lurches forward and Perry looks up. The boarding passengers are scrambling for seats. A tall youth, dressed in a shiny black tracksuit, plonks himself down on the seat across from Perry. There is a slight suggestion of aggression in that slide into the seat. The young man’s thick-soled white sneakers don’t knock against Perry’s shoes, there is no actual physical touch, but there is the threat of it, of the desire to claim more space. The youth shoves a wireless bud in each ear, tilts his phone horizontally and fixates on the screen.

Perry switches off his own phone, returns it to his pocket. He looks out of the train window at the rushing vista. The dark is beginning to settle and now his reflection is more visible in the glass. Once again, his fingers reach for the knot of his tie. And again, he drops his hand. He has made his decision.

He had signed on to Grindr when he had first arrived back in Australia, had used it a few times for quick, anonymous sex. But not long after his return, the Covid pandemic had swept the world. Even after the passing of the immediate threat of the virus, he still found himself tentative and unsure of sex. He was alarmed to find that his confidence had diminished. There had been a particularly humiliating encounter when he failed completely to get an erection and the man he hooked up with leapt up from the bed and, while pulling back on his underwear and overalls, hissed scornfully, ‘Well, you’re a fucking waste of time, aren’t you?’ Perry’s body shudders at the recollection.

The train glides into another station, the automatic doors groan as they are released, and people surge through the train. A young woman sits beside him. She crosses her legs away from him, deliberately shifting her body. She is attractive, except for a pinched, equine aspect to her face that suggests something splenetic in her character. She too has pulled out her phone and is speaking loudly, with a marked terseness, almost spitting the words, as if her teeth are clenching on every consonant. And Perry is almost relieved by the woman’s hostility and the arrogance of the young man sitting opposite. They are a distraction from his apprehension about the evening ahead.

Once they were a little more comfortable with each other via texting, he’d asked Ivan why he had chosen that particular dating site, one whose clients were predominantly heterosexual. Ivan had replied, briefly and equably, that, as he had stated in his profile, he was looking for a relationship. Perry had read his response on a Thursday night, just before getting ready for bed, and when he had woken the next morning, as he was brewing the first coffee of the day, he saw that there was a further message from Ivan. This follow-up had begun with an apology: Hey, mate, sorry, I should have asked why you were on this site and not on grindr or something like that? Can I ask that now? Perry had read and reread those words, wondering how to reply. It was then that he’d sent Ivan his phone number with the message: Ring me if you’d like to go out to dinner. You can ask me anything you like! Ivan’s use of the now unfashionable word ‘mate’ and that surprising hint of gentility in the apology had made Perry decide he’d like to meet him.

The train is now almost at a crawl, sliding into the terminus of Flinders Street Station. Parents take their children’s hands, women sling bags over their shoulders. Perry tells himself not to rush, that there is plenty of time and he doesn’t want to arrive all flushed and sweaty. The train lurches to a stop. People heave through the carriage to the doors. Perry breathes deeply, then stands up.

The city, this warm autumn night, is dazzling. Perry exits through the western gate onto Flinders Street. A homeless man has his arms outstretched, palms up, almost as if in prayer, his head bowed. Cars crawl past on either side of the street, their drivers navigating the constantly changing traffic signals and the groups of teenagers crossing against the red lights. A tram clangs furiously as three young women in the sparsest of dress dash across the tracks. One of them, wearing a skin-tight lime-green singlet, the thin straps biting into her burnished skin, turns around and gives the driver the finger. Her friends burst into laughter, then scoop her up in an embrace as they run to the other side of the street. A child is hopping furiously from foot to foot in front of a gelato stand, her mother gripping her tightly as if terrified her daughter will evade her grasp and rush to her father, who is ordering ice creams. Anodyne electronic music drones out of a bar. A short, crabby-faced old woman lurches past, screaming to no one in particular: ‘Give me some fucking money, cunts!’ Above one of the buildings across from the station a rectangular screen bursts into the neon sparkling colours of the rainbow, the word pride emerging from the glitter in bold sans serif before being replaced by the logo of an insurance company now emblazoned across the rainbow flag. The old woman keeps shouting: ‘Give me some fucking money! Now! Cunts!’ Movement, thundering noise, a cacophony really, the river not visible, the buildings shoddy, the most humdrum and uninspiring of late twentieth-century architecture, their brick and concrete facades dulled into an ugly dark grey from accumulated decades of traffic exhaust and air pollution—here is a city at its most aesthetically unattractive. Yet as Perry merges with the crowd surging across Elizabeth Street, he feels a delirious rush through his body. Will he and Ivan have sex tonight?

Caught up in the charge, his pace increases. The dusk is about to be enveloped by night; there is only the dimmest trace of light lingering in the purple sky. With no breeze to disperse it, the collected heat of the day lies across the city. Perry feels a trickle of sweat down his spine. He slows his steps.

Perry hadn’t answered that first call from Ivan, not recognising the number. Ivan’s firm baritone on the voicemail message had taken him by surprise. He hadn’t expected such a firmly masculine voice, and he had forgotten the choppy roughness of an ocker accent. Ivan had called the evening of the day that Perry had sent him his phone number. That had impressed Perry—the man was decisive, and not a game-player. Perry called him straight back. They had both been polite, low-key. Very quickly the men established that they lived across town from each other, Ivan in a suburb called Bonbeach that was unknown to Perry. ‘It’s between Mordialloc and Frankston,’ Ivan had explained, a hint of defensiveness in his tone now. And then, clearing his throat, the gruffness returning, he continued, ‘I know Preston; I have family out that way. Should we meet there?’

Perry had been momentarily flustered by the need to make a decision. Ivan’s silence on the other end had only increased his anxiety so he had blurted out, not really thinking it through: ‘Why don’t we meet in town?’ Even as he had spoken, he had winced, realising that he had no idea where to eat in the city these days.

Thankfully, Ivan’s response had been to ask, ‘Do you like Italian food? I know this good place on Hardware Lane. It’s not overpriced, good basic grub and you can hear yourself speak.’

‘Great,’ Perry had answered. ‘That sounds perfect.’

Approaching the restaurant now, he wonders if it has been there for years, since before he left Melbourne. It is impossible to gauge; it shares the slightly kitsch aspect of so many Italian restaurants throughout the city and around the world. A tall waiter in black pants and a white shirt is standing by the door. Treacly Italo-pop is murmuring from a speaker attached to one of the posts holding up the olive-green awning. Identical posies of red and white carnations are placed in small glass vases on each table. Though the lighting inside is sombre, Perry recognises Ivan immediately. He is sitting at a small table on the other side of the window, swiping at his phone. Grateful that Ivan had not glanced up and spotted him, Perry takes a deep breath. The waiter smiles, ushers him inside.

As soon as he enters, Ivan swings around. The waiter escorts Perry to the table and then discreetly moves away. Ivan leaps to his feet, offering his hand to shake. Perry makes sure his grip is staunch, and that it doesn’t last too long.

He’s bought a new shirt, thinks Perry, as they take their seats. He realises he needs a drink. There is a slight drilling feeling at the back of his head and, though it has been a long time since he did drugs, it reminds him of the first effects of ecstasy, that strange limbo of anticipation and fear, before it really started to kick in. The music seems louder, there are frequent shouts and laughter from a large group in the middle of the restaurant, the sounds of cooking, of clanging, coming from the kitchen. And there is the solid man across from him, and the subtle citrus whiff of his cologne. It is all overwhelming.

Ivan takes his phone off the table, puts it in his trouser pocket. The civility of the gesture is admirable.

Perry is released. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date,’ he says, pocketing his own phone. ‘Please ignore anything I say for at least the first ten minutes.’

Ivan’s laugh is loud, delighted. ‘I know, mate, I’m bloody terrified.’

They order wine and the conversation proceeds, stiffly at first. Perry comments on the appeal of the restaurant and Ivan explains that he had first visited for a business lunch. That opens the topic of work and Ivan becomes more animated, explaining that he owns a landscaping business, offering a short summary of his working life, from horticultural college and apprenticeship to his decision in his late twenties to risk working for himself. Perry listens attentively, finding himself charmed by the evident pride Ivan takes in the trajectory of his career. He employs three full-time staff, but it is clear that he still enjoys the work. It explains the optimistic masculinity of the man, the callused symmetry of his large hands and the curve of the muscles that strain against his tight-fitting pastel yellow shirt. It suits him, Perry notes, as it accentuates the gleam of his olive skin. He surreptitiously pats his tie, realising it had been a sound choice. Ivan clearly cares about his appearance: the new shirt, the polished black leather shoes, the aromatic cologne. His head is carefully shaved, with a hint of grey stubble at the temples. Perry finds himself wondering whether the man opposite is anxious about being bald or whether he is making allowances for age and nature. Ivan’s shirt collar is unbuttoned, a flash of pale, smooth skin visible beneath. He wonders if that is natural or whether Ivan shaves his body hair.

The thought feels intrusive at this early part of the evening and snaps him back to attention. Perry starts talking about his own work as a translator for a media production company. He is gratified to see that it impresses Ivan, the singularity of his occupation. It also allows him to explain that he has only been back home for three years, that the last two decades have been spent in Europe. They ask each other questions about family and heritage. Ivan’s is Serbian and Perry explains that his mother and father were both migrants, that his heritage is Greek. He speaks about his father’s death, how the old man had fallen ill four years ago and precipitated Perry’s return to Australia. Ivan nods, offers that his own father has also passed away. The natural gruffness of his tone deepens as he speaks of his father and Perry is struck by the gloom that for a moment seems to settle on him. They are both relieved when a waiter interrupts.

Once they’ve ordered, Ivan asks, ‘So, what made you choose the site? Why are you not on Grindr or something like that?’

Perry is about to joke, ‘How do you know I’m not on Grindr?’ but stops himself. He’d have meant it in jest, but he intuits that the sense of sadness he perceived in Ivan might require a little gentleness. At that moment, the challenge of meeting a new person seems wearying, and he wonders if he will have the patience to last out the evening.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’ Ivan’s smile is embarrassed, and Perry catches a glimpse of the youth he once was. The sweetness of that image is captivating.

He shakes his head. ‘No, no, I’m not offended. I’m just wondering how to answer your question honestly.’

Which is a lie. He hasn’t been wondering that at all. Then he remembers something a therapist once taught him. David worked out of a cramped office above a tobacconist, and the room always smelt of cigarettes and the musky odour of old books. ‘Périclès,’ David would say, ‘Sometimes by saying things out loud for the first time, we come to understand what we really want.’

Ivan’s handsome, weathered face is open, waiting.

‘I don’t want to be lonely,’ Perry says, feeling the chill of fear that always accompanies courage. ‘I want to find someone to share my life with.’

Ivan’s right thumb is obsessively scraping the edge of the table. Perry recognises the action; he is immediately reminded of Gerard.

‘Ivan,’ he says, smiling to assure the other man that he does not disapprove, ‘would you like to go outside for a smoke?’

Ivan gives a gratified sigh, and his thumb stops. He shakes his head. ‘Thanks, I wouldn’t mind it, but it’s not worth it. You can’t smoke out the front—some bullshit City of Melbourne rule. Antony, the owner, lets us out the back for a smoke, but it’s not a very inviting space out there with the garbage bins.’ He reaches for Perry’s hand, offers the gentlest of taps before withdrawing. ‘I want to hear about you. Why are you lonely?’

Perry thinks that if he were to fall in love—and it is too early for such impossible dreams, he knows that—its beginning would be marked by the grace and kindness of that simple gesture.

‘Why am I lonely? ’Cause I’m a dickhead.’ His voice changes for a moment, as if stripped of the polish of education and travel. He knows it is revealing, that that sharp pitch only returns in moments of shame or humiliation.

‘Why are you a dickhead?’

‘Because I spent twelve years of my life in love with a married man.’ Perry rubs his forehead nervously as he takes a gulp of wine. ‘Do you disapprove?’

Ivan gives the slightest response, a quick shrug. His face is unreadable, and Perry’s confidence falters. He has said too much, and too soon. A heaviness falls with such alacrity that he physically slumps. He is too old to go through this ritual that seems more suited to the emotions of adolescence. Not for the first time—and he always thinks this heretical, would not dare utter it—he wonders if there isn’t something stunted in the experience of being homosexual. He is on a date! What a ridiculous situation for a man of his age to be in.

‘You haven’t told me enough for me to decide whether I approve or disapprove.’

Ivan’s words are precisely the jolt that Perry needs. Yes, he’s fifty-three, and yes, he’s on a date. Yet the man he is with is attractive, and clearly has innate perspicacity. Perry scans the restaurant. They are not the only middle-aged people here trying to negotiate the ever-shifting terrain of contemporary courtship.

‘I guess I am judging myself.’ That stark truth is a relief. ‘I definitely regret spending all those years with someone who never told his wife about us, who had three children. I met his family a few times. It was awful; I felt so ashamed.’ Perry’s smile is weak, rueful. ‘I guess that tells you something.’

‘Did you want him to leave his family?’

Oh, God, where does he begin! There is no possible way he can explain, not at this moment, not to a near stranger—for though his instinct is to trust this man, the truth is undeniable: they do not know each other—how he has no straightforward answer to that question. It has tormented him for years, and it still plagues him, can still obliterate his peace.

‘I never said that to him. I never gave him an ultimatum. Did I want him to do it? I don’t know. I really don’t fucking know.’

During the week he had told himself to be careful with expletives. He didn’t want to appear crude. But the obscenity feels right, imbuing his words with anger, certainly, but also admitting a heartfelt candour.

‘Was this in Greece?’

‘In France. Gerard is French. Though we met in Thessaloniki. He’s a professor at a university in Normandy, a classicist.’ He hesitates. Does he need to explain that word? Should he have called Gerard a historian? He steals a glance; Ivan looks unperturbed.

‘He was attending a series of lectures in Greece,’ Perry continues. ‘I was living in Athens, but I’d gone up for the same conference. I ended up interpreting for him and his colleagues.’

Their meals arrive and Perry starts tucking into the scaloppine al limone that has been placed before him. He can smell the tanginess of the lemon, the sweat of the garlic in the sauce. He knows he has only provided the most cursory sketch of his first encounter with Gerard. He doesn’t know how to explain the astonishing heat and turmoil he experienced at that first meeting; the man’s overt Gallic haughtiness; the Teutonic power of his height and colouring; the refinement of his immaculately tailored suit, the sheen of the clearly expensive material; the strong jaw; the crisp line of tawny beard. The other men and women around him, both the European delegates and the members of the Greek reception, had seemed shabby by comparison. As they shook hands, Perry noticed—all at once—that Gerard was wearing a wedding ring, and that his clear blue eyes were appraising him with evident regard.

Perry and Ivan eat in silence, one that is neither companionable nor awkward.

Perry is enjoying the food, and, more, he is enjoying watching the other man eat. Ivan slurps his ragu-coated pasta greedily. The suggestion of plumpness in Ivan’s sturdy build suits his large frame.

The sommelier asks if they would like more wine.

‘Neither of us is driving,’ Ivan says, and turning to the sommelier he orders two more glasses. Then, immediately, he asks Perry: ‘Or should we get another bottle?’

Perry hesitates. He is enjoying the slight narcotic fug from the wine. But it would be unwise to get drunk.

The sommelier smiles. ‘If you’re going to have another wine after this one, then it’s cheaper to get the bottle.’ She winks conspiratorially. ‘You don’t have to drink it all.’

And the suggestion of the bottle also indicates that the evening will not have an abrupt end. He nods at the young woman.

As soon as she has stepped away, Ivan asks, ‘How long did you live in Athens?’

‘Five years.’

‘And then you moved to France. Did he ask you to?’

‘He organised a position for me at a college in Rouen.’ Perry’s laugh is sharp, sardonic. ‘To translate some Byzantine texts from Greek to French. It was very niche.’

The sommelier has returned with the new bottle. Perry admires how, with a warm smile, an assertive shaking of his head, Ivan indicates that there is no need for them to taste it.

‘But I liked Rouen; it’s a picturesque medieval city without being too Euro Disney. And it’s convenient, an easy drive to Calais, to Belgium and to Holland. In an hour and a half you’re in Paris.’ He shrugs. ‘And we’re Australian—nothing seems too far away for us when we’re in Europe.’

‘I’ve never been.’

It’s a shocking revelation and Perry can’t hide his surprise. And something of disdain? For the first time, Ivan withdraws—not physically, but a coolness appears in his eyes. And just before his face had settled into that aloof severity, Perry had seen a flash of red-hot rage. Summarily controlled, smothered; yet it had been there.

I must seem like such a bloody snob, thinks Perry. And I bet he’s got a temper.

‘I’m sorry if I looked so surprised. I think I assumed that with your parents being Serbian you’d have been to Europe.’

Ivan’s gaze doesn’t shift; his eyes are still cold, unfathomable. Then one side of his mouth curls into a grin, and with an almost imperceptible shift, the slightest leaning in, the distance between them no longer seems unbridgeable.

‘Though my father’s Serbian, his village is now in Croatia. Neither of my folks ever went back. I don’t really speak the language. Don’t have any connection to the place.’ His finger is gently tracing the rim of his glass. ‘I have been to Asia.’ There is pride in that final statement.

‘Whereabouts?’

And Perry is sincerely curious. Since he got home he has become aware of how limited his travel has been: Australia and Europe and those few months in Japan; that week in New York City, where Gerard had disappointed him with his frustrating French parochialism, the timidity of his insularity.

‘Thailand.’

‘When did you go?’

Ivan coughs into his elbow, reaches for his water. ‘When I turned fifty.’ And this time he takes a sip of his wine. ‘It was a birthday present. From my sister and my daughter.’

Clearly—for with this last word the man releases a deep sigh—it is a relief for Ivan to tell him this. He’s been sitting on it all night, Perry thinks to himself, wanting to tell me he has a child.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Katerina.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Thirty-six.’

‘Jesus.’

And at this, Ivan bursts out laughing. ‘I was only nineteen when she was born.’

‘That’s young.’

‘That’s way too young.’

Ivan’s smile has vanished, along with the almost boyish pugnacity that Perry can’t help but find appealing; it reminds him of the boys he revered in high school. The seriousness ages Ivan.

‘It was a mistake getting married—my ex is a piece of work. But Katerina is worth it. She’s absolutely fucking worth it.’ No sign of embarrassment about his swearing: it is there to underline his love for his daughter. And with that, his lightness has returned.

‘I need to tell you, Perry: I’m a grandfather.’

Perry knows the face to show: he consciously maintains his genial expression, forces the muscles at his neck not to stiffen. Perry has become expert at this mastery of his body. That first year after Gerard broke off their relationship was an absolute plunge into the misery of ruin; not only the collapse of his emotions and his will, those terrible, debilitating, emasculating—that is the right word—descents into weeping and sleeplessness and shame, but also the collapse of his very body itself. Perry had shed weight, had developed shingles, even suffered the humiliating return of his adolescent acne, with raw red boils across his neck and shoulders. And that horrible last autumn in Athens, getting sodden drunk night after night, taking those unconscionable risks in the basement sex cinemas off Omonia, almost willing himself to get sick, beaten, robbed. He wanted pure annihilation. Love sickness: that had been his name for it; the only name for it. He can still remember the taste of it with horror, the bile that seemed permanently to be rising to his throat, so he can never now forget what resentment and bitterness taste like. And returning to Australia, like a dog with its fucking tail between its legs, and devoting that next year to training his body to stop releasing that pain, from revealing that pain, demanding it not expose any sign of his mortification, so that he can sit opposite this man at this table tonight and nod cheerfully as he speaks of his granddaughter called Natasha, and can answer, ‘What a lovely name,’ in a tone that is warm and convincing, and so when he says, ‘Excuse me, I’m just going to the toilet,’ he can be sure that Ivan has not noticed his distress. Perry has mastered his grief.

He finds the toilet. He breathes in deeply.

It had been that word: grandfather. It had been Gerard’s clinical announcement, over the scuffed metallic surface of a table in the café in Rue du Général-Leclerc, overlooking the sports park where a steady stream of fit youths in their gym wear walked past, their stupendous vitality mocking Gerard’s carefully rehearsed words: ‘My dear Périclès, Marie is having a baby and Mathilde and I are to be grandparents. You and I must end. There is nothing else to do.’ He had tried to counter the impenetrable barrier that Gerard had created between them—the older man had seemed almost furious, as if the conversation filled him with scorn—by offering up the only defence he had: ‘Gerard, I love you.’ The sound that Gerard had made, an almost comic rasping sound from the back of his throat, there was anguish in that suppressed moan. ‘That doesn’t matter now. I am to be a grandfather. To continue would be incovenant.’ He hadn’t immediately grasped the meaning of the word, had to look it up in English. Unseemly. By which he meant dirty.

Perry flushes and looks at his reflection in the small mirror blu-tacked at a precarious angle over the basin. It wasn’t the contempt in Gerard’s tone that had crushed him. No, it was Gerard’s pride in announcing that he was going to be a grandfather. Perry smiles joylessly at his own image. This is progress: at least his face isn’t flushed. The shame is lessening. He draws his face closer to the glass and whispers, ‘Pédé, pousti, poofter.’ His breath clouds the mirror, and he finally feels released.

On his return he smiles at Ivan and asks, ‘So, were you married for a long time? Is it only recently you’ve realised you’re gay?’

Ivan laughs loudly. ‘No way, mate—I think I’ve known since I was seven years old.’

‘That’s very specific. What happened when you were seven?’

‘Tim Papadimitris happened. We were in the same class at Clayton North Primary. We used to spend every recess and lunchtime together holding hands. I loved him.’

It is expressed simply, the declaration pragmatic and forthright.

‘So, you have a thing for us Greeks?’

A shorter, equally affable laugh. ‘Yeah, I think I do.’

‘What happened to Tim Papadimitris?’

‘Grade four happened. At the start of that year he said we couldn’t hold hands anymore. He said only poofters did that.’

Ivan’s glass is nearly empty. Perry takes the wine out of the cooler, refills Ivan’s glass and then his own.

‘Thanks.’ Ivan takes a sip. He suppresses a cough, that tell of a smoker. He quickly drinks some water. ‘They say that we develop in cycles of seven years. I think there’s some truth in that. I definitely noticed it with Kat. She changed suddenly from being this inquisitive tomboy to wanting to dress and act like other girls.’

There is a lull; both men have fallen quiet.

‘Do you think it’s true?’ Ivan asks quietly.

‘What is true?’

‘That we develop in stages of seven years.’

Perry calculates. Like flashes, moments of being seven: playing hide-and-seek in Studley Park with his siblings and cousins, the dappled light falling on the ground; then fourteen: the fumbling, almost aggressive mutual masturbation in Colin Attwood’s bedroom, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk spinning on the turntable; then twenty-one: the rush, the terror of navigating the buses from Istanbul to Trebizond. And twenty-eight: applying for his EU passport.

Ivan is waiting patiently. Perry realises he has been lost in memory.

‘I think it might be true when we are very young,’ he begins in a rush. ‘I did first-year psychology at university . . .’ Perry falters. He was about to mention Piaget’s theories of childhood development but thinks how pretentious that could sound to the man sitting opposite. Or is it arrogant to think that Ivan wouldn’t understand? ‘I studied a man called Piaget,’ he continues. ‘And I was convinced by his notion that at around seven years of age there are phenomenal spurts of emotional and physical development in children.’ He glances across the table. Ivan is looking at him intently. ‘I think similar changes occur at around fourteen, in puberty.’ Perry pauses. ‘But I don’t think it’s the same for adults. I’m not sure if there was a big difference between being forty-two and forty-nine.’

Ivan nods, and at that moment the waiter arrives holding two small cards.

‘Dessert, gentlemen?’

The question seems to unsettle Ivan. A grizzled, old-man’s frown creases the edges of his mouth, reveals the depth of the furrows above his eyes. For a brief moment he is ugly.

‘What do you think?’ There is something almost beseeching in his tone.

‘Let’s have a look.’

Ivan’s smile returns, is expansive.

The selection is standard. There is cheesecake, chocolate mousse and tiramisu. The cheeses are local. He glances across to Ivan and sees consternation once again gathering at his brow. It is odd, as if his straightforward confidence, which had been so immediately appealing—even before tonight; from when he first heard Ivan’s voice on the phone—seems to have vanished.

He’s a big man. Satisfyingly big, with those broad shoulders, the strength in his arms: that must be from the landscape gardening. But yes, certainly, there is a paunch, there is softening at the jowl.

‘Do you want to share the tiramisu?’

Ivan gives Perry a grateful smile. And with it comes a welcoming revelation: Ivan likes Perry too.

Ivan beckons the waiter and orders.

‘I was forty-two when my father passed away, so that was a big year,’ he says. ‘Definitely a big year. And it was only when I turned fifty—you know, five years ago—that I think I was settled in my grief.’ His fingers have resumed their soft tapping on the table. And he swallows, as though he had been about to add something and had then thought better of it. Then he gives a good-natured shrug, with that almost impish grin of his. He would have been a very good-looking teenager, Perry muses, and in allowing himself that glimpse of fantasy, he is aroused. He wants to know what it would be like to kiss the man, to have those strong arms hold him.

‘So maybe it is the rule of seven,’ Ivan continues. ‘Or maybe that’s just another superstition, a way of us humans ordering and making sense of the world. Who knows?’

‘How long were you married?’

Impossible to not make some of this sound like an interrogation. And impossible not to have to feign interest in some of it—Perry knows that he will soon be asking the age of the fucking grandchild.

‘Nearly ten years. They were a nightmare. We were both nineteen and dumb and selfish and way too young to be parents.’

‘Is that why you married? She got pregnant?’

Ivan nods firmly, sadly.

‘But you knew you were gay?’

‘Yes.’

There is an intrusion of noise. Something has smashed on the floor in the kitchen. There is a loud roar and rush of Italian. The disturbance is welcome. Perry feels he is floundering over the expectations of this assignation—oh, for God’s sake, man, it’s a date, call it a bloody date—and he doesn’t know if he should probe further to show he’s not self-involved and narcissistic . . . or is that being too inquisitive?

‘I feel for the poor bastard.’ Ivan’s tone has dropped to a whisper. ‘That chef is really telling them off.’

‘You speak Italian?’

‘Dana’s Sicilian. My ex. I picked it up from her folks screaming at me.’ He shakes his head. ‘My ex. That sounds so stupid. It was all so long ago.’ He reaches for his wineglass, cradles it without drinking. ‘It was the mid-eighties and I was just out of trade school. I got terrified about AIDS; that was all you heard about back then. I thought I’d give being a straight guy a crack.’ He is smiling again. ‘Didn’t last long.’

He clears his throat and drinks some wine.

‘I was never in love with Dana, that’s where I fucked up.’

He settles the glass back on the table, rolls his shoulders, and faces Perry, his gaze genial but direct. It makes Perry a little anxious, as if Ivan is letting him know that he is assessing him, taking notes.

‘Were you in love with this man, this French fellow . . . ?’

‘Gerard.’

‘Gerard,’ repeats Ivan, and the heaviness of the Australian accent, the stress on the first syllable, the abrupt cut to the second, the complete absence of melody, makes Perry want to laugh. How Gerard would hate it.

He answers honestly: ‘Yes, I was.’

He wonders if he has been too candid, for Ivan’s gaze has strayed. But it is because the waiter is bringing their dessert.

‘And you are fine for wine?’

Ivan glances over. Perry shakes his head.

‘We’re good.’

The waiter pours the last of the bottle into their glasses. Perry looks at his glass; only a few mouthfuls of wine left. He suddenly feels weighed down by anticipation. He doesn’t know how he wants the evening to end.

‘I’m sorry.’

Perry is taken aback. ‘What for?’

‘This guy must have hurt you very much.’

It is too intimate an observation. Ivan’s eyes are too generous, too fucking pitying.

Perry deflects, points to the tiramisu. ‘It’s enormous.’

‘It’ll be good, I promise you.’

They attack the dessert and Perry notices again that Ivan’s appetite is impressive; he enjoys the gusto with which the other man eats. His own mouthfuls are much more modest. It is a good tiramisu, firm and creamy and not overly sweet nor drowned in coffee. There is a clump of cream above Ivan’s lip. Perry brings his finger close, Ivan leans in so there is touch. It is quick—Perry softly wipes Ivan’s mouth, then cleans his finger with the napkin. There is a spark; he is sure that the other man felt it too. Perry feels elated.

Ivan is looking lovingly at the last morsel of tiramisu. Perry pushes the dish across to him with a smile. Ivan scoops the morsel into his mouth, takes a large swallow of water, follows it with a sip of wine.

He pats his stomach, looks doleful. ‘I love their desserts a bit too much.’ He then says with startling candour, ‘Getting hurt by love stinks, doesn’t it? It really fucking stinks.’

He finishes his wine. ‘Perry,’ he says, ‘would you like to go somewhere for another drink?’

‘Yes.’ Perry’s answer is immediate.

As they leave the restaurant, Perry is disconcerted by the crowds in the alley and the loud autotuned pop music blaring out of the bar opposite. The streetlights are blinding, as are the green, white and red globes hanging from the restaurant’s awning. The youth of the swirling bodies all around them—the women in their strapless tops and short skirts, the men in T-shirts and skinny jeans—is both dazzling and intimidating, along with the manic percussion of the music drumming insistently in his ears, the explosive glare of light. Perry realises he is a little drunk. And chilly—the luxuriant warmth of the day has disappeared with the full descent of night. He puts his jacket on. Ivan stands beside him, hands in his pockets, observing the action of the street.

Across from Ivan and Perry, Rani, a young woman, is talking on the phone to her sister. She is huddled in a doorway between a bar and the music shop next door, the shadowy alcove hiding her from clear view of the men. She is trying to support her sister, who is bemoaning the selfishness and laziness of her husband, who has once again left her alone at home with their three-year-old to go out with his cousins. But Rani is also impatient to get back to the bar where she has been flirting enjoyably with a guy, Dylan, who works with her friend Bianca. It has been a long time since Rani has experienced the frisson of attraction in real time, not had it mediated by the safe distance of a screen. She likes Dylan. Her sister is prattling on about her husband’s egoism and Rani is listening, bored, ready to pounce into a gap in the monologue to say that she will come around first thing in the morning. She cursorily examines the two older men across the alley. They are both tall, the thinner dark one looking Lebanese or Greek. The other one is hard; even the flab of his belly appears solid. He seems Anglo, though there is something about the sharp angle of his cheeks and the prominent broad chin that suggest otherwise. They are both dressed simply but well. She is sure they are gay, though the big bald one has just glanced her way with an admiring look. But she feels sure there is nothing sleazy in his appraisal. She doesn’t acknowledge his stare, just gazes impassively. ‘Bhakti,’ she finally interrupts, ‘it’s cold, I’m going back inside, I’ll be round tomorrow. Love you.’ She steps out of the doorway, slips her phone into her handbag from which she then removes a small compact mirror. She checks her teeth, her smile. Then, after an adroit fluffing of her long dark hair, she strides back inside.

Perry notices Ivan watching the young woman. ‘She’s very attractive,’ he says.

Ivan nods then looks across at the bar. ‘It seems a little full-on in there.’

‘Yes,’ says Perry, ‘and a little too young.’

Ivan laughs in agreement. ‘Should we walk up to the top end of Bourke Street? There’s some quieter places around there.’

Perry wonders if there would be any place open at this hour—not quite midnight—that won’t be full of sound and glare and people.

Then Ivan adds sheepishly, ‘And I wouldn’t mind finding a place with a beer garden or courtyard—somewhere I can have a smoke.’

Perry stops himself from saying that he’s lived in Greece and France, where no one has to apologise for smoking. Instead, surprising himself, he offers: ‘Would you like to come back to my place for a drink?’ And almost immediately he starts apologising, anticipating the rejection. ‘Of course, it might be a bit far . . .’

Ivan touches his arm. ‘I’d like that.’

‘And you can smoke at my place. There’s a balcony.’

In the cab there occurred an incident, slight, almost en passant. Nevertheless, Perry had been upset by it. The driver was listening to a late-night current affairs show. They had been waiting at the lights to turn right into Blyth Street when Perry realised that Ivan was concentrating on the conversation on the radio. An academic was being interviewed, her tone robust, impassioned. She was clearly struggling to maintain objectivity as she spoke about a recent scandal in which a young television journalist had accused an older colleague of sexually assaulting her after an awards night party. Perry had only followed the story intermittently, though he had watched the young woman’s painful press conference after she had gone public with the accusations and been affected by the wounded, glazed fear in her eyes. He had felt immense sympathy for her; she seemed so very young. His sister Cleo had been galvanised by the woman’s courage, as had many of his friends. So it had been a shock to hear Ivan snort out loud during the interview. And then he had said in an undertone which Perry and the driver both heard: ‘Maybe don’t get so drunk you pass out and can’t remember what happened.’ The driver’s eyes had flashed gleefully in the rear-view mirror as he nodded approvingly with a superior smile.

Perry had sat there, wanting to say something, to interject, yet fearful that it would precipitate an argument; and also, to be honest, knowing that very similar opinions had often crossed his mind. Not meanly, and certainly not dismissively. The woman’s disbelieving, devastated face on the television had been sincere. Perry was convinced that she believed she’d been violated. The words had started forming in his mouth—‘That may be, but it doesn’t condone a man taking advantage of her’ . . . Christ, they sounded so fucking pious, so fucking trite!—but the conversation had moved on, Ivan and the driver having bonded over their derision. He had looked down at his phone: the driver’s name was Ehsan. As he did so, Ehsan asked Ivan where his family was from, and when Ivan replied, ‘Serbia,’ Ehsan had said, ‘Then you are not an Australian. Australians are very bad drunks, the boys and the girls—it is terrible what I see.’ Ivan had nodded affably and Perry had deliberately turned away from him, his forehead almost touching the window, as he looked out at the blunt ugly stretch of St Georges Road.

Then Ehsan had asked about family and Ivan, sounding assured—no, Perry decided, sounding smug—had answered, ‘Mate, I’m a grandfather.’ Perry hated it when taxi drivers asked such familiar questions. ‘No,’ he always wanted to shout, ‘I’m not married, I don’t have fucking children!’ He’d wondered what would have happened—the temptation was immense—if he’d leant over and said, ‘Yeah, he might be a grandfather, but he’s coming back to my place to suck my cock!’ It did not matter how polite Ehsan had been, how capable a driver, how clean his car; he’d give him a terrible rating. The car had stopped right outside his building’s main entrance. Perry had given Ehsan a five-star rating and left him the minimum tip.

His mood was lifted by Ivan’s enthusiastic response to the apartment. Purchased in an almost hallucinatory state when he had arrived back in Australia, his resilience shattered, overwhelmed by shame over Gerard’s betrayal, that futile waste of years, he had relied on the counsel of his brother-in-law, Benjamin, when it had been time to buy the flat. All he had asked was that it be north of the river and close to public transport. That first year he had hardly even noticed the space; certainly, he did not regard it as home. Benjamin had been a saviour, not only finding the apartment but also securing him work for a law firm that was negotiating a contract between a mining company and the French government. Perry had enjoyed the banal minutiae of the work, poring over long documents of legalese, dry economic statistics and regulations that he translated back and forth into unadorned French or commonsense English. His efforts had impressed one of the consulate staff, and he’d been offered further work preparing for the annual French film festival. That had led to the job at the media company. Then had come Covid: the long lockdowns and, with that restriction of freedom, the first sense of the boons and shortcomings of the apartment.

As soon as he had stepped out of the cab, Ivan had turned to him and said, ‘It’s a great place.’ And indeed, with the moonlight striking the solid red brick, the recently repainted frieze announcing the names of the original owners of the factory, Perry had been struck anew by the impressive elegance of the exterior. He was proud of his home. A bar across the street was bathed in soft yellow light, languid dance music was gently burbling from the outside speakers, and he could see a shadow-play outline of a group of people smoking on the bar’s rooftop. It gave the neighbourhood a sense of motion, of activity.

They had climbed the stairs to the third level, and Perry found he was holding his breath as he opened the door, turned on the lights and led Ivan through. The interiors were functional, designed in that sterile contemporary mode, all matt white surfaces, with internal walls ridiculously thin compared to the monumental framework of the original factory. There had been two apartments up for sale when the building was still being renovated, with this top-level apartment being the much more expensive one. Benjamin and Cleo had been adamant that it would be worth the extra money, the strain of a larger mortgage. And they had been right: the vaulting ceiling, with the long skylight running along the northern gradient, gave the room an exaggerated sense of space which had been a blessing during lockdown.

‘Would you like a whisky?’

‘Yes.’

‘Neat? I have single malt.’

‘A splash of water, thanks.’

While Ivan had excused himself to use the bathroom, Perry scrolled through his music. He had no idea what music Ivan would like. He selected a compilation of old Stax soul and RnB. A sinewy bass, a lazy strolling drum pattern, the music suddenly picking up intensity and focus just as Carla Thomas’s effortlessly powerful voice started in. Perry swayed his hips as he poured the drinks. When Ivan returned, Perry took him and the drinks out onto the balcony.

That was when he’d recalled the cab ride. And further remembered the promise he had made to himself since returning to Australia, a refrain that had become the closest he came to prayer: You will not live your life anymore in silences and evasions. You must never do that to yourself again.

He has steeled himself, so he says the words carefully, clearly. He has rehearsed them in his head: ‘I was offended by what you said in the cab.’

Ivan is startled, clearly not knowing what Perry is referring to. They are sitting on the balcony, they have just clinked glasses, and Ivan hasn’t yet lit his cigarette.

‘What you said about the young woman who was raped.’