‘Well, you’ve come to the right place, then,’ he replied, hoping his tone sounded teasing, not tart.
She looked at him, then held her finger and thumb apart about two inches. ‘It needs to be at least this big. It has to last me the plane journey home. Ten hours. And I read very fast.’
‘OK.’ Julius liked a brief. ‘Well, my first suggestion would be Anna Karenina.’
She smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
‘“All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”’
He nodded.
‘OK. What about Ulysses? James Joyce? That would keep you quiet.’
She struck a theatrical pose. ‘“Yes I said yes I will yes.”’
She was quoting Molly Bloom, the hero’s promiscuous wife, and for a moment Julius imagined she was just how Molly had looked, before reminding himself Molly was a work of fiction. He was impressed. He didn’t know many people who could quote Joyce. He refused to be intimidated by her apparently universal knowledge of literature. He would scale his recommendation down to something more populist, but a book he had long admired.
‘The World According to Garp?’
She beamed at him. She had an impossibly big dimple in her right cheek.
‘Good answer. I love John Irving. But I prefer The Hotel New Hampshire to Garp.’
Julius grinned. It was a long time since he had met someone as widely read as this girl. He knew well-read people, of course: Oxford was brimming with them. But they tended to be intellectual snobs. This girl was a challenge, though.
‘How about Middlemarch?’
She opened her mouth to respond, and he could see immediately he’d hit upon something she hadn’t read. She had the grace to laugh.
‘Perfect,’ she announced. ‘Do you have a copy?’
‘Of course.’ He led her over to the bookshelf and pulled out an orange Penguin classic.
They stood there for a moment, Julius holding the book, the girl looking at him.
‘What’s your favourite book?’ she asked.
He was flummoxed. Both by the question and the fact she had asked it. He turned it over in his mind. He was about to answer when she held up a finger.
‘You can only have one answer.’
‘But it’s like asking which is your favourite child!’
‘You have to answer.’
He could see she was going to stand her ground. He had his answer – 1984, small but perfectly crafted, never failed to chill and thrill him – but he wasn’t going to give in to her that easily.
‘I’ll tell you,’ he said, not sure where his boldness had come from. ‘If you come out for a drink with me.’
She crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side. ‘I don’t know that I’m that interested.’ But her smile belied her statement.
‘You should be,’ he answered, and walked away from her over to the till, hoping she would follow. She was capricious. She wanted a tussle and for him not to give up. He was determined to give her a run for her money.
She did follow. He rang up the book and she handed over a pound note.
‘There’s a band on tonight,’ he told her. ‘It’ll be rough cider and grubby punks, but I can’t think of a better way for an American girl to spend her last night in England.’
He slid the book into its bag and handed it to her. She was gazing at him in something close to disbelief, with a hint of fascination.
Julius had always been quietly confident with girls. He respected them. He liked them for their minds rather than their looks, and somehow this made him magnetic. He was thoughtful, yet a little enigmatic. He was very different from the rather cocky public school types at Oxford. He dressed a little differently too – a romantic bohemian, in velvet jackets and scarves, his hair lightly bleached. And he was pretty – cheekbones and wide eyes, which he occasionally highlighted with eyeliner. Growing up in London had given him the courage to do this without fear of derision from those who didn’t understand the fashion of the times.
‘Why the hell not?’ she said finally.
‘I’ll be there from eight,’ he told her.
It was twenty past eight by the time he got to the pub. She was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t be sure whether she was late too or had been and gone. Or simply wasn’t going to turn up at all. He wasn’t going to let it worry him. If it was meant to be …
He ordered a pint of murky cider from the bar, tasting its musty appleness, then made his way out to find a bench in the last of the sunshine. It was a popular but fairly rough pub he loved for its unpretentiousness. And it always had good bands on. There was a sense of festiveness and expectation in the air, a final farewell from the sun in this last week of summer. Julius felt a change coming. Whether it would be to do with the girl with the red hair, he couldn’t be certain, but he had a feeling it might.
At nine, he felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. He turned, and she was there.
‘I wasn’t going to come,’ she told him. ‘Because I didn’t want to fall in love with you and then have to get on a plane tomorrow.’
‘Falling in love is optional.’