Spring by David Szalay Page B

thinking, and she felt a sudden vertiginous freedom just to say it. So she did.
    For a moment he seemed less sure of himself. There was in his smile for the first time a shadow of self-­doubt. It was not what she had said—­that or things like it he had heard many times. It was the essentially unflirtatious way that she said it. She said it as if it was something important. She looked very serious. It was very intense. He smiled—­the shadow of self-­doubt—­and seemed to be about to say something himself, he was not sure what, when she leaned through the elegant light and kissed him.
    Without saying a word, she then placed herself entirely in his hands, and he seemed happy to take the initiative. The luxurious mojitos finished, and paid for without her noticing when or how, she found herself in a throbbing taxi, then in a street somewhere south of the river—­perhaps Battersea—­then in a tiny lift, and then in an equally tiny flat, then on a sofa that seemed still to wear the plastic wrapping in which it was shipped, with his tousled head between her white thighs (his hair was thinning on top), and then naked on an enormous bed, and all the time her heart was pounding. He would not let her lift a finger. She loved the way he would not let her lift a finger, the way he let her lose herself again and again in her own passivity. Her fantasies were mostly fantasies of passivity, for instance of medical examinations, of white-­smocked professionals straying from their task and starting to touch her in ways they were not supposed to.
    ‘You’re too smart to work in a hotel lobby,’ he said. He was propped on his side, peering at her in the imperfect darkness of the London night.
    ‘I know,’ she said, and then laughed—­ Ha! —­at her own immodesty.
    ‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘So why do you? You went to university?’
    She nodded.
    ‘Which?’
    She told him.
    It made him laugh. ‘Jesus!’ His smile shone. ‘That’s quite intimidating!’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘So why do you work in a hotel?’ he said.
    She said she wanted to set up a small hotel, somewhere near the sea, and she needed some experience of hotel management. That was why.
    ‘That’s very sensible,’ he said. ‘Most people would just get on a plane somewhere and fuck it up.’
    ‘I know,’ she said. This time she did not laugh.
    ‘How long have you been working there, in the hotel?’
    ‘A few months.’
    ‘What did you do before?’
    ‘I worked in publishing…’
    She had taken his flopping penis idly in her hand—­or it seemed that she took it idly. In fact, she felt quite self-­conscious, and she just held it as in slow pulses it started to stiffen. ‘I worked in publishing,’ she said. He seemed to have no further questions. Still feeling quite self-­conscious, she moved on the mattress until her flaxen hair spilled onto his furry stomach.
    Some time during the night, when she went to the loo, she opened the fridge in the tiny kitchen. It was entirely empty—­not even milk. It had the pristine white look of a display fridge in a department store. It was then that she noticed there were no covers on the duvet or the pillows. In the morning, while he showered, she started to wonder about these things. The flat had a totally unlived-­in feel. It seemed to be very new. In the living room there was nothing but the sofa, still in its plastic wrapping, and a TV —­its packaging too was still there. The kitchen was equipped with two mugs, one plate, one knife and one spoon. The oven had never been used—­it still had pieces of polystyrene and an instruction manual in it. The expanse of built-­in storage space in the bedroom was empty. She was looking into this surprising void when he put his arms around her waist and picking her up, spun her once, twice—­she squealed, her legs kicked and flailed—­and fell with her onto the bed.
    ‘Why isn’t there anything here?’ she said.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I