The Temporary by Rachel Cusk Page A

construe their own versions of her. He wondered why he had not perceived this before, and supposed it was because he too had construed, had projected a manic, bumbling effusion of self before an inscrutable object.
    ‘Where did you learn to cook?’ said Francine as he put the dish in the centre of the table.
    ‘What? Oh, nowhere. As you can probably tell,’ he added, gesturing deprecatingly at the risotto. ‘How hungry are you?’
    She looked about her.
    ‘Have you got any candles?’ she said.
    ‘Um – yes, yes, I should think so.’ He found the request disconcerting, a demand for romance which made him appear churlish; yet it wasn’t really a demand, it wasn’t, Haven’t you got any candles?; it was more of a plea. ‘I’ll just find some.’
    There were two candlesticks on the mantelpiece with the matches he had sought earlier beside them. He thought of hisridiculous performance at the hob, where he had singed his eyelashes and eyebrows, and, had he not had it cut, would probably have set his hair alight too. He hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself by rushing to a mirror, although Francine hadn’t seemed to have noticed what had happened. He glanced at his reflection now in the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was an unfamiliar expression on his face, a sort of garrulous stupidity, and he barely recognized himself. His eyebrows seemed unharmed, though, and he picked up the candlesticks and went back to the table.
    Once the candles had been lit and the lights turned off, Ralph had to admit that things looked better. The risotto had receded into a vague landscape of earth-brown hillocks, the glasses shone palely like translucent moons, and he found it easier to focus in the softer illumination on Francine’s face. The candlelight was a levelling element, a warm and buoyant pool in which their separateness seemed less brutal. Francine, too, seemed to respond to its gentleness, and as he watched her, only half listening to her reply to a question he had asked, he felt the gradual melting of his reserve send trickles of feeling through him. The lurching disorientation of his drunkenness settled into a more benign and fertile detachment , and he noticed that Francine was more attractive when she was animated and that her dark eyes were wonderfully eloquent in the dim light.
    ‘Are we ever going to eat this?’ he said almost gaily.
    ‘Why not?’
    She laughed and looked at the risotto with mock-suspicion. He picked up the serving spoon and brandished it comically, warmed by the flicker of friendliness.
    ‘Many reasons,’ he said sternly. ‘But we haven’t time to go into them.’
    ‘Right.’
    She laughed again as he plunged the spoon into the centre of the resistant crust and tried to pry some of it loose.
    ‘Need to get some muscle behind it,’ said Ralph, standing up and leaning forcefully on the handle of the spoon. A large clod sprang from the dish and was catapulted into the air. ‘Oh God – where’s it gone?’
    Francine collapsed into giggles as Ralph searched the area around the table. His mind was humming with humour and he played the fool, crouching down and looking under a rug to fresh shrieks of laughter. He felt drunk again, a light and ebullient sensation which lifted him above his inhibitions and made a success of the smallest things.
    ‘It’s escaped,’ he said, standing up. ‘We’ll have to send out a search party.’
    ‘Never mind,’ said Francine.
    ‘Shall I try again?’
    She nodded, her face alive with responses to him. She leaned forward encouragingly and Ralph was all at once dizzied by her acquiescence. She was offering herself to him – she wanted him to accept her; it was all he had to do! – and he suddenly saw where it might end. He met her gaze for a moment and felt a clear current pass between them. If he understood it correctly, he was being given an opportunity; there would be no further tests, nothing for him to do but accept it. Excitement leapt up