A Touch of Love by Jonathan Coe Read Free Book Online

in love.’
    Robin took a deep breath and explained, in a tone of exaggerated patience:
    ‘It’s meant to be implied, Ted, that they lose something along the way.’
    And Ted answered: ‘I think I’d like to go to bed now, please.’
    They drank up and stepped out into a dark hot summer morning. It was a long walk back to Robin’s flat, through narrow lamp-lit streets, past black buildings, down pedestrian subways and across the tatty lawns of council estates. Each was preoccupied with his own tired thoughts, and they spoke only once.
    ‘What is it?’ Ted asked.
    Robin had stopped to stare at a point roughly three-quarters of the way up a block of flats, on the other side of the ring road.
    ‘Aparna,’ he said. ‘Her light is on.’
    Ted followed his gaze.
    ‘You can tell that from here?’
    ‘Yes. I always look up when I come past here at night. Her light is always on.’
    ‘What can she be doing, at this time of night?’
    Robin did not answer, and Ted, who could not bring himself to be seriously interested in the question, did not repeat it. Once they had reached the flat, he watched in silence while Robin fetched a torn and faded sleeping bag from under his bed, and laid it on the sofa.
    ‘Will that be all right?’
    Ted suppressed a shudder and nodded. He tried to keep from his mind an image of bedtime at home, the double bed, with Katharine sitting up on one side, propped against the pillows, frowning over the last clues to the cryptic crossword, the corner of the duvet turned back in a gesture of welcome, the warm pink light of the bedside lamp, the electric blanket set to ‘medium’. Peter next door, sleeping.
    ‘Do you have an alarm clock?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, why?’
    Ted explained about his visit to Dr Fowler, and they set the alarm for nine o’clock.
    ‘I could give you a lift onto campus,’ he said. ‘You could probably do some work there, couldn’t you?’
    Robin, who was undressed and in bed by now, again said nothing. Ted assumed that he had fallen asleep. But Robin did not fall asleep for some time. He lay awake, listening to the sounds of Ted removing and folding his clothes; struggling to get comfortable; stirring, turning, breathing ever more slowly, ever more evenly. He listened until the silence was almost complete; until almost the only sound was Ted’s occasional, drowsy murmur of the word ‘Kate’.
    ∗
    Robin’s alarm failed to wake either of them, and it was well after midday when they arrived on campus. While Ted went to see Dr Fowler, Robin sat drinking coffee in one of the university’s many snack bars; but ten minutes later Ted was back, in a bad temper. His client had gone home for the weekend, leaving a note on his door saying that he would be away until Tuesday. Robin was no longer alone. He had been joined by a grey-haired, bearded, round-shouldered man; tall (about six foot four) but not as imposing as he might have been, owing to a slight stoop, unusual in one of his age (he was thirty-five, according to Robin, although Ted would have guessed that he was older). His teeth, where they were not yellow, were brown, and he never seemed to stop smoking.
    ‘This is Hugh,’ said Robin, perfunctorily.
    They took little notice of Ted, but continued to sit side by side, reading. Hugh had a bulky library book, and Robin was flicking through a newspaper. It appeared to be agitating him.
    ‘Have you seen this?’ he said to Hugh. ‘Have you seen what those maniacs are saying?’
    Ted hoped that they weren’t going to begin a political discussion, and was relieved when Hugh paid no attention; instead, looking up from his book, he had caught sight of two figures on the other side of the café.
    ‘There’s Christopher,’ he said, ‘and Professor Davis.’
    Robin looked round sharply, picked up his newspaper and got to his feet.
    ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I want to read this in private for a moment.’
    As he hurried off, Ted turned to Hugh and asked if he could