Page 108 of Proof By Contradiction
‘Staff meaning who?’
‘Ron. It’s a maths conference. I’m going because my marks are good. That’s it.’
The lie. Smooth. The smoothest I’ve told him, because this one has been rehearsed.
He lets it go. Doesn’t believe it. I can hear the disbelief in the silence, the calculation of a man deciding to wait rather than push. But he lets it go.
Femi doesn’t.
‘You’re bringing three pairs of fuck-me-jeans to an academic conference.’
‘I like options.’
His eyes are on me. He’s worked it out. He doesn’t say Laurence’s name, hasn’t said it since the day on the concourse, but the name is there in the look, in how he doesn’t ask who else is on the delegation.
I fold a shirt. In my bag, under the clothes: condoms, lube, and the plug wrapped in a sock. And deeper, in the pocket I don’t show anyone, the knowledge that Hugo Lockhart will be standing at a podium in forty-eight hours, and Laurence hasn’t told me, and I haven’t told Laurence I know, and the silence is growing a skeleton.
I zip the bag. Heavier than it should be.
This time, the zipping means something. This time, I’m not keeping everything packed in case leaving is still an option. I’m packing for Vienna and Laurence and the keynote I won’t mention and the silence I’m choosing.
Bag zipped—the commitment in the closure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Manchester Airport at five in the. The departures hall is fluorescent-lit, overheated, like someone designed suffering on purpose: four students, three academics, a Head of Department who’s already misplaced his boarding pass. We’re clustered around gate B14 like the world’s least convincing expedition team.
I’ve slept for three hours. My eyes feel like they’ve been ironed.
Femi is beside me, backpack on, travel pillow already around his neck because Femi prepares for journeys like normal people prepare for surgery. Water bottle, neck pillow. Noise-cancelling earbuds Allan bought him for Christmas, still in the box because he didn’t want to open them until ‘a special occasion.’ A two-hour flight to Austria. That’s the special occasion.
I scan the gate, students in clusters. A girl from my econometrics tutorial is asleep against her rucksack. The two PhD students are talking to Deakin about conference etiquette.
And Laurence.
Far end. Trolley bag, blazer, coffee in hand. Talking to Dr Salgari, whose eyes carry enough knowledge to end careers. He nods, professional. Attentive. The public Laurence, in public.
I know what those hands do in the dark, where they grip, how they tremble when I.
He looks up, across the gate. Through thirty people.
Half a second.
Stomach. Drop.
He looks away, adjusts his bag. Speaks to Salgari in a way that makes her laugh. The performance is seamless.
I pull my hood up. Three hours of sleep and his flat is still on my skin. I showered. Didn’t fix it. The soap isn’t mine. The smell isn’t mine. Nothing about the last three months is mine except the wanting.
The plane is small. Two seats on each side, the aisle is narrow enough that my knee hits Femi’s every time someone passes. I’m by the window. Grey clouds, grey runway, grey city disappearing.
‘Here.’ Femi pulls a book from his bag. Holds it up. The cover’s nothing special; paperback, dog-eared already, some novel I don’t recognise with a map on the front. ‘Allan gave me this for the trip.’
‘He bought you a book?’
‘Open it.’
I open it, the flyleaf—handwriting, neat, slanted, blue ink.
