Some five minutes later, despite the coffee, Chani could not resist the yawn which suddenly swept over her, despite her best attempts to stifle it; no matter how hard she tried to fight it, the sensation was overwhelming, stretching her mouth open until it hurt. She apologised, sincerely no doubt, but there could also be no doubt that she felt genuinely tired and, if truth be told, looked forward to nothing but soft sheets and pillows that her head would melt into.
"You need to make the bed," she said. "If you would let me know where you keep the bed linen, I can do it; fair apology for being so rude as to yawn in your company."
"Don't worry," he said. "I have already done it, while you were enraptured during Vivaldi's 'L'estate'. I didn't think you'd miss my company for ten minutes. Come, let me get your bag and I'll take you to your bed, in a manner of speaking."
Her overnight bag and small clutch bag were still on the kitchen floor, where she had left them by the stool and, gathering them both up in his arm, he beckoned for her to follow him. Climbing the stairs, he turned left, away from his studio, to the end of the wide corridor on the opposite side. He pointed to the open door of the bathroom and indicated that there was both bath and shower and that there was also shampoo, soap and towels on the rail, which heated up whenever the central heating was on, which was pretty much all day in this weather.
He opened the door to the bedroom. The room was of a more than adequate size for a guest bedroom with a plain double bed, a small hanging robe and a large chest. A lamp stood on top of each of the two bedside chests as well as a small alarm clock and a paperback copy of 'Tiger in the smoke' by Marjorie Allingham on the chest closest to the door.
"Do you want me to set the alarm or call you tomorrow?" He asked. "Or do you want to sleep out?"
"Sleep out."
"OK," he said. "I am usually up by six, whatever time I go to bed, so I'll try to be as quiet as a mouse until you rise. If I am in the studio, I'll leave both doors open; if not, I'll leave both doors closed, which means that I'll be down in the kitchen or off feeding the hawks; I'll leave you a note by the Gaggia, if I take any of them out for a quick flight. I don't plan to. I don't expect the vet to arrive until tomorrow afternoon but I'll leave him a message tomorrow morning to use the back entrance, to wit the kitchen, if he comes early. Oh, there's a big, baggy T-shirt, clean, and some shorts, also clean, which should fit; I'm afraid I can't run to bedsocks! The clothes are in the top drawer of the large chest in case you get cold in the night and you are still accustomed to go to bed butt-naked. That's everything, I think, so I will be wishing you a very good night. Sleep tight and don't let the bed-bugs bite!"
The embrace when it came was not entirely unexpected but was not entirely expected either. He expected a gentle hug, possibly; he had, after all, been the very epitome of politeness, restraint, good humour, generosity and, under the circumstances of their past, a perfect host. However, she clung to him with a fervour that was indeed totally unexpected.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you so very much. I really do not deserve this, I think. You have made me consider whether my mother was right, or at least was more right then I was, and whether I did not make a ghastly mistake all those years ago. You know, there's a part of me, right now, that thinks that tonight I..." Her words trailed off into the dark emptiness of the night.
He kissed his fingertips and placed them lightly on her forehead for a moment.
"You were who you were," he said softly. "And I was who I was. Nothing changes, can change, that. We are both different people now, in some small part, because of what happened to us thirty years ago. You always used to berate me for believing in the truth of happy endings; childish, infantile fairy tales, Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel. Well, I don't believe anymore and I doubt that I ever will again; that's nobody's fault per se, it's just life. So, once again, don't let the bugs bite!"
She broke away from the embrace, turned and closed the door behind her.
He woke a little after five am. He had not slept badly but he, nevertheless, felt as though he had. He did not feel rested, did not feel full of expectation for the new day, even if it meant more of the same as the old day. At least he had managed to avoid creeping back downstairs after the small 'incident' outside the spare bedroom; the last thing that he needed was a head full of grappa or, worse still, the aftermath of a head full of grappa. He padded into the en-suite bathroom and turned on the shower. No-one had ever complained about being woken by the sound of his shower when sleeping in that room so he was sure of safety; he needed some time to collect his thoughts. They had been in such disarray last night; no, all day. It would perhaps be hard to find two people who had sent such silent, self-contradictory, conflicting and ambiguous messages to each other all in a single, solitary day.
He got under the shower and, as water soaked his hair, he felt his mind begin to clear. He lathered the shampoo into his scalp and was pleased to find that, although he was nearing sixty there was no thinning of his hair at the crown, no Prince Charles patch. Of course, this had disadvantages as well; he lacked testosterone, which hormone he had read in numerous articles was the primary cause of your hair coming out in clumps. He rinsed his hair until the water ran clear down his face and rubbing the back of his head made the satisfying sound of 'squeak, squeak'; healthy and clean hair. He lathered the shower gel across his body and when he was satisfied that the last traces of armpit and crotch sweat had been removed, stepped out of the bath and toweled himself dry. He brushed his teeth but decided against that awful ritual which he so detested; the early morning shave with a razor.
He quickly threw on his uniform; skinny jeans, baggy sweatshirt, at least two sizes too big, and soft calf leather pumps; ideal for painting or mooching about the house, although he did sometimes wonder about the wisdom of dressing like a man at least thirty years his junior. He opened the bedroom door and crept down the corridor and down the stairs. He briefly looked in on Rory, who was dozing along with her pups but she raised her head at his appearance, looked at him with those 'eegit' eyes and wagged her tail briefly; she certainly looked perkier than she had the previous day. He picked up the now empty food bowl and carried it back into the kitchen.
He stepped into the kitchen and was thankful that the mess from the previous evening was slight; one more reason to be thankful for an evening spent in grappa abstinence. In his experience, mess seemed to accumulate in direct proportion to the amount of grappa consumed and the size of the ensuing hangover. He put the kettle on for his early morning chai and gathered up the dirty plates, cutlery, glasses, the paella pan and the dog bowl and loaded the dishwater.
He dropped a chai tea bag into a mug and poured on the now boiling water and waited for it to infuse. While he waited, he filled the second of Rory's bowls with food, filled up the empty Evian bottle with tap water and went to replenish the dog's rations for the day.
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