Laura mimics his laugh again.
‘Sol,’ Bo says, concern in her voice.
‘Mmm?’ He can’t look at her. His heart is pounding in his chest, he hopes Bo can’t feel it next to her, his entire body feels like it’s thudding.
‘Sol.’
Lie. His laugh. Lie. His laugh. Back and forth she goes.
He looks at her. He sits up finally, head in his hands. ‘I know. Fuck.’
19
The following morning Laura is on the balcony, her hands cupped around a mug of tea. She’s making whistling sounds.
‘What’s she doing?’ Solomon asks, fresh out of the shower and joining Bo in the kitchen. He kisses her. He makes it his business to kiss her, no hiding it any more. Last night, he and Bo had decided that it was best he step back from Laura for the time being, try to allow Bo and Laura to bond. He has to work anyway, filming Grotesque Bodies, which requires he travel to Switzerland tomorrow for a few days to film an operation on a man they had been following for a year. And while he and Bo had decided it was healthier for Laura’s sake and the sake of the documentary that he disappear for a while, Solomon knows it’s also better for himself. He’s losing himself, he doesn’t like what he’s becoming, somebody who thinks about another woman when he’s in bed with his own girlfriend. It’s not him. Not who he wants to be. He needs to withdraw from the situation.
‘She’s talking to the bird next door,’ Bo replies. ‘Want scrambled eggs and bacon?’ she asks, placing a plate down in front of him. ‘Laura made them. She keeps asking for things I’ve never heard of. Herbs and things.’
‘You should bring her to the supermarket,’ he says, trying not to look at Laura. ‘She’d like that.’
‘Yeah,’ she says, uncertain of how she’s going to manage the next four days with Laura on her own. She’d almost change her mind about Solomon’s closeness to Laura if it meant he stayed.
Laura chirps on the balcony.
‘What bird next door?’ Solomon asks suddenly, digging in, enjoying the quality of cooking in their home since Laura has arrived.
‘The kid next door has a bird in a cage, a budgie or something. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it.’
‘What kid?’ he asks.
She laughs and hits him playfully with a tea towel. Then she joins him with an espresso and a grapefruit and keeps her voice low.
‘Do you want to sit with me while I brief her about the audition?’
‘We talked about this last night,’ he says, concentrating on his scrambled eggs, ‘It’s time for you to get to know her better. She needs to start trusting you too.’ Laura made his breakfast, they’re the tastiest scrambled eggs he’s ever eaten. He practically licks the plate. He needs to get out of this apartment fast.
‘Yes, I know, but you really are better at handling her.’
He looks up at her, sees her nervousness. ‘You’ll be fine. Don’t think of it as “briefing” her. Talk to her as you would a friend.’
‘Probably too early for a bottle of wine at eight a.m.,’ she jokes, but her uncertainty is obvious.
He looks at Laura properly for the first time since he sat down. It had taken her a few days after the incident in Galway at the shooting range to come out of her shell again. They’d had fun, he’d enjoyed showing her new things, he’d enjoyed watching her, listening to her, hearing everyday sounds that he had long stopped hearing. The hiss of a bus as it pulled in at a stop, the whistle of the postman, the shutters being lifted on a shop beneath them, the rattle of the keys, a motorbike, the ring of a bicycle bell, high heels against the ground. Her sounds were endless and they flowed from her effortlessly, without her even noticing. Bo’s fears about Laura’s sounds disappearing over the weekend were in vain; if anything, they are more frequent. He’d had fun with Laura. He’d laughed more with her in a few days than he can remember having done in a long time. But then he kept catching himself feeling like that and he’d close up. Laura was right to question his character last night, what was he doing, who was he? One moment he was open with her, the next moment he’d shut down, hot and cold. For Laura’s good, for him and Bo, he’d have to stay away.
Through the open sliding door, Laura’s chirping drifts into the apartment.
‘She’s not talking to the bird, by the way,’ Solomon says, washing the plates in the sink.
‘Hmm?’
‘You said she was talking to the bird.’
‘Yeah. She is.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Sounds like a full-blown convo to me.’
‘No.’ He laughs, but he feels the familiar agitation rising, or maybe it’s heartburn, a burning in the centre of his chest. Is it that which causes him to pick at Bo, or is it Bo that causes the burning? He’s not sure, but he knows the two are closely related.