He dug under a large pile of papers until he found what he was looking for: a large old black laptop that looked a zillion years old.
‘You can call her!’
Then he opened it and Marisa stared at the neatly laid out keyboard – all in Cyrillic.
‘Ah,’ she said. Alexei frowned.
‘Ah. I see problem.’
‘I could get mine. This is ridiculous!’ said Marisa, giggling.
‘Go fetch computer grandmother!’
Marisa slipped back into her own house, gulping the cold air eagerly as she did so. Everything seemed to be moving very quickly. She was slightly drunk, which was probably why it seemed like a good idea but . . . She leaned against the door. Oh my God. Was this the stupidest thing . . .
She looked around. Her spotless house that hadn’t changed an iota since she’d moved into it. Compared to Alexei’s warm, messy, human, personal space, it felt clinical; empty. Cold.
Tonight, she didn’t want to feel cold.
She checked her bra quickly. No. Don’t be stupid.
She looked at her face in the mirror though. Her cheeks were rosy pink, her eyes were sparkling from the Champagne. She looked . . .
She looked all right, she told herself firmly. If she was talking to a friend instead of herself she would be so honest and so kind, and say such nice things and tell her she looked lovely.
‘You look lovely,’ she breathed.
She didn’t change her bra. She did use a bit of mouthwash.
Then she grabbed the laptop, her fingers slightly shaky.
Just as she did so, she heard from next door the gentlest, sweetest melody playing. It sounded like a lullaby, soft and simple, but repeating, the tune twisting round and back on itself, changing and become deeper and more melancholic, or lighter and frothier, every time it moved up and down the piano. It was completely hypnotic and quite lovely.
She was about to head back, but before she did she leaned, full length, against the wall, spreading out her arms and her fingers. She could feel the vibrations of the music through the plaster, feel it move through her whole body. She felt, suddenly, filled with it, consumed with it; the voices in her head quelled, simply following the tumbling cascading melodies reaching out to her in a perfect moment of knowing that all she had to do was to walk two steps down and two steps up and she could fall into the house and the arms of the man who could make that sound on a piano; and if he could make something so pure and so beautiful out of an old piano, what on earth could he make out of her?
Chapter Fifty-seven
She pushed at the open door softly, trying not to disturb him. He turned round immediately, his hands leaving the keys.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t stop.’
He kept staring at her, unable to express how much those were words he wanted to hear. There was no music in front of him.
‘You wrote that?’ she said quietly.
He shrugged. ‘I write it now.’
‘That’s amazing.’
He smiled wryly. ‘I make it pretty for you.’
‘You don’t have to do that!’
‘. . . because you are pretty.’
She held up the laptop.
‘Are you sure?’
He stopped playing then.
‘Babushka? Of course. I want approved.’
‘Yes.’
She opened the computer and they sat on the sofa far apart, then as they realised they couldn’t both get on the camera at the same time, they squished up closer. Marisa was suddenly very aware of his leg next to hers; his thigh felt enormous. All of him was so very solid. She resisted a sudden, very strong instinct to touch his leg. But she very gently felt the pressure of his against hers; she returned it. Even this, the briefest of touches, of connections between them, sent her heart rate sky high; made her tingle all over, unable to be conscious of anything else happening.
Her hands fumbled opening the laptop; she needed two shots at remembering her password even as he politely averted his eyes which made her giggle.
Finally, leaning over him – and conscious, at all moments, of every single thing about him – she got onto Skype, and looked up to see if the little green light indicated her grandmother was online.
‘It is very late,’ she said.
He looked at her.
‘Ah, you are right,’ he said. ‘It is such a shame you must go home.’
‘Alexei!’
He grinned. ‘Family is very important,’ he said. ‘If she haff not approve . . .’
Marisa hit him with a cushion.
He looked at her, and gently ran his huge hand down her face. She shivered. Then he took it away.
‘I look smart?’
She laughed. ‘No,’ she said truthfully. His jumper had holes; his hair was dishevelled and needed cutting again. But she liked the way he looked. His solidity; his unmoving strength; the directness in him.
The Skype number rang on.
‘She is sleeping; I am hanging up,’ said Marisa. ‘It’s nearly midnight there.’
Normally this was nothing to her nonna, who ate at nine p.m., but Marisa had generally gone to bed long before now, and she didn’t want to startle her.
But no: the screen blinked and winked in. Alexei quickly ran his thick fingers through his tangled hair and rubbed his beard as if suddenly regretting having one but realising it was too late to change now.
Marisa suddenly panicked. This was ridiculous. It wasn’t like she was going to sleep with him. But her grandmother would think that she was! All she wanted to do was . . . well. She wanted to kiss him. And as a joke it had got completely out of hand and now she desperately didn’t want to . . . she made a decision.
‘I’m going to hang up.’
‘Why?’ said Alexei.
She turned to him in a sudden flash.
‘Because,’ she said, smiling at him, ‘maybe I want to do something with you I wouldn’t want to do in front of my grandmother . . .’
‘Pronto?’
The voice was crackling and weak coming through the computer and they both jumped apart, even though they had barely been touching. Marisa closed her eyes.
‘Nonna?’
Her grandmother wasn’t her normal tidy self. Her hair was out of its tight braid and loose around her face and she was unfocused and confused.
‘Nonna, did I wake you?’
But her grandmother was in her day clothes, not her nightwear. The lights were on in the kitchen. She just looked bemused and dazed.
‘Who is that?’
‘Nonna, it’s Marisa, it’s me.’
Alexei frowned. ‘She is okay?’
‘Are you all right?’
Marisa leaned forward to the screen. ‘I didn’t mean to bother you so late, I’m so sorry.’
Her grandmother shook her head. ‘Is it late? I don’t know. I think . . .’ She looked confused. ‘I think I fell?’
‘Oh my God,’ said Marisa. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I was on the ground and then . . . then I heard ringing . . .’
She turned around confusedly, as if looking to see where she was in the room, and to her absolute horror Marisa saw a dark patch covering the back of her grandmother’s hair, which if you looked closely enough through the small screen was sticky with blood.