Read Online The Immaculate by Mark Morris - Free Book Online Page B

have to come round and watch it sometime.”
    â€œAre you asking me for a date, Jack Stone?” Gail said, and he could almost hear the smile in her voice.
    He blushed. “Well, I . . . I mean, if you want to, I . . .”
    â€œIt’s okay, I know you were just being polite.”
    â€œNo, I wasn’t! I mean . . . Oh, Christ, look, I would love to see you again. I really would.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œOf course.”
    She was silent for a long moment. Jack was beginning to think she had put the phone down, or was about to. “Gail?” he said.
    â€œOkay then,” she said. “Why don’t we?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhy don’t we . . . see each other?”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œI wouldn’t suggest it if I wasn’t.”
    Jack felt a grin forming on his face. “In that case, why not come round tomorrow night? I could get
Wild at Heart
out as well and we could watch them both. I could get some beers and make some supper . . .” He tailed off, aware that his enthusiasm was running away with him. Clearing his throat, forcing himself to calm down, he said, “Or . . . I don’t know, what do you think? Maybe it would be better if we met on neutral ground again first. I mean, you hardly know me, do you? Maybe we—”
    â€œJack?”
    â€œEr . . . yeah?”
    â€œI’d love to come round to your flat. But are you sure you really want me to? You haven’t got anything else planned?”
    â€œNo, of course not. It’d be great if you came round. I really do want to see you again.”
    â€œOkay then. What time?”
    â€œSeven-thirty? Eight?”
    â€œI’ll be there somewhere in between.”
    â€œBrilliant. I’ll see you then.”
    â€œYou certainly will. I’ll look forward to it.”
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œBye then, until tomorrow.”
    â€œYeah, bye.”
    The next day Jack tidied and cleaned his flat thoroughly, and then spent a long time striding from room to room, trying to see the place with new, critical eyes. He really wanted Gail to like his flat. It was an extension of his personality and if she liked where he lived, if she felt comfortable here, then Jack felt they would get on well. Over the years he had accumulated a variety of paraphernalia, much of it bizarre, and he spent most of the afternoon wondering whether he should leave it all on show or whether he should hide much of it, let her get used to it in stages. Carol had never felt happy here, and that was something that had constantly set their relationship on edge. In the end, Jack decided to leave everything where it was. If this relationship was going to blossom, then it would be because Gail liked him for exactly who and what he was. He had compromised himself so much with Carol, had found it so disheartening, so soul-destroying, and in the end it still hadn’t been enough. However much he wanted Gail to like him, Jack was damned if he was going to stumble into that trap again.
    Despite his nerves, the evening was an unmitigated success. Gail did not just like his flat, she loved it; she spent a long time simply walking around exclaiming at things, picking objects up and examining them, asking him where he got this or that. The only time she grimaced was when she saw his bird-eating spider splayed out in its glass case on the wall with a pin through its abdomen. “I’m afraid I don’t approve of killing things just to put them on display,” she said.
    â€œNeither do I,” he said hastily. “I was given that by a friend. I would never have bought it myself.”
    When she asked about the skull propping up some paperbacks on one of the shelves, he told her it was a monkey’s skull and that a friend of his called Nigel had brought it back from Borneo; when she asked him why he had an enormous framed photograph on his bathroom wall of a centipede emerging from a mound of