Read Online The Twisted Heart by Rebecca Gowers - Free Book Online Page A

thing—even, obscurely, faking it to yourself—that was one thing. Having a stranger inside you was another, and not a business over which you could be very much deluded.
    She wiped herself, pulled up her knickers, she didn’t like them any more, washed her hands, dried her hands,put on her trousers, put her shoes on, flushed the loo, glanced round the bathroom to check it wasn’t disarranged—it was possibly the neatest bathroom she had ever been in—then looked in the mirror and saw in the glass her freakishly lit-up face.
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    She had planned to go straight home, but he was waiting for her. He said, ‘Let me cook you something.’
    â€˜You don’t have to.’
    â€˜I don’t have to. Would you like an omelette, salad? I have some great olives. Or are you tired? You need to sleep?’
    Kit stared down at her feet.
    â€˜Anchovies?’ he said. ‘Fresh herbs?’
    â€˜Okay, all right.’
    â€˜And I have some great bread.’
    â€˜Okay.’
    â€˜Right. More wine?’
    â€˜Sure.’
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    Well now, she thought, surprised, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table, which caused a cold scraping noise on the tiles—well now, at least I get a free meal out of this; kind of expensively free, but in a free kind of way.
    She sat limply and watched. He was careful, when he cracked the eggs, to get the shells straight in the bin. When an olive fell off the spoon onto the counter where he was working, he wiped up after it at once. He arranged the bread in a pan in torn slices to warm it in the oven, but tore the loaf carefully over the sink. He hadn’t been like this in bed.As someone who wore skirts with moth holes, Kit was unimpressed.
    He turned abruptly. ‘Okay?’
    â€˜Could I have some water?’
    â€˜Glass in there,’ he said, gesturing with an elbow at a wall cupboard. ‘It’ll have to be tap, I’m afraid. I don’t drink water so I don’t ever buy it.’
    â€˜You don’t drink water?’
    â€˜I don’t know, probably a glass every couple of weeks.’
    â€˜You had a bottle at the dance session,’ said Kit.
    â€˜That was given to you by a friend of mine.’
    She was oddly dismayed by this answer. He’d had a friend there? Boy, girl? Who on earth?
    â€˜I don’t sleep well either,’ said Joe, tripping her thoughts another way.
    â€˜Oh.’
    He laid mats down on the table: mats for the plates, a mat for the salad, two trivets, a silver salt cellar, Georgian—Kit’s grandfather had had one the same. ‘Some nights I feel like there’s hardly any point in going to bed unless there’s someone else there,’ he said. ‘Obviously you sleep so you’re in a fit state for the next day, but why give up on the day you’re in just to ensure the next one, when there’s absolutely nothing to choose between them?’
    â€˜Don’t you simply get tired?’ she asked.
    â€˜No. Well, yes, I do. But, like you maybe, I find it hard to fall asleep whether I’m tired or not. Alone, I find it hard to fall asleep.’
    Don’t keep saying that, she thought.
    â€˜Sometimes I go to bed,’ he said, ‘and then I get up againand go out walking, you know, three, four in the morning—and fast; fast.’
    â€˜You do walk quickly, I noticed,’ she said. ‘It’s pleasant to me, personally speaking, as someone with a long stride.’ She didn’t mention it, but often, when she walked alone, she sang.
    â€˜No, but I’m talking fast ,’ he said, ‘because then, when I’m going down all these streets and they’re empty, and the greater part of Oxford’s population is unconscious—although, you’d be surprised how many invitations I’ve received at four o’clock in the morning—’ He lost his thread. He was filling up her wine glass again, but