The Comfort of Strangers Read Online Free Page A

everything that is good between men and women.’ He added matter-of-factly, ‘They are too ugly.’ Mary watched him as she might a face on television.
    ‘There,’ Colin said, ‘meet the opposition.’
    She smiled sweetly at them both. ‘Let’s go and find this good food,’ she said, just as Robert was indicating another poster and preparing to say more.
    They took the left-hand fork and walked for ten minutes during which Robert’s boisterous attempts to begin a conversation were met by silence, on Mary’s part self-absorbed – she walked with her arms crossed again – and on Colin’s faintly hostile – he kept his distance from Robert. They turned down an alley which descended by a series of worn steps to a diminutive square, barely thirty feet across, into which ran half a dozen smaller passageways. ‘Down there,’ Robert said, ‘is where I live. But it is too late for you to come there. My wife will be in bed.’
    They made more turns to left and right, passing between tottering houses five storeys high, and shuttered grocers’ shops with vegetables and fruit in wooden crates piled outside. An aproned shopkeeper appeared with a trolley-load of cases and called out to Robert who laughed and shook his head and raised his hand. When they reached a brightly lit doorway, Robert parted the yellowing strips of a plastic walk-through for Mary. He kept his hand on Colin’s shoulder as they descended a steep flight of stairs into a cramped and crowded bar.
    A number of young men, dressed similarly to Robert, sat on high stools at the bar, and several more were arranged in identical postures – all their weight on one foot – around a bulging juke-box of sumptuous curves and chromium scrolls.A deep and pervasive blue emanated from the back of the machine and gave the faces of the second group a nauseous look. Everyone appeared to be smoking, or putting out his cigarette with swift, decisive jabs, or craning his neck forwards and pouting to have the cigarette lit. Since they all wore tight clothes, they had to hold their cigarette in one hand, the lighter and pack in the other. The song they were all listening to, for no one was talking, was loud and chirpily sentimental, with full orchestral accompaniment, and the man who sang it had a special sob in his voice for the frequent chorus which featured a sardonic ‘ha ha ha’, and it was here that several of the young men lifted their cigarettes and, avoiding each other’s eyes, joined in with a frown and a sob of their own.
    ‘Thank God I’m not a man,’ Mary said, and tried to take Colin’s hand. Robert had shown them to a table and had gone to the bar. Colin put his hands in his pockets, tipped back his chair and stared at the jukebox. ‘Oh come on,’ Mary said, prodding his arm. ‘It was only a joke.’
    The song ended in a triumphant symphonic climax and immediately began again. Behind the bar, glass shattered on the floor and there was a brief spate of slow hand-clapping.
    Robert returned at last with a large, unlabelled bottle of red wine, three glasses and two well-fingered breadsticks, one of which was broken short. ‘Today’, he announced proudly above the din, ‘the cook is ill.’ With a wink at Colin he sat down and filled the glasses.
    Robert began to ask them questions and at first they answered reluctantly. They told him their names, that they were not married, that they did not live together, at least, not now. Mary gave the ages and sexes of her children. They both stated their professions. Then, despite the absence of food, and helped on by the wine, they began to experience the pleasure, unique to tourists, of finding themselves in a place without tourists, of making a discovery, finding somewhere real. They relaxed, they settled into the noise and smoke; they in turn asked the serious, intent questions of tourists gratified to be talking at last to an authentic citizen. In less than twenty minutes they had emptied the bottle. Robert