“The stuff is in the cupboard outside the bathroom,” Adam said. “Towels are in there too.”
“You can change the sheets on mine if you like. They’re in an ugly plastic box under the bed. I’m sorry my bathroom doesn’t have a window.”
“I’m sorry I only have nine books by women.”
“Wait, is this it? Are you going to bed?”
“Ring me when you’ve had something to eat and a bath,” Adam said. “I won’t go to bed until you do.”
•••
She didn’t make pasta.She found a packet of crackers in the cupboard next to the fridge and sliced some Cheddar, which she had with a glass of his wine. Afterward, she wandered back into the sitting room to find a book to read in the bath. Among the mass of political books wasRecollections of a Bleeding Heart, Don Watson’s classic biography of Australia’s charismatic and brooding prime minister Paul Keating. Truly, no one knew anything about Australian politics in the UK, or anything about Australia at all. But here was a very large paperback all about where she came from, the spine virtually corduroy from avid engagement. Two bits of curled-over paper stuckout from the top, boarding passes for Sydney-to-Canberra flights in 2004: It must have been his Mark Latham–profile trip. He must have been twenty-eight then. She would have been twenty-one, living in a share house with her ex-boyfriend Josh and the other High Court associates, in the final year of her arts degree and working four days a week at a local magazine. Adam had been in the same city. Now, on the other side of the world, they’d somehow managed to meet—not once, but three times. How could it be this easy?
In a rush of fear, she googled him.Young Countrydid exist. So did the podcast. On YouTube, she watched him amiably review newspaper headlines on a weekend current affairs show. The Adam of the video was recognizably the Adam of the Dove. She hurried to his bedside table and pulled open the top drawer. Four small marbles and one large one rolled to the front and bounced back. She opened the bottom drawer. It contained a battered, much-read copy ofMeg and Mog. He was who he said he was. It was real.
•••
In bed,in his clean sheets, in the dark, she went into her call log and saved his number:Adam. He answered the call after a few rings. “I just got into bed,” he said. “Were you going to tell me about this guy behind the pillow?”
“Brown Bear? It seemed a bit mean after Tigey and Cuddles. Rubbing your nose in it.”
“Is this a boarding school thing? Stuffed animals?”
“We’re profoundly damaged.”
“I’ve just been dipping intoThe Group—I found it beside your bed. ‘Consider yourself kissed’—that’s how this bad boy Harald signs off letters to his girlfriend.”
“Later,” Coralie said sorrowfully, “he commits her to an asylum.”
“Why are you reading it if you’ve read it before? That’s my question.”
“I can’tbelieveyou have the Don Watson Paul Keating book. It’s such a good book!”
“It’s the best political bio I’ve ever read. I had to write about Prime Minister’s Questions once—Question Time, I think you call it there. And I watched an incredible video with Paul Keating. The opposition leader, the leader of whatever the Tories are—remind me?”
“The Liberals.”
“The Liberal leader says, ‘If you’re so confident our policies are bad, why don’t you just call an early election?’ And Keating gets up. ‘Because, mate,’ he starts to say. Everyone’s hooting, shrieking; the Speaker says to settle down. ‘Because, because, mate.’ And then Keating says…”
“Because what?”
“Because, mate.” Adam was quoting, but he was speaking directly to her. His voice came right through the phone and shivered down her spine. “I wanna do you slowly.”
“So why did you go to the Dove? Rather than the other three pubs?”
“I suppose I can tell you, now I’ve got you into bed.”
“Tell me.”
“I was hoping you’d be there.”
“And I was.”
“You were.”
•••
In the morning,they remained only a latte’s length of time at Climpsons before crossing the market to her flat. They spent thewhole Easter long weekend together, and almost all the ensuing weeks and months, opening up their individual bodies and minds and knitting them back together, connected—like an operation to separate conjoined twins, only in reverse.
