Lovesong by Alex Miller Page B

would never see each other again. She pulled him against her strongly and ran her hands along his flanks. ‘You are so beautiful, John Patterner!’ She kissed him hard on the mouth, then drew away, releasing him abruptly, abashed by her clumsiness.
    He smiled and touched her cheek. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said gently. ‘I love you being crazy.’
    ‘Am I? Do you?’
    ‘I love you.’ He kissed her lips. ‘Come on! We’ll miss the train,’ he said. ‘You’d better get your shoes on.I promised your aunt I’d get you home before dark.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got seven minutes to get to the station.’
    She wanted to be meek now, obedient and under his command if that was what he wanted from her. She sat up and put on her shoes. She wanted it to be real between them, not just a dream.
    He stood up and held out his hand and she took it and he helped her up.
    ‘We’ve got the rest of our lives,’ he said.
    They held hands and hurried across the bridge. ‘What will we do?’ she asked him. So they had made their pledge to each other after all. It frightened her and moved her all at once. ‘I’m happy,’ she said, hoping it was true, and she kissed him on the cheek.
    ‘We’ll have a wonderful life,’ he said. ‘Whatever we do. I just know we will. It doesn’t matter what we do.’
    They walked through the town and around the bottom of the hill to the railway station; breaking into a run, their laughter floating up the hill behind them.
    As she saw them coming through the door of the café Houria said to herself with satisfaction, John Patterner is a man to be relied on. And that is how John cameto be there in Chez Dom for their first Saturday night, proving himself a useful man to have about the place, rearranging tables and chairs and serving coffee and wine and taking the initiative with this and that as he saw a need for it. He was at ease with the men, his manner polite and respectful, making them smile with his peculiar French. And Houria and Sabiha were glad to have his help, for more men turned up for the evening meal than the dining room of Chez Dom could comfortably accommodate. Houria had to send him next door to André's to borrow two folding tables and some extra chairs, leaving him to find a way to squeeze them all in somehow, which he did.
    After the last customer had gone home and the three of them had finished cleaning up, they sat in the little sitting room under the stairs and drank coffee with a drop of brandy in it and laughed about the mad rush of the evening and how it had all gone so well, the three of them working together like a practised team. Houria counted the money and offered to pay John for his time. But he refused it and would not hear any more about it from her. She saw he was offended by the offer of the money and she was pleased. By the time John finally got up off the couch to return to Madame du Bartas’s boarding house, it was after one o’clock in the morning. At the front door Houria squeezed his armand told him to be sure to come back for his breakfast in the morning. ‘But don’t be too early,’ she said.
    She and Sabiha stood at the door and watched him walking down the deserted street until he reached the empty square. He turned under the light and looked back and waved, and they waved to him. Houria said, ‘It doesn’t seem right to be sending him off into the night on his own like this.’
    When he’d gone they went back inside the café and closed the door. Houria turned to Sabiha and they hugged each other. ‘He’s a lovely man,’ she said. ‘It was good to have a man about the place again.’ And then both of them shed a few tears, for they were overtired and rather excited. And anyway it was nice to have a cry. It had been a very long day.
    There was just the one little thing clouding the perfection of all this for Sabiha. On the landing at the top of the stairs, after she’d said goodnight to Houria, she paused at the door of her