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“Can I take you for a drink?” I typed. “Not a booking. No money, no agency. Just a drink. Like normal people.”
The dots went for a long time.
“Normal people who’ve seen each other in a doorway at 9pm with an envelope of cash?”
“Yes. Those normal people.”
“Saturday. The Marble Arch. 7pm. If you’re late I’m leaving.”
I was early. Forty minutes early. She was ten minutes late on purpose, she told me afterwards, because she’d wanted to see if I’d wait. She wore jeans and a green jumper and her curls were piled on her head, and she looked so like the girl from the barbecues and so unlike the woman on my doorstep that my brain kept short-circuiting.
We talked for four hours. About everything except the doorstep. Then, at last orders, with her third gin and my fourth pint, about the doorstep, and we laughed so loudly the barman looked over.
“I thought you’d never speak to me again,” she said.
“I thought you’d think I was a creep.”
“You booked a woman who likes old films and honest men.” She smiled into her glass. “That’s not creepy. That’s kind of adorable.”
Outside on the pavement it was raining. She stood under my umbrella, very close, and looked up at me.
“I’m literally two streets from here,” she said.