He hesitates for a moment, then asks for a small glass of wine.
As Joel moves over to my bookcase, Murphy at his heels, I fetch the bottle from the fridge and pour two glasses. I watch his fingers as hedraws them slowly across the spines of my books, the sleeves of his sweater slightly too long for his wrists. I try to filter out his slow, lingering movements, the slender physique, the measured and thoughtful demeanor I would love to get to know better.
“Plant glossary. Guide to trees. Lichens. Moths.”
“I’m not very cool, I’m afraid,” I confess.
I fear this to be something of an understatement—growing up, I was always the one with my eyes mortifyingly trained on a nature book or, worse, an episode ofCountryfilewith my dad. I’d be barefoot outside as soon as winter became spring, collecting sticks and leaves and eggshells, getting mud on my face and twigs in my hair.
Sometimes in summer, when the skies were hot and still, Dad would set up a bulb in the garden to shine overnight. A wooden box fitted beneath it, and early next morning we’d marvel at the moths we’d attracted that had danced through the dark as we dreamed. Elephant hawk-moths in bubblegum pink, garden tigers exquisite as any butterfly, and my favorite, white ermine, with their regal fur coats. We’d add them to our list, then stow them safely in the undergrowth away from prying beaks so they could shelter from the daylight before darkness fell again.
My ex Piers used to rib me for being a nature nerd. He was the kind of guy who killed spiders with slippers, crushed wasps beneath pint glasses, squashed moths as they slept. And every time he did, a little bit more of my love for him died too.
“Nothing uncool about having a passion,” Joel says.
“I’m just a hobbyist, really.”
“No potential for a career?”
I pass him a wineglass, decide the story’s too long. “Maybe.”
We clink gently. I take a chilled sip, feel a rush to my bloodstream that I suspect isn’t fully down to the alcohol.
He’s leaning over to inspect my row of pots on the windowsill. “What are you growing?”
“Those ones at the end are herbs. These are just houseplants.” I offer up a smile. “I like the greenery.”
Moving on to my other bookcase, he examines my tiny library of travel books—a guide to Chile,Birds of South America, a collection of maps. Books on the Baltic states—hand-me-downs from a onetime friend of Mum’s who’d traveled there in her youth. I guess my parents thought they might go someday, but evidently they never got round to it. The farthest we ever went in my childhood was Spain and Portugal, the odd camping trip to France.
I’ve spent hours lost between the pages of those books, armchair-traveling to unspoiled outposts and lunar landscapes, where civilization vanishes from view and earth submits to sky.
“You’re a globe-trotter,” Joel surmises.
I think of Grace, how she’d laugh at this. “In my dreams, maybe.”
He seems to swallow, before gesturing to the books. “You’ve not...”
“Not yet. I hope I will, someday.” I sip my wine. “There’s this... national park in Chile, way up in the north. It’s always been kind of my ambition to go there.”
He looks over at me. “Yeah?”
I nod. “We learned about it at school. I remember our teacher calling it... a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.” I laugh, pronouncing the words precisely for effect. “It just sounded so exotic, so exciting. Like somewhere in outer space.”
He laughs too. “You’re right, it does.”
A girl on my course at uni had been, claimed to have spotted a bird there so rare it’s almost myth. It made me want to go even more, that idea of being outsmarted by nature.
“I’m kind of drawn to remote places,” I confess. “You know—where the earth feels bigger than you.”
He smiles. “Yeah, humbling, isn’t it? Like when you look up at the stars and remember how tiny we all are.”
Together we move to the sofa. Joel drops his free hand to Murphy’s head, lets his fingers fondle his ears.
I sip my wine. “So where’s the most interesting place you’ve been?”
“Actually... I’ve never been abroad.” He exhales and looks embarrassed, as if he’s just confessed to hating football or disliking the Beatles. “How dull is that?”
Though surprised, I’m also a little relieved that he doesn’t carry with him travel stories from every continent, as Grace did, tales to make my life seem even more mundane than it already is. “Not at all. I’m hardly adventurous. Is there any reason you...?”
