In a few hours, I’ll be in Laurence’s hotel room with him and the lights of a foreign city through the window. And the day after that, the test begins.
The bus to the hotel is warm. Femi is beside me, earbuds in, Allan’s book open on his lap. The dedication to facing up.All my love.
I look out the window. Vienna unfolds, the Ringstrasse curving past in a slow Habsburg arc, trams the colour of old wine, stone facades the colour of old butter. A city built for people who take their time. The opposite of everything I am.
Room 401, fourth floor. The corridor smells of cleaning products and fresh linen.
Laurence is in room 419, in the same corridor.
I drop the bag on the bed. Small, clean, anonymous. Bed, desk, window facing an inner courtyard.
I unzip the bag, clothes out. Four nights stretching ahead like a proof I haven’t started, full of variables that don’t belong to me.
The window, the rooftops. Stephansdom’s spire in the middle distance, dark against grey. The sky is already darkening. March in Vienna, the light leaving early, theMärzwindagainst the glass, the city settling into its evening self.
I sit on the bed. The mattress is firm, better than the halls. Better than anything.
Four nights, no Ronan, no corridors. No library cards or single-letter contacts or the constant arithmetic of risk. Just a door between his room and mine, and the freedom to knock on it without checking the street first.
Somewhere in this hotel, Hugo Lockhart is pressing a shirt for tomorrow’s keynote. The geometry of the three of us under one roof is a triangle I haven’t solved and don’t want to.
I open the programme on my phone: page eleven, the professional headshot.
Close it, lock the screen.
Four doors, I counted twice. Tonight I’ll knock on one of them and everything else—the programme, the headshot, the triangle—can wait until daylight forces it.
The restaurant has chandeliers. Actual chandeliers, crystal, tiered, designed to make everyone look important and food look expensive. The Viennese take dinner seriously, like Mancunians take complaining about the weather: with total commitment and no apparent joy.
Long table. Students at one end, academics at the other. The line between us is invisible. Exact. Femi is beside me, working on his schnitzel like it’s a proof he has to solve—the girl from econometrics across from us, talking about tomorrow’s keynote.
Day two, panel B, page eleven.
I cut my food. Don’t taste it.
Laurence is seven seats away. Between Salgari and Deakin, wine glass untouched, fork moving, even tempo, nothing wasted. He’s wearing a blue shirt I haven’t seen before. The collar sits against his neck, and I don’t.
He laughs at something Salgari says. The professional laughs.For public use. Not real.The real one I’ve heard exactly four times. Each was in the dark.
The meal drags. Ninety minutes of conference small talk, which is regular small talk but with footnotes. Someone mentions Gödel because we’re in Vienna and mathematicians can’t help themselves. Someone else mentions a Heuriger, and half the table starts googling.
Laurence’s eyes find me. Mid-sentence, mid-nothing. Through the chandelier light, seven place settings, and the architecture of pretending.
Everything drops.
He looks away.
I push schnitzel around my plate and think about what’s under that blue shirt and how many hours are left until the table empties and the corridor empties and the only sound is the lock turning.
‘You haven’t eaten,’ Femi says.
‘Jet lag,’ I say. We flew for two hours.
The corridor at midnight is silent like churches are silent. The carpet is thick enough to swallow footsteps. Room 401 behind me, closed, the bed untouched. Room 419 ahead.
I knock, three, slow, pause. Two.
The code is stupid. We agreed on it by text three days ago, a text I deleted within seconds, as everything between us gets deleted. Three and two. Probably prime numbers because the man can’t switch off even when he’s arranging a shag.
