On Wednesday, Alice and Felix were picked up at Fiumicino by a man holding a plastic pocket with a sheet of paper inside, on which were printed the words: MS KELLHER. Outside, night had fallen, but the air was warm, dry, saturated in artificial light. In the driver’s car, a black Mercedes, Felix sat in the front, Alice in the back. Beside them on the motorway, trucks overtook each other at alarming speeds with horns blaring. When they reached the apartment building, Felix carried their luggage up the stairs: Alice’s wheelie suitcase and his own black gym bag. The living room was large and yellow, with a couch and television. Through an open archway was a modern and clean-looking kitchen. One of the bedroom doors led off the back of the living room, and another to the right. After they had looked inside them both, he asked which she would prefer.
You choose, she said.
I think the girl should choose.
Well, I disagree with that.
He frowned and said: Okay, the one who pays should choose.
I actually disagree with that even more.
He lifted his bag onto his shoulder and put his hand to the handle of the nearest bedroom. I can see we’re going to disagree a lot on this holiday, he said. I’ll take this one here, alright?
Thank you, she said. Would you like to get something to eat before we go to bed? I’ll look online to find a restaurant if you want.
He said that sounded good. Inside his room, he closed the door behind him, found a light switch and put his bag on top of the chest of drawers. Behind his bed, a third-floor window faced out onto the street. He unzipped the bag and searched around inside, moving items back and forth: some clothing, a razor handle with spare disposable blades, a foil sheet of tablets, a half-full box of condoms. Finding his phone charger, he took it out and started to unwind the cable. In her room, Alice was also unpacking her suitcase, removing some toiletries from the clear plastic airport bag, hanging up a brown dress in the wardrobe. Then she sat on her bed, opened a map on her phone and moved her fingers with practised ease around the screen.
Forty minutes later, they were eating at a local restaurant. At the centre of the table was a lit candle, a wicker basket of bread, a squat bottle of olive oil and a taller fluted bottle of dark vinegar. Felix was eating a sliced steak, very rare, dressed with Parmesan and rocket leaves, the interior of the steak glistening pink like a wound. Alice was eating a dish of pasta with cheese and pepper. At her elbow was a half-empty carafe of red wine. The restaurant was not crowded, but now and then conversation or laughter from the other tables swelled up and became audible. Alice was telling Felix about her best friend, a woman whose name she said was Eileen.
She’s very pretty, Alice said. Would you like to see a picture?
Alice took out her phone and started scrolling through a social media app. We met when we were in college, she said. Eileen was like a celebrity then, everyone was in love with her. She was always winning prizes and having her photograph in the university paper and that kind of thing. This is her.
Alice showed him the screen of her phone, displaying a photograph of a slim white woman with dark hair, leaning against a balcony railing in what appeared to be a European city, with a tall fair-haired man beside her, looking at the camera. Felix took the phone out of Alice’s hand and turned the screen slightly, as if adjudicating.
Yeah, he said. Nice-looking alright.
I was like her sidekick, said Alice. Nobody really understood why she would want to be friends with me, because she was very popular, and everyone kind of hated me. But I think perversely she enjoyed having a best friend nobody liked.
Why didn’t anyone like you?
Alice gestured vaguely with one of her hands. Oh, you know, she said. I was always complaining about something. Accusing everyone of having the wrong opinions.
I’d say that gets on people’s nerves alright, he said. Putting his finger over the face of the man in the photograph, he asked: And who’s that with her?
That’s our friend Simon, said Alice.
Not bad-looking either, is he?
She smiled. No, he’s beautiful, she said. The photograph doesn’t even do him justice. He’s one of these people who’s so attractive I think it’s actually warped his sense of self.
Handing the phone back, Felix said: Must be nice having all these good-looking friends.
They’re nice for me to look at, you mean, said Alice. But one does feel like a bit of a dog in comparison.
Felix smiled. Ah, you’re not a dog, he said. You have your good points.
Like my charming personality.
After a pause, he asked: Would you call it charming?
She gave a genuine laugh then. No, she said. I don’t know how you put up with me saying such stupid things all the time.
Well, I’ve only had to put up with it a small while, he said. And I don’t know, you might stop doing it when we get to know each other better. Or I might stop putting up with it either.
Or I might grow on you.
Felix returned his attention to his food. You might, yeah, he said. Sure anything could happen. So this lad Simon, you fancy him, do you?
Oh no, she said. Not at all.
Glancing up at her with apparent interest, Felix asked: Not interested in the handsome ones, no?
I like him a lot, as a person, she said fairly. And I respect him. He works as an adviser to this tiny little left-wing parliamentary group, even though he could make buckets of money doing something else. He’s religious, you know.
Felix cocked his head as if expecting her to clarify the joke. As in, he believes in Jesus? he said.
Yeah.
Fucking hell, seriously? He’s weird in the head or something, is he?
No, he’s quite normal, said Alice. He won’t try to convert you or anything, he’s low-key about it. I’m sure you’d like him.
Felix sat there shaking his head. He laid his fork down, glanced around the restaurant, and then picked the fork up again, but didn’t resume eating right away. And would he be against gays and all that? he said.
No, no. I mean, you should ask him about that, if you meet him. But I believe his idea of Jesus is more friend-to-the-poor, champion-of-the-marginalised kind of thing.
Here, I’m sorry, but he sounds like a headcase. In this day and age a person believes all that? Some lad a thousand years ago popped out from the grave and that’s the whole point of everything?
Don’t we all believe silly things? she said.
I don’t. I believe what I see in front of me. I don’t believe some big Jesus in the sky is looking down on us deciding are we good or bad.
For a few seconds she surveyed him and said nothing. Finally she replied: No, maybe you don’t. But not many people would be happy, thinking about life the way you do – that it’s all for nothing, and there isn’t any meaning. Most people prefer to believe there is some. So in that sense, everyone is deluded. Simon’s delusions are just more organised.
Felix started sawing a slice of steak in two with his knife. If he wants to be happy, couldn’t he make up something nicer to believe? he asked. Instead of thinking everything’s a sin and he might go to hell.
I don’t think he’s worried about hell, he just wants to do the right thing on earth. He believes there’s a difference between right and wrong. I suppose you can’t believe that, if you think it all means nothing in the end.
No, I do believe there’s right and wrong, obviously.
She raised an eyebrow. Oh, you are deluded, then, she said. If we’re all just going to die in the end, who’s to say what’s right and what isn’t?
He told her he would think about it. They went on eating, but presently he broke off again and started to shake his head once more.
Not to harp on about the gay thing, he said. But would he have any gay friends, this guy? Simon.
Well, he’s friends with me. And I’m not exactly heterosexual.
Amused now, even mischievous, Felix answered: Oh, okay. Me neither, by the way.
She looked up at him quickly and he met her eyes.
You look surprised, he said.
Do I?
Returning his attention to his food, he went on: I just never really had a thing about it. Whether someone is a guy or a girl. I know for most people it’s like, the one big thing they really do care about. But for me, it just doesn’t make any difference. I don’t go around telling people all the time because actually, some girls don’t like it. If they find out you’ve been with guys they think you’re a bit not right, some of them. But I don’t mind telling you since you’re the same yourself.
She took a sip from her wine glass and swallowed. Then she said: For me I think it’s more that I fall in love very intensely. And I can never know in advance who it’s going to be, whether they’ll be a man or woman, or anything else about them.
Felix nodded slowly. That’s interesting, he said. And it happens a lot, or not that much?
Not that much, she said. And never very happily.
Ah, that’s a shame. But it’ll go happily for you in the end, I bet.
Thank you, that’s kind.
He went on eating, while she watched him from across the table.
I’m sure people must fall in love with you all the time, she said.
He looked at her, his expression open and sincere. Why would they? he said.
She shrugged. When we first met I got the impression you were always going on dates, she said. You seemed very blasé and cool about everything.
Just because I go on dates doesn’t mean people go around falling in love with me. I mean, we’ve been on a date together, you’re not in love with me, are you?
Placidly she replied: I wouldn’t tell you if I were.
He laughed. Good for you, he said. And don’t get the wrong idea, you’re welcome to be in love with me if you want. I would have to put you down as a bit of a lunatic, but I kind of think that about you anyway.
She was mopping the remaining sauce off her plate with a piece of bread. You’re wise, she said.
/
On Thursday morning an assistant from Alice’s publishing house picked her up outside the apartment at ten and took her to meet some journalists. Felix spent the morning wandering around the city looking at things, listening to music on his headphones, taking pictures and posting them in a WhatsApp group. One photograph showed a narrow, shaded cobbled street, and at the end a resplendent white church in the sunlight, with bright green doors and shutters. Another showed a red moped parked outside a shopfront with old-fashioned lettering over the door. Finally he posted a photograph of the dome of St Peter’s, creamy blue like an iced cake, seen in the distance from the Via della Conciliazione, sky blazing in the backdrop. In the group chat, someone with the username Mick replied: Where the fuck are you lad??? Someone with the username Dave wrote: Hold on are you in ITALY? what the fuck haha. You not at work this week. Felix typed out a reply.
Felix: Roma baby
Felix: Lmao
Felix: Here with some girl I met on tinder, ill tell you when im back
Mick: How are you in rome with someone you met on tinder?
Mick: This needs way more explanation hahaha
Dave: Wait what!! did a wealthy old lady pick you up on the internet?
Mick: Ohhhh
Mick: Hate to say it but ive heard about this
Mick: You are gonna wake up with no kidneys
After this exchange, Felix closed out of that group chat and opened another, which was titled ‘number 16’.
Felix: Hey has sabrina been fed today
Felix: And not just biscuits she wants wet food
Felix: Post a picture when its done I wanna see her
No one responded or saw the messages right away. At the same time, in a different part of the city, Alice was recording a segment for an Italian television programme on which her voice would later be dubbed over by an interpreter. From a feminist perspective, it’s about the gendered division of labour, she was saying. Felix locked his phone and continued walking, crossing partway over a bridge and pausing to look down the river at the Castel Sant’Angelo. Through his headphones he was listening to ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’. The quality of light was very crisp, golden, casting dark diagonal shadows, and the waters of the Tiber below were pale green, milky. Leaning on the wide white stone balustrade, Felix took out his phone and flicked over to the camera app. The phone was several years old and for some reason opening the camera app caused the music to skip and then switch off. He removed his headphones irritably and took a picture of the castle. For a few seconds then he held the phone out at arm’s length, headphones dangling loose over the side of the bridge, and it was not clear from this gesture whether he was trying to see the existing image better, getting a new angle in order to take a different photograph, or simply thinking about letting the device slip soundlessly out of his hand and into the river. He stood there with his arm outstretched and a grave-looking expression on his face, but maybe he was just frowning under the glare of sunlight. Without taking another photograph, he wound up the headphones, pocketed the phone and walked on.
Alice was giving a reading at a literary festival that night. She told Felix there was no need for him to attend, but he said he didn’t have other plans. Might as well hear what your books are about, he said. Seeing as I’m not going to read them. Alice said if the event was really good maybe he would change his mind and he assured her he would not. The event was outside the city centre, in a large building that housed a concert hall and exhibitions of contemporary art. The corridors of the building were busy, with various readings and talks going on at the same time. Someone from the publishing house came over before the event and took Alice away to meet the man who would interview her onstage. Felix wandered around with his headphones in, checking his messages, his social media timelines. In the news, a British politician had made an offensive statement about Bloody Sunday. Felix returned to the top of his timeline, refreshed it, waited for new posts to load, and then did the same thing again, several times. He didn’t even seem to read the new posts before pulling down to refresh again. Alice was at that point sitting in a windowless room with a bowl of fruit in front of her, saying: Thank you, thank you, that’s very kind of you, I’m so pleased you enjoyed it.
About a hundred people attended Alice’s event. Onstage she read for five minutes, then engaged in conversation with an interviewer, and then took audience questions. An interpreter sat beside her, translating the questions in Alice’s ear and then translating Alice’s answers for the audience. The interpreter was fast and efficient, moving a pen rapidly across a pad of paper while Alice was speaking, then delivering the translation aloud without pausing, and then striking through everything she had written and beginning again as soon as Alice resumed. Felix sat in the audience listening. When Alice said something funny, he laughed, along with the others in the audience who could understand English. The rest of the audience would laugh later, when the interpreter was speaking, or else they wouldn’t, perhaps because the joke didn’t translate or because they didn’t find it funny. Alice answered questions about feminism, sexuality, the work of James Joyce, the role of the Catholic Church in Irish cultural life. Did Felix find her answers interesting, or was he bored? Was he thinking about her, or about something else, someone else? And onstage, speaking about her books, was Alice thinking about him? Did he exist for her in that moment, and if so, in what way?
After the event, she sat behind a desk signing books for an hour. He was told he could sit with her but he said he would prefer not to. He walked outside, making a loop around the perimeter of the building, smoking a cigarette. When Alice found him afterwards, she was accompanied by Brigida, a woman from her publishing house, who invited them both to dinner. Brigida kept saying the dinner would be ‘very simple’. Alice’s eyes were glassy and her rate of speech was more rapid than usual. Felix was by contrast rather quieter than he had been, almost sullen. They all got in a car with Ricardo, who also worked at the publishing house, and drove together to a restaurant in the city. In the front of the car, Ricardo and Brigida carried on a conversation in Italian. In the back, Alice said to Felix: Are you bored out of your mind? After a pause he replied: Why would I be? Alice’s face was bright and energetic. I would be, she said. I never go to literary readings unless I have to. Felix examined his fingernails and let out a low breath. You were very good at answering the questions, he said. Did they give them to you beforehand, or were you making it up on the spot? She said she had not seen the questions in advance. Superficial fluency, she added. I wasn’t saying anything really substantial. But I’m pleased I impressed you. He looked at her and said in a slightly conspiratorial tone: Have you taken something? With a surprised, innocent expression on her face, Alice replied: No. How do you mean?
You just seem kind of hyperactive, he said.
Oh. I’m sorry. I think after speaking in public sometimes I get like that. It’s adrenaline or something. I’ll try to be calmer.
No, don’t worry about it. I was just going to ask if I could have some.
She laughed. He lolled his head back on the seat, smiling.
I hear they all take cocaine, she said. In the industry. No one ever offers me any, though.
He turned his head, interested. Oh yeah? he said. In Italy, or all over?
All over, so I’ve heard.
That’s interesting. I wouldn’t mind a little bump, if it’s going.
Would you like me to ask? she said.
He yawned, glanced at Brigida and Ricardo in the front seats, wiped some sleep from his eye with his fingers. I’d say you’d rather drop dead, he said.
But I’ll do it if you’d like me to, she replied.
He closed his eyes. Because you’re in love with me, he said.
Hm, said Alice.
He continued to sit there unmoving against the headrest, as if asleep. Alice opened her email app and wrote a new message to Eileen: If I ever suggest I’m going to bring a total stranger to Rome again please feel free to tell me it’s a terrible idea. She sent the email and put her phone away in her bag. Brigida, she said out loud, last time we saw one another, you were moving apartments. Brigida turned around in the passenger seat. Yes, she said. I live much closer now to the office. She described her new apartment in comparison with her old one, while Alice nodded and said things like: And the last one had two bedrooms? But I remember there was no lift … Felix turned his head to look out the window. The streets of Rome revealed themselves one by one and vanished, pulled backward into the darkness.
