‘It’s… It’s something to do with me. It makes me feel – I don’t know – safe. Safer, I suppose. It’s my insurance. There’s always somewhere I can go and start again.’
‘Sounds more like a place to go and hide. What are you hiding from, Lorimer Black?’
‘My name’s not Lorimer Black. I mean it is, I changed it, but I wasn’t born Lorimer Black.’ He knew he was going to tell her. ‘My real name is Milomre Bloçj. I was born here but in fact I’m a Transnistrian. I come from a family of Transnistrian Gypsies.’
‘And I come from a planet called Zog in a far-flung galaxy’ she said.
‘It’s true.’
‘Piss off out of it.’
‘IT’S TRUE!’
A few puzzled shoppers looked round. A lanky Pakistani with his name on a plastic badge came to investigate. He gestured at the shelves.
‘All these items are for sale, you know.’
‘Still making up our mind, thank you,’Flavia said, with a winning smile.
‘Milomre?’ She pronounced it carefully.
‘Yes.’
‘Transnistria.’
‘Transnistria. It’s a real place, or was. On the west shore of the Black Sea. My family call me Milo.’
‘Milo… I prefer that. How fascinating. Why are you telling me this, Milo?’
‘I don’t know It’s always been a secret. I’ve never told anyone before. I suppose I must want you to know.’
‘Think it’ll win me over? Well, you’re wrong.’
‘Take your sunglasses off for a second, please.’
‘No.’ She reached for a can of spray starch and Lorimer backed off.
She bought some spaghetti, a jar of sauce and a bottle of Valpolicella. Lorimer walked back up the road with her. A few heavy drops of rain began to smack on to the pavement.
‘You’re not going to cook supper for him, are you?’ Lorimer asked scornfully. ‘After what he’s done to you? How pathetic.’
‘No, he’s going out, thank God. I’ve got a friend coming over.’
‘Male or female?’
‘Mind your own business. Male… Gay.’’
‘Could I join you?’
‘Are you mad? What if Gilbert came back? “Oh, Gilbert, Lorimer’s popped in for a bite of supper.” Crazy fool.’
They had reached his car, which now looked as if it were suffering from a terrible rash, pocked with dark dots where the raindrops had spattered on the light dusty orange of the rust. With the dampness in the air the Toyota seemed to exude a crude smell of metal, or worked iron, as if they were standing in a smithy.
‘Good lord, look at your car,’ Flavia said. ‘It looks worse.’
‘It rusted up almost overnight.’
‘They were cross with you, weren’t they?.’
‘It was a job I was on –’ He paused, something suddenly occurring to him. ‘They blamed me for their troubles.’
‘While you were adjusting loss.’
‘Yes, I was adjusting loss.’
‘I’m not sure if you’re cut out for this life of loss adjusting, Lorimer. Very hazardous.’
‘Hazardous in the extreme,’ he said, suddenly feeling very tired. ‘Can I see you next week, Flavia?’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘You do know, you must be aware, that I’m passionately in love with you. I’ll never take no for an answer.’
‘Suit yourself She shrugged as she walked backwards a few paces. ‘Goodnight, Milo whatever-your-name-is.’
‘Use the house,’ he called after her. ‘Any time, it’s all set up. Number 3, Albion Village.’
She turned and trotted across the road to her house and scampered up the steps. He felt like weeping: something important had happened – tonight he had told someone else about the existence of Milomre Blocj. And she had kept his keys.
*
He went to sleep at the Institute, hoping he would dream lucidly and lustily of Flavia, that in his dream she would be naked and he would be able to take her in his arms. Instead he dreamt of his father, lying in bed, ill. They held hands, interlacing their fingers, exactly as they had done the final time they had seen each other, except that on this occasion Bogdan Bloçj raised himself on one elbow and kissed him on the cheek, several times. Lorimer could feel the neat white bristles of his beard sharp against his skin. Then he spoke to him and said, ‘You did well, Milo.’
Lorimer woke, drained and vulnerable, and wrote the dream down in the diary with a trembling hand. It was a lucid dream because something had happened in the dream that he had wished for but had never happened in his life, and for the duration of that dream it had seemed real.
As he dressed later, preparing himself for Sunday lunch with Stella and Barbuda, he reflected that this was one reason