‘Sure,’ said Daniel, then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Shall I cook tonight?’
Lisanne tried not to appear shocked. Daniel was a good cook, on occasion exceptional, and until the accident they had shared kitchen duties on a more or less fifty-fifty basis, yet in six months he had not offered to do so much as boil an egg. Consequently they had been surviving on takeaways, occasional restaurant meals and numerous packages of chilled, prepared meals from high-street stores. Only at weekends did Lisanne have either the time or the inclination to cook a meal or two.
‘That’d be lovely,’ she said, trying not to sound either too surprised or two enthusiastic. She knew that Daniel’s moods were particularly capricious these days, and that too positive a response to his occasional suggestions could just as easily put him off as encourage him. ‘I’ll be back around six-thirty.’
‘Okay. I’ll do something nice; something different.’
‘I’ll look forward to it. Bye.’ And she kissed him again, on the forehead this time, before heading for the front door.
For several minutes after she had left Daniel sat there stupefied. He could not imagine what had prompted him to offer to cook. He had no interest in cooking these days, had not cared two figs for food since the accident and, in direct contrast to his usual attitude, had taken only minimal pleasure in its consumption. And yet, just as Lisanne had crossed the floor to kiss him, he had suddenly been assailed by the sight and smell of a dish that he had eaten several times but never prepared in his life.
So vivid was the image, so potent the odour, that he felt compelled to go out into the streets, purchase the ingredients and spend the rest of the day if necessary preparing it. It was an immensely curious sensation, but no less real for that. Only one problem remained: how exactly did one make moussaka?
A few moments later Daniel was showered and dressed. He looked at himself in the mirror, keenly aware of his improved appearance. He had always been good-looking, with a fine physique, and strong, well-defined features: people who met him for the first time felt almost obliged to comment on the unusually intense colour of his eyes, a deep, cobalt blue that put one in mind of some semi-precious stone.
Since the accident Daniel had let himself go, but this morning he made a little more of an effort and it paid dividends. He put on his clean black jeans rather than the tatty blue ones that he had loafed around in for weeks on end; his trainers, although a little scuffed, were given a quick once-over with a damp rag and he chose to wear the new blue sweatshirt Lisanne had bought him for his birthday, as opposed to the green one with the holes in the elbows. He even brushed his thick, dark hair, so that it was sleek and smart. In all likelihood he would turn a few heads that morning.
The sky was bright, yet despite the sunshine there was a decidedly sharp edge to the day. Daniel turned right out of the gate and headed for Green Lanes. Daniel liked Green Lanes, and had in fact been drawn to the area because of its particular brand of buoyant activity, which ensured the place was alive day and night.
This part of London, known locally as Cyprus City because of its preponderance of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, owed more to the mores and customs of the Mediterranean than to those of England. When, at five-thirty, many other parts of London started closing for the day, Green Lanes was still a thriving, bustling market, subsumed in a welter of activity as the locals thronged the busy pavements in search of the best fruit and veg of the day, or queued noisily in the bakeries, buying loaves of fresh-baked aniseed bread or baklava by the kilo.
It was always busy, which was how Daniel liked it. He hated neighbourhoods that became ghost towns after six o’clock, whose only activity centred around the doorway of the local pub. Green Lanes was full of vitality even at ten at night, and with its strong local flavour always made him smile. Indeed, on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, to wander past the grocery stores with their colourful produce bursting out on to the pavements and the Greek music pouring forth from strategically placed ghetto-blasters, was to be put more in mind of Heraklion than of Haringey.
That morning however, all was quiet. Daniel walked along past closed and shuttered shop-fronts, dismayed by the lack of life and activity. Was it a holiday of some kind? Did that make a difference? It was only when he had walked as far as the jeweller’s and, nosing casually through the glass, caught sight of the time on a large carriage clock in the window that he realised what was wrong. It was only eight-thirty.
In all his days living in Green Lanes he had never been up at that time, never walked along Green Lanes before ten o’clock at the earliest, and consequently had never seen the place asleep. He could not help but find it amusing, a revealing comment on what used to be his unconventional lifestyle.
Rather than return home Daniel decided to continue walking for a while. He made no specific decisions but just wandered where his fancy took him. By nine o’clock he found himself a couple of miles up the road in Wood Green. As he walked he became increasingly aware of a difference in his mood. The cool morning air seemed to hone his senses, and he felt clear-headed and awake; not particularly happy or especially depressed; just clear.
In contrast to Green Lanes, Wood Green High Street was wide awake and ready for business. With nothing better to do, Daniel walked into W. H. Smith and, heading for the magazine racks, began studying the titles. Although nothing in particular caught his eye, he was drawn to the brightly coloured front covers.
However, after ten minutes of gazing at the various titles - studiously avoiding anything connected with photography - he became bored and made his way upstairs to the book department, where he found himself altogether more interested in what was on offer.
It had been a long time since Daniel had browsed in a bookshop, but he found himself suffused with a warm, familiar pleasure as he started to eye the shelves upon shelves of crisp new editions, all lined up neatly one after another, each one a repository of knowledge, information, fantasy or just sheer fun, each volume a gateway to a new - perhaps hitherto unknown - world.
As he worked his way round the department, once again avoiding the few shelves devoted to cameras and photography (lest he start to feel depressed again), he found himself drawn back time and again to two sections. Not surprisingly, the section that interested him most was the travel section.
Before the accident it would have been a rare week when Daniel did not purchase a guide book, travel memoir or coffee-table extravaganza detailing some far-flung corner of the world that he had not yet visited. For Daniel, travel abroad was the greatest gift of all. He had never lost sight of his good fortune in this way; he had made his name as a freelance travel photographer, had deliberately chosen to specialise in this field to enable him to travel the world, and he had never become blasé about it. Although he had visited dozens of countries during the previous ten years or so, there were still hundreds of places to see, countries whose names evoked mysteries and pleasures unknown, cities that tantalised the imagination with promises of adventure and excitement.
Travel, be it with a specific purpose in mind or just for the sheer hell of being in a different place, was for Daniel the essence of what a good life was about. Travel abroad was life distilled to its most potent pleasures; it was nigh impossible to get bored when you were in a strange place, as there was always something new to see, hear, taste, touch, something new to experience, to capture - perhaps with lens and celluloid, or just with a word or flash of memory. Travel abroad was life without the dull bits; it was the edited highlights.
So it was that, even though his interest had been dormant for months, now that he was confronted with the array of tantalising titles - the survival manuals, the adventure narratives, the weighty, large-format tomes with their gleaming colour plates and footnotes - he could not resist them. He stood before the shelves, selecting titles at random and leafing through them excitedly, like a man who has been told that a number of ten-pound notes have been hidden between the pages.
Having sated his appetite for travel books, he meandered over to the fiction section to see if there was anything there that tempted him. Since the accident Daniel had had plenty of time on his hands but curiously, even though he was an avid reader, he had not so much as picked up a novel in all that time, Not even ones recommended by Lisanne who, after all, should know about such things.
He searched row upon row of paperbacks, hoping his interest would be altered by a familiar name or an alluring title, but nothing appealed to him. It was only as he was about to leave the shop that his attention was drawn to the New Titles section. There, among the new fiction was a book with a curiously appealing cover. It was a slim novel called Greek Idyll, by a writer Daniel had never heard of before. The cover showed a water-colour of a deserted beach with golden sand and azure sea; the branches of an olive tree intruded into the scene from the right-hand side, and lying on the sand towards the centre of the picture was an open book, its pages fanned out, The book cast a shadow of what appeared to be a face, but Daniel could not be sure.
Daniel studied the cover for several minutes; it was as if he were being drawn into the picture, The more he gazed at the clear, still sea and the deep blue sky, the more mesmerised he became. At one point he felt sure he could hear the gentle lapping of the waves against the shoreline, and feel the heat pulsing off the dry, shimmering sand.
Then suddenly, with an almost subliminal brevity, a snatch of music, played with brilliant clarity on the bouzouki, filtered into his consciousness with such presence and at such a high volume that he almost dropped the book in surprise.
Still shocked, he looked around him, certain that someone was playing a trick on him, that Greek music was being played over the public address system in the shop. But the music had disappeared as swiftly as it lmd arrived, leaving behind it a strange, deep longing, quite unlike anything Daniel had ever experienced before.
He knew that piece of music, knew that tiny sample of melody; it was the music of his dream from the previous night.
Without reflecting further, he took the book to the cashier’s desk, handed over five pounds in coins, and watched the sales assistant eamestly as she rang up the price. He felt oddly excited and yet on edge, as if he were in some way stealing the book, or at least procuring it under false pretences, rather than making a perfectly legal purchase.
Consequently, fired up by the small but potent adrenalin rush brought about by this misplaced sense of danger, Daniel found himself slightly agitated that the sales assistant did not respond to his purchase with greater interest, excitement or urgency. Having rung the price up on the till, she simply put the book in a paper bag, tore the receipt from the till and handed it to him together with his penny change. She did not smile once, nor intimate that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. The paper-bagged book lay on the cashier’s desk. She did not pass it to him, but went on to serve the next customer.
Disappointed, Daniel lifted the book from the desk and left. He had hoped she might at least say something to him; so far that day a number of curious things had happened, and he badly wanted someone else to acknowledge that it was indeed a day with a difference, that something new, strange, uncertain, was happening.
But it was not to be. The entire transaction had been completed without either of them saying a word. Not even a greeting. Daniel sighed, pretended it didn’t matter; what were words, after all? What did it matter if the plain-faced young girl hadn’t said ‘Good morning’ or ‘That’ll be four pounds ninety-nine pence’ or even ‘Thanks’ when he had handed over the money? It made no difference.
Still, he could not help thinking that some sort of intimation would have been appropriate. Something odd was happening, but, without confirmation or acknowledgement from someone else, he feared it might all be down to a sudden overactiveness of his own imagination.
By the time he had walked back to Green Lanes the shops were all open and normal business activities reigned, Although he had lost enthusiasm for the idea, he decided he had better purchase what he needed to cook the meal he had promised Lisanne. He still wasn’t sure why he had made such an atypical offer. All he knew was that, ridiculous as it sounded, for some reason he was destined to make moussaka.
In a grocery store he bought a pound of aubergines, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a couple of large onions, several large potatoes, a pound of minced lamb and a huge hunk of feta cheese. He was pretty sure that Lisanne had all the necessary herbs and other bits and pieces back home. What else went into a Greek moussaka?
There were dozens of cookbooks at home but Daniel was loth to use them. He cooked - or so he told Lisanne shortly after they first met - by instinct, which was why he never looked at cookbooks. This was, in fact, only partly true. Daniel did cook by instinct, and did so remarkably well. But the reason he never looked at cookbooks was that he was too lazy to follow recipes. All that measuring and weighing and making sure you had exactly the right ingredients; it was too mechanical and, for Daniel, detracted from the fun of it all.