The lights beside the water plated the Thames silver and gold. With lemon and salt still tanging my lips, I felt exhilarated. What Sabine had said at Graham’s when she saw us in the tarnished mirror was coming true. Fairy-tale friends.

Part IV

26

From the moment I gave in to my craving for her, everything changed. Sabine was no longer a catalyst for what I wanted, she was it. I longed to know her, to know about her—but more than that, to be her. Tired of the rooms in my own dreary house, done with measly alterations, I let go, the house burned down . . . and it felt good.

Though Sabine set the terms of our togetherness, I accepted them. In part, her unreliable ways were the flip side to her playful qualities. In part her talk, especially at the ballet and in Valentines, had hinted at a past that deserved allowances. But mostly, her influence gave me permission to explore a freer version of myself.

I lost touch with old friends; what we used to discuss came to seem dull, our bonds circumstantial. Phone calls to my mother, never regular, became rare. I took to using international cards in call boxes. It was easier to steer away from her despair in a public place, on a handset greasy with others’ fingerprints.

Since Sabine wasn’t solely nocturnal, I stopped trying to be that too. Shifts on, I was; shifts off, I wasn’t. My brain felt constantly woolly but it no longer seemed necessary to be sharp. Mainly this was because I’d quit my literature studies. If I did it with some regret, I reassured myself the decision was temporary. The longer I stayed away from my books, the surer I felt.

As an outsider, I’d always found refuge in reading. But as Sabine and I grew closer, I didn’t need it. My outsider’s life began to feel extraordinary. I didn’t want to read about characters, I wanted to be them. I didn’t want to read about adventures, I wanted to have them.

Sabine made our lives feel like enough of a story in itself.

After the night at the Royal Opera House, nine months since Sabine and I had first met, our friendship accelerated. No longer stuck in the house of the self, I felt as if I was on a long journey in a sleeper train with a changeling companion. A train that sped through unknown territory, not stopping at timetabled stations but arbitrarily here and there.