Chasing the Sun with Henry

by Gary Brockwell

‘In any case, I think it’s time you got rid of that,’ she said, pointing at the used condom. ‘Why don’t you reach into that drawer again to ensure you have definite grounds for divorce as a backup plan?’ she added, and winked at me.

  I smiled and duly complied with the instruction, the feelings of failure banished as recent memories took the lead in mind and body.

  This time our foreplay was more leisurely; the passion was still in abundance, but the urgency had diminished.

  I moved to mount her again, but Cerys stopped me.

  ‘Not here,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ I responded, not knowing where this was leading.

  Cerys slipped off the bed and took firm hold of my hardness in one hand and walked out of the room, still gripping me tightly, giggling. I followed her out to the mezzanine. She stopped at the rail, the waist-height, tactile oak rail, and bowed before it, spreading her hands over the grain as her fingers curled around the rail.

  ‘Fuck me here,’ she ordered.

  Her command hardened me still further and I pushed inside her from behind, forcing Cerys to give a low moan at my entry and a deep contentment to sweep over me that I hadn’t experienced at any time before. Again, we built to a steady rhythm, Cerys’ ever-louder cries echoing around the white walls and glass, until I abruptly lost my momentum as I reached to squeeze her breasts. But the sensation surprisingly remained the same, as I felt Cerys moving back and forth independently and despite me.

  I stood still, feeling her working me, drawing me to orgasm with her movement, while in front of us through the glass, the sun threw pinks and crimsons over the entire western sky as it dipped below the mountains, still just visible in the twilight. Suddenly, Cerys cried out loudly and her body contracted and shuddered; the action triggered my own spasm and I groaned in satisfaction, thrusting now again, until the sensations had completely ceased. I removed myself from deep inside her, pulled off the condom and again examined the contents, much to Cerys’ amusement. It was the most pleasurable climax that I had ever experienced.

  We staggered back to the bedroom and drifted into a deep, contented sleep.

  Later, I awoke to the sound of the lavatory being flushed and Cerys returning to the bed. As before, she laid her head on my chest.

  ‘What’s your thing, Eddie?’ she asked later.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What’s your thing, your turn-on? I am guessing it is me talking dirty, my words had the desired effect!’ she said.

  I laughed and felt a pang of embarrassment; it was true, the words had turned me on and were a new experience for me, but it wasn’t ‘my thing’, as Cerys put it.

  ‘It was you pushing back on me, out there,’ I said, nodding my head toward the balcony.

  ‘Oh, you are a dirty boy. You liked that, did you?’ she cooed.

  I nodded, remembering the sensation. ‘What about you?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I thought mine was obvious. I love being fucked out there over the rail! I love the thought of being seen by the world outside, drives me crazy,’ Cerys confessed.

  ‘You say that a lot.’

  ‘Say what?’ teased Cerys.

  ‘You know what!’ I said.

  ‘I just like the word! In context, you understand.’

  I was puzzled, though. ‘I thought you felt vulnerable, though, knowing you had been under surveillance, and then we are out there,’ I said, again nodding outside the room.

  ‘To be honest, Eddie, that is the first time I have been out there,’ she explained, replicating my nod. ‘I thought about it loads of times, fantasised, but never acted on it. I feel safe with you, it feels right with you – together, we protect me from the fear,’ she added.

  Her words were touching, honest and they lingered in my mind.

  ‘Is there anything you really regret, Eddie?’ she suddenly asked me.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘In life, is there anything you regret?’

  ‘Not doing this sooner!’ I laughed, kissing her cheek.

  ‘I am serious,’ she said, hugging me. ‘Anything you wish hadn’t happened, something you would change if you had the chance?’

  The obvious subject began to come into focus in my mind, but as the image formed, so too did Ignatius McKenzie’s words resound inside of me. She is cocooned in love, I heard, and the sentence ushered in positive memories of Rebecca to replace thoughts of the lifeless body laid on the slab that I witnessed on that dank November evening.

  ‘Nothing springs to mind,’ I eventually said. ‘You cannot undo what has been done.’

  ‘That’s true. But sometimes an event stays with you, a time when you wish you had behaved differently.’

  ‘That’s just guilt; we all feel it from time to time,’ I mused.

  ‘But what if that memory makes you shudder, no matter how hard you try not to blame yourself?

  ‘Go on,’ I said quietly.

  ‘I want to tell you something. No one else knows this, not even Cole,’ she said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Eddie, you are the only person I can really be me with, I am worried you will judge me.’

  ‘I won’t, you have my word,’ I said, feeling a level of trepidation at her build-up.

  ‘I think I told you how I met Cole, in a florist’s shop.’

  I nodded in response.

  ‘The rain was torrential as I left the shop, and I was struggling to locate my car keys when he sent me a humorous text asking me to dinner, then another and another in quick succession. I didn’t respond until I was in my car, and replied simply with, Okay.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, I was flattered, naturally, but I wanted him to respond to my text. Don’t forget, I was young – this was my purple-hair stage, and I was sitting proudly in my first ever car, Bessie, and a stranger had just bought me flowers and had now invited me to dinner; such things didn’t happen to me.’

  ‘Bessie?’

  ‘Yes, that was her name, my car’s name.’

  ‘Okay.’ I smiled, not for the first time in my life failing to understand why people name their cars.

  ‘I text him again, just before I pulled away. As I drove, I kept an eye on my phone, waiting for an alert. Minutes passed of driving through the rain and checking the phone, driving and checking, driving and checking. I didn’t know the area very well and due to my lack of concentration, I took a wrong turn; on a bend, the road forked without warning to the left. As my phone finally buzzed, I wasn’t worried that I didn’t know where I was heading, or about the poor visibility due to the constant rain – being lost was of secondary importance, reading the new message was paramount. I remember laughing as he told me to stop being bossy.’

  Cerys stopped speaking and looked at me tersely, before looking out toward the darkness.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Please don’t judge me,’ she requested again.

  And for a second time, I promised I would not. A silence fell into the room which only Cerys could break.

  ‘We carried on texting, rapidly; he asked what food I would like – Italian, Greek, Cantonese. I replied that I really didn’t mind. I hadn’t really experienced anything other than home-cooked food at that time,’ she said.

  ‘I remember – it was seen as adventurous, then, eating out?’ I smiled.

  Cerys nodded and returned my smile. ‘The dark road gave way for some street lighting,’ she continued, ‘but the darkness returned on the other side of the few houses lining the pavement. I had no idea where I was, but thought I must meet a main road soon. Another text arrived, telling me he would pick me up at 8pm that night.’

  ‘You hadn’t told him where you lived?’ I asked quizzically.

  ‘No, that was the point. I adored the forwardness, and was answering
when it happened.’

  Cerys stopped speaking and looked at me, her gaze haunting, replaying an event unknown to me in her mind.

  ‘I was extremely happy, giggling as I texted back – I was completely caught up in the moment and I didn’t see it.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘The other car. It was my fault; I had drifted to their side of the carriageway, more interested in texting than concentrating on the road. They swerved to my left to avoid me, but I felt them clip my side. I slammed on the brakes and stopped violently as they passed the rear of my car. I just sat breathing heavily, still on the wrong side of the road, the sound of the windscreen wipers swishing through my gasps. When I looked in the rear-view mirror I saw their brake lights flick on and the interior light come on as they opened the door of their vehicle. I decided I didn’t want any confrontation, so I pulled away. I shouldn’t have, I should have faced them.’

  ‘You had no idea who was in the car, though – you could have been attacked, beaten, or worse,’ I reasoned. ‘Yours was a normal reaction, anyone would do the same.’

  Cerys just looked at me.

  ‘I don’t understand why you think I would judge you,’ I stated.

  ‘I don’t know, Eddie; I thought you would judge my mental stability,’ she replied.

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘I have a horrible feeling of anxiety, of dread when I think about the incident, which is often, even now. I have no idea why, but I have an urge to return there after all these years.’

  ‘Why don’t you do that, then?’

  ‘Eddie, I have no idea where it was – I have tried to find it on so many occasions, but I was driving at night in the rain, it could be anywhere. And throughout this, this gnawing anxiety has stayed with me; it isn’t as if anyone was hurt or died, so it has never made sense why I feel like this.’

  I looked at her, stunned by the torment she had kept hidden.

  ‘See, you think I am crazy!’ she suggested in response to my silence.

  ‘Not at all, I don’t think you are crazy, and why are you to blame? You could blame your husband for insisting on your number, for texting you; your friend for not organising the funeral flowers herself. Where do you stop? No, I am just trying to think of a way I can help you.’

  ‘I think you already have. It is strange, but telling you, sharing it with you seems to have dulled the guilt and the urge I’ve felt to apologise for all these years. Thank you,’ she said, kissing my cheek lightly and squeezing me tightly.

  ‘Maybe you just needed to offload, to focus the event into perspective,’ I said, kissing her cheek in return.

  We didn’t speak any more of the subject after that; Cerys genuinely appeared to be uplifted, a huge burden taken from her., We got dressed and continued to pack her belongings into the boxes and black bin bags.

  Later, as we approached my house in her Range Rover, singing loudly to her music, a clear coldness suddenly rushed over me.

  ‘The incident with the car, when was it?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ laughed Cerys.

  ‘That rainy night, when was it?’

  ‘Years ago,’ she shouted above the song.

  ‘No, I mean specifically when was it?’

  ‘Couldn’t be sure what day, but definitely November – it sticks in my mind because of the funeral being in the month of the dead.’

  We pulled up on my driveway and Cerys turned off the ignition, cutting the music with her action, but not my thoughts.

  ‘Why these questions, Eddie? It’s okay, I really think I am fine about it all now. It is strange, though, to carry this around for so long and then speak openly about it, but the hold on me has evaporated,’ she said.

  ‘I was just curious when it was,’ I said, unbuckling my seatbelt, preparing to leave the vehicle.

  ‘You sure we can’t just bring Henry back with us?’ asked Cerys, content with my explanation.

  She had already suggested this as we pulled out of her driveway, so that we could wake up together in the morning. I had countered that we could stay at mine, but Cerys had refused the offer.

  ‘Like I said, this is his home; he’d be a nightmare outside his own environment,’ I told her.

  Cerys leant over and kissed me firmly on my lips, her hands either side of my face. Her mouth left mine and softly covered my cheek in kisses, before stopping on my jawline.

  ‘I love you, Eddie Dungiven,’ she whispered gently into my ear.

  The words sent a shiver and tingle down my spine, and a spinning sensation that popped inside my head and forced a huge grin across my face.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said into her hair.

  We parted and smiled at each other, studying each other’s faces as we had done behind the sand dunes in the past summer months.

  I opened the passenger door and illuminated the interior.

  ‘See you tomorrow?’ asked Cerys as I stepped outside.

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I replied.

  Cerys smiled and blew me a kiss.

  ‘There was one thing,’ I blurted, speaking without thinking.

  Cerys stopped as she was preparing to blow a second kiss in my direction. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘What colour was Bessie?’

  ‘What, my first car?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Why, blue of course; thought they went well together, Bessie Blue,’ replied Cerys cheerfully. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason, just curious,’ I said again.

  Chapter 21

  Toward the Land of Cranes and Buffaloes

  The screen held the information, but kept it hidden, kept it a secret from me. It held all that I sought to trigger my next move. I stood, chin pointing upwards, head tilted backwards, studying the bank of monitors suspended from the ceiling, checking and double-checking; a singular search in a crowd of strangers, united in a task.

  Relax and shop, I read again from the monitor.

  I could do neither.

  I didn’t require an array of obscurely named vodka-based spirits, wrapped designer chocolates finished with a red satin bow, or, despite what the impeccably dressed demonstrator preached, a multi-functional, multi-holed universal electrical charger, compatible with all six continents. I certainly didn’t need to purchase an eye-wateringly expensive raffle ticket on the flimsy chance that on entering a draw I could win the pristine super-car gleaming on the podium ahead of me. I am sure the accompanying photographs stuck on a display board of your ‘average middle-aged man of the people’ past winners, all huge smiles, raised arms and clenched fists, would encourage some to partake, but I was merely left wondering how on earth they had gotten the vehicle into this position – one storey up, with no obvious entrance – in the first place.

  I couldn’t relax. The voices of so many people preparing to travel to so many places around the globe were amplified in the contained environment. My mind churned, and all the events that had carried me to this point jostled for attention.

  That random call from Mike Saunders to book me for the Lombarders’ ladies’ night – why did he have a copy of a network magazine published three years ago? The overheard conversation from behind my van, and Greg Dixon’s comments about Sally on the same night – why did they occur? Why did Greg remain in a coma, unable to wake, unable to rage about my punch to his jaw and confirm my dismissed account of the swarming bees covering his form? Why had I to witness the demise of Clifford and the love he shared with Mary to understand I should be happy? And through all this, always just a thought away, were Ignatius McKenzie’s piercing blue eyes. I still did not fully understand what occurred that still afternoon in his quiet study, overlooking the mature garden, but he had changed me utterly. The need to change the unchangeable buried within had been replaced by a feeling of ac
ceptance. And finally, the pain of the divorce, leading me through sadness, from failure and the past, had all sprung from that early-morning encounter on the beach with Henry, all those months ago, when Cerys Sindon entered my life.

  My thoughts returned to the now and my anxiety regarding the whereabouts of my newly purchased backpack, chosen with the help of Cerys, who insisted a ‘top-loader’ was not a practical choice. I smiled at the thought of the clothing and array of practical items it contained, that up until yesterday, at no point in my life had I ever considered necessary to pack. What if it was lost on arrival? What if it was damaged and couldn’t be carried? What would I wear?

  All my questions were met by a giggle and rejection from Cerys as I closed the outer zip.

  ‘Imagine! What would you do, Eddie?’ she teased.

  I imagined and panicked, voiced my concerns, told her that her teasing was making me cross, which merely seemed to fan the fire of ridicule yet further.

  ‘Tell you what, you could borrow some of my clothes – you’ll have to go commando though, I guess!’ she offered.

  The lunacy of my prickliness dissolved as she extracted a pair of fetching pale pink shorts, complete with sequin trim on the front pockets, from her own bag.

  ‘Try these,’ she said, tossing them over to me.

  I could do nothing but laugh.

  ‘Eddie, we can kit you out very easily – a few shirts and a pair of fisherman pants. Done,’ said Cerys.

  ‘So why are we taking all of this?’ I replied, pointing at my near-full backpack.

  ‘So you can take me to some posh restaurants in style!’ she gushed.

  After we had finished packing and I had checked my list of items for a third time, Cerys suggested we go for a walk before the shy sun dipped and drew a close to the short winter day and I departed to spend the night at Mary’s. We headed out with Henry over the sands – not our familiar beach by the mountains, but with a backdrop of an expanse of sand, capped with enormous skies and ever-changing light, in front of the small house Cerys’ mother had left her in her will. The seals had yet to draw their bulk up from the water ahead of the winter storms, leaving the entire beach for Henry to chase his own agenda, his own route, as we strode out.