by Cathy Glass
‘Goodnight,’ she said and quickly turned and fumbled her key into the lock.
‘Goodnight,’ he called again from the path as she opened the door. She stepped inside and paused before closing the door. She watched him as he fastened the latch on the gate; the street lamp above him threw a faint aura of light around his head and shoulders. He looked up, ‘Monday,’ he mouthed and blew her a silent kiss before returning to the car.
Aisha quietly closed the front door, took off her shoes, and crept up the stairs and past her parents’ bedroom. She hoped her mother wouldn’t hear her, for if she did, she would call out and ask her if she’d had a nice time. Aisha didn’t want to have to answer – to talk would break the spell; tonight she wanted it all to herself, to savour and remember.
She went silently into the bathroom and quickly washed and brushed her teeth, then crept across the landing into her bedroom. Slipping out of her clothes, she left them where they fell, then pulled on her nightdress and eased herself into bed. Nestled beneath the soft, warm duvet, she ran over the evening in her head, scene by scene, reliving every detail from that first glimpse of Mark, to the journey in the car, and the restaurant. She could picture the way he had looked at her across the table, attentive and interested in what she had to say. She could hear the little compliments he had slipped in at every opportunity. She could see his face, his clear blue eyes and neatly clipped fair almost blond hair. She caught the faintest breath of his aftershave, and as her eyes finally closed, heavy with sleep, she felt the light touch of his lips on her cheek, a feeling so intense she shivered with desire. ‘Until Monday,’ she whispered.
Chapter Seven
‘Isn’t he exactly as I said?’ Belinda enthused when she phoned at nine fifty on Monday morning. ‘Absolutely charming! You’ve made a real impression. He’s asked me to find out.’
‘Find out what?’ Aisha asked, not best pleased by Belinda’s early call. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t got much time this morning.’
‘Yes, I apologize. I know it’s not your lunch hour, but Mark needs to know if you feel the same. He telephoned me first thing this morning, like a dog with two tails. He’s besotted with you, Aisha, but he doesn’t want to make a fool of himself. I always give my clients feedback if they ask for it, and he’s worried he might have scared you off. I told him I didn’t think he had.’
Aisha pressed the phone closer to her ear and watched the door to her PA’s office. ‘I like Mark,’ she said. ‘But we have only just met.’
‘And what’s wrong with love at first sight?’ Belinda intoned, her voice rising. ‘You can tell a lot by first impressions, and I’ve got a sixth sense for this one. It feels right, so very right. I’m excited for you both. I’ll tell Mark you feel the same then and—’
‘Belinda,’ Aisha interrupted, ‘will you please tell Mark that I enjoyed Friday evening very much, and I am looking forward to him phoning.’
‘OK, playing it cool is fine by me, but be careful you don’t lose him.’
Aisha’s Monday morning at the bank passed with the usual fallout from new Saturday opening plus analysing the sales figures from the previous week, readjusting the staffing rota for the week ahead allowing for absences, and a meeting with the area manager. Then the ATM broke and it was two hours before the replacement arrived, and another hour before it was fitted and fully functioning, which put an additional strain on the already depleted staff of cashiers, all of which Aisha had to oversee because her deputy was on leave.
At one forty-five she was at her desk, surrounded by piles of papers and folders, with the outside line switched through while Grace took her lunch. Aisha’s sandwiches lay in their box beside the phone, and her computer was on, but she did nothing with either. She sat watching the movement of the hands on the wall clock, as they gradually inched towards two o’clock. Mark hadn’t phoned and he said he would. I’m like an adolescent schoolgirl, she thought, unable to settle to anything, waiting for him to call. She chided herself for having been so cool with him, as Belinda had put it, and for not giving her the encouragement she had wanted to take back to Mark. Perhaps I should phone Belinda, Aisha thought, and apologize for not being more forthcoming; explain that it’s just my nature, that I’m naturally reserved, that I really do want to see Mark again, and am as besotted with him as he is with me. Then she wondered if ‘besotted’ was his word or Belinda’s exaggeration.
At five past two, when Aisha had almost given up hope, the phone rang and she snatched it up. ‘Aisha Hussein,’ she said.
‘Aisha, it’s Mark.’ Thank goodness, she thought. His voice was exactly as she remembered it – as she had continuously recalled it since Friday. ‘I’m sorry I’ve left it so late,’ he said. ‘I got held up. Is it still OK to talk?’
‘Yes, but I might get interrupted.’
‘Me too. Sorry,’ he said again. ‘We’ll have to have a code word to alert each other when we’re not alone. Something we wouldn’t normally use like “sausages” or “wellington boot”.’
Aisha laughed. ‘Wellington boot. We could have done with them on Friday.’
‘Too right,’ he said, then paused and lowered his voice in intimacy. ‘It was a lovely evening, Aisha. I’ve thought about nothing else all weekend. I hope you didn’t mind Belinda calling?’
‘Not at all. The go-between.’
‘Yes. But it’s no longer necessary now, I hope. I just needed the reassurance, after everything I’ve been through. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I was beginning to think I was having an early mid-life crisis,’ Mark said. ‘I took work home and brought it back again, untouched, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Aisha, it really was a lovely evening. Damn,’ he said and stopped. She heard a noise at his end that sounded like a door opening and closing. ‘Wellington boot coming soon,’ he laughed. ‘Let’s arrange to meet quickly before I get interrupted again. Are you free tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Great. I could pick up some tickets for the theatre. We could eat first, if you’re coming straight from work.’
‘That would be lovely.’ She paused as Grace knocked on the door; then poked her head round, signalling her two o’clock appointment had arrived. ‘I have a wellington boot here too,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘It must be very muddy out there. Look, I’ll collect you from work at six. Is that all right with you?’
‘Yes, fine. I’ll wait outside the office.’
‘Until tomorrow then. Take care. You’re already very special, Aisha. I can’t believe how lucky I am – an old geezer like me.’
And so it began, his courtship, her romance. Whirlwind, yes, but given their ages and circumstances that wasn’t so very strange. For, as Mark said and Aisha agreed, they had both lost too much time already in going down the wrong path, and had a lot of catching up to do. Mark always managed to say and do the right thing; he was always the perfect gentleman, and wholly attentive to her needs.
In the six months that followed, they spent every available minute together and Aisha felt that all her dreams had come true. She and Mark talked endlessly about anything and everything – the myriad of little incidents that shape us and make us who we are. Mark met her parents and, although he still wasn’t close to them, she met his. He introduced her to his work colleagues and friends, of which there were many, for with his sympathetic ear and ready wit Mark attracted people like bees around a honeypot. By the time Aisha told her parents that Mark was divorced, carefully explaining the circumstances – how he had worked hard and had been badly deceived – they were so impressed with him, and he had become so much a part of their family that other than a couple of questions from her father about his children, it wasn’t an issue.
* * *
‘So did I miss something?’ she asked herself later, when she sat night after night, alone in her armchair, answering the inspector’s questions, trying to get it right in her mind. ‘Did I miss something in the
headiness of it all, when Mark literally swept me off my feet? Something that a different person might have seen? A seed of doubt, borne on the wind of chance that should have been harvested and grown to fruition? Would a different person have said, Now stop, wait a minute, that doesn’t quite add up. Would they? Was there a clue?’
And looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, she could see that there might have been: one clue, one crack in the otherwise unblemished china. A fine line of repair where the glue had been applied too liberally, and had set prominent over the join. So had she been more worldly-wise, she might have looked more closely, and then asked how it had been broken in the first place. But the clue, if it was one, came immediately before Mark proposed, and you don’t question the man who’s just asked you to marry him. Of course you don’t, not if you’re as much in love as Aisha was.
Chapter Eight
It was a clear, cold day in late October, when the autumn sun shone through the trees and sent little shafts of sunlight onto the hard earth. Hand in hand, Aisha and Mark made their way along the edge of the field, stopping every so often to pick up pine cones. They examined them, discarded the mildewed ones and, keeping only the best, dropped them into the carrier bag that swung from Aisha’s arm. A little childish rivalry had developed between them, a competition to see who could discover the biggest, the most perfect pine cone: the one that would be used in the centrepiece on their dinner table on Christmas Day.
Aisha had collected pine cones every year for as long as she could remember, spending an afternoon foraging in the countryside with her parents. Once they had collected enough cones, they would return home for her mother’s piping hot dhal, which she’d prepared the night before and said would ‘warm their bones’. After they’d eaten, Aisha would carefully wash the pine cones and spread them on newspaper to dry in the airing cupboard. Once dry, they were put away until December, when she painted them silver and gold, and used them as Christmas decorations, fresh ones every year.
Only this year, Aisha wasn’t doing it with her parents. She was doing it with Mark, who had fitted so perfectly and completely into her life, it was as though he had always been there.
‘Your house must look beautiful at Christmas,’ Mark said, brushing off the dirt from yet another find. ‘I confess, I haven’t put up decorations in recent years, there didn’t seem much point.’
‘And is there one now?’ Aisha teased, sure of his response.
‘Oh, without doubt. But I’m glad I’m coming to your house just the same. It will be a proper family Christmas. My first in ages.’
He put his arm around her shoulders, and drawing her to him, kissed her lightly on the cheek. He often did this – in the street, out shopping, meeting her from work, and when they were alone. It was a little statement of affection that said they were together, a couple, and she was his.
‘Our Christmases are very quiet,’ Aisha said, glancing up, a little concerned. ‘I hope it’s not too quiet for you. There’s just my parents and a few friends who drop by. I’ll make sure we have some decent wine in for you though. No one else drinks.’
Mark laughed good-humouredly and gently squeezed her shoulder. ‘Never mind the wine. I’ll be with you, that’s what counts. It will be my best Christmas ever, decent wine or not.’
He dropped his arm from her shoulders as they left the edge of the field, and then climbed over the stile into the wood. Mark led the way along the narrow, untrodden path, for only he knew where they were going. It had been his suggestion that they came here, when Aisha had told him of her proposed outing, and had asked him if he would like to join her.
‘I know just the place,’ he said, matching her enthusiasm. ‘Plenty of pine trees and very few people. It’s quite a walk as I remember, you can only take the car so far. It’s well off the beaten track.’
Aisha said she didn’t mind a walk, in fact she enjoyed one. And going somewhere different would make it all the more exciting, particularly as this year it was with him.
‘Now if I’m right,’ Mark called over his shoulder as they continued in single file, ‘there’s a stream just up here. My brother and I used to play there for hours as boys. He fell in once and I got a right bollocking, being the eldest.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t fall in,’ she laughed.
‘Good. I don’t want a telling-off from your mother. I’m still trying to impress her.’
Further up, the trees thinned out and a makeshift wooden bridge appeared. ‘I was right!’ Mark cried, stopping. ‘It hasn’t changed at all in all these years! Now, do be careful and use the rail. I’ll go first; if it takes my weight, it will certainly take yours.’
Aisha waited as Mark took hold of the gnarled branch that acted as a handrail and tentatively tested the planks of wood with his foot, then started gingerly across. ‘It’s OK,’ he called. ‘But mind how you go.’
She followed, running her hand along the rough wooden rail. She looked down into the small gully only a few feet below and saw the trickle of a stream running at the bottom. Even if the bridge were to give way, she thought, and they fell in, they wouldn’t do themselves much damage. They were like children really, alone in the countryside and imagining an awfully big adventure.
‘Your brother couldn’t have got very wet falling in that,’ she called, laughing.
‘No, it’s deeper further up. I’ll show you in a moment.’
On the other side of the bridge, the bank rose sharply and was heavily overgrown. Thick, brown, waist-height briars protruded menacingly from the undergrowth. Mark went ahead, forging a path, holding back the vines so they didn’t spring up and scratch her. It cleared again at the top and Aisha heard the sudden rush of water, unseen and close by. Mark took her arm and led her slowly to the edge of the clearing and they looked down. She gasped in awe and steadied herself against him, for what had been a trickle of a stream beneath the bridge was now a rushing waterfall in a steep and narrow gully.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she cried. ‘Absolutely beautiful! And to think I’ve lived not far from here all these years and didn’t know it existed.’
‘Not many people do,’ he said. ‘Which is why it’s remained so unspoiled.’
She stood beside him, gazing down into the clear pure water as it crashed between the narrow banks before bouncing into a whirlpool and disappearing underground. It looked so fresh and pure she could almost taste the droplets rising in the fine spray. The steady hypnotic flow was so constant and unfaltering it seemed as if there was no movement at all.
‘My brother and I used to make little boats out of sticks and leaves,’ Mark said, after a moment. ‘We would drop them here, at the top, and see whose survived the longest. It kept us amused for hours.’
‘And who won?’ Aisha asked, happy at the shared memory.
‘Me, of course,’ he laughed. ‘I was the eldest. It had to be me!’
Mark bent down and picked up a large leaf and, curling up the edges so it looked like a small boat, dropped it into the torrent. Aisha linked his arm and they watched together as the makeshift boat rose high on the current of spray, twisting and turning, holding its own, before being sucked into the water and disappearing into the whirlpool at the bottom.
‘Oh well, you can’t win them all,’ he shrugged, straightening.
Aisha continued looking down, gazing into the swirling pool and hoping against the odds that their little boat might yet reappear. But there was no sign of the leaf, it had gone for good, sucked under to decay at the bottom of the riverbed.
‘My father has a saying,’ she said shortly, ‘one of many. He says brooks become crooked by taking the path of least resistance, and people do too. I sometimes wonder if that’s what I’ve done – taken the path of least resistance. The easiest, the most acceptable.’
Mark looked sideways at her with a mixture of humour and indulgence. ‘You say the quaintest things sometimes, Aisha. How could you possibly think that, with everything you’ve achieved?’
She looked up and met his gaze. ‘I’ve conformed though, haven’t I? I’ve always done what was expected of me. The way I met you was the one and only exception.’
‘And what’s wrong with conforming?’ he said. ‘If it’s made you the person you are? You’re perfect, absolutely perfect, as I keep telling you. Though I must confess that makes me feel a certain responsibility sometimes.’
‘For me?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Why should you feel responsible for me? You didn’t make me what I am.’
‘No, but you’re so untouched, unscathed. Vulnerable, almost. I worry that I might harm you in some way.’
She looked at him and then spoke with uncharacteristic sharpness. ‘I’m not an ornament, Mark. I won’t break. Please don’t treat me as if I will.’
He fell silent for a moment. Then, with a small start, he turned squarely to face her. Taking hold of her shoulders, he drew her gently away from the edge of the gully, then placed his fingers lightly under her chin and tenderly tilted her face up towards his. His parted lips came down on hers and Aisha closed her eyes, and felt his mouth, firm and insistent with desire. She felt his body pressing against hers, his tongue exploring her mouth as he clasped her to him. She looped her hands round his neck and clung to him, buried her fingers into his hair, and returned the passion in his kiss. How she loved him, how close she felt to him, how she now yearned for him. She wanted Mark to know that – that if his passion continued and grew, and he wanted her, then she was at last ready to give herself to him, completely. For Mark had always said it must be her decision; that there was no pressure, no rush, and that he would wait until she was ready. Now she was, and she wanted him to know.
His lips left her mouth and moved slowly across her cheek and to her neck; kissing, sucking, gently taking the skin between his teeth. Her body trembled with desire and anticipation. ‘I need you,’ she breathed. ‘I want you, Mark.’
