by Carmen Reid
But what the hell could you ever know about other people’s marriages?
‘This doesn’t sound like anything too serious,’ Jo reassured him. ‘It’s just a . . . mild mid-marriage crisis or something. Sounds like it will all blow over.’
‘Ha . . . well, I don’t think so. She’s told me she’s met an English estate agent over in Majorca and they’ve had what she describes as a “brief affair” but she’s now gone back out there to “see what happens”.’ Jeff made the collar-loosening move that Jo recognized from some of their most stressful working moments together. His eyes met hers briefly but then wandered off around the room, failing to find anything to settle on.
‘You’re joking,’ was her response.
‘No, no - ‘ he was looking at her again. ‘I’ve known about this for exactly ten days and we’re already talking about selling the house,’ he confided. ‘That’s how out of touch I’ve been with her. Not exactly a good sign.’
Jo wondered how Jeff had managed to keep up such an amazing impersonation of normality at work, while this was going on. ‘You should have taken some time off,’ she told him. ‘This is terrible.’
‘God no,’ was Jeff’s verdict. ‘We’ve spent entire evenings ranting at each other – work has been a nice escape. I’ve heard all the “you never appreciated me . . .” “you take me for granted . . .” “we’re in a total rut. . .” stuff every single night. It’s been like living in a bloody soap,’ he couldn’t help smiling. ‘I drove her to the airport first thing on Thursday and it was a bloody relief to leave her there.’
He stopped for another swig, while Jo struggled to summon up words of comfort. It was just so surprising.
Jeff was a fixed point in her life, an unchanging constant, her support system. A man who’d never been to her home, who’d never met her children or her friends. In fact, she’d only seen him in the Swan or in and around the office, but over the years he’d become one of her most important friends, one of the most important men in her life. The fact that his marriage and maybe his state of mind were about to unravel all around her was deeply unsettling.
‘Has she been in touch from Majorca?’ Jo asked.
‘She’s phoned the boys,’ Jeff replied. ‘Doesn’t want to talk to me.’
‘Bloody hell. Do you think you’ll split up?’
‘Well, what do you think? It’s looking pretty likely to me.’
‘Do you want to split up?’ she asked him, registering the shadows under his eyes for the first time.
He propped his chin up with his hands and made the tongue-clicking sound she associated with moments of hard concentration and big-decision making on the newsdesk.
‘I don’t know,’ he said finally, ‘I don’t know her any more. How did that happen? I know you . . . I know Declan over there, Vince, Aidan, Mike, Rod, Spikey, Binah . . . I know just about every single person in my office better than I know my own wife. How did that happen?’
Chapter Twenty-Three
A man making love to his wife has a heart rate of 92 beats per minute, making love to his mistress it soars to 150, German scientists have discovered.
Daily Mirror
Saturday: 12.31 a.m.
Jo fumbled in her wallet to find the tenners to pay the grumpy taxi driver. She’d drunk at least two more than she should have, but the effect was already wearing off: she’d travelled home with the window down, clear cold evening air rushing onto her face, sobering her up.
There, in the welter of receipts, were the £10 notes. The ink on those receipts would fade soon and she’d have sheet after sheet of illegible paper with no idea of what to claim money back on. Oh well, mañana, mañana.
She folded the wallet closed again and suddenly thought of Mike Madell, the deputy news editor up at the bar much earlier in the evening. He’d seen her hauling out the wallet and he’d asked: ‘You still using that old thing? That’s nice. Jeff went to a lot of trouble to find that for you . . . phoning around shops all over London: did they have the right make? The right colour? Did they have the right style? Was it going to be big enough? I’m lucky to get a pint out of him on my birthday.’
Now wasn’t that bizarre? Jeff had told her it was from the freebie drawer. Why?! Her fixed point seemed to be on the loose all of a sudden and it was . . . unsettling.
She paid the driver, hauled herself out of the cab, slung her bag and her computer carry-case over her shoulder and stepped towards her house.
Beautiful night. She stopped for a minute to look up at the clear sky. She could see stars, that didn’t happen in London much, the lights were usually too bright for all but the most determined stars. But tonight, the sky looked a deep, vibrant blue pinpricked with more stars than she remembered seeing for ages. Must be some sort of freak atmospheric condition. Savannah would know . . . or her astronaut friend.
The cab rolled out of the street and it was very quiet, house lights out all along the neat little row. Jo walked towards her gate, still glancing at the stars, and felt for the latch.
‘Boo!’ said a voice coming at her out of the darkness.
‘Aaargh!!!’ was her instinctive response.
‘Sorry.’ The shadow stepped towards her and she saw that it was Marcus. Hair loose, curling on top of his shoulders.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Jo said, but she wasn’t cross with him. No, no, not at all.
‘I biked over.’ Now she saw the shiny cycle against her wall, wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before.
‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘No, just twenty minutes or so. Been stargazing – like you.’
She walked towards him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. She put her hands on his shoulders. Felt the collarbone, the warm, slightly damp T-shirt beneath her fingers. He moved his face towards her, but stopped short when he was an inch or so away.
‘Hello,’ he said. She could feel his warm breath on her face; the tip of his nose was almost touching her.
Her lips were pricking with an anticipatory tingle but she held back from him just for one moment longer.
He put a warm finger up against her lips and smoothed over them. The prickle did not abate. She could hear her heart thud in her chest. Blood pound in her ears. All this just for the thought of a kiss with him.
His arms were round her waist, pulling her against him. Then he was against her mouth, pushing past her teeth with his tongue.
And she was gone, all his. How did he do this?
Her elbows were on top of his shoulders, her body pushed into his. As close as they could be with their clothes on. Impossible not to think about the hard-on pressed firmly against her.
Her heart hammering so rapidly she was sure he must be able to feel it, Jo broke off, to be able to breathe, needing a long lungful of the night air.
‘Shall we go in?’ she asked, wishing her voice didn’t sound as shaken as she felt. It didn’t feel right to be so bowled over by a kiss. She should have outgrown this, be more adult, be better able to cope. Be more cool about it. This was thoroughly adolescent, she even felt a swirl of teenage confusion.
Embarrassing.
It took several moments to find the lock with her key, because her hand was trembling.
Inside the hall she turned on the light and this seemed to break the spell. She hung up her coat and dropped her bags.
Marcus was walking ahead of her to the kitchen. He didn’t seem to like any other room in her house, always made a beeline for the kitchen or the shower. Oh for goodness’ sake! The trembly shudder took hold of her again at the thought of him in the shower.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.
‘Nope.’ He stood, hands half jammed into his jeans pockets.
‘D’you want a drink?’ she tried.
‘Just a glass of water, maybe . . . No worries, I’ll get it.’ He turned to the sink and began to run the tap. ‘How about you?’ he asked.
‘Water would be good.’
�
�How’s your day been?’ he asked, opening the right cupboard, taking out two glasses.
She could only give a little laugh in reply to this: ‘Interesting,’ she settled on finally.
‘Got a good scoop?’ he teased.
‘Not bad . . . there’s a better one on the spike. But that, as they say, is another story. Shall we go next door? You know, if you don’t want food.’
Marcus flung himself across the sofa and she sank into the armchair opposite. His T-shirt slipped and she saw the smooth, honey-coloured hipbone jutting out from the top of his loose jeans.
She slid her eyes along his broad bare forearms, noticing the black plastic watch and the boy bracelets tied to his wrist on either side of it. His face was tilted up to the ceiling and his hair was doing the dweeby thing of sitting in a ruler-straight parting over his head but it just made her want him more. Want to go over there, ruffle it all up and throw her body on top of his.
He turned to look at her and to break the laden silence she asked how his work had been.
‘Busy, busy,’ he said. ‘We were one short in the kitchen, so the rest of us were flat out. Saturday night always frantic . . .’
He added a little anecdote and ended with: ‘So there we are . . . That’s about it.’ But it wasn’t.
They were speaking simple, straightforward sentences. But everything in this room was complicated. Why was he over there? Keeping a distance? Maybe he didn’t want to do this any more. But then did she? Hadn’t she been thinking about this for some days now?
How interesting would she find him in a few more weeks’ time? All this heady adrenalin hit stuff was going to wear off. Wasn’t it? She’d be left making culinary small talk. Marcus’s favourite topics of conversation, in order: cooking, shopping for cooking, CD burning – not buying, obviously, Grandma – vodka and cycling.
‘Marcus, Marcus . . .’ she said.
‘Jojo,’ he answered, which made her snort with laugher. It sounded so Primary Four.
‘What are we doing?’ she asked.
‘Hangin’ out,’ was his answer. ‘I’ve got two things to tell you.’ He sat up and opened the flaps of his bag: ‘I’m going to South Africa for the summer and I’ve bought you a present.’
She felt somewhere between relief and deflation with those words. This was probably it. This was where they drew the line and said goodbye. Jo found herself surprisingly touched by the handbag. It was perfect. It was thoughtful, totally appropriate and so cute.
She thanked him profusely but from something of a distance. In her mind was the thought that this should be goodbye, this was a good moment. End on an up.
And he seemed to feel the same. After a little more talk, he stood up and told her: ‘I should go. You’ve had a really long day and . . .’
And . . . well. . . he didn’t need to say the rest.
But in the hallway, in the semi-darkness, she made the mistake – or was that, had the good idea? – of kissing him goodbye, properly, and found she was lost and disorientated. It reminded her all over again of exactly how excruciating first kisses were. All that heart hammering and blood rush. It wasn’t exactly nice, wasn’t comfortable. She had no idea what to expect next. Why did this feel like a car crash every time? A rollercoaster – she was gripping the rails and screaming for help. All of a sudden, she wasn’t in the slightest bit drunk, wasn’t even tired. She was wide awake, minutely conscious of every tiny movement.
His lips were soft, his mouth was a little dry, despite the glass of water, he tasted of garlic and cigarettes. Something a little stale and unbrushed, un-minty. Real.
She realized her want for him was unbridled. Unstoppable. There was no way she could let him out of the door.
He was pulling her skirt up. She didn’t want him to, not in her head. Meanwhile, her hands were pulling the skirt up too.
Tights. Of course she was wearing tights. Was she expecting her twenty-something lover to be waiting at her door?
They pulled them clumsily down too.
‘I can’t do this,’ she said, but it was in between kisses, in between feeling his tongue curl against hers, letting it fill up her mouth.
‘I don’t mind,’ was his answer, gasped out. ‘You just let me know . . . know what you want.’
Her hand was in his trousers feeling for him. And still she didn’t think they should be doing this. In her head.
Her fingers on the velveteen folds at the top. The fingers of her other hand between his teeth now, touching his teeth and tongue.
She put her lips down onto the soft, warm skin pulled tight over his collarbone. She didn’t even know why his collar and hip bones were such a turn-on for her. Maybe because these were the things she caught glimpses of when she talked to him, when she watched him.
‘Can we talk about this upstairs?’ he was asking.
In the bedroom, they took each other’s clothes off, kissing frantically. Landed on the chill of the bedspread naked and started to tangle together energetically. He came against her leg. She wasn’t ready for that, felt some disappointment at the warm burst on her skin.
But one of his hands was held tightly around her back and the other . . . the other moved gently but deliberately against her, inside her, while his mouth stayed up at her ear, whispering right against her lobe. ‘Here? Just here? OK? Move me to the right place . . . ’
She closed her eyes, curled an arm around him and pushed her face into his hair. Fell into a rhythm.
At last, she felt in a private, enclosed space with him. This was just about them. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought, didn’t matter what she thought, what Simon thought, or her mother, or Bella or . . . anyone. It didn’t matter what anyone thought. It didn’t even matter what she was supposed to think.
This was her, alone with him. Private and alone. His fingertips on minuscule parts of her. In a room, in a house, in a street, in a city, in a country, in the world, in the universe. Who cared? It was a tiny insignificant stiffening of muscles, blood rush, and tingling.
He was hard again and moved into her, kept a finger expertly in place; she moved to get a better grip on him.
Just one tiny, insignificant stiffening of muscles, blood rush, pulse and tingling. Tiny . . . insignificant . . . unimportant, abandoned, but . . . no . . . tiny . . . insignificant. . . unimportant. . . please . . . just. . . yes . . . that’s . . . yes . . .
She’d forgotten how real this was, how alive you were when this happened, how it could make colours explode in your head, behind your closed eyes.
The pit of the stomach excitement, the feeling of falling, plummeting, hurtling. She held onto him tightly, to keep afloat, to keep her bearings. If he was aware that something different had happened he didn’t say anything about it. He came with a quiet gasp and gripped her tightly until they were both so hot and sweaty that he had to move off and sink face first onto the bed.
All quiet in the moment of exposure. Maximum vulnerability.
She put her hand on his back.
‘It’s OK,’ she said. More to herself.
‘Yeah . . . who knows?’ he said.
Who knows . . . ? It was just coming back to her that she hadn’t had any sleep. Hadn’t slept for two days. Suddenly she didn’t think she even had the strength to get in under the covers, she was so tired.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Falling in love used to be fun. Now doctors are warning that the throes of passion should be seen as a potentially fatal medical disorder. Psychologists say that ‘lovesickness’ is a genuine disease that needs more awareness and diagnosis.
The Independent
The following Friday: 3.25 a.m.
Jo’s bedside phone had a soft, muted ring tone. The volume control was always turned down low deliberately to save her from being thrown out of bed in the middle of the night by a blaring bell.
When the phone began to purr gently beside her, she picked up, suspecting she knew who this was.
Who else would be awake on a Thursda
y night, make that, Friday morning, watching the results of a by-election on the TV?
‘Hello, is that you?’ she said into the receiver.
‘Don’t know. Which you do you think it is?’
‘See, it is you.’
‘So you’re awake then?’
‘Of course I’m awake! This is exciting.’
‘They’re just about to declare.’
Jeff’s low voice on the other end of the line sounded tired, but conspiratorially close to her ear.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘I thought you might like someone to keep you company for it.’
‘Did you? That was nice of you. But we’re going to regret this tomorrow morning, aren’t we? Industrial strength coffee all round.’
‘Never mind, it’s only Friday.’
‘Ha.’
Then there was silence, but it was comfortable. No need to say anything else. They were silent because the returning officer was stepping up to the microphone in the middle of the stage.
The candidates standing for election in Oxford North lined up beside him: seven of them, twitching, adjusting collars, flicking their hair, all looking tense, even Savannah whose hands were twisting together in a way that Jo wished she didn’t recognize. Savannah was taller than everyone else in the lineup and looked . . . well, ‘extraordinary’ would be about the right word. Everyone else was in office wear: suits and shirts. But she’d chosen a soft, multicoloured, although mainly green dress, worn tied at the waist, over trousers and high-heeled boots. No wonder she towered over everyone.
Her hair was tied back and as well as the nervous hand twitching there was something else that set her apart: she looked ready.
