She leaned back, closing her eyes. ‘I’d better go home soon.’
In the silence that followed, she sensed before he did it, that he would touch her. His hand was warm and heavy on her thigh. ‘Eleanor.’ She opened her eyes. There he was, tawny in firelight, his shirt open at the neck, so that the red-gold hairs sprang up curling on his throat and chest. His hand curved gently round the back of her head, and drew her face close.
‘Relax,’ he whispered, ‘it’s all right.’
All he did was kiss her, over and over, longer and longer, his beard brushing her face, his hand caressing her cheek and chin, his tongue probing first softly, then insistently, till she was boneless in his arms, her hands coming up to his chest to say stop, but fluttering away, then coming up again to hold onto him, round neck and waist, the roughness of beard and hair, the soft cotton of his shirt. ‘Come on,’ he said, and pulled her up, till they were somehow standing, though she did not know how her legs could hold her – too much wine, too much – her head filled with something that might have been music, a drumbeat.
The bedroom was cold, but not cold enough to rouse her. She was so hot, and he was so hot, the coolness of the sheet soothed. They were both half-undressed, helping each other to tug and peel off clothes. ‘All right?’ he kept asking. ‘All right?’ and ‘Yes,’ she said, or sometimes, ‘I shouldn’t, oh, I shouldn’t,’ while at the back of this, a tiny clear voice said why not?
Then he stopped, propping himself on one elbow to look at her.
‘You’re stunning,’ he said, smiling. ‘So, so beautiful, Eleanor. But you must know, you must, I can’t help wondering why there’s not a man, why you’re on your own still?’ Then he laughed, and kissed her throat, and held her close to him: ‘My good luck,’ he said. Eleanor moved away, struggling to come to herself, awake and anxious.
‘Gavin, I haven’t, I’m not – it’s been such an awful long time—’
‘Hey, I’ll take care of you.’ He waved his hand inches from her skin, that shivered goose-fleshed at his almost-touch. ‘Look at you, how lovely you are.’
So she looked. As if for the first time. White moonlight lay across the room, luminescent on skin. Eleanor saw her body as young, unblemished. She had been married and borne a child, but it seemed now as if none of this had left a mark. Renewed virginity sealed her, permanently young and perfect. Now his warm hand on her ribcage travelled up and onto one of her breasts. The nipple, raised with the coldness of the air, hardened, and as she turned to him, her flesh shimmered white, moved to meet his, and she became aware of the blue-white of his skin shading into reddish brown where the sun had darkened it. She trembled, to find herself so naked with a stranger, but it was too late now, to change her mind, for he was making himself ready, moving over her.
‘I can’t—’
‘Sorry,’ he murmured, pushing hard and far inside her. ‘I should wait, I can’t – oh, God, Eleanor.’ She gasped, raising her knees to make it easier, let him in, move with him.
It was the same, and not the same. Afterwards, he held her tight, tight in his arms, then rolled onto his back, keeping her close along the length of him, hugging her, one arm still round her shoulders.
‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘You were miles off, weren’t you?’ He turned to her. ‘You want to come?’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘No, but …’ She was going to say, ‘I never do,’ but could not, as if it would still be too much of a betrayal. ‘It’s all right,’ she ended.
‘No, it’s not. Come here.’
But after a moment, she pushed his hand away. ‘I can’t.’
If it had never worked before, why would it now? She did not want to reach that pitch of frustration again. Ian had tried, of course he had, but she had decided, eventually, that it was something not to be tried for. Perhaps they had both given up. ‘I’m fine,’ she used to tell him. ‘I don’t mind.’ And yet now she did.
Gavin raised himself up and drew the covers over her. ‘Keep warm,’ he said, ‘and sleep a while. We’ve got all night.’
‘Oh no, I must go home!’ She struggled up, but he pushed her back.
‘I know what you’re afraid of.’
‘I’m not, I—’
‘You think Edie will spot you sneaking past her door, and then she’ll know you’re not such a virtuous widow after all.’
Eleanor could not help laughing. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘And she gets up so early.’
‘Well, then. Stay for breakfast, stay till you can wander back as if you’ve just been in to borrow a cup of sugar.’ He lay back with his hands behind his head. ‘Why would anyone want to borrow a cup of sugar, do you think?’
Eleanor too lay back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Cuddle up,’ he ordered, tucking the covers round them. I will never sleep, she thought, and slept.
She woke in the night suddenly, clear-headed and amazed to find herself here, and with him. He woke with her, moving already for sex, wanting her. Grateful, astonished at his tenderness, she let him touch and stroke and tickle her, giggling a little, clutching at him, knowing of course that none of it would work, but wanting to please him. Then, unwilled, and at last, wave after wave of tremulous pleasure, as she drew him in, warm and wet, moving in a rhythm not his or hers, but belonging to them both, faster and harder, deeper and stronger. Helpless within this, she was unable to tell any longer where she ended and he began. Over and over he pushed inside, withdrew, touched her again, till pleasure thickened along her thighs, with a great heat that welled and welled and thrust her suddenly up and over the high cliff at last, and she fell like a diving bird, a stone, tumbling and tumbling, plummeting down the other side.
Powerfully, she pushed him off, curled away from him, whimpering with relief and fear.
‘There now,’ he said, turning her towards him again. That’s better, isn’t it?’ As if she were a child, to be soothed out of fretfulness. Her face was wet with tears and he dabbed them away with the sheet, holding her, triumphant.
Later, going home boldly in front of Edie’s house at eleven in the morning, she realised what it was she had learned. What she had always believed to be her lack, her fault, might after all have been Ian’s. Or at any rate shared, something they lacked together.
Now – she was changed!
She phoned Marion when Gavin had left, and was driving down to Aberdeen, but at once heard something unfamiliar in her sister’s voice, before Marion could discern what was different in hers.
‘Oh, I’ve been sick,’ Marion said. ‘I feel a bit rough.’
Eleanor’s heart sank. How could she be happy, when Marion was ill?
14
All the way to Marion’s house, along the Dingwall road, slowing for the railway bridge on the bend, faster down the last straight stretch into the town, joy rose in Eleanor like a bubble of laughter.
I am all right, the words drummed in her head. There is nothing wrong with me.
All those years, had she really thought there was? All those years – was that happening to other women, regularly, often? To Marion? They knew everything about each other except this. They had lived apart for the first years of their marriages, and you do not write in letters, say on the phone, I’m having wonderful orgasms, or, in Eleanor’s case, I never manage to get there, no I never have … Eleanor laughed aloud, unable to help herself.
She could not remember driving the last of the road to Marion’s house, the traffic lights, the corner, the street dividing. I’m a crazy woman, she thought. I’ve never been like this, ever. Still that tingling all the way through, a teasing echo.
Marion was white-faced and looked tired, but not ill. Eleanor, torn between guilt and relief, said, ‘Are you all right? I’ll make us tea, shall I?’
‘If you like, but I probably won’t drink it.’
They went into the living room, which was scattered with newspapers, mugs and glasses.
‘I haven’t even tidied in here since last night,’ Marion said, half-heartedly gathering things up and trying not to bend too low or too sharply.
‘I’ll do it.’ Eleanor had the energy of half a dozen women. In a moment the room was straight.
‘What’s happened?’ Marion asked, when Eleanor finally sat down with her.
‘Nothing!’
‘Eleanor, you look – well, I have to say, you look great.’
‘I’m sorry, I feel so mean when you’re not well.’
‘For goodness sake, why should you? It’s only this nausea. It’s a side-effect, Fergus says it’s common. Mary Mackay warned me, and the consultant. It’s past now, I’m all right.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘Anyway, tell me what’s happened.’
Eleanor flushed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean it, I hardly know myself what’s going on.’
‘It’s this man, isn’t it? I thought he was going away soon?’
‘Today.’
‘Oh, you were having dinner with him, you and Claire, weren’t you?’
‘Claire didn’t go. She was at the cinema with Sarah – then sleeping over at the Pattersons’.’
‘I see.’ Eleanor was still glowing. My goodness, thought Marion, about time. ‘Well, well,’ she said aloud. ‘I hope you’re being … careful.’
‘Oh, he was.’ And blushed again, laughing, her head dipping so that the heavy hair fell over her face, hiding the joy. This is crazy,’ she murmured. ‘Like I was fifteen again.’
‘I thought men with red hair were impossible?’ Marion was laughing with her.
‘I know, I know – I’m not – I don’t know, Marion. I feel stunned.’
‘I can see that.’
Marion thinks I’m in love with Gavin, and perhaps I am, Eleanor wondered, it’s so long since – and I know so little about it. Love.
‘I’ll phone you,’ he had promised.
‘From an oil rig?’
‘We do have telephones,’ he said, amused. ‘Sure, ring you in a few days.’
By Sunday night, one day later, she was listening for this, longing for the call to come. When it did, it was her father.
‘You tell me,’ he said, ‘how Marion is. She just says she’s fine.’
‘She feels sick a lot,’ Eleanor explained, ‘and she’s tired. That’s all. Don’t worry, it’s common.’
‘This chemotherapy,’ he said. ‘How long is she to go on getting it?’
‘Every three weeks, just for a day or so. She’s in overnight, then home.’ They had gone over this already with their father, but he did not seem to hold onto the information. Marion had said to Eleanor, ‘it’s like me not taking in what the doctor says – fear, anxiety – something gets in the way.’
‘It’ll be for about three, four months,’ she explained again. ‘Six treatments, then they’ll do a scan. After that, maybe a bit of radio-therapy. But we don’t know that yet.’
‘But she’s keeping all right, so far?’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, not wanting to tell him about the sickness again. Better he did not know, really. If her mother had still been there, it would have been different. No way of protecting her from the truth, who always knew it before they did. ‘What about David?’ she went on. ‘Any word? I haven’t heard a thing since New Year.’
‘Oh, he rang, now, when was it? Monday – I forget. Sometime in the week.’
‘Is he working?’
‘Oh aye. Something to do with computers.’
A few minutes later, there was another call. This time she picked it up in the kitchen. Claire was in her room with Sarah and two or three other girls. It would be for her. They seemed to spend hours ringing each other at the weekend: three girls in one house, four in another, shrieking and giggling. Since the conference call David had arranged before Christmas, Claire had been begging her mother to let them all have one too. It would be brilliant. Mum.
It was David.
‘Dad’s just been on. How are you?’
‘Great – couldn’t be better. This thing with Phil’s really taking off. I’m out and about all the time.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Seeing clients, fixing stuff up for them. You know.’
Of course, Eleanor did not. This was David at his worst, full of himself, expansive with plans and great connections, unreachable.
‘Oh well, good. I’m glad it’s going well.’
‘How about you? Marion? Is she having her chemo yet?’
‘What? Yes, of course she is. She’s due for the second lot next week.’
‘How’s she coping? Phil’s partner was married before, you know. He died of cancer. Different kind, obviously, but she’s been through the mill with it. I was telling her about Marion, she’s totally sympathetic, Sophie. Understanding.’
‘This is really what we want to hear, David,’ Eleanor sighed. ‘For goodness sake don’t go telling Marion about your friends dying of cancer.’
‘What do you take me for?’ He was offended, but not enough to shut up. ‘I only meant, you know, Sophie was the sort who understands all that stuff. Pity Marion can’t speak to her. Does she have anyone like that?’
Eleanor had been longing to say to David, ‘Look, my life’s changed, changing.’ Why hadn’t he picked it up at once, tuning into her mood? Once he would have done.
‘Marion’s being very sick,’ she said now. ‘It’s hard on her. Fergus says she won’t be able to work.’
‘Doesn’t have to though, does she? With the good doctor to provide.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ She had wanted him to be in touch, had missed him, but this was hopeless. ‘I have to go,’ she lied. ‘Claire’s wanting me.’
A pause, where he said nothing, then suddenly, ‘Sorry. Had a couple before I rang you. Give my love to Marion, right?’
‘Yes, of course I—’ A click, then silence. He had gone. That was it, of course; he had been drinking.
The phone rang three times after that. Claire’s friends: prolonged conversations, much whispering and giggling, Eleanor’s bed rumpled by the girls sprawling across it.
Eleanor sat in the living room with a cup of cooling coffee and tried, and failed, to write a poem about sex. She looked at the flat words on the page, which did not seem to reflect in any way what they had done, what she had felt. How could she live for the next three weeks not seeing him, forgetting day by day how he looked, the way his voice lowered when he spoke to her, the touch of him.
Later, in a row on the sofa bed in the boxroom, the girls talked late into the night, cosily tucked up together. Eleanor lay alone, and could not sleep.
For the next chemotherapy session, Eleanor drove Marion to the hospital. It was a fine February day, sudden and deceptive, mild as spring. The sun lay yellow on the calm waters of the firth. The trees were still bare, but everywhere, if you looked closely, were the tight black embryos of new buds, and in the wet winter earth, green shoots breaking through.
‘What a lovely day,’ Eleanor said, opening the car door for Marion to get in. Her sister made a face.
‘What a day to be going into hospital.’
‘I know – but it’s only overnight. This weather might last a few days.’
They drove in silence for a while.
‘Your friend, Gavin – he’s away, is he?’
‘Yes, he said he’d phone sometime.’
‘I’m sure he will.’ Marion had heard despair in Eleanor’s voice. Already, she thought. This man’s only been gone a week or so. Perhaps it was serious. Well, you could tell Eleanor was serious, that was to be expected. Marion hoped it was serious for Gavin Soutar too. If only Eleanor did not expect too much.
Marion pursued this line of thought, glad of anything that would distract her from the hospital bed, the doctor coming round, the drip feeding into her arm, the long hours till tomorrow, when she could go home again.
‘Why can’t they just give you tablets to take at home?’ Eilidh had wanted to know.
&
nbsp; ‘It’s not tablets, it’s an injection, and this drip thing, it goes in slowly, so you have to lie down while it does.’ Marion did not feel she could explain any further.
One or two of her friends had said to her (perhaps not knowing what other comfort to offer) that at least, being married to a doctor, she would have someone to answer all the questions. Of course, it was not like that. Fergus did his best, but his reluctance to commit himself to advice in an area where he had only general knowledge, and his fear of worrying Marion, had kept them from much talk of her treatment or symptoms. Marion found it hard to remember what any of the hospital doctors had told her, and she had failed to ask sensible questions, even when she had the opportunity. This, as much as anything, alarmed her. Illness makes you childish, she thought, her mind running on this after all, as Eleanor negotiated the Maryburgh roundabout, and they soared off up the hill to Inverness.
‘Have you heard from David again?’ she asked Eleanor, making an effort to get her mind on something else.
‘No. I told you he phoned, didn’t I, and he was asking for you?’ Eleanor sighed. ‘He was awful though, it was a dreadful conversation.’
‘What sort of awful? You did say he’d been drinking.’
‘Oh, you know. Boasting about his job, which I still don’t really believe in. On a high. You couldn’t talk to him at all.’
‘Sometimes, he doesn’t seem to belong to our family,’ Marion said.
‘Oh, of course he does. He’s just different. But I don’t know why.’ Now Eleanor wanted to defend him.
Marion knew there was something linking David and Eleanor that she did not understand. Something about Ian, more than Eleanor had told her after the funeral. Marion had liked Ian well enough, without feeling she really knew him. They had moved South so soon after the wedding, there was hardly time. He was not the sort of man you could easily feel close to in weekend visits, short holidays. Marion remembered him as fit, looking always slightly tanned, with blue eyes and thick fair lashes. An attractive, impatient man. Well, impatient with Eleanor, and Claire too, even when she was little. But the last man in the world to have a heart-attack at thirty-seven. Just as I am the last woman in the world to have cancer, she thought now, a breast missing, a world split open. It was no good, all she could think about was the day and night to come.
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