by K. J. Frost
Aunt Dotty appears at the front door. As usual, she’s wearing her blue painting smock, with her dark blonde hair tied up loosely behind her head. She smiles down at us as I climb from the van and go around to help Amelie.
“Good journey?” she calls.
“Not bad.” I hold Amelie’s hand and accompany her up the steps of Aunt Dotty’s house.
“Why don’t you come inside?” she offers, standing to one side and letting us in. “You can unpack your things after lunch.”
I’m starving hungry and not about to argue with her.
Aunt Dotty welcomes Amelie with a kiss on the cheek, but then they’re well acquainted now, having met by pure coincidence last summer, and become friends over art and gin, long before I came on the scene.
“I’d offer you a drink,” Dotty says, “but you’ve already warned me not to.”
“Even if I wasn’t getting up at the crack of dawn,” I remind her, “I’ve got a lot of unpacking to do this afternoon…”
“Which I intend to help you with,” Amelie puts in.
I glance at her and smile.
Aunt Dotty shakes her head. “Well, Amelie can have a drink with me later,” she says. “Then you can take her home after dinner.”
“Gladly,” I reply.
After lunch, Dotty returns to her painting, which is a large landscape of Home Park she’s working up from a smaller sketch. She’s in the sunroom at the back of the house, with the gramophone playing in the background.
“What’s that?” Amelie asks as we go out into the hallway, ready to start unloading the van.
“What’s what?”
“The music. What is it?”
“It’s Elgar.”
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs, a little wistfully.
“I think it’s called Salut d’Amour.”
She looks into my eyes as I hold up her jacket for her to put on. “So, it’s something to do with love?”
“Something to do with it, yes.”
She turns and shrugs on her jacket, leaning back into me, while I let my hands rest on her shoulders, the music filling the house around us. “I suppose we’d better get on, or we’ll run out of light,” she says softly, twisting and looking up at me again.
“If we must.”
Reluctantly, I let her go, wishing I could take her through to the living room instead, sit her down on the sofa with me, and tell her how much I love her, then hold her close to me while the music surrounds us, binding us together, and I…
“Coming?” she asks, going to the front door ahead of me.
“Um… Yes.” I cough to disguise my embarrassment over where my thoughts were leading me and then I follow her, ruing another missed opportunity.
Outside, I hand her one of the lighter boxes, taking one of the heavier ones myself, and we go back into the house.
“I’m going to put everything in the spare room,” I explain, leading the way up the stairs. “Aunt Dotty’s set it aside for me to… well, to spread myself out a little.” I balance the box and open the door, letting Amelie go in ahead of me.
“Where do you want me to put this?” she asks.
“Oh, anywhere,” I reply. “I’ll spend next weekend going through everything.”
She puts her box against the furthest wall.
“You’re not going to sleep in here, are you?” she says, looking at the day bed that’s opposite her.
“No. My room’s next door.” I nod towards the front of the house. “I believe Aunt Dotty left the day bed in here in case I wanted to come and have some time up here to think, or to read, or… well, in case I should want to have anyone to stay,” I reply, feeling myself blush.
“Anyone?” she asks.
“I think she meant you.”
Amelie smiles and comes over to me. “But I only live across the road.”
“I know. Would you like to try explaining that to Aunt Dotty?”
She chuckles. “I think I’d be wasting my breath,” she replies.
“I’m absolutely certain you would be.”
We stare at each other for what feels like a full minute before coming to our senses and going back downstairs to fetch some more boxes. At some stage fairly soon, I really am going to have to tell her how I feel. I’m also going to have to kiss her. If I don’t, I’m in danger of spontaneous combustion. As I watch her descend the stairs ahead of me, I console myself with the fact that, in a week’s time, I’ll be living here permanently. Just one more week, that’s all. Hopefully I’ll survive it.
Chapter Two
The dreams are getting worse. I wake in a cold sweat, aroused with need, desperate to be touched, breathless with anticipation. Alone.
It’s morning and it’s cold. Well, it would be, I suppose. It is over halfway through November, after all.
I don’t want to get up and face another day, but at least it’s Saturday, so I don’t have to go to work. I drag myself out of bed and stumble to the window, stubbing my toe on the chair over which I hang some of my clothes, because I can’t always be bothered to put them back in the wardrobe.
“Shit. Fuck. Bugger,” I yelp, hopping up and down, stark naked, holding my foot. In my mind’s eye, I imagine her sitting on the bed, laughing at me, her hand covering her mouth in that coquettish way of hers. And then coming and comforting me, holding me in her arms and kissing me gently to ease my pain. It’s all imagination though. Because she’s not here. She never will be.
Calming, as the throbbing in my toe subsides, I open the curtains, pulling aside the blackout at the same time. I didn’t leave them open last night, as I sometimes do, because it was so cold and while I hate to be warm in bed, I also don’t like to freeze. It’s a grey, foggy morning and I turn back into the room, feeling my shoulders drop. How has it come to this? How has it come to a pokey draughty flat above a newsagents’ shop? How did I fall so far? I know the answer to that, of course. I lost myself to her, and then I lost her. Nothing’s going to change that. Nothing’s going to bring her back. She’s gone.
The need is still there though. The hunger, the desire. They still fill my every waking moment. Maybe if I try and find another woman – possibly even one who looks like her – perhaps I can satisfy the longing. There’s always a chance it won’t end so badly this time. I have to try. I have to.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror on the wall in the corner of the room.
“Who’d want you?” I say aloud, not that there’s anyone here to overhear me. I haven’t washed my hair for… well, I don’t know how long. No-one at work pays me any attention, or if they do, they don’t say anything, and I don’t really care anymore. I look tired. Haggard, actually. If I’m going to have even the slightest chance of finding anyone willing to spend an evening – or better still, a night – with me, I’m going to have to do something about my appearance. And the sooner the better.
A haircut is out of the question – I couldn’t face the banal conversation one is forced to make while a complete stranger does their job – but I can wash my hair and I go through to the tiny bathroom, running some water into the basin. I use a small jug to wet my hair, only remembering at the point where I’m dripping everywhere that my shampoo is on the other side of the room.
“Bugger,” I say to myself and shake my hair out just a little so I don’t drip too much, while I turn and grab the small bottle. Back at the sink, I bend over and lather up. It takes ages to rinse, but eventually, I’m fairly sure I’ve removed all the suds, and I feel around beside me for the towel that I know is hanging on the rail. I rub my hair dry, then stand and look at myself in the steamed up mirror, using the damp towel to clear it. There’s a comb on the window sill and I pull it through my hair, making sure it’s tidy.
I run a shallow bath and, once it’s warm enough, clamber in, washing myself all over, before rinsing off with a sponge. I don’t hang around. For one thing, there’s not enough water for a soak, and for another, it’s bloody cold in here. I wrap a towel around my
self and go back to the bedroom, switching on the electric fire and standing in front of it to dry off.
I decide on dark grey trousers and a jumper, finishing my outfit with a black jacket and hat, which I set at a jaunty angle. It may only be eleven o’clock in the morning, but for all I know, it could take me all day to find someone suitable…
“I’ve never done this before, but I only live over the road. You can come back to my place, if you want,” she whispers, resting her hand on my thigh under the pub table, and glancing around to make sure no-one’s looking. She’s young, blonde and very pretty. Just what I was looking for. It may have taken me until early evening to find her, but I think she’ll prove to have been worth the wait.
“Well, I have done this before and it sounds perfect,” I reply, leaning close to her.
She smiles at me and gets up from the table, almost breathless with anticipation.
It’s dark outside, but that works to our advantage and I take her hand in mine as she leads me away from The Queen’s Head.
“Where are we going?” I ask her.
She nods in the direction of the small parade of shops opposite the public house. “Just over there,” she replies. “I’m above the hairdressers.” We wait for a car to pass, its headlamps blacked out, and then cross the road. “The door’s around the back,” she continues, taking me to the rear of the shops.
It’s even darker here, and my eyes take a moment to adjust, but she obviously knows her way, and passes two sets of metal stairs, climbing up the third. I follow behind, admiring the view of her hips, swaying gently in her tight skirt, feeling my body respond to the sight.
She lets us in and, once I’ve closed the door, she pulls a black curtain across, before flicking a switch on the wall. We’re bathed in light and I look at her properly for the first time. She really is very pretty, with a slightly turned up nose, sparkling blue eyes and clear skin. I can tell she’s nervous though. It’s written all over her face.
“What happens now?” she asks, confirming my conclusions.
“What do you want to happen?” I reply. I can’t force her into this, no matter how much I need it. I’ve never forced anyone. I’ve cajoled, connived, persuaded, but never forced.
She takes a step closer. “I want to know what it feels like,” she says.
I smile at her and take her hand in mine again. “Where’s your bedroom?”
She nods to the closed door on my right. “Through there,” she whispers, her voice thick with desire, her eyes wide with longing.
I open the door, noticing that the curtains are already drawn, the room in darkness, but I don’t bother to turn the lights on. Instead, I turn, leaning into her, and cover her mouth with mine. She moans and I delve deeply with my tongue, feeling her arms come up and around my neck as I walk her backwards to the bed. Once she hits it, I lower her down and stand over her. In the light from the hallway, I can see her staring up at me expectantly. This is further than I’ve managed to get with any other woman since… since ‘she’ died. Maybe this time it’ll really work out. Maybe it’ll be different.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I ask, making certain. I don’t want her crying ‘foul’ afterwards. Not that I think she would. I think she’d be too embarrassed to do that, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
She nods her head and I lean over, kissing her even harder this time. I feel her part her legs and eventually, I break the kiss, raising her skirt, exposing her. She’s wearing stockings and white knickers and I place my fingers inside the lacy tops, as she lifts her hips off the bed so I can pull them down.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, truthfully.
She smiles and parts her legs wider still, and I know I have to taste her. I need to. Now. I kneel on the bed, pushing her legs even further apart and bend down…
A flash of remembrance comes back to me. A memory of ‘her’, lying beneath me, her legs apart, my tongue on her as she writhes and moans her pleasure, screams her ecstasy…
“I can’t do this.” I sit back on my ankles, clasping my head between my hands.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asks, sitting upright, facing me.
“No,” I reply. “No. It’s not you. It’s me.” I stand up. I don’t want to look at her. “I should go.”
“You don’t have to,” she says softly. “You can stay and talk, if it helps.”
“It won’t.” I know that.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, as I take a step away from the bed.
Everything. “Nothing.”
“Is it just cold feet?” she asks, moving to the edge of the bed, and looking up at me. “I thought you’d done this before… that’s what you said.”
“It’s not cold feet, and I have done it before.”
“That means it must be me,” she says, and I notice her eyes glistening in the light from the hallway.
“It’s not you. I’m sorry.” More sorry than you’ll ever know. “I’ll go now.”
“If you change your mind…” She leaves the sentence hanging.
“I know where you are,” I reply, trying to smile.
She nods.
I let myself out, feeling worse than I did before. Across the road, next door to the pub we vacated no more than twenty minutes ago, stands the parish church of St Peter’s. I’ve never been overly religious – I’ve never been religious at all actually – but I feel the need to communicate with someone, for a kind of presence in my life, for something to fill the void she’s left.
I re-cross the road and enter via the gate, the hinges creaking in the darkness, and make my way up the pathway to the wide oak doorway, turning the handle. It twists, but the door remains closed, locked. I’m barred from entering. Even here, I’m not welcome.
Overwhelmed by loss, I collapse to the ground, leaning back against the ancient outer wall of the church, and let the my head fall into my hands, my emotions having their way with me.
Why couldn’t I forget, just for a few moments? Why does the past have to keep overwhelming the present and the future? That girl was lovely. She was kind and, what’s more, she was prepared to offer herself to me, to take a chance on a few moments of happiness with a stranger. And I let her down. I failed. Again.
*****
“That was a lovely meal,” Amelie says as we leave the restaurant. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“I’m just sorry it’s taken me so long to finally get around to having dinner with you.”
“We have lots of dinners,” she replies, smiling up at me as I link her arm through mine and start the walk back home.
“We do. But they’re all with other people. And I wanted it to be how I said it would be… just us by ourselves. With candles and music, and no relatives or work getting in the way.”
“You old romantic, you.” She leans into me and I look down and see a soft smile on her lips, and her eyes shimmering in the darkness.
“Less of the ‘old’, if you don’t mind.”
“So you don’t mind being called a ‘romantic’ then?” she asks, gazing up at me, still with that humorous tone to her voice.
“Not where you’re concerned, no,” I reply, more seriously.
We’re about half way home, and there’s no-one about, although I’m not sure I’d care if there was. Not now. I stop and turn to face her. “Please…” I cup her face in my hand. “Please may I kiss you?”
She looks into my eyes. “Yes,” she whispers, tilting her head back and moving closer to me.
I lean down and brush my lips across hers, feeling her delicate softness as she responds to me. The next five minutes are filled with breathless sighs and heartfelt moans, hands touching, tongues dancing, fingers caressing, until I eventually break the kiss and pull back just slightly, staring down at her.
“Gosh,” she murmurs, letting out a long breath as she brings her fingers up, touching her slightly swollen lips. “I had no idea…”
I chuckle and she giggles, letting her for
ehead rest on my chest. There’s something very comforting about that gesture.
“I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time,” I whisper.
She looks up again. “What stopped you?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” I take her hand and continue our walk home. “I suppose that, to start with, the case was in the way. I was investigating Beth’s murder… and although I was often very tempted, I knew that to kiss you would have been highly inappropriate, not to mention unprofessional. Besides, I wasn’t sure what reaction I’d get; whether you’d slap me around the face or be offended and tell me you never wanted to see me again. More recently though, quite often, there’s been someone else with us, or the timing has seemed wrong somehow. I didn’t want you to feel like I was pushing you into anything, or to have any doubts about me. I just wanted it to be right.”
She turns, looking up at me as we walk. I can see in the moonlight that her eyes are glinting with something. She’s not upset. She’s not about to cry either. But there’s something there… some strong emotion that I can’t quite fathom. “I’d never have slapped you,” she says, quietly. “And I realise that the way we met might have made the timing feel a little awkward… But you’ve never made me feel like you’re pushing me. You’ve always behaved like a gentleman. And I’ve never had a moment’s doubt about you. Not one.”
I stop again and lean over, placing my finger beneath her chin and raising her face to mine, before gently kissing her tender lips.
Our walk continues in silence, with the two of us just staring at each other, until we reach her house.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asks as we climb the steps to the front door.
