by Clare Naylor
“And you want to find him?”
“No, I don’t want to find him. But unfortunately I have to.” Mirri walked back to the middle of the shed, and the color returned to her skin. “The thing is, I used to think that it didn’t matter. That unrequited love was somehow noble and romantic and better than a love that runs its course and fails as it invariably does. It was an ideal that I could never mess up and never tarnish. That’s why it shone so brightly, I suppose. But now . . .” Mirri looked with indifference at her face in the mirror over Kate’s sink. “Now I don’t want to be like Jay Gatsby, standing beside the lake looking out at the light on Daisy Buchanan’s pier for years and years, just being happy that she exists in the world. That’s not enough now. I used to be comforted by the mere thought that Nick Sheridan existed. Now I know that it was just fear that kept me away. And I hate to be a coward,” she snapped angrily at herself in the mirror.
“Do you want me to help you?” Kate asked, making a note to herself to read The Great Gatsby one of these days. She was longing to tear down the garden path right this minute and force Leonard to spill all the beans he had on the subject of Nick Sheridan.
“I want you to go on your date. We’ll talk about it later,” Mirri said tersely. “Now go. Leave. And don’t forget his balls.”
“Yuck.” Kate scowled and then tapped Mirri on the arm. “We’ll find him. I promise,” she said as she and her handbag fled the shed.
When Kate walked into Louis’s sitting room the first thing she noticed was that the sweetpeas had gone. There were no flowers on the table, just a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses.
“Red?” he asked as he gave her a barely there kiss on her lips.
“Lovely.” Kate took the huge balloon glass. She had half dreaded turning up to find the table laid in a candles and napkins cliché of a romantic dinner. But then she ought to have realized that Louis was much cooler than that.
“I bought some steaks from the Edwardian butcher. I thought I’d just put them on when we get hungry,” he told her as he went over to the bookcase. “This is for you, by the way. If you’re going to paint Mirri’s portrait you might want to take a look.”
“ ‘Lucian Freud’s portraits,’ ” Kate read as he handed her a large coffee table book.
“Some of them are all right. You can keep it.”
“Thanks. I finally have her permission to do it properly by the way. Which is great. No more sneaking around.”
“Great. Only Picasso to compare yourself to, then.” He laughed.
“Thanks for reminding me. She hates his one, though. Says it’s in her kitchen in Africa.” Kate sat on the sofa balancing her glass of wine and flicked through the pages of the book. “Mirri and I had a bit of heavy-duty talk before I left actually,” she said. “That’s why I’m late.”
“You’re late because you’re Kate. Late Kate. You always are.”
“I’m late because I was involved in a metaphysical discussion on the nature of love,” she said, taking exception to the accusation. Then laughed.
“Really?” Louis looked interested and sat on the sofa opposite her. “So tell me about love, Miss Disney.”
“Well, sometimes you can be in love for just a day or two but it can be the only one true love of your life,” she said as though she were reciting algebra in school.
“No kidding.” Louis winked. Kate blushed furiously.
“I keep forgetting.”
“I don’t.”
“Louis . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s not think about anything. Let’s just have our evening and see what happens, shall we?” he said, anticipating Kate’s reservations about where they went from here.
“Is that okay?” she asked, feeling slightly guilty. Because even though his kiss had blown her out of the water and she’d thought of little else all week, she still hadn’t had time to so much as ponder the idea that they might become a couple. And though it was as clichéd as the dinner table with two candles to say so, she just wasn’t ready yet.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ve had ten years to get used to the idea. You have what’s commonly referred to as a grace period.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, meaning it.
“So medium rare with chips okay?” He tilted his wineglass back and drained it. “I hope so because the menu here’s not very extensive.”
“Lucky for you it is very okay,” Kate said, and followed him into the kitchen.
As Louis expertly threw together a dressing and salad, Kate sat on the counter nursing her glass and chatting inanely to him. At one point he needed to get a plate from the cupboard behind her head so she ducked out of the way—only to collide with his shoulder. The soft wool of his sweater grazed against her cheek and she felt the urge to nuzzle deeper. But resisted. She was shy of Louis no matter how clear he’d made his intentions.
“I don’t think I’d be here if I hadn’t met Mirri, you know,” Kate said as she watched Louis slice avocado with a contented smile.
“What, here in my kitchen?”
“Well I might be in your kitchen but I wouldn’t be . . . well, on a date or whatever it is that I’m doing here.”
“Seriously?” Louis looked around for a second.
“I used to want to get married and have children and lead the same life that all my friends were. I don’t think I even stopped to care whether I’d be happy when I got it. I just didn’t want to be left behind.”
“Oh, come on, Kate. You were never going to be left behind.” Louis watched her as she swung her legs against his cupboard doors and gnawed away at a sugar cube she’d found by the kettle. “And stop eating that thing. You’ll ruin your appetite.”
“But that’s not even the point. Sure, I’d like to have children by the time I’m forty, but why should that mean I have to rush into a relationship with some man who most likely isn’t right for me just because everyone else is?” Kate wasn’t sure if she should be so candid with Louis—she wasn’t used to being honest with a man she was kissing—but she wanted to talk and he hadn’t shown any signs of looking like she might be transgressing some sacred law, so she carried on. “There are so many different ways of doing things, that’s what I’ve learned from Mirri. She had love affairs, she married, she divorced, she did all the conventional things but never out of a sense of fear. Only because she passionately wanted to do them. And that’s the way we all should be, right? Especially now that we, women I mean, aren’t socially obliged to behave in such a staid way. I just wonder why we all continue to do it.”
“Well, some people want to get married and be settled,” Louis said reasonably as he sought out some salad servers from the dishwasher.
“Yeah, but not all the people who do it want to. By any means. They’re just scared.” As Kate said this she thought how entirely opposite to this Mirri’s situation was. She wasn’t scared to not be in love, she was scared to be in love. Which was proof that everyone had their foibles—maybe the way things were turning out Kate could teach Mirri something in return for all that she’d learned. “Anyway, the point is I’m not afraid to be a bit different anymore,” Kate said. “I mean, it’s not as though I’m going to go and live in a castle and have fourteen babies by different men or anything, but I think that if that really grabbed me, I might be brave enough to do that now.”
“Well, if you do go and live in your castle I’ll happily sort you out with one of the babies.” Louis grinned. “Now, shall we eat steak? You’re going to need all the energy you can get.”
After supper, over which Kate and Louis continued to discuss life and love and choices—but not themselves—they took their glasses and wandered through the flat and out onto the balcony.
“Louis,” she said as they sat on chairs next to one another and looked out over the canal, which in the dark, when you couldn’t see the foaming filth stagnating on the surface, almost shimmered under in the light of the moon. “What about other women. I know you said you’ve bee
n in love with me all this time but there must have been other girls you’ve been in love with.”
“There were one or two.” He didn’t seem to be at all uncomfortable with this conversation. “And it’s not like I wouldn’t have gotten by without you. It’s just that I always saw so many possibilities for us.”
“Like what?”
“Well, strangely it wasn’t all about wanting to have passionate sex with you.” He smiled cheekily.
“It wasn’t?” Kate pretended to sound outraged.
“No. I wanted to hang out with you. I wanted to show you my work. I wanted to talk about yours. I wanted to go to galleries on Sunday afternoons with you,” he told her as he looked out over the water. “I also wanted to take you to Florence and drink wine with you in little bars; to read to you as you sat in the bath. To do what we’re doing now, just sitting around and talking. It’s not very exciting, is it?” He turned to her at this point to gauge her response.
“It sounds lovely,” Kate said. She’d been watching him as he spoke and she was overwhelmed by the sense of who she was that he seemed to have. He knew what it was about her that he liked. She was only just beginning to see things in him that made her feel the same way.
“I like the idea of the bath.” She had been looking at his mouth and the way his long legs were sprawled out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and she wanted to be entangled with him.
“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow naughtily and Kate was surprised by the ripple of excitement that she felt.
“I think so.”
“Come here.” Louis beckoned her over with a curled index finger, as if he were going to tell her a secret. Kate shuffled apprehensively in her seat for a moment and then got up and walked toward him. She glanced at his face only once, though; the rest of the time she looked at her feet. “Sit down.” He took her hands and guided her onto his knee, where she sat with her feet dangling over one side of his legs. She put an arm around his shoulder and finally managed to look at him properly.
“Louis, I’m not very used to all this,” she said, for want of anything else to deflect her trepidation.
“Got to admit it’s a bit surreal.” He laughed. “I can see the chip on your front tooth for one thing. I’ve never noticed that before.”
“Oh, God, has it put you off me?” Kate said, and covered her mouth.
“Yeah, in fact I don’t think I’ll ever be able to kiss you again. It’s pretty off-putting. Do you mind?”
Kate scowled and then hit him on the arm. “You’re so rude. Jesus, Louis, you go on and on like a broken record about how awful Jake is to me but I think you’re just jealous because he got to abuse me and you didn’t.”
“You got it.” He threw his head back and laughed and Kate whacked his arm again. Only this time he moved his hand up to stop her. The next second she’d lost her balance and toppled off his knee, where she’d been perched pretty precariously because, well, she hadn’t wanted to get too close to his crotch—contrary to Mirri’s advice.
“Shit,” she screamed as she hit the ground, using her arm to break her fall. Louis was up already by the time she opened her eyes and saw the blood that streaked her knee and elbows. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a slight state of shock as she considered each limb in turn and whether it was still there, or hurt, or looked as if someone had poured ketchup down it. “I think it’s just cuts.”
“Kitten, I’m so sorry,” Louis said as he knelt beside her and eased her leg from under her.
“That’ll teach me to hit people bigger than myself.” She winced.
“Here.” He helped her to her feet and sat her in the chair. “You’re quite bloody.”
“Nothing’s broken, though. I just scuffed myself on your horrible chairs. Do you think I’ll get blood poisoning?”
“I doubt it.” He grinned. “I’ll clean you up. Wait here.” Louis ran indoors and came back out with a dampened face cloth. “I’m not sure this is going to get the rust out, though. Ouch. Does that hurt?” He dabbed at the cuts and scratches, which ran down her knee.
“Stings a bit. Acutally I quite like the look of my grazes, makes me seem like I’ve been skateboarding or something cool.” She watched the top of Louis’s head as he bent in concentration. His hair was so dark and thick that she felt the urge to tug it to see what would happen. She put her hands underneath her and sat on them to stop herself. Then she remembered that this was Louis, so if she wanted to touch his hair she could. She reached out her hand when he wasn’t looking then got cold feet and whisked it back again. She wasn’t used to making first moves.
“Yeah, it’s quite sexy,” Louis said, and fleetingly raised his head, casting her a glance through his bangs.
“Do you think maybe I need that bath?” she asked suddenly. “You know, to make sure that we get all the rust out.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t seem sure whether this was an advance or not. Kate held his gaze to let him know that it was. Then she took a deep breath and reached out her hand to touch the side of his hair. The next instant his face was level with hers and he was leaning down to kiss her. Kate lowered her hand from his hair to around the back of his neck and tugged lightly at his hair. It was so soft and dense, she got to her feet and the pair stood kissing for who knows how long. The next thing Kate knew they had moved indoors, toward the bathroom, where Louis had both the taps on full force and rushing water was flooding into the tub.
“Bubbles or oil?” he asked in between long kisses to her neck.
“Either. Both. Don’t mind,” she said as she slid her hand down his back and dipped it under the waistband of his jeans, where she let it rest for a moment or two, lightly stroking his skin.
“Bubbles,” he said. “Spare your blushes.”
“I don’t blush.” Kate wanted him to go on kissing her neck all night. Until he slipped the strap of her bra off her shoulder, anyway.
“You might,” he said as he unbuttoned her shirt with both hands, all the while kissing her on the lips again.
“This is purely on medical grounds, this bath, right?” she asked. “So I don’t get an infection and die.”
“Yeah, it’s a vital procedure,” he said as he continued to undress her. And yes, she was beginning to blush, especially as her skirt fell to the floor and he unhooked her bra very deftly.
“For which I need to be naked.” She smiled.
“It’s better that way. Clothes tend not to work underwater.”
“Right,” she said, and realized that she was standing there in nothing but her knickers. “Now turn around.”
“Do I have to?” Louis’s grin collapsed.
“Go and find a book to read to me,” she instructed. After which he gave her one last kiss on the lips, shot a very meaningful look at her bare boobs, and did as he was told.
The second he left the room Kate whipped off her knickers and leapt into the bath. The water was much too hot for her but she’d be buggered if she was going to wait around for the cold water to run. She took deep, scalded breaths, especially as she immersed her bleeding knees into the water, but the alternative—hanging around butt-naked and undignified in front of Louis, who was still comfortably clad in jeans and a sweater—was not an option.
“Byron or the News of the World?” he called out from the sitting room where he was madly scrabbling for something interesting. He may have been fantasizing about this moment for years but his imagination hadn’t made it as far as what reading matter he might amaze her with. In fact, he’d never gotten much beyond the running water and her nipples in the steamy bath, he thought with satisfaction as he rummaged through his newspaper rack.
“Byron, of course,” Kate called out. Though she hoped she wasn’t missing an especially salacious revelation about David Beckham in the paper.
“Okay.” He pulled down his school copy of Byron’s Collected Poems. “Can I come back in now?”
“As long as you don’t read ‘She Walks i
n Beauty,’ ” Kate instructed him as he went back through the flat, which was never going to win awards for most private space in England.
“Don Juan?” he asked dubiously.
“Sure.” Kate was now carefully covered with strategic banks of bubbles. “The only thing missing . . .”
“Is me?” Louis asked hopefully as he walked back in the door and settled down on the loo seat with his poetry.
“Is a drink. I think I’m in shock.”
“So am I.” Louis looked at the woman in his bathtub, with her shoulders peeping above the water, her ponytail dark and wet at the end and her knees poking out of the bubbles.
“I’ll get us both a brandy.”
“Good idea.” Kate nodded and closed her eyes as her scratches and grazes were soothed by the water. “But could you make mine a whiskey?”
“Done.”
“You can stay if you like,” Louis said as he passed Kate a towel and watched her ascend from her bath as if she were Venus. He’d read a couple of stanzas of Byron and then the two of them had gotten sidetracked with the idea of Italy. Then a Greek island. By the time Kate’s skin had turned pink and wrinkled, they’d escaped to live on four continents and more cities than they could remember. They’d gotten lost in so many dreams of where they’d like to travel together and treasures they’d like to see and sipping hurricanes in New Orleans and marveling over Canova’s tomb in Venice. There seemed so much that they wanted to do, so many dreams to be lived, that Kate’s mind was as light and heady as the bubbles in her bath.
“I’m going to go,” she said as she kissed him. “There’s a lot to take in.”
“Too much?” he asked with a concerned look.
“No, just so much to do and so many plans to make.” She laughed. “You know that’s a lifetime worth of stuff we’ve just committed to, don’t you?”
“Sure do.” He gave her a hug and breathed in the smell of her wet hair.
