Your Room or Mine?

by Charlotte Phillips

  She sat down at the table. Obviously for her, dinner was more of a pull. He served the meal and sat down opposite her.

  She speared a prawn, forked up some rice, tasted it. He watched her savouring it, his own appetite dissipating despite his long day.

  ‘This is delicious,’ she said.

  ‘No need to sound so surprised.’

  She grinned.

  ‘Sorry. I’m always impressed by people who can cook, especially when it looks like you’ve just thrown it together, because I’m so rubbish at it myself. I can grow the stuff but when it comes to cooking it…’ she pulled a face. ‘Where did you learn to cook like this?’

  An unexpected flash of childhood. In the kitchen, one eye on his younger brother, the other on the stove. His mother working her second job.

  ‘Circumstances really,’ he said. ‘I picked up the basics from my mother when I was a kid and after that I learned by having a go.’

  A smile of approval.

  ‘Your mum was forward-thinking then, equipping you for the world,’ she said. She pulled a face. ‘Traditional roles were very much the thing in my house.’

  ‘He hunts it, she cooks it?’

  ‘Exactly. My mother was – is – Fifties cupcake housewife living in the wrong decade. She had a sheltered strict upbringing and it indoctrinated her for life. Dad brought home the money and that’s exactly the line where his responsibility ended. My mother did everything else. Literally. All the cleaning, all the cooking, dealing with me.’

  ‘She didn’t go out to work? I thought maybe one or both of your parents might have been into gardening too, since you’re so obsessed with it.’

  ‘I am NOT obsessed with it! And no, my parents aren’t gardeners. They’re bemused by what I do. We didn’t even have a garden when I was growing up – we had a little terrace house with a concrete back yard where my mum used to hang washing. It backed onto a cobbled alleyway where the bins were kept. Not so much as a blade of grass in sight.’

  ‘How on earth did you fall into garden design then, if you weren’t encouraged by someone? It’s a bit…vocational, isn’t it?’

  She was smiling a little down at her plate, pushing food around with her fork.

  ‘My mum sees me in my work stuff and my steel toe-caps she thinks I’m some kind of labourer.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Or maybe a lesbian. As if I’ve lost all sense of femininity. But then what do you expect from someone who powdered her nose every day ready for when my father got home. Not that he appreciated it.’

  He didn’t miss the sudden harshness of her voice. He felt a flash of empathy with her over her parents.

  ‘She’s never really taken the time to understand what I really do. Yes, there’s a lot of physical work but at the base level it’s really a creative job. Turning something that’s old, or a mess, or that doesn’t work into something lovely and pleasing.’

  ‘So how did you get into it then? Is there a career path?’

  She smiled at him.

  ‘Come on,’ he encouraged. ‘I had to tick all the right boxes to get where I am. University degree, Legal Practice Course, period of on-the-job training. What happens with gardening, do you suddenly wake up and discover you have a green thumb?’

  She laughed.

  ‘It wasn’t like a sudden epiphany, I just always enjoyed being out of the house. We had a park a few streets away and I loved the feeling of space there, my house was so claustrophobic you can’t imagine. Then when I hit my teens I looked for a Saturday job, just like everyone else’

  As she smiled up at him his heart flipped softly at the delight in her eyes.

  ‘I started working at a garden centre,’ she said.

  He grinned, unable to help himself.

  From your beatific expression I thought you’d got a Saturday job at a sweet shop at the very least.’

  ‘Very funny. This was better than sweets. I loved it. I loved being outside, I loved handling the plants, developing displays, advising customers. I just knew this was something I could love and that I’d never get tired of – you know?’

  He didn’t know. Work for him was about validation and security. About money. The law hadn’t chosen him, he had chosen it. There was no vocation involved.

  ‘When I left school I went full-time at the garden centre and took a few courses at college and then I started doing one-off jobs for people in my spare time. Maybe they wanted their beds sorted out, or a pond putting in. I just picked up small jobs and taught myself as I went along. It wasn’t easy, I made lots of mistakes but slowly the business grew and I began to bring people in to do things I couldn’t, laying patios, that kind of thing. It’s slowly developed into more of a project management thing, with me doing what I can and subcontracting the rest. But I’m in control of all of it. It’s the best thing. I never get tired of it.’

  Her attitude to work was something he couldn’t help admiring and responding to. He had the same drive himself but without the job satisfaction. He’d deliberately chosen a profession, something he knew would pay well if he worked at it. People always need lawyers. His lack of enthusiasm must have shown in his face.

  ‘You’re looking at me like you think I’m mad,’ she said.

  ‘I was just thinking that I envy you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never really been in my work for the love of it.’

  ‘I can’t imagine many lawyers are,’ she said. ‘Unless you’re one of those altruistic human rights types, fighting for the underdog.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be living somewhere like this if I was,’ he said. ‘There’s no money in altruism.’

  She was forking up rice and salad, not looking at him, and the sudden urge to elaborate came from nowhere.

  ‘My work ethic probably has a lot to do with my father,’ he said.

  She finished her mouthful without looking up, and he thought with momentary relief that she would make no comment. He shouldn’t be talking about personal stuff, not with her. Then she spoke,

  ‘Is he a lawyer too, then?’

  He couldn’t stop his cynical laugh and she looked up in surprise.

  ‘Did I say something funny?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just the idea of my father working for a living.’

  Izzy could hear the bitterness in his voice and her curiosity instantly sharpened.

  ‘You aren’t close then?’

  ‘Weren’t close,’ he corrected. ‘He died eight years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, knowing it was the stock response and wishing she knew some other way to react. But how else could you react when you barely knew someone? You couldn’t commiserate, not without it sounding hollow and insincere.

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  ‘Don’t be. To be honest his death didn’t have much of an impact.’ He paused. ‘He didn’t make much of an impact when he was alive so I suppose it follows that he wouldn’t exactly knock me flying with his death.’

  ‘Were he and your mum still together?’ she asked before she could check herself, and sudden heat flared in her cheeks and neck. What was she doing? She held up a hand immediately to stop him. ‘I’m really sorry, I’m so nosy. I didn’t mean to pry.’

  He dismissed her with a shake of his head.

  ‘By the time he died they’d been apart for a few years, but she stuck it out for a long time while me and my kid brother were growing up.’ He glanced up at her. ‘Bit like your mum by the sound of it – I think she thought throwing the towel in would mean she was a failure.’

  Her mother flashed into her mind. Keeper of appearances. Avoider of gossip. Her heart softened towards Oliver a little in spite of her guard.

  ‘What was your father like then?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Since he wasn’t a lawyer.’

  ‘He was a waste of space. He never held a job down for longer than five minutes. He had no drive, no ambition. My mother worked two jobs to keep a roof over our heads, sometimes three, and he never
seemed to feel an ounce of guilt about that. He had no qualms about taking the household money to the pub. Then he’d sit there with his cronies moaning about his misfortune. He thought the world owed him a living.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. Stock response again, as if it would help or matter. How unnatural it felt to have been with this man on such a deep physical level and yet to be picking her way over the eggshells of conversation for fear of offending him.

  Oliver pushed his plate to one side and the subject of his father along with it. If they had to talk, make it about her.

  ‘So all this effort you’ve poured in – what’s it all aimed at?’ he said, topping up her glass of wine.

  ‘Building up my business of course. I’ve worked hard on my client list, managed to whittle down a list of subcontractors I can rely on. Weeded out the cowboys.’

  ‘I mean longer-term. What do you aim at?’

  She looked down at her meal, put her cutlery together on the plate and pushed it aside.

  ‘Same thing as everyone I supposed. Family and kids one day. My own house in a place where there isn’t too much concrete about.’ She leaned towards him with a small smile and he caught the soft vanilla scent of soap from the shower. ‘A big garden,’ she said.

  ‘And is that what you were planning for with your ex?’

  Sudden tension in her shoulders and the tilt of her jaw as she held his gaze. Then she relaxed slightly. He could almost see the click as she decided to confide in him and it touched him somehow. Touched him deep in his chest where mutual trust was an unknown, untested entity. Trust meant mutual reliance and Oliver Forbes let no one depend on him. It was the only way to be sure of never letting anyone down.

  ‘I was,’ she said. ‘Turned out it wasn’t quite so important to him.’

  She toyed with her wine glass.

  ‘We were saving up for a deposit for a house,’ she said. ‘I rent a tiny little studio flat at the moment.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘No garden.’

  He nodded acknowledgement.

  ‘But it doesn’t matter much because I get to spend all day in lovely gardens like yours, or at least like yours will be. I was looking forward to having one of my own though, I’ve got a massive folder full of ideas and design plans. We agreed we’d both work really hard for a couple of years, save like crazy and then get on the housing ladder.’

  So it had been pretty serious then. He saw now why a short-term fling might have its appeal after the demise of something like that.

  ‘And it didn’t work out,’ he prompted.

  She sighed and shook her head.

  ‘A couple of months ago I picked up his mobile phone when it rang – he was out of the room.’ She uttered a laugh that was a bit too small to really pull off. ‘I don’t know who was more shocked, me or the girl on the other end. She had no idea I even existed. Turned out his nights away weren’t all work and no play, if you get my drift. And she wasn’t a one-off. When I finally got him to come clean he admitted one-night-stands were par for the course.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wanting to say that the guy was a moron, but painted into a hypocritical corner by the fact he’d taken her to bed without knowing her last name and with no follow-up plans.

  He stood up and took their plates to the counter.

  ‘It really was about revenge after all then, that night at the hotel with me,’ he said, with his back to her.

  ‘Revenge would imply that I gave a damn about him,’ she said. ‘That I felt I had a point to prove.’

  ‘And you didn’t. You don’t?’

  ‘No.’ As he turned she looked up and gave a small smile. ‘Maybe a little bit at the hotel. I can’t say it wasn’t nice to feel reckless for once. And when someone cheats on you, there’s this automatic conclusion that it’s because of something that’s lacking in you. Doesn’t matter how hard you try and keep the moral high ground, all the time there’s this feeling that if you’d been everything he wanted he never would have strayed.’ She toyed with her wine glass. ‘That night was about that more than anything. About feeling like I was desirable instead of disappointing.’

  The self-doubt in her voice tugged at his heart and before he could check himself he had discarded the plates. He was back across the kitchen in a couple of swift paces, acting on impulse, kneeling down in front of her so his eyes were level with hers.

  ‘How can you imagine yourself anything but desirable?’

  She only looked at him, and he lifted a hand to stroke her hair back from her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her.

  His lips against hers, he pulled her gently to her feet. Sparks tingled through Izzy right down to her toes as she felt him tug at the tie-belt of the robe, then his hands were beneath it, stroking tantalisingly across her bare skin. She let her fingers sink into the thickness of his hair, moved the other hand to open the buttons of his shirt then pull at his belt.

  As her robe fell to the floor he kicked her chair to one side and leaned around her. She heard the tinkle of china and clatter of cutlery as he swept the table settings randomly aside, then his hands were sliding back around her, firm beneath her thighs as he lifted her, easing her up to sit on the edge of the table. Her legs were splayed either side of him, the glass of the table smoothly cold against the back of her thighs.

  He slid his lips downwards to the hollow of her neck, tantalisingly lower through the hollow between her breasts. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, every sense tuned into him in anticipation of his next move, she waited, breath held as he took a sideways detour with his mouth, tracing kisses over her breast until he closed his lips softly over her nipple. She tensed for a moment then breathed out in a soft moan as he sucked gently and slid his tongue back and forth across its hard tip, sending hot sparks down her body to simmer between her thighs.

  She clutched agonisingly, deliciously at his hair as he continued his slow, deliberate course downwards, tracing her skin with lips and fingers. Eyes closed, her head tipped back to the ceiling, she soaked up every drop of sensation. She vaguely sensed him stretching to reach behind her for something on the table, and he parted her thighs with one hand. She yielded, so swept up in the sensations he invoked that she could do nothing else. Then her eyes widened and she let out an audible gasp as he suddenly pressed the cold back of a spoon against her exposed core. Its icy smoothness against her hot sensitive skin intensified every delicious sensation and as she writhed against it he replaced the coldness with his own mouth, the contrast of his warm breath sending her arousal spinning to impossible heights. Had she ever wanted anyone or anything so much?

  He circled the nub of her slowly with his tongue, as his fingers stroked their way lower still, teasing her, building the ache for him deep inside her.

  Her breath quickened as her climax approached. She could feel herself teetering deliciously on the brink of it, locked fingers in his thick hair to try and keep his tongue in that sweet spot long enough to tip her over. Yet with some sixth sense, in tune to her every response, he then retreated softly, again and again until she heard herself cry out for him.

  Instantly he was on his feet. A moment to catch her breath as he freed himself and ripped open a condom and then in one quick movement he replaced his fingers with his erection, pressing forward into her in a smooth thrust right to her very core, filling her up and rushing her senses at the same time.

  His lips found hers again and he kissed her greedily. She could smell the musky scent of his aftershave on hot skin as she let her hands slide down his back over rigid muscle, drinking in the scent, the taste, the feel of him, it seemed her every sense had room for nothing but him. They moved now together as one, her hands sliding down to push him as deeply into her as she could, long slow strokes which drove her spinning back and then dizzyingly, deliciously forward. As it tore through her she cried her ecstasy into his mouth and felt him tense against her as he let himself tip over the edge beside her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It seemed that even th
e most impromptu unplanned physical encounters were just like everything else in life. If they took place more than a few times elements of routine began to seep in. She’d been with Oliver three times now since that hot night on the kitchen table, each time punctuated by the same events. He would return home from work early evening, would cook something and ask her to join him, and afterwards things would go further.

  Like the garden, things between them were gradually becoming more defined, more detailed.Maybe routine was just inevitable. It didn’t mean she was getting sucked in and losing her heart. Yes she thought about him a lot, but that was natural – right? She was working on his bloody garden. And a routine might be slipping in but it was still one that fitted around everything else. It was clear that Oliver’s priorities hadn’t changed. He was still working all hours, gone before she arrived in the morning and never back until the light was fading at the end of the day. Still putting work first. Maybe he was incapable of doing anything else. She certainly wasn’t important enough to make him deviate from that.

  Late afternoon, nearly four weeks into the project and the garden had turned a corner from looking worse to better. The air was hot and damply heavy with the threat of rain as she arrived there after having sorted out a lawn treatment for one of her regular clients. She was anxious to get back before the threatening rain kicked in, to make sure it would cause as little disruption as possible to the work still needed. As she got out of the van and slammed the driver’s door the first fat drops began to fall, warm not cold, the summer sky pushed out by the scurrying dark clouds. Summer storms, her enemy. They could hold up a project for days, turn beds ready for planting into bogs, unseat flagstones that were waiting to be sealed, warp untreated wood. As she ran for the narrow wrought iron gate at the side of the house, her vest and shorts began to soak through.