by Sue Margolis
“But you’re about to have a shower. Presumably you’re going to take them off?”
“Ah, yes. Silly me. I didn’t think of that.”
He stood there looking at her, a bemused expression on his face. She suggested that while she got ready he go into the kitchen and make them some coffee. “You can say hello to Morris.”
“Morris?”
“He’s a mynah bird. I’m looking after him for a bloke at work. Chats away like mad, but don’t be embarrassed when he starts going on about his lack of a sex life.”
She headed off to the bathroom. “Hi, Morris,” she heard Joe say, “pleased to meet you, I’m Joe.”
“I’m Joe. I’m Joe. Gorgeous Joe. Gorgeous Joe.”
For the second time in less than five minutes, her face was burning with embarrassment. She had to stop having heart-to-hearts with Morris. They were just too dangerous. She charged back to the kitchen before Morris could do any more damage. She couldn’t tell if Joe’s bemused expression was new or left over from their conversation about her hiking boots. “Don’t worry,” Cyn said brightly, “he calls everybody gorgeous, don’t you, Morris? The milkman, the postman—even old Mr. Levinson downstairs.” She turned to Morris. “Say ‘gorgeous Mr. Levinson.’ ” Silence. “Come on, Morris.” Not a word. “Morris, show Joe how clever you are.” She was virtually pleading with him now. “Don’t be shy. Say ‘gorgeous Mr. Levinson.’ ” But Morris was having none of it. For once he was keeping his beak firmly shut.
“Doesn’t seem to be in the mood,” Joe said. “Don’t worry. I’ll put the kettle on. You go and get ready.” He said that as it was particularly cold out, she might want to put on some extra layers.
Cyn headed back to the bathroom, but not before putting a tea towel over Morris’s cage. Had she turned round and looked back into the room she would have seen Joe pulling off the cover and starting to engage Morris in more conversation.
When she returned five minutes later dressed in hiking gear, the cover was back on the birdcage and Morris was quiet. She’d hemmed and hawed about whether to include the plastic map holder and waterproof gaiters in her ensemble. Because of her confusion earlier, she couldn’t remember if Joe had been wearing them. Deciding he probably had, she fastened the map holder string round her neck and pulled the gaiters up over her trouser bottoms. All she remembered for certain was that he hadn’t been carrying a hiking pole—although he could have left it in the car. Since her hiking pole was retractable, she decided to play it safe and stash it in her rucksack.
“Wow, you really are a serious hiker,” he said, taking in the gaiters. He wasn’t wearing any. Nor was he wearing a map holder. Thank God, she wasn’t carrying the hiking pole. She already felt like the school swot who turned up every day with an immaculately pressed blazer and freshly polished protractor.
“Yes, I did a few walks last year,” she lied. “The Dales, Hadrian’s Wall, the Lake District, that sort of thing. I think it’s essential to have the right gear and be prepared.” To prove her point, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her compass and PowerBar.
“You’re right. Even though it’s almost spring the weather can still close in. You can’t take any risks.” He handed her a cup of coffee. “By the way, I love how you’ve done up this flat. You’ve got great taste.”
She thanked him and said she simply worshipped at the temple of Ikea, like most people.
“Maybe, but not everybody knows how to pull a look together.”
Just then she noticed Hugh’s Siamese twin screenplay—which, to her shame, she still hadn’t gotten round to reading—lying open on the kitchen table. “Hugh’s your gay writer friend, isn’t he?” Cyn nodded. “I hope he won’t mind, but I couldn’t resist flicking through it . . . You know, it’s quite inspired.”
“Really?” God, had she gotten Joe all wrong? Did he go in for the same sort of turgid, pretentious stuff Hugh did?
“Does this guy know how funny he is? I’ve only read the outline and a few pages of the script, but this has all the makings of a hilarious black comedy.”
OK, now she got it. She gave a soft laugh. “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Hugh’s pretty earnest. He doesn’t do hilarious—at least not intentionally.”
“Well, I think this has real comic potential. A film about one Siamese twin facing the electric chair is so impossibly macabre and gruesome that you could only play it for laughs. With the right handling, the right director, it could really work.”
“You really are passionate about writing,” she said softly.
He gave a self-conscious look that suggested the comment had knocked him off balance. “I suppose I am.”
“You really ought to give it a go. There are loads of writing classes you could join if you need help getting started.”
“I know. Maybe I’ll check a couple out.” He said he would like to read the screenplay through carefully and if he still felt the same about it afterward, he knew a couple of film producers who might be keen to take a look at it. He asked her if she thought Hugh would mind him taking the script away to read.
“Mind? He’d be over the moon. Warner Bros. doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to him.” She didn’t say Hugh would be less than over the moon about My Brother, My Blood, My Life being made into a comedy, but they would cross that bridge when—or more to the point if—they came to it.
In the end they got under way just after eight thirty. “You know,” she said, pulling her seat belt across her, “us seeing each other outside therapy feels really wicked. It’s like we’re a couple of naughty kids bunking off school for the day.”
He said he felt the same. “Maybe we should buy booze and find something to set fire to . . . On the other hand we could just listen to some music.” He suggested she choose something from his pile of CDs in the glove compartment. She went for a Sixties Greatest Hits compilation. For nearly an hour they sat singing along to all the old classics. Round about Newport Pagnell, “Unchained Melody” came on and they agreed it was a crying shame that great songs became instantly debased once they were used in films or commercials.
When they weren’t singing, they talked about holidays, books, places they’d been, places they’d like to go. The only thing off-limits was any discussion of people in the group. They decided this would be disloyal.
Cyn couldn’t get over how the time just melted. At one point he started reminiscing about Dublin and told her how as a student he dived naked into the River Liffey on a dare and got caught by the police. She made him laugh by telling how she hated roast lamb as a child and that she always used to secrete her portion into her Barbie and Ken trailer that she kept under the dining room table for that purpose.
“So,” she said, at one point, wondering if she could finally draw him out about his job, “you still working on this science-fiction movie you were telling me about in the pub?” He said he was. She asked him how it was going.
“Oh, you know. Coming along.” She suspected that was all she was going to get.
“Are you based at one of the big film studios?”
“Yeah, Pinewood.”
“You know, Joe,” she said gently, “I’d really like to hear about your work. I’m interested in finding out more about what you do. I promise I won’t be bored.”
“OK, last week we digitized our rushes ready for the Avid off-line.”
“Oh, right,” she said, blinking with noncomprehension.
“See, you’re bored already,” he said, smiling.
It was true she hadn’t understood what he was saying, but she wondered if he was trying to blind her with science in order to put her off asking more questions.
As they carried on listening to the music, she noticed he had no Pinewood Studios parking permit stuck to his windscreen. Hugh had a friend who worked at Pinewood. He’d given her a lift home once. She’d spotted the parking permit and remarked on how glam it looked. It was odd Joe didn’t have one, she thought. On the other hand
, maybe it had come off. The road-tax permit on her old Peugeot used to fall off all the time—particularly in winter when there was loads of condensation on the windscreen.
The traffic was clear until just before the Nottingham turn-off, when it came to a complete standstill. For an hour and a half they barely moved. According to the traffic news on the radio there had been “an incident” and “considerable delays could be expected.” They had no choice other than to sit it out.
When the traffic eventually cleared it was lunchtime and they were starving. They stopped at the next service station and gorged themselves on a surprisingly edible all-day English breakfast. Later on in the loo, she divested herself of the map holder and gaiters.
They arrived in Ribbledale just after two. It was snow-cold, but the sky was bright blue with the occasional splodge of white meringue cloud. Since the weather was so bitter, the place wasn’t at all crowded. They headed out of the car park. Joe had his rucksack slung over his shoulder, but there was no evidence of a hiking pole. She decided to keep hers hidden.
They made for the narrow river that lay a few yards ahead. Tiny ripples on its surface twinkled in the strong light. Gnarled, bent-over trees covered in a delicate haze of new green clung to the muddy bank, their branches skimming the water. In the distance, majestic emerald domes presided over the skyline.
“Isn’t this just grand?” Joe said, turning his face to the sky and taking in a lungful of air. Cyn agreed it was. It was even grander when Joe took her hand as they negotiated the stepping-stones across the river.
Soon they came to a wooded area covered in a thick carpet of tiny white flowers.
“They’re wood anemones,” he said. “Did you know that the wood anemone propagates mainly by means of creeping underground stems?”
“Wow, I’m impressed,” she said, secretly wondering if he really was going to turn out to be a hill-walking nature nerd after all. “How do you know all that?”
“Oh, I’m a bit of a nature buff on the quiet.” Her face must have registered a certain unease, which he picked up on, but he said nothing to relieve it. Instead he let her carry on wondering about him, let the silence stand between them. It must have been a full ten seconds before his face finally broke into a grin. “Not really. We just passed a sign asking walkers not to trample the wood anemones. The rest, for some ridiculous reason, I just happen to remember from school biology.”
She was still giggling when he reached out and tilted her face up toward him. The next thing she knew he was planting a kiss on her lips. “You know which bit of you I especially like?” he said. She shook her head. “It’s your eyes. They’re the most exquisite shape. Like two perfect almonds.” He ran his finger over her eyebrows and lids. Soon he was kissing her again, but properly this time. She felt herself melt into his arms, the familiar ache, the quivering in her stomach. She could have happily let him ravish her right there, among the wood anemones.
As they set off again he took her hand in his. It was big and warm. She enjoyed its firmness, the way it swamped hers. At one point a twitchy-nosed squirrel went scuttling across their path.
“You know,” she said, “sometimes in the winter when it gets really bitter, I worry about the animals getting cold.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. You wonder how the cows manage without Chap Stick.”
She burst out laughing and as they carried on along the riverbank they came up with more absurd ways to protect the animals from the elements—tiny thermal vests with special spike covers for hedgehogs; wetsuits for ducks.
Somehow talking about animals got them onto reincarnation and Cyn said she’d often wondered if people came back as animals and vice versa. Joe said he definitely believed in reincarnation. She saw the teasing expression on his face, but decided to play along. She asked him how long he’d believed in it.
“Oh, ever since I was a young gerbil,” he said. More laughter. Eventually Joe said, “How d’you fancy having a go at climbing that peak over there? I’ve done it before. It’s small and the incline is pretty gentle. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. And there’s this great pub on the other side where we can get a drink and some food.”
A gentle incline? From where she stood the slope looked practically vertical and he’d promised this outing wasn’t going to be strenuous. The other day on the StairMaster she’d set the level at a pathetic three. This was going to be ten times harder. She would be gasping for breath after about two minutes. She was going to die. She was so going to die. He must have seen her expression. “If you feel you’re not up to it, we could always keep to the river.”
“Not up to it? Who’s not up to it?” she said, determined not to let him think she was a wimp. “I’ll race you. Last one to the top buys the drinks.”
In fact the slope was far more manageable than she’d imagined. But she still found it tough going. There was no question which of them would be buying the drinks. It helped, though, that every so often they stopped to admire the scenery and kiss. She loved the scenery, but she loved the kissing more.
They’d been going about an hour when her boots started giving her trouble. First they started rubbing the backs of her ankles, then the sides of her feet. She managed to carry on without saying anything. If it got no worse she would be just about OK. But it did get worse. She could feel the skin being scraped away. Every so often she grimaced in pain. “You all right?” Joe asked at one point.
“I’m fine,” she panted. There was no way she was about to confess she was wearing new boots that she hadn’t broken in. “I’m just a bit out of shape, that’s all.”
“What you need is some kind of an incentive to keep going.”
“You’re right,” she said. “Promise me there’s a Dolce and Gabbana outlet store at the top and I’ll be there in no time.”
It was another forty minutes or so before they reached the summit. She tried to ignore the pain and concentrate on the glorious view, but it wasn’t easy. A couple more times Joe asked her if she was all right. Each time she managed to reassure him she was.
“I’m really glad you agreed to come today,” Joe said as they started to make their way down the other side of the peak.
“Me, too.” She gave him a smile, but by now the pain at the backs of her feet was excruciating. It was so bad, she stopped talking. They carried on making their way down in silence. Soon she was starting to hobble. “Sorry, Joe. I have to stop for a bit.” She sat down on the freezing damp grass, undid her boot and tugged it off. Blood was oozing through the back of her sock. It was the same on the other foot. She pulled off one of her socks. This really hurt because the blood had congealed and stuck to the wool. The back of her bare foot had gone past the blister stage and was now red-raw.
Joe was crouching in front of her, looking closely at the foot and grimacing. “God, you poor thing. That must really hurt. Why on earth didn’t you say? I knew something was up. It’s these new boots of yours, isn’t it?”
“What makes you think they’re new?” she said defensively. “I just look after them, that’s all.”
“Is that right?” he said, barely disguising his amusement. “And is that why everything else you’re wearing looks so new, too?”
She could see no point in keeping up the pretence. “OK, I give in. You’ve rumbled me.”
“You haven’t done much proper walking, have you?”
“Not as such,” she said.
“But you should have said your boots were killing you,” he said gently. “What an idiot you’ve been.”
“Sorry,” she said meekly.
His concerned expression turned into a grin. “I’m flattered you wanted to impress me, though.”
“OK, let’s get one thing straight,” she shot back, full of indignation. “I was not trying to impress you.”
“Really?”
Again she felt cornered. She couldn’t lie to him. “OK, maybe I did want to impress you. But only a bit.”
He began opening his
Eastpak. “I think I’ve got some of that fancy artificial skin stuff in here, somewhere.” Tenderly and with great care he patched her up. Even though she was in pain, feeling his hands on her bare feet was intoxicating. When he had finished, he started nibbling and licking her toes. Even though it was just playful messing around, she thought she would die from the pleasure. Here she was freezing cold and hurting and still managing to have fantasies about the two of them naked in bed and him going down on far more than just her toes.
The artificial skin protected her feet and took away most of the pain, but by the time they reached the pub, it had started to peel off. There was no way she could contemplate walking back to the car. Even if she hadn’t been in pain from her feet, it wouldn’t have been wise. It was five o’clock and it would soon be dark, but more to the point, the sky had turned from AOL blue to an ominous light bruise. Joe suggested they have a drink and a quick bite at the Cross Keys and then get a taxi back to the car park.
Since it was still early, the bar was almost empty. When they asked to see the bar menu, the landlord—a rather anxious, high-complexioned chap in his sixties, whom Flick would have described as an old fussbudget—was full of apologies and said they didn’t start doing proper food until seven. “But I’d be more than happy to do you a Ploughman’s or some sandwiches. Now, then, fillingswise, we’ve got cheese, chicken, ham and roast beef. I think there might even be some prawns left. I can go and check if you like. If you fancy something hot, I could do you toasted cheese and ham, but I think the sandwich maker might still be on the blink. Or bacon perhaps? Of course you’d have to wait a few minutes for that.” Cyn said she would have a Ploughman’s and a pint of bitter. Joe ordered a pint as well and a couple of rounds of roast beef sandwiches.
“Will that be with horseradish or without?”
“Er, with, please.”
