He looks at me. I touch my hair, my face.
The ones towards Blackshore are bigger, I tell him.
He says nothing.
We’ve been meaning to do it up, I say.
Have you?
Yes.
I look at his eyes. My chest and knees have gone hot. Will he kiss me?
Livvy sneezes—once, twice—and the moment breaks.
It needs a paint and a clear-out, I continue, moving an old broken table football game of Nat’s out of the way.
What do I wear, he asks me then, for this swim of yours?
Over there—I indicate the endless stiffened costumes hanging over on the wire coat hangers—take your pick.
He looks at them.
Unless you don’t want to.
Are you going to? he asks me.
Of course I am, I tell him and I pull up my shirt to show I’m ready underneath, costume on.
He grabs the trunks nearest to him, old and baggy, Mick’s from about five summers ago. His face is impossible to read.
Shut your eyes, he says.
The sun’s still out, but there’s no one around, only an elderly couple throwing a piece of wood for their dog and, further down towards Blackshore, a couple of guys dragging a dinghy with flapping orange and pink sails out of the water.
We crunch down over the shingle and I spread a blanket with a towel on top and put Livvy on it. I try to put two other towels on either side of her, but she immediately starts fussing, wanting to get onto her front.
My swimsuit is way too small—it’s from back before Jordan was born—and I had forgotten how it’s all shiny and baggy and wearing out at the sides. Also how the legs keep riding up so I have to pull them down all the time. Driving me insane. It seemed OK when I put it on, but I never go swimming with anyone but the kids. Now I realise I must look terrible in it with my bottom hanging out and my thighs all cheesy white and marked with tiny dark veins.
I hope he isn’t looking at me. He’s not. He’s frowning at the sea. So I look at him. He’s good without his clothes, just fine—pale but kind of streamlined and purposeful. A pencil sketch of a man. I like him. As I knew I would.
He turns to me and laughs.
Are we really going to do this? he says.
I don’t know, I admit because part of me is losing heart. My arms are goose-pimply, though the air is actually surprisingly warm.
But he wades straight in.
You think I’m just a city boy, he calls over his shoulder without stopping, still going in.
I laugh.
I never said that.
You think it, though. You think I can’t get wet.
I don’t, I swear I don’t.
Come on then, he says. He is in up to his knees. He grabs little palmfuls of water and rubs them on his thighs, his waist, his chest. Shudders and laughs.
I wade slowly towards where he stands. The first moment of putting my feet in is a shock but at least the waves are gentle, little washy, slappy ones, tipping their icy weight over my knees but never higher.
He holds out his hand.
This is mad, I say.
I glance back at Livvy who has rolled right onto her front but seems happy enough, lifting her head to wink at the sun. I take it. I take his hand.
He squeezes my fingers.
It was your idea, he says as I gasp at the cold, I’m just reminding you of that.
I don’t know what got into me, I tell him. I’ve never in my life swum in November.
Suddenly he lets go of my hand and dives off under the water. Comes up gasping a little way away. Head all slicked blackly down and smiling.
I can’t do that, I tell him, laughing. Don’t expect me to do that.
He swims off away from me, a steady crawl with his head right down. Meanwhile I move myself along, feeling the shingle shift and roll under my feet. Occasionally a pebble drifts across the top of my foot, lifted and pulled by the motion of the water. I try not to think of what’s down there—the pincers and tentacles creeping over the cold and eerie sea bed.
Now the water is up to my waist almost. I can feel it, the brown swollen weight of the water all around me. Back on the shore, Livvy is suddenly small. The sun slides under a cloud and in a second the whole sea looks dark and achingly cold. The loneliest place in the world.
I turn. I can’t see Lacey.
Where are you? I call.
I can’t see him anywhere.
Hey! I shout. Hey!
Then, under the water, a hand is on my waist and he comes up beside me. Water falling off him.
Oh, I say. Because the sea is still dark.
What is it? he says.
Shall we get out?
You haven’t got in yet.
No, I say, but I think I might have had enough.
But it’s a waste, to get out now.
And he puts both hands around my waist and pulls me down so quick that I gasp aloud at the shock of it.
But before I can even take a breath, he takes my whole face in his hands and kisses me so hard and deep on the mouth that all other sensations are swallowed in that single one. His mouth on mine, hot falling away from my body, limbs gone. Livvy gone, the shoreline gone, the brown water gone. For a few liquid seconds, there’s us and me and him and only the pure smooth terror of that kiss.
And then the sun comes out again and turquoise shadows chase over the water and the whole world lights up.
I put my two wet hands on his two wet arms and glance towards the shore.
It’s OK, he says. Don’t worry—I can see her.
No, I say, I didn’t mean that—
He touches my face. What, then?
I like it, I say and he smiles.
Again, I say. Please—do it again.
He still holds my face, but he stops, looks at me.
You’re not afraid of someone seeing? he says.
Yes, I tell him because it’s the truth. A little, I am.
He puts his arms around me and my teeth bang as he looks at me but it isn’t from the cold and wet or only partly anyway. It’s because I’ve done it now, the thing I never thought I’d ever do. It’s happened, I’ve done it and I’m terrified because it changes everything.
In The Polecat, there are plenty of towels, but all of them smell stiff and musty. The blankets are better, cleaner. There’s even an old goose-down duvet, thin and scrunchy and lacking a cover.
Livvy fell asleep on the beach, but I managed to get her back in the buggy without waking her. This is a rare thing. Normally she sleeps so lightly—the slightest touch startles her back.
We dry ourselves without talking and put back on most of our clothes. Then I lock the door and he helps me pull the two old mattresses, children’s ones—lumpy and with a pattern of stars and planets on them—down onto the floor and cover them with the blankets.
We still don’t speak. We just get under the duvet and lie there in each other’s arms. And it’s the best thing yet, just lying there so close and listening to his heart, his breath, and on top of that my own and then the soft, quick in and out of Liv asleep.
This is exactly what I was afraid of, I tell him when we’ve been lying there in silence for a while.
What? he says.
That it would feel this good.
* * *
Moments pass. We still have all these clothes on us, layers and layers of them, but I can feel him pressing against me, getting closer.
I can’t, I say, suddenly panicky. I can’t—do it.
He moves his head so he can see my face.
Can’t do what?
I am trembling so much that my voice shakes.
Sex, I say. I can’t have—sex—with you.
He laughs.
Hey. He kisses me near my mouth. Hey, shush, it’s OK.
I kiss him back. I kiss his shirt and then his jumper. Wool that smells of him.
You don’t have to do anything, he says.
No, I tell him, you don’t
understand. I don’t mean because I shouldn’t—though I shouldn’t. I mean, I haven’t done it for about a year, I don’t know if I can any more.
He pulls back a little and looks at me.
Since the baby, I tell him as flatly as I can. Well, since before. I mean, Mick and I—we just haven’t.
I wait for him to speak but he says nothing and I can’t see his face. He feels for my fingers and covers them with his, interlacing them, squeezing, holding.
So there you are, I tell him in the calmest voice I can do, I’m—frigid.
He laughs.
No, I tell him. It’s true. You don’t understand—you couldn’t, you’re too young. I’m this old, frigid woman and you’re young and—
I’m not so young, he says.
You wouldn’t know, I tell him, how having kids changes you.
He says nothing.
I’m thirty-nine, I tell him, I mean it. I’m not like your—
I don’t say it.
Not like my what?
Your—young girls.
He laughs again.
I thought plenty of old women had sex, he tells me. I thought they liked it.
Hmm, I say.
From behind me he grasps my hands by the wrists, holds them, circles them, strokes them. I feel a stirring of something and then it tapers off and I feel my eyes close. Maybe for a moment or two I sleep.
It begins to get dark and Livvy wakes and cries and I feed her. She’s a good baby, a good girl. None of the others would ever have been quiet and easy for half so long.
When Nat was the same age he’d cry and cry, hardly drawing breath, and would only stop if Mick held him upright against his shoulder, triumphant and beady-eyed, for hours on end. Livvy has never demanded half as much.
I feed her there on the little lumpy bed with Lacey. And the noise of her sucking loudly and happily with him right next to me feels so strange and easy that I find I can barely speak to him or look at him while it’s happening.
You love your kids, he says.
It’s not a question, just a statement of pure fact, the way he says it.
Afterwards, I put Liv down on the mattress next to us and I get up and find some tea lights in a drawer. While I strike a match and light them, one by one, Lacey leans over Liv and pulls the cuffs of her sleeper up over her wrists, does up the top snap. He does it carefully, like a person who has never touched a baby before. Then he puts his finger on her hair—just touches it with one finger as if a whole hand might be too much. Seeing him do it gives me a pain somewhere in my body, I don’t know where.
All we need now is a drink, he says.
I remember the bottle of brandy.
Alex brought this, I tell him.
What? That night?
Yes that night.
He’s madly in love with you isn’t he? Lacey remarks so suddenly that I stare at him.
He’s mad, I say. He’s bonkers, raving mad.
Did Lennie know? Lacey asks me.
That he’s mad?
No, about—you.
I don’t know, I tell him. No, I hope not.
Why? Lacey asks. Why do you say he’s mad?
I shrug.
He just is. Always has been. There’s something about him. He’s not reliable, you know. Not in any way. Lennie knew what he was like, I can promise you that.
Did she mind?
I shrug, try to think.
She was the practical one, is all I can think of to say.
He’s lost without her?
Yes, I say, he is.
He can’t function, Lacey says.
I think about this.
No, I say, you’re right, he can’t.
I hesitate, look at Lacey.
He was never—I mean, you and Mawhinney didn’t think—?
No, says Lacey quickly, we didn’t.
He thought you did—
He was jumping to conclusions, then.
I smile.
That’s it, I say. That’s exactly what he always does.
Jumps to conclusions?
Yes. Always.
Why? says Lacey. Why do you think that is?
Why does he do it? I don’t know.
Perhaps he likes the drama.
Yes, I agree. Perhaps he does.
I pour brandy into two chipped teacups and we lie back, not touching, watching each other. It’s like every time we spring apart we’re afraid to come back together.
After a moment he glances at his watch. I already know what the time is, I know it’s half past four because I read it upside down a minute ago.
Don’t you have to get back? he says.
Yes and no, I tell him. Not really. Not yet. Why? Do you?
I ought to drop in on Alex later, he says.
I watch the walls of the hut bend and change shape in the candle-light.
But not yet, he says.
Tell me, Lacey says, because I have to know. What’s it like between you and Mick?
What’s what like?
I don’t know. Things. Everything.
I already told you—
Not just that—I mean the rest.
I huddle on the end of the mattress, my chin touching the furred cotton of my shirt. I miss Lacey now and I want to get close to him again but I don’t know how to.
I feel suddenly miserable.
Oh, I tell him, please. Don’t ask me stuff like that.
Do you love him?
Yes, I say, without looking at Lacey. Of course I do. He’s a good, good man. How couldn’t I?
Lacey lays his arms across his knees, same as I’m doing, and looks at the floor.
It doesn’t always follow, he says quietly.
I ignore him.
And he’s a good father, I tell him. A really good father.
I take a breath.
But? Lacey says.
I hesitate.
Saying it feels disloyal.
Saying what?
What I feel—
Have a go.
I shrug.
He doesn’t make me feel like this, I say.
Lacey reaches for the brandy.
That’s just because you know him, he says.
And I don’t know you?
No, he says. You don’t.
I look at him, so far away from me.
So don’t make me talk about it. It feels wrong to complain about him. It feels—lazy.
We are silent for a moment.
That’s why I can’t—have an affair, I tell him.
He seems to think about this.
Is that what you think I want? he says after a moment.
I don’t know, I say. I don’t know what you want.
No, he says. You don’t.
That’s what Mick always says, I tell him. That I don’t know what he wants—
That’s hardly your fault—
No—but he says I claim to—to know, I mean.
Lacey keeps his eyes on me.
I can’t keep myself away from you, he says. That’s the truth. I told you. I think about you all the time and I can only really get on and do things that have to do with you.
I put my face in my hands.
This feeling I have for you, he says. It’s huge.
I feel the same, I tell him. It’s like I can’t breathe. It feels like I love you.
But you don’t, he says.
Don’t I?
No.
It feels as if I do.
Love is just a word, he says. An overused one.
Now that we’ve got love out of the way, I think I might want him to touch me again. I ask him if he will.
He looks at me but he doesn’t move.
Where? he says. Where do you want me to touch you?
The blood comes up in my cheeks all over again.
I don’t know. Just—anywhere.
He still looks at me. So much distance between us.
What is it? I ask him. Don’t you want to?
I want to,
he says. His voice is different—low and cracked.
Well then?
You come to me, he says. Come on. You come over and ask me.
He pulls me onto him, on the mattress. All my skin has gone, dissolved. There’s nothing between us, nothing left but us. I kiss him and he kisses me back. At first softly and wetly and slow—and then harder and deeper. We do that part for so long that my lips feel blurred, hot with blood.
When I’ve had too much, I pull back and try to sit up.
I don’t know what I feel about Mick any more, I tell him. And that’s the truth.
Though everything I say to him is beginning to feel like the truth.
Oh? he says.
No, I say. That’s what I mean. It’s true that I love him, but I don’t know what sort of love it is or what our future is or what I feel.
No?
No.
And you want to find out?
I don’t answer this. I sit back instead and take the brandy cup up from the floor and sip. Feel my lips burn after the kissing.
Do you?
Oh, don’t ask me that, I tell him.
He takes the cup from me and puts it down on the floor next to the mattress and then he pushes me gently back and starts to unbutton my shirt.
I don’t mind if you use me, he says. I don’t mind if you use me to find out.
No, I tell him.
But don’t expect me to be heroic, he says softly.
What? What does that mean?
He carries on unbuttoning.
I hold out my hands and touch his face.
I didn’t know whether I should do anything about you, he tells me, when I met you. I couldn’t decide, you know.
I listen. I listen to him undressing me. I notice that Liv is awake and listening too.
She’s awake, I say.
Shh, he says. I tried to stay away. But you kept blushing every time I saw you. It was a dead giveaway.
He pulls my shirt right off and lays a cool hand on the hot skin of my stomach. I reach for it, for his hand, but he pulls it quickly away.
He puts a kiss on my neck. I feel it somewhere behind my eyes as well as up between my legs.
Can’t we just hold each other, I ask him as he takes his clothes off.
No, he says, we can’t. That wouldn’t be enough.
But, I say, I can’t—I can’t do it.
It?
This—sex.
He smiles.
Tess, he says, it’s not such a big thing, you know. What you’re doing is, you’re making it into a big thing.
Something Might Happen Page 19
