by Kiley Dunbar
The only way to drown out the mortifying effects of his words was to berate herself with a few of her own, and so she did. She’d always felt like an imposter in the newspaper industry but nobody else had noticed until she’d stupidly outed herself that day. Now everyone knew Mirren Imrie was an unemployable trouble-maker.
Thank God for dour old Kenneth at the bar. He’d hired her with no questions asked and she was at least supplementing her minimum wage with nightly tips. With no writing jobs forthcoming she could stay in town for a little while, pay her way, and help Kelsey out by being a security presence on the boat at night as well as contributing to Norma’s rent, even if the barge wasn’t ideal, with the drunks passing by noisily after midnight.
She reminded herself as she left the Examiner offices that she still had a place to lick her wounds and time to figure out where in the world she was supposed to be and just exactly what it was she was destined to do with the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long’
(Hamlet)
December the twenty-third and the morning was dark. Kelsey had found she couldn’t sleep any longer and had climbed up to the roof terrace to keep watch for Jonathan’s arrival.
The streetlights shone on roads wet from the sleet showers overnight. The wind was bitingly cold though her grey flannel pyjamas. She switched the summer fairy lights on and the coloured bulbs sparkled all around the low wall that enclosed the little patio high up over St. Ninian’s Close. An early bird on the lawn below sang out alone and no lights came from any of the surrounding houses. The commuters would still be asleep for another few hours.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she was beginning to think this wasn’t her best idea – she’d be greeting Jonathan with knotted, windblown hair and a frostbitten nose – when she saw the yellow light of the cab as it crawled along the narrow residential street lined with parked cars.
Her heart had already skipped beats at two other approaching cars and one milk float this morning but this time she was sure it wasn’t a false alarm. It was him. He’d come back to her.
They’d planned, back in the summer, to meet again at the pink café by the marina where they’d first laid eyes on one another, and it had burst Kelsey’s romantic bubble to realise Jonathan’s flight would land in Birmingham at two a.m. so it wouldn’t be possible. Jonathan had reassured her that it didn’t matter where they met as long as they were together again, and so she’d devised a plan B and waited romantically for him by moonlight, like she had the day they finally declared their love for each other and Norma had delivered him up to her in a cab and then driven away, leaving them alone together.
The cab was now pulling to a stop and its door swung open in slow motion. After a moment, the unmistakable shape that was Jonathan Hathaway emerged into the gloomy December morning. She would recognise him anywhere and from any distance; he fitted the exact shape and dimensions of all her desires, and her nerves thrilled with the recognition.
No thoughts ran through her mind, only feelings moved her as she watched the cab pulling away leaving Jonathan to drag his suitcase to the side of her building. When he stepped into a shaft of light from a streetlamp she saw he was looking up at her and smiling with wet, sparkling eyes.
She let the key fall from her hand and without hesitating he caught it in a fist as though he’d known that’s what she’d do, and then he was gone, lost in the dark shadow of the building wrapped in its blanket of ivy.
Her breathing stalled as she listened to the sound of the key in the lock downstairs followed by the bump of his case over the step, and she found she was moving too, padding down the ladder from the roof terrace, pulling the hatch closed behind her, and listening for his feet bounding three at a time up the unlit staircase.
She stood rigid by her door, consumed with her body’s answering awareness of his approach until there he was in front of her like an apparition, his hair falling over his forehead, his sharpened eyes penetrating hers, and his arms already reaching for her.
Wordlessly, he pulled her close to him with strong hands and his mouth claimed hers. Relief flooded her frame. They’d spoken enough these last months and there were no words more pressing than the hard kiss he was giving her.
As he half-walked, half-lifted her through the door into her apartment, still feverishly kissing her, she couldn’t help but moan against his lips. The effect of the sound upon him was like lightning bursting from the heaviest storm cloud. He exhaled a deep primal moan into her mouth and her very core tightened in response. Toppling him onto the bed Kelsey fell with him. She had him wrapped in her legs in an instant.
‘Oh God, I’ve missed you,’ he said breathlessly into the hollow between her neck and collarbone where, as he brushed his lips in a slow sweep over her skin, a thousand nerve endings prickled and sparked. Kelsey bucked her hips beneath him, grinding against the hard answer of his arousal through their clothes.
‘Take all of this off.’ Her voice was low and insistent as she pulled his thick woollen jumper over his head followed by his t-shirt. The sounds in his throat quickened at the touch of her hands and her nails running over his bare back.
‘I want you so bad,’ he said, bringing her eyes into focus.
She found her vision swam dizzyingly with the sense of his weight upon her. For a brief moment they held each other’s gaze and their swollen lips broke into breathy smiles. Together at last.
Kelsey wasn’t going to waste a second of their reunion and was already wriggling out of her pyjamas. In the twinkling white light from the little Christmas tree by the bed she saw his neck and cheeks blushing red before he brought his mouth down soft and slow to her throat, moving in a trail of hungry kisses along her clavicle, lingering over the sensitive dip between her collar bones then down over her breasts. The great shattering groan he gave at the sensation of her nipple between his lips drove her nearly to madness and sent her hands searching for his belt buckle. She wouldn’t wait a moment longer; there was time enough for leisurely, painstaking love-making, but this wasn’t the moment. His eyes followed her hands yanking his jeans down over his hips. When their gaze locked again his mouth panted and his eyes burned with wanting.
She saw the fight in him as he forced himself to pull away, never dragging his eyes from where she lay on the bed completely naked, completely his.
He was reaching into his jeans pocket and, rifling through his wallet, cards and coins spilled over the bed, making them both laugh at his eagerness to locate the foiled packet now between his fingertips.
The moment’s pause where Kelsey bit at her lip and Jonathan searched her face for consent contained all one hundred and ten days of impatient waiting. She nodded almost imperceptibly and he was inside her, her calves wrapping around him, driving him on, the muscles in his shoulder blades flexing and moving, their names on each other’s lips, their cries building in the quiet of the midwinter morning.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘The morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness’
(The Tempest)
‘No point asking how your reunion with Jonathan went then?’ said Mirren, placing the frothy cappuccino on the bar and smirking. ‘Did you even brush your hair this morning?’
Kelsey just grinned and sipped the coffee.
‘Can you at least stop leering like that, it’s putting the brunch crowd off their eggs Benedict and it’s making me feel like the old crone of the village who only distantly remembers what sex was like. Seriously, woman!’ Mirren flicked the tea towel on the bar.
Kelsey laughed contentedly. ‘I can’t help it, can I?’ She lowered her eyes and tried hard to suppress the blushing grin. ‘Besides, nobody’s even looking. As if they could tell anyway.’
Mirren raised an eyebrow at Kelsey’s bedhead hair and smiled. ‘So
where is he? Sleeping off the shock of the ravishing you gave him?’
Another laugh. ‘No he’s at the Willow Studio Theatre, remember? They’ve only got today to block out Love’s Labour’s Lost and get him fitted for his costume ahead of opening in April, and then he’s meeting the dramaturg this afternoon to talk over his lines.’
‘Sounds glamorous.’ Mirren wiped around the beer taps then set about erasing the brunch specials from the board, replacing them with the turkey and trimmings lunch the Yorick was famous for at this time of year.
‘Not if you’d seen the poor guy this morning; the red-eye flight from Canada’s left him exhausted.’ Kelsey took advantage of Mirren’s turned back to smile indulgently to herself and replay the moment she’d woken after dawn and remembered Jonathan was there in her little bed and she’d pulled him closer.
‘Oh, hello,’ he’d said, his sweet, slightly lop-sided smile revealing the tips of his white teeth in a way that made her go weak. ‘You’re here too, are you?’
‘I am. Fancy meeting you here.’ And they’d laughed like theirs was the most original comedy and looked at each other, dopey and shy in the morning light. Inevitably, they found themselves kissing again, Kelsey clambering onto Jonathan’s lap so they could rediscover each other all over again but this time slowly and with the deep, sleepy warmth and intensity of morning sex when the world outside is chilly and indoors the Christmas lights glow bright.
She’d been shocked at how visceral their attraction was now they were together in the flesh again, how real he was. His hot breath and the wet noise of his mouth and tongue crackling close to her ear as he kissed her lobes had made her delirious. She’d loved the smell of his shampoo and the way his hair had grown longer and he’d occasionally draw back from kissing her to toss his head and flick the floppy fringe aside and every time he did it he looked even more like a matinee idol than she’d remembered. She’d been held enthralled by the physical reality of the textures of his skin and the goosebumps and soft hairs raising on his arms when she kissed him. That was the kind of spellbinding closeness she’d missed, the kind you can’t feel through a screen.
‘Seriously, you’re scandalising Kenneth,’ Mirren remarked, cutting through the lovely daydream, and the poor landlord at the other end of the bar folded away his newspaper before shuffling off to see how the giblet gravy was coming along in the kitchens.
‘So what are your plans for today?’ Kelsey asked.
‘Well, let’s see; there’s clearing away the breakfast dishes, serving all the pre-matinee drinks, and we’ve got three lunch sittings before grabbing a bit of dinner sat out the back on the laundry baskets, and then evening bar service starts. There’s a singer in tonight too, so the place will be packed. Lucky for me, I knock off at seven so it’ll be a Pot Noodle for one back at the barge. No sympathy please or I might actually cry.’
Kelsey checked the pitying crumple of her mouth, but Mirren had already moved on. ‘What have you and Jonathan got planned for tonight?’
Kelsey shrugged sheepishly, trying so hard not to grin but failing.
Mirren tutted and rolled her eyes playfully. ‘What a time to swear off men. Christmas is the worst time of year to be alone.’
‘You’re not alone,’ Kelsey cried. ‘You’re single. That’s different.’
Mirren arched a brow.
‘Listen, how about we all have dinner tonight? Jonathan’s dying to see you.’
Mirren poured herself a coffee from the machine. ‘No, you guys get reacquainted. He’s only here for a few days. I’ll be fine.’ She brought her cup back to the bar, planting her elbows and cradling her face between her fists. ‘I’m just a bit homesick really.’
‘You are?’
‘I’ve been wondering what Mum’s up to, hoping she got the presents I sent… she doesn’t always answer when I call, so…’ Mirren shrugged her shoulders and her fists squished her cheeks.
‘You could always invite her for a holiday on the barge in the new year?’
‘Hmm?’ Mirren tipped her head. She hadn’t considered that. In their few brief phone calls lately – Mirren always rang her, never the other way around – they’d established a new kind of gentle civility. Sometimes, their conversation was even friendly and she’d made her mum laugh a few times with her exaggerated tales about life by the river and the ducks that still lived on the roof, but she couldn’t help the sneaking awareness that her mum could stomach her precisely because they were far apart. Still, anything was an improvement. ‘You wouldn’t mind if she came for a couple of days?’
‘You’re the one renting the barge living space…’
‘Hardly! I’m paying a quarter of what the rent should be. If that.’
Kelsey waved a hand. ‘I already told you I didn’t want any money, but you did insist. Besides, the barge will soon start paying its way once the exhibition’s up and running and it’ll all be academic then.’ Kelsey crossed her fingers.
‘You shown Jonathan the framed prints yet?’
‘Not yet. There isn’t a lot of time on this trip. Maybe tomorrow though.’ Kelsey sipped her frothy coffee. ‘I know what you mean about missing home. It’s especially hard at Christmas. I thought what with Jonathan arriving I’d be made up, and I am, don’t get me wrong, but when Calum’s Darth Vader in a Santa hat Christmas card arrived this morning I just felt so…’
‘Far from home?’
Kelsey’s look confirmed it and they both fell to drinking again.
‘Did you, um, say anything to Jonathan about…’ Mirren looked around the room as though someone might be eavesdropping. Kelsey caught her meaning.
‘No, and I won’t be either. Christmas is hardly the time to mention runaway dads…’
‘He was in again yesterday, you know? Old Wagstaff.’
Kelsey gave Mirren a stern look. ‘No concrete evidence; no telling, remember?’
‘I remember. Look, I’d better clear some tables.’ Mirren left Kelsey to her thoughts and soon the bar was so busy there was no time for chatting. They barely had the chance to exchange a hug when Kelsey left, and before Mirren knew it, the day had passed in a blur of Christmas-jumper-wearing happy customers, the clinking of the tips jar, and at least sixty turkey dinners demolished, and her shift was over.
* * *
‘Hey! How did the interview go?’
Mirren was crossing the little bridge over the Avon in the dark, clasping closed the collar of her black faux fur coat with a gloved hand, trying to retain some of the heat of the Yorick when she flinched at the voice. Adrian was behind her, laden with wrapped gifts in two big bags.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said, surprised how happy she was to see him. ‘Do you live over this side of the river?’
‘My brother’s family do. I’m taking them their presents before they fly off to Disneyland for Christmas; they’re surprising my little nephew.’
‘No way? Lucky kid!’
‘Right? The closest I came to the magical kingdom as a boy was Mum taking me to sit on Father Christmas’s lap in Woolworths.’ They shared easy smiles. ‘You going home?’ he asked.
‘Umm.’ The barge was only a few yards along the riverbank; she could see the frost sparkling on its roof in the half-moon light from here. She couldn’t bring herself to point out this was her home. She was keeping her distance. The less he knew about her, she reasoned, the harder it would be for them to talk intimately, to get closer; and the easier it was for her to stick to her plan of feeling nothing at all for a while, of rebuilding herself from the inside out. ‘No, I’m just taking a stroll after work, it’s been a long day.’
‘Mind if I stroll with you for a bit?’
She shrugged as breezily as she could and let their pace synchronise, trying to suppress the sinking feeling of her resolve weakening.
‘I’m guessing Mr Ferdinand didn’t mention my interview?’ Mirren said in a droll tone.
‘He’s so secretive, we barely communicate outside of emails,’ Adrian said cagily
.
‘It’s safe to say you and I won’t be sharing an office any time soon.’
‘Aww, that’s a real shame. I read your piece… the Scottish Brexit story?’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘I might have… seen your CV while umm… filing it?’
‘You do Mr Ferdinand’s filing?’
‘Technically I was taking it out of the bin, but…’
‘Why would you tell me that?’ Mirren pretended to be wounded, but she’d known full well that Mr Ferdinand had binned her CV, just as he’d binned her last hope of a job in newspapers. ‘So you did know I didn’t get the job, then? Rummage through bins often, do we?’
‘I can’t say I make a habit of it, no. I rescued it and couldn’t help seeing your article listed and, well, I looked it up online.’
‘You actually read it?’
‘Of course I did. It was really good, and I mean really good. No wonder you were nominated for that award.’
‘I wasn’t shortlisted or anything,’ Mirren found herself saying, struggling with the admiration.
‘You’re a great writer, Mirren, even without an award. Anyway, I needed some evidence to help plead your case with Ferdinand, see if he’d reconsider. I printed it out for him and left it on his desk.’
‘And?’
Adrian grimaced.
‘Didn’t even read it, did he?’
‘No, but that’s his loss, isn’t it? And mine.’
