Chapter 86
Rachel
I dream I am back at Josh’s flat, thirty-three years ago. The home we used to share. The air throbs with electricity, the sky haemorrhaging rain.
Two days have passed since my argument with Lawrence. We’ve been seeing each other for seven months or so, and I am already filled with doubt.
‘Sorry,’ Josh says, reaching for a bottle of brandy, once I’ve finished telling him about it. ‘Kind of feels like it’s my fault.’
I know – of course I know – that it is chaotic and unfair, showing up at his flat unannounced, to complain about the row I’ve had with my new boyfriend. But that is not the true reason I came here tonight.
I want to tell him I made a mistake. That what I have with Lawrence can never come close to what we had. I want to know if there’s a chance he will take me back.
But when he asks why I am here, the words feel too big for my throat, the room, this night. So I just end up saying weakly, ‘I wanted a friend.’
With the curtains shut, by the scant light of a single lamp, we drink.
Josh doesn’t seem to mind that I’ve turned up like this, or maybe he’s just humouring me.
Selfishly, I’m not too sure I even care, because sitting in this living room, sharing brandy with our knees touching, is exactly what I need tonight.
After an hour or so, I say, ‘Thank you for the clothes.’
I have changed into a pair of Josh’s joggers and an old T-shirt, and we have spread out my wet stuff to dry in the kitchen, across various chairs and surfaces.
‘That’s all right,’ he says, dark eyes skating over me. ‘You always did rock that Teenage Fanclub T-shirt.’
I sip my drink. How can it be accidental that he has lent me this one – the same T-shirt he was wearing on the day I walked out?
But I don’t comment on this. Instead, I say, ‘By the way. I do know I shouldn’t be here.’
He just lets out a soft laugh.
‘What?’ I say nervously.
He rubs the back of his neck, then draws a hand through his dark hair. ‘Nothing. Not you, honestly. Just a touch of déjà vu. Don’t worry about it.’
As I am trying to work out what he means, he says, ‘The other night. I came back here with someone, but then she told me she’d been engaged less than a week.’
I unscrew the bottle cap and lean over to top him up. ‘Oh, my God. What did you do?’
‘Er, just watched her have an existential crisis then leave.’
I frown down at my glass. ‘It’s weird hearing about you sleeping with other people. I mean, I hate it, obviously.’
‘Actually, you’re specifically hearing about me not sleeping with other people. And you have just spent an hour talking to me about Lawrence.’
‘I know. I’m a hypocrite. I do know that. But thinking about you having sex with other women just makes me jealous. I can’t help it.’
‘Yeah?’ he murmurs, knocking back more brandy. ‘It’s all the other stuff that makes me jealous.’
‘What other stuff?’
He lowers his glass, stares intently into it.
The brandy has become smelted gold in the lamplight.
‘I get jealous when you tell me about you and Lawrence hanging out with our friends, and going for dinner, and waking up together, and doing all the million little things I wish I was still doing with you, every single day.’
I swallow. The words burn on my tongue. Let’s try again, Josh.
But then I think of Lawrence. The look on his face when I told him I needed a break.
And all the reasons I left Josh come roaring back to me, and I know that, in reality, none of this – being here with him, talking and sharing eye contact and brandy together – means a single thing has changed between us.
So all I say is, ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
He doesn’t reply.
‘But if it helps?’ I smile faintly. ‘I don’t think our friends will ever be his friends.’
‘No, they all think he’s a twat,’ he says, shooting me a wink and swigging again from his glass.
The hours pass, and we get drunker. Lawrence hasn’t called. Outside, the night is a forest of falling rain.
‘So, what is the sex like, with you and him?’ Josh asks, shaking the last drops of brandy from the bottle. ‘Just out of interest.’
‘Nope. Not going there.’
‘Don’t be shy. You’ve told me everything else. Plus, we’re so drunk. I won’t remember in the morning.’
I skin my throat with more booze. ‘The sex is fine, thanks.’
‘Come on, Rach. I can take it.’ He shrugs, wildly. ‘We are where we are, right?’
‘Okay. Well, sometimes it feels like we’re not in sync. Emotionally, not—’
‘—rhythmically. Right.’
To Josh’s credit, he doesn’t immediately begin shit-talking Lawrence, even though I’ve handed him the opportunity on a plate.
‘Sometimes, it feels like we’re just . . . shagging. You know? I mean, don’t get me wrong. That can be okay.’
‘Like when you just want—’
‘—a shag. Exactly. But Lawrence only really has . . . that one gear. If you know what I mean.’ I glance up, and as Josh’s eyes latch to mine I feel something bright streak through me. A lightning bolt in my bloodstream.
‘I do, actually,’ he says.
‘Please don’t look at me like that.’
Smiling softly, he runs a hand along his jaw, lamplight pooling against his bare arms. ‘Okay. But just so you know? I have . . . so many gears.’
Outside, icy ribbons of rain hound the windows.
‘Josh, if we—’
‘One time only. No strings. We’re drunk.’
I nod and bite my lip. All logic and principles begin to warp and buckle in the heat of his gaze. ‘And we are still married.’
‘Right. I mean, does it even technically count?’
‘Plus, we’re on a break. Lawrence and me.’
‘And he does only have one gear.’
At last he leans over and kisses me, and God, the familiar and delicious pressure of it, the heat of his palm on the back of my neck, the dizzying clasp of his mouth on mine.
His tongue tastes sweet and ripe from the brandy.
Our breath quickens, and I move in closer, not wanting an atom of space to remain between us.
His hand strays to my still-damp hair, then inside the T-shirt he has lent me, fingers teasing my rapidly warming skin. I run a hand over his muscles, feel them shudder and flex with my touch. And it is like falling into a thunderstorm, all electricity and shifting cells and crackling heat.
When eventually he moves to tease away my joggers, I inhale sharply, hesitate. ‘Wait. We should keep our clothes on.’
In my head, I am reasoning – albeit with drunk-person logic – that if we’re not naked it makes what we are doing less reprehensible, somehow. But I also can’t deny I like the idea of it: fucking each other fast, clothes and underwear lowered just enough, like we might get caught at any moment.
‘So, you do just want a shag?’ Josh breathes, but his eyes are animated, as though he’s down with that if I am.
‘No.’ I arch up into his kiss again. ‘It’s never just a shag with you.’
Afterwards, I am first to speak, though my mouth is brittle from the brandy, my words sticking together in slurs. We are still on the sofa, and he is lying on his back, eyes clamped shut, one hand resting on his forehead.
‘I think . . . I should sleep in here,’ I say.
It’s difficult to know why, exactly. Maybe it’s just instinct telling me that to wake up in Josh’s arms tomorrow, without half a bottle of brandy inside me, would be too hard – and that the first thing we would want to do is the one thing we must never do again.
He nods and reaches clumsily down to rebutton his jeans, buckle his belt. ‘Fair enough. But you’re having my bed. I’ll sleep in here.’
I totter to the bedroom, where I collapse, fully dressed, on to his mattress. The flat falls quickly quiet. All I can hear is the crack of rain against the windows, a noise that sounds entirely like reproach.
And now, a full thirty-three years later, I sit bolt upright in my bed.
I know the truth of it instantly.
Emma is not Lawrence’s daughter.
She is Josh’s.