Chapter Forty-two #2
“And? Did they work things out?”
A hollow bark of a laugh. “Oh, yes. They worked everything out.” His sarcasm has curdled and turned sour.
“My brother-in-law is moving away to Germany with Isabella, their twenty-year-old au pair. He will help her pursue a singing career. My sister, on the other hand, is getting together with her ex, Dan.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t,” he says. “Dan, it turns out, is actually called Dana-Ana-Moonchild.”
I have to fight to keep a straight face.
“Go ahead and laugh. You haven’t heard the best yet.
Dana-Ana-Moonchild is a Druid priest. My sister is planning to convert to Druidism.
Once her divorce comes through, she and this Dana are going to get married in a”—he puts on an expression of ecstatic devotion and clasps his hands as if in worship—“pagan ceremony in Avebury.”
“Avebury, as in the Neolithic stone circles?” I ask, but he doesn’t seem to hears me.
“Couldn’t she have discovered her inner Lady of the Lake twelve years ago?
” he asks and answers himself, not waiting.
“Apparently not. Better to get married, start a family, have three kids and then confuse the fuck out of them. Much better. I told her I wouldn’t attend such a wedding, and you know what she told me?
” He gets up as if his chair is suddenly uncomfortable.
“I’m not invited. It’s a female-only ceremony.
I asked her if she’s sure she’s found her real path and won’t regret it when it’s too late?
I mean, some people consider marriage vows sacred.
A real commitment. But I’m an idiot, apparently, and don’t understand. ”
It’s not funny anymore. Osian practically vibrates with anger and hurt. So at odds with the nice afternoon and the golden light from the setting sun. I look down at my clothes and bare legs and wish I’d worn something different; this is so completely wrong.
“You know, Osian,” I say as gently as I can. “Your sister will not have made her decision lightly. She might have been in a lot of pain that she hid from you.”
He stares silently at the horizon but seems to be listening to me. So I continue.
“Breakups are really hard; I should know.” A small laugh. “And sometimes you need a different future. An alternative way of life can help you move on.”
Finally, Osian turns towards me just as the warm breeze picks up again and blows my hair in my face. He steps closer and brushes the strands off my cheek. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take my temper out on you. I’m just hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
I get up too because this feels like the end of the conversation. “You can go down to the café and see what Leonie’s made for the Squad’s dinner.”
Osian shakes his head. “I have spent all day talking to people. Can we stay and eat here? My fridge is full of things we can microwave.” He gives me half a self-mocking smile. “Michelin-starred kitchen here.”
It gives me a small thrill that he just assumes we’re going to eat together. As if it’s normal, routine. As if we belong together.
He picks up the jug and glasses, and I follow him inside.
His sitting room looks like it always does: mostly tidy but slightly lived in. It smells faintly of him, a pleasant male scent.
“Macaroni cheese,” he calls from the kitchen. “Or cauliflower cheese, or…” He rearranges a few boxes inside his fridge. “More mac n’ cheese. And…” He searches again as I join him.
“And, yeah, more cauliflower cheese. Sorry. I should have a salad bag too.”
A small twist of sadness corkscrews through my heart because clearly he’s used to buying these meals for one and has stopped even making an effort.
“Sorry, I’m not a good shopper.” He glances up at me, his face lit by the open fridge door.
“How about we mix the macaroni and the cauliflower and have salad on the side?” I move around the little kitchen. “Where do you keep your plates? I can set the table.”
He looks behind him at the cabinets. “Tell you what, you heat these, and I’ll deal with the rest.”
I’ve stayed with friends before, even past boyfriends, prepared meals together. It always took time over many visits before we became familiar in the new kitchen and could move without bumping into each other or stepping on each other’s toes (physically or metaphorically).
Not so with Osian. We just slot into place around each other like two pieces of a Tetris puzzle. Like the wedding and engagement ring set that curve to fit into each other.
I read the backs of containers, grab a knife from his drawer and stab the film cover repeatedly with a fork. He collects cutlery and plates as I press the timer on his microwave.
“What do you want to drink?” He opens the fridge and pulls out two bottles, one of elderflower pressé, another of fizzy apple juice.
“When did you become tee-total?”
“These are for you. I still have five bottles of Stella Dry.”
He bought these for me? Some time ago, obviously. “You’re very sweet to think of me and my weird drinking needs.” I take the elderflower.
“Believe me, after last week, nothing is weird.”
Despite the half-joking eyeroll, he can’t hide his frustration.
I wait till we’ve sat down and started eating before saying, “Are you finding your sister’s decision hard to accept?”
He shoots back, without even looking up from his plate, “Would you find it easy? Would anyone?”
I take a bite of the macaroni-cauliflower cheese mix. It’s good and works. Osian must think so too because he’s eating fast, taking big bites.
Choosing my question carefully so as not to offend him, I ask, “You had no idea your sister was bi?”
“Bi?” He takes a long pull on his beer. “Oh, no, she’s not bi. According to her, she’s a lesbian – always was. The eleven-year marriage and three children were all just a blip – a mistake.” He pushes his plate away, still half-full.
“You know,” I say, as gently as I can, “some gay people struggle with accepting they will have a different sexuality. Often they make themselves try to have a conventional marriage and family.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said. That she tried but couldn’t go on lying to herself.
” He pushes his chair back and gets up. It’s clear he’s not going to eat because he’s scrunched up his paper napkin and thrown it over his food.
When he sees me doing the same he quickly says, “Stay, I’m just going to get another beer. ”
Telling him not to drink on a half-empty stomach would probably annoy him.
So I just clear the table and move to sit on the leather sofa.
If my apartment wasn’t in chaos, I’d have suggested we move there because my sofa is of good quality linen, not this masculine leather monstrosity.
Unfortunately, my place has clothes and shoes flung everywhere – a testimony to my hurricane of choosing what to wear so I can look like I grabbed the first thing.
Osian comes back with a fresh bottle and, seeing me on the sofa, comes to join me. Not too close, but close enough that I can smell the malty dry lager and can see the five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
He sinks deep into the sofa and brings his legs up to cross on the coffee table. It’s such an unconscious automatic move, he must sit like this all the time. Even the books and papers on his coffee table are in two stacks to left and right, keeping the centre for his legs.
“It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for her sexual choices,” he says, as if continuing a conversation.
“I’m sorry she had to suppress her real self for so long.
But what I do find unforgivable is how they both have given up so completely.
It makes a mockery of marriage and commitment.
Even love. When you make promises, you keep them no matter how difficult.
No one promised life was going to be a party with balloons and streamers.
” He waves a hand in the air as if wafting imaginary balloons.
“If you’re going to throw away your vows like that, why make them in the first place? ”
He drops his head back on the leather headrest. “How could she have loved someone enough to promise to spend the rest of her life together if she didn’t really mean it? Which was the lie? The first marriage or this new one?” He turns his head, still on the back of the sofa, to regard me.
He keeps looking at me, waiting for an answer.
“Maybe neither is a lie. People do change. You said an eleven-year marriage?”
He nods slowly, still watching me.
“Eleven years is a long time. Sometimes people just grow apart.”
He seems to consider this as he brings the bottle to his lips and drinks again, his Adam’s apple working up and down.
Then he smiles. A self-deprecating grin.
“I guess in many ways, I’m still the boy who played tennis.
When you put on your whites and grab your racket, you have to focus on one thing: the game.
You keep going no matter how hard it feels, how much pain you feel.
You can’t afford to change your mind.” He blows out a long, slow breath.
Then glances at me and his smile becomes real. His face relaxes. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Putting up with my hissy fit.” His gaze stays on me. Relaxed. As if he’s enjoying looking at me.
We’re close enough that I can hear him breathe; it’s a very intimate sound.
Normally I only hear men breathe like this when we’re…
well, in bed. To break the strange tension, I get up to pour myself another glass of cold elderflower fizz.
In fact, when I get back to the sofa, I’d better sit sideways, with my legs folded in front of me.
A casual, less parallel position that doesn’t look like two people lying side by side in bed.
I sit, turn ninety degrees sideways and lift my legs up. The move upsets my full glass and spills half of it over my leg and the sofa; a stream of liquid slides down towards him.
We both jump away from the spill but too late; there’s a wet stain on Osian’s beige trousers.
“I’m sorry. What a fumble-tumble.” I snatch several tissues from the Kleenex box on the table.
“Fumble-tumble?” he asks, half-laughing.
“My dad used to call me that because I used to be clumsy. Thank God I’m so much better now,” I crack sarcastically while wiping.
The leather sofa makes the water run down channels in the surface and get everywhere.
“Sorry it’s all over your sofa and your clothes,” I moan, trying to prop myself up on one hand while wiping the cushion.
“It’s okay. I have had far worse things spilled on me.” He takes the tissues from me and tosses them into the waste basket near him. “Sit down and stop fussing.” He puts a hand on my knee to keep me from getting up.
Reluctantly I subside and criss-cross my legs again.
“Over this last week, the kids spilled everything – milk, juice, toothpaste and even spag-bol.”
“What did you do?” I ask, pretending not to notice Osian’s hand is still on my knee.
“Usually, I carried them into the bathroom for a wash then carried them back to finish breakfast, dinner or general mayhem.”
Some of his words get lost in a dreamy nervous heat coming from the touch of his hand. Not even my autopilot can function properly. “I’m too heavy for you to carry.”
Lame. And flirty.
And my voice is all breathy, because the way he’s looking at me… Oh God, it’s as if he’s seeing me for the first time.
Then that thing happens in his eyes again. A change. As if we’ve stepped into a different world.
His glance trails down to my legs. The water has got into my sandals, soaking into the sole.
Very deliberately he unfolds my leg and takes my foot on his lap. Pulling a tissue from the box, he slowly wipes the liquid from my ankle and around my heel, unstraps my sandal and slides it off.
I watch completely speechless, as if in a trance, while he dries everything carefully, gently, as if my skin is a lily that might bruise.
He then wraps it in his warm, warm hand, palm against my sole. My entire body has gone boneless.
“I don’t…” He has to clear his throat but it still comes out low and hoarse and oh, so rich. “I don’t think I’ve ever held anything half as nice.” His other hand comes to circle my ankle, then he sighs deeply, the kind of sigh when you’re giving in after a long fight.
“Is this okay?” he asks, so softly, it’s like a whisper that I feel all over my skin and into my insides.
“Yes.” A small, small sound.
He glances up to meet my eyes with his dark blue eyes, which for the first time look like a deep raging sea that can drown me.
My foot is no longer on his lap; somehow he has moved up onto his knees on the sofa, and so have I.
He catches me in strong arms that cradle me so protectively, like a precious delicate flower.
His kisses trace a burning path up my throat, around my cheek, softly over my eyelids, and finally down to my mouth.
A kiss that goes on for so long, maybe a year.
When we stop to breathe, I’m on my back and he’s heavy over me.
We both reach for each other’s shirts, he to unbutton mine, I to pull his over his head and finally, finally, oh God, finally, see his chest naked.
I want to touch him all over, to slide my hands over his shoulders and down his golden skin, the scattering of hair at the base of his breastbone, the way his abs clench. He too is all over my chest. Hungry.
A small pause; he lifts his head, eyes glazed. “We should move. You deserve better than the sofa. I have a king-sized bed inside and good sheets.”
“Good. I’m not a fan of leather furniture,” I tease. Where has this humour come from? I feel happy, free. No need for autopilot to speak for me. All my consciousness is at one with my heart and mind. It’s as if I’m finally myself.
“You don’t like leather?” Osian picks me up and we’re off the sofa, on our feet. “I’ll buy a new sofa tomorrow, first thing in the morning.” He half-chuckles. The same release that makes me laugh.
We take a moment for another kiss, which also takes about a year. At the end, he kisses along my cheek and jaw. “Oh, my Evangeline...” he says between kisses. “Promise me this will not ruin us.”
I brush both hands through his hair. “Of course not.”
“You have no idea how important you are to me. Please promise me what we do tonight will not spoil things.”
I don’t understand, but I kiss his face, trying to reassure him.
“Tomorrow?” he groans. “We will still be friends. This will not damage our friendship.”