Chapter 30
Ridiculously, the hotel bar has closed. I consider firing off a furious letter to the Pontefract Gazette, if such a paper exists. But instead, I grab Shane’s arm as we make our way, a little woozily, up to our room.
As we navigate the stairs, I’m trying to figure out how upset I really am, and what I’m feeling.
It’s not heartbreak, I know that much. It’s not even on the fringes of it.
Viewing the situation through a blur of sugary booze, I’m not sure what it is.
It seems funny, almost, as Shane and I make our way along the corridor.
How slapdash of Lloyd, to missend a message!
He’s so meticulous with his work, and how he stores his tools and shaves in the morning and rolls a joint perfectly – like they’ve been factory-made.
Yet with messaging – even though he double-thumbs like a youngster – it’s all typos and half-written nonsensicals, or they’re not sent at all: ‘Sorry babe, I thought I’d replied!
’ In a wider sense, his communications skills aren’t the best, and I realise I don’t actually know the man, not really.
Shane swipes our key card and we step into the room. ‘Well, it’s not the van, at least,’ I announce.
‘No, it’s not.’ A pause settles, and he looks at me as if he wants to say something else.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘It’s just—what we said in the pub.’
My breath catches. ‘About what happened?’
‘No, not about that. I mean… it just feels a bit weird, that’s all.’
I look at him, not understanding. ‘You mean being here? Staying in a hotel together?’
He looks away and my heart seems to thud. ‘No, it’s not that either. I don’t know. I s’pose it’s sunk in, that’s all. That soon we’ll be heading back south—’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And this’ll all be over.’
His words seem to float around us. So he hasn’t had enough of this, after all. Something new wells up in me and my heart quickens. ‘It needn’t be,’ I say quietly.
‘Needn’t it?’
‘No.’
The hotel, the street outside – the whole of Pontefract, it seems – is silent. We stand, facing each other, surrounded by Love Hearts. And then I step towards him and I slide my arms around his waist and reach up and kiss his beautiful mouth.
Like that time in the derelict mill, among the flapping pigeons, and in my house that day with the crow.
And one more time, when I’d sent Ravi out to buy beers in the guest house in Huddersfield.
I’d hatched that plan, so that Shane and I could be alone together – even for a few minutes. I’d wanted him that much.
And I want him now as we kiss deeply. I am melting like sugar as he holds me close.
We pull apart, and I wrangle my top off over my head, and he does likewise.
Our clothes fall onto the carpet of the Love Heart Boudoir, and now, drunk on wine and sweet cocktails and three days together in a van, we are naked in the confectionery-patterned bed.
I don’t know how much time spins by. Hours, possibly, as we kiss and touch and hold each other in the dark.
It’s as if we know there’s no need to rush.
Unlike that mad scramble in Huddersfield, tonight we have all the time in the world.
Then, finally, I can’t hold back any more and I’m on top of him.
I don’t care that I’m so much older and differently shaped, and not how he might have remembered me.
Because we’re the same people, me and him.
He knows me – he doesn’t think I was born in 1937!
– and I want him more than I have ever wanted anyone.
I lower myself to kiss his mouth, when he stops. ‘Is this okay?’ His gaze bores into me. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I say. And then it happens and he is deep inside me, and every cell in my body is shimmeringly alive. I come with him, crying out. My face is wet with tears, and my head is filled with shooting stars – no fantasy needed, no flying fridge magnets or any of that.
My heart is thumping steadily as he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.
For a few moments we lie in silence together.
And then Shane reads one of the Love Heart mottos aloud, and I do likewise.
We do this, reading out every sweet on the wall, in between kissing and giggling until finally, wrapped up together, we tip over into sleep.