Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
I didn’t sleep well. I kept waking up, and when I did, the memory of Jamie’s touch made me cover my face with my hands. I lay in my bed in the cottage, listening to the sound of the trees rustling and the birds singing. I had been so uninhibited with him, had lost myself so much, and now I was blanking him, ignoring the three texts he’d sent me since we’d parted. What kind of slapper, my mother would have said, does that?
When he messaged me again, I messaged back. Please come. Even if it’s just for one night.
It was exactly 8pm when he pulled up in the car, parking beneath a knot of nearby trees (this I was grateful for – I didn’t particularly want my neighbours across the field spotting his car).
When I opened the door he was standing at the end of the garden path, looking around. The ox-eye daisies were blooming, and in the twilight they seemed to glow, pale circles of light.
‘I don’t remember it being this beautiful,’ he said.
‘I might have scattered some seed here,’ I said. ‘I told you wildflowers were beautiful. Country people call them moon daisies, because they shine at night.’ But he was already striding towards me.
I only just got him in the door and closed it before he took me in his arms and kissed me. No whisky, this time, but it was just as dizzying, my skin tingling and my body melting even though I was tired and restless and completely sure that we were not meant to be together. Apparently there were parts of my anatomy that hadn’t got the memo.
When we broke apart, he took my face in his hands and gave me a questioning look with eyes so bright it hurt to look at them. ‘I’m trained,’ he said, ‘not to need anyone, or anything. Just to survive, lone wolf, all that crap. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve successfully kept at a distance. So why do I need you?’
I shook my head. ‘You don’t. This is just a temporary feeling.’
‘Anna, it’s not.’
And then we didn’t say any more.
At first, we took things quickly. There, on the sofa, tugging at each other’s clothes, stealing kisses roughly as though we were playing at things. It was only when he grappled a condom from his wallet that I took a breath. ‘I didn’t think they sold those at Stonemore General Stores,’ I said, as casually as I could.
‘Under the counter. You have to say a password,’ he said. I started laughing and could only stop myself by gently biting his shoulder. Which worked, because at that moment his hands found a certain place as expertly as if he had a map of me. I was half losing myself in the physical rightness of it and half wondering at how natural it felt – the way we anticipated what the other wanted. When – at last – he was inside me, it was as though my body released all its tension and melted into pure sensation, sending me into a whirling vortex of pleasure so intense I wasn’t sure I could take it without passing out. Instead I dug my fingers into his back and made a noise I barely recognised.
‘And I was worrying about me losing control too quickly,’ he murmured, but I heard the roughness in his voice. We moved together, our hands entwined, first slowly and tenderly, then urgently, deeply. At the peak I was shaking so much he nestled his face against mine, tenderly. ‘Are you okay?’ he whispered, his breath catching on the words.
‘I am,’ I gasped, ‘very slightly better than okay,’ and when I heard him laugh grittily, I lost myself entirely, again, and so did he.
It was only afterwards that he lifted me and carried me upstairs to the bedroom, his mouth against my neck, my heart somewhere on the ceiling.
I’d felt pleasure before, of course, but that night with Jamie was at a different level. It was an unlocking of something far deeper. Once we reached the bedroom, our caresses were slow, deliberate and so exquisite they left my skin singing. I could think about nothing but us, in that room. The exquisite building and release, the slow juggernaut of anticipation, which left me gasping in its wake. And to see him losing control made my bliss even more intense. There was only this, now, more, again. With him deep inside me, our gazes locked together, there was no room for past pain or uncertainty. I felt uninhibited, comfortable and utterly wanted, and I did everything I could to make him feel the same. I fell asleep in his arms, pressed against his chest. This was what a fling was all about, wasn’t it? This sense of desire coupled with belonging?
Wasn’t it?
When I woke at 5.30am, I couldn’t admit the night was over. Half asleep, I pulled him to me, telling him what I needed him to do, my voice describing every sensation and saying his name as I tumbled over the edge and he did too.
I opened my eyes and when I looked at him, he was smiling. He stroked my hair.
‘I’m not sure how to recover from this,’ I said, with a hollow laugh.
‘You don’t need to recover from it,’ he said. ‘This can be every day – well, maybe not every day. We might need to rest sometimes.’
I traced the strong curve of his arm with my fingers. ‘I see your family tree every day when I go into the office,’ I said. ‘You know I’m not the person you’re looking for.’
He stopped stroking my hair. ‘Don’t do this.’
‘One of us has to be sensible,’ I said, hardly knowing how I managed to say the words. ‘One night is fine. More? It’s going to be a heap of trouble in the long run.’
He disentangled himself from me and sat up, on the edge of the bed, his back to me. I put my hand out; touched his smooth, muscular back that I’d been clinging to only moments before. But he jumped to his feet, grabbed his clothes, and left the room. I heard him running down the stairs.
I followed him slowly, faffing around with my dressing gown and the flip-flops that doubled as my slippers. Crikey, I was weak at the knees after the night we’d had.
He was sitting on the sofa, buttoning up his shirt, his face like thunder.
‘Hey,’ I flip-flopped over to him. ‘Don’t go like this. I’ll make some coffee.’
‘This is so messed up, Anna.’ He pulled on his shoes and started tying the laces. Mechanically, I got the cafetiere out and started spooning coffee into it, then put the kettle on. I was scrabbling for words. This night had been supposed to sort things out, make things simple, reset things.
‘Come on,’ I said. I went to him, put my hands on his shoulders from behind. He tensed, then touched my right hand with his own. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Just have some coffee, okay? Don’t rush out of here. I want things to be alright between us.’
But as I poured the water and made the coffee, the reality of what I’d done started to hit me. We could have written off the night in the bothy as a fever dream, a mistake made under the influence. But I’d gone and invited him, my boss, to my house for a one-night stand. Great move. Then gone through with it, in the most ecstatic, chandelier-swinging way, before rejecting him in the middle of it. Excellent, excellent, couldn’t have planned it better if I’d written it into a five-year plan. I blinked, looked at the kitchen in the cold morning light. It was as if I’d been drunk and this was the hangover.
‘Here.’ I took our mugs of coffee over and sat down next to him. ‘It’s almost six o’clock. I’m barely conscious.’
‘You seemed pretty conscious five minutes ago,’ he said. He was leaning forwards, his hands clasped together. I rubbed his back.
‘I’m not sick,’ he said irritably. ‘I don’t need your pity.’
‘It’s not pity.’ I took a swig of coffee. It was too hot and burned my mouth.
‘Let me get this straight.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘You enjoyed last night, didn’t you?’
My mouth dropped open. ‘Of course!’ Best sex of my life by a country mile , I wanted to say, but I had enough metropolitan defensiveness left not to give him too much of a compliment. ‘It was wonderful.’
‘Thank you,’ he muttered. ‘So I wasn’t dreaming then? It’s not as if we just did it once, Anna.’
‘I think we were into double figures,’ I said. I’d been hoping to forge every detail of it into my mind so I could recall this perfect one night of passion when I was old and decrepit but I’d lost my mind and stopped counting.
‘So my question is, why wouldn’t you want more of that?’
Now it was my turn to stare into the depths of my coffee. The question hollowed me out. How to explain to him that I knew what would happen? How the children issue would corrode us, as time passed? That it was better to have one perfect night and remember us as that, rather than losing all hope and joy as the bitterness slowly crept in, like ivy growing over an unkept garden, choking all life out of it?
‘Is it what I told you?’ he said. ‘In the bothy? Do you think I’m too fucked up?’
‘No!’ I put my coffee down. ‘Jamie, no. This is nothing to do with that. It’s nothing to do with you. This is all on me.’
‘Right,’ he said tightly, as though he didn’t believe me.
‘You have to trust me when I say that my fertility issues would change things,’ I said carefully. ‘Maybe not now, or even in a year’s time. But eventually it would. And then you’d be left with nothing – no child, no happy memories, and even less time to begin again with someone else.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we at least try?’
‘Let me ask you something,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘Have you always thought you’d have children?’
He swallowed. ‘Yes.’
‘And have you always liked the idea of having children?’
‘Yes.’
‘Exactly. This isn’t about whether to plant dahlias in the garden, or paint the bathroom blue. This is fundamental. If you stayed with me, I’d take something away from you. And if we embarked on a relationship, and then you decided it wasn’t working, you’d take something away from me. I’ve been there, Jamie. I can’t go through it again.’
He looked at me properly then, deep into my eyes. Took my hand. ‘Anna…’
I shook my head, my eyes prickling with tears. ‘It’s a no, Jamie. For both our sakes. You’ll thank me in ten years’ time.’
‘No, I won’t.’ He picked up the mug and sipped from it. ‘Let’s just give it a chance. We can go as slow as you want.’
‘I’m not having this conversation,’ I burbled on, trying to maintain a superficially bright tone. ‘It seems to me you have your countess right there.’ I thought of Lucinda. Thought of how many times I’d subconsciously compared myself to her – tall, lithe, blonde, never a hair out of place. Whilst I crashed through life with my hair like a bird’s nest, barely knowing my left from my right.
And there was her voice, of course. That perfect, cut-glass voice. The signifier of a class I would never feel at home in.
‘What are you talking about?’ Jamie looked bewildered.
‘Lucinda, of course,’ I said. ‘I think she’s perfect for you.’ And I marvelled how sensible and in control I sounded.
‘Let me get this right.’ Jamie had put his coffee down, and he was staring at me with a granite-hard gaze. ‘Yesterday, I told you things about my life that I’ve never told anyone. I did the one thing everyone’s always telling me to do: let go. Let someone in. So I did. In every single way possible. And now you’re suggesting I marry someone else?’
I sat very still and looked into the middle distance. The space between us seemed to stretch into miles. I could have reached out and touched him at that moment, but something kept me frozen to the spot.
‘For God’s sake, Anna…’ He put his hand on my knee. ‘Will you at least look at me?’
I wouldn’t look at him. Instead, I groped for words that would put an end to all of the difficult feelings. I remembered a distant conversation with Rose, three cocktails into a long evening, when we’d concluded that my life should be about fun, about flings. About moving on. It’s just sex, Anna , I remember her saying. You need to chill out about it .
I had to lie to him. It was for the best. It would save both of us more pain.
‘I thought it was just about sex,’ I murmured. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t let him see the terror I felt at the truth. This had been so much more than that. Every touch had told a different story.
I cleared my throat and hammered it home. ‘As far as I was concerned, this was a one-night stand.’ The silence that followed my words seemed to have its own quality. I felt as though I’d dropped a heavy stone into a deep lake.
‘Fuck this.’ He got up from the table. I wanted to stop him but I couldn’t move. Instead I watched him put his coat on, search for his car keys. Finally he found them and turned back towards me. His face was pale, his eyes blank. I wanted so badly to go to him, to put my arms around him. Instead I stayed there, arms folded over my chest.
‘What a dreadful, horrible mistake this has been,’ he said, staring at me as though I was a stranger. ‘Let’s just forget it, shall we?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Everything through Callum, as before, eh?’
‘I guess,’ I muttered.
‘Great,’ he snapped. ‘See you around.’ But he didn’t go. He stared at the door, and he hung his head. For a moment I thought he was crying. I sat forwards, trying to urge myself to go to him. Then he turned.
‘You should know,’ he said, and his anger seemed to have drained completely away. ‘This was never just about the sex, Anna. I wanted this. I wanted you .’ He yanked open the door and walked out.
I couldn’t have spoken if I tried. Frozen, I barely registered the sound of the front door slamming behind him. I was still sitting there when the Land Rover started up and he drove away.