Chapter Sixteen
The bathroom was so steamy she couldn’t see her face in the mirror any more, but the floor was a little cold. Olivia placed a fluffy bath mat down she’d brought from the flat in King’s Cross. She added some L’Occitane bath gel to the deep, scalding-hot bubble bath, and a few drops of lavender oil.
Olivia had been staying in Charlie’s flat since her father died, and in the run-up to the funeral.
Taking long, hot baths she couldn’t take in the flat share, as they didn’t have one.
Tidying things up; sorting things out. Crying into her pillow in the spare bedroom that used to be her bedroom and still had her old desk in it, the one her dad had made for her.
‘Now I know everything I need to know about you,’ Leo said from somewhere behind her. He was on the sofa in the living room. ‘You like bubble baths and limoncello.’
Olivia and Leo had shared four glasses between them, drinking it on the sofa while the bath – old and deep and incredibly slow to fill – had run. They had not talked much. Leo had said, generously, that the place was ‘nice’. Olivia had replied, ‘Yeah. Not what you’re used to, I expect, but yeah.’
‘Yes,’ she replied now with a soft smile. ‘And I’m closing the door.’
She took off her funeral clothes, her black, functional funeral underwear; pulled off a scrunchie from her right wrist and used it to pile her hair on top of her head in a messy bun.
She eased herself into the bath, sighing as her body slipped into the heat and steam of the water.
She submerged herself in bubbles, leaned back against the hull of the tub, letting the memories of this awful day wash away, just for now.
She tried not to think about Charlie’s bath accessories which she had gradually replaced over the past three weeks.
His soap bar for her bath gel. His flannel for her Korean exfoliating towel.
His Vosene shampoo for her fancy oil. The bathroom smelled of sandalwood and lavender now, not Charlie’s shaving foam and the bottle of Old Spice he had used for decades.
Olivia closed her eyes, breathed in the scent, and focused on the moment.
She needed to forget this day, the funeral, just for a little while. She needed to escape.
‘You can come in,’ she said after a while, to the closed door. ‘If you want. Bring a kitchen chair.’
‘If you’re sure?’ the door answered.
‘I’m camouflaged by bubbles. It’s perfectly safe.’
The door opened. Leo, in his office charcoal trousers and chambray shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, came in with a wooden chair and sat down, tugging up the knees of his trousers as he did so.
‘Feeling a little better?’ he asked her.
‘Yes.’ She had bubbles up to her chin. She liked him in here with her. She liked his voice.
‘Relax,’ he said, ‘you’ve had a rough day.’
She closed her eyes. They had put the radio on next door, something soft and jazzy. The tap was softly dripping. Her mind quietened in the hot water and the steam and the oily, lavender bubbles.
‘What’s your favourite word?’ he asked her, after a luxurious couple of minutes.
She smiled, opened her eyes. ‘Vainglorious,’ she replied. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Garlic.’
She smiled again. ‘You like garlic?’
‘I like the word garlic and I like garlic.’
‘You’re a strange creature.’
‘Pride myself on it.’
She closed her eyes again. Let herself be lulled by the water and the soft music and his presence.
Eventually, without opening her eyes, she asked him, ‘When did you first start writing?’
‘When I was twelve,’ he answered. She let his voice wash pleasurably over her.
‘I stopped locking myself in the bathroom to read, and instead I started to write.’ She looked at him; she’d thought he’d been joking about that.
‘And I was always a critic, I suppose. I started writing up critiques of the school assemblies. Scathing put-downs of the headmaster. Just for myself. Then I got bored of that, so moved on to the lunches. Playing with the language of food. Finding exactly the right words to convey a chicken stew or a piece of sticky toffee pudding . . .’
‘The language of food.’ She smiled languidly. ‘I like that.’ And because of Isaac and his mother, she thought. It made sense.
‘In sixth form,’ he continued, ‘I created the position of food critic for myself at the student newspaper. I would flounce around Salisbury in a big coat, sweeping into unsuspecting bistros. I started getting quite the reputation, you know, for trouncing places. I was really bloody obnoxious. What were you like as a teenager?’
‘Oh.’ She considered this. ‘Determined. Really good at netball.’
‘And as a child?’
‘Determined. Really good at Fuzzy-felts.’ She heard him laugh.
‘What books did you like to read?’
She thought of the books at Gillian’s house she’d read as a young girl, the books she had borrowed from Pimlico Library. ‘Just William, Brock the Badger, loads of Enid Blytons, Swallows and Amazons, Black Beauty.’
‘At your godmother’s house? Didn’t you tell me something like that once?’
‘I did. You remembered.’
‘I did. Favourite Enid Blyton?’
‘Mr Meddle.’
‘Ha. Mine were the island adventures. Loved those, so exciting. And Just William . . .’ he mused, ‘a nod to the mischief in you.’
‘Only occasionally,’ she admitted with a smile.
‘But, yes, I’m . . . careful. Except when it comes to you, it seems .
. . and random bathroom invitations.’ She covered her eyes with her hands in embarrassment, but she wasn’t embarrassed.
This felt right. She took them away again.
‘Are you still a player?’ she asked him seriously, but as soon as she’d said it, she wanted to take it back. Preserve the moment.
‘Of Fuzzy-felts?’ He looked curiously at her.
‘No, of women.’
‘I don’t like to think so. I’d like to think I’ve grown up a bit. That I’m becoming a good man. I mean, I know I like to kid around a lot, but I’m trying to have a good heart.’
All she could hear now was the soft drip, drip of the tap.
‘Good for you,’ she said, and she meant it. ‘The world needs more good men with good hearts.’
‘I’m trying to not be like my father or my stepfather,’ he said, and she was surprised by this. She’d had the impression he idolised Isaac. ‘How have I been tonight?’
‘Very good,’ she replied. ‘Very gentlemanly . . . so far.’ She gave a soft smile. ‘It’s a shame you never met Charlie Sackville,’ she added. ‘He was one of the best.’
She closed her eyes again. Listened to the soft seeping of the tap, the rain now, at the window. Felt the nearness of Leo and wished they could stay in there forever.
‘Hang on to the good things,’ Leo said. ‘Hang on to all the times that were really good with your dad. And there will be better times for you, I know there will. I like you,’ he added. ‘It may not be the day to say it, but I like you a lot.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Then say it again tomorrow,’ she said.
‘I like you, too.’ And she meant it. ‘Will you stay tonight?’ she asked him.
‘Stay over? I don’t want to be alone,’ she repeated.
‘I don’t mean sleep together, as I don’t think it’s the day for that, either.
But would you mind just being here with me? ’
He took a beat before he answered. ‘No, I don’t mind.’
They stayed there in the bathroom for another twenty minutes or more, talking softly, Olivia eventually turfing Leo out so she could emerge from the bath.
She dried herself quickly, with one of Charlie’s comfortingly rough old towels; put on her pyjamas, a soft dressing gown of shell pink.
They lay squished up on the single bed in her old room for a while, just talking, then, when she grew sleepy, he moved to the sofa, with a quilt and a pillow she’d fetched for him from a cupboard.
She didn’t sleep well, knowing he was just in the next room. Early in the morning, she rose from her single bed and stole into the sitting room, where he was lying on his side, sleeping on the sofa, one flick of brown hair over an eye.
‘It’s tomorrow,’ she whispered. He stirred, and opened his eyes. ‘Will you come back to my bed?’
That morning, they stayed under the covers of the single bed for a long time, exploring, pleasuring, pleasing.
His gentle eagerness was a delight and a fire, and her receiving of him a sweet, sweet release.
He was a balm to her, a relief, a solace and a temporary healing.
Temporary, yes, for after the tussled, tangled heat of it all, after the quiet and the stillness of the hours beyond, the fresh bout of tears that made him clasp her to him tightly, she understood somehow what would be.
That she and this beautiful man had arrived somewhere, but only for now, and that they would be saying goodbye before the end of the day.