Greetings from Viaduct Country
The sting of cold air was not enough to sober them up as they walked back through the town, arms linked. She was aware of her dress sticking to her back with sweat, the dampness suddenly chilling so that she had no choice really but to press close to Michael, so that he tripped and laughed and had no choice but to hold on to her in return and this was how they staggered back, drunks from a silent movie. It seemed very important to think and speak clearly and also impossible to do so, and ‘I loved Curry Club!’ was all she could manage.
‘I loved it too!’ he offered in return, so at least they were as bad as each other.
And then they were outside Sunnyview Lodge and from somewhere came an overwhelming urge, some sublimated desire, to push him into the privet hedge. ‘Bush push!’ she shouted, and he looked a bit surprised but rebounded and tried to push her into the bush in return, and then they were wrestling again, the second time in two days. ‘Ssh!’ she said.
‘You started it!’ he hissed. ‘You pushed me in the bush!’ and she gave him a shove and it was Jane Austen time again.
And then they were at the gate. ‘I should get back,’ he said, ‘late night,’ and she peered at her watch.
‘Mikey,’ she said, ‘it is precisely nine forty-five,’ and they both started to laugh and before he could stop, ‘There’s a kettle in my room. And some sloe gin!’
‘Gin and whisky,’ he said.
‘Feelin’ frisky,’ she said, and yet despite this he followed her up the path.
‘Ssh!’ She opened the door as quietly as possible. From the guest lounge came the sound of the TV and she beckoned him to the stairs, which they climbed on tiptoe as if she were sneaking a boy into her room, which she was, she was actually doing that: that was the thing she was doing. Halfway up the stairs they gave up on silence and bounded up, shedding privet, and into the Lavender Suite, where she closed the door and, weirdly, bolted it, though thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.
‘This is nice!’ said Michael, as she hurried to pick up discarded clothes and underwear, jamming them into the open top of her rucksack. The big light was on, a 100-watt bulb in a tasselled shade, but it seemed a little too brazen to turn on the bedside lights, so to distract him …
‘Check out my biscuit barrel,’ she said, and he did so, lifting the lid while she fixed the lighting.
‘Very swanky,’ he said, ‘this will certainly keep your cookies fresh’ and they were laughing again, and she was reminded of those times when she used to work with other human beings whom she liked and got on with and sometimes they’d go on trips or on the annual team-building weekend and rush back to someone’s hotel room, how illicit and fun that was, all squeezing into a room with nowhere to sit except the bed, raiding the mini-bar, smoking out of windows, getting complaints from Reception. That was how she’d got together with Neil, but forget Neil, he is not Neil.
‘We need some choons!’ she said, but the radiogram was tuned to Radio 4 and a discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. ‘Let’s get this party halted!’ she said, though Michael was bopping his head and biting his lip. ‘You can’t dance to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Retune!’ and while he pressed the buttons cluelessly, she found the sloe gin, in its tall green bottle tied with a ribbon. ‘It’s a secret potion!’ she said, and began to sing ‘Black Magic’ while the radio cycled through jazz and classical and the weather forecast, another lovely day in the north-east but make the most of it because … She opened the sloe gin with her teeth and spat the tiny cork across the room, like a pirate, swigged it, delicious, like cough medicine, and flopped on to the bed, the springs in the frame clanging like a bin lorry. ‘D’you want a glass?’ she said, offering him the potion. ‘Or a teacup?’
‘’S okay,’ he replied, and took a swig, winced and placed it carefully on the bedside table.
And then they were both on the bed. There were too many pillows. Their heads were crooked up at ninety degrees, staring down towards the metal bedstead, and she kicked off her evening shoes, curled her toes and sighed and rubbed her black-stockinged feet against each other, and he tapped them with his great muddy boots, once, twice.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘You were meant to take your boots off!’
And then they were kissing and though it would be hard to say exactly who started it, there was no doubt of the mutual enthusiasm. She had never kissed a man with a beard before, had imagined it would be like rubbing your face on a coconut, but it was soft as was his mouth, which was still sticky and sweet with the sloe berries, with a lingering trace of whisky and the pub curry, something slightly numbing anyway, or perhaps that was the taste of her own mouth, but either way it was delicious and she felt and remembered it: desire. There it is again.Hello, desire! God, I missed you!
Another squall of springs as they shuffled down the bed so that they could lie flat, facing each other, her hand on his neck, his on her waist, and she had a momentary worry that she might have food between her teeth, a grain of rice or the trace of a nut that might become dislodged and get kicked around. She wondered, too, if she should do something about the radio, which had settled on Radio 3, an arts programme and a review of a new production of The Crucible, which, thankfully, all of the critics had admired very much, finding it ‘powerful’, ‘timely’ and ‘compelling’, but his hand was on her ribs now, his finger and thumb along the underwiring of her bra, and she wondered how to reciprocate, unzip his trousers at the knee perhaps. Perhaps she could make a joke about it, but that would mean breaking away from the kiss, which she didn’t want to do, finding it powerful, timely and compelling. Now she wanted to laugh, not mockingly but with a kind of glee, a rollercoaster laugh as they shifted again, the bedsprings like an accordion, his leg between hers, pushing her dress up and now his hand was on her thigh at the top of her hold-up stockings, which she was suddenly embarrassed about, my God, hold-up stockings, as if this were a touring production of The Rocky Horror Show, aware too of his erection or perhaps his GPS device brushing against her hip and now she was tugging at his shirt, the famous shirt, and he whispered something like Hey, careful with that, it’s delicate so that they were both laughing again until she heard another noise from elsewhere, a tap on the door. He must have heard it too, because he broke away and they lay facing each other, very still.
‘What was that?’ he said.
And then a rustling sound from the landing, as if someone were eavesdropping. ‘Hold on,’ and she disentangled herself, swung her legs to the floor, pulled down her dress and stepped lightly across the room.
A postcard, a glossy picture of the perfect valley they’d seen that afternoon, the words ‘Greetings from Viaduct Country!’ italicised across the bottom. She turned it over and saw, written neatly in fat black pen – ‘No Guests After 10, Please!’
‘Oh, God, no.’
‘What is it?’ said Michael.
‘She’s throwing you out.’
He laughed. ‘Really?’
‘No gentleman callers.’ She showed him the postcard and he scrubbed at his hair with both hands, winced and sat at the edge of the bed. ‘I suppose there’s no arguing with that,’ she said, ‘house rules.’ He found her hand and held it.
‘You could come back to mine. It’s a single bed, but—’
‘No, I think not.’
Some time passed, sat looking at the biscuit barrel, the small kettle, holding hands. She thought she could feel the blood pulsing in his palm, or perhaps it was hers or perhaps both. He sighed. ‘Tomorrow then?’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I feel pretty drunk,’ he said, then quickly, ‘though that’s not the reason.’
‘Me too,’ she said, ‘by which I mean me neither,’ and they kissed again, more hesitantly, gently and for some time, until Marnie broke away. ‘I feel like she’s writing another postcard.’
‘I’ll go,’ he said, ‘make a run for it.’
‘If she tries to stop you, just push past her, she’s elderly and small.’
‘I will do that,’ he said, hand on the door, ‘I will push her down the stairs,’ and she thought how handsome he looked and how much she wanted him. ‘That was fun,’ he said, and those might have been his parting words had she not bolted him in. There was some confusion, tugging and rattling the handle until he managed to pull back the bolt and smile and leave. She heard his boots on the stairs, then the front door closing softly in the hall below.
And then she lay there, staying very still so as not to sound the springs, the room moving very slightly, its dimensions changing, smiling to herself, confused and excited and yet not so excited that she didn’t fall into a profound sleep, on top of the bedclothes, in her second-best dress with one stocking rolled below her knee, at a little after ten past ten.