Chapter 7 Jules “Alright” #3
She harmonizes with Gaz Coombes about feeling all right.
Then jumps around to the instrumental bit and her body is still so fluid, so un-achy.
Her slinky satin robe falls open and she’s naked beneath.
I look down at her—my, our—pert tits as she jigs in time with an unselfconsciousness that’s beautiful.
I’m hearing her thoughts and how happy she is that it’s a Sunday morning and she and Adam are actually living together.
They’ve both got new jobs—with him now a games designer and her a cook at the Bandstand café—so they could afford to move out of their parents’ homes and into this little one-bed top-floor flat up by Seven Dials, with a view down over the higgledy-piggledy roofs of the rest of Brighton.
I watch her hands reach for the metal coffeepot and unscrew its lid, then spoon in grinds from the jar.
And I remember how years before that Nespresso machine Adam bought me, this one made great coffee and was one of the first things we bought together when we moved in.
She loves it that they now have their stuff.
These first bricks of their new life together.
“Ads, what have you done with the matches?” she calls.
Her voice is bright, but then she—I—feels great.
She glances over at the table where the backgammon set is laid out from last night’s session, alongside two empty wineglasses, an empty bottle of red, a full ashtray, and, next to it, a box of matches.
But even with the late night, she’s totting up that they’ve still had nine hours’ sleep.
A straight nine hours.
When was the last time I got nine hours’ sleep? Without Adam getting up for a pee, or me getting a cramp, or having to beat off the duvet with the onset of yet another hot flush?
She lights the gas, jumping back as it flares, her attention already turning to the salad she’s going to make for their picnic lunch.
She reaches up and pulls down a large black notebook from the shelf, one left over from her food design course at college.
She’s filled it with recipes, along with sketches.
You eat with your eyes, is what she thinks.
She wants anyone who tastes her dishes to have all of their senses engaged.
That’s what it’ll be like when she makes them in her own restaurant one day.
As I eavesdrop on her thoughts, I’m gobsmacked by how single-minded and ambitious she is. How she aches with wanderlust to experience food in different places. She knows the world is out there. Just waiting for them.
“Is that coffee?” Adam calls in a sleepy voice and her heart leaps. He’s awake.
She runs into the bedroom—I’d forgotten the orange duvet and the purple sheet with the splodgy orange roses. Adam lies beneath it, and agile as a cat, she leaps onto the bed, straddling him.
Jeez, my knees could do that?
“Get up,” she says. “We’re going to the park, remember?”
He looks all sexy and mussed up. He’s sporting long sideburns and a boxy, retro mod haircut that makes him look like someone’s stuck a Lego wig on his head.
I now remember it was her who severed his fringe, a month ago, on the first night they moved in here, that same night she gave herself her Justine Frischmann from Elastica slanted bob.
Liam, she wanted him to look like Liam from Oasis…when now we have a Liam of our own.
“Come back to bed,” he mock-whines, because he’s lazy, but also because he’s not as much a fan of fresh air as she is. Left to his own devices, he’d play video games round the clock, though slowly but surely she’s breaking his bad habits. He’s her work in progress.
“Nope, fresh air, fresh air, fresh air.” She laughs, squashing him, as she leans over to her side of the bed and grabs the blister pack of contraceptive pills and quickly pops one.
Adam laughs as she deliberately crushes him again.
“All right, all right. Get off,” he groans. “I need a slash.”
I watch the languid way he moves. He’s so comfortable in his skin.
And I realize that the young me is assuming that his tight buttocks and buff biceps are a forever thing—like the contours of Michelangelo’s David.
She has no concept that his dad bod is patiently waiting for her on the horizon.
Just like my saggy body is for him. But right now, her body is stirring at the sight of his.
She fights down the urge and quickly gets dressed—pulling her dark blue sundress with yellow suns and moons out of the wardrobe. A wardrobe that is filled solely with clothes that actually fit. She’ll pair it, as she does with every outfit these days, with her Doc Martens and her black trilby.
She half watches as, in the adjoining bathroom, Adam pees, then turns to the sink for his toothbrush. A bubble of irritation rises up inside her. Yet again, he’s left the toilet seat up.
I know I shouldn’t—me and Adam have absolutely promised each other that we’ll just be passengers—but I can’t help myself.
1995 Jules really needs to nip this in the bud right now if she’s to save herself years of looking at dribble marks on the rim of the porcelain bowl with the seat left up every bloody time.
“Oi. Put the loo seat down,” I say. Yes, me. Only the words come out of her mouth.
Whoops.
I register her shock and sudden flare of confidence now the words are out.
“What?” He glares back.
“You heard.” She stares him down, and any guilt I might have felt evaporates. Because it was her who just said that. She’s back in control.
He puts the loo seat down and washes his hands. In the bedroom, he looks at the clothes he’s left scattered on the floor. He lifts up his socks, sniffs them and wrinkles his nose, then throws them toward the wicker laundry basket in the corner, where they land on the floor.
Again, I can sense her watching, pretending to herself that she’s not really minding, but actually minding a lot. While she’s in shock from her last command, the daredevil in me makes her say, “You can do better than that.”
Then I make her scoop up the socks and chuck them back at him. You know what, Adam? Sod it, this is for your own good.
He looks at her with surprise as I continue imposing myself, so that she opens the laundry-bin lid and waves her arm to encourage him to fire them in.
“Goal!” she cheers—or, rather, I cheer—as he succeeds with the first one. Then “Goal!” as he gets another. “Pants are double,” I tell him, cheering him on as he gets those in too.
There. See. I will it into my younger self’s brain. You can get a man to do anything, so long as you tell him it’s sport.
Younger Jules is feeling pleased that two big items are crossed off her “Adam to-do” list. The loo seat and the laundry. Not bad for a morning’s work.
He grabs her, pressing up against her. “You’re so bossy today. It’s hot.”
But still she resists his advances, and ten minutes later, the salad is assembled in the empty Wall’s ice cream tub, and with beers in a backpack, they set off to Stanmer Park in their chipped cream Beetle.
Oh, our fabulous car!
“Ta-da!” Jules says, waggling the tape at Adam. “I finished it yesterday.”
He smiles, delighted, and leans over and kisses her.
He puts the tape in the player and they wind down the windows, not caring that people are giving them looks as they bellow out first Supergrass and then “I’ll Be There for You” from that new Channel 4 comedy about a bunch of squeaky-clean New Yorkers, which Jules has absolutely no clue that her kids will still be watching reruns of in nearly thirty years’ time.
Then our favorite Dolly song, “Islands in the Stream,” and I remember Darius’s party and how Adam refused to sing with me.
Whereas this Jules is certain that he’ll be harmonizing badly like this with her forever.
Adam parks on the grass verge outside Stanmer House and they listen to a few more songs on the tape while they snog. Just snog. Like they have all the time in the world. Which they do.
“Fresh air,” Jules reminds herself, eventually coming up for some herself.
The park is in full May bloom, with the woods awash with bluebells, and they yomp up the winding path, holding hands. The green canopy is thick with birdsong. It’s perfect.
She lays down the blanket she’s brought, but even before it’s evened out, he ambushes her, lying on top of her.
Flippin’ heck. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have a libido this sky-high. But what’s even more shocking is that neither of them seems to have the slightest fear of being caught. Their need is greater.
“Off, off…” he breathes, tugging at the side of her knickers beneath the short flared dress, and she laughs.
I can feel her straining, hurrying to get him inside her, but there’s a worry too. Will she or won’t she be able to come? It’s not a guaranteed thing. In fact, it’s frustrating that sometimes she can and sometimes she can’t.
But I can help her with that.
“Wait, wait, wait,” she whispers between kisses—and I can feel her surprise that her mouth’s just issued this order. She’s not usually able to give instructions. “Give me your hand,” I make her say, and guide Adam’s hand between her legs.
“Slower,” I say. “Top left. No, my top left,” I make her clarify, guiding his fingers in a slow circle, as he continues to move inside her.
And, okay, this might not be the most romantic way to instruct him.
Maybe not what Dr. Ruth would advise. But tempus fugit, and all that.
I don’t know how much time we’ve got left.
I can feel all her senses tingling. This is so damn good. That’s what she’s thinking, what I’m thinking too.
It took me years to work out how to ask for this, but now as she presses herself, grinding against Adam, his fingers move rhythmically—oh yes, yes, yes, he’s a fast learner, my boy—turning her on and up and up and up.
Oh my God, this feels incredible.
My thought. Or just hers?
Because she’s now firmly in charge of proceedings, leaving me literally back here for the ride…