‘I suppose I did. The first time was sort of an accident, genuinely. And then I just… I thought, I wonder if I could–’
‘“Sort of an accident”?’ I push my own sunglasses down my nose so I can look over them at him.
‘Yeah. I went to a party, we all did, and Tasha was there. She’d been… I suppose she was his first proper girlfriend, but they split up when he went to university. He was reasonably upset about it. Anyway, we’d always got on quite well, and it was Hogmanay, and we were drunk, and you know how it is. He pretended he didn’t care, but I could see he did. I enjoyed the feeling. I’m not proud of that,’ he adds, ‘or of any of it. After that it was almost an obsession. I’d sleep with girls he was seeing, if I could. And I usually could. We moved in similar circles, even though we weren’t really speaking to one another. It would have been better for both of us if he’d gone to university somewhere else, but there you are. He got suspicious, eventually. By the time I slept with Julia – well, like I say, they were separated by then. But that’s why he didn’t introduce me to Carolyn until the wedding.’
‘To stop you sleeping with her?’
He nods.
‘But it didn’t stop you.’
‘Ha. No. She couldn’t believe we’d never met before. Three years they’d been together. “Did he tell you why he didn’t want us to meet?” I asked her, and she was surprised. “Is there a reason?” So I told her: “I like to sleep with my brother’s girlfriends.” She was shocked. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to get the full set,” she said, and I said, “We’ll have to wait and see,” which she thought was funny, I suppose. And after that she was always… He didn’t invite me round or anything, but I did see them sometimes. She used to come into the shop. I think she was intrigued or whatever. For some reason. I did my best “barely interested” and in the end…’
‘Oh my God.’ I laugh, but I really am rather shocked by this.
‘I didn’t like her that much, as I said. But we did it quite a lot. I suppose we had an affair. He caught us eventually. That was probably the plan, after all.’
‘Bloody hell, Edward, this is–’
‘I’ve never been more… It was incredibly satisfying. That was the moment when I realized though. That I’d screwed my own life up, as much as his. Theirs. I mean, yeah, he was unhappy, and angry, and all those things, but I’d never – or hardly ever – even tried to meet anyone. Anyone for me, anyone who wasn’t part of the game I was playing. So that’s why I avoid it, mostly.’
‘Mostly?’
‘I do have some friends,’ he says, ‘female friends. Close friends.’
‘People you sleep with?’
‘Sometimes. Yes.’
‘But you wouldn’t count them as your girlfriends?’
‘God, no. No.’
‘Gosh. How sophisticated it all is,’ I say. ‘I feel desperately provincial.’ I put my empty glass down on the grass. I think I might be a bit pissed.
‘You disapprove.’
‘I don’t think you should base your sex life round your brother, but apart from that you can do what you like.’ I blink at him. ‘You’re a grown-up, after all. I have no problem with any unofficial arrangements you might have with your friends. That seems extremely healthy in comparison.’
‘I suppose it does. And what about you?’
‘Me? What about me?’
‘What are you going to do about your sex life?’
‘Oh, good grief. Ha. Nothing.’
‘Ever?’
‘It’s way too early for me to think about having a sex life. It’s twenty years since I slept with someone who wasn’t Chris. I can’t imagine ever meeting anyone, or wanting to.’ I shake my head. ‘Good grief.’
‘Are you heartbroken?’ He’s sort of joking, but I’m not, of course.
‘I should say so.’
‘Really?’
‘I’m… entirely bereft.’ I feel that familiar ache in my throat.
‘Shit,’ he says, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–’
‘It’s okay. I’m sure it will be all right eventually. Or I’ll get used to it. Or something. It doesn’t kill you, after all. I knew that. It’s just… it’s very sad, and tiring.’
I get up, slightly unsteadily, and go back inside for a glass of water. I run the tap and wonder what Chris is doing. He’ll be at work. I wonder how he’s finding this almost step-parenthood he’s indulging in. I wonder if he likes it, children in his house. Her middle son is quite a handful. I wonder if he’s always wanted that, secretly. Not a child who is a handful. Just a child, any child.
They could have one together, I suppose; she’s younger than I am, only thirty-eight or something. I grip the edge of the sink. They seem a thousand miles away, another life. It’s as though I might wake up and find it all a dream, all this, these months up here. I might drive home and find him waiting for me; we might pick up the threads of our life and carry on as usual.
Or maybe he comes home to her and thinks the years I lived there were the dream, the illusion, waiting for the moment when I could be pushed aside. I wonder whose idea it was, how it happened. I didn’t ask and I’ll probably never know, how their first kiss emerged from their friendship, how they were drawn together, how they – I don’t like to even think the phrase – fell in love.
I open the cupboard and find a glass, bend to fill it, and when I straighten, I catch the side of my head on the open cupboard door, hard enough to see stars.
‘Ow, fuck, shit,’ I say, elegantly. ‘Bastard.’ I turn off the tap, put the glass down and investigate the damage cautiously. There’s blood on my fingers.
‘Are you okay? What’s happened?’ Edward calls from outside.
‘Cut my head open,’ I tell him.
‘Oh no, how’ve you managed that?’ He’s inside now, coming to see.
‘Banged my head. I didn’t shut the cupboard. What an idiot. Ow.’
‘Come here,’ he says, ‘let me see if you need stitching. Not that I can drive you to A&E for like, another four hours,’ he adds. ‘I think I’ve had too much to drink.’
‘I don’t think it’s that bad. Hope not, anyway.’ I stand by the door in the bright late-afternoon sunshine so he can examine my wounded scalp. ‘It’s here,’ I say. ‘Ow.’
He gently pushes my hair out of the way. ‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘It’s not too bad. But it is bleeding. Hold on.’
I stand, leaning against the wall, and wait.
He comes back with a damp tea towel, and presses it to my head. I feel foolish, standing there while he dabs at me.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It did. Not too bad now.’
‘I like the way your hair is silver underneath,’ he says. ‘Does the hairdresser do that?’
This makes me laugh heartily. ‘No, it’s grey, you idiot. Or are you teasing?’
‘No, it’s… But you’ve hardly any grey on top, it’s all underneath. And it’s really not grey, is it? Definitely silver.’
He’s lifting up sections of my hair now and looking at it, his fingers on my scalp. No one’s touched me for such a long time, it makes me tingle all over in an inappropriate way. I feel my ears burning. I’m probably very red as well. I clear my throat, embarrassed.
‘That’s just how it grows,’ I say. ‘It’s odd isn’t it? It’s been like that for a while – seven or eight years.’
‘Not odd,’ he says, ‘it’s… pretty. Or stylish, I don’t know. Aren’t you lucky? My grey hairs come through much coarser than the dark, and stick out weirdly.’
‘You hardly have any.’
‘No, not yet. My grandfather didn’t go grey until he was nearly seventy. I get more in my beard.’ He rasps a hand across his chin, and then goes back to pushing my hair about. He seems quite fascinated by it. My hair’s very fine, but there’s a lot of it; it’s almost shoulder length, growing out from what was quite a neat bob earlier in the year. I sort of want him to stop touching me but also sort of don’t. I
’m very conscious that there are other things going on and hope he hasn’t noticed, after all there’s no cold breeze to explain the state of my nipples. Jesus. I think I must be a lot drunker than I realized. I put a hand up to touch the cut on my head, and he seems to realize that running his fingers though my hair, which is basically what he’s doing, is a bit odd.
‘Shit,’ he says, ‘sorry, I forgot what I was… Well. Your hair is cool.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you hungry? I could start dinner,’ he says. I wonder if he means to distract me.
Twelve
For dinner, Edward has bought steak. I can’t help thinking today has been quite expensive for him. When I try to say this, however, he reacts as though I’m being offensive, and won’t discuss it. We drink more wine, and that bottle is empty too. We wash up the plates, have a cup of tea, smoke another joint, and walk on the beach, talking expansively, and in places hilariously, about the books we studied at university, about our fellow students, our lecturers, about the change from grunge to Britpop, about the expansive, world-changing power of dance music. If we were somewhere with a signal, and electricity, we’d be playing each other our favourite tunes. It’s fun; proper, friendship-making, bonding fun.
Back at the Shed, we watch the sun go down behind the hill, across the bay. I’ve stopped drinking because I’d begun to feel hazy and unfocused, and because I was feeling a bit self-conscious… and because it seems sensible not to get drunk, properly drunk, with my boss. When I had a real job, I used to avoid drinking with my colleagues. Partly because I didn’t want to see them being drunk, partly because I could never relax and partly because I used to worry I might tell someone the truth about what I was thinking.
Never because I was worried I might want to kiss someone inappropriate. I’m not saying I never thought about anyone else at all during my marriage, but there was never a chance that any situation would arise where something might happen.
Not that I think there’s any chance here. Or even that I’d want there to be. I don’t think I actually fancy Edward, but today he’s been quite different from usual, and I think this is perhaps more what he’s truly like, or would be if he’d let himself. I quite like the surly rude version because it’s amusing, and because I like to ignore the surliness, but this more relaxed version is much nicer.
I suppose I’m interested in him, and that’s partly because of his past. Not the sister-in-law shagging – although that is really interesting – but the aristocratic stuff. Like a lot of lower-middle-class people from a working-class background, I have a complex attitude to posh people. Intrigued and disgusted. Horrified but fascinated. Imagine knowing the names of people in your family from the eighteenth century. Imagine if your ancestors had been able to read and write for at least five hundred years.
It’s colder now, a sharper breeze from the north-west. I shiver and fetch my jumper, huddle a blanket round myself. It might be better to go inside and sit on the sofa, but that seems defeatist, somehow.
Edward says, ‘I might open that other bottle of wine. What do you think?’
‘But will we be okay to get home? You said earlier you thought you’d had too much to drive.’
‘I was thinking maybe we could stay?’ He looks unsure, frowning. I feel a slight sense of concern. Was this his plan all along? Surely not – it seems complicated and unlikely. Doesn’t it?
‘Stay?’
‘Yes – you could sleep in the bedroom, if you wanted. Or on the sofa, which is a lot better.’
‘But what about you?’
‘I can sleep on the floor. Or outside. Like I say, I usually do. There’s a – you know – a sleeping mat thing.’
‘I hate sleeping in my clothes.’ True as this is, as soon as I’ve said it, I wish I hadn’t.
He doesn’t react, however, at least only to say, ‘There should be some T-shirts in the bedroom. Be enormous on you; probably come down to your knees. Very modest.’
‘You’re only like five inches taller than I am,’ I say, outraged by this for some reason.
‘Yeah, Titch, whatever,’ he says, and this strikes both of us as extremely amusing.
‘I guess we don’t have much choice. It’s not like we can phone anyone, with no signal.’
‘If you want to go home, we could walk round to the caravan park and call someone from there – I’m sure Jenny would come and pick you up. Or you could get a cab.’
I stare at him. ‘That would cost a million pounds, surely.’
‘Probably not a million pounds. But maybe forty. I’d pay for it, obviously, since it’s my fault you’re trapped here.’
I think about this for a while. I don’t really want to walk for half an hour in order to beg for a lift like a teenager.
‘Oh well, sod it. It probably won’t kill me not to clean my teeth for once.’
He laughs, but says, ‘Sure? I don’t want you to feel like I’ve kidnapped you.’
‘Pfft. I’ve had less to drink than you, I could probably drive your car, eventually. Maybe.’
‘Have you? Would you like to try?’
‘Is it hard to drive?’
He looks at me, evidently considering whether or not I’d be capable of this feat. ‘No power steering.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well.’ I look out to sea for a bit, and then back at him. I’m fairly confident this isn’t part of some kind of convoluted plan to compromise me. Ha ha, compromise – I think I’m past being compromised. ‘What’s wrong with the bed?’ I ask.
‘Oh, try it if you like. I should probably get a new mattress for it. But because I never sleep in there, and rarely bring anyone else to stay, I only ever think about it when I’m actually here.’
* * *
I head through to the bedroom. Edward follows me. It’s dark.
‘Hang on,’ he says, ‘there’s a torch… Here you go. T-shirts are in the second drawer.’ He clicks on the torch and hands it to me.
I open the drawer, feeling around the neat piles of fabric, and pull out a T-shirt, shaking it one-handed to unfold it.
‘Okay,’ I say, holding it against my chest, ‘that’s enormous.’
He laughs. ‘Too big even for me,’ he agrees. ‘That’s why it’s here, I guess. All the clothes here are a bit random.’
I turn it round so I can see what it says. Two stick figures and childlike writing: ‘Joanna’.
‘Who’s Joanna?’
‘Oh, no one. It’s a band. My friend’s band. He made the T-shirts as well.’
‘Are they any good?’
‘I wouldn’t say good, exactly. They were okay.’
‘Good enough to buy a T-shirt?’
‘Ha ha, yeah, I didn’t buy it, he gave it to me.’
‘Well, I reckon it will fit me.’ I turn to look at the bed, pale in the gloom. ‘So what’s wrong with this?’
‘Try it,’ he says. I hand the torch back to him and he directs the torchlight at the headboard.
I turn back the duvet and lie down, cautiously. The mattress makes an unusual sproinging noise and something – probably whatever made the noise – digs into my kidneys. In addition to this, it feels very much as though my feet are higher than my head. I turn onto my side and it makes the noise again. The spring is no longer stabbing me but there’s the faint sensation that it might tip me out onto the floor.
‘Right,’ I say, sitting up, ‘yeah, you should buy a new mattress.’
‘Awful, isn’t it? Luckily the sofa’s really comfortable. Bring the duvet,’ he adds, opening the wardrobe and rummaging about. We drag bedding back through to the other room and pile it on the sofa. He goes back for his sleeping mat and pillows, and, yawning hugely, I open a packet of fancy crisps and empty them into a bowl.
‘Should I open this wine, then?’ I ask him.
‘Did you want some?’
‘Not really.’
‘Can’t drink the whole thing myself.’
‘You can take it home with you, ca
n’t you?’ I unhook the corkscrew from the hook on the side of the cupboard, and open the bottle. I pour a glass for him and, after some consideration, a glass of fizzy water for me. I lean against the sink and watch him as he potters about, lighting candles in the big glass storm lanterns. I’m really quite tired; it feels as though today has lasted for ever. In a good way – I’ve definitely enjoyed myself. Lunchtime feels like weeks ago. It’s almost ten o’clock, still not really dark, of course. I yawn again, and eat some crisps.
‘Are you really going to sleep outside then?’ I ask him.
‘I might. Or for a while at least. The moon will be behind us for ages, but eventually it will be over the sea, and that’s pretty special. And it’s clear.’ He walks to the door and steps out onto the grass, looking up at the sky. I go to stand beside him. There are stars already, even though it’s not yet fully dark.
‘You should stay out and look at the stars,’ he says, ‘at least for a bit. But we could get your bed ready.’
Back in the Shed he fumbles with the large sofa. ‘It folds down,’ he explains, ‘but I can never – oh, there you go.’ He billows the sheet at me.
I look at the sofa bed. It’s pretty big; bigger than a double bed, probably. Now he’s flung the duvet over it, I have to say it looks enticing.
‘It really is pretty good,’ he says, and lies down, patting the space beside him. ‘Try it.’
‘Er–’
‘Plenty of room, you can get two people on here easily.’
Bloody hell. I have a sudden sense of vertigo, almost panic. Maybe this whole thing was a massive mistake. I wish I was at home. At Uncle Andrew’s, I mean.
‘I don’t think… Look, if you’d rather, I can sleep on the floor,’ I say, ‘I mean, it’s not really fair, is it, if you’d come by yourself–’
A moth flies through the doorway and flings itself into one of the candles, sizzling unpleasantly and distracting us both.
‘Damn,’ he says. ‘I should put the curtain up.’ He gets up quickly, and pulls a large rectangle of folded fabric from under the cushions on the smaller sofa. It’s a fine mesh, an anti-insect screen, and he deftly hooks it up over the open space. Then he lights more candles. He doesn’t say anything else about us sharing the sofa, and I think perhaps I misunderstood. I feel a flood of relief. It was silly to panic. I’m an adult, everything will be fine. He’s not going to try anything. He’d have tried already, if he was going to. I calm myself. It’s just because I’m not used to… I know we’re often together – in fact, I spend far more time with Edward than anyone else – but we’re not usually alone. Not this alone. It’s fine though. I’ve been enjoying myself, haven’t I? I don’t need to think about earlier, his hands on me, or about what it would be like, if he… Think about something else, quickly.
The Bookshop of Second Chances Page 12