by Gill Mather
Dennis is facing away from me as he peers into his eye level cupboard at a bewildering range of infusions. My heart starts to hammer away again as I know I may not get another chance to move things on. He must be able to hear it this time in the confines of the kitchen. I’m sure my brow is breaking into a sweat as it feels cooler when the rest of me still in my fleeces is burning up. He turns to me.
“What would you like?” he says.
I go over to take a closer look at the packets of tea. I turn to him. “You,” I reply breathlessly and place a hand on his shoulder.
He takes a deep breath, swallows and looks my face slowly up and down. “Anna,” he says.
He puts one hand on the side of my head and the other round my waist. Trixie snores softly. Then we kiss properly, extensively, thoroughly. Getting closer and closer and closer. And soon it isn't enough. I feel as though I’ve been injected with some powerful ecstasy-inducing chemical that infuses every part of my body, and snakes and twists through my mind.
“Could we go to bed?” I say. I’m not drunk this time. Unless you count drunk with lust. There’s no reason for him to refuse this time around.
When I set out for his place earlier, this development wasn't anticipated; at least not that seriously. I have to hope that I haven't got a tatty bra on today or that in my rush to change and leave, I didn't put odd socks on under my jeans. I don't know if this sort of thing worries men too; the state of his underpants or maybe an untidy bedroom. Possibly, but I really couldn't give a toss just now about anything practical. If he refuses now on account of an unmade bed or a bathroom that needs a bit of a clean up, then I’ll know he just wants to remain friends, though it doesn't feel like it from where I’m standing face to face with him, our hands pulling our nether regions tightly together, crushed against each other, making my body is sing and quiver like a tuning fork. I have to stand on tiptoe to achieve this. Dennis is assisting by supporting my bottom at the just right height.
“Hmm,” he whispers appreciatively, putting one hand under my upper clothing. “You’re gorgeously sweaty under all those layers. We’d better get them off you as soon as possible. Come on then.” He moves apart from me. He takes my hand and leads me out through the hall and up the stairs to a room just along the galleried landing. The door is half open and I can see from the landing light that the room is tidy and the bed neatly made.
Very soon the bed is anything but neat. Dennis doesn't turn the light on in the room but leaves the door ajar. We undress together and make love half beneath the bedclothes in the dim light, like being in a warm, intimate, cosy nest. Dennis is extremely loving, his hands soft and gentle and caressing, his lips everywhere that matters. It’s overwhelming. I don't think I’ve ever felt so safe and loved and cared for, in just exactly the right place in the Universe, at least not in adult life, probably not since I was a small child. These impressions however are fleeting and don't detract in the slightest from the exquisite physical sensation. I feel the familiar adrenaline rush in my legs and body and the obvious place. Hurrah, I think at the end, for the folic acid!
We lay conjoined for some time afterwards. I still feel overwhelmed. I feel like crying. I have to hope that this is just the beginning; that he’ll want us to continue. He slides off me in due course and we lie entangled not saying anything, softly caressing each other still.
I hope that you’ll be able to put up with my daftness, I think to myself, that you won't get sick of me. I don't express these thoughts out loud. I look surreptitiously at him in the indirect, soft lighting. His eyes are closed. Will you stay with me? Could you, I ask him silently, hack your way through the thorny thicket of my mind, would you chase down the labyrinthine, narrow, dark, twisting tunnels deep beneath the surface calm avoiding the dead ends and false leads? Or would the process be wholly too uncomfortable? I can't hide myself from you.
There’s been an advert on TV recently in which a man and woman are spray painting a shed a bright colour. At one point she’s inside and pulls a silly face out of the window at the man and he pulls a face back, a sort of lugubrious cod-fish face. I’m afraid this just about sums me up. I was heartened to know that someone thinks that this is received behaviour for certain sectors of the population. Those of course towards the daft end of society. I used to do it to the Arsehole, pull silly faces at him in all sorts of situations. He didn't do it back so much but he fully accepted this kind of behaviour. But would Dennis appreciate bouts of occasional gurning if they accidentally slip out?
I can't believe that after the most outstanding, stupendous sex I’ve ever had with the person I love most in the world that I’m lying here thinking about deliberate facial contortions. It says something about the inner life. That basically it’s ludicrously indiscriminate and irrelevant. Without opening his eyes, Dennis puts a hand to my face, finds my lips and kisses me.
“What,” he then says smiling, looking deep into my eyes, “is going on in there?”
“Oh nothing. Nothing at all serious.” I turn the other way and let him cuddle me from behind. I don't want him to see my face. He raises himself up a little and kisses my neck and ear and face.
“You don't,” he says, “have to try to hide anything from me. I’ll love you any-which-way.” Then he buries his face in my hair. “That just slipped out.” His voice is muffled. “I hope you don't mind too much.”
I turn around again to face him. “No. Not at all. I’m glad you said it. I love you too. Really. Very much.”
“Oh good.” He sounds relieved, and emotional. “I’m so happy.” He kisses me. “I wanted you that first night out together you know. But I thought it wouldn't be right.”
“I wanted you too. But I thought you’d say no. I’ve thought about you an awful lot since then. Kind of wished that we could have another try. But you know, it seemed as though you were pursuing other….er….avenues. Cathy Earnshaw. Or actually now I suppose I should have been thinking of Fantine or Madame Bovary or whatever.”
Dennis laughs softly, though his eyes glisten. He sniffs.
“I wanted to ask you out again,” he says, “but I thought you may just want to be friends and I didn't think I could actually do that, just be friends, not for long. The fact is, I’ve been hopelessly attracted to you for years. Ever since I first saw you at that property seminar in Chelmsford about ten years ago.” I dredge through my memory but I’ve no recollection of this event. “It took all my courage to ask you out at all when I heard you were separated. And after actually getting to go out with you once, I knew I wouldn't be able to be just friends with you. It would have been impossibly uncomfortable. The few times we saw each other since October, you seemed to be cheerful enough so I thought I’d better let you get on with things. And even as friends, I couldn't ask you to an opera. And I wasn't sure about any black magic events going on locally. I was looking for an excuse to contact you but oddly there were none advertised in the local papers.”
“I didn't really stick pins into effigies you know!” I say quickly.
“I know you didn't.” I’m reassured. I know he won't lie to me.
We regard each other. Dennis without his specs I find just as agreeable as with them on. I wonder if my face is just a blur to him. Probably a good thing if it is!
“I can see you perfectly well at this distance,” he says “and I love every bit of you.”
Sheer unadulterated bliss has entered my life. I don't think I care if he can read my mind or effortlessly extract all my secrets, my foibles, my odd quirks, all my irrelevant, muddled thoughts about everything and anything. I’ve had a hard time of it these last few months. Some disagreeable things have happened to me. I know now that I’m about to enter a hopefully permanent settled phase. All the unpleasantness is over at last.
“Do you think,” he says, “that you and me and Trixie could possibly live happily together?”
“You want me to move in with you?”
“Well. If you go away back to your home tonight, I’ll
pine for you. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. And every other day.”
“Yes, I’ll stay.” I may have to barricade the former matrimonial home and put bars up at the windows but I couldn't spend the night away from Dennis, or any other night.
WE FALL ASLEEP TOGETHER. Hours later we wake. The curtains are still open and it’s pitch black outside.
“I should go and check on Trixie,” Dennis says.
“I’ll come with you.”
We get up out of bed. We go down hand in hand. All the lights are still on. In the kitchen it appears Trixie has been up and used her litter tray but now she’s back in her bed and cosily stretches, looks at us and closes her eyes again. The Aga is belting out a pleasant all around heat. We decide to take that postponed cup of tea and Dennis switches on the kettle again and organises a tray. I must say that in the buff he’s pretty well appointed; quite the perfect, most desirable specimen, in and out and big in all the right places. I catch him eyeing me in return. I’m happy to say that since last autumn I’ve managed to keep off most of my returned body fat. Mainly it has to be said due to bouts of abject misery, supreme self-loathing and a total absence of any significant self-confidence. Fasting at least provides the illusion of having some element of control over one’s life and destiny.
However just now the exact reason for my size 10 body doesn't overly concern me. If it furthers my relationship with Dennis then I’m happy. And it does apparently further it. Regardless of the definite attractions of a brewing pot of tea, we have to throw our arms around each other in the middle of the kitchen and kiss endlessly. I can feel that I am and I can see that Dennis is anxious for a resumption of earlier close contact. The tea may grow cold but the warm bed beckons irresistibly.
EPILOGUE
“ON THE BABY’S knuckle, On the baby’s knee, Where will the baby’s dimple be?” sings Dennis softly as we watch Trixie. Monumentally corny. The song I mean, but terribly sweet nonetheless. Trixie’s making herself a nest of old jumpers and bits of blanket in the cupboard under the stairs and is shortly to give birth. Dennis dithered over getting her neutered and some opportunist, horny old tom got in there first.
Dennis leans into the cupboard to assist Trixie with a stubborn piece of blanket that won't go where she clearly wants to put it. She purrs up at him and kneads the blanket.
I’m afraid I can't help with all this birth preparation myself. Oh! Didn't I say? The baby song was directed at me not at Trixie. At last I’m pregnant and not having much physical contact with Trixie for now just in case. My yin and Dennis’s yang must have hit it off. Straight away actually and the baby is due in four months, that is late October/early November, a little over a year from when I first went out with Dennis on that drunken, difficult first date.
Needless to say, there is wild and enthusiastic celebration in Baker’s Lane. Plans are being hatched, baby names discussed, bootees knitted, baby catalogues pored over and so on. Six child-proof stair gates have been purchased, that no harm should befall the treasured cargo I’m currently carrying. It is proposed to remove the living rooms to the ground floor, secure the first floor french doors with high-level locks and temporarily board in the lovely wrought iron balconies to provide for the safety of the precious offspring. Obviously to actually leave Baker’s Lane is unthinkable. The possibly rather unwise jumping of the gun simply cannot be contained. However everything seems to be going well. No hiccups so far.
Clearly I am flavour of the millennium at Baker’s Lane. My parents, especially my mother, adore Dennis. I wonder what Michael thinks about this news which must surely have reached all points in Baker’s Lane by now. I hope he’s happy for me.
And I have a girlfriend with whom to share this enviable state. Justine, too, is expecting therefore the Love Doll must have had some balls after all. She is a month or so ahead of me, her broken leg all mended now and apparently having been no impediment to a fulfilling relationship. No doubt as a medic, Dr. Phil knew quite well how to handle that situation. Justine and Dr. Phil have been round for dinner and Dennis can't quite make him out. However Dr. Phil does manly things like play golf and they have enjoyed a few rounds together. Justine says that in fact he used to be rather a lady’s man. I can sort of understand that. His soft and gentle, non-threatening manner must be attractive to a lot of women. But now he has eyes, large ones of course, only for Justine. He and Justine are busily selling his campervan and her flat to buy a family home. It seems as though it is all settled.
I'm still deciding whether to go back to work after the baby is born. I've given notice that I will to preserve my position but I don’t know. Women who’ve returned to work soon after their baby’s births have said that it’s like being hit over the head by a large mallet. Nothing could have prepared them for it with all the emotional trauma, the physical difficulties, trying to keep up breast-feeding, not to mention the unsympathetic attitude of male colleagues.
I've told Dennis about Sheila and the Ermintrude jibes. He didn't want me to return to work anyway but after hearing this, he's dead against it and I probably won't. There's no need financially and we’ve both waited so long for this baby. We want to have some more if possible. We’d like to fill our old rectory with screaming kids running around. I’m not at all keen on almost immediately delivering the baby into the hands of some stranger. So, hey-ho, I think I'll be a stay-at-home mum for the time being anyway.
There’s little else I can tell you really. I had a horrid and hysterical call from the Arsehole’s mother telling me I was a faithless whore. How people can get their moralising quite so off course I don't know. But that’s been the only blip. The divorce, house sale and financial settlement are almost done.
It’s late so Dennis goes to the kitchen to wash before coming back and taking my hand and we walk upstairs. Perhaps by the morning, our current family of three will have expanded if Trixie gives birth overnight. Most births people tell me come at night. But I am trying not to base things any more on expectations, but just to let events happen. Prior information I have found doesn't necessarily help. Sometimes it hinders. Or else it doesn't make any difference in human relations at least. I have metaphorically flushed the unreliable placebo down the lavatory and there it may remain.
THE END