Then I opened a box and found lingerie buried within sheets of tissue paper, and of course I had to try it on immediately, stripping off clumsily, pulling at my jeans with wine-numbed fingers until he helped me, and of course I never got the new underwear on because we ended up making love again on the floor under my pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree, three feet high, a half-hearted display of white lights and a few glass baubles.
While he was pushing into me and I was gasping for air, my shoulders grazing the carpet, I felt out of myself, nauseous, and it reminded me of fucking people I didn’t really know at the end of all those nights out.
I wondered with a moment of sudden startling clarity if this was right. I wondered if he was the right person for me to be with. Wasn’t this just the end result of too many nights coming home drunk with a man I’d just met? Fucking someone downstairs on the carpet, my fingers and lips numb with too much alcohol? Faking it in the end because I was too goddamn tired to carry on much longer, waiting for him to hurry up and come because I wanted to be on my own, wanted to sleep. Wanted to be sick.
Lee must have sensed my discomfort because he slowed, pulled my cheek round to his face. I opened my eyes. He was directly above me, his expression unreadable. His hair was damp with sweat, the sheen of it on his forehead, the light from the candles throwing shadows across his cheek.
‘Catherine,’ he said, a whisper.
‘Hm?’ I thought he was going to ask me if I was feeling alright, and I was preparing my best encouraging smile to get him to finish fucking me quickly so I could go and get a drink of water and go and lie down somewhere quiet and feel the room spinning in peace.
‘Will you marry me, Catherine?’
The words shocked me as much as anything he could possibly have said.
‘What?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Afterwards, hours later, lying in bed with another thumping headache, I realised that the perfect answer would have been to kiss him, take control and make him carry on with what he was doing, delaying tactics to give me time to think. But my brain was full of wine and instead I hesitated a moment too long.
He moved off me and sat up, his back to the sofa.
I pushed myself upright unsteadily. ‘Can I think about it?’ I asked.
Lee was looking at me and to my horror there were tears on his cheeks. He was crying – this tough guy who had a job that involved pushing people around in alleyways, this man who grabbed fistfuls of my hair and told me that women like it rough – he was actually crying.
‘Oh, Lee. Don’t cry.’ I sat astride his lap, wiping his cheeks with my finger, tilting his face so I could kiss him. ‘It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.’
But I underestimated the force of his shame. A few moments later, he got dressed and kissed me goodbye. ‘I’ve got to work tomorrow,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
‘But you’ve been drinking, Lee, don’t drive home.’
‘I’ll walk to town and get a cab,’ he said.
It was what I’d wanted, after all – a few minutes ago I’d been wishing for him to get up and go home, leave me in peace, and now he’d gone. Be careful what you wish for, Catherine, I told myself.
Be careful.
Sunday 23 December 2007
By the time I’d showered and spent ten minutes agonising over what the most appropriate thing would be to wear for breakfast with someone I kissed last night, the smell of frying bacon was drifting all the way down the stairs and under the door of my flat.
I managed to lock the flat door, check it once, and head upstairs. The urge to go back and check it again was strong, but I was relying on the fact that I would be spending a while in Stuart’s company to keep my brain occupied with nice things.
He’d left his front door open, but I knocked on it anyway. ‘Hello?’
‘In here,’ I heard him shout, and I followed the sound to the back of the flat and the kitchen. It was really bright, the sunlight streaming in through those big bay windows into the lounge. He’d decorated the living room, a Christmas tree in the corner and lights around the windows. It looked warm and inviting and festive. On the coffee table, piled up, a selection of Sunday newspapers. On the small kitchen table, a pot of tea, a neat rack with steaming toast in it, a jar of Valencia orange marmalade.
‘You’re just in time,’ he said.
He put two platefuls on the table and I sat opposite him and poured the tea, stirring the milk into my mug a bit at a time until it was exactly the right colour.
I felt so wildly and inexplicably happy that I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Having someone here, so close by, whom I could share a day like this with, was enough. It was almost hard to chew my breakfast because I was smiling so much. Then I chanced a glance up at him and he was looking at me intently.
‘You look happy,’ he said, curiously.
‘I am happy,’ I said, smiling, between a mouthful of bacon and toast, covered with a smear of runny egg yolk.
He was blushing, I had no idea why. It reminded me of last night.
Changing the subject in a ham-fisted way, I said, ‘You are a damn fine cook. Even when you’re handicapped with a bad shoulder.’
‘I was thinking about that this morning,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Hm. What are you doing for Christmas?’
I gave a rather hollow laugh. ‘Absolutely nothing, same as last year. Staying indoors and watching crappy Christmas TV.’
‘I’ve got Al coming over for Christmas lunch. He’s got nobody to have Christmas with. Would you come too? We could all do Christmas together. What do you think?’
‘Don’t you have any family, anyone else you’re supposed to have Christmas with?’
He shook his head, chewing. ‘Not really. I could go to my sister’s, but she lives in Aberdeen. Ralphie’s gone back to travelling the world with his backpack. And besides, I’m supposed to be working tomorrow and Boxing Day. I was lucky to get Christmas Day off, really.’
I drank the last of my tea and wondered if it would be impolite to help myself to another cup.
‘This is the same Al you told me about, right? The world’s leading expert on OCD? And you want me to spend Christmas Day with him?’
‘Er, yes. And me. So will you come?’
‘It’s really kind of you. Can I have a think about it?’
‘Sure.’
When we’d finished eating, we sat in the sunny living room with the dregs of the teapot. I sat on the ivory-coloured rug and spread the Sunday Times out over the floor around me, absorbing myself in other parts of the world, other people’s traumas, other worlds, other lives.
He sat on the sofa with the Telegraph, occasionally reading something out to me, laughing at something he’d read.
When my leg started to get pins and needles, I folded the paper up neatly and came to sit next to him on the sofa with the magazine. There was an article in it about OCD. Normally I’d avoid reading something like this, because it was too damn close to home, but now it was fascinating. It was about famous people from history who’d suffered from OCD, and how it had so often been misinterpreted as eccentricity.
I showed it to Stuart, and he moved closer to me and read the article over my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my skin.
I felt myself tense, wondering if he was going to kiss me again and at the same time wondering if I would be able to cope with it without the comforting presence of alcohol in my bloodstream. Abruptly he got up, and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for a fresh pot of tea, and at that moment the sun went behind a cloud and the room darkened.
‘I should really be getting back,’ I said.
I thought he hadn’t heard me. A few minutes later he came back with the teapot, placing it carefully on the coffee table amidst all the supplements and adverts for mobility aids.
‘Well, you can if you want to. But I was kind of hoping you’d stay for a bit.’
‘Really?’
‘You say that a lot,’ he said, dropping down onto the sofa next to me. ‘Like you don’t believe me.’
‘You’re looking at me like a psychologist,’ I said, frowning.
‘I am a psychologist.’
‘Well, I thought you were off sick.’
‘Why are you getting cross?’
‘Because you’re starting to analyse me.’
He hid a smile behind his hand.
‘And because that means you know how my mind works, and I haven’t got a clue what you’re thinking from one minute to the next, and it’s doing my head in.’
He busied himself pouring me another cup of tea, no doubt completely aware that having a cup of tea – which was distractingly exactly the right colour – would prevent me from getting up and walking out.
‘I kissed you last night,’ I blurted out, crossly. I had no idea what it was I wanted to say.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I felt my life change.’
He looked at me with those green eyes, waiting. ‘Yes.’
‘Change always scares me shitless.’
‘Right.’
‘Yes? Right? Is that it?’
He shrugged, refusing to take the bait at my heated tone of voice. ‘I’m agreeing with you. Of course change is scary. But you get through it, and you’ll get through this change as well. Won’t you?’
I ran out of words, feeling the room swimming around me. This wasn’t going well. How did I get from being blissfully, crazily happy just a few minutes ago, to this? I must have some huge internal self-destruct button.
‘I don’t know what you want from me,’ I said miserably.
He did that eye contact thing again, the thing I was so afraid of, in case he could see how I felt, but what suddenly struck me was the way his eyes looked, the way he was looking at me. ‘Cathy,’ he said, ‘it was just a kiss.’
My cheeks were burning. ‘You think it didn’t mean anything?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Why are you so comfortable with awkward conversations?’
He laughed. ‘Maybe because I have more difficult conversations than I have simple ones.’
I had the feeling that whatever I said, he would have some smart answer, so I bit my lip. Eye contact: that was the other thing he was so good at. He won the battle this time, though. I was afraid if I looked into his eyes too long I might start to cry, so instead I drank the rest of my tea, putting the mug decisively down on the table.
‘Really, I’d better go,’ I said. ‘Thanks for breakfast, it was very good.’
He walked with me as far as the door. ‘You’re welcome any time,’ he said.
Stuart was right, of course he was. It was just a kiss, it was just a conversation, it was just breakfast. As I checked the door and the windows and the kitchen drawers and everything else, I considered everything he’d said and wondered what bit of it I was having such a problem understanding.
Wednesday 7 January 2004
‘Hello, beautiful.’
‘Shit! Lee, you just about gave me a heart attack.’
I was already in his arms by the time I’d finished the sentence, in the chilly car park at work. I’d come out late, not anticipating anything more exciting than a rush hour crawl home, and here he was, waiting by my car. The car park was badly lit, semi-dark.
He kissed me, slow and warm.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I finished early,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d surprise you. Let’s go out somewhere.’
‘Can I go home and get changed?’
‘You look perfect just as you are.’
‘No, seriously, I’ve been at work all day, I’d rather get changed…’
‘Get in.’ He was holding open the door of a car parked directly behind mine.
‘I like the car,’ I said, sliding into the front seat. ‘What’s happened to yours?’
‘I came straight from work,’ he said. ‘It’s a job car.’
‘Right. And that job would be?’
There was no reply to that one, of course. He was dressed smartly, dark suit with a dark grey shirt underneath, and he was freshly shaved. I wondered if he’d actually come straight from work or if he’d been to the gym. The car appeared to have nothing in it to distinguish it from any other, no CDs, no discarded car park tickets, no office parking permit attached to the windscreen.
We were heading out of town. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere a bit different.’
He put his hand on my thigh as he drove, not taking his eyes off the road. The sudden contact gave me a thrill, despite how tired I was. His hand pushed my skirt up until he could feel the bare skin on my leg. I thought for a moment he was going to go further, but he stopped there, his hand resting on my thigh. I put my own hand over it.
‘We’re early,’ he said after a while. ‘I think we should stop for a bit. What do you think?’
He wasn’t talking about stopping to admire the scenery, of course, although he did at least manage to wait until he found a reasonably attractive place. It was a car park at the top of the hill, the country park shut for the night, and fortunately they hadn’t bothered to lock the gate. We drove down a dark track through the woods until the trees opened up in a clearing, and the lights of the town spread out in the valley below us.
Lee undid his seatbelt and glanced around in the semi-darkness outside. There was another car parked in the corner, and no sign of anyone in it, although it was too dark to see clearly.
It was awkward in the car even with the seats pushed right back, so we ended up outside, leaning back against the car door, my skirt pushed up around my waist, knickers pulled off and discarded somewhere. His face in my chest, my hands in his hair, I was shivering from the cold or the thrill of it all, my heels sinking into the soft ground.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ he said at last. No more than a sigh, against my throat.
‘Why not?’
He raised his head. It was so dark I could hardly see him, just feel his solid bulk against me, make out the lightness of his hair with the breeze stirring it. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said. ‘All I’ve been thinking about, all day, is how many minutes will it be until I’m with you again.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ I whispered, kissing his cheek, his earlobe.
He shook his head. ‘Not when I’m supposed to be concentrating on something at work. It’s like cheating. I don’t do it.’
‘You mean cheating as in fucking someone else?’
He laughed. ‘I don’t fuck anyone else. Only you. I don’t think about work when I’m with you, and I shouldn’t be thinking about you when I’m at work.’ He stood back from me then and adjusted his suit. From the pocket of his jacket he pulled out a ball of dark fabric. ‘Yours, I believe?’
I opened the car door to get back into the warm. ‘Hang on. These aren’t the ones I had on earlier.’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I brought you some clean ones. Thought you might need them.’
‘What happened to the other ones?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess they’re in the car park somewhere.’
‘Have you got a torch? I can’t just leave my knickers in the car park.’
‘No, I haven’t got a torch.’ He’d started the engine. ‘Let’s go. I’m hungry.’
Half an hour later, we were in a beautiful old pub by the river, waiting for a table, a big glass of red wine and a log fire warming me up. I was taking my time choosing something from the menu and Lee was sitting opposite me watching me with an amused smile on his lips.
I sensed it first. It was a sudden tension in him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stiffen.
I looked up and Lee was watching someone, or something, over my shoulder. Instinctively I turned to look. It was the restaurant behind me, tables full of people having dinner.
‘Shit,’ he said, under his breath.
‘Lee? What is it?’
‘Don’t look round.’ The tone of his voice was cold. Then, a moment later, he stood. ‘Wait here, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.’
I looked round then to see him heading towards the toilets in the restaurant. I felt queasy. Who had he seen? Another woman? Despite his instruction, I swivelled in my seat to face the dining room, waiting for him to emerge. The door leading to the toilets swung open but it wasn’t Lee – two men, the first wearing a suit, a small rucksack slung over one shoulder, the second, older, more casually dressed with a black leather jacket and jeans. They were laughing about something. I expected them to go and sit in the dining room but instead they headed straight for me. I shrank back into the armchair and went back to the menu as they passed me. They went to the door of the pub and shook hands. The man in jeans disappeared through the door and into the car park.
When Lee came back a few moments later he was talking on a mobile phone. He sat down opposite me again. ‘Yes. Okay. I’ll see you outside,’ he said, then snapped the phone shut and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
‘Lee, what’s going on?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to go and wait in the car for a bit.’
‘What?’
‘I need to meet someone. We can’t wait in here.’
‘You’re joking!’
He leaned across to me and pressed the car keys into my palm. ‘Shut the fuck up and go to the car. I’ll be out in a minute.’
I stomped as best I could out to the car and slammed the door shut behind me, although there was nobody there to appreciate the force of my fury. Alone in the car, I opened the glove box, hoping to find something that would explain, but it was empty. Completely empty.
A few moments later I saw the side door of the pub open and watched Lee’s figure walking towards the car. He opened the door and brought with him a gust of frosty night air.
I looked at him expectantly.
‘That pub’s a bit shit,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We should go somewhere else.’
Into the Darkest Corner Page 14