State We're In

by Parks, Adele

  ‘Oh God, no.’ She waved her hand dismissively, as though they were talking about ancient history, which in a way they were, even though the wedding had only taken place a matter of hours ago. ‘No, Gloria is welcome to her wedding.’ Jo glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Do you know what, I’d never really thought about the actual wedding night.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The sex.’ She leant towards him and whispered the word in a giggly manner, nudging him as though she’d just read a cheeky postcard or watched a Carry On movie. ‘I mean, right now they are probably rolling around on a king-sized bed, draped in two-zillion-thread-count linens, getting all tangled and hot and sweaty.’

  ‘Or they might be opening their wedding gifts.’

  ‘True. Either way, I don’t mind.’ Jo paused. ‘I guess I should have thought about that before I spent my last ten quid on the flight over here. I’m not jealous of her. I’m not into him in that way. I think I should have been.’

  Dean nodded. She should have been. However, right now he did not regret the fact that Joanna Russell had spent her last ten quid on the flight where they’d met one another. ‘Ah, so once again you believe that it is all about the chemistry, the tightening in the front bottom.’ She elbowed him in the ribs because she knew he was gently mocking her. ‘The eyes meeting across a crowded room.’

  Dean noticed that Jo suddenly couldn’t get her eyes to meet his across this empty room, even though they were sitting right next to one another and her gaze would only have to travel the length of a ruler.

  ‘You need the chemistry, but you need other things too,’ she muttered.

  ‘You have a moustache.’

  Jo looked horrified. ‘Oh God, no. I wax.’ Her hand instantly sprang to her face.

  ‘A milk moustache,’ Dean rushed to clarify before she revealed any more of her beauty regime.

  ‘Oh.’ She rubbed her face clean. That exchange hadn’t done anything to help her meet his gaze.

  They silently watched the flames flicker in the fireplace. Dean wondered whether he should put on the TV, but he thought it would alter the mood too dramatically. It would be like inviting other people in to party and it would break the intimacy of the evening; he found he didn’t want to do that. He considered putting on some music, but he knew that would up the ante; love ballads or even slow ambient music would inevitably place them in a position where they could no longer pretend this was all about just being friends, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that either. He was stranded somewhere he’d never been before.

  ‘We have chemistry,’ Jo suddenly blurted. She turned to him and stared at him with a clear and undisturbed honesty. ‘Don’t we? You felt it too. On the aeroplane, and last night at the restaurant whenever we touched. Today when you kissed me in front of Martin. When I kissed you at the club.’

  ‘Yes, we do. I did.’ Whispering, he added, ‘Look, Jo, I want you to know that normally I would try and have sex with you right now.’

  Jo smiled. ‘Normally you wouldn’t have to try too hard.’

  ‘But we’re friends, right? So we can’t go there.’

  ‘Yes. Friends,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Just friends.’

  ‘Well, friends who tell each other everything and help each other through very difficult times and—’

  Dean had no idea what she was going to say next, but he didn’t give her a chance. He pushed his mouth on top of hers, and this time there was no question about it: the kiss was not a kiss between friends. Her lips felt warm and plump under his; they yielded and fitted exactly. She gently touched his cheek, and whilst the touch was feather light, he felt pinioned, strapped to her. He put his hand on the back of her neck and drew her in, tighter. He kissed her and, with equal enthusiasm and expertise, she kissed back, untamed and ferocious. Dean had done a lot of kissing in his time. A lot. So, as he kissed her, he fought the thought that somehow these were particular and special kisses, more significant and consequential than he’d ever experienced before; he left that sort of sentimental claptrap to women, to the likes of Jo. Yet he had to admit that her kisses felt as startling and interesting as his very first kiss, but as erotic and assured as any he had ever enjoyed.

  Swiftly, he moved his hands over her. He put them everywhere he could; speedily, expertly, naturally. He knew how to touch women, how to hold and please them, and this time he pulled out all the stops. He enjoyed the feel of her under his fingers; her neck, shoulder blades, ribs and tits. He swept over her, under her and through her. They were exposed and left with nothing other than their desire and requirement of each other. He could not remember it ever being this defined and unambiguous before. He wanted her. He wanted to please her, to take her, to have her. He sensed that she was on the same page when she stood up and demanded, ‘Where’s your bedroom?’

  Dean briefly wondered whether this romantic woman needed clean sheets or candlelight. His bed was scrambled, sheets crumpled by his own restlessness last night, but as the blind was not pulled, the lights of Chicago’s buildings and streets lit up the room like sparkling stars on a black sky, and it was enough. He practically threw her on the bed; the skirt of her dress rode up as he did so, and hastily she pulled down her lacy knickers. He grappled with his flies and then, directly, disappeared into her. Her body received him as though she had been expecting him for ever. And maybe she had. He stared at her and she gazed back, aware of what they were doing and who they were doing it with. It felt amazing. It felt imperative and vital.

  It felt truthful.

  She groaned and trembled and he roared and quaked. It was tumultuous and rapid and staggering. Dean’s body meshed with Jo’s and they fitted so profoundly he lost sense of who was who. Whose pleasure he was experiencing, whose pleasure he was creating, whose pain he was blocking.

  The cavernous sense of being alone eased.

  Sunday 24 April 2005

  40

  Clara

  Clara arrived at the hospital at nine o’clock. A young nurse with plump pink flesh informed her that visiting hours didn’t start until eleven. Clara locked her eyes on to the skinny band of the cheap engagement ring that the nurse wore; a small cluster of tiny sapphires, it was almost lost within the copious folds of her flesh, but Clara sensed that it was a dearly loved ring.

  ‘I’m his wife,’ she lied.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t realise.’ The nurse’s cheeks turned a shade rosier; the embarrassment dripped down on to her neck too. ‘We haven’t seen you until this weekend and there’s no mention of you on his records.’

  ‘We’re estranged, but …’ Clara paused, hoping to give the impression that it was all too difficult to talk about. She didn’t consider whether what she was saying was immoral or even illegal. ‘There’s so little time left,’ she added. Whilst Clara was always perfectly polite, she had the sort of beautifully crisp voice that intimidated most people, and so she found that her requests on trains, in theatres, shops and the dry cleaner’s were usually met with agreeable acquiescence; it was the same in the hospital. The nurse could not imagine that anyone so well-spoken would cause a problem, let alone tell a blatant lie, because she hadn’t ever paid much attention during her history lessons, and so Clara was allowed to go to Eddie’s bedside.

  It didn’t matter to him anyway. He was not conscious and did not wake up even when she repeated his name, gently shook his arm or, finally, hesitantly kissed his forehead. She decided to stay. If he woke up, she didn’t want him to be alone. She thought she owed him this much. She wasn’t sure why she might believe this, but people did tend to think they were responsible to and for Eddie Taylor; he elicited more loyalty than he deserved. She was not able to stay away and yet her visits did not make her content. He had disappointed her, again. In a profound and unforgivable way. Physically he had changed beyond all recognition, but emotionally he was unaltered.

  Eddie Taylor was still the man she should not choose.

  He was still the man who did not deserve her, the one who wo
uld not make her happy or look after her. It was devastating. Rationally, it might have been worse if he had metamorphosed; then she would have had to deal with the fact that if she had chosen him all those years ago, he might, just might, have been what she needed. They might have been blissful together. But he was still as selfish, brutal and unaware as ever. What she had to accept was that her entire life had been shaped by this man who did not deserve her, who would never make her blissful, who wouldn’t even try. She’d got it all wrong.

  Yesterday he had told her a little more about his children. The youngest two didn’t bother with him beyond Christmas cards and a more often than not late birthday card; he showed a similar level of commitment, although he did speak fondly about when they were little girls taking horse-riding lessons and mastering the ability to tie shoelaces and plaits. He had been involved to an extent and for a time; he felt a level of possession, but it did not stretch to a full-blown sense of responsibility. There were always limits with Eddie Taylor. According to his account, the younger two were cheerful and well enough. They had a mother who’d had the sense to move on with her life when her disappointment with Eddie Taylor could not be suppressed. She’d remarried. Eddie said her husband was ‘A decent enough bloke. The girls like him. Lousy handshake, though; probably not much in the sack.’

  But the other two, Dean and Zoe.

  Clara had shivered when she listened to Eddie’s story about the son visiting. Eddie said he was an angry and unforgiving man. ‘Narrow-minded,’ he surmised. Clara recognised that he was a bruised and wounded child. ‘Extremely hurt,’ she’d suggested.

  ‘Well, yes. But so long ago.’ Eddie did seem embarrassed to admit that the children had ended up in care. ‘You’d have thought someone would have told me.’ He’d blinked twice and then closed his eyes.

  Clara felt a terrible guilt about and pity for these two children. It ran through her being and settled like a concrete mass in her stomach. She had not been able to eat breakfast this morning. She did not know them, she’d never met them, she hadn’t even seen a photo – Eddie had never been the sort to proudly or even deceitfully display a family portrait on his desk – but she felt responsible. Clara was the sort of woman who had enough time to be ostentatiously charitable; she now worried whether she’d only ever been ostensibly charitable. She organised an annual ball in Mayfair, one for which her friends spent a fortune on dresses and haircuts and donated a little more to a cause – children starving in Africa; and she arranged regular cake bake-off challenges where her competitive time-and-cash-rich pals paid an astronomical fee to bake in front of one another and display their skills for public acclamation. The monies raised bought underwear for children in war-torn countries, whose own pants had been blown away with their houses because an adult had detonated a bomb. She was energetic and persistent in her fund-raising and had twice been invited to the House of Lords, where she and other well-intentioned do-gooders were thanked for doing their bit to put right some of the world’s injustices. She thought that perhaps her next fund-raiser ought to be for a British charity; perhaps a shelter for homeless children or an awareness campaign about the number of children in care who were in need of foster parents. She sighed, aware that she couldn’t help Dean or Zoe personally. It was too late for that.

  41

  Jo

  ‘Right, I am starving. We are going to have to send out for something now,’ said Dean

  ‘I’m still OK with the biscuits and sweets, if there are any left. I think I can indulge, we must have burnt loads of calories!’ I giggle. Flashbacks to last night sear my memory and I inwardly blush with total delight and unembarrassed excitement.

  ‘You mean all that dancing?’ Dean snuggles into my neck and gently nibbles my ear. As he tugs, something low in my belly responds.

  ‘I really enjoyed the dancing,’ I laugh, although that wasn’t what I meant and I think Dean knows as much. We’ve made love three times now. Three! After the first frenzied and fabulous time, we did it again, carefully and gently; the third was slower still, but I suspect that was biology rather than anything else. Dean kissed and caressed me with real tenderness. His touch restored me and reassured me, lit me up and excited me with a passion I didn’t know I was capable of. The sheets smell of our hot bodies and I can feel his breath on my forehead as I am curled up under his arm; it’s raw and intimate and blissful. It’s different. I know, I know I’ve made mistakes in the past. I’m famed for my misjudgements, my hasty judgements and my downright lack of judgement, but all that said, I can’t help but believe that this is different. Not just because of how he makes me feel, but because of the effect I’m having on him. I’m pretty certain that for once, this exciting, sexy, unobtainable, damaged man is taking notice of me.

  ‘How did last night’s salsa club compare to those you usually go to in London?’

  ‘I’ve never been to a club in London,’ I confess.

  ‘But you said you took lessons.’

  ‘I do, but I’ve never danced Latin anywhere except inside the dusty town hall where the lessons are held.’

  Dean pulls away a little, to stare at me with disbelief. I force myself to meet his gaze. Without having to spell it out, I know he understands why I haven’t had the confidence and opportunity to take my dancing out of the town hall. Gently he murmurs, ‘Jo, you have to stop living a half-life.’

  By which we both know he means a life where I only take up hobbies if I think they will lead to finding a boyfriend, a life where I only travel if I’m travelling with some guy, ditto going to hot and sweaty nightclubs and visiting interesting and improving galleries or even fun shops and shows.

  ‘I know, I see that. I’m trying. I’ve started.’ Dean doesn’t look reassured, but I have started to live a whole life. I got on the plane to Chicago, which was a brave and impetuous thing to do. OK, so my motivation may not have been one hundred per cent admirable, but the outcome has been thrilling and wonderful. I know I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of my time looking for love, but right now, snuggled under Dean’s heavy, muscular arm, it’s hard to think that it has been a bad plan.

  ‘Because you really can’t pin your happiness on someone else,’ he adds.

  I inwardly pause. Falter. My nerves contract an infinitesimal amount, because that sounds a little bit like a warning to me. I’ve heard enough warnings in my time to recognise them in whatever form they come. The morning-after distancing is something I’m far too familiar with. ‘I’m a bit too tied up this week to make any firm plans’, ‘I’m working towards a promotion and I’m not sure I can do a relationship justice right now’, or the worst one of all, the one where he doesn’t hand over his phone number but takes mine and says, ‘I’ll call you.’ He doesn’t.

  I don’t have Dean’s number.

  He hasn’t even asked for mine. I freeze. It’s interesting that I’ve listened to dozens of morning-after excuses in my time, but this is the first time I’ve actually heard one. Perhaps, since I discovered that my parents’ marriage hasn’t been exactly a bed of roses, I’ve woken up a little and become a touch more realistic.

  I glance at Dean; he’s smiling at me. It’s a broad, open beam that envelops his face and makes it all the way to his eyes, the ultimate test. The momentary panic, fear and doubt recede once again. Yes, I can hear his caution and reserve, but I can also understand it. This man has lived his entire life keeping his distance because no one can stab, slash or cut you from afar. He’s not creating morning-after distance because he’s a prick; he’s creating morning-after distance because he’s conditioned to protect himself, because he’s afraid. Yet despite the audible caution and possible distancing, I also recognise and value that he has opened up to me, trusted and confided in me. That has to count for something, that has to mean something.

  I can take control. I can draw him in and teach him to trust. I know I can. I have enough optimism for the two of us. I don’t mean that I want to chase, conquer and have him through some misguided b
lindness or due to a faulty stubbornness, as I might have done in the past, but I want to draw him closer with an acceptance that this man has reason to be doubtful and cautious; he’s never expected much from love, but I can change that.

  ‘I guess your mum’s biggest mistake was pinning her happiness on your dad, right?’

  ‘You could say that.’ I pause, and don’t rush to fill the silence that sits in the room. I’m rewarded when Dean adds, ‘She let this void develop, a void between the life she led and the life she once thought she’d lead, and it grew to such an enormous cavern that it destroyed her …’ He broke off. ‘Look, I’m just saying that I think we should all be responsible for our own happiness, and it doesn’t make sense to me that you take salsa lessons but won’t go to a club unless someone asks you to. Sorry about the lecture. But I care.’

  I kiss him. Leisurely. Gently (but taking care to push my naked nipples up against him, so it’s not too chastely). He cares! He’s scared. Cautious. But he cares. It’s enough. For now. I’m more realistic, he’s more trusting; perhaps we can meet in the middle somewhere and make this work. I sense that he needs me to change the subject for a while. Slowly, slowly catch the monkey, as my dad says. I mustn’t rush in at this like a bull in a china shop.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say when I eventually pull away. I suppose I can see why Dean might be preaching to me about the importance of taking responsibility for my own happiness. My parents have separated, my dad’s just been shoved out of the closet, I’m homeless, jobless, one step away from a soup kitchen and I have a collection of invites to other people’s weddings that is so hefty my postman might sue me for his chiropractic fees. I probably should be worried. However, this morning I can’t help thinking that maybe what I have in front of me is not a great big fat turd of a life but an opportunity for change. There’s something about Dean that makes me believe that things can get better. That they will do. He’s proof positive that we are in charge of our own destinies. ‘OK, let’s make a list,’ I say brightly.