Missing You

by Douglas, Louise

  In the evening, she calls Lucy.

  Her sister’s voice is thin and watery, yet full of elation.

  ‘You didn’t tell me giving birth hurt that much,’ she says with sibling petulance. ‘You said, and I quote: “It’s a walk in the park.”’

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you. Are you OK?’

  ‘More or less. Bit stitched and achy.’

  ‘It’s quiet there. Is the baby sleeping?’

  ‘No, he’s here on the breast, and that hurts too. I am so sore.’

  ‘Oh, Luce, I wish I—’

  ‘Shhh, you’ve got enough on your plate. We’ll see each other soon enough.’

  Fen holds the receiver close to her cheek.

  ‘Give your new son a kiss from his auntie,’ she says. ‘Give him all my love.’

  eighteen

  Sean walks up Solsbury Hill to watch the sun go down.

  The hill is steep and its slopes are muddy. His boots sink into the soft mud and squelch as he lifts them free. Cows have been grazing the fields which cover the lower edge and the holes left by their hoofs are filled with water or a mixture of water and cow-piss. The mud seeps into the fabric of his jeans, while his boots become heavier and heavier. He still feels shaky and hung-over but he ploughs on uphill, working up a sweat, trying to eliminate the residual alcohol from his bloodstream. He showered when he finally left his bed, but his skin still smells of drink. It’s a smell he associates with unhappiness, a smell of poison in the blood.

  His sleeve catches in the brambles as he skirts the edge of a field to avoid the worst of the mud. Thorns scratch his wrist and little jewels of blood ooze through the tears in his skin. He is on the brink of taking the lazy option and immersing himself in self-pity, but he ignores the blood and hopes the exercise will tip him the other way.

  Reaching the top of the hill, he stands still, as everyone does when they reach this point, and gazes out over the city flanking the slopes below him. Two crows flap lazily across his field of vision and extend their claws to settle on the branch of a shrubby little tree. Sean is surrounded by air and there’s a haziness in it that makes him giddy. Lights are coming on in the windows of thousands of houses, little oblongs of warm yellow amid the dull grey. The faces of the buildings which look towards the west are tinged pink by the dying sunlight. Traffic curls along the main roads a long way below: streams of red and white light. He hears the noise of the traffic and wishes it would go away. He yearns for silence.

  Sean thinks of Peter Gabriel. He thinks that when he goes back he’ll find some early Genesis on YouTube. He takes a drink from the bottle of water he’s carried with him.

  Last night he crashed out in Fen’s bed. He doesn’t remember the details; he just remembers going into her room because he didn’t want to be on his own, and how comfortable he felt on her bed. It’s not that his is uncomfortable, but there’s something cosy about a woman’s bed. He liked the sweet, private smell of her linen, the smell of her washing powder and her shampoo. He remembers talking to her, but he can’t remember anything that either of them said.

  She was acting strangely earlier, before he left the house. She was shy, quieter than usual. He hopes he didn’t say or do anything inappropriate, and he’s annoyed at himself for waking her up. He hopes he has not offended her. He was so fucking drunk. And she doesn’t deserve any trouble; she’s too gentle, too sweet, and has enough on her plate.

  Sean leans down. He puts his hands on his knees and blows out his breath.

  Something has changed. He doesn’t know what it is but today he feels a little more detached from Belle. He isn’t experiencing the usual physical tug that he feels whenever he thinks of her. Today, for some reason, he is capable of accepting that Belle and he are no longer together. The fact doesn’t fill him with desperation, as it normally does.

  He stands up. He drinks some more water.

  He thinks: Was that all I needed to do to get over her? Did I just have to get out of my mind to exorcize the woman from my heart?

  It seems to him that it was.

  nineteen

  Fen has made asparagus soup. The saucepan is on the hob, keeping warm, and the smell is wonderful. Sean tears a piece of bread off the top of the loaf that’s on the counter, dips it in the soup and sucks. He hears her footsteps on the stairs and she comes into the kitchen, smiling, with that dreamy, sleepy expression she always wears when she’s put Connor to bed.

  ‘This is fantastic,’ says Sean, caught in the act of stealing the soup. ‘It’s delicious.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ says Fen. She sticks her hands into the back pockets of her shorts and looks at her feet. ‘There’s some cheese and onion flan in the fridge. It’s only a supermarket cheapo one but I could do a few potatoes, maybe? Some salad?’

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’ Sean dips some more bread in the soup.

  She shakes her head. She’s still looking down, tracing the outline of the pattern of the vinyl on the kitchen floor with her toe.

  Sean clears his throat. ‘I was thinking … what if I were to buy you a takeaway, to say sorry for the other night?’

  Fen looks up at him and smiles. ‘You said sorry already. Loads of times. I didn’t mind, Sean, honestly. You were sweet.’

  ‘Fen, I was paralytic. But … well, I remembered some other stuff. The towel in the breadbin …’

  Fen laughs. ‘Oh that! It went a bit rusty. I put it out for recycling.’

  ‘God! I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a new one.’

  ‘Oh, forget it. It doesn’t matter.’

  Sean looks at her. She genuinely does not appear annoyed or upset or irritated or disgusted.

  ‘There are worse things in life,’ she says.

  ‘The thing is,’ he says, ‘I was at my nadir. That night was a turning point. I appreciate that it probably wasn’t the best night of your life, sharing your bed with a drunken pig, but it was good for me. I’m on the way back up again.’

  ‘I’m glad. Really.’

  ‘I was worried I might have –’ he pauses, looks at the ceiling, scratches his earlobe – ‘said something inappropriate.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Phew!’ He grins. ‘Well, that’s something!’

  Fen looks away. She bites her lower lip and blinks.

  ‘A nyway,’ says Sean, ‘I’m going to go out and buy us some dinner. It’s the least I can do. Would you prefer Indian or Chinese? Or fish and chips? Or a pizza?’

  ‘Anything,’ says Fen. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘OK,’ he smiles, ‘I’ll find something nice for you.’

  He picks up his wallet, then goes out through the front door and up the steps, turning right down the hill towards the shops at Larkhall.

  It’s a beautiful evening. Spring is setting in, making itself comfortable in the city. Children are playing outside and people are out in their gardens. There’s a chime of an icecream van in the distance and it reminds him of the day last summer when he left home. The thought bothers him so he puts it from his mind. He quickens his step and does something he hasn’t done for months. He whistles.

  When he returns, Fen has put a small table outside in the back garden, and two folding chairs, side by side, facing out over the valley. There’s a candle in a little glass pot, two plates, two glasses. She looks different. She’s done something to her hair and she’s wearing make-up.

  ‘I know it’s getting cold, but I thought we could sit outside for a while,’ she says. ‘We can watch the sun set as we eat.’

  ‘How romantic!’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know you didn’t.’

  Sean sets the brown paper carrier of food on the table. He takes out the foil cartons.

  ‘It’s a good idea,’ he says. ‘It’s nice out here. Why don’t we sit out more often?’

  ‘We never sit out together,’ she says.

  ‘No. We should, now the weather’s getting warmer.’

  Sean passes her a carton of
rice, and she peels off the cardboard lid.

  ‘My wife has asked for a divorce,’ he says.

  ‘I know. You told me the other night.’

  ‘Oh. Did I talk about Belle a lot?’

  She nods.

  ‘Was I boring?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I was, wasn’t I? I bet I went on and on and on about the same old things.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Oh Christ.’ Sean sighs. ‘I am so sorry. But you know what, Fen? It’s got her out of my system.’

  Fen licks her fingers and smiles.

  ‘Good. Can we not talk about her tonight, then?’

  ‘Not talk about who?’

  Fen laughs and shares the rice between the two plates while Sean takes the wine from the carrier.

  ‘Red or white?’ he asks Fen.

  ‘You bought both?’

  ‘I didn’t know which you preferred,’ he says.

  Sean is hungry, the food is delicious and, as his belly fills and the wine runs through his bloodstream, he relaxes. The sun performs beautifully, slipping off to the west with just the right level of drama and tension, leaving behind a sky stained pink so that the clouds high above the city are coloured from below. When it has gone completely, the temperature drops, and Fen fetches a jumper from inside then tucks up her feet beneath her, but still they stay outside, drinking the second bottle of wine and watching the candle flickering. Fen cradles her wine glass, sipping from time to time. She waves a moth away from the candle. A full moon rises, lights twinkle in the city and bats flit across the alleyway. A tentative breeze whispers in the leaves of the copper beech. Fen hugs herself. Sean says: ‘You’re very quiet.’

  ‘I’m always quiet.’

  ‘We don’t know much about one another, considering we’ve shared the same house for so long.’

  ‘I know a lot about your marriage.’

  ‘That doesn’t count. Where should we start?’

  Fen smiles. ‘With something simple. The basics.’

  ‘Go on, then, ask me a basic question.’

  ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

  ‘Ummm …’

  Fen bites her lip.

  ‘… Green,’ he says. ‘No, blue. Turquoise.’

  ‘OK,’ says Fen. ‘Now you ask me a question.’

  ‘What’s your favourite Beatles track?’

  Fen stares up at the sky. He notices the way her jaw seamlessly smoothes into her throat. ‘“She’s So Heavy”.’

  ‘Christ,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years. I’d have had you down as a “Norwegian Wood” sort of girl.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘“Dear Prudence”.’

  ‘I like that too,’ says Fen. ‘But I like “Heavy” because it’s my brother’s favourite.’

  ‘You’re very close to your brother, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you heard from him lately?’

  ‘It’s my turn for a question, not yours. Tell me something about you that your mother doesn’t know.’

  He laughs. ‘Where do I start?’

  ‘Nothing heavy,’ says Fen.

  ‘When I was about ten,’ he says, ‘my friend Mark Watts and I burned down our village cricket pavilion.’

  ‘Sean!’

  ‘Not deliberately. It was an accident. We had a den at the edge of the cricket field. We were messing about with cigarettes and matches. It’s what boys do. They all go through a pyromania phase. You wait, Connor will be the same.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I can’t remember exactly. One or other of us dropped a match. Or maybe we were trying to set a little fire. It was towards the end of summer and the grass caught and the fire ran – it literally ran across the dry grass. We were stamping on the flames, but they moved so quickly and next thing the hedge was on fire.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘There was no stopping it. It caught light and there was all this black smoke coming off it and the fire was travelling along the hedge. At which point Mark and I realized we were in deep shit. So we did the sensible thing …’

  ‘You called 999?’

  ‘No, we ran away.’

  ‘You ran away?’ She’s laughing.

  ‘Yep. We got on our bikes and pedalled away from the crime scene as fast as we could. We went back to our respective houses and I made a big show to Lola, my sister, about how I’d been in my bedroom all afternoon, as an alibi you see …’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And about two minutes later, we heard the fire engines going by. And Mum was saying: “What on earth’s happened? Go and have a look, Sean.”’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘She did! So I had to get back on my bike and go down to the cricket pitch, and by now the whole hedge was on fire and it had spread to the historic pavilion.’

  ‘Sean!’ Fen has her hands clasped over her mouth.

  ‘And there were three fire engines and all these people had come out to see what was going on, and they were all horrified, and there I was, the culprit, and I felt as if I had the word GUILTY printed in big letters on my T-shirt. I almost wet myself. It made the regional TV news, you know, the fire. It was on the front page of the Evening Post.’

  ‘And did anybody ever find out it was you?’

  Sean grins. ‘No, we got away with it, Mark and me. They blamed a cigarette end thrown from a car. The insurance paid up and the pavilion was restored and the captain of the county cricket team came along to cut the ribbon at the reopening. People talked about it for ages. It was a long time before I’d go and play on the field again.’

  ‘Don’t you think your mum suspected?’

  ‘Not a thing. She’s not the sort. She thinks her children can do no wrong, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘I don’t think you should blame yourself,’ says Fen. ‘It wasn’t really your fault. It was an accident.’

  ‘No,’ Sean agrees. He takes a big drink. ‘What about you? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’

  A shadow passes over Fen’s face. He sees it clearly, and says: ‘Nothing heavy.’

  Fen sucks her lower lip, runs her finger around the edge of her glass and, after a few moments, a mischievous smile creeps onto her lips. Sean thinks that when Fen is not being introspective, she is a very nice-looking woman. He wonders why he did not notice before.

  ‘Oh, Sean,’ she says, glancing up at him, and away, ‘if I tell you … no, I can’t.’

  ‘What? Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because you might be offended.’

  ‘I’m not easily offended.’

  She blows breath between her lips.

  ‘Is it something to do with me?’

  She nods. She puts her hand over her mouth to contain her smile.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Go on,’ he gives her a nudge, ‘just say it quickly.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You have to, that’s the rules of the game. I told you about the pavilion. It can’t be worse than that.’

  She shakes her head.

  Sean leans forward and takes her left hand in his.

  ‘Go on,’ he whispers, squeezing her hand. It’s small and cool.

  She looks up. ‘I saw you in the shower,’ she whispers back. Her eyes seem suddenly very dark. She holds his gaze for a moment, and then looks away. She takes a sip of her wine. Her upper lip is stained ruby red and its wetness catches the candlelight. Sean feels something. He feels a flicker of desire. He ignores it.

  ‘It was ages ago,’ she says. ‘Before Christmas. I didn’t mean to spy. I thought the tap had come on by itself and I looked in to see and …’

  ‘You saw my bare arse?’

  ‘More than that.’

  Her hand presses into his. It’s an involuntary action. She swallows and looks up into his eyes again. Her lips are parted now, he can see the bottom edge of
two teeth.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he whispers. ‘I wasn’t … was I?’

  She nods. She gives a little sigh and says quietly: ‘You were beautiful. It was lovely and …’ She pauses as if she’s afraid that she’s already gone too far, and Sean feels that tug of desire in his stomach again, a pang of longing, and he too sighs. She continues: ‘The thing is, I’ve been thinking about you all the time, ever since. I mean …’ She hesitates again, unsure of how to articulate what she wants to say, but it doesn’t matter because Sean feels the atmosphere change: the air between them, the space, is charged now, he feels the change with his heart, his groin, his head. Fen isn’t laughing any longer. She holds on to his hand and gazes down at it and her face flickers in the candlelight.

  ‘Fen …’

  She turns towards him and it is as if it was always meant to be. He reaches out to her and they kiss and something ignites inside him, that’s how it feels. It’s like throwing a match into a field of dry grass – no, more than that, a sea of oil. There’s a huge, intense longing blazing inside him. His hands cup her face. He kisses her and she kisses back and it’s tender and sweet and he knows, he can feel, how much she wants him, how much she has wanted him for months, and her desire arouses him almost beyond anything he’s known before. She kisses him with honesty, her lips are gentle but she does not try to disguise the depth of her feeling, and Sean is turned on almost to the point of unconsciousness.

  Her breathing is heavy, that deep, shaky breathing of a woman on tenterhooks. He moves away, licks on his lips the salty taste of her, then he takes both her hands, her cool, small, slender hands.

  ‘Come with me,’ he says.

  He puts the candle on the mantelpiece, and in its light he lies Fen down on the old settee that’s covered with mismatched, cheap throws, and he unbuttons her shirt, watching her face, not looking at her body, holding her eyes.

  He parts the front of her shirt, and leans down to kiss the space between her breasts. Her fingers are light on the back of his skull and she murmurs: ‘Please.’

  She wriggles out of her shorts and pants; he unzips the fly on his trousers, and then pauses. She’s shaking like a leaf.