by Hilary Boyd
‘Drink?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘Tea? Wine? There’s some red left … not sure how old it is.’
‘Tea’s good.’
They didn’t talk as she boiled the water.
‘Sit beside me,’ he requested, as she set the mugs on the coffee table.
They sipped their tea, still in silence. But the silence was not quiet to her, it was charged with the pulsing, beating clamour of her desire. She didn’t dare look at him.
Fin put his mug down. He turned to her and took her own mug from her hands, placing it on the table.
Gently tracing his finger across her forehead, moving her hair aside, he bent to kiss her. First just beside her ear, then moving across her skin, with small, delicate kisses, to her mouth. For a second he paused, then laid his lips against hers, this time firmly, fiercely, forcing her mouth open. She could hear her breath, shaky and shallow, feel her body trembling uncontrollably as his hand moved down her neck, his finger exploring briefly the dip of her collar bone before resting familiarly around her breast.
‘Oh, Flora,’ he whispered against her mouth.
The first time they made love it was almost brutal, neither of them able to get enough of the other, each desperate to consume every inch of flesh, taste every drop of pleasure, seize the long-withheld desire – and purge the years of loss. Afterwards, exhausted, they lay apart, only their hands touching, in the light from the bedside table. She rolled over until she was resting her head against his shoulder. Fin pulled the duvet over them, and cradled her body against his own. Neither spoke, and within minutes he was kissing her again.
When she woke in the morning, to the maddening chirrup of her alarm, Fin was already awake, lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. He turned as he heard her stir.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Hi.’
‘Did you sleep?’ he asked, drawing her towards him again.
‘Like a log. You?’
‘Yeah, not bad.’ He shifted beside her. ‘My leg aches at night.’
She’d forgotten his injury. ‘Do you take stuff for it?’
‘When I remember. I had other things on my mind last night.’
She laughed. ‘Bloody cheek, I call it. Knocking on a girl’s window in the middle of the night and expecting sex.’
‘If I’d waited for said girl to ask me to bed, I’d have been too old for sex, or anything beyond incontinence.’ He began stroking the skin of her shoulder, but she pulled back.
‘I have to go. I’m late already.’ But she didn’t get up at once. ‘Did you … have you … been out with people … since us?’
Fin laughed. ‘“People”? Not really. Well,’ he paused, ‘the odd girl in a tent I suppose … nothing memorable. Just once or twice.’ He glanced down at her, but she didn’t look up. She was feeling a sudden pang of jealousy, imagining the intimacy and isolation of a base camp somewhere, the adrenalin rush, the shared sense of living on the edge. Not real life, but something she’d never been part of. ‘Nothing that came close to you, Flo.’
‘I’ve got to get up,’ she kissed his cheek, wrenching herself away from his warm body.
He didn’t object, just lay there until she’d returned from her shower, and watched as she pulled on a clean pair of pants, did up her bra, zipped her jeans, poked her head through the neck of a blue T-shirt and laced her trainers over some black socks.
‘Come on, get up,’ she urged. ‘I need to lock up after you.’
Reluctantly, Fin dragged himself out of bed. Not like him, Flora thought. In the past, he would be up before six most mornings and on his bike for an hour or so, coming back with some fresh bread or croissants for breakfast.
‘What are you doing today?’
Fin yawned and stretched, his long arms touching the low ceiling of the basement. ‘Oh, the usual: bugger all.’
‘Won’t be for much longer, will it?’
He just shrugged.
*
‘Hi, Keith.’ Flora went over to the porter’s desk when she arrived at work. Fin had come on the bus with her, walked her to the door of the flats.
‘Meet me in Waitrose at ten-thirty?’ he’d asked.
‘There might be enough food here. I don’t go out every day. And anyway, I don’t know when it’ll be.’
‘OK … well, see you tonight? I can pick you up.’
‘I need to sleep tonight,’ she’d told him. ‘And anyway, we were going to take it slowly, remember?’
‘Can’t bear not to be with you,’ he said, his face a picture of dejection. It’s all or nothing with Fin, she reminded herself, realising too that his own day would be empty of the only thing he wanted to do: climb. She didn’t want to leave him either. It had seemed so natural, waking together, dressing, walking to get the bus. And last night had been extraordinary. She had worried that the sexual chemistry might no longer exist, worn away by all that had happened. She needn’t have worried, but she knew now that everything was different. She could no longer pretend to herself that she had any control over her feelings for him.
‘I’ll call you later,’ she’d told him, almost wanting to pinch herself. Fin McCrea was back in her life. The knowledge created an aura of happiness around her whole body, as if she were floating separate from the world.
Keith dragged his gaze from the computer screen.
‘Morning Florence. You’re looking very gorgeous this morning. Things good?’
‘They are, yes.’ She felt a hotness in her cheeks, unable to divorce herself from the almost tangible feel of Fin’s body against her own, and hurried on. ‘Listen, I just wanted to ask you something, Keith. The CCTV here in the hall. It’s always on, isn’t it?’
Keith raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, sure. Why?’
‘Even at weekends?’
‘Twenty-four-seven. It’s part of the insurance for the building. We get the odd glitch, but mostly it’s on.’
‘And you can access it presumably?’
‘You want me to? Just say the word.’
Flora hesitated. ‘You remember I asked if Miss Heath-Travis’s weekend nurse had asked you for help with the chair on Sundays?’
He nodded.
‘Well, it’s just a bit odd. The nurse says she takes Dorothea to church, but Dorothea says she doesn’t. And I was wondering if you could check for me. See if they went out this last Sunday.’
Keith frowned. ‘Because you think she’s lying, or because you think the old lady’s losing her marbles?’
‘Well, either, I suppose. It’d just be good to know one way or the other.’
‘Odd thing to lie about, taking Miss H-T to church. No one’s making her, are they?’
‘No, of course not. And I agree, it is odd. This is why we need to know. Perhaps Dorothea’s mental state is worse than we think.’
‘Not much you can do about it if it is,’ Keith said gloomily.
‘No. But would you be able to check for us, please?’
‘Sure. No problem. I’ll give you a shout when I’ve found it.’
Dorothea had a quiet day. She seemed lost in her own world much of the time, hardly noticing what went on around her.
‘I’ll put the tea on,’ Flora said, when she’d got her up from her rest and settled her in the armchair with a thin rug over her knees.
‘No cake,’ Dorothea said, her voice suddenly cross.
Flora was taken aback. ‘OK. I haven’t got one today anyway.’
Dorothea stared at her, her brow furrowed. ‘I don’t want cake.’
Puzzled, Flora repeated, ‘There isn’t any cake, Dorothea.’
‘You haven’t made me one?’
‘No.
Her patient looked away, her hands frantically working the edge of the rug. Flora went over to her.
‘There isn’t any cake today.’
The old lady’s eyes blinked up at her.
‘I’m … glad there isn’t.’
Flora was baffled. ‘I
thought you liked cake.’
She still gazed at Flora, bewilderment replacing the previous agitation. ‘I expect I do, if you say so.’
Flora waited, but Dorothea seemed to calm down. What was all that about, she wondered, as she nipped outside to see what Keith had found.
He beckoned her round the side of the desk, so she could view the screen. He pointed to the time and date code in the top left-hand corner.
‘See … ten thirteen last Sunday.’
Flora peered at the grainy black and white image. There was the top of Pia’s head, Dorothea in the wheelchair, waiting by the steps leading to the front door. Dorothea was wrapped up in the tartan rug. For a while nothing seemed to happen. Then a man and a woman came into the hall from the lift, and it was clear, as Keith fast-forwarded the image, that the man was helping Pia bump the chair down the steps.
‘Put your mind at rest has it?’
‘Yeah … yeah, I suppose it has. Thanks.’
Mary, when Flora told her about the CCTV that night, looked disconcerted.
‘Well, I suppose I’m glad Pia wasn’t lying.’
‘You don’t sound it,’ Flora said.
Mary laughed. ‘Perhaps I’m not really. I must have worked it up in my mind that’s she’s a bad lot, and now I’d better un-work it.’ She paused. ‘But just because she was telling the truth about church, doesn’t mean she isn’t being mean to Dorothea behind our backs, does it?’
‘No. But we could be exaggerating the problem.’
‘You don’t see her when she’s had a day with that woman. I do. She’s not herself.’
Flora sighed. ‘Well, maybe one day she’ll tell us the truth, if there’s one to be had with her brain deteriorating at this rate.’
She went in to say goodbye to the old lady.
‘I’ll be back in the morning.’
Dorothea smiled, her head resting peacefully against the pillows.
‘Seeing your beau again tonight?’
‘He asked me, but I’m tired.’
‘My mother said I should never make excuses about being tired or ill when a young man asked me out. If I wasn’t well, I just jolly well had to grin and bear it.’
‘Your mother sounds a bit fierce.’
Dorothea stared off into the distance. ‘She was … firm. But then everyone had different standards in those days.’ She looked Flora up and down, taking in the jeans and black boots, her face registering curiosity rather than disapproval. ‘She wouldn’t have let me out of the house dressed like that.’
Flora laughed. ‘No, well, she was probably quite right. Standards have definitely slipped.’
‘In my day, a young man would take you to supper and then dancing.’ She gave Flora an amused smile. ‘But I don’t suppose … you will be dancing in those shoes.’
‘Did you go to clubs?’ Flora asked, trying to imagine Dorothea being swept round the dance floor of a West End club.
‘Oh, yes. We drank champagne and danced, smoked too much. Such fun. The men would be in black tie, the girls in evening frocks …’
‘Bet you looked gorgeous,’ Flora replied, but the old lady’s concentration had gone and her eyelids had begun to droop.
‘Sleep well,’ Flora whispered.
CHAPTER 9
4 October
Fin came round again on Wednesday and they sat for hours, just smiling at each other, talking about nothing. Flora felt almost dizzy with pleasure as she looked into his beautiful grey eyes, unable to believe he was there in front of her again, in the flesh, no longer the tormenting image of loss.
But Thursday night she had been summoned to supper with the family. She dreaded it. What might Bel have said to her parents …? She had a long shower and slowly made her way upstairs.
When she reached the ground floor, the others were already gathered for a kitchen supper around the black marble island. They had obviously been talking about her, because they stopped when she came in, their faces stiff with guilt.
‘Flora!’ Philip got off his stool and came to embrace her. He had changed out of his work clothes and was padding around the kitchen in bare feet, his blue striped shirt hanging out of his jeans. Prue followed suit, her hug slightly less enthusiastic. Bel looked up, but didn’t move.
‘Hi, Bel,’ Flora said, and went to give her a kiss. ‘Hi,’ the fifteen-year-old muttered, and continued to tear up her bread and dip it in the saucer of olive oil in front of her.
Prue indicated the place laid for Flora and they all sat down. Prue pushed a glass towards her, and Philip poured some red wine into it. There was a small silence before her brother-in-law spoke.
‘How are you? How’s work?’ he asked brightly.
She saw Prue shoot him an irritable glance.
‘Look,’ Flora said. ‘Let’s talk about him.’
Prue pursed her lips. ‘What, in a We Need to Talk about Kevin sort of way?’
‘Fin’s hardly a serial killer.’
Flora saw Bel give a small smile.
‘I know I’ve upset Bel,’ she addressed Prue, ‘because Fin came round on Monday night, unannounced, and she thought I’d asked him to come, at the same time as I was promising her we were taking things slowly.’
‘Well, you have a very loyal niece, because she didn’t tell me that.’ Prue now turned the glare on her daughter.
‘Bel has a right to be annoyed with me.’ Flora wasn’t finished yet. ‘I intended to take it slowly, but I haven’t. Fin spent the night on Monday and yesterday.’
Philip was keeping his head down, pushing his finger into a drop of wine on the marble.
‘And?’
‘And I intend to get back with him. Make a go of it.’
‘Live with him.’ Her sister’s voice was leaden. ‘Yes, live with him.’
‘Right.’
No one spoke for a moment.
‘I don’t want that bloody man in our house.’
‘Prue!’ Philip’s head shot up. ‘Come on, that’s not very reasonable. Or respectful.’
Prue put her head on one side and gave him a questioning look. ‘And I should be respectful to Fin McCrea, why?’
‘Not to Fin, specifically. To Flora.’
She snorted.
‘You won’t stop her seeing him.’ Philip said. ‘She’ll just move away and we won’t speak to each other for years and years. Is that what you want?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. She isn’t moving anywhere with Fin. He hasn’t a pot to piss in.’
Flora took a large gulp of wine.
‘He has, in fact,’ she said. ‘His father died and left him his house in Inverness. He’s planning to live there anyway, and I’ll go with him.’
Flora was surprised by her own bravado. There had been no talk about going to Scotland together. They hadn’t discussed the future at all, only endlessly made love. But the information took the wind out of her sister’s sails.
‘Inverness?’ Bel asked. ‘Isn’t that Scotland?’
‘The north, yes,’ Philip told her.
Flora was shocked to see Bel’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Please, Flora, don’t go. Don’t go to Scotland. We’ll never see you again, like Dad says.’
‘Darling … sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ She got up and went round the island to put her arms round her niece’s shoulders. ‘I’m not going anywhere at the moment, I swear. I have a job, and I won’t leave Dorothea. But Fin can’t live in a city; he’s a mountain climber.’
The atmosphere in the kitchen was thick with unspoken anger and hurt, which hung in the air like a physical weight. Prue got up and went to open the oven door, taking out an earthenware baking dish of roasting chicken quarters, sliced onions and potatoes, dotted with sage and black olives. She laid it on a wooden block beside the stove, prodding one of the chicken quarters with a knife and peering at the juice running out. It must have been ready, because she switched the oven off.
‘Are you saying you don’t want Fin to even come to the flat?’ Fl
ora asked.
Prue turned, but didn’t meet her eye.
‘You rent the flat. I suppose you’ve the right to have anyone you want down there,’ she answered evenly.
‘Can we stop this?’ Philip’s voice broke the silence that followed. They both looked at him.
‘The last thing I want is for this to cause trouble in the family,’ Flora said.
Prue took longer to speak, and Flora could see her biting back another angry response.
‘Nor me, obviously. So let’s hope I’m wrong about him.’
Flora held her tongue. Fin would have to earn their respect himself, she knew that. Nothing she could say would change Prue’s opinion.
*
Flora called Fin when she got home. It was late, but she knew he would be up, probably watching a movie about derring-do on some lone, ice-bound rock face: men falling to their deaths, suffocated by an avalanche, cutting the rope to save a friend.
‘I’ve told her,’ she said when he answered.
‘That you’re seeing me?’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Bet she was thrilled.’
‘Over the moon. But it’s my life.’
‘So can I risk meeting her? Or will she run at me with a claw hammer?’
Flora remembered Bel likening her mother to Chucky.
‘I think electrodes are the weapon of choice.’
‘Electrodes?’
‘Never mind.’
She heard him chuckle. ‘I’ve just spent months putting my body back together, only to be burnt to a crisp by your psychotic sister. Great.’
‘No need to meet her yet.’
‘Not planning to … so shall I come over?’ he added softly.
‘It’s a bit late … but yeah, come round, I’d love it.’
*
It had been cold and blustery for days, the wind tearing at the autumn leaves, laying them in drifts across the London pavements. Nevertheless, Flora decided to risk taking Dorothea for a half-hour walk around the block.
Once outside, she turned left, then left again into the quiet residential streets lined with pretty, semi-detached Georgian villas. She walked slowly, thinking of Fin. He’d spent most of the weekend with her. For much of it, they had just sat and talked, on and on, catching up on details of the missed years. For the rest they had made love. She felt dizzy, almost euphoric with happiness. She was with Fin, they were together again; he loved her.