by G I Tulloch
He struggled to work out how to say what he wanted to say. He was desperate not to say the wrong thing.
"I've got to be back in London for three weeks." He paused. "My publishers are insisting on it, but if you don't mind I'd like to come back then for three weeks. They are insisting I spend at least half of my time in London to complete work and meet clients and all that."
Emma fell very silent. She had been working herself up to say goodbye to this man and now he wanted to turn things on their head, walk in and out of her life. She frowned. Somehow she didn't think this was a good idea, but the alternative, to say goodbye to this man for good. Was this something she wanted to do willingly? No, not yet at any rate.
"I'll keep the room free," she replied, a little coolly, Geoff thought.
Chapter 5
The first week was hell. The children didn't seem to do anything right. Emma felt she was in a permanently bad mood. The weather seemed to agree. It was stormy and cold, and she spent hours curled up on the sofa, reading. She spent time berating herself for being stupid and acting like a schoolgirl with a crush, but despite all that she still wouldn't sit on Geoff's end of the sofa. When the weather improved she spent more time in the garden, putting far more aggression into her digging than was really necessary. Joanna tried to talk some sense into her but to no avail. Her mother in law tried to tell her to buck up, in the nicest possible way. Emma merely replied that they didn't understand, how could they when they weren't in her shoes. In quieter moments she wondered whether their arrangement was sensible. She didn't want to go through this every three weeks and by the tenth day she had decided that she would say no the next time he asked to stay. It was at that point that the phone rang.
She didn't expect it. She presumed it was her mother-in-law finalising arrangements for looking after the children on the following day. She picked up the phone.
"Hi," she said confidently.
"Hi yourself," replied Geoff.
She was lost for something to say. She sat down.
"I didn't expect you to phone," was all she could say.
"Master of the surprise that's me."
"How are you?"
"I'm fine. Taking a bit of time to re-acclimatise to London. The gulls aren't so noisy here. How are all of you?"
Emma took a deep breath. "We're fine. Children are being monsters as usual. They only behave when you're around, you know."
"Don't believe it."
"Are you calling me a fibber?" she accused him, tongue-in-cheek.
They talked around the commonplace. Emma began to wonder if there was an elephant in the living room, just before he rang off.
Geoff put the phone down and was unsure if he'd done the right thing. He just wanted to hear her voice. Why oh why couldn't he come out and say how he felt? He realised that he was terrified. Terrified that she didn't feel about him the same way he felt about her. Had no confidence that anyone could feel as strongly about him as he did about Emma. Terrified of rejection. Began to wonder if, seeing her again, he would actually be able to leave her. His writing was not going well. Concentration was impossible. Only ten days to go though.
Ten tough days.
He left at first light and was in Chetsea by six thirty in the morning. He let himself in quietly and boiled a kettle for some tea. Already he felt more at home here than he did back in London.
He was lost in thought when a sound disturbed him and he looked up to see Emma in the doorway, in her dressing gown, hair dishevelled, sleepy eyed.
"There is tea in the pot," said Geoff, "but it probably needs nuked."
Emma smiled a tired smile. "Standard procedure."
It was a glorious day with a clear blue sky and the morning was warm already. The children insisted that Uncle Geoff walk with them to school.
When Emma and Geoff returned they cleared the breakfast table and Geoff slung his bag into 'his' room.
It was Geoff's suggestion that they go for a walk along the seawall and they set off at a stroll, neither apparently in a hurry to go anywhere fast. They talked of trivia, what had happened in the minutiae of the last three weeks.
They reached the stage where it was wise to turn around and she stopped to point out the radio transmission station with its dozen or so aerials strung out across masts. She was standing in front of him, pointing out to sea. He watched her for a moment in her tee-shirt and cords, the same that she had been wearing the day he first saw her. He could smell her hair, and her perfume.
He couldn't resist it, he grabbed her by the waist and pretended to knock her into the sea, grabbing her to safety at the last minute.
"Careful you don't fall in!"
She shrieked, then laughed, then leant her head backwards to look at him. He couldn't help himself, or so he maintained afterwards. He took her head, bent down and kissed her.
It didn't come as a surprise to her, in fact she confessed later that she had seen it coming and encouraged it. At any rate when the kiss stopped she turned around and looked up at him, put her arms around his neck and returned the kiss, only this time it was longer and there was more energy in it.
When they had finished but were still holding each other, she spoke whilst watching his eyes.
"You know, I don't actually know you. So why am I doing this?"
He shrugged. "Sometimes that makes it easier," and they kissed again.
The return walk was very little different to the walk out, only this time she took his arm, the conversation continued as before, but this time the thinking was deafening. Occasionally one would look sideways at the other and very occasionally catch each other doing it, which caused peels of laughter and made both of them feel better.
Lunch was sandwiches on the quay, the sun stronger than yesterday and warmer. They had takeaway cappuccinos from the tea-room and watched the boats come and go.
After lunch they walked around the village, recounting again the history, the people, the gossip, and finished in time to pick up the children from school. Maxine got a piggy-back from Geoff, and squealed as he did plane impressions whilst Emma told them both to grow up.
Once home, Geoff played hide and seek with the two older ones, which was tricky as they knew all the hiding places and he didn't. In the end he had to fish them out by declaring that tea was ready, whilst they pronounced him a cheat, and he roundly protested his innocence.
Tea was an all-together affair in the kitchen, the table looking as if a bomb had gone off, toast and spaghetti hoops everywhere. As usual the kids trooped off for baths and bed but not before he had a kiss goodnight from Maxine.
Geoff felt the need to go and change and in his bedroom looked at himself in the mirror.
What's going on here, he asked himself, is he actually getting into something he would later regret? And then he thought of Emma and that kiss, and decided risks were okay.
It was gone eight when Emma finally came down. He was sitting in a corner of the sofa, his long legs stretched out on the rug. She had a long shirt on, down to her thighs, but he couldn't swear she was wearing anything else. Her hair was finely groomed and smelled wonderful. His senses reeled. She sat down with him so close that he was forced to lift his arm and put it around her. Not that he needed to be forced of course. Fortunately he had put a bottle of red and two glasses on the table next to him just in case. They spent the evening watching the fire and talking about themselves. Geoff was not sure whether she wanted him to gaze down her open-necked shirt or not, but he found it unavoidable.
There was an awkwardness and an uncertainty as they came to close of play. The day seemed to have opened up questions that no-one had ventured to answer as yet. In the end they kissed goodnight, less passionately than earlier, and then went their separate ways.
Chapter 6
The night tossed and turned for Geoff, but Emma showed no signs of a sleepless night when he saw her the next morning. She almost glowed, in mohair jumper and slacks.
She danced around the kitchen, toast in hand. "You're on your own today, I've got to go in to Ipswich for some shopping."
"Suits me, I really need to do some work," he replied.
She hesitated as if weighing things up in her mind. "Can you pick up the kids from school? If you don't want to it's not a problem, I can get Harry's mum to do it."
"No that's fine. I'd love to."
She looked at him and pursed her lips whilst frowning. "You're not an axe murderer are you?"
He had to laugh.
Work kept him pre-occupied and distracted but when he stopped for lunch he was surprise how much he missed her presence. He was used to working alone and it had never bothered him before.
She did the shopping. Normally she would have made a long day of it; stretched it out; enjoyed the freedom; had lunch and coffee, window-shopped a lot. Today she found herself in more of a hurry, watching the time, deciding which train she could manage to get home. On occasion she would spot something and turn to remark on it, until she realised there was no-one there.
In the evening when she returned, the kids were fed, bathed and ready for bed. She was very impressed but also slightly unsettled; something that surprised her. Geoff excused himself and went up to his room, claiming he needed to finish some work. She tried to hide her disappointment. Was she being silly? Was she seeing things that weren't there? She hurled logs into the fire more vigorously than normal and told herself not to be so silly, she wasn't some young schoolgirl. It was a phrase she was using more and more frequently.
Geoff eventually came down and they shared a last drink before saying goodnight. Tonight there was no kiss and Emma wondered if things might slip away.
He caught her by surprise the next day while she was drying up a few dishes. He ran fingers through her hair and massaged her neck until she put down the dishtowel and turned around. He put her hands around his neck and then grasped her waist.
"When did you first feel it?" she asked.
Geoff paused very briefly for thought. "When you walked away from me on the quay that first day."
She raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise.
"What about you," quizzed Geoff.
"The moment before I asked you to come and stay."
Geoff shook his head. "So why did we wait so long?"
"I have no idea," replied Emma but they lost no more time before drawing each other into a long and passionate kiss that would have done a rom-com proud.
And then it got silly. Every time they encountered each other around the house during the day a kiss had to be exchanged as if they were making up for lost time, which is exactly what they were doing.
∗∗∗
Two days later, after a day when they had seen little of each other, due to Geoff's workload and another of Emma's shopping trips to Ipswich, Geoff was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He was in a good frame of mind. The work was going well, and his relationship with Emma was growing closer. The only downside was that he ached to hold her perfect body and to make love to her, to stroke her smooth skin. He closed his eyes, aware that he was getting aroused at the mere thought. He finished his teeth, leaned on the sink and grimaced at himself in the mirror. Turning to walk out the door in just his boxers, he met Emma coming in through the doorway. They both stopped in their tracks, Emma wide-eyed at the sight of Geoff in just boxers. Geoff, meanwhile, was openly ogling Emma who was only wearing a virtually see-through negligee that hid nothing of her body from him. For a whole minute they stared, saying nothing but thinking furiously.
Then something broke in Geoff, and moving swiftly forward he gathered up Emma in his arms and carried her out of the bathroom. She squealed loudly, but to Geoff's relief it was a squeal of delight and not horror. He carried her through to her bedroom and let her stand at the foot of the bed. She turned to face him, kissed him briefly and then let her negligee slip off her shoulders and drop to the floor. He laid her gently on the bed and kneeling beside her, slowly stroked her warm velvety skin.
“Did you know that you have the most gorgeous body,” he whispered reverently.
“You're pretty delectable yourself,” she replied, reaching out to pull down his boxers. “Wow,” she exclaimed.
Geoff kicked his boxers off. “I've been wanting to do this for weeks,” he admitted.
“I've been wanting you to do this for weeks as well,” confessed Emma with a broad smile, as she pulled him down on top of her.
The days went by and summer eventually moved in, with warm weather and school holidays; tents in the garden; adventures in the woods; messing about in boats.
Geoff and Tom went camping in nearby woods for a few nights, building fires and tracking 'wild animals'. As they wriggled into sleeping bags Tom dropped the bombshell.
"Are you and Mummy going to get married?"
Geoff did a double-take and desperately tried to think of a sensible answer for a ten-year-old. Before he had time to conjure something Tom continued the interrogation.
"When my friend Gary's dad went away, his mum got married to Mr Thorpe."
Geoff chickened out. "We will have to see. I don't know. Would you like me to marry your mum?"
He suddenly realised how unfair the question was and started to back-track, but Tom didn't seem worried.
"I think I might, if you lived with us all the time."
After this pronouncement he yawned, rolled over in his sleeping bag and went to sleep, leaving Geoff to lie awake, watching the stars and thinking perilous thoughts.
Geoff stayed, although every three weeks he still had to go back to London for the next three, 'or they won't pay me'. They were three long weeks for everyone and despite talking on the phone for at least an hour most nights, Emma was as impatient as the children for the three weeks to come up.
In early August Geoff and Emma spent several days at Snape Maltings, going to concerts and walking in Tunstall Forest, while Irene looked after the children.
They were happy, Emma was radiant, and everyone remarked on it.
It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
In early September it all fell apart.
Chapter 7
Emma sat by the first fire of the autumn after Geoff had been gone a week; it was the most difficult time. She already looked forward to him returning. Suddenly she was hit by the realisation that when Geoff was there they were a real family. He wasn't a friend, a lover or a lodger. He was a partner, a husband, even a father.
All those occasions came back to her where small gestures had seemed almost insignificant but put together indicated that he was sharing responsibility in the family, forming a part of their lives, filling a hole they hadn't realised was there.
She couldn't believe that she hadn't realised it before. How blind she had been. She wanted to tell him, to hug him, hold him close.
Two days later Grandma was enrolled to hold the fort and Emma caught the London train. As she watched the fields flash passed her emotions roller-coasted, between convincing herself that Geoff wanted to be a permanent part of her life, and desperately afraid that he didn't feel the same about her as she did about him. She rationalised it, arguing that the amount of effort that he invested in being with them was indefatigable proof that he loved her, loved them, wanted to be a part of them.
She could feel her heart pounding with the adrenaline rush of euphoria at the thought of being with him for the rest of her life. Sitting on the train she could recall the feel of his arm around her waist, the sound of his laughter at the children's antics, the soft touch of his fingers entwined with hers and the smell of his hair as he held her tightly.
She had his address, a 'flat over shops' as he had described it. She scanned the Underground map and strode briskly from platform to platform, willing the trains to come.
When she finally found it with her new A-Z, it was actually some swanky apartment block with retail units on the ground floor. Master of the understa
tement. The polished and brightly-lit lift seemed to take for ever, the hum of the motor echoing her impatience. There was no answer to the doorbell, which, in the middle of the day didn't surprise her, yet still left her disappointed. Standing in the hallway, recovering some composure, she delved into the A-Z to uncover suitable ways to pass the time until he was likely to return.
She settled finally on the British Museum and started off through the streets in a meandering route, passed the cafés, dodging the random tables sprinkled across the pavement like a giant draughts-board in mid-game.
She hadn't gone more than three streets before she caught sight of Geoff in the distance, outside a jeweller's shop. She blinked; she had to be mistaken, but she moved closer and it was definitely Geoff. She made a move to call out across the street but she stopped herself as her heart sank and missed a beat or two.
He had his arm around a petite brunette and they were laughing and giggling like schoolchildren. Geoff looked happier and more relaxed than she had ever seen him. Emma had to admit his companion was gorgeous; a model perhaps; beautifully and elegantly dressed. Emma looked at her own jeans and tee-shirt.
What a fool! What a blind fool she had been. As she watched they moved inside the shop and she couldn't resist briefly looking through the window to see them pointing to a tray of wedding rings. She blinked back tears and strode away with increasingly vicious energy, unable to believe how gullible she had been.
It was so blindingly obvious to her now. No wonder he needed to go back to London every three weeks, he was leading a double existence, and she'd fallen for it hook, line and sinker. You stupid cow, how could you ever think that he would be taken with you?
Chapter 8