by Carmen Reid
That was it. So easy she couldn't really work out how it had happened. Bend down, cat latch, stand up and kiss.
And they must have both decided at the same time because she met him halfway, mouth on mouth. At first they were kissing lip to lip, then so tentatively, tongue on tongue.
Only when it had started to happen had she realized just how much she'd wanted this. A kiss . . . kissing . . . God, she had been starved of kissing. She'd wrapped her arms around him, not wanting to let him stop, her very turned-on Dutchman ... in a white coat... which smelled of Dettol... Several fantasies rolled into one.
She'd felt her bra ping open at the back and his hands on her bare skin, shyly moving to her breasts. The excitement of doing this with someone new was so intense, it was close to terror. A different face, a wider, softer mouth, a whole new island of person to work her way around. She'd groped for the buttons on the starchy white coat and began to undo them, needing to have him warm and naked against her.
'Yeeeeeouwl!' He'd stood on a cat, but who cared?
Oh, he did, obviously.
'I'm so sorry.' He'd let go of her and followed the cat into the bedroom.
'She'll be fine.' Eve, thick-voiced, went into the room too, her arms folded over her undone cardigan and bra, to watch him give the cat a quick check over.
'You must stand on cats all the time, in your line of work,' she'd joked.
'My line of work,' – which came out 'vuuuerkk' and almost made her knees buckle – 'is trying not to stand on cats.'
Then he'd gone to stand very close beside her, hoping he hadn't killed the moment, as well as very nearly the cat.
'Where were we?' she'd said, wrapping hands around his waist, hooking her fingers into the belt loops of his cords and pulling him up against her.
'Remind me,' he'd said, leaning in, moving his mouth onto hers, running his hands through her hair, circling against her neck and shoulders until the possibility of taking off every shred of clothing and getting into bed with this strange, new man was becoming very real.
She let him undo the top button of her trousers, then he sat down on the bed and pulled her down beside him. Pushing back the insistent thoughts that this wasn't Joseph . . . this was a new ... a first . . . she'd let him peel back her clothes and move his mouth down, skimming over cold nipples, soft stomach and arched hip bones until he was there; tasting, touching, insistent and persuasive. And despite her whispered reservations – 'No.. .no...not... quite... just...' because this felt so intimate and strange – it had become irresistible and she had slowly lowered her guard, closed her eyes and wound the unfamiliar curls round her fingers, opening to the flickering touch, the breathing, the steady rippling of underwater waves and – no! – she was going to come before she'd even undone his zip, she realized as it happened, with a quiet juddering.
Nils had stood up then and undressed, unselfconsciously, not breaking her gaze as she'd watched. He'd taken off his shirt and T-shirt, then he'd unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them off along with his trunks and socks. He had a square, strong body, as golden-haired as she'd expected, surprisingly freckly, but quite spectacularly attractive.
Unable to take her eyes off him, she'd waited naked on the bed – heart jumping in her chest – for him to fit on a condom and come back.
When he moved inside her, she'd had to bend her knees up and put her heels onto his buttocks to make room. But it was perfect to feel small, to feel as if she was clinging to this great bear of a man for dear life. She'd held on, felt his size and warmth and managed to keep at bay all the tearful thoughts welling up.
He was going to come quickly too. She'd felt him make the momentary effort to slow and hold back, but then with a gasp he'd given in and collapsed down against her.
Later, they'd had much slower sex with talking. What Joseph had always called mantra sex. (Except, she wasn't supposed to be thinking about him.)
'So how come you're still single?' she'd asked Nils.
'British girls aren't into vets,' he'd told her. 'Too much exposure to All Creatures Great and Small at an impressionable age. They're always thinking about where my hands have been and am I sure I've washed them.'
'Yeurgh,' she'd giggled.
'I don't know,' he'd added, a little more seriously. 'Probably just haven't met the right person, yet.'
'I've always wanted to have sex with a Dutchman,' she'd told him then.
'Why?'
'Because you're all so liberal, nothing's supposed to shock you and I was hoping you'd have lots of good ideas.'
'I see,' he said switching positions and explaining that he was from one of the tiny Protestant, Puritan Dutch islands where he went to church six days a week until he turned 19 and left for vet school.
'Ah.'
'But that doesn't mean I haven't got some good ideas and, please tell me you're going to come soon ...'
'Oh yeah...'
'It's almost five o'clock, isn't it?' she asked him now, trying to move her head up from the pillow. 'I really have to go.'
She got out of bed, retrieved her tiny pants and then lay flat on her back on the floor. Raising her hips with her hands, she swung her legs up into the air, then down past her head to touch the floor on the other side.
'What are you doing?!' he asked, sitting up to watch.
'Just stretching out my back,' she said, smiling, looking surprisingly comfortable.
'Isn't that dangerous?'
'The plough? No, not when you've been doing yoga for as long as I have. Since before the Nineties,' she added, but then wished she hadn't, she didn't really want to remind him that she was, well . . . call it a few years older than him.
She held the position for several minutes, then unfolded herself and began to pull on her clothes. He asked if she would like to make another 'appointment'.
This was the part she wasn't so sure about.
'I've got a lot on . . . and little people to look after. I really don't know ...' she trailed off.
'Do you want to see me again, Eve?' he asked, from the seriously rumpled bed.
'Yes. I just...'
'Shh!' he held a finger against his lips. 'It's OK. No rush. We'll see how it goes.'
'Thanks.' She sat down beside him and put her hands up against his face to draw him in for a kiss. And to his surprise it was a kiss on the forehead, a slightly mumsy goodbye.
'What does this have to do with things?' He held her left hand in his and put a thumb over the dainty emerald ring on her fourth finger.
'Oh, nothing ... really. Just habit. We split up ages ago ... you know that...' She felt a flush of pink heat up her cheeks, and it annoyed her, making her blush even more: 'But there hasn't been anyone since. So this is ... all new.'
'No rush,' he said again, reassuringly.
'I'm sure I'll tell you all about it.' She shot him a smile, did up her trousers, slid her feet into her shoes and picked up her cardigan. 'But not today.'
Chapter Two
At 4p.m., most days of the year, Eve's stint at the office ended, although work didn't. She sometimes didn't think work ended until she sank into her bath at 10.30p.m. with a hefty glass of red wine in her hand.
But 4p.m. was the changeover, when Probation Officer Eve powered down the computer, closed the files on the big kids for the day and turned back into Mummy Eve, who did food and homework and bath time, laundry and hoovering and all that other stuff for the next few hours.
And today, Friday, was no different. Lap one, rush to the bus stop and catch the red double decker, which dropped her just a short walk from Robbie's childminder. She always rang Arlene's doorbell in short bursts of three so Robbie knew it was her and came hurtling down the corridor screaming with glee, ready to fly into her arms as soon as the door was opened.
'Hello, bunny,' she said into his hair, as he clasped her fiercely round the neck. Eve and Arlene had their doorstep chat – what they'd done today, how he'd eaten, how long he'd slept – then Robbie climbed into his buggy and they
whizzed down the road to collect Anna from her after-school club.
Reunions with Anna were not nearly as gushy. Her tall, fair-haired daughter didn't see them coming in because she was at the table pushed against the wall in the club room, doing her homework, completely oblivious to the chaos going on around her with other kids playing ping-pong and pool, jostling for goes on the Play Station.
'Anna!' the club supervisor had to call several times, before Anna heard. Then she turned, flashed her mother a quick smile, turned back, finished her sentence, her sum, whatever it was she was doing and only then packed her books and jotters away, all neat and orderly, just like a mini executive sorting out her briefcase at the end of the day.
Anna allowed herself to be kissed on the cheek by Eve, but nothing more than that. Then she bent down to kiss Robbie hello, all sweetly condescending and so self-possessed for a nine-year-old.
'So tell me all about it,' Eve said when they were back outside, and the last fifteen-minute stretch home was full of school news and a little girl's gossip.
There was that house, she couldn't help noticing as they walked past, the big one on the corner, shabby and unloved, with the wild garden. Someone had finally put it up for sale.
It was close to 5p.m. when they were at last back at the little two-bedroomed basement flat which had been Eve's family base for over ten years now.
Opening the front door was always such a relief: all three of them loved to be home. Anna rushed to her room and Eve carried Robbie into her bedroom so he could sit on the bed and watch her slip out of the work suit into jeans, a bright top, woolly socks and a decrepit old pair of Birkenstocks. That was when she finally felt like her proper homebody, Mummy-self again.
She took out her earrings, brushed through her hair and tried to feel a tiny bit recharged for the final laps of the day ahead of her: suppertime, homework, Joseph handover, baths and bed.
'What are we eating tonight?' Anna called from next door.
'Soup, salad, bread and cheese,' Eve answered, knowing this was not exactly a break with routine.
'What kind of soup?'
'Carrot and lentil,' she answered, not expecting to hear a groan in reply. This was one of her more popular numbers.
Anna came into the room, dressed in sensible chinos and a white long-sleeved T-shirt. She found her mother's taste for sequined hipsters, splashy tops and bead jewellery hard to relate to.
'How's it going?' Eve asked but before Anna could reply, Robbie somersaulted straight off the bed and landed in a wailing heap on the wooden floor.
Once they'd both cuddled him up and patted him better, Anna replied with an: 'OK, surviving, trying to keep within my own boundaries and not get too involved with all the children stuck in the toddler stage in my class.'
'Hmmm,' Eve nodded, knowing from experience it was best not to get too caught up in a pop psychology conversation with Anna; it would only end with cries of: 'You just don't want to understand!'
Occasionally, Eve would worry if it was normal to have a nine-year-old who was desperate to be a psychiatrist and who spent most of her spare time reading psychology manuals. But, hell, what was normal? Best not to spend too much time wondering about that.
While her youngest children had supper – Robbie breaking all his bread into pieces to float it 'like ducks' on the soup and Anna having to cry because she blobbed the bright orange onto her T-shirt, 'and it will never come out' (theatrical wail) – Eve tried to take a call on the kitchen phone from her eldest son, Denny.
'Have you met Tom's new girlfriend yet?' Denny was asking above the increasing kitchen cacophony.
'Yes. Isn't she lovely? I'm cheering from the sidelines,' Eve said because this was beginning to look like Tom's first big romance. He'd always had girlfriends but no-one really serious until now. When she'd met Deepa, just a week ago, she'd seen the thrilled friendship between them and felt so happy for him. And Deepa was lovely: an attractive, intelligent medical student, full of fun – like Tom – but ambitious too, which was interesting because Tom was laid back, never took anything too seriously, was determined to be a carefree, software-designing surfer boy for as long as he could.
'I know,' Denny was agreeing. 'No idea what she's doing with Tom.'
'Denny! He's getting it together,' Eve said. 'His job is working out OK. His finances are improving.' Eve had limitless understanding for her kind, but chaotic, second son.
'But not his taste in clothes,' Denny added.
'Well... maybe Deepa will help him out. It's early days. How about you?' she asked, trying to ignore Robbie's discovery that he could ping soup across the table with his spoon. 'How's work going?'
'Fine. Big job next week hopefully, fingers crossed. And Patricia's well too.'
'Good.' Then Anna took a direct soup hit.
'I have to go,' she said to deafening shouts of 'Mum! Look what he's done!'
'You do,' Denny laughed. 'Give them a cuddle for me.'
'See you soon. Are you OK?' she added quickly.
'I'm fine.'
'OK you two...' She headed to the plastic-table-clothed war zone with paper towels. 'He's still stuck in the toddler stage,' she reminded a tearful Anna.
'Can we have the yoghurt now, Mummy?' Robbie looked up at her with the most heart-winning, charming smile he could muster.
'Yes, yes, just a minute.' She wiped everything and everyone down a bit, then plonked a fruit yoghurt in front of Anna and prepared for the evening debate with Robbie.
'Who have we got today?' Robbie asked gleefully.
She looked in the fridge: 'James, Thomas, Annie or the Fat Controller.' After months of resistance she had finally cracked and bought the Thomas the Tank Engine-themed yoghurts and now she was enslaved. He only ever wanted to eat the Henry one. Really she should just wash out the Henry pot, refill it with normal yoghurt and slap the foil back on. Why did she never remember to do that?
'But I want Henry,' came the little wail now.
'Oh no, Thomas is going to cry.' Eve made sobbing noises into the fridge. 'Eat me Robbie, eat me,' she said in a silly voice.
Anna was rolling her eyes.
Finally Robbie relented and let her spoon the pale pink goo into his mouth.
After supper, she jammed the plates, cups and bowls into the pocket-sized dishwasher Denny and Tom had bought her for Christmas, and went into the sitting room with the children.
She flicked on the lights the room needed even in the middle of the day because it was below pavement level with a green curtain of ivy and clematis over the two small windows.
Eve liked the underwater green effect. She'd decorated with pale apricot paint, a saggy secondhand sofa, bookcases, stained-glass shaded lamps and ropes of white fairy lights. The wooden floor, like all the others in the flat, she had painstakingly sanded, smoothed, nailed down, fillered and varnished herself. There were no curtains on the windows because the trellis of leaves was enough.
Like every other room in the flat, the sitting room walls were covered in all sorts of interesting things: posters, paintings, Denny's family photos blown up, and lots of home-made art – framed bright blue handprints, salt dough trees, painted and glazed, glitter dinosaurs, dip dyed handkerchiefs, even a pink tulle baby's dress in a frame. It was a quirky collection begun way back when Denny and Tom were small.
Robbie hopped onto the biggest sofa and began rearranging the cushions. Eve slotted the Thomas the Tank video into the machine, hit play and lay beside him, curling herself so he had space to sit in the bend of her knees.