by Ruby Soames
‘Not at all – I’m a war reporter. That is not the same.’
‘No, sorry, course not! Did you really think –?’
‘Well, I was surprised. I was hurt too, that you didn’t trust me. I thought we were friends.’
‘Oh Peter, we are! I told you last night. I finished with my boyfriend recently, had some time off work and planned a holiday. How could you think that I –?’
‘– you do ask a lot of questions,’ he says.
‘I’m interested in human nature. I like to know what’s going on around me too.’
‘Cool. That makes two of us.’
Peter sips his brandy and sits back. He’s not as clear-cut as I had imagined and I underestimated him. The sure trajectory of our alliance has hit dry land. I stand up and walk out towards the end of his terrace to re-light one of the candles. When I turn, Peter is behind me.
‘Enjoy tonight?’ he asks, feeding his arm around my waist and leaning his head against mine.
‘It was different.’
‘You looked a little uncomfortable dancing with ol’ Henry!’ he laughs and imitates me on the dance floor, holding out my arms with a horrified face.
But I’m not laughing.
He puts his hand on mine. ‘Sorry, Sarah, I didn’t mean to accuse you of being dishonest – the journalist thing – that’s why I was confused. I won’t mention it again.’
‘I should have said my name to them, to him – Henry. I should have stood up and been proud of who I am.’
‘Sometimes our instincts know us better than we do.’
‘I was going to say it tonight but, the time never seems to be right.’ Speaking more to myself than to Peter, I sigh, ‘I can’t keep lurking in the shadows like this. I’ve got to stand up for what’s right – that’s what I’m trained to do, that’s my job. I spend my life defending people, animals, causes, but when it comes to me, it’s like I just abandon myself.’
‘Whoa! Back up,’ says Peter excitedly, ‘back up: what are you talking about? Is this anything to do with what you wanted to tell Henry, at the club?’
‘Yes, I was going to tell them who I was.’ I take a gulp of brandy. ‘I was just about to tell him tonight, but they were fighting –’
‘What Sarah, what do you have to tell Henry?’
I breathe in, look into the night and back at Peter. ‘I need to tell Henry that he’s my father.’
Peter takes a long swallow of brandy. ‘Henry Hardwick?’ He looks at me as if he’s waiting for me to pull a mask from my face and reveal a monster beneath. ‘He’s your dad?’ He searches my face and then he laughs hesitantly. ‘Sarah, are you serious?’
‘I never met my biological dad. All I knew about him was that his name’s Henry Hardwick and he was a lawyer in London. And that he kind of looked like … that man. I saw him in London last week and I had nothing better to do, so I followed him out here.’ I hold up my glass, ‘To happy families!’ I down the brandy in one.
‘So he has no idea who you are?’
‘No.’
‘Does he know he has a daughter … like … at all?’
‘Yes, he saw me, once, as a baby, but never again.’
He cocks his head. ‘The bastard!’
‘No, that’s me, the bastard.’
Peter laughs and looks into the distance piecing together all this new information.
‘It’s a time in my life when I need to know where I come from. And I want my mother to let go of her past and enjoy her future. We need some answers.’
Peter looks at me warily. ‘So what do you want from him exactly?’
‘I want him to put his name on my birth certificate. I know it’s just a little thing, but it would mean so much to my mother – she’s old fashioned like that. It was very difficult for her to bring me up alone and I want to give something back to her. I thought I’d come here and make him do that one thing, and I needed a holiday. But when I first met him, by the pool that morning, in front of you and everyone, I realised I needed a little time to think of how to approach him, so when Roy came up with me being someone called Banks’s daughter he gave me a cover.’
‘So, that means,’ Peter laughs, ‘he didn’t know, when he toasted the bridesmaid at his wedding, that she was his daughter!’ He rubs his chin as he smiles. ‘You don’t look like him. Your mother sure must be beautiful.’
‘Why thank you, Mr Lyle,’ I answer.
He touches my face. ‘You really are very cute. And very … surprising.’
I bring my lips a few inches from his neck.
‘That feels so good –’ he whispers. His hands slide over my thighs. I move around and kiss him slowly on both cheeks because his face looks so symmetrical against the night sky and because the relief of telling him my secret is immense. He takes my hands, pressing them into the side of his ribs. His dimpled cheeks frame his perfect white teeth.
‘I believe there are no accidents in this world.’ He tosses back the last drop of brandy and bends down, kisses my lips and brings our eyes level with each other. ‘You are a very brave, very special person.’
Taking my hand he leads me to his bedroom. The sheets on either side of the bed are turned down to make an arrow shape.
‘Come.’ He turns me around and unzips the back of my dress while planting little kisses along the back of neck. The dress drops to my feet. He strokes my arms right down to the insides of my wrists. He leans against my back, his arms closing me in. I twist around, breaking his grip.
‘While we’re being honest and open with each other,’ I say, ‘you’ve got a nerve, going to reception to find out where I was staying and then changing rooms to be next door to me.’
One side of his mouth curls. ‘You heard the cicadas.’
His kiss sweeps inside my dizzy head. He tastes of brandy, salt water and tropical fruits.
We don’t say anything anymore, just continue untangling ourselves from clothes, all the time using our fingers, tongues, feet – anything with a nerve ending – to feel each other’s body. His fingertips set off charges. He drops on top of me, kissing my breasts, my thighs, my ankles. He becomes more frenzied in his kisses, he laps at my stomach, my thighs.
We breathe hard, excited by what’s new and what’s familiar in each other. But when I draw back to see the whole of him, his eyes look blank, and he touches me like he’s feeling for a light switch in the dark. Something’s missing. It’s intimacy. It’s love.
It’s Joseph.
Peter whispers, ‘I’ve wanted to do this since I first met you.’
He holds me tight – pummelling, turning, juddering like a machine of jets and foams and wipers – I feel I’ve activated a human car wash. He licks, splashes up and down my body, mechanically, joylessly, as if someone’s standing over him with a stopwatch.
He smiles into my face, sits on my hips and looks down his chest to his hard bronzed stomach. He sweeps his hand over his pecs as though he’s presenting me with a sweet trolley. Lots of upper body strength. Peter’s clearly very proud of his torso – and makes all the right appreciative sounds like people do in sex scenes on TV or French 1970s pop songs. I want to giggle and call the whole thing off, but he has my legs trapped under his. He seems determined to give me pleasure and I’m trying – really trying: this is my medicine. Everyone says you haven’t got over a relationship until you do it with someone else.
He’s mounted on top of me smoothing his hands over my stomach.
‘I like you so much, you know that, don’t you?’
He then drops into a straight line, only separated from me by a few inches.
‘In yoga they call this the “plank’ position,” he says.
I circle my fingers over the mounds of his chest as if I’m about to shine him up. ‘You’re so smooth.’
‘I wax,’ he says.
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’ He prises my legs open and moves his fingers between them as if he has tentacles looking for something to sucker onto. ‘You
want some? You want some?’ he asks. ‘Tell me how bad you want it.’
If I were honest I’d have said, ‘No, not really’, I’d rather go back to my room and get past the first eleven pages of my book.
‘Come on baby, you want it?’
‘Yes, yes, I said yes. Do you have a … thing?’
‘Huh?’ he asks.
‘A –?’
‘Oh yeah, sure.’
Peter leans over the bed grappling for his trousers and takes out a packet of condoms.
‘Let me –’ My mother always told me to put it on myself so men can’t pull a fast one.
‘No baby, just lay back and wait to be laid like you’ve never been laid before –’
He applies the condom himself, while I lie back having somehow lost the narrative. Peter has also lost something. I hear rubber snapping and the sound of another packet being opened.
28
Before Joseph, I hadn’t had many boyfriends, just romances which gave me the right amount of teenage drama without interfering with my education. Looking after my mother and trying to ensure I could make a better life for us was my priority. I was also afraid of ending up like mum. Every time I went out with a friend who happened to be a boy she’d follow me out the door pressing prophylactics into my hands and making me promise not to go ‘all the way’. From the first time Joseph and I kissed, I had one of those A-Ha! moments, when human existence on the planet all made sense. Even after we’d been living together a while, I used to wake up and think: whatever the world throws at me today, however busy or crazy work is, or friends are, or the traffic or money worries, I know tonight we’ll make love and that’s the only thing that matters. Every day ended with us lying in a bed together, close and connected, saying goodbye to the outside world and sealing ourselves into our own private universe.
As Peter resumes his dolphin imitations, I undulate back and forth while hoping that there’ll be a good film on cable. He’s propped himself up on his forearms and, I have my legs around his back.
‘Oh baby, oh yeah!’ he says as I slide my hands over the two hard columns around his belly button. Peter’s giving me all the signs that he’s ready to … I feel the springy hair below his waist and feel further down … and up … and down … to the side … but then … I’m trying to think of a polite way to ask, ‘Where is it?’
He giggles. ‘I just I keep thinking – you’re Henry’s daughter?’
With my fingers between his legs I try to knead whatever’s there into a recognisable shape.
‘Yeah, keep doing that.’
‘Try not to think of Henry Hardwick right now –’
‘It’s not him that puts me off so much, it’s her – oh yeah, that’s nice Sarah, you have beautiful nipples.’
‘Thank you. Do you think they’re doing this right now?’
‘Who?’
‘Henry and Yuleka?’
The rubber slides off in my fingers.
He sighs. ‘This isn’t going to work.’
I’m relieved, though I’m not sure now where to put my hands.
We move together to one side of the bed, he peels himself from me and we lie, facing each other with our heads on the pillow.
‘It’s not as easy for men as it is for women: chicks can just lie back – with men, it’s psychological.’
‘We’ve both had a lot to drink. Let’s call it a night, eh?’
‘Let’s call it a night? That a British expression?’
‘It’s a universal expression.’
‘Whatever,’ he says kissing my ear, wiping his mouth and turning out the light.
That’s it?
I lie there with a restless desire to brush my teeth.
29
Peter’s asleep, my eyes are wide open. I get out of bed and while buttoning up Peter’s shirt, I turn on the iMac in his living room. I log on to my email account. There are two messages from Joseph, the first was written the day I left for Barbados.
Sarah my love,
I should never have let you leave last Sunday night – every time I get the chance to bring you closer, the distance between us opens wider. I miss you – in every way.
I’ve been promoting the film all afternoon with everyone telling me how lucky I am, and I feel such a fake because it’s all nothing without you. You are the best part of my life and the best part of me. I only like myself when I’m with you. You’ve accused me of falling for the fame and the attention, but I think you’ve been more affected than you think. If you imagine that my new life and the people in it have seduced me away from you, it’s not true – Sarah, it makes me need you more. There’s a lot of greed, ugliness and stress in my success and without your love to counteract that, it’s not worth it.
The worst acting I’ve done in my career has been this stupid break-up.
Please don’t keep leaving me anymore. Please stop thinking that I’m leaving you. I know an answer to all this but I need to see you in person to ask it.
I’d been texting you and calling you until Tash told me that your phone was stolen. I’m writing emails now hoping that wherever you are, you’ll pick them up.
I spoke to Kamilla today – she accused me of being too overconfident with you and not reassuring you enough. She’s right. She also implied that my giving you half of the flat-sale money was some kind of pay-off. Not at all Sarah. It had been on my mind to share my financial wealth with you so that you could be freer to do what you need to do. You never hesitated to give me all the support I needed to get to where I am, money is money, and I gave you back the value of what you’d given me. I never really expressed how bad I felt that your work let you go because of me, I couldn’t believe they’d do that to you and I wish I’d been more supportive. I let you down, I’m sorry Sarah. Let me make it all up to you.
Please tell me where you are, that you’re OK, that I can come and find you and bring you home – all I want is to be with you and enjoy this life together. Without you, I just ‘get by’, and it’s not good enough.
Joe xxx
PS I love my compass btw. But it’s stuck until I find you again.
PSS Elvis says ‘Grrrr.’
I type fast, half crying with relief.
Joe,
I miss you so much! Oh Joseph, I’m not OK! Yes - please come and find me. I’m in Barbados, I’m staying at the Paradise Beach Club – or I’ll come to you - I’ll leave for anywhere to be with you again.
But why do I still keep hearing about you and Sylvia getting married? I can’t understand why if it’s not true, stories of the ‘wedding’ – even here in Barbados! – still circulate?
I miss you so much too – it’s like the soundtrack to my life – memories, conversations and fantasies about you go on in the background of everything I do.
Now that I’ve read your email I can also say this has all been my fault – if only I’d trusted you! Thank you for forgiving me. So much has happened but the most important that is that I realise you were always right, my fear of love and what’s good does stem from my father and I have a chance to change that, and I want tsdjksdn–
‘You couldn’t sleep?’ Peter stands in the doorway.
I look up, at him, my fingers still moving on the keyboard, tears rolling down my cheeks. ‘Full moon,’ I say.
‘How-wwooooooo!’ he howls.
I don’t even pretend to laugh. We both jump as a firework goes off.
‘They’re excited about the wedding,’ he says leaning against the doorframe.
‘Henry and Yuleka organised fireworks?’
‘No, the big showbiz wedding, next weekend. That blonde actress – was up for an Oscar – she’s in everything – used to be married to –’ he clicks his fingers in the air, ‘I’ve forgotten his name, and the Brit – Joseph … something.’
‘No!’ I cry out hitting the keyboard. ‘No! He’s not marrying her!’
‘Hey, cool down! Maybe not, but … it’s what I heard. Apparently there were scouts checking out a
ll the big, fancy plantation villas to hire, it’s been the talk of the island. What do you care? Come back to bed, Sarah.’
‘It’s not true, Sylvia Amery and Joseph West – they are not getting married!’
‘I just got a text from a colleague of mine who just flew in with an ABC news crew yesterday to cover it, but … if you know more,’ he shrugs.
‘I know it’s not true.’ I glare at him, defying him to stick to his story.
‘Asari’s aunt was commissioned to make the glutenfree cake with sugar-free marzipan.’
‘That must be something else. Are you sure she said Joseph West’s wedding?’
‘What’s the big deal? You in a hurry to be a bridesmaid again?’
I scroll down what I’ve written to Joseph and press:
Delete.
30
And now here we are, a few hours later, the sun’s up and our butlers are about to bring us coffee, polite conversation and news of what the hotel has in store for us today. Neither of us stir.
Peter breathes deeply, but I can almost hear his eyes twitching under his lids. Under the disguise of sleep, we are both turning over the events of last night, reconstructing each move before having to face the day after the night before.
What happened?
Nothing is what happened.
It would have been so much easier had we woken with the smug elation of having had sex but instead we are lying in the aborted remains of what was left half-finished, and now our butlers, united in their complicity, are probably talking about how we like our coffee. Peter and I have jumped ahead of the natural course of love, leapfrogged over all the fun bits – the coy initiation, serotonin overload, suspense, excitement – and belly flopped straight into the murky waters.
I hear my breakfast rattling on the tray. Ferdi knocks at my door. There’s no reply. He knocks again. Peter turns to me with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. I step out of bed holding a sheet over my body and peer out from Peter’s door.
‘Ferdi … Ferdi –’ I speak softly, so none of the other guests need be appalled. ‘I’m in here.’