by Linus Peters
Later, when she reappeared, showered and changed, her wet hair swept back as usual, looking much more her normal self, I was surprised to find myself feeling almost proud. I pointedly went up in front of everyone and kissed her on the cheek. That’s right, I’m her man. Want to make something of it?
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“I er .. saw the fight.”
“Oh,” she said, seeming a little concerned.
“I agree with everything you say from now on,” I joked.
“I took it up in Holland,” she said rather hastily, even now remembering the pretence.
“Well, you’re very good at it. I’ll say that.”
The funny thing was, even though I’d found it disturbing, even though it should’ve been yet another reason for me to worry, when we went to bed that night, I was surprised to find myself feeling quite turned on. I kept seeing her up there, her shining muscles armed and taut, her blue eyes narrowed and fixed, ready to let fly with her fists.
I pounded her as if I was an opponent, harder and harder, the two of us sweating so much we were actually slithering around on each other’s bodies. Giving it everything we had, irresistible and immoveable, eventually reaching a taut and screaming orgasm.
Yet what flies you at night can frequently drag you down during the day, and I certainly didn’t need any further misgivings about Frances. Whether she was mindful of that or not, I don’t know, but it was noticeable that over the next few days she went out of her way to calm things down. There were no further surprises, no ‘historical’ errors, and this growing sense that, though still effervescing away in our initial heady madness, slowly we were beginning to incorporate it into normal life, to drift back down to Earth.
Work was fine. Everyone knew I had a new woman, that I was lying low for a while, but only Luca the exact circumstances. I turned down a couple of social invitations. We weren’t ready for that yet. However, as far as I was concerned, one day, in the not too distant future, we would be.
Though maybe that says a lot about my state of mind, that I wasn’t seeing things that well. For me to be sparing even one thought for the future, when plainly we were such a long way from settling with the past, was madness.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. I suggested we did the touristy bit, go to the Tower - something that, as far as I knew, neither of us had ever done before - then walk back along the river to Covent Garden. However, she was in a strange mood. One I hadn’t seen before. Restless, uncomfortable in her own body, unable to concentrate on our way round the Tower, and as we walked back along the Embankment, staring at people with almost a sense of aggression.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Mm,” she said, bolstering her reassurance with a rather belated and weak smile.
We walked on for a while, and then, as if forcing herself, as if realising it needed more, she added. “Walking alongside water like this reminds me of Amsterdam. Lonely afternoons by myself.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling slightly at a loss. I mean, it was hard to think of her ever being lonely. I know there’s this theory that really beautiful women are rarely approached, but personally, I don’t believe it. For every guy who realises he’s out of his league, you can guarantee there are a dozen slobbering minus-dorks who don’t have a clue.
“Sundays were always the worst,” she said, pausing for a moment to watch a heavily laden barge chug by. “God save me from Sunday afternoons ... Couples. Nothing but couples. I’d sleep through them if I could.”
“Why were you so lonely?”
“Because of you!” she replied, as if it was obvious.
“Wasn’t there ever anyone else?” I asked, though I immediately realised I’d make a bad mistake.
She turned and stared at me, real hurt in her eyes. “No! Course not! ... Was there for you?”
“No,” I replied hastily, leaving aside my few brief attempts at sexual healing. “It was always you, Frances,” I added, more or less truthfully.
She sighed, not as gratified by that as I’d hoped. “I hate men,” she said. “They’re all bastards.”
She walked on, and I followed along after her, fearing that this time I definitely had been allied with the enemy.
“I’m really hoping that doesn’t include me,” I ventured.
There was no reply and I decided not to pursue the subject. Again we walked in silence. Sometimes this whole business made me feel so damn uncomfortable. I mean, why? Why did we have to pretend? It was completely unnecessary.
She took her leather jacket off, the warmth of the sun getting to her, ignoring my offer to hold her bag and resting it on the river wall. Did she really hate men? And if she did, how come I’d managed to gain admittance to her affections?
I hate to commit such an obvious cliché – I mean, when you don’t know, sometimes your imagination can get a little predictable - but it had occurred to me that perhaps she was a lesbian. It would explain that initial night of sex. Maybe I was her first man? Maybe she was a lifetime lesbian who had always taken it on trust that men were insensitive oafs, only for this letter to be delivered to her that had intrigued enough for her to want to know more?
Okay, it might sound like a load of old shit to you, and no doubt a treatment to the right desk in Hollywood could bring vast rewards, but sometimes true life can be crass too, you know. Though what was beginning to worry me far more was this feeling that, whatever she’d been in the past, was in danger of threatening us now.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Mm.” She went quiet for a moment, like it was hanging in the balance, that it could go either way, yet eventually decided to stop whatever it was before it was too late. “In fact, I might even buy you a present.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A new shirt maybe. Something more fashionable.”
“Oh. You’re going to take me in hand?”
“In the changing room maybe,” she said, making one of those rather obvious sexual jokes she was fond of.
I gave her a quick hug, her blonde hair, that for once was just hanging free, falling across her face, making her seem somehow softer, less intimidating. Which was maybe why I got a little over familiar with the situation.
“How come someone who’s been working for a small theatre company, and who is now unemployed, can afford to be so generous?”
She turned and stared at me, plainly disconcerted by the question, by its hint of foul play. “You’re in a funny mood today,” she commented.
Strange how often, when we think someone’s behaving a little oddly, they turn to ask us, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
“Sorry,” I said, immediately letting the subject drop.
It was crazy. I so wanted to tell her that I didn’t think I could keep this up much longer, that I couldn’t see the need; that in some ways I was beginning to feel cheated by this pretence, by not being able to get to know her better, her real story. But I couldn’t. Instead we walked slowly on, in that moment feeling, what in some ways we still were, complete strangers.
She did buy me a shirt. Not exactly to my usual taste, but I quite liked it. I could see me wearing it to a friend’s house for dinner one night and causing an unnecessary amount of comment. Afterwards we sat in the square at Covent Garden and had coffee. Watching the world go by, the representatives of a score of nations, trying to decide who came from where and eventually coming to the conclusion that even stereotypes aren’t what they used to be, that the sad day is coming when all the citizens of the world look the same.
It was when I was gazing idly round, looking for someone else worthy of comment, that I first spotted him. One of two successful- looking middle-aged men coming out of the shopping arcade, tanned, dressed casually but expensively, a cashmere sweater draped around his shoulders.
I’m so used to men staring at her, at fi
rst I didn’t take that much notice. But there was something about his expression, that puzzled frown on his face that slowly turned into a smile ... Jesus! He knew her!
He paused for a moment, shaking his head, apparently amazed at the coincidence, wondering whether to come over and speak or not. Then he turned to his companion, nodding in her direction, that smile soon on both of their faces; a knowledgeable smile, somehow intimate, that I didn’t altogether care for.
However, the odd thing was, when he finally did catch her eye, when his moment arrived and she turned in his direction, she just looked obliviously away. I’m sure it wasn’t feigned. I really don’t think she recognised him. He hesitated a moment longer, made a face-saving comment to his companion, then the two of them continued their walk across the square, occasionally glancing back, still smiling and talking about her.
For several seconds I just sat there staring at her out of the corner of my eye, waiting for some kind of reaction, yet it was obvious that if she had met him, she didn’t remember. But he knew her all right. I turned and looked back across the square. The two of them were now heading up the concourse in the direction of the underground station, almost out of sight, and suddenly I knew what I had to do.
“Where are you going?” she asked, as I leapt to my feet.
“Won’t be a minute.”
“Simon!”
“Won’t be long!” I called back.
As soon as I was out of her sight, I started to run. Up the slope, weaving in and out of the crowds, through the performing area of a fire eating busker who shouted something after me that made his audience laugh. I had to catch them. I had to find out where they knew her from. I barged through a bewildered party of Japanese tourists taking photos, actually knocking the camera out of one man’s hands, and they all gave this kind of generally astonished moan.
“Sorry! ... Sorry!” I called back.
I reached the t-junction at the top of the concourse. I couldn’t see them in the underground station, nor in either direction along the street. I checked a couple of likely shops, starting to panic, then ran back over to the underground station, and this time did catch a glimpse: on the far side, waiting to go down in the lift. I rushed to the queue for the ticket machines, sweat already making my shirt stick to my back.
What the hell would they think? This stranger, this panting lunatic, rushing up and asking them if they knew the woman they’d just smiled at down in the square? Maybe they didn’t know her? Maybe they were just more admirers? But they did. I was sure of it. Or at least one of them did. In fact, I had an idea he might know her better than I’d care to know.
“Come on! Come on!” I found myself shouting, as some tourists at the front of the queue fiddled endlessly with their change, reinserting it, starting the whole process of choosing their destination again.
Eventually I bought a ticket, barged my way through those waiting at the barrier, yet reached the lift just as the doors were closing. I cursed to myself, running to the next one about to go down, repeatedly pressing the button.
Even in the midst of my panic, of my determination to speak to the two men, I couldn’t help but feel a touch of guilt that I was betraying her somehow. That whilst she waited innocently for me back in the square, I was attempting to find out exactly who she was, to blow this game we’d been playing so beautifully into a million unrecognisable pieces. Something that, if I stopped and thought about it, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do anyway.
However, as it turned out, I didn’t get the chance. I arrived on the platform just as the train was pulling out. I even saw the two men inside. Still chuckling away, still, I swear, discussing Frances.
I can’t tell you how frustrating that was. To see them slipping away from me, to know they probably knew the answers to at least some of the questions I’d been asking myself every day for the last two months. Worse still, that maybe they’d been my one and only chance.
I sighed to myself, then turned and made my way back up to the street, returning to Frances, briefly stopping at a bookshop on the way and buying her a book of Karsh photography.
“Where have you been?” she asked, as I strolled up to her, an embarrassed smile on my face.
“I just couldn’t live another moment without repaying you for my gift,” I said, giving her the book.
She frowned at me, opening her present but knowing something was wrong. “Why did you leave like that?”
“Like what?”
She stared at how hot and flustered I was, a look of obvious suspicion on her face. “You’re very strange today.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She didn’t say any more. Just gave these little nods, as if she was thinking of putting me on probation, that if something like this was to happen again she might have to re-evaluate my whole character. Yet far worse, I got the distinct impression that she was giving me a warning. That no matter how many surprises I might have for her, I should know that she could always come up with a lot more for me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was only a one-off, a bad day, everyone has those, but looking back on it, I guess that Sunday was the first time I was forced to consider something that others might’ve seen long ago. Up until then my concern had always been that she could only love me in the character of Frances, yet now I was beginning to wonder if maybe I had that totally wrong. That the truth was, she could only love me if I was in the character of ‘Simon’, the one she’d got to know through the letters. That maybe her entire behaviour, what I’d thought to be her loving and unselfish character, was no more than a reaction to our correspondence, to a myth she had built up around me. Now she was faced with a real flesh and blood, and unquestionably, rather flawed, human being, and she was starting to ‘react’ in a different manner.
If it was true, well, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Our first step towards getting to know each other properly. But I did so hate the idea of being a disappointment to her. That I was now competing with myself in exactly the same way she must frequently feel she was competing with the old Frances. That we not only had two Franceses in this relationship, but two Simons as well.
I don’t know if it was that, a fear that we might be losing control of the situation, but I decided we needed a break, a change of scenery. I had this rather beautiful Alfa Romeo out on test, and managed to work the best part of a trip for the two of us to Cornwall on expenses.
The irony was, though I loved that car as much as any I’d ever driven, I probably spent less time in it than any I’ve had on test. Instead, walking the cliff-tops, exploring St Ives, getting drunk on the extensive cellar of this rather elegant, ex-military South African hotelier. Who, providing you kept him away from his own booze, and the subject of what had happened to his beloved country, was remarkably good company. But after no more than a couple of large glasses of Sauvignon Blanc would go all quiet and sullen, like some disgruntled endangered species at the zoo, who wanted to escape but knew there was no point as the bastards had destroyed his natural habitat anyway.
The countryside seemed to liberate Frances in almost the same manner that the children had that time in McDonald’s. I hadn’t really noticed, but her expression had hardened a little over the last few weeks. Now you could see it softening again, leaving her looking like she was permanently shot through gauze. She became purer, more relaxed, more comfortable to be with than she’d been in a while, taking extraordinary pleasure from the most simple of things. Building sand castles on the beach, trying to catch grasshoppers on the cliff-tops, spending forever staring at a single daisy, studying the perfect way it was formed.
“If there isn’t a God, who made this?” she asked me one afternoon, as I lay in the grass, filled with the intention to start compiling my article, at least in my head, but actually beginning to nod off.
“National Trust,” I told her. “Get them knocked out in China. Five pence a thousand.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“It
was on TV. Hell of a scandal. The Carbon Footprint and the Common Daisy.”
“Mm.”
From out of the warm peachy darkness, she kissed me for maybe the hundredth time that afternoon, and it was as if the sun had leant down and bestowed the very day upon me. Here, take these buzzing insects, the smell of spring grass, the gentle swishing of the sea running in upon the beach below, and most of all, you most fortunate of bastards, take this unbelievable woman.
There’s something about human nature that means we rarely appreciate the fact that a moment is perfect. We only seem to realise when we look back, from a different perspective, like a mountaineer making his or her descent, turning to look back at the peak, not able to believe they were ever there. But I knew. I can assure you. I’ve never had a happier, more content, moment in my life. But then again, maybe I’m just looking back? Maybe I’m attaching a greater value to that moment because it was one of the last before things started to go wrong.
I gave a long oozing sigh, like the very final bit of tension inside my body could cling on no longer and was being expelled into the afternoon.
“What?” she asked.
“Sheer contentment,” I told her, giving a further blissful sigh. “Sheer puddle-making, intestine-unentwining contentment.” She leant forward and kissed me again, and my lips clung onto hers as long as they possibly could, as if she could raise me up off the ground. “Reminds me of Scotland.”
The point is, for the majority of our relationship that wouldn’t have been a mistake. She would’ve just smiled, maybe made some comment to confirm it was another memory we shared, and that would’ve been it. However, in that moment, I not only realised that what I’d said had been wrong, but also how much our game had changed.
I didn’t dare open my eyes to see her reaction. I felt as if a resident of Heaven had just gone in for a little fly-tipping and thrown a sofa down on me. Worse still, as if to confirm it had been a mistake, I panicked and tried to cover it up.