by Tony Parsons
She was wearing tartan pyjamas. That girl liked her tartan more than any Scot I ever knew. She was also wearing chunky socks and a woollen hat. It must have been even colder at the top of the building. I blinked at her, uncertain if this was a dream. Then she spoke. In a whisper, as if afraid of waking the house.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s okay. What’s wrong?’
‘Problem in room.’
I followed her across the darkened living room and, carefully, up a short ladder to the top of the farmhouse. Evelyn Blunt was lying on his stomach across her bed, mouth agape and drooling, snoring loudly.
‘Said he went to toilet and got the wrong room coming back,’ she said.
We looked from the drunken hack to the rickety ladder that you needed to climb to enter this room. Nobody gets as drunk as that, I thought.
‘Big fat liar,’ Kazumi said.
‘Did he – did he hurt you at all?’
She shook her pretty head. ‘Grabbed my hot-water bottle and then fell asleep. I can’t wake him up.’
‘I’ll try.’ I shook his shoulder. ‘Wake up, Blunt, you’re in the wrong room. Wake up, you sweaty fat bastard.’
He moaned a bit and held my hand to his cheek, a look of inebriated ecstasy passing across his bloated features. It was no use. I couldn’t stir him.
‘You can have my room,’ I told her. ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’
‘No, no, no.’
‘It’s not a problem. Really. Go on. You take my room.’
She looked at me for a moment. ‘Or we could – you know – share your room.’
In the silence you could hear the sea smashing against the shore.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We could always do that.’
As shy as two five-year-olds on our first day at school, we made our way back to my room. Then we quickly jumped into opposite sides of the bed, and my hopeful heart soared, although I knew that she was driven not by passion, but by the possibility of hypothermia.
I lay on my back, with Kazumi turned away from me. I could hear my breathing, feel her body warmth, and when I couldn’t stand it any more I reached out and lightly touched her ribs, feeling the brushed cotton of her tartan pyjamas on the palm of my hand.
‘No, Harry,’ she said, a bit sad, but not moving.
I took my hand away. I didn’t want to be like Blunt. Whatever else I was, I didn’t want to be that kind of man.
‘Why not?’
‘You’ve got a wife and son.’
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘And other reasons.’
‘Like what?’ I tried out a little laugh. ‘Because you’re not that kind of girl? I know you’re not that kind of girl. That’s why I like you so much.’
‘I like you too. You’re nice.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. You’re funny and kind. And lonely.’
‘Lonely? Am I?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Then what’s wrong?’
‘You’re not that kind of man.’ She rolled on to her back and looked at me, her brown eyes shining in the moonlight, like a girl in a song by Van Morrison.
I rolled on to my side, loving the way her black hair fell across her face. I touched her foot with mine, woolly sock against woolly sock. She placed the palm of her hand against my chest and it made me catch my breath. Our voices in the dark were as soft as prayers.
‘I want to sleep with you,’ I said.
‘Then close your eyes and go to sleep.’ Unsmiling.
‘You know what I mean. I want to make love to you.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re not free.’
‘The world wouldn’t care. It’s just you and me. We’re not hurting anyone. Nobody would know, Kazumi.’
‘We would know.’
She had me there.
‘I don’t want to be the kind of woman who sleeps with a married man. And you don’t want to be that kind of married man.’
‘I do.’
‘No, Harry. You’re better than that.’ She stroked my face. ‘Just hold me,’ she said, rolling on to her side. I pushed up against her, two layers of pyjamas between her bottom and my erection. I put my free arm around her waist and pulled her close. She lifted my arm, placed a chaste kiss on my wrist, and squeezed my hand. We stopped talking, and for a long time I listened to the winds whipping off the Atlantic, the old farmhouse creaking in the night and the soft sound of her breathing.
And as Kazumi slept in my arms, I wondered how you keep a life simple. Do you keep it simple by staying where you are?
Or by starting all over again?
twenty-one
She was gone when I awoke.
I could hear voices down on the rocky beach. From the window I saw Kazumi already up and taking her pictures of Eamon.
Huddled up inside a red fleece, he struck his carefully casual poses – staring moodily out to sea, staring moodily straight at the camera, staring moodily at nothing in particular – while she moved around him, briskly click-clicking her way through another roll, changing film, murmuring instructions and encouragement.
A Japanese person with a camera, I thought. One of the clichés of the modern world. The snapping hordes mindlessly documenting every tourist site, and then getting back on the bus. But as I watched Kazumi taking her photographs of Eamon on the wind-lashed beach by Dingle Bay, it seemed to me that this young woman with her camera was possessed by an insatiable curiosity for this world and everything in it, and I felt an enormous surge of tenderness for her and her camera. Plead the fleeting moment to remain, she had told me some poet said of photography. And that’s what she was doing. Pleading the fleeting moment to remain.
By the time I was washed and dressed, Eamon and Kazumi had moved further down the beach. She must have thought that she had the images she needed, because now they were working more slowly, trying things out. She crouched on the kelp-strewn rocks while Eamon slowly strolled towards her, hands stuffed inside his pockets, staring – I guess you would call it moodily – at a point just above her head.
And although it filled me with regret to admit it, I thought that perhaps she was right after all. Sex last night would not have been wise. A one-night stand with Kazumi would have been a big mistake. Because one night with this woman would never be enough.
And what did that mean? What did it mean when one night was not enough?
It meant an affair.
I had worked with enough married men who were conducting affairs to know that they were hard work.
The one-way telephone communications, the constant fear of discovery, the guilt, the anxiety, the tears at Christmas and New Year when home and hearth were calling, the feeling of being constantly and forever torn. And the lying. It couldn’t be done without the lying.
I wasn’t the man for all of that. I didn’t have the heart. I couldn’t do it to Cyd. Or myself. Or Kazumi. At least that’s how I felt in the light of day with Kazumi fifty metres away, not wrapped up in tartan pyjamas and my arms.
I had been true to my wife.
I had done the right thing.
So why did I feel so miserable?
There was a low, mournful mooing by my side. It was Blunt, green around the gills and still buttoning his shirt. A muted belch escaped his lips. His face was covered in a thin film of sweat.
‘Must have got a bad pint,’ he said, wandering off down to the beach where Kazumi was taking a final few shots of Eamon.
And I didn’t want to be so stuck on this young woman I hardly knew. Cyd was more than my wife and my lover. She was my best friend. At least until the other man came into our lives.
I remembered the moments that measured out our love. Cyd and I had had our share of good times. Looking at the lights by the Thames, the first night we ever spent together, last Christmas Day when everything struck us as hilarious, from Ibiza DJ Brucie Doll’s tiny turntables to my mum’s appalled expression as she inserted the stuffing up
the turkey’s rear end.
But what had really forged the bond between us were the other times, the bad times. My son in the hospital, his head split open from a fall in the park. The wrenching sadness of my divorce from Gina. Cyd was there for me through all of that, and I knew she cared about me in a way that nobody else in the world did.
But now it felt like I was losing my wife, and finding a gap in my life that Kazumi was filling, even if she didn’t want to.
That gap the size of a family, and the shape of a heart.
One night I had cooked dinner for the four of us. Cyd and me, Peggy and Pat. Since I married Cyd, my cooking skills had atrophied. But I thought I would do it one night. Do it for the family.
The four of us were sitting around the table’s points of the compass. At the start Cyd and Pat had made a good job of feigning enthusiasm for my cooking, even if what Peggy said sounded spiced with sarcasm.
‘Spaghetti Bolognese, Harry. Mmmm, I can’t wait!’
‘Hah! You might have to, Peg!’
There was sometimes a sickening jollity in the exchanges between my stepdaughter and myself.
‘Make sure the pasta is al dente, will you?’ she advised imperiously. ‘I don’t like it too soft. You do know what I mean by al dente, don’t you?’
I stirred my bubbling meat and tomato sauce at the stove, my smile stiff with tension.
‘You know you have to essentially treat it like a stew, don’t you?’ Cyd said gently. ‘It takes a long, long time simmering that amount of meat.’
‘Please,’ I said, trying to keep it friendly. ‘My turn to cook tonight, okay?’
I cooked spaghetti Bolognese. Spag Bog. Can’t go wrong. I used to cook this stuff all the time when Pat and I were living alone. But for some reason I had it in my head that spaghetti Bolognese was a quick dish to prepare. I thought it took as long as – I don’t know. As long as it takes them to bring it to you in a restaurant. But I was wrong about spaghetti Bolognese, just as I have been wrong about so many things.
After an hour or so, Peggy was impatiently tapping Lucy Doll Secret Agent against the table. Pat was gawping at the remote control in his fist, as if waiting for a sign. And Cyd – after asking me really nicely if I minded – was doing her tax return. And still I stood at the stove, stirring the sauce that was taking inexplicably longer than any restaurant. I thought that maybe it wasn’t spaghetti Bolognese that I cooked so quickly and so easily for Pat and myself. Maybe it was spaghetti pesto. Yes, that was it. Spaghetti pesto was the one that was done in minutes. You just opened the can and chucked it on the pasta. It was simple and tasty. Green spaghetti, my son had called it.
Now, two years on from the days of green spaghetti, he dropped the remote control. It clattered against the wooden floor. ‘Whoops,’ he said, smirking around the table, looking for supportive laughter. Peggy and Cyd ignored him.
I picked up the remote and angrily stuffed it inside my apron pocket.
‘Stop thinking about TV for five minutes of your life, will you?’
My son’s chin began to tremble, a sure sign that he was fighting back tears. Peggy sighed elaborately.
‘Please may I leave the table now?’ she said. ‘I am very busy tonight.’
‘Wait a little while longer,’ Cyd said, not looking up from her accounts. ‘You can go and get Brucie Doll Secret Agent if you want. He can talk to Lucy Doll about their mission while we’re waiting for Harry.’
‘Yeah, everybody just wait a little while longer,’ I said, furiously stirring my meat sauce. ‘Lucy Doll’s costume change can wait until after dinner.’
‘Well!’ said Peggy. ‘Someone got out of bed the wrong day.’
Cyd looked up from her accounts. ‘It’s okay, Harry. I’ve spoken to her. You don’t have to put your five cents in, darling.’
‘If you did it more often, I wouldn’t have to, darling.’
My wife put down her calculator and sighed. ‘How much longer anyway?’
‘I don’t know. It’s this minced beef. It’s taking ages.’
‘Beef?’ Peggy said. ‘Did you say – beef? I can’t eat beef.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because meat is murder.’ She paused dramatically. ‘Didn’t I tell you? I am not eating meat any more. I’ve decided to become a vegetarian.’
‘Me too,’ said Pat. ‘I’m a vegetable, too. Can I watch TV now? Dude, Where’s My Trousers? is on soon.’
I wanted a meal that would make us feel like a real family. That’s all. Not much to ask for. And maybe that’s exactly what I achieved.
Because by the time my spaghetti Bolognese was ready, none of us were talking to each other.
Eamon was walking towards me. Blunt and Kazumi were still down on the beach. He was saying something to her while scratching his distended belly. She was shaking her head and packing away her equipment. They began making their way back to the farmhouse, Blunt making no attempt to help Kazumi carry her gear.
‘Good night last night?’ Eamon said.
‘Nothing happened.’
‘Hey, who am I to cast the first stone? What you get up to on a business trip is none of my business.’
‘I mean it, Eamon. Nothing happened.’
‘Sort of like Tantric sex, you mean?’
‘Nothing happened.’
Nothing happened and everything happened. Because for the first time it had occurred to me that, if I couldn’t have a family with my wife, then perhaps I could have one with someone else.
‘I love a bit of the old Tantric sex, me,’ Eamon said. ‘Lasts for hours, doesn’t it? You know my favourite position in Tantric sex? The plumber. You stay in all day and nobody comes.’
If we had slept together – or rather, if we had not just slept together – there would have been a shyness between us now. Or, far worse, a false intimacy that we hadn’t really earned. But we walked on the beach, away from the farmhouse where Blunt was interviewing Eamon, and there was no postcoital awkwardness between us. We had spent the night in each other’s arms, but that was all we had done. Walking on that rocky beach, the clouds whipping in off the sea, the first of the day’s tourist coaches creeping around Dingle Bay, felt like the most natural thing in the world.
‘I hope the pictures are okay,’ Kazumi said. ‘This is my first job for them. The photo editor is – how to say? – a tough old bitch. She doesn’t give you second chances.’
‘The pictures will be fine. You’re a brilliant photographer.’
She gave me a smile. ‘Smooth talk.’
‘No, not smooth talk. I’ve seen your photographs. You took pictures of my son.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Pat.’
I liked it that she could see my boy’s spark. That she could tell he was special. I really liked it quite a lot. ‘Will I see you in London?’
She stopped and stared out to sea. Another storm was coming in, the clouds bigger and blacker than they had been yesterday, rolling and tumbling low above the surf-skimmed Atlantic towards the shore. It was coming in quickly. Eamon’s folk wisdom – that you could have a pint of Guinness and listen to the Corrs’ greatest hits before a storm arrived – looked increasingly like a load of old bollocks.
‘Kazumi?’
‘What’s the point?’
‘The point?’
‘If we see each other in London, what’s the point?’ She abruptly took my left hand and pulled at my wedding ring. ‘Doesn’t come off. You see? Not so easy.’
‘We haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll meet you on Primrose Hill. Right on the top where you can see the entire city. Sunday morning. About ten?’
The rain started to fall. We were a long way down the beach now. The farmhouse was disappearing in a sudden shroud of sea mist.
‘This way,’ she said, breaking into a run.
I followed her to a broken-down shed with a rotting rowing boat outside. The door was unlocked. Inside it was dark. It smelled
of tobacco and kelp. It was some kind of abandoned fisherman’s hut. Either that, or a holiday home for a family of affluent Bavarians.
We were both soaked through to the skin. I thought perhaps that this was the bit where we would take off our sodden clothes and fall into each other’s arms. But she just sat shivering on the kitchen table and fussed over the camera that she had slung around her neck, examining it for damage.
I stood at the window, watching the fog come in, hearing but no longer seeing the waves crash against the rocks. I was cold inside my damp clothes but then a pair of arms were wrapping around me from behind, hugging me hard, bringing the warmth that I needed.
This is what it is, I thought. Nothing more. Just two animals, huddling together on the west coast of Ireland. Looking for a little comfort. Doing nothing wrong.
‘I’m not going to Primrose Hill.’
‘Okay.’
‘Not on Sunday morning.’
‘Fine.’
‘Not ever.’
‘All right then.’
Somehow I had turned around and faced her, and she was tilting her head, lifting it towards me. Then I kissed her, and I saw her brown eyes close, and open, shining in the misty twilight, the rattle of the rain on the roof, and I felt the heat of her body through the dampness of her clothes, and I tasted the sea on her lips.
This is what it is, I thought. Two cold, wet creatures shivering in the fog. That’s all. Don’t turn it into something that it’s not, Harry.
And I thought of Gina, and also of Cyd. I had lost the two best friends I ever had by having sex with them, by marrying them, by trying to make it last forever. Kazumi and I were never going to get that far, and it was probably just as well.
But I knew that I would keep this moment. I would lock it away and take it out when the world was hard and lonely. This was enough.
Primrose Hill was too much to hope for.
twenty-two
When I arrived home there was an airmail envelope on the welcome mat. My name and address in Gina’s neat, elegant handwriting.
And inside, a photograph – a man, woman and child, standing by a white picket fence in dazzling sunshine. Pat was at the front of the picture, in faded Phantom Menace T-shirt and shorts, squinting in the light, that half-filled gap in the middle of his smile. Gina was right behind him, one hand raised against the sun, the other lightly resting on our son’s shoulder. She was thinner than I had ever seen her, wearing some worn sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled up. But for all the years and whatever her troubles in her new life, she still had that radiant beauty that I had fallen in love with, she still had those looks that she didn’t really like you to talk about.