Slightly Foxed

by Jane Lovering

  “Goodness, no. What is it Piers says? Ah yes, ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it.’ I am certainly prepared to give her the help she needs to get her career underway, and if it fails…at least she’ll have stories to tell her grandchildren.”

  Well. Marriage to Tamar had certainly loosened Alasdair up a bit. In fact, he was so loose he was nearly unravelled. I made my way up the stairs which led to Piers’s flat, thinking that if Florence carried on modelling wearing the tiny little clothes she had been, she’d probably have grandchildren before she was thirty.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  On reaching his front door, I found myself physically incapable of knocking. Only Alasdair standing behind me stopped me from running. I couldn’t do this. Piers deserved—Piers needed someone, someone better than me, someone who wanted him, loved him for himself. Not as a rebound.

  When he opened the door at Alasdair’s knock, I nearly turned and flung myself down the stairs. “Go on, Alys. Piers won’t mind you going in,” Alasdair encouraged.

  I followed Piers inside, not knowing what to say. He draped himself over a chair and waved an arm to indicate that I should do the same, but I didn’t have half his style and settled for perching rather awkwardly, hands between knees, searching for a conversational topic that wouldn’t and couldn’t be thought of as sexual. “I wonder where Jace is.”

  “Maybe it’s something, y’ know, private.”

  “If you mention the words ‘women’s trouble’, I swear I’ll swing for you.” God, I needed a drink. There were far too many unspoken emotions around in this room.

  “Hey, I’m a New Man, just had twenty minutes of Ma telling me how her boobs are too big to let her get into a size eight. You want vodka?” The grin he slid my way was as warm and crisp as new toast. “Or are we still pretending that yesterday didn’t happen?”

  “I don’t want a drink. When I drink with you I end up with a killer hangover.”

  “Yeah. Ever wonder why that is?” Piers hauled himself up, flipping to his feet with a twang of muscle tone. “D’you reckon it’s because the only time you can really relax, really let yourself go, is with me?”

  “I reckon,” I called after him as he went into the see-through kitchen and fetched drinks from the walk-in chiller cabinet with the transparent door and mirrored back, “that it’s because you don’t know when to stop and you drag me down with you.”

  “That’s not dragging, that’s pulling.” He came back carrying a tray of assorted alcohol in bottles, little pearls of condensation beading the sides like 1920’s cocktail dresses. My mouth watered as he handed me a frosted glass filled with liquid and lemon slices. “Consider yourself pulled.”

  “Cheesy, Piers, very cheesy.” But it tasted good and the relaxation was welcome. “Do they teach you chat-up lines like that at those expensive schools you went to?”

  “All my own work, Ally, all my own work.”

  Dusk came slanting down across the gardens. The phone rang and Piers answered it, while I suppressed a smile at the thought of the damage a toddler would do to those beautifully coiffed acres. Well, I wouldn’t have been human if I couldn’t have indulged in a few moments of Schadenfreude on behalf of Alasdair and Tamar. A perfect couple with a perfect lifestyle which cried out for an injection of chaos. I stared at Piers while he chatted, draping himself ornamentally against the worktop. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t even know what I wanted to happen.

  “Fuck.” Piers hung up the phone. “Work. Sorry, Ally. Didn’t mean to ignore you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I helped myself to another tumbler of the slightly yellow alcohol. Didn’t know what it was, it tasted of melons and grapes, passion fruit and papaya. Surely anything with that much fruit in it had to be good for me?

  “It’s an on-site translation job, some contacts of Alasdair’s, wanting me up in Aberdeen for a coupla days. Got some guys from Barcelona coming by.” Piers rotated his shoulders backwards, easing cramped muscles and causing more than a little fluttering in my stomach, although I was carefully keeping at least a hand-knotted Kilim rug’s distance between us. “Sorry. Won’t bore you with it any more…”

  “It’s okay.” My tongue seemed too big for my mouth.

  “Nah. Rather talk to you, yeah?” And then, there he was, standing beside me as the room grew darker, neither of us making a move to switch on any lights as though anything which happened in the shadows didn’t really count. “Ally.”

  “Don’t. Piers, it’s not fair. You and me.”

  “What’s this ‘not fair’? Huh, Ally? We’re made for each other, babe.”

  “I can’t do it. Don’t you see, Piers, I’m just repeating what happened before, with Flick and Alasdair—one guy out, one guy in.”

  Piers looked at me long and steady. “You’ve given the guy the push? Leo? Whoa, Ally, this is serious stuff. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’re involved. Things were so much easier when we were just friends. Then I could offload onto you, tell you my problems without worrying that you’d—” I stopped myself.

  “That I’d? Oh, I get it. You reckon I’d take advantage? Hey, sweetie—” Piers came closer, brushed a fingertip over the tears that fell. “Love doesn’t take advantage.”

  “Piers—” I put one hand on his shoulder, pushed slightly so that he stepped back. “I’ve lost Mrs. Treadgold. Now I’ve lost you. I need a friend right now, that’s all. I don’t want to do it again, jump from one guy to another, even when—”

  He smiled. His eyes possessed my face, absorbed me. “Even when you know you want to?” he asked, gently. “Even when you want more?” His tongue moved on the side of my neck, rippled its way down as his hands travelled up under my shirt. “When this is the grand passion you’ve always wanted, and you’re going to turn it away because you reckon you’re on the rebound?” The silver on his fingers rolled against my skin, cool on my nipples. “You are so fucking screwed-up, Ally.”

  I gave a sigh, my body hanging in his hands. “Tonight, because I want—I want to feel. And then—then it’s over.”

  Piers bent over me. Dark hair tingled on my flesh, his mouth dipping, licking. “You can say that now, Alys,” he whispered, accent much more pronounced when he spoke softly. “But feeling isn’t here,” and a light finger traced down over my stomach, “it’s in here.” The gentlest of touches on my forehead. “It doesn’t stop just because you think it should.”

  Well, what can I say? It was a night of all the most delicious things in life rolled into one glorious, duvet-twisting, sweat-sliding, panting, wanton lubriciousness. It was black velvet, silk lace, cream, chocolate, strawberries, sunshine, dead of night, summer rain and blasting thunderstorms. It was—oh, add your own ideas of pure, ecstatic abandonment. It was all that. And then he brought out the big guns, fired the twin barrels of tenderness and concern to hit me direct in the heart. Whispered beauty, romance and love to me in the dark as we lay drying our heat in the cool night air, arms, bodies, mouths entwined.

  “Just tonight, Piers”—I found myself repeating like a mantra which would save my soul—“just tonight.”

  “Don’t cry, Ally.”

  “Just tonight.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I lay on my bed, alone in my flat. Alasdair had taken Florrie shopping for the new wardrobe she’d need to rise like a sun into her future while I lay with my head under a pillow and a cat purring behind my knees, listening to the phone ring.

  Was this madness? I felt heavy, so terribly heavy. My whole body wanted to sink right down through the mattress, through the flat below and on down into the earth. The effort of breathing, of raising and lowering my rib cage was so taxing that I wanted it to stop.

  The pain was sharp. Focussed under my chest but above my stomach, like an ulcer, like some internal parasitic thing gnawing away at me. A nasty alien feeling which stopped me from thinking, simply absorbed me into the hugeness of itself. The ph
one rang. Stopped. Rang again. I didn’t care.

  I must have slept. When I opened my eyes, the sun had dropped away from my window, Caspar had moved from my legs and was curled with his tail over his nose. Grainger was crouching beside my head like a malignant Florence Nightingale with a personal hygiene problem, staring at me as though my face had become char-grilled tuna. “Wha’?” I muttered, and the whole of last night crept up and hit me round the head. “Oh. Shit.”

  Grainger continued the cat hypnotism. Caspar stretched out his dark socks and arched his back but didn’t wake. Taking to my bed in the throes of misery was all very well, but it wasn’t terribly practical. At least with sleep the sore feeling around my heart had been anaesthetised to a dull ache. I could almost forget about it. I tried to hasten the healing by not letting myself even attempt to pick at the scab. Instead I got on a bus and headed for work.

  “Alys.” Simon was outside, kicking next-door’s pavement sign unobtrusively until it was level with their window rather than ours. “I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Ah, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.” I slid past him and in through the door.

  “I’m not saying any more about Jacinta.” Simon followed me, already on the defensive.

  “It’s a quote, Simon. Monty Python. Surreal humour. You know what humour is, don’t you?”

  Simon eyed me askance. “Yes. It’s the third section down over there, under ghost stories.”

  “Hurrah. Another expensive education that wasn’t wasted. What are you doing?”

  Simon was sidling along in front of me now, looking furtive in a gangling, upper-class way. “Er. Nothing. No, nothing. Umm. Alys, could you pop out and get me a sandwich please?”

  “Pop out? I’ve only just got here. And it’s hardly ‘popping’ distance, is it? The nearest sandwich shop is in the middle of town, a good twenty minute round walk given the crowds.”

  “Thank you. Chicken salad, if you would.” Simon shoved a fiver into my hand and rushed behind the till, leaving me standing in the shop doorway fondling his money and feeling bewildered. What the hell was going on?

  As luck would have it, at least on my part, a travelling sandwich vendor had set up shop at the end of the road, and I was able to buy a surprisingly fresh-looking chicken sandwich and be back at the shop within ten minutes. No one appeared to be behind the counter.

  I heard Simon’s shout of “just a minute” come from behind the curtain and, presuming he was deep in accounts, wandered to the back of the shop, sandwich held out like a peace offering.

  “I’ve got your…” I flung back the curtain and caught Jacinta and Simon frozen into almost-cartoon attitudes of shock. “I…oh gosh…I…” Hastily I wheeled the curtain closed again, leaning against the counter and clutching the sandwiches to my chest rather tighter than they could accommodate. There were sounds of flusterment in the cubbyhole, then Jacinta appeared from the neck up.

  “We are sorry, Alys. We did not wish you to find out this way.”

  Well, it explained a lot. It explained almost everything. “But why the secrecy?” I stammered. “It’s not something to be ashamed of, is it?”

  More of Jacinta appeared. She’d removed the wig but still had on the jacket and trousers, and the makeup made her eyes slant and difficult to read. “Well.”

  Now Simon’s head joined hers. He too had removed his wig. “Not everyone understands you see, Alys. That’s why we have to be so circumspect. And we hadn’t had chance to talk to you about it.”

  The curtain was now pulled back totally. I swallowed. It was tough enough to accept that my coworkers were dressed up as members of the Star Trek crew. The fact that she was dressed as Mr. Spock and he as Lieutenant Uhura made it harder still. “Everyone needs a hobby,” I said weakly, mayonnaise dripping down my bosom. “Do you go out dressed like this?”

  “Weekends there are conventions. There is one next weekend, in Whitby,” Jacinta explained. “We are trying new costumes. This is why we must be here.”

  “And when you’d vanished?” Now I knew what had been in the squashy parcel. I tried not to think of the ears.

  “I was at a conference in Hull. We—Simon and I—wish to start our own convention. We are thinking here, at the shop.”

  Although I tried to avert my eyes, I couldn’t help but glance at Simon, his real hair held back in a net, his miniskirt and tights. “Lovely,” I said. “You look very nice.”

  Simon smoothed his skirt down. “Do you think so? I do feel a bit strange. I must admit, I’m not usually Uhura but these were the only costumes left this time.” I breathed out a tiny puff of relief. “No, I’m usually Counsellor Troi.”

  “Why don’t you go over to Jace’s, perfect your outfits, and I’ll mind the shop? You’ve got a ladder in your tights, by the way.”

  I was sure one of them said, “Beam me up, Scotty,” but thankfully I couldn’t tell which one.

  The rest of the day passed in speculation and the occasional sale, then I travelled home, cooked myself something from my enormous freezer collection of loose unidentifiable objects frozen into frostbitten fists and checked my phone messages.

  “Hey.” My stomach clenched then relaxed to the point where I feared for my bowels. “I don’t really know what to say here. Guess it’s better this way, leaving a message than talking to you direct—shit.” The message was abruptly severed then restarted as a new one. “Alys. Look. This is the thing here, right? I know you think you don’t want this, me, that you think it’s a better thing to be alone than repeat past mistakes, that you reckon I—shit, I don’t know what you think of me! Stupid, huh? And, yeah, okay, I’m just this crazy young guy with more money than sense and no fashion, but—look—I love you. I want you. I know I can make it right.”

  The message reached the end of its available length, but immediately started again. “Yeah, I know I can. We can make it work. So. Look. I’m going to the Argentine, day after tomorrow, flying out at three. Decided to see if I can live out there again. I’ve got to tie up a bit of business, work for some of Alasdair’s people, but. Yeah. I’ll come by before I fly out. Morning, ’bout ten. I’d really like you to come with. Meet my pa, he’ll think you’re cute, have a couple weeks lying in the sun, chilling. Us, together. Take it from there. Maybe you could finally get to write that book you were talking about. But, hey, no commitment. See, I know it’s more than just the sex with us.” There was a broken quality to his voice, as though he either was, or had been, crying. “I’ve got your ticket. Grab your passport, take care of the cats. We can sort everything else when we get there. If you come. I’ll…”

  “You have no more messages.”

  I listened twice more, with my heart almost drowning out the sound of his voice. Piers had always had a nice voice, the way his vowels dropped occasionally from mid-Atlantic to pure, rounded full-on American; his phraseology which always sounded as though it had been lifted wholesale from a Douglas Coupland novel. And his body—lean and tight, as though his bones were shrink-wrapped in his flesh. And the way he held me, just so, as though I was precious and wonderful…

  I sliced a few tears away from my cheeks and sniffed heartily. Yes, it was great, yes it was wonderful, but it didn’t get toilets scrubbed, did it? I turned the radio up loud to drown out my thoughts and, accompanied by both the cats who clearly thought I’d gone mad, I began to clean the bathroom.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Next morning I was up before Florence had even begun her morning closed-eye moan routine. She’d come in last night laden with shopping and informed me that the York Models Inc. wanted to see her “the day after tomorrow, nine o’ clock sharp. Bet they’re testing to make sure I can be out of bed at that time, don’t you reckon? We can be there by nine easy, can’t we? Mum?”

  Oh yes, I’d assured her. We could be there by nine.

  And Piers was coming by at ten.

  Leaving at three.

  So of course I couldn’t see him. Could I. Florence came fir
st.

  Didn’t she.

  I looked around the shop as I unlocked the door. Simon and Jace, obviously glad that their secret was now out, had left me a message—they’d gone to see someone about possibly using the shop as a Sci-Fi convention point, and were sure I wouldn’t mind. Mind? Me? I looked around Webbe’s, which had the approximate internal floor space of a cheap fridge and wondered where everyone would fit if they had meetings here. The last time we’d had a visiting author, we’d had people sitting in the yard. Oh well, they’d obviously thought about it. As long as no one came dressed as Godzilla, we’d probably get by.

  Then I sat by the phone. So. How did I do this? How did I play it? Cool—all yeah it was great but it’s over, get a life? Emotional—I really care about you, but, well, the age gap? Or truthful—I just want to see you one last time to say goodbye?

  There was only one person in, an elderly man in a damp raincoat, flipping through some old maps, and when he left, I rushed over to the door, locked it and put the closed sign up. Some things shouldn’t be interrupted. Dialled his mobile. No pickup, but thank God for voicemail.

  “Piers, hi. It’s me. Alys. Well, you knew that but. Anyway. It’s me. Um.” So far, so good. Now, what was it I wanted to say? Oh yes, that no way would I be going to Argentina with him. Have a nice life without me. Catch you on the flip side. And other such jocular, disposable remarks. I cleared my throat. “Look, I can’t…” Then my voice kind of took on a life of its own, one I swear my brain had nothing to do with. “It’s not fair. How can you ask me to go away with you like that? You know how it is for me, and you make me feel—something, I don’t know—and I wanted—and I still want… But you—you—anyway, I’d miss the funeral.”

  Bugger. That hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. Perhaps I could erase the message? I dialled Piers’s mobile again and was horrified when this time it was answered on the third ring.

  “Hi there.” Didn’t sound at all like Piers. Sounded, in fact, female.