by Julie Corbin
‘I don’t find him boring at all,’ I say, laughing at her candour. ‘I love him.’
‘You do?’ She gives me a huge smile and kisses my cheek. ‘I knew he’d get someone nice eventually! Mum’s always been too much of a hard ass.’
Phil comes to see me at the end of June and apologises for his loss of temper when we knew Lauren was missing. ‘I hope you’re able to forgive me,’ he says. ‘It was unacceptable. As was my interfering in your life back when Sandy Stewart died.’
I acknowledge this with a half-smile, wondering whether this apology is Erika’s doing but he surprises me further when he says, ‘I know both Robbie and Lauren are happier living with you and so I’ve called off my solicitor. I won’t be pushing for shared custody.’
‘Thank you.’ I manage a full smile this time because I can see that he’s really trying.
‘Erika and I do want to stay involved in the children’s lives, though.’
‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps we can share them in the holidays? And maybe another evening during the week?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ We eye each other for a couple of long seconds and I feel the past catch up the present. Here. Now. We’re separate people, but with two healthy, precious children, proof of days past, shared love and loyalty. ‘Erika’s good for you, Phil,’ I say, giving him a quick hug. ‘I really hope you’re happy together.’
I linger by the window to watch him walk back to his car and let my feelings for him relax into a groove somewhere between acceptance and respect.
Who would have thought it?
The summer holidays pass by without a hitch. My mother’s operation is cancelled so I don’t go to Ireland after all, although Sean and I book flights for all four of us to spend the October week with Declan and co. The children fly off to Germany for a couple of weeks and send me an email with wedding photos attached. Brides invariably look radiant and Erika really does. I feel a genuine, untarnished happiness for them both.
While the children are in Germany, Sean all but moves in. What started as a chaste kiss on the doorstep accelerates into a no-holds-barred love affair. I’m hardly a veteran where love and romance is concerned, and Phil was only the second man I ever had sex with, but I know when I’m on to a good thing. Sean embodies combinations that I never even knew I wanted in a man – kindness and strength, activity and tranquillity, wisdom and a thirst to learn.
Falling in love makes me happy, but I don’t feel like a young woman again, all trembling and unsure. Instead I discover distinctly adult appetites. Like digging in your back garden and coming upon an oil well – I can hardly believe it myself. Part of the reason Phil left me was because he needed ‘a greater degree of intimacy’, and here I am, being the most intimate I’ve ever been, with a man I’ve known for only a few short months, but feel like I’ve known all my life.
Tonight we go to bed early. We’re careful not to flaunt our attraction in front of Lauren and Robbie, but they’re both at friends’ houses. Sean has had a tough week at work, staying out late three evenings in a row to close a case. So when he comes home we go straight into the shower. We make love in the cubicle, urgent, racy sex that makes every part of me zing. When we’re finished I towel-dry his hair and then comb it through. ‘You smell so good.’ I kiss his Adam’s apple. ‘Let me wet-shave you. You’re scratchy.’
I get a basin of warm water, some shaving foam and a razor. He sits back on the bed and I straddle him. We’re both still naked. I put the towel over his chest and begin. I can’t stop smiling. Being close to him feels like eating chocolate after months of dieting; the best, most exquisite chocolate, bitter on the outside and sweeter than sugar on the inside.
‘Do you think I’m good at this?’ I make the last few sweeps around his neckline.
‘I’m enjoying it.’ His eyes are closed and he’s smiling.
I cut him a tiny bit and lick the blood off. ‘Spoke too soon.’ I use the towel to wipe off the rest of the foam then start to kiss him. He doesn’t kiss me back. He lets me have his neck, his cheeks and his mouth like a gift. When I stop to look down at him, his face is relaxed. The lines on his forehead are smoothed out and I kiss the crow’s-feet at the corner of his eyes then climb off and pull his head on to my breasts, shifting myself into a comfortable position against the headboard.
Within seconds he’s asleep and I arrange his limbs across mine, then cover us both with a duvet. I stroke his hair and think about the nature of love. There are songs and poems about love, books and films about love. Clichés and idioms: love’s young dream, the look of love, puppy love, cupboard love, all is fair in love and war, he loves me, he loves me not. In some languages there are separate words for the different kinds of love: love for a child, a parent, a friend, a husband, a lover.
Sean’s love for me has chipped away at my rock of loneliness until it’s no bigger than a grain of sand. All there is left to haunt me is the injustice against Tess. She wasn’t your child, I tell myself. Your children are alive. Be thankful. It would be up to her family to avenge her death. And, anyway, I don’t believe in revenge. It’s short-term satisfaction for long-term damage.
So I’m not looking for revenge but I am looking for something – security, assurance – impossible while Kirsty’s state of mind remains the same. I spoke to Sean about it. ‘If Kirsty serves five years, Lauren will only be sixteen when she gets out of prison,’ I said.
‘She’ll get help inside,’ Sean told me. ‘She’ll have to talk about what she’s done. She won’t be allowed out until they’re sure she’s no longer a danger to the public.’
I want to believe him but I don’t. Kirsty won’t be a danger to the public but she will be a danger to me and my children. I spent some time doing research. I felt as if I was going behind Sean’s back, so I did it when he wasn’t staying over and the children were in bed. I found several cases where people were in prison for years and came out to commit the same or similar crimes. Sustained hatred and determination don’t die easily.
‘What are you thinking?’ Sean sits up and stretches his arms above his head, then flops back down beside me. ‘You’re looking serious.’
‘I was thinking about how much I love you,’ I say.
He stares at me with those eyes of his, the ones that see into every part of me, except the darkest corner, right out back, where only ghosts lurk. He rolls on to his side and I turn off the light then spoon into his back. My last thought before I sleep is a cautionary one. I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to spend another evening in A & E. I don’t want to hear Kirsty’s voice on the other end of the phone. I don’t want her anywhere near my children.
I’m still a doctor. I believe in the sanctity of life. I believe in doing no harm.
But if I have to, I will.