Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel (10 page)

I could feel he was interested,
down there.
I’d felt it when kissing men before, but this was different. It was more than this being part of the normal urges of two people who were sharing a space made for one. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to touch me. And if he did, I would. I would do it with him.

I knew that I was slightly odd, that I was one of the few girls at university who, even after all this time and kissing a few men, still hadn’t—what was it Rebecca called it?—still hadn’t “taken the first bite of womanhood.”

No one, not even Rebecca and Lucy, understood that I was
waiting for someone special. I was waiting for someone who I was in love with and who was in love with me before I did that. They thought I was a little scared of sex, when really, I wanted to wait. You only get one first time; I wanted it to be with someone special. I wanted to look back and know that physically it may not have been great, but it had been with the right person. I didn’t realize until we were two curls in my narrow college bed that I had been waiting for Mal.

Through the walls of my room, I could hear chatter, laughter, people ransacking the communal kitchens that were located on every floor for food to satisfy middle-of-the-night, drug-induced munchies. There was music, too. The girl in the room next door had her stereo on a bit too loud, and the sound seeped through the brickwork into my room. She had probably come in, pressed “play” on her tape deck, and passed out fully clothed on the bed as she did most Friday nights. This Friday it was Roxy Music. She’d been playing it to death all week, and everyone was sick of it. Which was probably why she kept playing it.

Above the beginning beat of “Dance Away,” Mal’s breathing slowed. He shifted a fraction closer, too close for it to be accidental. As the metronomic beat of the song got louder, more insistent around us, he slid his hand under my T-shirt and rested it on my stomach. My eyes slipped shut. His palm lay over my skin, imprinting the heat of his body, of desire, on me. I inhaled him, drew deep on the scent of him and became slightly drunk and giddy. Slowly, his thumb stroked across the dip of my navel.

Bryan Ferry’s voice began. Mal sighed and his hand moved lower, to the top of my pajama trousers.

With all the other men I had kissed, I’d never felt this. The crush of longing that was bearing down on my chest; the tight
ball of yearning that was unfurling between my legs; the craving of excitement swirling in my bloodstream. It made perfect sense that he was the one this would happen with. I’d never regret it with Mal. He’d been around for so many of my other firsts—tooth, step, crush on a TV star, kiss with Jason Butterworth at the sixth-form disco—of course he’d be the first one for this.

His fingers tentatively reached below the lip of my bottoms and all breath left my body in one steady stream of expectation. I felt his fingers brush slowly over my pubic hair, his head moved toward my neck and I opened my legs a fraction, waiting for him. His hand moved lower still, reaching for me, closer toward where he would become a part of me.

As his lips reached the curve of my neck, he gave a small, strangled, guttural cry at the back of his throat and took his hand away, the elastic waistband of my pajama trousers snapping unceremoniously back into place. He moved his body away from me, took his face away from mine, dropped his head heavily on the corner of pillow I had left for him.

What happened?

I could hear him breathing heavily behind me, but couldn’t turn around. I knew he wanted me, I had felt it in the electric sensations of his body, the hardness that had been pressed against me.

What did I do wrong? Why did he change his mind?

Loud and fast, as though he had just crossed the finish line of a 200-meter sprint, his breathing filled the room, some of it falling on the back of my neck.

Is he scared that he won’t be experienced enough? He has done it before, so is that why he stopped? Or is he scared of being my first?

He pulled aside the covers and slipped out of bed. The room was dark, but light still filtered in from the corridor lights, which
were garish and harsh and permanently on so the rooms were never truly blacked out.

Is it my body? Isn’t it as good as the other girls he’s been with?

He went to the bank of wardrobes that stood, a big, tall, oak monstrosity, in the corner. Behind one set of doors, a space for my clothes and shoes; behind the next set, a sink and mirror. I heard the water running, I heard him splash his face with water, I heard the stillness of him standing motionless in front of the mirror, his breathing still loud and uncontrolled in the darkness. I didn’t have the courage to turn around, to see what he was doing. Instead, slowly and carefully, avoiding moving the bed, I curled toward the wall, making myself as small as possible while tugging down my T-shirt to cover my stomach.

I heard him rustling by the other wardrobe, where he’d dumped his belongings, then the sharp rip of Velcro being opened and the soft nylon hush of his sleeping bag being laid out on the floor beside the bed.

“There’s not much space in the bed,” he whispered, over the sound of undoing the zipper on the sleeping bag.

In response, I closed my eyes and started to breathe deeply, as though I was asleep. Speaking to him was not an option; embarrassment and humiliation had made me mute.

Why did I think he’d want to, with me?

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he whispered. “Goodnight.”

The dying strains of “Dance Away” filled the room, then petered out to silence. It’d taken less time than a song took to play itself out for all that to happen. For us to come so close and then …

Neither of us slept very much. I could tell by the rhythm of his breathing, by his stillness, that he, like me, spent most of the night wide awake, staring into the partial dark. Neither of us brought it up the next morning. We went about the business of
a normal weekend as though nothing had happened. But I did catch him staring at me, as though trying to work out something, trying to make a decision.

I knew Mal—I didn’t know why he had changed his mind, but I did know there was a deeper reason for what had happened, what had gone wrong; something he couldn’t explain to me yet.

“Cordy’s going to murder me when I get home,” he said as he was leaving on Sunday evening.

“Yup, I don’t know why you didn’t bring her along.”

“I wanted you all to myself, didn’t I?” he replied. “I never get you alone anymore.”

“Well, I hope for your sake it was worth it,” I said. “ ’Cause she is going to make you
suffer.
”

He took me in his arms and I didn’t melt into them as usual, he didn’t hold me as close—we hadn’t talked about what happened but our bodies hadn’t forgotten that we were meant to be awkward, stiff, uncomfortable with each other.

“Of course it was,” he said. “Every second with you is worth it.”

I stepped back first, unable to stay that close for too long. “Tell that to Cordy, I’m sure she’ll forgive you,” I smirked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He opened his car door, stopped and turned to me. “I miss you, Nova,” he said before he got in. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah,” I replied.

As his car disappeared in the traffic heading for London, I realized that I had to tell him I loved him.

I haven’t cried.

Since Leo started sleeping at the hospital, I haven’t cried. I think the only person who’d be more surprised than me at that
is Leo. He thinks I cry all the time at the most ridiculous things. He’s right, I do. But then, I don’t. Not really. He’s the person who experiences me crying the most, because, like me shouting, he’s the one who causes it the most.

Very few people can make me cry. Leo often does it without trying. When he was four and had just started nursery school, there was an “incident.” In one of the lessons, the children had been asked, “What does your mum or dad do?”—I think they meant for a job. Leo had said “She cries” about me. The teacher had asked him about it and he had repeated, “My mum cries. All the time.” Before too long I was “invited” in to speak to the teacher. The school nurse sat in on the meeting as well, and it took an incredible amount of time to convince them that, yes, although I was a lone parent I had a lot of support, I wasn’t feeling isolated and lonely; yes, Leo was exaggerating and I didn’t cry all the time. And, yes, if I was feeling depressed, or even a little down, I would seek help. They pressed upon me the numbers of several excellent counselors—obviously they didn’t realize the irony of that—and told me to get in touch if I needed anything. Absolutely anything.

When I’d asked Leo later why he’d told them that, he looked at me and said, confused as anything, “But you do, Mum. You cry.” When I told my mum, she asked me if I had told them I was a doctor. When I said no, her silence basically said, “Well, it’s your own fault, then.” Mum thinks that my Ph.D. can protect me from virtually anything, so I should brandish it a little more often. Cordy laughed so much she dropped the phone. I’m sure somewhere there is a file that still has a note in it for people to keep an eye on me because I cry. All the time.

Keith and I have agreed that we’re not allowed to be anything but normal in front of Leo right now. We have to talk as normal, as though nothing is wrong. And that means no crying. I don’t
want him worrying because I am sure he can hear us. Even if I wasn’t, crying around him would change the energy of the room, would make it sad and heavy and not at all the sort of place he would want to return to.

But away from there, I don’t cry. I don’t even feel the inclination. Crying, I suppose, would be admitting I’m scared. More scared than I am. I’m terrified, of course I am, but crying about it would be like showing Keith, the universe, myself, that I think this is all out of our control. That I think there is a chance …

He
is
coming back to us. He is.

And when he does, he’s going to go back to doing what he does best: making me laugh, making me crazy, making me shout, making me cry.

When you’re as close as Leo and me, it’s something you can expect. It’s the ones you love the most who can lift you in an instant, and destroy you without trying.

Mal’s car spluttered its way into a parking space beside King’s Cross train station, where I was getting the coach back to Oxford.

His car was very little more than scrap metal, but he’d bought it with the money his dad had left him. It was almost as though his dad had given him the car himself, the love Mal heaped upon it. Given that he professed to hate his father for everything he put his mother through,
everyone
thought it odd that he would not let it go. There was so much wrong with it, and he’d had it repaired so many times, I often wondered how much of the original vehicle actually still existed. It was forbidden to say anything against the car, especially not that he could have bought a new car for the amount he had spent having it fixed.

We climbed out and he took my black rucksack from the back
seat—the boot wouldn’t open for some mysterious reason—and hefted it onto his shoulder. I had come to visit with very little: a few clothes, underwear, toothbrush, face wash and moisturizer, and two pairs of shoes. I was leaving with three Pyrex bowls of food (rice, stew and plantain), a cake wrapped in foil, a blanket, a bottle of Vimto and two framed photos Aunt Mer had given me of Mal, Mum, Dad and Cordy that she’d taken at our house the day I left to go back to college after Christmas. Cordy, of course, was center stage in both of them.

Last Night, in all its glory, climbed out of the car as well—it had accompanied us for the entire drive here, sitting between us on the gear stick like a third person, and now it chose to accompany us to the coach station. Very few times in our lives had Mal and I been so awkward with each other. Not even when he walked in on me getting changed in the bathroom at his house over Christmas, after I had removed my knickers and had just taken my bra off. He’d blinked at me, blinked at my bare body, then quickly turned away, slamming the door shut behind him. I’d thought I’d locked it, but hadn’t pushed the bolt into place firmly. It wasn’t even this awkward after what happened during that last visit, three weeks ago. Now, Last Night slung one of its arms around each of us and hugged us close as we walked beside each other.

I suppose I’d never done what I did last night, before.

On Friday night I had traveled down from Oxford to allegedly visit my family but in reality it was to see Mal. Because when I saw him, I’d know if I had come to the right decision to tell him I loved him or if I was absolutely out of my mind even contemplating it.

In the last three weeks, he had called me every day, which was unusual even for us. Every phone call he would ask if I’d met
any new people, if anyone had asked me out, if there was anyone I was interested in. Whenever I said no, I would hear the relief in his voice, for the most part hidden, but there, as clear and true as the ringing of a bell.

Once I saw him, it would all become obvious what I had to do. When he had dragged me out of bed at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning to “do stuff,” I knew I had to tell him.

I tried to tell him as we stumbled through the frozen wastelands of Wimbledon Common. I tried to tell him when we proved how grown up we were and played Knock-Down Ginger at one of the big houses in Raynes Park and stood around the corner laughing and puffing from our quick getaway. I tried again when he bought us ice cream at the petrol station on the way back home. I tried to tell him again as we stood outside my house, chatting as though we weren’t simply going in to shower and change before we met again in an hour to go out clubbing.

It was simple. It was easy. All I had to do was say, “Mal, I’ve fallen in love with you.” “Mal, I’m in love with you.” “Mal, I love you, but not just like that anymore.”

But every time,
every
time I looked into his eyes, my mind went blank. Now that I knew how I felt, I couldn’t look at him and not think about what I wanted. What we could mean to each other. And I wanted some time to enjoy the thrill of it. The thrill of being with the first person I was in love with.