The weather echoed my mood, turning changeable and blustery through the afternoon. Eventually, I found myself staring out into the garden, thinking terrible thoughts of long legs in denim. As soon as those thoughts drifted into my mind, I tried to wipe them away, but that wickedness was replaced by one of a mobile mouth and grey eyes whose expression constantly changed, each expression better than the last.
I stood. I paced. I had another drink.
The afternoon passed in a scatter of pink newssheets and turbulence. I tried to think, to rationalise, constantly returning to thoughts of Alec, but it was all pointless. For one terrible moment, I even wanted Valerie to be there; maybe I would have spilled it all out there and then, after three—or four—whiskies.
Or would I? Is that more self-delusion? I wanted to make this account as honest as I can. Even this early on, I wonder if that’s going to be possible. Or am I seeing it all wrong?
I got nothing much done that afternoon, and I was unpopular that evening for drinking during the day, for not clearing up the dust sheets and for being so quiet when the children wanted to tell me of their day. In the end, Valerie told the twins that I had a headache and that they were not to bother me, but the look she gave me left me certain she would bring this up with me later.
I sat up long after she had gone to bed, wrapping myself in music and black thoughts. When I went to bed, I still hadn’t been able to erase the image of the boy next door and his innocent, elusive smile.
I didn’t sleep well, either. I had the strangest compulsion to hold Valerie tight—wrapped in my arms, and I did, until she got restless and irritable and slid from my embrace complaining of the heat. As dawn crept through, dragging a wet Sunday morning behind it, I made love to her, but it was half-hearted at best. I didn’t even get as far as penetration before I pushed away from her and we finally fell asleep, back to back.
The relentlessly rainy morning found me groggy, suffering a real headache. As I dressed, I glared blearily at the weather and tried to convince myself that the thoughts of the day before had been some kind of aberration brought on by God knows what.
“That’s the twins’ picnic ruined,” Valerie said, pushing me off the bed so she could make it.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
She flicked the sheet out with a snap redolent of the best bullfighters and smoothed it with a capable hand. “Oh, we’ll stay in. You won’t be playing golf today?”
“I doubt it.” I played in a lot of weathers but torrential rain with a strong wind wasn’t one either Phil or I relished. It turned a game into a pitched battle against the elements, when, frankly, it was a tough enough fight when it was just man against the ball. “I didn’t get much work done yesterday. I’ll finish that and see what the day does. Do you want to go out for lunch?”
She smiled then. “That would be nice. Do you think we should ask next door?”
My stomach gave an alarming lurch.
“We could go to The Sands, couldn’t we?”
“Well, yes. We could.” In all honesty, I couldn’t think of a reason
not
to go there, but I was trying hard.
“I’ve heard good things about the chef.”
“Erm…”
“Are you all right, darling?” She finished with the bed and came around to look at me.
I shrugged her off; I didn’t like to be fussed with when there wasn’t anything really wrong with me, and I didn’t want to say I really had a headache after my bear-with-a-sore-head impression yesterday. “I’m fine. Didn’t sleep well.”
“I noticed,” she said before leaving to scoop up the twins who were, by the sound of it, attempting to flush each other down the toilet.
Sunday was the one day of the week that Valerie insisted we all take breakfast together, and that particular Sunday began as an ordeal. The twins were argumentative and fractious, having had their day out postponed, so I was glad to escape to the study for a few hours until I needed to change for lunch. However, my peace was short-lived. Valerie followed me.
“You’d better go and invite them early,” she said. “They might have plans. Oh, and ring and make a booking, first.”
I decided to lie. “I don’t know if new members can invite people for lunch.”
She smiled, and I knew there was no quarter to be had. “Well, you won’t know until you ring them, will you?”
I suppressed a sigh and gave in. I called the club and made a booking, then went next door. The rain was heavy, bouncing off the pavement and making pools in the gravel, but I held my jacket over my head and went to the back door like a wet neighbour should. I had hardly knocked when the door opened and Alec was there, his eyes wide and surprised.
“Hello,” he said. I remember wishing that it had been one of his parents who opened the door. I found I had to grit my teeth to stop myself staring at his feet, bare and pale against the dark red quarry tiles. “Come in.”
“I’m dripping.”
“It’s all right. We aren’t so fussy.” He coloured after he said that, and I realised what he thought he’d implied. He stepped back and I moved past him. “Mum!” He bellowed. “Mr. Johnson’s here.”
I didn’t correct him because I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to speak to him. So I pretended to rub my hands together for warmth.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?”
I cursed his good manners. “No, it’s all right. I’m not staying, I jus—”
Sheila interrupted us and I invited them. “My treat,” I insisted. “They won’t let non-members pay.”
“I don’t know…”
“You’d be doing me a favour, to be honest,” I said, quickly, not wanting to report back having failed. “We’ll make you baby-sit in return. It’s all a part of a fiendish plan, you see.”
She laughed and accepted. I was suddenly aware that Alec had gone and my stomach lurched again in that unfamiliar way for what seemed to be no particular reason.
I’ll gloss over the lunch, mainly because it’s not memorable, not for the food nor for the conversation. I’m sure the food was good—I’ve eaten there many times since that day—but whether I had lamb or roast beef is a mystery to me now. I’m sure we all chatted and learned more about each other, but all I can remember about it was avoiding Alec’s eyes. Several times I knew that he was looking at me, particularly when I was speaking, but I couldn’t trust myself to look at him, in case anyone spotted that I found him more than just a young man, that I found him beautiful. His attention was distracted, to a certain extent, by the twins; they were well-behaved in public, of course—that’s something that I never had to complain about—but they were, as Valerie had predicted, interested in the Upper School of St. Peter’s, and they inundated him with questions.
We were also interrupted time and again by members that I’d met the night I’d joined, and, as I introduced everyone, I was not unaware that Valerie received some appraising glances. But, for all that, I was glad when it was over.
I brought the car around to the front of the club and jumped out to let the ladies in. As I reached for the back door, Alec did the same and my hand landed on top of his. It was stupid of me to recoil as if scalded—we’d shaken hands at least four times—but now it seemed different. It seemed wrong to touch him. I drove back and hardly noticed the road or the journey.
The weather was still blustery, but the downpour had shrunk to no more than spots in the wind. Valerie took the twins into the conservatory to play a board game. I read for a while and then, feeling caged and inactive, I wrapped myself up and went for a walk. I even asked the twins if they wanted to come with me, but they thought I was mad. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I still am.
The wind pushed at me like an invisible thug, violent but warm. It whipped against my legs, and Brylcreem wasn’t enough to hold my hair, which was wrenched from its confinement, making me regret not wearing a hat.
I managed to get my thoughts under control by the time I reached the seafront. I turned right and walked half a mile toward the Mecca of sorry slot machines and flashing light bulbs that fringed the sea, but I stopped short before getting swept up in the maelstrom of late summer tourists. I wanted solitude, not crowds. I turned and walked quickly in the other direction toward the residential area of the esplanade, where tourists did not go; there was nothing at that end for them to spend their London money on. The tension I’d felt that afternoon had lessened during my long walk, and I had calmed down considerably. I took my thoughts and lined them neatly up, like train tracks all in a row, each one slotting neatly into the next.
It isn’t so bad
, I rationalised. Alec was a good-looking young man; I just hadn’t noticed before, that was all. It didn’t mean I was some kind of pervert. Surely I could look at someone and find them attractive without it meaning more? Valerie had many women friends, and I’d been able to look at them and realise that they were good-looking—or plain. It wasn’t as if I had ever had thoughts to ambush the sultry and very newly divorced Cecily Hawthorne, who, according to Valerie, had been fighting advances off since her Absolute came through. This was no different.
And anyway, he was hardly more than a boy.
If only I could go back and talk to that idiot, Edward. I have looked back on him and his thoughts on that day many times, and he often makes me laugh that he was so unaware of who and what he was. He’d accepted that he enjoyed his ‘queer’ episodes, but he had not yet turned to face himself in the mirror.
I lost track of time, my feet thudding along the pavement, fighting the wind and winning, mostly, occasionally being buffeted sideways. When I stopped, ready to turn for home, I realised how far I’d come. Phil’s house was only another block further along, so I walked on, hoping for a lift home and perhaps another drink. The glow from the wine at lunch had quite worn off. Then the rain started again in earnest. I ran the last twenty yards. By the time I pressed Phil’s doorbell, I was wet through.
Phil opened the door and I found myself so damned glad to see his irritating face. I suddenly realised that I’d allowed myself to be far too isolated, that missing him and sulking had led to me seeing no one socially at all. For two pins I would have grabbed him. He pulled me inside, and from his unguarded smile—the one he only used when we were really alone—and the slight slowness of his speech it was obvious he’d been drinking, and not just wine for lunch, either.
“Just the man,” he said thickly. “You must have known I was thinking about you.” I pulled my coat off and he slung it over a chair. “Come through.” He led me into the golden-floored sitting room and shut the door behind us. He poured a drink for me before I sat down and then frowned at me. “Why are you wet?”
“I walked.”
“What on earth for? Don’t tell me you’ve finally let Valerie loose on the Bentley?”
It was banter to him. Mere small talk. But either I was going to tell him why I was walking in the rain or I wasn’t. So I shrugged. “No. Just fancied a walk.”
I willed for him to pursue it, to point out that pounding the pavements wasn’t something I normally did; if I felt restless, I’d generally take it out on a golf ball. But he didn’t. He just slumped into the chair opposite and put the decanter on the table next to him.
“Where’s Claire?” I asked.
His face darkened, and I saw that expression that I’d seen before a few rare times when he’d been crossed at work or beaten in sports (as he thought) unfairly. “You didn’t walk all this way to talk about my wife.”
“I told you. I was just walking.”
“Yeah. Right. And I’m just drinking. At three in the afternoon.”
I shifted in my chair. The malt made my tongue seem thick, and I didn’t speak for a while. I could feel his eyes on mine, heavy and insistent until I broke under it, and said, “All right. What’s wrong?”
I moved again, uncomfortably. I hadn’t come here to talk to him, but I felt that he’d manipulated me into asking him what was wrong, thus making him tell me.
Then he irritated me further.
“Forget it.” He slammed his glass down on the table so hard that the bottom dropped out of the crystal and slid onto the wooden floor. “Christ.” He stared at his hand, which was bleeding, and at the blood, which was dripping onto his lap.
I jumped up, pulled out my handkerchief and tied it around his hand. He sat quietly, a dazed expression on his face, and I wondered how much of the near-empty decanter he’d had. “Bloody hell,” I said. “Stay there.”
I found the kitchen easily enough and brought back water and a tea towel. He sat quietly as I washed the cut and, as I wrapped the towel around his hand, his free hand moved to my hair and he touched my cheek, a gentle look on his face.