Watermelon

  Never mind that, I was thinking, tell me! You can pry into my life if I can pry into yours.

  “And,” he continued, “I know you’ve got lots of friends in Dublin, but if you ever want to talk to me you can.”

  “You’re not using me as some kind of experiment for your psychology course?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Not at all.” He laughed. “It’s just that I liked you from the moment I met you. And I like you more after tonight. And I’d like it if we were friends.”

  “Why?” I asked, even more suspiciously.

  Well, I was perfectly entitled to ask, wasn’t I? I mean, I just didn’t get it.

  I was just perfectly ordinary. Why had Adam decided that I was special and worth being friends with?

  I wasn’t putting myself down here. I had lots of good qualities, I knew that. I wasn’t just being Queen of the Low Self-Esteem. But lots of people have good qualities. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about me.

  Now Adam, on the other hand, must have met millions of women, funny, beautiful, clever, entertaining, rich, waiflike, cute, sexy, interesting women.

  Why had he singled me out?

  “Because you’re nice,” he said.

  Nice! I ask you.

  Who wants to be picked by a beautiful man like Adam just because she’s nice?

  “And you’re very funny. And clever. And interesting,” he said.

  That’s more like it, I thought.

  Any chance of sexy or beautiful?

  I’d even have settled for attractive.

  But nothing doing.

  Sexy, beautiful and attractive were not on offer. But what the hell. It was nice talking to him. I was enjoying myself.

  I wasn’t attracted to him.

  Although I probably would have been if circumstances had been different.

  He wasn’t attracted to me.

  We were just two adults who happened to like each other’s company.

  I was a married woman.

  On Monday I would be ringing James.

  Adam was spoken for. If not by my sister Helen, then by some other woman, I didn’t doubt.

  So no big deal.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t know,” I told him. “I haven’t really got into any routine since I came back from London. I suppose I’ll just take care of Kate.”

  “Well, that’s why I was asking you how long it is since you’ve had Kate.

  I was wondering if you’d like to come to the gym with me?”

  “Me?” I said in horror. “Why?”

  “Not because I think you need to,” he said anxiously. “But because I think you might like to.”

  Me, with my saggy, out-of-shape body, go to the gym with this Adonis?

  Was he joking? But on the other hand, my body would stay saggy and out of shape if I didn’t do anything about it. And I used to enjoy going to the gym before I had Kate.

  Maybe this was the best suggestion I’d heard in a long time.

  “Well…” I said cautiously, “I’m very out of shape.”

  “You’ve got to start somewhere,” he said quickly.

  “And who would watch Kate?”

  “Wouldn’t your mother do it? It would only be for a couple of hours.”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. This was all moving a bit too fast for me.

  Goddammit, I only went out to have a drink with Laura. Now I was signing up for some fitness program with a person I’d only met yesterday.

  And yesterday evening, at that. “Look, come tomorrow. I bet you’ll enjoy it. What have you got to lose?”

  he said.

  I thought about it.

  Nothing, apart from my life if Helen found out.

  “Okay, I’ll come.”

  I arranged to meet him the following day in town at three o’clock, though I could hardly believe I was doing it. I finished my tea. He saw me to my car.

  He closed my car door for me and stood at the gate—in the rain, I might add—as I drove away.

  I was starting to feel guilty before I even got to the end of the road.

  Guilt at neglecting Kate.

  Guilt at associating with my youngest sister’s boyfriend, blameless and all as it was.

  Guilt at the idea of wasting time in the gym when I should be talking to a lawyer and sorting out my finances and all that.

  As soon as I got home I ran up the stairs to Kate. It was such a relief to see that she was alive and well. I felt so guilty that I was convinced that something terrible had to happen. I held her so tightly I thought I would squeeze the life out of her.

  “I missed you, darling,” I told her as she struggled for breath. “On Monday I’m going to call Daddy and I’ll try and work things out for us.

  Everything’s going to be fine, I promise.”

  I had had such a nice evening. I simply couldn’t understand why I felt so depressed.

  fourteen

  I had planned to call Mr. Hasdell, the lawyer whose name Laura had given me, as soon as he got to his desk at nine o’clock the following morning.

  But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I fed Kate.

  I played with Kate.

  I worried about what to wear to the gym.

  I worried about what would happen if Helen found out that I was going to the gym with Adam.

  I worried in case I was neglecting Kate.

  I worried in case Mum refused to watch Kate on the grounds that it would make her an accomplice to my meeting Adam.

  I worried about everything other than the important thing.

  I knew that I had to call my bank. I had practically no money. But I was far more concerned about how my butt was going to look in the leotard and leggings that I had found in Rachel’s room.

  My child was growing up without a father, but instead of getting on the phone and calling a family lawyer and trying to work something out, I stood in front of a mirror holding my stomach in, checking my profile and finally, as though the years had rolled away and I was still fifteen, twisting my head around, trying to see what my butt looked like in the mirror.

  Mum was highly suspicious when I asked her would she look after Kate for me in the afternoon. “Again?” she asked.

  “Yes, but only for a couple of hours,” I muttered.

  “Why?” she demanded. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing, Mum. I just wanted to go to the gym and start getting back into shape,” I told her. I didn’t want to lie to her. But I wasn’t too comfortable telling the truth either.

  “Oh, the gym,” she said, sounding quite pleased. “Well, that’s good. Just mind that you don’t, you know, pull any…you know…do yourself any damage. It’s not so long since you gave birth, don’t forget.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” I said, amused at her delicacy. “But I think my insides are in fine condition. Raring to go, to be quite honest with you.”

  I shouldn’t have said that.

  It made her suspicious again.

  I know that she had encouraged me to have a fling with Adam, but I felt so guilty about meeting him that I didn’t want anyone to know. So off I drove into town, feeling sick with guilt and the fear of being caught and the fear of something happening to Kate. About halfway there, I decided that I wasn’t cut out for this life of deceit and intrigue and child neglect and that I would turn around and go home.

  But the traffic was so bad that, by the time I got to turn the car, I was feeling guilty about just leaving Adam standing there. So I decided that I would go in, meet him, tell him that I couldn’t meet him—if you follow me—and go right back home again.

  And then I couldn’t find a parking space. I practically had to get a bus from where I parked the car to where I had to meet Adam.

  So I was very late meeting him.

  I was running along the road when I saw him standing outside the
shop where we had arranged to meet. He was looking up and down the street with an anxious expression on his face, totally oblivious to all the admiring stares he was getting from passing women.

  Every time I saw him I got a shock.

  I’d forgotten how handsome he is. This tall beautiful man with the long muscley legs is waiting for me, I thought, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Why?

  “Claire!” he said, looking delighted to see me. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “I’m not,” I mumbled.

  “So have you just sent a hologram of yourself along or what?” he asked, smiling.

  “No, I mean, Adam…look, I’m not sure if this is a good idea,” I stuttered.

  “Like, you know…” I trailed off miserably.

  “What isn’t a good idea?” he asked gently as he steered me out of the path of oncoming pedestrians.

  “Meeting you and that…you know, I’m married and all that,” I said, not meeting his eyes.

  Then I looked up at him and I couldn’t believe how hurt he looked.

  “I know you’re married,” he said quietly as he looked down into my eyes. “I wouldn’t dare make any assumptions. I don’t want to make any moves on you—I want to be your friend.”

  I was mortified. Absolutely mortified. What on earth made me say that to him? All right, so I was feeling guilty about meeting him. But wasn’t that my problem? Why should I attribute any improper motives to him just because I had some myself?

  Oh God! Or did I have some improper motives myself?

  “Look, you’d better go home,” said Adam.

  He wasn’t being cold and angry, but it was as if he didn’t want me to touch him or anything.

  “No!” I said.

  Jesus, would I ever make up my mind!

  “No,” I said, not quite so frantically. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I was being silly and overreacting.”

  We were attracting all kinds of curious and interested looks from the shoppers as they passed in and out of the doorway.

  “Great,” I overheard one young woman saying gleefully to her companion. “There’s nothing I love more than seeing other people arguing.”

  Her voice floated back to me from up the street. “It makes me feel like I’m not the only person in the world who’s miserable.” Oh don’t worry, I thought, you’re not. Adam stared at me and sighed in exasperation.

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Can we forget that this happened and just go to the gym like we had planned?”

  “All right,” he said. But not in a very friendly way.

  “Ah, be nice to her. Give her a kiss,” called out a scruffy old man who had several opened bottles of Guinness sticking out of his torn overcoat pocket and who had been watching the proceedings with great interest.

  “She’s sorry. Aren’t you, love?”

  “Come on,” I mumbled to Adam.

  I didn’t want a crowd to start forming.

  “Give her a smack,” shouted the old man, who seemed to have suddenly turned a bit nasty. “It’s the only language they understand!”

  We hurried up the road; the old man’s cries got a bit fainter.

  “Jesus,” I said in relief as we rounded a corner and we couldn’t hear him anymore. Adam smiled briefly, but things still felt tense and uncomfortable.

  We got to the gym and he tersely signed me in. I went off to the women’s changing rooms and eventually sidled out, as self-conscious as a virgin bride in my leotard and leggings, hugging the wall for fear that anyone would catch a twenty-twenty, full-on, four-square view of my butt.

  But I needn’t have bothered. He barely glanced at me.

  “The bikes are over there” he said, pointing. “And the free weights are in this room here. The rest of the machines are over that way.”

  And he left me to get on with things.

  “That’s lovely,” I thought resentfully. “I could be pulling muscles left, right and center and he doesn’t give a damn.” I stood for a moment waiting for him to come back and show me how to do things.

  To be perfectly honest, I suppose that I had entertained all kinds of thoughts, albeit guilty ones, about him bending over me as I lay flat on my back on the bench press, to adjust the weight or something. And for us to suddenly realize that we were close enough to kiss. That kind of romantic stuff.

  But Adam ignored me completely, so I reluctantly decided that I might as well get a grip on my runaway imagination and do a bit of exercise.

  I did my warm-ups and my stretches.

  And before I knew it, I realized that I was enjoying myself.

  “I’m not actually happy,” I assured myself. “It’s the artificial high that people get from exercise. Pheromones or something. No, it’s endorphins, isn’t it?”

  Good God, I was turning into Helen.

  I stole a glance at Adam.

  (Whoops! That was very Romantic Novelish. People are always “stealing”

  glances in them.)

  All right then, I stole nothing.

  Not guilty of any kind of larceny.

  Although I did know a guy in a pub who would have taken a couple of boxes of glances off my hands for a decent price. No questions asked.

  But I did look at Adam when he didn’t know that I was.

  He pushed and lifted vast quantities of weights.

  He looked wonderful.

  Very grim and serious-looking and handsome.

  A man who took his body seriously.

  And with good reason.

  Although he was just wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt he was pretty spectacular-looking.

  Beautiful strong arms, with a glistening of sweat on them.

  And a really lovely butt.

  I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.

  But he did.

  After about an hour or so I decided that I had had enough.

  “Okay.” He smiled. “Go and have a shower and I’ll meet you in the café.”

  He was already sitting in the café when I emerged, having spent far too long doing my makeup.

  His hair was all wet and shiny and he had what looked like about twenty cartons of milk in front of him.

  “Finally,” he said when he saw me. “Well, did you enjoy that?”

  “It was great,” I told him. “Glad you came?” he asked with a deadpan expression.

  “Yes,” I said, looking him in the eye.

  “Good,” he said, and started to laugh.

  So did I.

  Thank God! I was so relieved that he didn’t seem to be annoyed with me anymore.

  I got myself a cup of coffee and joined him. We were the only two people in the café. It was a Friday evening, and I suppose most sensible people had better things to do. Going to the pub and getting drunk, I’d bet.

  Suddenly things were very nice with Adam again. The tension was gone.

  We didn’t talk about anything unpleasant or sensible. I didn’t ask him if Helen was his girlfriend and he returned the favor by not asking me anything about James. I didn’t ask him about his lectures and he very decently reciprocated by not asking me about my job.

  He asked me what my favorite animal was.

  And I asked him what his earliest memory was.

  We talked about going to discos when we were fifteen.

  And we discussed what one ability we would choose if we could choose anything.

  “I’d like to be able to fly,” he said.

  “Well, why don’t you learn?” I asked him.

  “No, I wish I could fly,” he said, laughing. “You know, without a plane or anything. And what about you, what would you like?”

  “Sometimes I wish I could see into the future,” I told him. “Not everything and not years ahead or anything. Maybe a couple of hours ahead.”

  “That’d be great,” said Adam. “Think of all the money you could win on the ho
rses.”

  I laughed.

  “Or I wish I could be invisible. That would be great fun. I bet you can find out much more about a person when they don’t think that you’re there.”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  There was a little pause.

  “I’d love to be able to travel through time,” he said after a while.

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” I said, excited. “Imagine going into the future. Or imagine going back to really exciting times, like ancient Egypt. Though knowing my luck I’d end up as some poor old gladiator.”

  “I’m not sure if there were any gladiators in ancient Egypt,” he said. But in a nice way.

  I suppose he’s used to correcting Helen.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I’m sure you’d be a princess. Maybe not Cleopatra. Your coloring is too fair,” he said, lightly touching my hair. “But you’d definitely be a princess.”

  “Um, would I?” I mumbled.

  Witty and gracious, that’s me.

  Sparkling and Repartee are my middle names.

  “When would you like to travel back to?” I asked him, anxious for the conversation to return to a less intimate footing and for my breathing to return to normal.

  “Well,” he said, “sometimes I wish I could travel back in my own life.

  You know, go back to a time when I was really happy. Or go back and change things. Fix things that I did wrong. Or do things that I should have done and didn’t.”

  I was absolutely intrigued. What had gone on in his life that sounded so traumatic? But before I could probe I suddenly noticed the time.

  It was ten past seven.

  “Jesus!” I said, jumping up in alarm. “Look at the time. I thought it was about five o’clock.”

  I picked up my bag and made for the door.

  “I have to go. Thanks for bringing me. Bye.”

  “Wait,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “No, there’s no need,” I told him.

  And off I ran.

  I was in a total panic.

  Where had the time gone?

  How could I have neglected Kate like this? God would punish me.

  Something was bound to have happened to her.

  I drove home at high speed, the roads clear of rush hour traffic because it was so late. Mum was tight-lipped and suspicious when I arrived. “What kind of time do you call this?” she demanded.