‘He sells works of art. He seems to be doing very well. Cotman, Turner, big-ticket stuff. Come and eat.’
As they eat, Laura tells him about Nick Crocker.
‘He came up with this tremendous rant about the countryside. He thinks we’re all living fake lives in a fake landscape and the real countryside has gone for ever.’
‘He’s probably right.’
‘No, he isn’t right. My life isn’t fake. I’m building a home and raising my children and making as much sense of my life as I can. What’s fake about that?’
‘I just meant about the countryside changing.’
‘The countryside’s always changing. You’re the historian.’
‘Of course.’
‘I bet the first thing Iron Age man said when Bronze Age man came along was, There goes the countryside.’
Henry grins. He likes that.
‘What right has Nick to sneer at us?’ Laura speaks with the energy of anger. ‘Maybe we’re not farmers, but we’re people, aren’t we? It’s just sentimentalism. I refuse to be told I’m not real.’
The real thing, for ever out of reach. But somehow it doesn’t matter any more. Watching his wife across the table, her familiar beautiful face animated as she speaks, he thinks: of course she’s real. And I’m real. Maybe we’re not living the life we meant to live when we were young, but who’s to say we were right back then? No one gets it all. Accidents happen.
So Laura was in love with Nick when she was young. The story’s no secret. She gave him her whole heart, it proved too burdensome a gift, he dropped it and it broke. Ever since, she has had many parts of her broken heart to give: some to him, some to Jack, some to Carrie, and so on. Is that a diminution of love or an enrichment?
‘So he’s gone now, is he?’
‘Back to California.’
‘Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if you and Nick had stayed together?’
She doesn’t answer for a moment.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s been strange seeing him again after all these years. I’m trying to be honest. The odd thing is, he hasn’t changed. And he should have changed. I’ve changed. But somehow he’s got himself stuck. And that’s just really sad.’
Neither of them speaks for a moment. Then,
‘I read your letter,’ Henry says. ‘The one you wrote to him, years ago.’
‘My letter?’
‘I was looking for Jack’s composition. In your desk drawer.’
‘Oh, God. I wish you hadn’t.’
‘I didn’t mean to.’
She’s blushing, not looking at him.
‘It’s all such nonsense,’ she says. ‘Nick never made me happy. Never.’
‘But you were in love with him.’
‘Yes. That’s something different.’
‘Different from what?’
‘Different from love.’
Did I tell Henry the truth? Not all of it, not everything, but it’s not possible to tell everything. Not even desirable. There’s a courtesy of restraint even between wife and husband. For example, I’ve never told him how I calculated the pros and cons of marrying him, weeks before he asked me, knowing he would ask me. One column for lover, one for father, one for provider, one for friend. My talent for cataloguing. Now if I were to draw up the lists again I’d add a new one that doesn’t have a public name: call it memories, or life together, or maybe history. That’s the part that Nick understands so little because he’s never had it in his life, he’s kept himself apart. Children the external evidence of this life together, but it’s there in me too, my fifteen years with Henry, it’s changed me. Who knows, perhaps it would have been better if I’d gone through the same process with Nick, all that matters is I didn’t. Now it’s Henry who’s woven into me. You couldn’t pull him out without tearing me. And the bonds grow stronger with each passing day.
Jack said, ‘Daddy was brilliant.’
Laura feels a surge of gratitude, because of Jack and because of Nick and because of history. She recalls again how she heard his silence in the hall and knew what he was doing. That’s love, isn’t it? The knowledge that allows us to escape the prison cell where each of us lives in solitary confinement, to discover we’re not alone after all.
In bed at night, his hand reaching for hers. She holds his hand, strokes his fingers.
‘You know what I was remembering today?’ she says.
‘What?’
‘How you proposed to me.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘You said, We could get married if you’d like that. Like you were asking if I wanted to go to see some film.’
‘I was nervous.’
‘You knew I’d say yes.’
‘I didn’t. I thought you’d say let’s give it time.’
‘Well. I knew you’d ask me.’
And wanted you to ask me. I’ve thought about you every day from that day to this.
Later they make love.
‘I want to be slow tonight,’ she says.
Henry feels how there are shivers all down his long body. Every woman makes me tremble.
‘You know when you came and found me by the lake. I didn’t recognize you. I thought, Who’s this beautiful woman?’
‘No you didn’t. You never notice me any more.’
‘Well, that’s true too. But I did think that.’
She eases her legs apart so that he can stroke her. Her hand on his cock, which is already hard. No problems this time. But she wants to go slow.
‘Something else I was remembering today,’ she says. ‘I was thinking how it was with Nick all those years ago.’ She means making love with Nick, but she’s too shy to say so, even with Henry’s cock in her hand. Or too considerate. ‘I remember wanting it to be good for Nick, and worrying about if it was good enough, and if I should be doing more, I don’t know what. I was always thinking he’d get bored. But what I have no memory of at all is what it was like for me.’
Her hips move, pushing against his probing fingers.
‘You certainly should have done more,’ he says, sweetly mocking. ‘I’m sure he got bored.’
‘Do you mind me talking about him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know why not. I suppose he doesn’t seem all that real to me.’
‘He isn’t real. He’s a ghost.’
‘Whatever I feel about him is what you choose to let me feel.’
‘Yes. I suppose that’s true.’
She pulls him gently over her, guiding his cock between her thighs.
‘Slow, remember?’
‘Would you rather I was jealous?’
‘No. You’re fine the way you are.’
His cock easing in, slowly, slowly.
‘Oh, I do like this,’ says Laura.
‘I was thinking about the Swanborough walk. Over the Downs to the secret valley.’
Now he’s all the way in, home at last. His naked body in my arms.
‘I want to go there again,’ he says. ‘You and me and Jack and Carrie.’
‘Then we’ll go there again.’
‘There’s a monument there to a man who died in the valley. I’ve often wondered why he died.’
A long slow fuck. She knows very well why he’s talking about a valley in the Downs as he pulls slowly back and pushes slowly in again. He doesn’t want to come too soon.
Desire me again, my darling. I will not burn what remains of the greatest happiness I have ever known.
‘You can go a bit faster now.’
He does as she asks.
And later, lying in each other’s arms, no rest sweeter, the basking of the body in secret sunlight.
‘Henry?’
‘What?’
‘You know I said, How happy?’
‘Yes.’
‘When you said you wanted me to be happy.’
‘Yes.’
‘All I want is to be happy enough.’
And later,
still touching.
‘You awake?’ Her voice soft and close in the darkness.
‘Mmm.’
‘Remember the other night, when Jack came in?’
‘Mmm.’
‘He said he’d been worrying about dying. Just like you. I told him to think about how we took the train from Paris to Milan. How we woke up in sunny Italy.’
‘Sunny Italy,’ murmurs Henry; just like Jack.
They part at last. Small tugs on the duvet, nesting for the night.
‘The new leaves on the trees,’ Henry says, already half in dreams. ‘That green, there’s no word for it. There should be a word for it.’
He turns onto his side, folds his arms, burrows his face into the pillow.
‘Night, darling.’
Sleep now. Sleep with me. This clumsy partnership our work in progress, our half-told story, and all we know of love.
‘Night.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Nicholson grew up in Sussex and was educated at Downside School and Cambridge. His plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story, both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award of their year. His first play, an adaptation of Shadowlands for stage, was the Evening Standard’s Best Play of 1990. He was co-writer on the film Gladiator. He is married with three children and lives in Sussex. Visit his website at www.williamnicholson.co.uk
Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR THE SECRET INTENSITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
EPIGRAPH
PREFACE
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Nicholson, The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life
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