‘I didn’t.’ He’s good-looking but, I don’t know … Not sexy. Not to me, anyway. Something was warning me off him.
‘By all accounts he’d get up on a cracked plate.’ Alastair shakes his head sorrowfully.
‘Oh, Alastair.’ Tim’s tone is bone-dry. ‘This might be the happiest night of your life.’
‘Well, I’m going to the disco to dance to the Killers,’ I say. ‘Are either of you coming?’
Josh might be there, he might not, but right now all I want to do is get drunk and dance.
68
Saturday, 12 November, day sixty-one
The heat wakes me. It’s roasting in my tiny hotel room, like being buried alive in a furnace, and even though it’s only just gone seven, I must get out.
I have a quick shower, pull a comb through my hair and lipstick across my mouth, throw on my coat and slip through the lobby, still peopled with randomers in last night’s party threads, out into the day.
The sky is streaked mauve and royal blue – it’ll be properly light soon – and the breeze is brisk and pleasantly chilly. I’m headed for the sea: I want to hear the waves and breathe in the salty air. The pebbles crunch under my too-high boots as I make for the water’s edge. There’s no one out here but me – the entire hotel is probably still deep in a drunken sleep. It’s a wonder I’m awake myself. I’d danced like a mad thing with Alastair for hours and hours and it was nearly three when I’d tumbled into bed.
Mind you, I’m not fully with it. I’ve that disconnected thing hangovers give, where everything seems to be happening at one remove, almost as if I’m watching a movie of my life.
The small, polite waves aren’t doing it for me. Huge, crashy breakers would be better at clearing my head.
I called it wrong with Matthew Carlisle, which is all kinds of disappointing. I’ve started the rehabilitation of a man who doesn’t deserve any of it. And the loss of income is a bummer, especially coming up to Christmas. At least I didn’t sleep with him. Small mercies and all that.
Along the beach, a person appears out of the dawn gloom, heading in my direction. Someone else who’s woken early and is walking off a hangover. It’s a tall man in a dark overcoat, his collar turned up against the chill. In my numbed, dreamy state, I almost convince myself that I’ve conjured him out of my imagination. It’s Josh.
Our eyes meet, we walk directly towards each other, and when we’re a few inches from touching, we stop. Neither of us smiles.
‘So?’ he says. ‘How’ve you been?’
Although it’s over a year since we’ve spoken, we’ve bypassed all social niceties and gone straight to the intimacy we shared during those lunches we shouldn’t have had. And I don’t know how he found out, but he knows about Hugh. ‘Mmm, my marriage has gone a bit weird.’
His eyes are sympathetic. ‘Aye.’
My lips clamp tightly together. I’m ashamed.
‘I haven’t been stalking you,’ he says, ‘but I still think about you, and now and again I … check Facebook. Sometimes I can’t not.’
I shrug. ‘How are things with you?’
‘The same.’
‘Your wife still doesn’t understand you?’
‘Don’t.’
‘Sorry.’ Fervently I add, ‘I am sorry. It’s guilt.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
That’s not true. ‘I keep wondering if it was my fault that Hugh left. If he knew subconsciously that I’d been cheating. Because I was cheating, even if we never did anything, you and I.’
The breeze smacks a gust of chilly sea spray-speckled air against me, but I don’t shift; it’s a great relief to be face to face with Josh, to be talking about this.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he says. ‘If you hadn’t been married and I hadn’t been married, would you have …?’
I think about it, really consider it. ‘I’m not sure we’re temperamentally suited.’ I could never have been so honest without the distancing effects of my hangover. ‘But the physical thing, attraction, whatever you want to call it, that was, um, strong.’
Something flares in his eyes. ‘Aye. It was.’ Then he adds, ‘Still is. At least in my case.’
Wearily, I admit it. ‘Me too.’
‘Right, ah …’ He swallows hard. ‘So what’s stopping you?’
Very little. I’ve already lost my marriage. ‘Your wife.’
‘You want me to leave her?’
‘Christ, no! The opposite.’
Perhaps it’s disillusionment in the wake of the revelations about Matthew Carlisle. Finding out what he’s really like, so soon after seeing the photos of Hugh, is making me think that monogamy is a lost cause. No one seems able for it. Not Hugh, not Matthew, not Josh, maybe not even Tim.
It’s as if everything has turned to ashes and, right now, I feel there’s very little left to lose. Well, except this notion I have of myself as a decent person. And that’s probably no longer enough to stop me.
When I first started obsessing about Josh, my mad hope was for something magical to finesse away all awkward ethical considerations. But nothing is going to do that. If this is what I want, it’s up to me, a grown-up, to make a grown-up decision.
‘In every life we do stuff that isn’t congruent with our moral core,’ I say. ‘Right?’
‘Right.’ He sounds wary.
‘We do things we know we shouldn’t because we’re weak and want-y.’
His eyes have narrowed as he tries to follow my philosophy.
‘Josh.’ My tone is strict. ‘You’re never to talk about leaving her. You’re not to leave her. And this needs to be time-limited. It’s the only way I can okay it with my conscience. Until the end of the year, then it stops.’
‘What do you … Amy, what are you saying?’
‘Tuesday night, in London. Book a room.’
69
Monday, 14 November, day sixty-three
Not black satin. And certainly not red satin. No corsets, no basques, nothing remotely tacky. Nothing lace, nothing crotchless, nothing kinky.
In the end I buy plain black knickers and bra. Maybe they’re not entirely plain, they have a sateen sheen, but there aren’t any hidden surprises, like no back to the pants.
Reluctantly I also buy stockings and a suspender belt because I simply can’t do tights to him, not on our first night. And I won’t do hold-up stockings to myself, they can’t be trusted not to detach themselves from my thighs and float down my legs just when I’m crossing a crowded bar.
And now it really is time to go back to work, my Monday lunch hour has lasted 128 minutes.
‘How’d you get on?’ Alastair asks, when I slink back into the office.
‘Where’s Tim?’
Alastair nods at the meeting room and its closed door. ‘In there.’
Fine. I can speak freely. ‘Sorry I was so long. But mission accomplished.’
‘So you’re all set?
‘Nearly. I’m getting a spray-tan done this evening. The lightest shade. Just to take the pasty edge off my ancient body. And … I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but what harm? I got waxed yesterday.’
‘Oh? You mean …?’ He moves his eyebrows towards my groin.
‘I usually work a nineteen-seventies vibe down there. Hugh likes – liked it. You probably think that’s revolting.’
‘No, I – Actually, let’s not have this conversation. So you’ve made your peace with your repulsive body?’
‘There’s nothing I can do about it. I am the age I am, I’ve lived the life I’ve lived. And he’s no nineteen-year-old either. He’s forty-two. It’s funny, Alastair, I don’t want him to be like, you know, David Gandy, all abs and muscles. That would intimidate the daylights out of me. But I don’t want him to be flabby and … you know. I want him to be the same level of decrepit that I am. Well, maybe not quite as bad as me.’
‘So where’s this thing going down?’
While I’d been out, Josh had texted: Sarah Hotel, me
et at bar on top floor at 7.
‘Sarah Hotel,’ I say.
‘Whoa!’
‘I know. Fancy, right?’
‘I’ve never stayed there but, yep, fancy. Spendy. He likes you, Amy!’
Anxiety spasms through me. ‘Oh, fuck, now I’ve the fear. But what’s the worst that can happen?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Well.’ And these are thoughts that have tormented me since I threw out my invitation on Saturday morning. ‘I might lose my nerve entirely, and develop vaginismus, thereby locking Josh Rowan out of my hidey-hole.’
‘That would be grim.’
Grim is right. I lose myself in a picture of Josh slamming his blood-engorged penis up against me like a battering ram. I feel ExcitedHorrifiedScaredTurnedOn.
‘Or Josh might find my forty-something body so slack and gross he won’t be able to get it up.’
‘That won’t happen. No offence, Amy, but men, most men … Well, you’ve heard the saying that we have enough blood to run a brain and a penis, but not at the same time. Anyway, you’re fine. You’re cute. I’m sick telling you.’
‘Alternatively,’ I speak over him, ‘it might be okay, by which I mean, just okay. Nothing special. Something neither of us could be bothered to repeat, and that would also not be pleasant. I’ve spent a year and a half giving him a lot of space in my head. I’d be morto if there was no substance to it.’
‘Then again, it might be amazing,’ Alastair says.
‘Word! Like Derry said, this isn’t Josh Rowan’s first rodeo. Surely he knows how to show a girl a good time.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Alastair says. ‘You wouldn’t believe the bad sex women put up with. The number of girls I’ve had to rehabilitate –’
‘No, please, Alastair, shush now. Anyway, I’m not looking for hot monkey sex or – or – or nimble-fingered technique –’
‘You want romance.’
‘I need a narrative. And I need to believe there’s a future for me, after Hugh.’
‘With Josh Rowan?’ Alastair sounds alarmed.
‘No. Just a future. I don’t know exactly what I mean, but I need to check that I still exist. And don’t tell me that I do.’
‘Wasn’t going to. Like I said, Hugh leaving has fucked with your sense of self. It takes time to process that. You’re flailing around, looking for other markers.’
‘Is that what this is? And, morally, is that okay?’
‘Not ideal. Josh Rowan is a human.’
‘One I like.’ My tone is heated. ‘One I fancy.’
‘Who has a wife.’
‘Yeaaaaah.’ There was no arguing away that shameful fact.
70
Tuesday, 15 November, day sixty-four
In the lift up to the top-floor bar, a gang of fabulous types pile in, looking like they’ve come straight from a yacht in Portofino.
I stare at my new shoes – black Rock-stud wannabes with needle-thin heels – and try to blind myself to the sun-kissed limbs, the gorgeous floaty dresses and the effortless glamour of my fellow lift-goers.
Nervy giddiness has propelled me through the flight from Dublin, a day of meetings, having my hair blow-dried into foxy waves, buying the shoes that were I-can’t-think-about-it expensive, getting fake eyelashes done in Shu Uemura (the application was free; I had to pay for the lashes, but they’re reusable so it was a bargain really, except it wasn’t because any time I do fake lashes myself, they end up stuck so far from my lashline they look like rows of shark’s teeth), haring back to Home House to dump my bags and change into a floaty cold-shoulder top and satin skirt, and getting a taxi to the Sarah Hotel.
The lift doors open to reveal a phalanx of hostesses, armed with iPads. They make me think of riot police. Over their shoulders, in the bar, everyone looks fabulous and I hope that with my gold-dusted collarbones, my tumbling hair, my glossy mouth and my too-high shoes, I’ll fit in.
‘Josh Rowan,’ I tell the woman who blocks my path.
Oh, and here he is, making his way through the teeming revellers, looking a little Portofino-ish himself, in an inky-blue slubby sweatshirt and slouchy jeans that I suspect are new. We exchange a queasy complicity.
‘I saw you,’ he says. ‘It’s so busy in here I thought it best to come and get you.’
With an apprehensive smile, I let him lead me through the jostling crowds to a low booth, almost a pod, with two tapered, high-backed seats facing each other, like an almond sliced in two, across a narrow table.
I clamber into the cocoon-like chair and it’s too squashy to sit upright in. But when I lean my elbows on the table, it tilts me far too close to him, so my face is about four inches from his.
An iPad with the drinks menu is slid in front of me. It’s one long list of whiskies. ‘God.’ I’m grateful to have something to say. ‘It’s real.’
‘What is?’
‘A couple of weeks ago they said in Style that the modern drink is whisky, but this is the first time I’ve seen it for reals.’
Without much interest, he scans the list. ‘What’s it to be? A thirty-year-old Macallan?’ His tone is a little mocking. ‘A rarer-than-rare Laphroaig?’
‘Water,’ I say.
He’s surprised. ‘You sure?’
‘I’m not getting drunk. I don’t want to convince myself that this is anything other than what it is.’
‘Which is?’
I don’t know yet. ‘Let’s see.’
He flags a waiter and orders. Then he asks, ‘Amy? How come we met on the beach on Friday morning? Sixth sense?’
‘No such thing. It’s just an amalgam of our other five senses. We know stuff, even if we’re not aware we know it. A long time ago you told me you often wake early.’ Then I realize another thing. ‘And you’d told me you liked beaches, cold ones.’
‘So did you come out looking for me?’
‘I didn’t know, not consciously anyway, that I was hoping to meet you. But lower down in my layers, I had all the information.’
‘So there are no accidents?’
‘I think …’ I’m struggling to form my thoughts ‘… that we’re responsible for our actions. We choose them. Even if we think we don’t. Anyway, Josh, I brought condoms.’
He gives a bark of slightly scandalized laughter. ‘So did I.’
I clamp my hand on to the back of his wrist. ‘Josh …’
He waits.
‘I’m … God, how do I say it? I’m traditional. In bed. I hate saying this but I don’t want any unpleasant surprises. For either of us.’
‘Okay.’
‘Are you? Traditional?’
‘I’ve never really … Yeah, I suppose I am.’
‘Oh, Josh, that’s a big relief.’ I smile widely. ‘Right, let’s do this.’
He laughs. ‘You had me at condoms.’
‘Sorry. Not very romantic. It’s nerves.’
He slides a plastic card across the table. ‘Room 504. Fifth floor. Go ahead. I’ll just sort things out here.’
I head for the lift, fizzing with a nervy paranoia. Can people guess what’s going on? But even if they do – and why would they? – what would they care?
Something shifts in me, I’ve let go of an innocence about love, loyalty and fidelity. I’m different now, living a more louche life. I’m not sure I like myself, but perhaps I’ll grow into it.
The card works in the lock, and I slip inside, shut the door quickly behind me and lean my back against it. The room’s okay. Very male. Dark wood, angular mid-century furniture, statement lamps. You can see that it’s tasteful – the cream angora throw, the tan leather design-classic chair.
I’m very sober and very grounded. There’s no glitter or dazzle in me to make this easy. Every domestic detail stands out: the hum of the mini-bar; the weight of Josh’s bag on the bed, wrinkling the snowy perfection of the duvet cover; the random shouts and yelps from people in the street below. And, oh, Christ, there’s a bottle of something fizzy in an ice-bucket
. Thoughtful? Or sleazy?
I move quickly, changing the lighting, creating pools of shadow, and circles of golden glow. As I’m wondering what music to put on, there’s a quiet knock on the door. My heart almost jumps out of my mouth.
I twist the handle and Josh steps in and looks at me. ‘Is this okay?’ he asks. ‘I mean, the room?’
‘It’s nice. I’m just nervous.’
‘I’m nervous too.’
‘What if you think I’m too old, too –’
‘I won’t. I swear. Is there a Do Not Disturb thing?’ He locates it, quickly opens the door and slings the sign on the knob. Now there’s no danger of us being interrupted.
We’re standing facing each other, a little awkwardly. I’m waiting for some force to fling us together, to throw a bucket of passion over us and make this easier.
He steps towards me, places his hand on my waist. ‘Don’t look so scared.’ He takes my right hand in his free one and moves in tighter. Our faces are so close they’re almost touching and his breath is on my skin. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe it’s actually happening.’
It’s time for him to kiss me, and when he doesn’t, I plant my hands on his shoulders and tentatively move my mouth to his. My lips feel swollen and tender as they touch off his. He moves to take my face in both his hands and kisses me back with care and sweetness. It’s unexpected – I’d thought he might be rougher, more macho – and it’s lovely.
It’s seventeen years since a man other than Hugh has kissed me – that craziness with Matthew Carlisle doesn’t count – and everything is different with Josh. He tastes different, he smells different, there’s no beard. Even his hand –
He breaks off the kiss – oh! – and half whispers, ‘Stop thinking about him.’
There’s a second of despair, I’m afraid I won’t be able to, then I whisper back, sounding braver than I feel, ‘Make me.’
There’s a flash of his teeth as he gives a quick smile, then slowly he slides one hand around to the nape of my neck, lifting my hair and sending shivers of energy down my back. With his other hand, he strokes my cheek with his thumb, then kisses me again and this time it’s deeper, more intimate.