One Moment, One Morning

  ‘Right.’ Simon lies down on his side. He props his head on one hand, and with the other reaches forward to the adjacent space. ‘Come here,’ he invites her, patting it.

  Karen doesn’t need asking twice; she turns, kneels, and slides alongside. Within seconds he is kissing her; her body is bending towards him, her back arching like a cat indulging in the heat, stretching out in ecstasy. She reaches up, strokes his hair; he has lovely hair – dark, thick, slightly wavy – it’s one of the first things she noticed about him. And as he presses his body into her, she thinks how wonderful it is to be with a big man, a proper man, not one of these wispy poetic types that she’s fallen for in the past. It makes her feel smaller, more feminine, and she loves that. She inhales his scent: the same smell that blew her away a week before, slightly lemony, fresh, oh-so-male, and, to her at any rate, incredibly, mind-blowingly sexy.

  ‘Shall we swim?’ he asks, breaking away a few minutes later.

  Part of Karen is so enjoying the sensation of his mouth on hers, lips and tongues exploring, that she doesn’t want to stop what they are doing; another part feels they should, as now he has his leg wedged between hers, pressing into her groin, and his hand up her top. If they don’t halt, soon they will be doing far more than they should, given they’re in a public space. Plus she likes the idea of going into the sea: it is balmy, very warm, and if they’re not able to have sex here, then doing something alternatively sensuous appeals. She’s wearing a matching bra and knickers; they could easily pass as a bikini. And if they end up wet, what does it matter? She can go home without them on and no one will know.

  ‘OK.’ She sits up. At once she slips her skirt down over her knees, her T-shirt over her head and she’s there, almost naked, in front of him. Again she can feel him looking at her.

  ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he says, running a hand down her back. The feel of his fingers on her flesh makes her tempted to resume kissing, but no, she is going to resist; the waves beckon.

  ‘Last one in!’ she says, jumping up and running, still in her flip-flops, down the shingle. She kicks off her flip-flops and splash splash SPLASH! – never mind the pain of the pebbles on the soles of her feet – she is in, up to her thighs, oooh, brrrrrr! Quickly-quickly, swiftly dipping so she is past the sensitive bit and up to her waist, and yeooow! further, up to her shoulders. But although the water is cool, it is nowhere near as chilly as she feared it might be – a mild spring and recent heatwave have warmed it. Her hair floats about her, but she keeps her face out, conscious her mascara will smudge and wanting to look her prettiest for Simon. She looks back to land: he is running down the beach in his boxers; within seconds he’s in the water beside her.

  She hooks her legs around him, frog-like, and leans back a little, paddling with her arms to keep herself afloat. Despite the cold, he has an erection; she can feel it. Cheekily, she rubs the outside of his boxers with her palm.

  He raises an eyebrow again, smiles, and groans, ‘Ooh.’

  Then, whoosh! and he’s let go of her, and ducked under, emerging with wet hair, face dripping.

  Now she grins, flips over and swims off, teasing him. The sky above is breathtaking; wisps of candyfloss clouds in mauve and sugar pink over the elegant white art deco houses immediately to their west. She cannot think when she has ever been this happy.

  Then she is back in his arms, he holds her against the waves, and, yes, mm, they are kissing, salt water mingling with saliva. She wraps her arms around his neck, he holds her waist, and now she doesn’t give a damn it’s a public place; no one else is anywhere near them, and no one can see what’s going on beneath the surface anyway. So she scoops her legs around his hips once more and presses into him, gently gyrating her hips so she’s rubbing him rhythmically, tantalizing.

  It is too much – or not enough – for him, and he eases his cock out of his boxers, pushes aside her make-do bikini briefs and OH! He is inside her; she can’t quite believe it, the audacity, the sheer pleasure of it: they are actually doing it, having sex in the sea.

  They kiss constantly as he moves in and out of her; she has had a couple of lovers before, but honest to God, no one has ever felt as good, as perfect a fit, as Simon. It is surely the best sensation in the world; right now, she can’t imagine one better.

  That there are people in the distance walking along the promenade adds to the frisson; the feeling that they shouldn’t be doing what they are for all sorts of reasons, but hell, yes, yes, they should, they really, really should . . .

  Later, on the shingle, Simon cracks open the sparkling rosé and they drink it straight from the bottle.

  He watches Karen swig; she knows it looks sexual, and doesn’t care. If anything it turns her on, too, although actually she couldn’t possibly be turned on any more than she already is.

  ‘Hang on,’ he says suddenly. ‘I’m just going to the car.’ And before she can ask why, he is up and off, at so brisk a pace he is almost running.

  Shortly he’s back, out of breath.

  ‘I had it with me to shoot the project we’re doing.’ In his hand is an instamatic camera.

  ‘Oh no, please don’t,’ protests Karen, holding up her palm. But he ignores her and takes several snaps.

  ‘My turn,’ she counters, and takes a couple of him. Then, ‘Come here.’ She yanks him towards her. ‘I want one of the two of us.’

  ‘How are you going to do that? There’s no self-timer.’

  ‘Like this,’ she retorts, and holds the camera out as far away from them both as she can. She tilts her head into his, smiles, and CLICK! The moment is captured.

  *

  She is looking at it now, that photograph.

  His hair damp, curled on his forehead, not a single wisp of grey; hers falling in tendrils about her shoulders, improbably youthful skin gleaming in the last rays of the day. She is nearer the lens; chin up, eyes slanted, her smile that of a woman who’s just made love. He is grinning, cat who got the cream.

  Even now, twenty years later, she can taste the salty tang of the seawater. But no. Karen is standing by the bedroom window, holding the picture frame in her hand; the salt is the salt of her tears.

  She once read that memories are like rivulets of water on stone. The more they are replayed, the deeper they become etched in the mind, so the most powerful remain the most potent, forever.

  That day is carved into her mind like a railroad cut through rock, and for a while it seems whatever else she tries to think of, she can’t. It’s as if the chemicals in her brain are determined to sweep her up and carry her to another place, like pebbles shifted by waves, gulls carried by wind, or a vapour trail dissolving into the ether.

  Still, enough.

  Focus, Karen, focus.

  What was she doing?

  Oh, yes, she was watching out for Anna. Karen lives on a hill; she can see down the whole street from the bay. Anna is due round with some woman she met on the train called Lou, but she is uncharacteristically late.

  Hurriedly, angry with herself for giving in to such nostalgia, Karen puts the picture back on the dressing table and roughly swipes away her tears.

  * * *

  It’s happened again, and on the train too. Floods of tears, without warning.

  One minute Anna is functioning fine, reading the evening paper. She kept it together all through work, then had a chat with Bill, her colleague, as far as Haywards Heath, where he changes for Worthing – she even managed to talk to him about Simon a little, without breaking down. She got through Wivelsfield and Burgess Hill by focusing on the crossword.

  But then, at Preston Park, the dam breaks. And she has no idea when the suddenly rising river of tears is going to stop, where it is headed, what damage and debris it is going to leave in its wake. To make matters worse, she is due at Karen’s in fifteen minutes. She doesn’t want Karen to see her like this. She’s even arranged to go on ahead of Lou so as to give them a little time together, the two of them. She has to be strong for Karen.

&nbs
p; Anna gets off the train, eyes streaming. Though she is making no noise, she is conscious people are staring, but she is too distressed to worry what strangers think of her.

  She turns right out of the station and up the hill, her vision blurred but she knows the way. She knows it is sadness about Simon but that doesn’t help: she feels everything is so bleak. She has a desperate yearning to be with someone; she can’t manage the upset on her own, she is so overwhelmed.

  She has to go past her house en route to Karen’s, and it occurs to her that perhaps Steve will be home. He’ll have finished work, and what she needs right now is a hug – a great big hug that squeezes out all the tears, like wringing clothes in a mangle. Then, hopefully, she can go on to Karen’s, restored.

  She turns the key in the door and calls down the hallway. But unlike the other night, when she came in to the smell of spaghetti Bolognese and words of comfort, she is greeted by silence.

  She goes into the kitchen.

  No Steve.

  He is probably at the pub. For a moment she is angry, not sad, but then she is gripped by misery again, so she sits down at the kitchen table, doesn’t even take off her coat, and wails.

  Now she is free to vocalize, she is almost scared by the force and depth of her anguish. It is as if she is crying herself inside out; she is roaring, the way a child roars, hiccuping. Presently, she is not crying for Simon and Karen and Molly and Luke, and Phyllis and Alan and everyone else; she is weeping for herself.

  Anna always feels she has to be so strong and wise and funny and bright and right now she doesn’t feel any of those things. She feels weak and needy and vulnerable, and she wants someone to look after her. Yet simultaneously she has a strong sense of foreboding: she is conscious Simon’s death has cast a brutal light on her own circumstance and she is increasingly uncomfortable with what it has exposed. So, perversely, she decides to put her hunch to the test (it’s not as if she could feel any worse, after all), picks up her phone and dials.

  After a few rings, he answers.

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me, Anna.’ She can detect people talking in the background, laughter, music.

  ‘I know. Your silly little face comes up on my screen.’ At once she knows he is tipsy. Not drunk, not yet, but on the way. She can hear it in his voice: he is speaking too slowly, as if he is having to think more than usual about what he says. And the phrase ‘silly little face’ is not one he’d use sober. Her suspicions confirmed, she is furious.

  ‘Where are you?’

  There is a pause. He knows she knows where he is: he doesn’t want to admit it, but he has no choice. Eventually he concedes. ‘The Charminster Arms.’ Their local.

  ‘Oh, right. How long have you been there?’

  ‘Not long, just got here.’ She knows he is lying. ‘Why? Where are you?’

  ‘At home.’

  Another pause. Inebriated, information takes longer to penetrate. ‘But I thought you were going to Karen’s?’

  ‘I was, but I came home.’

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘I felt miserable.’ Might as well say it as it is. She wants to know how he’ll handle this information – she is challenging him.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I thought you might give me a cuddle.’

  ‘I see.’

  But he doesn’t see. He can’t. He won’t see anything straight, if he’s drinking. And once he’s started he won’t stop, so his cuddles will be worthless. They’ll come at a price – the risk of verbal abuse – and it’s not one Anna wants to pay.

  Eventually . . . ‘Do you want me to come home?’ he offers. She knows he does not want to.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I will if you like.’ Again she hears slowness.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ She is brisk. ‘I haven’t got time to wait for you. It was only if you were here – and you’re not. I’m late as it is. Don’t worry. I’ll see you later.’ Now all she wants to do is get him off the phone. ‘Bye.’ She snaps down the clamshell.

  For a minute or two she sits staring at it, as it lies on the kitchen table.

  She was right. Where, in these moments when she needs looking after, is Steve? Yes, he is there sometimes, but not now and by no means always. And, increasingly, sometimes is nowhere near good enough.

  She’s exhausted by crying, and to compound that now she has to deal with her disappointment in him. Sometimes she wonders if being with Steve is against her better judgement: if her physical lust for him means she suppresses the fact he is bad for her emotionally, financially, and socially too, come to that. She knows deep down that several of her friends don’t approve of him, and that they worry about her. Karen and Simon have intimated as much; others are too tactful to say, but she can feel it. Like a cold draught from an open window, it might not be visible, but it fills the air nonetheless. She has edged away from those who make her feel most uncomfortable; others she sees without Steve because she enjoys herself more without silent disapproval weighing down the experience. Yet people perceive one another differently; a few of her friends get on well with Steve, too. Certainly one or two of her girlfriends have said they find him physically attractive. And whereas she senses some believe she could ‘do better’ than pair up with a handyman, others envy the fact that he’s several years her junior and can do useful work around the house.

  It is all very complicated.

  But she has no time to examine further: Karen will be worried about where she has got to, and Anna has arranged for her to meet Lou. The meeting was her idea; she can hardly bow out.

  Anna gets to her feet. She makes herself look presentable again, and is soon on her way. As she nears the house, she senses Karen’s presence. She looks up. Karen is standing at the window, waiting. Anna forces a smile, waves, and increases her pace.

  Karen’s house is on one of Brighton’s many hilly residential streets. On either side of the road, late Victorian terraces stagger up the gradient, tired-looking in the orange glow of street lamps. At the top is a pair of 1930s semi-detached houses. From the outside, they are not especially attractive, but Lou supposes they offer more space for the money because of it, and she knows Karen has children. There is a built-in garage at the front, so Lou has to go round the side to locate the main door. She locks her bike to a drainpipe and rings on the doorbell. Its ‘ding-dong’ reminds her of the ‘Avon calling’ ads from her childhood.

  She hears voices inside and has a moment of trepidation. Lou has arranged to meet Anna here as she has been getting behind with writing up her session notes from the school, and doesn’t want to let her paperwork slip another week. She has such a full weekend planned that this evening after work was her only opportunity. It also seemed sensitive to allow Karen and Anna an hour or so alone before she arrived, rather than intruding on the children’s bedtime.

  But now the encounter is upon her, Lou is anxious about exactly what’s expected of her, how she – if anyone – is going to help. It makes little difference that she’s a counsellor; she’s still unsure of how to speak to the bereaved, especially a woman who has lost someone so very dear so terribly recently.

  Footsteps come towards her down the hall, the door opens. It’s Karen. She is dressed more casually than she was on the train that Monday morning, in faded jeans and a floaty top – but Lou recognizes her immediately. Her face seems different this evening, though: the appalled, frightened panic has diminished; instead her features are a picture of sadness. It is the same transformation that Lou noted in Anna the morning before, but a dozen times more marked.

  ‘Hello.’ Karen’s voice is soft, gentle. ‘You must be Lou.’

  ‘And you’re Karen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish we were meeting in happier circumstances.’

  Karen gives a rueful laugh. ‘Me too. But come in, come in.’

  Lou steps over the threshold into a square hallway. Obviously it’s a family home: there are pictures
of the children in frames on the cream-painted walls; the coat rack is crammed with diminutive duffel coats, anoraks and scarves; on the parquet floor are several pairs of small boiled-sweet-coloured wellington boots and scuffed shoes, scattered higgledy-piggledy.

  ‘Ah, Lou, hi,’ says a familiar voice; it’s bolder, more confident, a contrast to Karen’s, and Anna comes through from the kitchen. Lou is relieved to see she has a glass in her hand.

  Anna seems to pick up on the unspoken request. ‘Would you like some wine?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I’ll get you some.’ Clearly Anna is at home here. Lou wonders exactly how long she and Karen have known each other, where precisely they met.

  ‘Dump your bag and come through,’ says Karen.

  Lou does as she is told, hangs up her parka and follows them both into the kitchen.

  The kitchen is a generously proportioned room divided by a breakfast bar. At the far end are built-in painted units, a cooker, a sink and French windows to the garden. It is dark outside but Lou guesses it is just a patio; near the city centre this is the norm. Directly in front of her is a large oak table, battered and scored by use, to her left a fridge-freezer. Children’s drawings are stuck with magnets to the top half; at child height magnet letters spell ‘luke’ and ‘dog’ and ‘apple’ in bright shades of plastic.

  She’s just absorbing this when Karen says: ‘I remember you from the train.’

  Lou is taken aback: in all the commotion, she hadn’t expected Karen to notice her.

  ‘Red or white?’ interrupts Anna.

  Lou sees they are both drinking red. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Have whichever you want,’ reassures Karen. ‘There’s plenty.’

  ‘I prefer white,’ she admits.

  ‘No problem,’ says Karen, and reaches past her into the fridge. ‘Sauvignon OK?’