Torn (10 page)

‘Helen, she got her geography degree, but then came back home, got a job as a secretary in a timber merchant's. Married a carpet fitter, bloke she'd been going out with since she was fifteen. Already got three kids! She's younger than you!'

‘You think she should have done better?' Jess yawned. ‘Sorry, I feel very …'

‘Not should, Jess … could, and I don't mean money. It just frustrates me that she had no ambition. She could have travelled. Got experience of a wider world. But she's wasted her opp'tunities. It's different for me. I never had those opp'tunities. Not that she's ever noticed or cared.' Jess was never sure whether she actually asked Danny why he didn't have the same opportunities as his sister and brother, or whether she dreamt it. Either way, she didn't hear an answer.

There was a small damp patch by her mouth when she opened her eyes. The Eagles were singing ‘Heartache Tonight', Jess lifted her head just enough to wipe her mouth and check that he was awake, then settled back against his chest.

‘Sorry, I dozed off,' she said yawning again. Directly in front of her eyes was the looped fabric of his shirt front with its unemployed buttonhole. ‘Look at you! You're done up all wrong.' To straighten his shirt seemed imperative. But to accomplish this would necessitate unfastening two further buttons. Her fingers were still fumbling from sleep and the shirt front a little too close to her eyes, but she hadn't the strength to sit up and approach the task in a business-like fashion. Soon she'd opened a wider gap between the soft cotton and his skin.

‘What're you doing, Jess?'

‘Just straightening you up. It's the mother in me.' But somehow, although she'd accomplished stage one of the operation, she could not quite bring herself to re-button him immediately. This close up, peephole view of his chest was a little too tantalising to relinquish. Then it was too easy to slide her fingers inside the gap, too easy to stretch forward an inch or two just to breathe in the scent, to discover how it would feel to touch her mouth against his silky skin.

‘Jess?'

She looked up and before she'd had time to wonder whether this was a good idea they were kissing.

Chapter Seven

Even as his arms tightened around her, Jessica pulled away abruptly and stood up. A baleful amber glare pinned her. Outside the window Tubs sat on the sill, peering through the glass. On seeing the face of the ‘keeper of the door' emerge above the back of the sofa he opened his mouth in mute appeal. Jess turned her back on him; frowning at the carpet, she paced around the room, arms hugged about herself, waiting for her pulse to slow.

‘Is something the matter?'

She raised her head and looked at Danny; then knelt on the sofa beside him, her hands on his shoulders.

‘Danny, this isn't right. It wouldn't be fair. I'm too old for you! And anyway, it's too soon. I'm not ready for a relationship. Do you understand?'

He leant back against the cushions, as though he needed a longer perspective, as though he would see the key to her words in her expression. For a moment or two they just stared at one another. But she knew she was right. They had to resist the temptation. They had to be strong. It
was
too soon for a new relationship. It was questionable whether the time would ever be right for a relationship with a nineteen year old.

Gradually, as she gazed down at him, her frown dissolved, her fragile resolution wavered. It had been too long since she'd had sex, and even longer since she'd enjoyed it. His shirt still gaped open seductively and there was something in this face, in its particular and delightful configuration, which for her pressed all the right buttons. A kind of craziness was moving into her brain. The take-over was hostile. Rationality was being summarily evicted. There wasn't time enough in the world to wait for the male of the species to make all the moves. Her breathing quickened and with a groan of surrender she stooped towards him.

Mouth found mouth. Soon clothes were disarranged, shirts pulled from waistbands, hands against skin; skin against skin. His name was muttered over and over. With lips, tongue, and hands Jess found the easily accessible parts of his body. Soon they had slithered in an ungainly tangle onto the floor, along with the throw and several cushions. Here she dragged at the clothes that still encumbered their limbs, delving for his more inaccessible parts. Completion of what had been started was essential. Success was only moments away. Embarrassment, apologies, guilt could be dealt with later. Her brain was spiralling into space; nothing mattered but this. As she reached for his engorged penis a distant voice penetrated her consciousness.

‘No! Oh please! Jess! No! Don't touch me! Don't! Oh no! Fuck!' And she felt the unmistakable shuddering spasm and then the damp splash.

‘Oh Jess, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry …'

Her head was resting on his bared chest, she remained there, unmoving, as the jangling in her brain subsided and with it the flare of irritation at being thwarted. The Eagles were singing ‘Take it to the Limit'. As her breathing calmed, the irrelevant thought drifted into her head that Danny must have pressed the replay button when he was trying to work out how to use the sound system. Her ear was still squashed humidly against his ribcage and at last she could clearly hear what she should have heard before. Above the rapid beat of his heart, which was only to be expected, was the whistling gasp of asthma. Jess opened her eyes and saw the pearly fluid puddled on her thigh; suppressing a shiver of distaste she raised her eyes. His were eloquent with mortification, regret, apology.

‘Jess. Oh, Jess, I'm sorry, so sorry,' he whispered huskily. ‘I was afraid this might … You're just too …' He took a breath and an apologetic smile briefly illuminated his face. ‘… too sexy for me.' He subsided flat back onto the floor. A cushion perilously balanced between him and the sofa fell over onto his face. He left it there.

‘Don't apologise. Don't worry. It doesn't matter.' Jessica uttered the reassurances mechanically, without conviction, as she slowly recovered her fractured senses and sat up, gathering the crumpled throw around her. Tense and still rattled, she was about to make a joke to defuse the situation, but something stopped her.

The squashy velvet cushion still partially obscured his face. Even from several feet away she could see the cat hairs which still clung to it, despite the cursory late-night vacuuming of the room. A sudden wave of shame flooded hotly through her. She pushed the cushion away brusquely.

‘I'm the one who should be saying sorry! I've been so selfish. Your chest? Are you all right? That cushion is Tubs' favourite.' There was an impatient rattle of the letter flap. ‘Talk of the devil!'

‘Your damn cat? Yeah, yeah. I'll be OK. But Jess …' his indrawn breath wheezed. ‘I'm sorry, I think I might have to borrow the inhaler again … please?'

As Jessica entered her bedroom she was still tying the throw from the sofa, sarong style, around her. Danny might as well keep the inhaler, she decided, as she picked it up from the chest of drawers. Then, pulling a tissue from the box by the bed, she registered the blue plastic potty that Danny had found and put by the bed. She smiled at the considerate gesture. The potty was hardly used for its proper purpose these days. Her son preferred to use the grown up toilet, even if the child-seat and Mum's help were required.

Rory! All strength drained abruptly from her legs. She sank down heavily on the mattress. What was the time? Shit! No point in scrubbing at her thigh with a tissue; the semen had already dried and there was no time for a bath. Her head drooped into her hands. The bud of guilt bloomed.

‘What am I doing? What the hell do I think I'm doing?' she muttered.

‘Forgive me for being so late! I lost track of the time!' The atmosphere at Alison's house was frosty. Rory sat on the floor in the hall, anorak on, back against the wall, his Buzz Lightyear backpack of overnight things beside him. He looked as if he'd been there quite a while. As she entered, burbling apologies, his expression was full of reproach.

‘What on earth can I say,' she pleaded to both her son and to Alison. Neither seemed impressed.

‘Yes. Well. Everyone else managed to pick up their kids ages ago. I guess it's fashionable to be late …'

‘Excuse me?'

‘But this isn't London.'

‘There was no deliberate intention.'

‘I wouldn't usually mind … only Derek's had to go into work, so I'm on my own, and I didn't sleep well. Rory kept waking up and making a fuss. Waking everyone else up.' Indeed, her skin had a pale, greasy sheen, and she was still wearing a dressing gown.

‘I
am
really sorry. You should have phoned me! You needn't have done lunch. I'd have collected him first thing.'

Alison looked sceptical. ‘And Rory and my Hannah don't seem to get on all that well. He seems that much younger than her. He's been grumpy for hours.'

‘Mummy, you'r'uckin' slag! Rory said, as if to underline the fact, and folded his arms onto his knees and scowled. Alison drew in a sharp gasp. Jessica felt the blush rise in her cheeks. It was fair comment. She'd deserved it.

‘I hope he hasn't been swearing like this the whole time?'

‘There have been a few choice expressions this morning as he got crosser. Nothing quite as ripe as that!'

‘What must you think? He's been so much better lately. If I'd thought … I wouldn't have asked you to have him. He doesn't understand what he's saying. It was my ex, Sean, Rory's stepfather. He was abusive … Rory started to pick up on the language.' Impossible to get into this now, standing in the hallway of a woman she scarcely knew. The disintegration of her relationship with Sean and its impact on Rory would need several hours of sensitive explanation. ‘Enough to say it was one of the reasons I left Sean.'

She had been wrong to let Rory come to this sleepover. Even now he was not thoroughly settled in his own home, why on earth had she thought him able to feel secure and happy in someone else's if she wasn't there with him? They had yet to build relationships of real friendship with other mothers and their children. Only then, when his confidence had grown, would she try the experiment again.

‘Please believe me, I am really sorry if I've put you out or embarrassed you. Thank you so much for having him. I'd love to have Hannah any time.'

As they walked away from the house, Jess wondered whether she would ever be called upon to honour this pledge. Alison was unlikely to send her precious daughter to a house where the three-year old son called his mother a ‘fucking slag' however mispronounced. Rory declined to hold her hand.

The room was empty of other children, but Rory, cheerfully absorbed, moved from the tables to the apparatus and back again. As he played, he accompanied himself with a continuous commentary on his imaginary world, accented with the relevant sound effects.

‘To ‘finity and beyond!' he suddenly shouted, leaping from the Jungle Gym onto a big cushion.

‘Look at him now. Couldn't be happier. But he had a really rotten time at Hannah's sleepover. It was too soon for him. I wish I hadn't let you persuade me.'

‘But then you wouldn't have gone to the party and met your new boyfriend.'

‘Danny's not my boyfriend!' she responded instantly, but could not prevent the smile invading her face. ‘But he is
so
cute and, like I said, quite unaware …'

‘So what?' Sheila interrupted dismissively. ‘You've found yourself a young man who seems unconscious that he's good looking?'

‘But it was funny. A total role reversal,' Jess tried to explain. ‘Almost like one of those daft old black and white movies, where the hero dumbfounds the heroine by asking her to take off her glasses and let down her hair. “Don't you know you're beautiful, Miss Jones?”‘

‘Even though the dowdy Miss Jones is being played by Rita Hayworth, or some other Hollywood luminary, who's spent all of her narcissistic life being gazed at admiringly by the general public,' Sheila amplified.

‘Danny is such a refreshing change from the guys I've known. He's sweet and gentle, and quite startlingly frank.'

‘I'm not really interested in how sweet and gentle he is, Jess!' Sheila's impatience was showing. ‘He's nineteen! A boy! He probably still collects conkers! Plus, if he's as gorgeous as you say …' If? It wasn't as if Sheila hadn't seen him. ‘It won't take too long for the female population in the area, the ones in his own age bracket, to catch on. What I want to know is … did you or didn't you?'

Jessica had already decided not to admit their fumbled and ultimately failed attempt at sex and not just because of her own shameful part in the story. She was anxious not to hand ammunition to Sheila. Though irritated at the time by his lack of prowess, Jess now felt protective of Danny, and in a world where a certain level of sexual sophistication was assumed in the young, she didn't wish to expose his failure.

‘We were a bit past it when we got home. I'd certainly had too much to drink. And in the morning I'd thought better of it.'

‘And what was Danny's reaction to that? He must have felt a bit cheated, the way you were carrying on the night before. At his age it's all they're usually after.'

‘But he's not like that. He's not at all pushy. I wouldn't be surprised if he's …' Jess could have kicked herself.

‘What, Jess? Gay? A virgin? You're blushing.'

‘Inexperienced.'

‘Well, you can sort him out there, can't you?'

Jess bristled. ‘I've no intention of sorting him out! Look,' she paused, and scratched her head. Sheila, it seemed, was being deliberately provocative. ‘I know it's inappropriate for a woman of my age, and in my situation, to pursue a relationship with someone like Danny, which is why I'm not going to do it. But that doesn't mean I'm planning to remain celibate until Rory grows up and flies the nest. Being with Danny reminded me of my own needs. Believe me, I'd be really glad for him if he found a girlfriend, one near his own age. He's only recently split up with a woman called Zoe. Probably the one you mentioned, with the nose rings!