Alberta Clipper (31 page)

“I thought so too,” he turned on his back.  “But apparently
Nina
has suspected all along.  I think she saw it before I did.”  Christine put her hand on his chest.  He covered his eyes with his forearm.  “This is all a little mortifying.  Here I am confessing to having been in love with you for months, and you never looked twice at me before last night.”

He knew she had
heard the words, but
it seemed she
was choosing to ignore them.  “You were practically married,” she said.

“Never married.”

“Well you were in a committed relationship, as far as I knew.”  She was trailing her fingers through the hair on his chest, and he found it difficult to concentrate.  “Of course I looked at you, but I just assumed you were someone else's.”  She took her hand away. 

Mark ached for her hand to come back to him.

“And there was the tiny detail of you being my boss.”

He turned his head to her.  “I'm not your boss today.” 

Her eyes looked dark, dangerous.  She threw the duvet back and stood up.  He wanted her so badly at that moment, it was causing him actual physical pain.  She walked shamelessly around the bed to the window, and pulled the heavy brocade curtains over.  His eyes followed her, but he didn't move.  The room darkened, but the stre
aming sunlight still managed to
find ways through to them, and she stood there, brazen, seeming to him like a haloed angel.

“If you're not the boss today,” she said, pulling the covers back and sitting down next to him, her bare thigh touching his side, “then maybe I should take charge.”

It wasn't even ten
AM
on January the first, and already Mark knew it was the best year of his life.

~

It was more like lunchtime when Mark carried a breakfast tray of coffee and toast back up to his bedroom.  He set it on the blanket box at the end of the bed, and sat down next to Christine, who was sleeping again. 

“Christine,” he stroked her cheek, her hair.  “Coffee.”  She opened her eyes.  “I'm sorry, I haven't croissants or anything fancy, but -”

“You weren't expecting guests,” she whispered.

“Exactly.”

She sat up and took a piece of toast and a mug of coffee from him. 

“I was going to hop in the shower, okay?” he said.

“Sure,” she said
. 

Five minutes later, he returned to find her flick
ing through a book
he had been reading about bank collapses and global economic mismanagement. 

“Some light bed-time reading?”  She laughed.

“Yeah, well, that's
Shay
's actually.”  He opened a drawer and took out a fresh t-shirt and pulled it over his head. 

“May I?”  She pointed at his rarely worn dressing gown hanging on the back of the bedroom door. 

“Of course.”  He took it down and gave it to her.  She swung her legs out of the bed and pulled it over her arms.  He tried not to stare.  “Do you want to borrow some clothes?  A t-shirt, or jeans or something?”  It struck him that there were clothes belonging to Jennifer in the press in the spare room.

“No, I'll just wear my dress.  I have my coat.  I'll be fine.”  She stood up.  “Okay if I grab a shower though?”

“Of course, of course.”  The atmosphere in the room suddenly felt awkward.  He pointed out the door.  “Just up the stairs there.  On the return.”

Mark tried not to giggle to himself as he searched the wardrobe for clean jeans.  Christine Grogan was in his shower.  Naked.  He looked back at the tousled bed.  No matter what, he had last night.  That was forever.  But he wanted so much more.  He sat on a chair pulling on socks and tying the laces of his trainers, all the while staring at the bed.  Remembering what had happened.  Imagining what could happen.  If this was it.  If she loved him back.  This could be like any Saturday morning, she would be in the shower, he getting dressed, getting ready to spend the whole day together.  Every day, together.  He thought briefly about work, but this was not the time for worrisome details.  He could easily get another job.  If it meant having her, he would gladly get another job. 

He was sitting there, dreaming, tying his second shoe, when she came back into the room in a towel, her hair wet.  She seemed to hesitate as she looked across the room towards where he sat.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Mmm hmm.”  She had her back to him as she sat on the bed and pulled on her pants.  The room was darker now.  The sun outside had moved around to the side of the house.  Mark stood up and opened the curtains a little.

“So how long is Jennifer gone for?”

He froze with the curtain in his hand.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is she gone to Scotland for good?”  She turned to look at him, and then turned away again.

“No.  Well, I don't know.  She's gone for a year.”

“A year?”

“Her contract was for a year.”

“So did you actually break up, or did she just get a job abroad?” 

Mark's stomach began to churn.  “Well, both.  We were breaking up, and she got the offer in Edinburgh, and, and she left.”

“But is she coming back?”

“You mean here?”

“Yes, here.”  She sounded as if she was losing patience with him.

“Christine, wh
at are you trying to say?  Are Jennifer and I
broken up?  Yes, we are.  Broken up.  She left me to go to Edinburgh.  It's over.”

This time she turned around properly, and looked at him.  “I'm not sure it is.”

“What do you mean?”  Mark could hear his voice raising, but he couldn't help it.
  What the hell had happened in the shower?  Had she slipped and hit her head?

Christine stood.  “She's still here, Mark.  Her stuff.  In the bathroom. 
Lots of stuff. 
By the bed.”  She gestured towards the locker on Jennifer's side.  She walked over towards the open wardrobe, holding the towel tightly around her.  “Even here.”

“What?”  Mark looked inside.  “There's nothing of hers there.”  He recalled very clearly how those spaces had been emptied of any sign of her when he had come home one evening from work. 

“No,” Christine's voice was also raised.  “But there are empty shelves.”  She pulled at a shallow door.  “Empty drawers.”  She pulled at another under a vanity mirror, and it rolled open, revealing some bottles of nail varnish and a small woven box full of cheap jewellery.  Evidence.  “She's been gone six months, Mark.  Are you just waiting for her to come back?  To move all her stuff right back in where it was before?”

She stared straight at him, waiting for an answer, but he couldn't speak.  She turned and picked her clothes up from a chair where he had carefully folded them earlier, before he had made the coffee.

“I don't care Mark, if you and Jennifer get back together.”  She walked towards the door
. 
“It's understandable that you wouldn't want to just walk away from someone you have been together with for so long.”

“No.”
  Mark found himself unable to form a sentence in his head.  “No.”

“But please,” she faced him with one hand on the doorknob, “don't
tell
me that I am all you ever wanted.  That you care deeply for me.  That you
love
me.”  Her voice was almost unrecognisable to him, it was so hard and full of distrust.  “Give me some credit.  We had a nice night.  You needed sex.  I needed sex.  But let's not pretend l
ike it was anything more.”  He could see her
hand was shaking.  “I don't need that.”

She stalked out of the room with her clothes
in her arms
, leaving Mark staring after her
, aghast
.  He heard the door of the bathroom close, and he rushed out of the room.

“Christine?”  He knocked.  “Christine, it is not like that.  Jennifer and I are over.  Maybe I hadn't rearranged the house accordingly, but it has only been six months. 
Maybe
I've avoided facing up to it, but it doesn't mean I don't feel what I do for you.”

The door swung open, and a clearly angry Christine pushed past him and down the stairs to the hallway.

“Christine.”

She took her coat up from under his, and opened the front door.  Mark stood halfway down the stairs watching her leave, helpless.  Then she stopped and stood back inside.

“Look Mark, I'm sorry,
”
she said.
  “I don't want this to be weird for either of us at work.  Let's just, just forget that it happened.”  She paused, as if she wanted to say more.  Then she pulled the door open again.  “Bye
,
Mark,” she said, and pulled it closed behind her.  He heard the gate slam shut a moment later.

Mark's knees wouldn't hold him, so he sat on a stair, his eyes fixed on the black
post-box
hung on the
inside
of his front door.  Five minutes.  Five minutes was all it had taken for everything to turn, to fall apart.  He stayed there, staring in shock for a moment.  Then he stood quickly, and rushed back up and into his bedroom and straight over to his wardrobe, where he pushed his clothes across into the empty spaces left by Jennifer.  He opened his sock drawer, and emptied half its contents into another, empty drawer Jennifer had used for her underwear.  Then something occurred to him, and he rushed over to the window, just in time to catch a glimpse of Christine speed-walking down the street in her heels, and turning the corner towards town. 

“Sweetie, you know you are not allowed scooter in the house.”

Mark didn't know how
Nina
could stay so calm, when all around her was noise and chaos. 

“Lucy, pick up your dollies, good girl. 
Shay
,” she h
ollered out the kitchen door.  “C
an you put a movie on for them or something?  Sorry Mark.”  She rubbed her temples.  “I'm still a little delicate from last night.”

“What time did everyone leave?”  Mark didn't really care what time anyone left.

“Robert and Sandra left around one.  Not long after you guys.  Erica and I stayed up talking until nearly four.  Oh
.
”
  T
he recollection seemed to make her head throb even more.  “I'm too old to stay up drinking til four.  Laura and Fitz stayed over.  They left this morning.”

“Right.”

Shay
appeared at the kitchen door.  “I'll just be two minutes Mark.  I'll get them settled in front of the telly, and I just have to change Lucy.  I won't be a sec.”

Nina
looked proudly at Mark.  “My husband is such a sweetie.  He never seems to suffer as much as I do the morning after.  Then again,” she took a sip of her
restorative
gin and tonic, “he didn't drink as much as I did.  Or stay up as late.”

“Thanks again for all you did,” Mark said.  “It was all great.”

“Never mind that.
”
Nina
sat up straighter on her high stool.  “Tell me what happened, now I can hear you properly.  Did you go back to your place?”

“Have you spoken to Christine?” Mark asked.

“No, I haven't had a chance.  It's been madness here all day.  The kids are strung out after being at their Granny's for the night.  Why?  What happened?”  She studied Mark's face.  “What went wrong, Mark?”

“Nothing,” Mark said, looking at his glass of coke.  “At first.  It was all, it was all great.”  He looked up at
Nina
.  “Until this morning.”

“Did you, did she stay over so?” she said, her face lit up with excitement.  It seemed that
Nina
didn't want to hear what had gone wrong, until she got a good picture of what had gone right in her head first.

“Yeah.  She did.”  Mark couldn't help grinning.  “We did.”

Nina
clapped her hands together.  “I'm so pleased.  I knew you two were meant to get together.”  She squeezed Mark's knee.  “That's so great.  But wait.  What happened this morning?”

The sound of
Shay
's voice promising popcorn to the children was getting closer.  Mark and
Nina
looked up at the door.  As
Shay
entered the kitchen, Mark caught a glimpse of the cloakroom door in the hall, and for a second he sat remembering the night before.

“So what's up?  What's the conference about?” 
Shay
stood at the breakfast bar and started to peel an orange from the fruit bowl beside them.

“Shh.” 
Nina
waved her hand at him to silence him.  “Go on Mark.  What happened this morning?”  She turned to
Shay
.  “Christine stayed at his place last night.”