Another Mother's Life (48 page)

“Oh, well it’s good that you’re flexible, they say often when people are looking for property they have expectations that are far too high …”

“You do know why I came here, don’t you,” Marc said. He put down his glass of wine. Catherine looked at it. She held on to hers as if it were a talisman that might protect her from what she knew was coming next.

“For a bit of a chat?” she said.

“Because the last time I was here we were interrupted,” Marc said.

“Oh, right, that.” Catherine heard herself laugh, conscious that mirth was the last thing she was feeling.

“I think,” Marc said, leaning over and taking her glass out of her hands, “that I was just about to kiss you.”

“Um, well,” Catherine said, backing away. “You were, but in the meantime I’ve been having a think and I wonder if your kissing me is the most sensible thing for either of us to do because …”

And then his mouth covered hers and whatever she had been about to say was lost, engulfed by his kiss.

“Foxy lady,” Jimmy muttered as he pushed Alison back against the tiled wall of the stall, forcing the door shut behind him and locking it. He kissed the curve of her neck, his hands in her hair, as his
tongue flickered in her cleavage. “You are a very sexy woman,” he told her.

“Oh God,” Alison sighed, trying to find the will to push him away. “Jimmy.”

“Baby,” Jimmy said, running his hands over her shoulders and cupping a breast in his hand. “Need to get this top off, too many buttons, might have to rip it.”

“Jimmy, wait,” Alison said, planting the palms of her hands firmly on his chest and levering a few inches of space between their bodies.

“What’s wrong,” Jimmy said, looking around the stall as if he’d only just realized where he was. “You’re right, not here. How about out the back? It’s cold but I’ll warm you up …”

“Jimmy!” Alison protested, looking down at Jimmy’s hands, which still encased her bosom. She forced herself to concentrate. “Don’t treat me like this, Jimmy. I’m trying to be a friend to you and to Catherine. Don’t use me like this because you know how much I like you, it’s not fair.”

Pausing, Alison rather awkwardly removed Jimmy’s hands from her chest and held his wrists down at her sides. “You know, you are a really great guy, and if you and Catherine were properly split up and you didn’t still really love her and she didn’t still probably love you, then I’d do it with you right here. I’d take my top off for you anywhere and I wouldn’t care because I bloody fancy you a lot. I always have.”

“So we’re good to go, then.” Jimmy smiled, dipping his head forward to kiss her.

“No, we are not,” Alison said, turning her head at the last minute so that his lips grazed her ear. “I know you’re drunk, Jimmy, but didn’t you just hear what I said? Think about what you’re doing, think about why you are doing it and how bad it is going to make you feel if it happens.”

Jimmy took the one step back that the stall allowed and blinked at her. Without warning he sat down on the toilet and dropped his head in his hands.

“Okay,” Alison said, feeling chilled now that the heat of his body was no longer pressed against hers. “A little less despair and misery, please.”

After a moment’s more hesitation Alison pulled her top back into place and crouched down in front of him. She put her hand on his shoulder and felt it shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy told her, struggling to control his voice. “You’re a nice person. You must think I’m a pig … I
am
a pig.”

“You’re not,” Alison said. “You’re just drunk and really, really stupid.”

Jimmy covered his face with his hands and Alison crouched there with him, her hand on his shoulder, until finally the trembling stopped. Jimmy’s face remained covered by his hands.

“I’m going outside,” Alison said. “I’ll ask the barman to make you a coffee. Then I’ll walk you round to Catherine’s and you can tell her you’re going to Croatia. And I think I’ve got an idea that might make her sit up and think.”

“Really?” Jimmy said eventually. “Look, I know I’m drunk as a bastard but I’m sorry for behaving so badly. Catherine’s got a good friend in you.”

“She has,” Alison said as she straightened up with quite some difficulty.

The moment that Catherine closed her eyes it was summer again and she could feel the heat of that same sun radiate off of Marc’s body as he pressed her back into the cushions, which yielded beneath her like the soft, long grass in the park. She felt the warm breeze caress her skin as his fingers deftly unbuttoned her shirt and ran lightly over her breasts and she was powerless in his arms.
More than that, she was seventeen again, fresh and new with no idea of what would happen next, and as long as she was in his arms, she didn’t care.

His stubble grazed against the skin of her neck as his kisses traveled lower, and Catherine knew that if she kept her eyes closed it would always be summer, that summer long ago when for a few precious moments her life had shone like other people’s always seemed to. Then she felt Marc’s hands on her breasts, his teeth on her nipples, and she heard him groan. Opening her eyes just a little, she saw his dark head, his tawny complexion contrasting starkly against her own alabaster skin, and suddenly it wasn’t summer anymore. Catherine wasn’t in that park basking in the warmth of the sunlight, she was half naked on the sofa in her living room, her children asleep upstairs, and she was letting a man she barely knew now, had barely known then, and still had no reason to like or trust, undress her.

And Catherine realized that she didn’t want to be that powerless seventeen-year-old anymore because her life had shone brighter after Marc had left her than it ever had done when she was with him.

“Stop, please,” she said, stilling his hand and easing herself out from underneath him. His hair ruffled, Marc smiled at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up a little. “I’m going too fast. I wasn’t prepared for how much I wanted you. There’s still something between us, isn’t there, Catherine? Still something really strong.”

“Yes,” Catherine said, quickly buttoning up her shirt, her fingers fumbling as Marc watched her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I could unbutton that shirt all day long. All night long too.”

“Marc,” Catherine said steadily. “There is something between us but it’s not real. It’s the past. It’s a moment in time where we
both were once. A moment that meant a lot to us then, a time we’ve both often wished we could revisit, but I think maybe that’s only because our lives now aren’t going the way we want them to, not because we still have feelings for each other. It’s that summer fifteen years ago that’s between us and all the heat and passion we felt then. But it’s not real, Marc. How can we feel anything real for each other when we don’t know each other at all?”

Catherine could feel the heat in Marc’s eyes as he looked at her. “Maybe you’re right, but does it have to matter?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Catherine asked, wide-eyed. “Of course it matters. We don’t feel anything for each other. I don’t love you, Marc.”

For a second Marc looked stung, but then his expression became still and thoughtful.

“I loved you once a long time ago, but I don’t suppose I love you now, I don’t see how I can when I still love Alison,” Marc said, looking up at Catherine. “I still want you, though, more than anything. Loving her isn’t enough to stop me from wanting you.”

He leaned forward again to kiss her but Catherine stood up.

“If you love Alison, then why do you do this? Why have you tried so hard to see me again if it wasn’t because you thought that being with me again was going to somehow save you? You said you moved your whole family back to Farmington to find me when the only woman that can save you is the one you can’t be faithful to.”

“I do this, I say all of this because …” Marc sighed. “Because I wanted to have sex with you again, you’re a very desirable woman. And because that time we had together back then when you were seventeen
was
special to me, it was a time when I kidded myself I could be just like any other man out there, happy and content. But even that memory is a deceit. After all, it wasn’t so special that I didn’t sleep with someone behind your back. Not so special that
I didn’t leave town with a girl who I didn’t know was pregnant and because I guessed that you were. Catherine, a lot of the time I like to think that I’m misunderstood, that my nonexistent childhood scarred me and made me into the kind of man I am. Sometimes I like to think that if only I’d met the right person, stayed with the right person, then I could be a decent man, the man I pretend to be. But I think it’s time I stopped pretending to myself as well as everybody else. I’m the man who, loving his wife as much as he does, still pursues other women. I want you, Catherine. Even though I know it’s wrong, right now I don’t care, because I want you and I think you want me.”

As Catherine looked at Marc, the sixteen intervening years since she had last kissed him settled quietly on his shoulders and he looked his age. Why Marc’s saying everything that she already knew upset her quite so much she didn’t know. Except that once she had carried his baby and cried for them both when they were taken from her. And because when she’d told Jimmy to leave, it was the thought of kissing Marc in the back of her mind that had partly spurred her on to end it, because she had to end it properly with Jimmy before she could explore any feelings she had for Marc. To discover so quickly that she didn’t have any was quite a blow.

“I think you should go,” she said.

Marc drank the remainder of his glass of wine in one swallow and stood up.

“That’s a shame,” he said. “I’d thought we could both help each other through this period of transition.”

“That’s just it,” Catherine said. “For me this
is
a period of transition. For you it’s your life, this is what your life will always be, moving from one woman you don’t love to the next. I don’t want to be one of them.”

Marc nodded and shrugged on his coat.

“Funny,” he said, “how people are always so keen to tell me how to live my life. It used to be Alison, then it was my son, then it was your
husband
, and now it’s you. You’re all the same.”

“It’s not the same,” Catherine said. “Alison, Dominic, and even Jimmy tried to help you because they care. Because they want the people that love you to have a chance to be able to keep on loving you. But I don’t care. I really don’t care what you do next, Marc.”

“You feel pretty good saying that to me, don’t you?” Marc said with a hint of smile.

Catherine thought for moment and smiled at him.

“Damn right,” she said.

“Hello, darling,” Marc said to his wife as she appeared at the end of the path with Jimmy, whose shoulders were hunched against the chill of the evening despite the pint or so of hot coffee that was swilling around inside him.

“Hello, dear,” Alison said, taking his appearance completely in her stride. “Pleasant evening?”

Marc hesitated and looked at Jimmy.

“Your wife despises me,” he said. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. So at least you know that.”

Jimmy nodded and stood up straight. He looked down at the rectangle of light where Catherine was standing in the doorway.

“You are supposed to be in London,” Catherine said.

“I know, but I needed to tell you something work-related,” Jimmy said. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to declare my undying love to you again. I got the message.”

“Come in, Jimmy,” Catherine said. “It’s good to see you.”

Both Alison and Marc looked back at the smile on Catherine’s face as she let Jimmy in and closed the door behind him, narrowing the rectangle of light into oblivion. The pair of them stood at the end of the path looking at the shut door.

“So you didn’t score, then?” Alison asked her husband.

“Nope, did you?” Marc asked, catching the wistful look on her face.

“No,” Alison said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you can’t stand in the way of your best friend and true love.”

“And when did you learn that?” Marc asked. “Sixteen years ago this summer?”

“No,” Alison said. “Just about an hour ago, as it happens.”

Marc nodded. “Can I walk you home?”

Alison shook her head. “No, I think I’ll stick around a bit longer in case I’m needed. If you could go back, though, that would be good, next door’s au pair will be wondering where I’ve gone to.”

“Leave her to me,” Marc said.

“Croatia? On tour?” Catherine exclaimed. “Well … I mean,
wow
, Jimmy, that’s great news! Of course we’ll miss you, but you must go, eight weeks isn’t forever, the girls and I will manage, they can always phone you and email. You do know how to use email, don’t you?”

“I’ll learn,” Jimmy said without enthusiasm.

“Well, then,” Catherine said. “Well done.” She hugged him briefly and as she released him she briskly rubbed his upper arms. “Well done, you!”

“Thanks,” Jimmy said, looking at her. “On tour at last with a fairly famous band. Dreams do come true.”

“Yes they do,” Catherine said, furious with herself that it was such an effort to be happy for him, because after all it was because of her he was leaving, because of her he couldn’t stay. She could at least try to give him a good send-off.