Black Chalk (20 page)

There was a hint of deference in her question, as if she expected me to say no. The mother I'd left would have thrust a cup of tea underneath my nose, and she would have looked on sternly until I had some. Now, she was striving to bring her maternal authority in check.

Seeing her changed moved me. Even if I appreciated the spirit behind her efforts, I felt uneasy at the thought that the mother I'd left wasn't the one I'd come back to. A voice within told me that I was responsible for this. Her firstborn disappears and avoids her for eight years – how else was she supposed to react? I was trying to make amends by giving more of myself, but my attempts always seemed forced, as if, by making them, I were acknowledging that there was something wrong.

She'd told me about the problems she'd had with my father on my third day back. ‘They're over now, but it was hard while it lasted.' Her confessional tones made me instantly uncomfortable. I listened, split between turning away as I would have done, and gently asking her for more as I wished I could have done. In the end, I fought with my face and said: ‘Oh, really.' When she added more, I looked at a book on a shelf, and I said: ‘Oh, that must have been tough.' And just as I uttered the word ‘tough', she went silent, suddenly looking embarrassed.

But this time, when she asked me whether I wanted tea, I felt a strong instinct building inside of my relaxed self, and I asked for Earl Grey as kindly as I could before I went back to my newspaper. The article I was reading had anecdotes about a Southern Governor who sang songs and read from the Bible at town hall meetings. A man who could play a role in a Republican administration. There was a photo of him, guitar in hand, wearing jeans and a chequered shirt, surrounded by a cheerful crowd.

‘How was your meeting yesterday?'

I looked up, as she sat and laid a spotty mug down by my left hand. It had an uneven rim and a lip halfway around its handle – the last surviving member of a set she'd shaped herself before I was born.

‘He thinks I have a good chance to get into the summer programme.'

‘Oh.' She looked like she was going to say more, but she blew her tea cold instead.

‘I'm thinking about it. It's not a big commitment.'

She smiled, and I saw how tense her face had been.

‘Oh, I'm proud of you. Do you have everything you need to apply? If… you decide to apply.'

‘Let me think,' I said and she stood up.

She paced as I listed what I needed, nodding with every item, whispering to herself loud enough that I could hear her, that she had that document upstairs, she just had to find it, or that she'd call her colleague and work something out. ‘Don't worry,' she told me as she frowned and pinched her chin between her thumb and forefinger, and the words seemed more aimed at her than at me.

Up to that point, I felt that my mother and I had reached a new, steady sort of understanding. And then, just as she was about to walk out with a straight back, I made a passing comment which had her sitting down. Of course, I should have coated it in niceties, but I was caught in logistics, and this was one integral element.

‘I'll have to find a place to live,' I said.

It was as if those words unplugged a leak, and her entire resolve drained down her spine. Her jaw sunk and the skin of her cheeks seemed to sag down to her neck.

‘A place to stay, yes…' she said, tapping her finger on the table. It was the only thing I could see, that finger. ‘You know you can stay here, if you want.'

A single image of Leona flashed through my mind – a receptive turn of her eyes, bare shoulders, bare chest – and I was back in my high.

‘Thanks.' I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. ‘But I'm used to living by myself.'

‘Yes, of course you are,' she said and smiled a brave smile. ‘You're used to it, that's only normal at your age. I und—'

I interrupted her: ‘I don't have to live far.'

‘No, you don't,' she said, and her eyes brightened. Once again, she started murmuring, to herself at first, but then the murmurs grew, and I recognised the names of colleagues, of friends. ‘Let me make a few phone calls,' she said. Her voice was strong.

***

That night, Leona wanted to go for an evening stroll in Port Meadow. She was in a contemplative mood, the previous night's passion replaced by a quiet calm. We crossed the expanse of grass and she unfurled a blanket halfway between the path and the river. There were three horses ruminating to our right. While the clouds held together, the horses were dingy silhouettes against the faraway trees. But they came into our lives when the moon broke through. Then, we could see their piebald patterns, their tails swinging gently, their mouths skimming the grass. When the light first shone on their coats, Leona went silent and pointed at them, a delighted look on her face.

By 11 p.m., the temperature had dropped and I suggested going to my parents' house. They'd gone out for a romantic getaway, a night out in a bed and breakfast down in Somerset. That was how my mother put it while I'd smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging fashion. Leona nodded with a calm smile, and we gathered our things.

We didn't linger in the common parts of the house – it was too soon for that. My hand on her lower back, I guided her straight to my room. Once inside, we piled our things over my desk chair. She went to turn the light on, but I caught her hand at the switch, and I took her in my arms. The sex was different the second time around. It was a more serious affair, and I was the older lover. The ease she'd had the night before was gone. She kept her top on and lay down on the bed, waiting for my next move. I obliged her, whispering instructions, unclasping her bra, helping clothes off, but all the while I was waiting for the sort of impulses that had pinned me to the earth and left a red mark on my side.

I guided her hands, ran a finger over her lips, nibbled her ear in the way that had her almost throwing me off the previous night, all the time prepared to feel her fingers dig into my flesh. But Leona smiled, groaned. She followed my instructions, all of them, dutifully, asking me whether what she was doing was right, and soon I was taking my role more seriously. I slipped a pillow under her waist and, with thoughtful pleasure, she said she liked it better that way.

When we were finished – I was lying on my back, and she had her arm over my chest – I thought over the Leona I'd just encountered. Brain-spun ideas were telling me that I ought to be disappointed, but deep down, I felt that I liked this other Leona very much. A bottle of wine, skipping a wall – she'd gone headlong into the previous night's rush. Tonight, we'd spent an evening alone in an open field, and an inquisitive calm had taken hold of her. It was pure, the way she followed the moment.

Her sleepy voice diverted my musings:

‘When you walked into my café yesterday, I thought you were French.'

I ran my fingers through her hair and asked her why.

‘I don't know, I just thought you looked French. You had a French accent at first.'

‘Did I?' I asked, worried. Having an English accent in France was hard enough. I didn't want an accent in my own language.

‘When you gave me euros, you counted them in a French way.'

‘Do I 'ave a Frrench accent?' I whispered.

She laughed a quiet laugh, and I rearranged the sheets for she was cold and I was hot. The air was just right for my exposed skin, and I felt myself drifting off to sleep. Leona's breath was slowing. I could smell sweat and sex; I could feel her arm weigh gently across my chest.

‘What are you thinking about?' she asked.

I was about to say ‘nothing', as I usually do when the question comes up, but I felt like talking despite sleep's pull. So I told her about the course I was going to start.

‘My mother's found me a flat in Cowley. I think it belongs to a colleague who's on sabbatical in Australia. Apparently, I can have it.'

‘What's it like?' she murmured.

‘I haven't seen it yet. She told me it was on Stockmore Street, very close to the ice cream shop we didn't go to last night.' I felt her eyelashes brushing the skin around my nipple. ‘It sounded big enough.'

‘Oh, that's good,' she said, her voice distant as if she were in the flat already. ‘We'll be able to live together.'

It happened just like that, without a trace of hesitation, with nothing but a contented sort of tiredness. The feeling was contagious – as soon as I heard her say it, I wanted to have her every night, her naked body covered with a single sheet, the same tree-sap smell permeating the air.

It was that night that she started telling me about her past, the words low and gentle. She told me about her first boyfriend, at the age of fourteen. He went to the same school, two years ahead, and he spent all his money on a Gibson electric. He was the first man she'd kissed, which she'd liked. He was also the first man to touch her breasts, which she'd found rather painful. He wrote her four grungy love songs. The fifth one had a line about her naked and dead, and, despite his artistic disclaimers, she broke up with him.

Among her soothing words, I remember her mentioning another girl. It was the only girl she ever felt attracted to: tall, with a black father and a white mother, luscious lips and curly black hair. She blew out smoke rings, bit her lips, and watched them dissipate. Leona tried to kiss her once, but the girl turned away and reached for another cigarette.

I told her about Rebecca, my tempestuous first girlfriend, who I'd kissed properly twice, on our first day, and a month later, on our last day, when I finally managed to slip my tongue past her braces. Besides that, I didn't say much. My thoughts were as lazy as her words, still spent from the stresses of the day, still calmed by the sex. Her fingers ran circles around my thigh, sending a gentle tingle all over my body. I felt comfortable next to her. A strong image came to mind, in which she stood clear against a warm background, leaning against the railing of a Mediterranean veranda, inviting me up the stairs. The picture was hazy, but I knew that I could let go and trust her. With time, my confusions would clear, and I would reconcile the nympho in the Botanic Gardens with the pupil on my unmade bed.

The only time she spoke of her family was when she mentioned her grandmother's death. We'd been speaking of love – death was only a natural extension.

‘She said she didn't want to die bound to a hospital bed. She made sure we were all with her, at her house in Fontaine-le-Bourg. I helped her put the mixture together in the afternoon, when everyone was having a drink in the garden. We had a great big dinner, with her favourite dishes, her favourite wines, and then she took it.'

There was enough beauty in her words that I asked her more, and she told me about the herbs she added: ‘Thyme, coriander, and dill,' she said. ‘Her favourites. To mask the bitterness.'

I nodded, for it made sense. After a few minutes of silence, my hand became more adventurous, and it was right to ask her how the sex had felt.

‘Soft,' she said. ‘And hard. It felt hard and soft at the same time.'

***

Another good night: almost seven hours. In the morning, I asked her not to have a shower until we had breakfast. I wanted to see her hair ruffled for a little longer. My fingers had worked all night, hand in hand with sleep, to bring it into that most private of looks. She wore one of my old t-shirts, one that had always been too big for me but which I'd bought when big and baggy was the fashion. It reached to the middle of her bare thighs. While her tea was cooling down, she unfolded her legs and went to look at the pictures by the counter. She picked up an old frame, studied it, and moved to a newer one.

‘Oh, yes,' she said, ‘James is your brother.'

It was a matter-of-fact statement, as if she'd thought about it already, and the picture only confirmed the obvious. The quiet joy that had me smiling out of the corners of my mouth suddenly dimmed, becoming almost silly in its new light.

I should have realised it: a girl growing up so close to Hornsbury would have at least seen my brother a few times. But it only dawned on me then, and with it, I understood that if she knew my brother, she knew who I was. I remembered how tight her face had gone when I'd mentioned Hornsbury on our first date; eight years on, it was still raw enough that it had caused her pain.

Ever since Sally, whom I couldn't have told because that would have been telling the whole cruise ship, all of my girlfriends had known, and not one of them had made it an issue. But now that I had trouble sleeping, I felt something around my chest shrink and gather dust. As her index finger traced the inlay of the wooden frame, I realised that there had been a pure kind of hope swelling inside of me, and it was gone already, before I had time to cup it in the fleshy parts of my hand.

‘How is he?' she asked me, in the same tones she'd used all along. I looked up to make sure she wasn't judging me.

‘He's alright,' I said automatically.

‘Oh, that's good,' she said, and I heard genuine relief in her voice. Her tones puzzled me: ‘The last time I saw him, he looked very pale. Nothing but skin on his bones. I don't know if you know, but he used to go out with Debby, one of my school friends. You haven't met any of my friends yet! We must do something with them one day.' Her voice went distant for a few words, before coming back to its usual earnestness: ‘Yes, Debby and James. I haven't seen her for at least a year, but we used to spend a lot of time together a few years ago. Especially two years ago. They'd go and do their thing. I wasn't into that, so I guess that's why we drifted apart… Oh, I'm glad to hear he's better.'

‘He's a little better,' I said with more feeling. Listening to her clear voice, so full of relief at first, turning wistful at the mention of Debby, and then coming back to the same genuine relief as she concluded he was better, I saw her again on her veranda, an orange, ivy-clad wall behind her. I put my sense of loss aside and focused on my brother: ‘He's back in London now.'