Authors: Jane Lovering
Slightly Foxed (34 page)
watched you all night, never laid a hand on you, because—do
you know what?" His face was very close to mine. I could
smell the smoke in his hair. I shook my head. "I wanted you
to want it too. And yesterday you wanted it. You screamed for
me, Alys, and don't try telling me you didn't." He touched my
face. "Y'see Alys, what it is."
Now he was almost whispering. I had to bend in closer to
hear him. "I don't think you know how love is meant to feel.
You don't know it because you never felt it. And now, what
you feel for me—sssshhh." He put a finger over my mouth as
I opened it to contradict. "It's kinda burning, just here." He
laid his other hand over my heart. "That's it. That's love. That
wanting,
so bad
, to be touched and kept safe and to lose
yourself.
That
is love, Alys, not just liking the way someone
is, but
knowing
who they are and not giving a shit." He took
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his finger away from my mouth. "And this is the part where
you kiss me."
"You reckon?"
"Yeah. I reckon."
"You're a cocky bastard, aren't you?"
"Uh huh."
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I sat silent next to Piers as he drove towards Thirsk, the
big engine making mincemeat of the miles. "You could have
told me
earlier
that Alasdair wanted to talk to me," I said,
peevishly. "What about? Is it Florrie's going modelling?"
"Dunno. We had a kinda big family-discussion thing. Ma
and Alasdair were asking me what my plans were. Was I still
looking to move into my own place. They both seem to think
it's time I moved on. Guess they're right. I can work
anywhere after all."
"Oh yeah. Your translation stuff." Piers had worked for the
last three years as a freelance English/Spanish translator. A
remarkably respectable job, considering that he looked as
though he spent all day wafting about the streets dressed like
a breakaway faction from an historical drama. It was a
complete waste of those immaculate cheekbones.
His hand brushed mine as he changed gear. "I know you're
confused," he said softly. "Trust me, I'm at least
twice
as
confused. I kinda thought, y'know, I'd grow out of it. Fantasy
older-woman thing, yeah? But it seemed the more I knew
you, the closer we got, that everything before was kinda like
practicing
. I talked to Jace a lot too. She reckons you got it
bad for me, you just don't see it yet. She thinks we're made
for each other. Now, me, I really
know
it."
"But you're too young to have any idea what you want."
"Hey, Alys? I've been having sex since I was fourteen. All
kinds of women, old, young, some I paid, some seduced me,
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some I thought I loved. And I can tell you this.
Not one
of
them made me feel the way you do. Yeah, I've had sex that
ripped my mind apart, had women I could relate to, feel for.
But I've never had both things with one person."
"And you do with me? Really? Sex that ripped your mind
apart? With
me
?"
Without taking his eyes off the road, Piers reached over
and ran his hand down the side of my face. "Yeah. With you.
It was real. Special. Couldn't you tell?"
"I don't know. You always seem pretty ripped to me."
"Ha."
"Ah, Alys. Nice of you to come over." Alasdair met us
outside the house in the tarmac-turning circle the size of a
tennis court. "Piers, your mother is upstairs resting. Would
you go and ask her if she'd like some tea?"
I hadn't seen him for about three years so, as soon as
Piers had galloped off up the lengthy flight of stairs, I gave
Alasdair a thorough, if covert, examination. If it was possible,
he looked even
more
professorial than he ever had. I'd take
bets that at least one of his wardrobes now contained a tweed
jacket with patched elbows. His thinning sandy hair had
thinned even further and was showing a few touches of grey,
his six-foot-plus frame was filling out around the middle and
he was
wearing slippers
. He looked scarily cliched, top
professor married to American wife. I half expected to see a
Stars and Stripes festooning the wall inside the front door,
but there was nothing more controversial than family
photographs.
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"Feel a bit guilty that we haven't had you over for a while,"
Alasdair was saying, being every inch the good host. "But,
you know how things are. Anyway. Thought we ought to have
a chat."
The only
possible
reason I could come up with for Alasdair
suddenly wanting a face-to-face talk was opposition to
Florrie's career decision, which instantly made me want to
back her to the hilt. Either that or—I was glad he was leading
the way as we walked through the monument to good taste
which was their beech-floored, hint-of-grey emulsioned hall,
because I flushed at the thought. Maybe he'd found out about
Piers and me. Although, how could he? Unless Piers had
talked, and I really couldn't envisage Piers saying anything
along the lines of "your ex-wife, shags like a stoat, doesn't
she?" After all, that really
was
all that had happened, wasn't
it? We'd had a damn good session of pure
sex
. I had another
one of my sudden visions. Piers naked. His slim body, hair
streaming over his shoulders, huge dark eyes nailing me to
the earth beneath.
"Are you all right? You look a bit flushed." Alasdair paused
in a doorway. "Touch of the sun?"
"Oh yes," I said emphatically, then muttered, "just don't
ask
whose
," passing him to enter a room lit by enormous
windows hung with floor-length velvet curtains, studded with
soft couches and chairs and carpeted a smooth beige. It
looked like a tasteful padded cell.
"Sit down. Tea? Coffee?"
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"Tea. Thank you." As Alasdair left the room, I wandered
around like Goldilocks until I found a chair to sit in. The place
was
immaculate
.
"I'm sorry to drag you all the way over here." Alasdair
entered by another door, at the far side of the room.
"Shouldn't think Piers minded bringing you, did he?"
"What are you getting at?" Defensive again. Guilt did that
to me.
"Oh, nothing. He's a good chap. At heart. Bit of a prick
sometimes but he's sensible. Mature. Turned out very well."
Absolutely nothing I could say to that. Agreement might
confirm suspicions, denial would have been wrong since it all
sounded true.
"Anyway." Alasdair poured tea, putting two sugars in mine
out of habit. I didn't tell him I hadn't taken sugar for five
years. "Thought this was best done face-to-face as it were. A
bit sensitive, you see."
Oh God. I felt myself blush again. He did know. He was
about to warn me off Piers. Having done the advert for his
stepson's charms he was going to tell me that they should be
used on someone nearer his own age.
"Thought if
I
told
you
then
you
could pass it on to
Florence
. Sound better coming from you."
"What?"
"Tamar. She—er—
we
, that is, we are expecting a baby.
Early days yet, of course, but things are going well, so about
February we're told."
My first thought was "you brought me all the way here to
tell me
that
?" closely followed by "but that's impossible".
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"So if you break it to Florrie. Not that it's going to affect
anything of course. Still be welcome here anytime, obviously.
But things might be a bit, well,
different
, what with Piers
moving out. You look stunned, Alys."
Piers had made it sound as though the results of Alasdair's
tests had made him marginally less fertile than Death Valley.
"I was thinking. We tried for so long with nothing happening."
Couldn't give away the fact that I knew about his infertility,
not without some awkward questions. Questions which, if she
ever came to international attention, were going to have to be
addressed. If Flick ever read anything these days other than
Art House Monthly
.
Alasdair had the grace to look a bit shamefaced. "Promise
me this won't go
any
further?" He dropped his voice and
raised his eyes as though Tamar might have suspended
herself above his head specifically to prevent any such
confidences. "
We
tried, Tamar and I, for several years.
Eventually, well, they couldn't find anything wrong."
Liar
, I thought, and gave an inward grin.
"But we tried a few cycles of IVF, nothing doing. Tamar
was getting so het up about it all. Then we had a shot at
AIDS, and bingo. So here we are."
"AIDS? That sounds a bit drastic."
"Er, no. It's A.I.D.S. actually. Um." Alasdair was looking
extremely uncomfortable, so I just looked at him over the top
of my teacup. We might have been apart for a lot of years but
I could still tell when he was trying to work up to something.
"Artificial Insemination by Donor Sperm," he said eventually,
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when it became clear that I wasn't going to help him out by
asking.
"So
technically
Tamar is carrying someone else's baby?" I
gave a cough. "Alasdair." It was no good. I was going to have
to tell him. My heart was thrumming like a turbine. There was
absolutely
never
going to be another opportunity like this. My
head went a bit swimmy as I tried to work out my approach.
"It doesn't matter, not a jot. Not to me, not to her. It's
our
baby, that's what counts, whoever else had input. Like with
Florence. I'll be there at the birth, changing nappies, all that
kind of thing. The genetic father doesn't count, he's just so
much DNA."
I stared at him. "You
knew
?" An enormous gulp of tea,
which I'd been unable to stop halfway down my throat,
sidelonged itself into my windpipe and I choked. Tea came
out of my nose and my eyes streamed, but it was a useful
diversion, stopped me having to look at Alasdair's face.
"Knew?" His face swam into focus gradually as my eyes
settled down. Very blue eyes Alasdair had, with such fair
lashes that they were almost indiscernible, giving him the
startled, bald look of a new baby. "About Florence? Oh yes,
Alys, of course I knew." Gently he patted me on the back until
I could take a gasp of air. "You weren't invisible, you know.
You and that arty chap." Reassured that I wasn't going to
cause a permanent stain on the noncommittal flooring, he
stopped patting and sat down again. "When Florrie was born,
well, then I
knew
. Didn't know if you did though, oddly
enough. You always seemed so certain that she was mine."
Miserably I looked down into my tea.
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"Time she got to be about oh, two or three I should think,
she looked so much like him. All that blonde hair. Sam used
to fancy him terribly, remember?"
Sam was Alasdair's best friend. I'd always liked him. "How
is
Sam these days?" I tried to change the subject.
"Fine. Looking forward to being a godfather."
"He
does
know that godfathers are supposed to be upright,
moral citizens?" Sam, who had about as many morals as the
average ten-men-in-a-bed participant.
"He's doing his best."
My hands were shaking.
"I know this wasn't a good time to spring it on you but...I
thought it would be best if we cleared things up between us.
Florrie might not be my natural daughter, but I was there,
wasn't I, when you were sick every morning for the first four
months, when you had those cramps, when you couldn't face
anything but raspberries for weeks? I was there when she
was born. Just as I'm going to be this time. So, what I
wanted to say was—I don't mind if you never tell her the
truth. As far as I'm concerned, I'm her father."
I had a sudden memory of Flick, standing at the doorway
to his van, holding it shut behind him so that I couldn't see
past, while I tried to tell him I was having his baby. What
would I have seen if I'd been able to? Another half-finished
canvas dripping paint in the weak March sun? Or another
woman, sprawled across his divan, awaiting his attentions?
He'd been irresistible, Flick, and I'd not been the only person
to find him so.
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