The Younger Man (17 page)

I’ve brought about thirty books with me, many of them Booker Prize and Orange Prize book winners that I bought at Gatwick Airport to distract me for the few months I’m here. My book may not be as good as any of them, but I don’t care. I’m going to make it happen. It’s going to be a work of fiction, based on a woman finding life and love in the Italian countryside. Okay, okay, I know it’s been done before, but mine’s going to be different, sassier, sexier and more three-dimensional. There will prob
ably be a divorce in it somewhere, and maybe some phone sex, but we’ll see. Only page one so far. So with laptop turned on I look out over the olive grove in my garden, my beautiful garden, losing myself in the warmth and the smell of fresh basil that I’ve just picked for the mozzarella and tomato salad I’m having later.

I sleep restlessly that night, but early in the morning, about six o’clock, I’m woken by a noise outside the house. Perhaps Fiona has sought me out in Tuscany. I wouldn’t blame her, although I did allow him time and space to think. As much as you can when you work with someone.

I open the door and see Joe standing there, looking rather dishevelled but smiling softly at me. I want to cry. But I don’t.

He walks toward me and strokes my hair and says, ‘I thought I could give you some ideas to start your book.’

‘So you got on a plane.’

‘Yes, always best to communicate face-to-face, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘What do you think of this?’

He picks me up in his arms and walks me to the bedroom, occasionally kissing me and talking as he does so.

‘Hot Italian countryside. Our hero, still sweating from another day debating the sort of case that would make the hardest of QCs weep, takes a break. Walking into his bare but charming room, he struggles to take his shirt off, still wet from the day in court—beads of perspiration
clinging to his back. Lying on his bed, the cool white sheets give a moment’s pleasure till his heat dampens them. The shutters are open, and he can hear a shower start in the room next door.’

He lays me on the bed and starts to undress me.

‘It’s her, but did he imagine it? Yes, he asked her over to look at the paperwork, yes, it was a masterpiece of appraisal but how she did gasp, and linger by his side, and maybe for a moment it felt like she was breathing him in. Yes, his smell was a mixture of sweat, aftershave and heat—but hers, well, hers was like sex, a powerful mix of tropical forest, the warmth you feel on a hot beach and that perfect delicious smell of, well, of her. He then realised his descriptions were…’

And starts to stroke me, very slowly up and down my body. ‘Crap.’

I giggle. He continues to stroke and talk.

‘But that didn’t matter. She’s in the shower, water running through her hair, down her back, what he would give to…’

He leans over to kiss me between the legs.

‘It had been too long. Our hero, exhausted by the heat and the sound of flowing water could bear it no longer.’

He slowly undoes his shirt and leans over me again.

‘He must find out if she wanted him. Perhaps when their hands touched on the dance floor, in the office, over the coffee it was a mistake. He enters her room, she’s still
in the shower, is facing him now, naked but not shy—he wants her. She is stunning.

‘Where’s your shower?’ he asks matter-of-factly.

‘Over there.’ I smile.

He leads me toward the bathroom, turning the water on roughly so that it spurts out cold everywhere, making us laugh.

‘It’s supposed to gently trickle. Gently trickle, not cascade frigid water. It’s supposed to gently trickle down her body, her hands guiding its flow between her legs.’

We stand. His arms are around me, he’s watching me and watching the water as it gradually warms and I enter, taking the soap and doing as he says.

‘He is lost in her. No longer able to control himself. But fully aware of why he’s doing what he is, he can’t resist her any more. He wants her. He needs her. To be with her. And then she realises. And admits. That she needs him, too.

‘How does that sound?’ he asks, joining me in the shower, kissing me very gently on my closing eyelids and then on my cheeks and on my lips.

‘Wouldn’t happen in real life,’ I say. ‘Wouldn’t happen in real life.’