*
It’s been three years since I’ve slept with anyone. Three years! I’d started to wonder if I’d remember what to do. After passing my driving test at nineteen I hadn’t driven again until my mid-twenties and so I’d booked some refresher lessons. I knew I’d feel better if there was someone to guide me through the basics again.
Happily, refresher lessons aren’t needed tonight. There is no embarrassment, no mounting the pavement or emergency stop required. There’s no awkwardness at all. It feels thrillingly new, yet also warm and familiar as if we have always been together.
Afterwards James and I lie there in the rumpled bed for I don’t know how long. The room is still and calm, and I can feel his steady heartbeat as he strokes my hair. Gradually, daylight starts to creep in through the fine white curtains, and I realise we must have slept a little on and off. We shower together and go down to breakfast where a different receptionist is on duty and gives us a wry look as we stride past.
‘It’s been quite a holiday,’ James tells me after the waiter has brought us coffee and croissants.
‘You’ve had a good time?’
He nods and beams at me. ‘It’s been the best.’
‘Even though you didn’t manage any canyoning?’ I tease him.
‘Yeah, amazingly.’ Those kind blue eyes meet mine.
‘There’s always next time for that,’ I add. ‘If you’re an adrenaline seeker after the ultimate thrill, I mean …’
‘This has actually been the ultimate thrill,’ he says with a smile. ‘All of it, I mean. Not just last night.’
‘But especially last night,’ I suggest.
‘Yes, especially last night.’ James touches my hand, and I feel as if I could burst with happiness despite the fact that he’s leaving soon, and our real lives are about to engulf us again.
‘So, I was wondering,’ I start, ‘when I’m back home, maybe you’d like to meet up?’He lives in London, he’s very busy, we both are. I haven’t even thought about it.
‘Of course I would!’ James exclaims. ‘Of course I want to see you. Did you think I wouldn’t?’
‘Well, y’know …’ I know I am grinning ridiculously. As if to make it clear that both of us wouldabsolutelylike to see each other again, he leans forward and we kiss, briefly, on the lips. Then all too soon we’ve finished our breakfast, he’s checking the time and we’re hugging goodbye outside the hotel. ‘Will your parents be worried?’ he asks with a slight frown. ‘And Charlie?’
‘No, I messaged Mum last night.’
‘Will they mind that you stayed here with me?’
‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘I am a grown-up, you know.’ He laughs, and there’s another hug and a kiss goodbye, then he’s off to pack up his things and I run to catch the rickety bus that snakes its way up to the mountain villages. I climb aboard, and as it chugs up the hill I look out at the valley and the glittering sea beyond. It’s true; they won’t mind one bit. Dad and Charlie will have barely noticed, and as for Mum, she’ll be happy that I’ve met someone.
‘I do wish you’d meet someone lovely,’ she’s said many times.
And now I have.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JAMES
It can turn out badly, when you try to recreate a wonderful holiday experience back at home. Bringing back Blue Curaçao from Tenerife was never going to be a good idea. Those Flaming Lamborghini cocktails, which my friends and I had tanked down in vast quantities in the bar, weren’t the same back in our shared house in Hackney with the mouldy shower curtain and the mysterious puddle that always sat under the fridge, as if it had wet itself. Who wants a dyed-blue tongue on a wet Tuesday night when there’s an essay to write?
A couple of years later, the first time Rhona and I had gone on holiday together, I’d been so taken with the weathered ochre-coloured houses on Symi that I’d come home and slapped similarly coloured paint all over my bedroom walls. ‘Trying to evoke the romance of a Greek isle?’ she’d said with a laugh when I’d finished. It looked like an old man’s pub ceiling, nicotine-stained from a million cigarettes.
So I haven’t felt sure how things will work out with me and Lauren, even though we’ve kept in touch whileshe’s still been in Corsica. We’ve chatted via Messenger and even exchanged the occasional picture of stuff we’ve been up to in our respective lives.
She’s sent me a photo of herself in her parents’ garden, proudly holding a home-made clementine and almond cake, as if offering me a slice. She looked so sunny and beautiful, I could hardly believe this was the woman I’d be seeing again soon, when she was home. It feels like the best thing to have happened to me in years. However, I’ve struggled to come up with anything quite as photogenic to send back to Lauren. Obviously, she’d hardly be entranced by a picture of me about to tuck into a big bowl of penne with bought tomato sauce after a lengthy shift at the surgery.
Feeling mildly self-conscious, I took a selfie in my garden, relieved that Esther wasn’t loitering on the sidelines, sniggering. (I can imagine that ‘Dad taking selfies’ would rank as even more mirth-making than ‘Dad dancing’, and that’s something I try to avoid at all costs.) I sent it to Lauren, apologising that it wasn’t as photogenic as her cake – by which I meant my rookie effort wasn’t as photogenic as she was, surrounded by dazzling flowers in that Corsican garden.
No need to be bashful, she messaged back with a smiley emoji.You look good to me!
I’m just not used to this kind of flirty exchange. But I’ve found myself looking forward to her next message, and fallen into a habit of checking my phone in case I’ve missed one – something I’ve never done before now. Esther has teased me that I’m the only person she knows who ‘puts their phone away’ which, to be fair, I only do if Fraser, the other vet, is on call. Because otherwise, why would I need to keep looking at it? Now, though, it’s always close to hand, having acquired a new significance in my life.
