And he smiles, ‘So are you.’
‘I have no practice, well very little practice.’
‘We’ll have to do something about that. We could draw up a schedule.’
‘Do you have a calendar in the kitchen?’
‘We’ll mark in the dates: every morning and at the weekends, twice, maybe...?’ he says, ‘so we’ll get you all practised again.’ And then he smiles, strokes my hair and kisses my forehead, takes my face in his hands and says, ‘You’re perfect, never change anything. I’m going to throw myself in the shower and I’m going to make you something wonderful for breakfast. What do you want?’
‘Well, that depends what’s in the fridge,’ I say. And I don’t really care what’s in the fridge. Normally people aren’t over in my house – except Vilma, and she generally gives out about the contents in my fridge, but I don’t care about Finn seeing it, because Finn likes me for me. I don’t have to be anything I’m not. With Finn, I feel good enough just the way I am.
Five minutes later he’s out of the shower, hair slicked back, wearing his jeans and aT-shirt.
‘Right,’ he says, and stalks off to the kitchen.
I throw on aT-shirt and go and follow him. I brush my teeth but don’t stop to comb my hair: I don’t care, this is me. Finn likes me for me. Imagine!
He’s in the kitchen making coffee and I walk up behind him, put my arms around his waist and lean into him, my head barely comes up to his shoulder blades.
‘You feel good there,’ he says but he turns to face me, still with us enmeshed. ‘Are you still feeling good, Sid, happy?’ He really has the most beautiful eyes and they are looking at me with such understanding and concern.
‘Why might I not be happy?’ I say, looking up at him.
He keeps staring down at my face and says: ‘You’re so strong and feisty but underneath it all you’re fragile. I don’t want to hurt you. Please tell me I haven’t hurt you or scared you.’
‘Stop,’ I say, ‘I don’t know what miracle this is, I honestly don’t know, because for almost fifteen years, apart from a brief time with Marc, I haven’t been with anyone.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I say. ‘You’re on the money – something happened to me and it made me really scared. Scared, guilty and ashamed. I ran away and hid behind funny remarks and black clothes. And then you came into my life and I stopped wanting to run away. I stopped feeling ashamed.’
‘Whoever hurt you is the one who should be ashamed,’ he said. And there’s something in his voice I’ve never heard before, anger.
‘I’ve been angry,’ I say, ‘I’ve been angry for a very long time. But anger doesn’t work. Or rage, sometimes the rage comes and gets me. When I’m in the rage place, I think if anyone banged into me in a pub or a club, I’d explode with anger, which would not be good.
‘But now –’ I smile at him. ‘I feel happy. You make me happy.’
‘Will you tell me what happened?’
For a moment I don’t want to ruin what we have, this glorious happiness. Him standing there, inT-shirt and jeans with his feet bare; me in aT-shirt, more undressed than I’ve been with another human for years, my hair all bed messed, the scent of him on my skin.
‘How about we have coffee and breakfast, go back to bed?’
‘One cup,’ he says, ‘I think that’s all I can cope with before I do this again.’ And he sits me up on the counter, puts his hands around my face and kisses me deep. ‘You can open up to me, Sid. I’m not going anywhere.’
I take a deep breath. ‘OK. I’ll tell you.’
42
Sid
Fifteen years ago...
It’s hard to know which one of us is more excited about my new job: Me or my mother.
We’re in my bedroom and she is eyeing the sedate clothes I’ve bought to impress all in Lowther & Quinn, the legal firm I’m interning in. I want to get into family law but the only company I can get any work in is a company offeringfour-month internships for minuscule pay. Lowther & Quinn specialise in commercial law and I know it will be scut work but it’s a foot in the door.
‘It’s all very ... grey,’ Giselle says doubtfully. My mother thinks grey is an absence of colour and has no place in clothing.
