She paused, aware that she had spoken his name so casually, like she used to when catching up with her husband.
‘Oooh, remind me, Jonathan, to get the chicken out of the freezer...’
‘Did I tell you, Jonathan, that I bumped into Phil in the garden centre?’
‘What do you mean, terminal? What are you telling me, Jonathan?’
She did her best to shake off the suffocating feelings of loss she was trying to avoid.
‘I felt simultaneously grown-up and scared, but it was a good scared – you know, the way you feel when you are about to test yourself but come out the other side with a feeling of having achieved something.’
‘I do. I’m a keen sailor and when you really push a boat, test her, that’s when you not only learn about the vessel, but about yourself too. If you race, which I used to, you can only win when you give over to that fear, resign yourself to the very worst thing imaginable and recognise that it’s okay. No matter what happens, it will all be okay.’
There was a beat of silence while she let his words settle, as he perfectly summed up all she was trying to convey.
‘Well, it was kind of like that. I heard a man whistle, calling to me from a bar where he sat with his mates. “Never Gonna Give You Up” was belting out of the speakers, it felt like a sign. I turned, and there he was, not a man at all and certainly not the swarthySpaniard that I might have imagined, but in fact Karl from Whitley Bay, who was celebrating his eighteenth. We drank sangria, smoked Marlboro Lights and our thighs edged closer together on a sticky faux-leather banquette. Honestly, Dominic, I thought I was Sheena bloody Easton.’
This time he laughed heartily, easily.
‘We snogged on the beach, Karl and I. Snogged for an hour at least. A revelation for me, as I was never popular. I can’t believe I’ve just told you that!’ She screwed her eyes shut. ‘You’re the only person on the planet who knows this other than me and Karl.’
And Jonathan of course, Jonathan knows everything about me...
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ he whispered, his low murmur sending shivers along her limbs. It was a curious and unfamiliar reaction to a stranger, the overwhelming desire for physical connection that was like a spell.
‘It was all rather anticlimactic after that. He went off to find his mates and didn’t take my number.’
‘What a rotter!’
‘Not really. I didn’t want a boyfriend or anything like that, too busy studying and playing hockey. Plus, this was the world pre-internet, mobile phones and messaging, it would only have fizzled and caused possible heartache. Far better that one night that is stuck in my memory, special because of that, no matter how dire. I learned two things that night. First, that clothes and shoes can really change the way you feel about yourself, which is why I always wear colour, it cheers me.’
‘I noticed that today. You were . . . bright!’
‘Ha!’ He had noticed her, seen her! She liked the thought,bright.
‘What was the second thing?’
‘Oh, the second thing was that snogging, if you’re doing it with the wrong person, isn’t really much to write home about.’
‘Poor Karl!’ he laughed.
‘Poor me!’ she countered.
He laughed again, loudly and without restraint. It felt good to have him react in this way, a superpower!
‘I grew up a bit that night. And looking back, I needed to. My parents were strict really. They didn’t see me as an adult until I got married, which I did when I was in my twenties. And even then they would phone to tell me if there was a cold snap expected, reminding me to leave extra time in the morning to defrost the car.’
‘I can relate.’
‘I went back to the room to find Angela sitting on the loo while she threw up in the bidet in a room full of mozzies. She’d had to leave the windows open, apparently, to try and get rid of the smell. But nothing could dent that feeling. Like I was desirable, a go-getter, and excited for my whole life that stretched ahead.’
‘They define you, don’t they, those moments, those incidents that are unexpected, like jewels hiding in the gloom.’
Again, he summed it up perfectly. It was this conversation, this whole exchange, a jewel hiding in the gloom.
‘Did you have a Karl from Whitley Bay night in your misspent youth?’
‘No, he wasn’t really my type. There might not have been a Karl but there was an Issy who was rather free and easy with her favours, as my mother would have said, a lovely girl who had a fondness for Land Rovers, I seem to recall.’
