‘Because I’m old, remember, thirty-three. Nearly double the life you’ve had.’
She might have only been seventeen but understood enough to know that his words, no matter how phrased, meant he did not love her in return. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but was however still disappointing, just as it had been the first time, when her own mother had walked away, and no amount of sugar had helped that medicine go down.
She thought of Glenda, wondering if her friend was right; was she the cow who had given her milk away for free? She hated the phrase even more now that it cloaked her in something very close to shame.
‘I think I should ... I should go.’ Looking around the floor, she sought out her jeans, T-shirt, pants and bra, feeling, despite the intimacy they had shared, suddenly awkward at the prospect of having to get dressed in front of him, the man who did not love her. It was with a sense of desperation that left her feeling hollow.
‘I don’t want you to go.’ He reached out and pulled her towards him. She fell against him, letting her cheek rest on his chest, listening to his heart beat as her tears gathered, clogging her nose and mouth. His fingers tracing her spine again lit the fire of want, which felt mistimed and was for the first time conflicting, as even in this moment of sad reconciliation, her body yearned for him.
‘You’re amazing.’
‘You don’t need to say that.’ It was the last thing she wanted to hear, his words of consolation that sounded a lot like pity.
‘I wish ...’ he began, taking a deep slow breath in and out that hinted at more.
‘What do you wish?’
She looked up at the underside of his throat, his Adam’s apple rising and falling and the sprout of whiskers where he shaved the base of his beard, the delicate white skin, frail and enticing andwhere she wanted to plant her lips for reasons she was still yet to fathom.
‘I wish I had the verbal and emotional freedom to speak as you do, to state with such certainty something that is no more than a seed of an idea. I truly envy you that.’ He bent his head and kissed hers.
‘Are you saying that what you feel for me is hard to express?’ It was light at the end of a bleak emotional tunnel, it was hope to cling to while she was all at sea.
‘I am saying that, exactly that.’
It was incredible how quickly his words could change her mood, dry her tears, as if he were steering her with a suggestion, a phrase. And in this heightened emotional state, her tears only made her love him more, long for him more! It was part of their journey, their story! Her joy once again threatened to bubble from her as she twisted on the mattress to straddle him. Holding on to her with his hands either side of her face, he spoke softly, slowly, using words that were magical, pure and full of intention.
‘All in good time. How could anyone not love you, Elizabeth-Roberta ...’
It was late on Sunday morning, with breakfast missed, when Wilkie watched Mrs Horn-Haverington wander along the street with her trusty hound on a leash. This was Lilly’s cue to leave. The two dashed to the front door, which he held wide for her.
‘When will I see you?’ She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ She had expected to have to wait a couple of days, as was his MO.
‘Yes. Will you be on the towpath, the usual time?’ He kissed her mouth, her neck, her cheek, running his hand over her hip and thigh as he did so, clearly as reluctant as her to part.
‘Probably ...’ She laughed as she trotted down the stairs and out on to the street, looking back at the fabulous man who she loved –loved!And who, if he had the verbal and emotional freedom to speak as she did, would say he loved her too. It was enough, it would have to be, until he found a way to set his words free.
He lifted his hand in a wave, and she blinked, taking another picture with her mind’s lens, capturing his casual stance as he leaned on the doorframe, dark hair about his shoulders, glorious thighs inside his jeans.
She couldn’t wait for tomorrow, bewitched as she was by this old, old man.
‘Hel-lo!’ she called out as she let herself into the flat at Waide House, still, after all these years, half expecting her mum to call out her reply of ‘Yoo-hoo!’ like she used to. The sound of her dad practising in the window filled her ears, the beautiful light legato style of an accomplished violinist. It never failed to impress her. And in the emotion of his music, she felt the swell of guilt and the taste of deceit on her tongue, lying to the man she loved the most, and who had lost his great love, something that she, in the throes of this new and glorious affair, felt even more keenly.
‘In the lounge!’ was her dad’s hearty response as he stopped playing.
‘Hi!’ She popped her head through the door, keen to have a bath and change, to check her appearance and relive the night just spent in her mind before she chewed the fat with her dad.
‘How is Glenda’s mother doing? You are a good friend, going to sit with her while her mum’s poorly.’ He lifted his cigarette that sat smouldering in the ashtray, and she felt the flush of discomfort overher skin. It didn’t come easy to her, lying to her wonderful, trusting dad, but it had felt entirely necessary to secure a night with Wilkie.
‘On the mend.’ She nodded.
‘Well, that’s good news. Kettle’s just boiled if you fancy a cuppa?’
‘Just going to jump in the bath, Dad, then I’ll make us both a fresh one.’
