Precocious Read online

  I take a deep breath. You’re suddenly still, looking at the ceiling as though for inspiration.

  ‘Ah,’ you say slowly, ‘I get it. I think I know what this is about.’

  Your voice has changed pitch, it’s lower.

  ‘Do you?’ Mine is warbling slightly; the blood in my ears, thud thud thud, a rush of something like guilt, as though it’s me with the secret.

  ‘Yep.’ Sombre. The look in your eyes that always makes me breathe deeper. ‘I think I know what you want to hear.’

  You pull me towards you. Your hands on my back, your breath is warm in my ear.

  ‘I love you,’ you whisper.

  Well.

  Fifteen years ago, a week ago, or yesterday, I would have imploded with happiness to hear those words from you. But tonight …

  I look at you, and calmly say, ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘Fee.’

  ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘There’s something wrong.’

  ‘Yes, there is. Ask me in the morning.’

  ‘Shall we go to bed?’

  ‘I’m tired,’ I say again, but it’s futile because your hands on me find a different answer: yesyesyes.

  When the thing between us was still an affair, before we got here, every time we made love felt like it might be the last time.

  It has to be the last time, I would tell myself, and sometimes I would say it, breathlessly, an incantation while we undressed, neither one of us believing it.

  Tonight I have the same sense of teetering on the edge of something, of taking a last taste before everything changes. I turn the lights out, unable to look at your face, tired of trying to read it. Tired of thinking, I just want to feel you. You move over me, in me, expertly, until I’m enclosed. You’re saying things I don’t hear. I’m falling.

  Afterwards, I wait until your breathing slows, the rhythm of you moments from sleep. My voice is small in the dark.

  ‘I know about Alice. I know about school. The case. Everything.’

  You hold your breath, a heartbeat. You switch on the lamp. Your face is ghostly, masked by shadows.

  ‘Okay,’ you say. If there was a flicker of panic, it’s gone.

  ‘Is that it? Okay?’

  ‘Not much to say. It’s not a big deal, really.’

  The whispering voice that said love; the hoarse voice that made hot cries into my ear; both are gone, replaced by smooth control. Your everyday voice: authoritative, certain.

  ‘But … they’ve suspended you.’

  ‘It’s just a formality. They have to do it. They completely support me. I’ll be back there when I’m cleared.’

  ‘When you’re cleared?’

  ‘Of course. Listen, you don’t have to worry. The girl’s a liar, everybody knows it. And she’s had years to dream this one up. It won’t be hard to discredit her.’

  ‘So you’re not worried?’

  ‘Why would I be?’

  ‘But … you didn’t tell me. It is quite a big deal, getting suspended, whatever you say. And you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Ah. I see. So it’s not me you’re worried about!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t actually care what the outcome is for me. You’re upset because I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Well, that’s not—’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. I understand now. Look. You know me. And you – well, I thought you understood me.’

  ‘I want to, but—’

  ‘The ducking and diving, the keeping to myself – that’s just me. I’ve lived on my own and looked after myself for too long to change. I’m more myself with you than with anyone I’ve ever met – but if that isn’t enough for you, just say.’

  ‘Of course it’s enough. It’s just … I want to really know you. Be part of your life.’

  ‘Fee. You are part of my life. That’s why you’re here. Don’t you want to be here?’

  What I think is: Why are you asking the questions suddenly? How did we get here? But what I say is: ‘More than anything.’

  ‘Then take me for who I am. I’m forty-three, I’m not going to become anything else, now. Have I ever promised you anything?’

  ‘No.’ But a phrase rings through my head, from years ago: If you trust me, I won’t let you down. Does that count as a promise? I shake my head and say again, ‘No.’

  ‘And I won’t, either. And have I ever let you down?’

  I start. Jesus. Can you read my thoughts now?

  ‘Well, no.’ Not yet, rises unbidden in me and is pushed back down.

  ‘I’ll promise nothing, precisely so you won’t ever be let down. Because I would hate to do that to you. These are my terms, Fee.’ You fix me with those concrete eyes. ‘Take them or leave them.’

  With this you turn off the lamp, the sudden darkness like a full stop, as if you don’t expect a response or care what it might be.

  What kind of a choice is this? I feel an itching need to get back to the point but I’ve been steered off course, can’t even remember what the point was. I only know I want to be here, want to be near you, and these things are all happening anyway. Your life will go on, you’ll exist in the world just as you did for years without me. I might as well be close by.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ I say, and I manage a laugh, and you kiss me and in the dark it all seems alright.

  But in the morning, awake but unable to get out of bed, the question that I didn’t ask, can’t ask, gnaws at my brain:

  Did you do it?

  The smells of breakfast drift into the bedroom as normal. It’s early, and I can hear you whistling. I feel hungover, even though I didn’t really drink last night; the same foggy head, dry mouth. I think hung-over thoughts: Did it really happen? Where am I, now?

  My nose leads me to coffee and bacon in the kitchen. Different people suit and belong in different rooms; the kitchen is your domain. You suit the role of chef, of host, of creator.

  ‘Morning, sunshine.’ You’re dressed; wide awake. A faint damp sheen on all the surfaces and floor indicates you’ve been cleaning. You’re washed and shaved. I feel oddly exposed next to you, in my pyjamas, as though I’ve turned up to a party wearing jeans and found that everyone else is in black tie and ballgowns.

  I wonder how long you’ve been up. The cafetière is half empty.

  ‘I’ll make a fresh one now,’ you murmur as though, as so many times, reading my mind.

  ‘Are we going to talk about …’ I let the question drift, not really knowing what to call It, and disoriented by your breeziness, by the air of normality about the place.

  You glance at the clock.

  ‘I’ve asked someone over this morning. You’ve got about twenty minutes to get dressed.’

  ‘Oh? Who? Why?’

  ‘Imogen Cartwright. She’s my defence lawyer.’ You snake your arms around my waist. ‘I thought meeting her might make you feel a bit better.’

  Imogen Cartwright is the kind of woman who is always referred to by both names. She has a brittle smile and a firm handshake. She’s dressed as though for an office, but she accepts your offer of toast and makes herself comfortable at the breakfast bar. I wonder how many times she has been here.

  Sitting next to me, you hold the back of my head, like a ventriloquist with a dummy, as though at the command of your hand I might speak, or fall silent.

  ‘So tell me about your meeting with Miss Webb,’ Imogen says casually, brushing crumbs from her lap into her palm and sprinkling them back onto the plate.

  ‘I’m sorry … who?’ I’m conscious of having only been dressed a few minutes. I feel exposed.

  ‘Alice Webb,’ she says. Her eyes are emotionless.

  I tell her about the encounter at my office, about the meeting in the tea shop. I’m telling her more than I’ve told you; as usual, you and I didn’t get into the detail. You’re listening intently.

  ‘And I was thinking,’ I know I’m starting to babble, ‘maybe I could help. I mean, she sort of opened u
p to me. She practically admitted it was her boyfriend putting her up to it.’ Imogen Cartwright and you exchange a brief glance. ‘I could talk to her some more … I … I don’t know. Maybe I could say something to make her change her mind. Stop it even going to court.’ The words are tumbling out now, the two of you just watching me silently. ‘She seemed to … want something from me.’

  After a brief pause, Imogen says, ‘Yes. To testify on her behalf, is that not correct?’

  ‘Well yes, but that’s not what I mean. There was something else. I think I could get through to her.’ I sigh. ‘I just want to help.’

  Imogen Cartwright is probably the same age as me, maybe even a couple of years younger, but opposite her I feel like a clumsy child.

  ‘Fiona,’ she says, with another sidelong glance at you, ‘I would strongly advise against you having anything further to do with Miss Webb. We know what we’re doing, you know.’

  ‘So, what is my role, then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she frowns.

  ‘I mean, there must be a way I can help. I can speak for Morgan, can’t I? Make him look good …’

  Imogen looks from me to you and back again, then says, ‘Given the, ah … the way the two of you met, I would advise that you remain in the background.’

  There is more conversation, but I don’t hear it. I sit staring past both of you, out of the window, into the reality of what lies ahead.

  On her way out, Imogen turns to me conspiratorially. I sense that ‘woman to woman’ is not something she does comfortably, but she seems to want to try.

  ‘You know, Fiona – he’s made a good choice having a female brief. Jurors are less likely to believe that a woman could defend a …’

  I nod briskly, providing a full stop, because she doesn’t seem to be the kind of woman who tails off at the end of a sentence and I am afraid of the next word.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sure you’re right.’

  The shift between us is small but I know you feel it. We carry on with the day, with few words and little physical contact. I edge away from you when we pass each other in the kitchen, I don’t touch your hand when you give me a glass of wine. Your eyes are looking for mine but I’m always looking at a point slightly behind you. When evening starts to throw shadows into the house and we begin the ritual of flicking on lamps, drawing curtains, you finally say, ‘Okay. Let’s have it.’

  ‘What?’ I stand in the middle of the living room and turn on the TV. We rarely watch TV; I don’t even know what any of the programmes are, they look like strangers to me. I stare intently at the screen as I flick the remote, watching numbers chase each other. One, two, three. ‘Why is there nothing on?’ I murmur.

  You take the remote from me gently, and with a hand on my shoulder guide me to the sofa.

  ‘You want to say something to me,’ you say. ‘You’re angry. Upset. I don’t know. But just say it. Get it out in the open.’

  I look at you.

  ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Why are you asking permission?’ You hand me the ashtray, pull out a lighter.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The flame, the dry taste of smoke, soothe me.

  ‘Fee,’ you say quietly, ‘come on.’

  ‘Okay. It’s just …’ What? What is it that’s so unsettling me? ‘You’re so … cool about it all. I can’t believe it’s for real. I want to know what you’re really thinking.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well … I’ve had a bit more time than you, remember, to think about all of this. And the truth is,’ you look up as though the way to form the words lies on the ceiling, ‘I can’t believe, won’t believe that there can be a bad outcome. Do you know why?’

  I shake my head. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of you.’ This isn’t what I expected. I want to ask what you mean, want more of this, but before I can speak you laugh and say, ‘And because I’m a damn good teacher.’

  I can’t argue with this. You were bloody good. You were adored when I was at school. That rare thing, a teacher both boys and girls liked. You got kids from council estates excited about Shakespeare. You even made Drama cool; everyone wanted to be in your plays.

  ‘Look at how hard I’ve worked,’ you’re saying, ‘how many people I’ve helped, people’s lives that in some small way I’ve made better. Pretty unfair, don’t you think, that one spiteful, screwed-up girl and her idiot boyfriend could bring it all crashing down?’

  I find myself nodding.

  ‘But worse, Fee, it means I could lose you. All these years, I’ve wanted you, waited for you, wondered. And now I have you, here, I have a hope of happiness, and the worst thing of all of this is …’

  Your words, your eyes start to drift, and instinctively I reach out. My hand on your leg seems to bring you back.

  ‘The worst thing is, not only does someone want to take everything away from me, they want to use you to help them do it.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I say for the second time in twenty-four hours. ‘I won’t help her.’

  You say I’m the only thing that’s keeping you going. An amazing thing to hear: I’m needed. I realise this means more than when you said you loved me. I realise why I’d rejected it when you said it; the word ‘love’ felt borrowed in your mouth. I always thought you and I were somehow beyond the ‘L’ word anyway, the ineffectual four letters that everyone uses. Normal people. What we have is deeper than that, bigger than them: you need me. I make you feel safe. Without me, you say, you may as well give up, give them what they want.

  ‘You have to trust me, Fee,’ you say, ‘especially after how I trusted you. Remember? Think of the trips we took. Remember?’ Something high and desperate in your voice; your eyes boring into me, as though trying to excavate my memories. ‘Jesus, think of the risks we took. Would I have done any of that if you weren’t special?’

  I’m cradling your head on my shoulder now; I want to protect you, this new vulnerable you, keep you safe.

  ‘I know, I know,’ I murmur.

  ‘There are so few people you meet in life that you can trust, feel an affinity with. Even now; you’re not the only one whose life has been turned upside down by us meeting again. I was doing alright; I’m in my forties, divorced, I was at peace with the possibility that this might be it for me, I might end up alone. I was okay with it. But when we met again, I couldn’t stop myself. I think and feel all the same things you do. I know I don’t say them, but I always thought we didn’t have to do that. Not us. Not like other people. No big declarations; it was just known between us.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, kissing you. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not going to leave me, are you?’

  ‘No.’ I stroke your hair, the side of your face. ‘No, of course not. It will be alright. Trust me.’

  fourteen

  Diary: Sunday, 14 February 1993

  Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Love is in the air!! Hearts and flowers in abundance! Well, sort of. Mr Postman brought me a v. mysterious card yesterday. No writing inside, nothing, and the writing on the envelope looks like it’s been disguised. It was really funny though, it has Garfield on the front and it says ‘Tell me what you think of me, go on tell the truth, I can take it …’ and inside it says ‘… however flattering it is!’

  I wrote the poem below and sent it in a card … hope it arrived yesterday. Oh, but who did I send it to? Ha! As if we didn’t know! I hope he likes it. Night night.

  So many things I want to say,

  Yet can’t quite form them with my tongue

  Or if I do, they come out wrong

  Or never seem to find their way

  To you, as in your freezing heart

  A feeling lies in solitude

  For fear of being misconstrued

  You carry on to play your part.

  So many things I want to say

  Yet leave them all untold

  While deep within my secret soul

  Your
force attracts, then turns away

  From me, my love so bare and true

  My mind so tired, my emotions lonely

  To release, unleash, empower me only

  Takes a word, a smile, from you.

  It was a three-and-a-half-hour stretch of tarmac and pylons. Not a scenic route, apart from the few minutes when the motorway took a soft slow bend flanked by trees. We stopped for sweets, and argued about what tapes to play. I teased you for still having tapes. I put my sockless feet up on the dashboard, and you reached over without looking, to push them away. I did it again. And again. The third time I kicked your hand, hard. The fourth time you grabbed my foot, tried to pull it into your lap. I laughed and curled both feet under me, knelt on them.

  ‘When you’re old enough,’ you said, ‘I’ll teach you to drive.’

  We were on our way to London. I had passed it off as a ‘St Vincent de Paul Society outing’, and although in a rare moment of parental interest Dad had mumbled something about it being strange he hadn’t been asked to sign a form, I quickly persuaded him there were loads of us going, and we would only be away for one night, and these trips happened all the time, no big deal.

  The closer we got to London, the slower the traffic became and the further away we felt from our old selves, our real lives.

  In a jam, we kissed in the car. I suppose people might have looked through the windows but it felt as though we were in a protective bubble. There had been kisses, since the night at your house, but for me it was still a shock every time, and a sense I was watching myself from far away. The rush of blood to the head, the rattling words so loud I was amazed you couldn’t hear them. A voice: It’s him, it’s him, it’s him, it’s him, like a drum. The hot crush of your mouth, the taste of cigarettes and sweet coffee. Your hand on my hand, placing it in your lap, me pulling away, going on like this for a while, you smiling as though I was being coquettish, you liked it, probably thought it was a little dance, I just didn’t want you to hear the drum-voice in my head, or see or feel the shake in my hands so I would pull away and (eventually) you would let me.

  ‘You check in like a pro,’ I whispered at the reception desk.