The Englishman

chapter 34

I SHUT OFF MY SENSES AGAINST THE SIGHT, the feel, the smell of my underwear and hastily stuff it into the washing machine. The gown will have to be dry-cleaned. That’ll be a situation to rise above, the dry-cleaning lady’s face when she looks over my sex-stained party dress.

A quick shower, and the hot water on my face, in my hair, is a luxurious pleasure that I relish till it runs tepid. Then I quickly soap my armpits and reach between my legs to wash away the evidence of my stupidity, my weakness—and suddenly tears are running down my face. I don’t know how the tears can be even hotter than the water, but they are. Hot and bitter. I’m still so swollen, so sensitive; it feels like oil or syrup that doesn’t dissolve in water. My hand glides easily between the slippery folds, like his hand did, just now, when he held me.

I cup my hand over it like he did and cringe with anguish. It’s a gesture of such tenderness, such appreciation. His tenderness, my response, it’s all so easy, so straightforward, so clear, like the snowflakes in the night sky. And I’m wasting it all, out of cowardice.





“Mom, it’s Anna.”

“Anna! Yes, on the…on the sideboard, Sam! When does your flight get in tomorrow? Do you want us to come and pick you up?”

“No, Mom, I’m…I’m calling to say that I won’t be coming home tomorrow.”

Now I have a hundred percent of her attention.

“Not coming home? What are you saying? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m not ill. I’m all right. It’s just that I can’t leave right now.”

“Can’t leave? Why not? It’s the holidays, isn’t it? You don’t have to teach?”

She’s getting annoyed, but long years of experience have taught me that this is how my mother expresses disappointment.

“Mom, I’m sorry. The truth is…I’ve met someone, and I can’t leave…I can’t leave right now.”

Silence.

“You mean, you can’t leave your new boyfriend for a few days to come and see your parents during the holidays?”

“He isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Well, what do you want me to call him? Your lover?”

I’m tempted to say that he isn’t my lover, either. I’ve squirted all over his office, but he’s not my lover, and if I don’t do the right thing now, he never will be. But long years of experience have also taught me that there’s no point in sharing my private life with my mother.

“I’m hoping he’ll be my friend. This is important to me, Mom, so—”

“More important than your family?”

Now I’m getting annoyed, too.

“Oh, Mother! Must you be such a stereotype?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Look, Mom. I don’t want to fight. But I have to do this, so please—”

“You’ve been crying!”

“Yes.”

More silence. A mother’s sigh.

“Well, I only hope this’ll work out better than the last one…that Irishman!”

Her tone has mellowed, and I know perfectly well that she is sounding me out. I wish that I could tell her what she wants to hear.

“Yes, Mom, so do I. Listen, I have to go. Give my love to Dad and Nat, and to the kids!”

I sit and stare at the receiver that I’ve only just managed not to slam down on the hook. My heart pounds high in my throat. It is guilt, and a wild sense of liberation. I have defied my mother. I can do anything.

I quickly blow-dry my hair, forking my fingers through it. This makes me look as if I had stuck two fingers into a wall socket, but as I’m going pull my Patagonia hat over it, that doesn’t matter. Wooly knee socks, corduroys, t-shirt, sweatshirt, woolen sweater, my Barbour coat, boots, scarf, mittens. Ready. No, I’ll need my new Goretex rain slacks. Now, ready. I get the bike out of the shack and set off along the road, slowly, with no acknowledged destination. It’s snowing harder now; the world is a dark, moonlit flurry around me, with a cone of light from my bike lamp always wobbling in front of me. Like a trekking version of Luke Skywalker, I slice into the whirling feathers with my battery-powered saber of light. There is no wind; the flakes are falling at a calm, unhurried but steady pace, and they look so much like feathers that I begin to feel quite cozy, pedaling through the darkness.

The main road is not a pretty sight. The few cars still out at this time have mushed the soft white blanket into a cold gray pulp; this is like snow in the city. I push my bike across as fast as I can, eager for the glistening quiet of the other side. When I turn off the lane toward the lake into the track that leads to the cottage, my heart beats faster, and not just because the absence of street-lighting and the snow-and-earth mix on the ground are making it hard to cycle. It has stopped snowing, except for a few forlorn flakes, but the only light is the egg-shaped moon, my bike lamp, and the expanse of white ground reflecting both. It has never occurred to me that winter could be lighter than summer. The cottage sits at the end of the track like part of the scenery of a stage production of Hansel and Gretel. Dim light glows from two of the windows. I’m only about thirty yards away from the cottage and its oblivious inhabitant, but it could be miles away. I don’t think I have the courage to knock on his door. I did it once before, at Notre Dame, but this time I feel even more pathetic, like a supplicant begging for consolation because I can’t come to terms with the life I have chosen for myself. If he had wanted to take me home, he would have suggested it.

I grab the bike and turn it round to push it back—and my movement sets off the barking and snarling of dogs in the darkness across the path. It’s a frightening sound in the dark silence, and it’s coming closer very fast.

“Andrew! Toby! Stay! Now!”

But they have reached me already. Immobile, I stand and let them sniff at my mittens and my legs; their tails are wagging, and I wonder whether they remember my smell and that I am a friend. And then he has caught up with them.

“I’m terribly sorry about this! Are you all ri—”

In the darkness, I only recognize him by his gait and his voice. I don’t know how he knows it’s me, motionless and dumb.

“What are you doing here?” This gruff question leaves no doubt that he has recognized me. My heart is beating so hard that I literally can’t breathe enough to speak. I swallow, inhale, swallow again.

“I came by bike.”

He doesn’t reply to this, not even to ridicule its idiocy. The dogs are still very excited, wagging their tails like mad and sniffing around, in comic contrast to the two humans, who might as well be frozen into statues.

“Were you going to come in?” His voice hasn’t softened. I decide not to attempt speech at all and only nod. In silence we trudge the short way up to the cottage. I’m still so breathless that I can hardly keep up with him. I don’t know what to say to him; I’m frightened of seeing his face, and very reluctant to let him see mine.

I don’t know what to do!

“Coat?”

Awkwardly I take off my jacket and stuff the hat, the scarf, and the mittens into the sleeves before I hand it to him. While he is feeding the dogs, I try to get my bearings. It’s obviously a cultured individual’s home, with shelves full of books, piles of books on tables and the floor, piles of paper, a large desk along a large window out back, presumably overlooking the lake, now an expanse of black glass. There are radiators, but the room seems to be heated by the fire in the grate behind a fine-mesh safety curtain; the air smells of burning wood and summer camp. There is a portable CD-player on the table, and some CDs, but no TV set. On the walls are more large-sized prints and more photographs of hills and water.

I’d love to take a closer look, but of course I can’t; in fact, I remain exactly where he left me. A more determined woman would already have taken off another two or three layers of clothing and arranged herself in a seductive pose on the couch by the fireside. The thought is exciting, but I know perfectly well that I resemble that woman about as much as I resemble Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Giles returns, in thick woolen socks and a frayed-looking Norwegian sweater, and I can’t help smiling at him. He looks so handsome and so sweet in his scruffy lakeside clothes. When he sees me smile, his features relax. God, is he nervous, too?

“This is lovely,” I say, idiotically.

“Well, I think so. Mandy hated it. She kept the apartment in town, I burrowed down here. Easily parted.”

Burrow down. The words, the feeling, echo in my mind.

“Will you take your pants off?” he asks.

“W-What?”

“You’re still half covered in plastic. Perhaps that’s unnecessary.”

With some difficulty I scramble out of my rain pants, which for some reason I could pull on over my boots but don’t seem to be able to pull off over them. I wriggle and struggle and eventually have to take off the boots. When I straighten up, Giles is leaning in a doorframe, watching me with unholy amusement.

“Cute. But stick to the stockings, on the whole. Oh, talking of which—”

He disappears into what I take to be the bedroom and returns with something long and shiny in his hands. “You forgot your gloves in my office.”

I’m red in the face anyway, with cold and the effort of undressing, so this flush of embarrassment doesn’t really matter. “You took them…into your bedroom?”

“Oh, yes,” he says, with a silken yet faintly menacing tone in his voice. I’m a little weirded out by that, until I imagine what I would do if he had ever left any piece of clothing in my office.

“Drink? I can offer you beer, wine, but red only, tea, of course, with a shot of whisky, if you like, although it’s a single malt I brought from Scotland, so it’s spoiled if you dilute it. You could have a wee dram…do you want to?”

He is no longer avoiding my eyes. Animated, charming, self-confident, suddenly, but still Giles. Still with that aura of diffident reserve around him, still an Englishman. I find him absolutely irresistible. Of course we are going to have more sex tonight.

“Yes, I’d like that. But can I have a cup of tea, too, please?”

“Sit down. And shove the dogs away if they bother you.”

Toby and Andrew have finished their supper and are very eager to check out the intruder who is usurping quality space.

“They’re not allowed on the sofa—down, Andrew! The kettle’s just heating up.”

I watch him as he gets a bottle of whisky and puts it down onto the low table in front of me, a small pitcher of milk, ditto. He removes the grid from the fireplace and puts two more logs onto the fire. I could sit here forever and simply watch him move around his house, still in socks, so deft and capable. There is this feminine side to him, maternal almost. It’s as if he were looking after me—well, he is looking after me, of course, as I’m his guest. And if I don’t mess it up, these deft and capable hands will hold me, later, and I will be allowed to touch him. His hand, pouring whisky, his thighs and knees, so lean and hard in the jeans as he squats down to stoke the fire. His broad, strong back. The wayward little lock of gray hair that curls behind his left ear. Oy! I will break my heart over this man, and I’ll have nobody to blame but myself.

To my profound relief, he sinks into the armchair at right angles to my sofa.

He lifts his whisky glass. “Slawnchevuh.”

“What was that?”

“Slainte mhath. It’s Scottish and means good health.”

“I see. Well, l’chaim.”

He smiles at me, and we drink. I couldn’t say whether it’s the drink or the smile that starts the glowing in my belly.

“Gosh, yes,” I sigh. “That’s much better.”

He refills our glasses and sits back, absent-mindedly fondling Toby’s massive head by his thigh.

“Have you been…unwell?” he asks. A cautious opening gambit.

“Well, yes, actually.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He is looking at me with a faint, and faintly sardonic, smile on his face, but I carry on.

“There’s this man I…like. Worst possible situation. We work together. And you know the old saying. Never dip your nib into the office ink.”

I nurse a mug of milky tea between my sleeve-covered hands and pretend that I have to concentrate on drinking from it.

“Does he like you?” He is looking at Toby, who is resting his head on his master’s knee now, blissfully oblivious to everything but the fingers behind his ears.

“He likes touching me.”

“Yes,” he says quietly, “he does.” He glances up at that, and I don’t look away. “He likes it very much. But he’s not a green boy any more, and he knows that it will end in tears. Whichever way it will end, it will end in tears.”

“I know. It’s a pig’s breakfast.”

What more is there to say?

“Do you like it?” he asks the back of Toby’s head. “When he…touches you?”

Although the blood pounding in my chest and my throat is almost choking me, I set down my mug of tea and stand up. Both dogs raise their heads, alert but unwilling. “Sorry, Toby. May I cut in here?”

And I sit down on Giles’s lap, my knees between his thighs, and snuggle into him. He doesn’t push me away, even when I hug him with both arms around his neck and nestle my face into the fragrant warmth of his throat.

“I like it more than anything.”