‘Shall we sit together this time? Would you mind?’ he says.
And she smiles. He has forgiven her and she is taken up with the sensation of his proximity – a new feeling, a new smell – and interested in where it might take them.
The boy in the film is called Ingemar. His mother is dying and he keeps saying, ‘It could have been worse,’ which reminds her of Fly. She feels her phone vibrate and opens it up to see a text from him, containing a photograph of strawberry laces and the words: One of my five-a-day.
The cinema screen flickers black and white, colours and daylight. Words are said but she has lost track. His large hand is on the armrest between the two of them and she takes it in hers. Something receptive in her, like a flower opening, sad and vulnerable. He looks at her, then clasps her hand in return, and they both lean in and put their temples together. Her body is shaking on the inside and the vast cinema screen surrounds her with its flickering, meaningless images. She closes her eyes. His hands are big and enclosing, rough on the thumb pads. Foreign hands, new to the touch. He makes tiny stroking movements with his thumb and she can feel the aftershock between her legs. She senses the movement in the air when he blinks. He is seeking out her lips now, soft and dry, very gentle on hers, and her stomach flips over itself. She is dissolving into the dark. Alan the systems analyst, with voluminous corduroys and trainers like ocean liners. Who knew? Something unspoken, like a scent, makes her being reach towards him, and she is ardent, as if all the feelings are hers, far more than his, and she fills up all the more for it being so.
When the lights go up, their heads are still together, though her neck is hurting now and their hands have grown clammy.
‘Coffee?’ he says, and she nods.
They walk up the cinema stairs to the art deco café, as before. The same table but this time, when he walks towards her carrying their drinks – she’s having mint tea to freshen her breath – she notices his elegant hands.
He loops his maroon scarf over the back of the chair, saying, ‘I loved the stuff about the dog sent into orbit by the Russians. Think of him and nothing is that bad in comparison.’
Oh, she thinks, you were concentrating.
She takes a sip of tea.
He leans forward. ‘What now, Sergeant?’ he says with an ironic expression, and it’s as if he’s saying, Wither the rest of our lives?
‘What now indeed,’ she says.
They sip their drinks, each with both hands around their cups and elbows on the table, and she wonders, did anything happen in there? Or did I imagine it all?
They lie in her bed. His arm is under her n eck and she is holding the weight of his forearm at the wrist. Bouncing it occasionally.
‘I think you should know,’ she says, looking at the ceiling, ‘that my basic position on life is that it’s shit.’
‘Oh, I’m with you. I only stick around for the food and, frankly, that’s often crap as well.’
She laughs. Bounces his wrist in her hand. ‘It’s like, take Christmas,’ she says.
‘Brilliant dinner, awful day.’
She laughs again.
‘I think part of the appeal is that slight out-of-reach quality,’ he says.
‘You mean: “Oooh, I’m almost having a good time … Oh no, I’m not.”’
‘Yes, that’s it. Well, no, it’s more: “I’m going to enjoy it, I’m going to enjoy it, I’m going to enjoy it … Oh no, it’s rubbish again.”’
‘It’s expectation,’ she says. ‘That’s what kills off enjoyment. Holidays are stressful for the same reason.’
After a time, he says, ‘The dog. I’ve got to go back for Nana – let her out.’
Her insides tighten with the disappointment, but then he says, ‘Come with me?’
She opens one eye into the grainy morning light, forgetful for one moment, then sees his crumpled form next to her, burrowed down into the pillow. Blissful January! The cold swirling the room, but oh it is warm in the bed and we are two. We are two. She kisses his bare shoulder, smelling his skin, malty and male, like sourdough. Alien male! This is what she needs: a person who is other.
She rolls onto her back and closes her eyes. She feels his weight upon her, his lips soft and dry, his over-sweet breath which he is trying to disguise by keeping his mouth shut, his erection against her leg.
‘Well, hello,’ she says, laughing.
‘Hello,’ he mumbles, as if she shouldn’t make a joke of it.
His voice is gravelly, his eyes closed like a little rodent, bruised and nocturnal, so she wonders if he’s still asleep and wanting her out of his unconscious self, his sleepy, atavistic morning maleness. Oh joy. Hello, you.