‘That looks better!’ Pauline deemed her dry enough to survive and Lorna stepped down from the stool. ‘You look almost normal.’
It was a compliment. Today she’d not only had a bath but had graduated from pyjamas to leggings and was wearing one of James’s rugby shirts. If he had time at the weekend he’d said that he’d take her shopping so she could buy some clothes for her trip back home.
‘So are you going back to stay at your friend’s?’ Pauline shooed her over to the sofa where Lorna, just a bit drained now, was quite glad to lie down and chat as Pauline flicked the television on and settled in for another hour of a self-help show.
‘I leave on Sunday. My friend’s looking for a couple of rental properties for me, but I can stay there for now till something comes up.’
‘What about your parents?’ Pauline asked. ‘Why don’t you stay with them till you’re well?’
‘We don’t really get on.’
‘You see them, though?’ Pauline asked, tearing her eyes from the family disaster unfolding on the television screen, to the real live one in her living room.
‘I see them every couple of weeks, or at least once a month,’ Lorna said. ‘They live in Glasgow, I’m in the country.’ She gave a thin smile. ‘It works better that way.’
‘You should try and patch things up,’ Pauline said. ‘You only get one set of parents.’
‘We have
patched
things up.’ Lorna shrugged. A fortnightly or monthly visit and a weekly chat on the phone was progress, though she wasn’t about to tell Pauline that. Or that’s how things had been till she’d told them she was staying with James. Her mother had rung her only once since the revelation, talking in low, urgent whispers and insisting she move out, while her father, just as he had all those years ago, refused to even come to the phone.
‘And what about work?’
‘I should be able to go back the following week.’ Lorna yawned and answered at the same time. ‘Or definitely the next.’
‘So you’re not going to look in London?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Lorna gave a tired smile. ‘It didn’t exactly work out as I planned. If it hadn’t been for James I don’t know how I’d have managed. Maybe I’m
best staying put, where I’ve got my friends and support.’ She was so tired now she didn’t finish, just lay there half watching the TV before dozing off. She did not notice when Pauline tucked a throw rug around her and flicked off the TV before heading home to her own family. It was a lovely late afternoon sleep, and that was how James found her when he came home a couple of hours later. His plan had been to stay at work for as long as he could—but, given the hours he’d put in these past weeks, when the usually busy department had suddenly emptied, his loaded in-box was done and sorted, when May, on a late shift, had walked past his office and questioned why he was still there, he really couldn’t justify it.
‘Go home,’ May had scolded. ‘No doubt we’ll call you back the second you get there, but for now just go home.’
It felt like home as he climbed the steps to his town-house, and that was what troubled him. He knew she was in there, and the wave of nostalgia that hit him almost knocked this strong man off his feet. The house was in semi-darkness as he walked in with take-away in hand. Lorna, too thin and too pale, was dozing on the sofa, wearing his clothes. It was so like it had once been it almost killed him to see it again.
‘Hey!’ As she stirred he held up the white plastic bags. ‘I stopped and grabbed some Thai.’
‘Yum!’ She sat up far more easily than she had in recent days and went and got the plates. James opened and served up the food. They sat on the sofa and ate off their knees, Lorna drinking her blackcurrant juice as James enjoyed a glass of red wine. Lorna felt as if she
was finally back in contact with the real world. She told James she’d read the paper, seen the news and rung her friends to catch up.
‘Not bad for a day’s work!’ he teased.
‘You didn’t have to waste your Friday night with me,’ Lorna said, when they’d finished their take-away and it was still only eight-thirty. ‘I’m sure you’ve got loads of things to do.’
‘Well, you go home on Sunday.’ He shrugged.
‘Still, I don’t need a babysitter, and you get so little time off—you should be spending it with Ellie. Is she away? Only I haven’t seen her.’ She took a sip of her blackcurrant juice and found she was holding it in her mouth when he answered.
‘We broke up.’ James said, rather too lightly.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be—it had been on the cards for ages.’ He was flicking through the TV channels and something caught his attention. ‘Oh, it’s…’ He stopped then because it was her favourite movie or it had been her favourite movie and he’d liked it too, but for ten years now, whenever it had come on, whenever he’d seen it at the video store, he’d just ignored it.
‘I haven’t seen it in ages,’ Lorna said, so he left it on, but she wished he hadn’t. It reminded her of when a sex scene came on the television while her parents were in the room. Even a steamy kiss had had her mother sitting rigid as her father silently fumed—not that there was much sex in this movie, and not that James was rigid or fuming, it was just too close for comfort, a movie that divorced couples should watch alone. It was too late to admit it, so they both sat in a strained silence as they
watched two friends who should always have been lovers resisting it at every turn.
He could smell her hair. Even from the other end of the sofa, he always had been able to the night she’d washed it. It was just so thick and long and there was so much of it that the fragrance hung in the air. The only difference was it smelt of his shampoo tonight, instead of her usual. The other difference was that he couldn’t reach over and touch it. Actually, not so different, James thought with a rueful smile because by the end of their marriage he hadn’t been able to touch it either. Her hand would come up and push his away—as if it made her skin crawl for him to even touch her.
She wouldn’t push his hand away tonight. He knew, just knew, that sex hung in the air. It was like trying to breathe deeply in a sauna. There were just a few inches separating them and a whole ten years too, and now she was crying.
He could hear her sniffing. Even though the film was still funny, she always cried at this point because, Lorna had once explained, she knew what was coming, knew what was about to happen.
He’d known her so well and then suddenly he’d found he didn’t know her at all.
‘What happened to us, Lorna?’
‘Please, don’t, James,’ Lorna said, because she couldn’t bear it. She wanted to turn to him like a flower to the sun, to curl up in his lap and let him stroke her hair as they watched the movie, or to lie on the sofa wrapped in his arms and not worry about the ending, only she couldn’t. ‘Please, don’t start about that.’
Except he had to, because there had been no final
row, no harsh words, no goodbye sex. He couldn’t, though he’d tried and tried to remember, still he couldn’t recall the last time they’d made love. He hadn’t known that night or day or whenever it had been, that it had been the last time he’d hold her.
‘You just left.’
‘James.’
‘If we could have talked…’
‘What was there to say?’ Amber eyes met his for the first time since the film had started. ‘You told me you felt trapped, that you weren’t in love with me.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, James you did. You married me because I was pregnant and then six weeks later I wasn’t.’ She stood up, didn’t care that the film was not quite finished because she knew the ending already, just as she’d known this moment was coming and she couldn’t face it. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Lorna, please…’ He stood up, went to take her hands but he took her arms, could feel them thin and rigid beneath his fingers, this little guarded woman who had always confused him and always, always entranced him. ‘I just wish we could talk.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Okay,’ he said, because that had been the rule. She hadn’t asked to come back into his life, circumstance had seen to that. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’ It hurt to let her arms go. Was it so wrong to want to hold her? Was it wrong to take her in his arms? ‘Go to bed, we’ve got our shopping expedition tomorrow.’
She nodded, wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and, as always, she confused him.
‘’Night, James.’ She kissed him on the cheek, which people often did, except they’d avoided it till yesterday. It was just a little kiss, tentative and faltering, but a kiss all the same. The bitter-sweet contact was
dangerous,
but instead of scuttling off to bed, there she stood.
‘’Night, Lorna.’ He meant it, he really meant it, because he’d already given more of himself tonight than he had ever intended. He had told her about Ellie, had pushed her to talk and she’d refused, just as she had after they’d lost the baby, just as she had in that hellish year after the break-up when she’d refused all contact. Now she stood there just a kiss away and he wasn’t sure he could go there again and live to tell the tale. He could feel where her lips had been on his cheek, could feel her in his space. Maybe if he kissed her it would be enough, could be the conclusion he’d sought all those years ago. Maybe
this
could be the moment he remembered when in the future he pondered
them
again.
Kiss me.
She wouldn’t say it, wouldn’t kiss him again, but every cell in her body screamed it, and the cries were heeded because his mouth did find hers. For Lorna, the bliss of familiar lips on hers bought a shock of comfort. Shock, because every nerve jumped as their master flicked the switch and declared he was home. Comfort, because his kiss had been sought but never found in others.
It was their
lazy
kiss.
They’d had lots of different types of kisses, but this was their lovely lazy one. Slow and languid and relishing each other, in no rush to move on or retreat, savouring, and how they savoured. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, tasted them too as they ran onto her lips. He
tasted them too. They kissed her salty river of tears with their tongues, and breathed each other’s air with their mouths. His arms were the nicest place in the whole wide world. He created this little island where it was only the two of them and nothing else mattered. They both pulled back, stared at each other for the longest time, indecision, lust, regret and want all offering differing directions, but there was only one safe road to take and it was James who guided them.
‘’Night, Lorna.’ He kissed her on the cheek, let her go and for three full seconds she stood before turning.
‘’Night, James.’
F
OR
a man, he
was
good to shop with.
Or maybe it was that
anything
would look better than the leggings, a rugby shirt and a pair of pumps that Pauline had leant her for the day trip. She also had a scarf and one of his jackets, which meant within minutes of entering a department store she was boiling and had to peel off the layers. It was the quickest shop in history. She bought jeans, a pale grey jumper and the softest beige flat boots that were, even James agreed, divine, and a little holdall to carry the other odd things she’d collected during her time here. Then they were done and sat in the food hall with coffee and cake and, unlike the other frazzled couples around them, not a bicker in sight!
‘When did you get so easy?’
‘Only with you!’
‘I meant…’ He didn’t try to explain, he’d been trying so hard not to go there, to forget that kiss had even happened. He would choose perhaps to remember it later when she was safely home, but there was a flirty edge to her that no one else could ever see. It had always entranced
him, she was such a prim thing, so staid and controlled, but not with him. It was almost as if the Lorna he saw, the Lorna she became around him, was a version reserved exclusively for him. Or it had been in the early days, and here it was again. There was a sort of zing between them that just kept popping up like one of those stupid frog games at the fairground—the harder he hit them down, the faster they popped back up. She looked fantastic today. Oh, she was dressed like an oddball, but it wasn’t her clothes he was looking at, it was her hair, her mouth, her eyes, her hands cupping her drink. He wanted to get the hell out of there, for tomorrow to come and Lorna to be gone, so why, oh, why, was his head going to ridiculous places?
‘I’ve got a proposal for you,’ he said a few minutes later.
‘We tried that once and it didn’t work.’
‘I’m well aware of that.’ James was serious now. ‘We need a doctor and you need a job.’
‘I think that might be pushing things.’
‘So do I.’ James nodded. ‘However, there are only eight weeks of the rotation left. A couple of our interns dropped out, we’re horribly short and we haven’t a hope of filling the vacancies so late. We’re making do with locums. Now, if you had a couple of weeks off to recover, well, there’s six weeks’ work for you—albeit as a house officer but you’d get the experience of a busy emergency department. I’m sure you’d have no problem getting snapped up afterwards anywhere you wanted.’
‘I don’t know if I could work with you, James.’ It was important to be honest. ‘I couldn’t live with you,’ she said, then winced. ‘That sounded terrible.’
‘No!’ James shook his head. ‘There was absolutely no offence taken—you are
not
living with me.’
‘Good.’
‘Good,’ James said. ‘But as for working with me—there isn’t time for awkwardness there and I’m certainly not going to single you out. We really are desperate for staff.’
‘Really?’
‘We are.’ James nodded, then admitted a touch more of the truth. ‘Okay, maybe it will be a bit awkward at first, but we’ll soon work it out. So will you think about it?’
‘Once I get home,’ Lorna agreed.
‘Just email me over your résumé for Admin’s sake, so that it looks like a formal application, and once I’ve got that we’ll take it from there. There’s a job for you if you want it.’
‘And if you change your mind,’ Lorna offered, ‘if once I’m gone you realise that it might be a bit much working with me, then just say.’
‘I wouldn’t say.’ James grinned. ‘I’d just text or email you.’
He headed back to the counter to get them more coffee and Lorna sat watching his lovely bum as he pushed the tray along the counter, watching how he made the lady who was serving laugh with something he had said, how his dark brown suede jacket had to strain over his broad shoulders and thinking
how much
she wanted to be back in those arms again.
Just one more time.
Just one more night of feeling like a woman before her operation. Six weeks would bring her almost up to
her scheduled operation date, not that she could tell him that.
It was hot. She pushed up the sleeves on her rugby shirt, tried not to think about what lay ahead, but it was there all the same. That horrible date in her calendar that only her closest friend knew about.
It was why she’d chosen to move to London. Edinburgh, Glasgow—big cities they may be, except the hospital worlds were small. There was always someone who knew her, or someone who knew her family…her family, who she had chosen not to tell.
If she took up James’s offer, in a few weeks she would have the experience she needed to start her life over once she’d had the operation.
Oh, she was
only
having a hysterectomy. It was a completely straightforward procedure, she’d be back at work within a few weeks, ready to embrace life without the roller-coaster of pain—only she’d be minus her womb.
She could easily have dealt with it, if she’d had children. She must deal with it, because she didn’t want to fall into the big black hole she’d fallen into after she’d lost the baby.
Their baby.
Lorna forced a smile as he came back over with their coffee, then swallowed as their eyes met for an indecent second. She managed a genuine smile, though, as he slopped half the coffee into the saucers. She’d spent two-thirds of her life avoiding problems, keeping the peace, not making waves, he just hadn’t known her for the last third.
The last third was where she’d hauled herself out of
the black hole, stood up to her parents and become the woman she had almost managed to become with James. The woman who had always been there, waiting for her to assert herself, a woman who dealt with things instead of hoping they would just go away.
And without facing the undeniable attraction that was flaring now, without dealing with it head on, it wasn’t going to go away.
‘About me working with you—well, we have a problem we need to discuss.’
Okay, it was time, Lorna decided, time to live that life of no regrets. Oh, and there would be regrets if she didn’t make herself say it now. Lorna knew that, could almost see herself lying on the gurney pre-op and wishing that day they’d gone shopping she’d found it within herself to be brave. One more night, Lorna told herself. It was certainly an incentive to push on.
She
would
be brave.
‘I’ve told you—it might be awkward at first.’
‘It could be a lot less awkward…’ Lorna gave up with her coffee and replaced it in her saucer. ‘I think we ought to clear the air.’
‘Talk, you mean?’ James frowned when she shook her head.
‘No, not talk. There’s a sudden awkwardness between us,’ Lorna croaked. ‘You remember that kiss…’ She could see his tongue rolling around in his cheek, knew that his silence didn’t mean he wasn’t hearing her. ‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’
‘I think so.’ He was looking at her and she felt as if he was peeling off her skin. Four knees under the table were neatly divided into two and cramp was almost
setting in from the effort of keeping them still. ‘We didn’t work out…’ She waited till he nodded. ‘We can’t ever go back.’
‘I know that,’ James agreed, his mind telling him she was right, his heart disinclined to follow, but then he remembered the rows, the hurt, the pit they had both fallen into, and after a moment’s consideration his heart reluctantly accepted the fact.
‘But.’ Lorna took a deep breath.
‘But?’ The tables really were too small, because there was slight contact. They didn’t both jump, they very deliberately stayed still and silent for a second, waiting for the scales to adjust and settle, before slowly tipping them again.
‘There were some good bits.’ How she was managing to look at him was a mystery, except she was. She could see a muscle flicker in his cheek, feel just a little bit more of his knee on hers, and she wanted to put her hand there, to slide it up his solid thigh and do away with words. But they were needed, because this was important, too important not to make things clear from the start or, rather, Lorna thought, the end. ‘There were also a lot of not-so-good bits,’ she said, thinking of the sad demise of their wonderful sex life. That glorious part of them had been so rapidly reduced to Saturdays when he wasn’t working or she wasn’t deep in a book, studying, and birthdays and duty sex. ‘The thing is,’ Lorna croaked, ‘I’ve always regretted that I can’t remember the last time we did it.’
‘It?’ James checked.
‘It.’ Lorna nodded.
She saw his eyes widen, the shock of recognition in
them that told her he’d thought exactly the same. ‘Neither can I.’
‘I can remember lots of
times,
’ Lorna said carefully, ‘lots of really fantastic times. I just can’t remember the last time and I wish sometimes that I could.’
‘Me too.’
‘We could make a new
last time.
’
He’d been wandering in the woods for weeks now and suddenly here he was, only it wasn’t a gingerbread house he’d found but a redheaded woman he could feast on again, just one more time, end it on a high, instead of the crushing low that had been hell for both of them to crawl back from.
‘We could say goodbye properly,’ Lorna pushed, ‘because it would be goodbye, James. I mean, if I come and work in London, I
will
be your ex…’
‘You have to be, Lorna,’ James agreed, ‘because I can’t go through it again.’
‘I know,’ she said, because she did and she wouldn’t put him through it again, wouldn’t give the man who deserved so much more this half-woman with a childless future, and the goody bag of depression that was sure to follow her surgery.
She promised herself right there in the food hall that she wouldn’t do it to him and she wouldn’t do it to them. No, this was the twenty-first century, people, ex-lovers, friends did things like this all the time—and it was James she was suggesting it to, James who had always looked after her in that way, James, the only man she had ever really been able to be completely herself with.
Good and bad.
‘One night,’ Lorna said, warmed by the prospect and desperate to get the hell out of the food hall. ‘One lovely, lovely night.’
‘That we can look back on.’ He laughed as she smiled that old wicked smile. Sometimes he could read her mind before she’d even thought something, as if they were one person who shared the same thoughts.
‘No photos! Lorna feigned horror. ‘What sort of woman do you think I am?’
That seemed funny and witty at the time, but as they walked through the shop and to the car park all she felt was stupid and horribly, horribly nervous—having offered him a night of fabulous sex, suddenly she wasn’t so sure she was up to the job. When they finally got to the car he gave her her answer. He had to hold her so suddenly that he didn’t even have time to open the door. He pressed her against it, his lips crushing hers, and mindful of her chest, ever the gentleman, he wrapped her in his arms and wedged her to the metal with another part of his anatomy. He kissed her till she wanted to climb into his skin, wanted to crawl under his coat. It was their
taxi
kiss this time, the one where it would be almost impossible to drive, so either they had to run into a hotel, or, as they’d once done, call a taxi because James wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands on the wheel for the ride home.
‘The best sort of woman,’ he said, answering her question from a while ago between kisses, oblivious to the other shoppers. He kissed her till for decency’s sake he bundled her in the car and took her home.