Or somewhere in between.
Or some other option I haven’t even considered. Or …
Actually, I think that might cover it. But still. I’m totally confused just thinking about it.
I stumble downstairs in my robe at around nine, to find Eddie and Trish in the hall, dressed up very smartly. Eddie is in a blue blazer with shiny gold buttons, and Trish is in a white slub silk suit, with the biggest corsage of fake red roses I’ve ever seen. She also seems to be having the teeniest problem doing up the buttons of her jacket. At last she edges the last one into its buttonhole and stands back to look at herself in the mirror, panting slightly.
Now she looks as though she can’t move her arms.
“What do you think?” she says to Eddie.
“Yes, very nice,” he says, frowning at a copy of Road Map of Britain 1994. “Is it the A347? Or the A367?”
“Um … I think it looks nice with the jacket unbuttoned,” I venture. “More … relaxed.”
Trish looks as though she suspects me of deliberately sabotaging her appearance.
“Yes,” she says at last. “Maybe you’re right.” She makes to undo her buttons—but she’s so trussed up, she can’t get her hands near enough. And now Eddie’s wandered off into the study.
“Shall I …” I offer.
“Yes.” Her neck flames red. “If you would be so kind.”
I move forward and undo the buttons as gently as I can, which is not very, given how stiff the fabric is. When I’ve finished she takes a step backward and regards herself again, looking slightly dissatisfied, plucking at her silky shirt thing.
“Tell me Samantha,” she says casually. “If you saw me now for the first time … what word would you use to describe me?”
Oh, bloody hell. I’m sure this wasn’t in my job description. I rack my brains hastily for the most flattering word I can come up with.
“Um … um … elegant,” I say at last, nodding as though to add conviction to what I’m saying. “I’d say you were elegant.”
“Elegant?” Something tells me I got it wrong.
“I mean, thin!” I amend, in sudden realization.
How could I have overlooked thin?
“Thin.” She looks at herself a few moments, turning from side to side. “Thin.”
She doesn’t sound entirely happy. What’s wrong with being thin and elegant, for God’s sake?
Not that she’s either, let’s be honest.
“What about …” She shakes back her hair, deliberately avoiding my eye. “What about … young?”
For a moment I’m too flummoxed to answer. Young?
Young compared to what?
“Er … absolutely,” I say at last. “That … goes without saying.”
Please don’t say, “How old do you think I—”
“How old would you say I am, Samantha?”
She’s moving her head from side to side, flicking dust off her jacket, as though she’s not really interested in the answer. But I know her ears are ready and waiting, like two giant microphones ready to pick up the slightest sound.
My face is prickling. What am I going to say? I’ll say … thirty-five. No. Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t be that self-deluded. Forty? No. I can’t say forty. It’s too near the truth.
“Are you about … thirty-seven?” I hazard at last. Trish turns round—and from her smug expression of pleasure I reckon I hit the note of flattery about right.
“I’m actually … thirty-nine!” she says, two spots of color appearing on her cheeks.
“No!” I exclaim, trying not to look at her crow’s-feet. “That’s … amazing!”
She is such a liar. She was forty-six last February. And if she doesn’t want people to know, she shouldn’t leave her passport out on her dressing table.
“Now!” she says, clearly cheered up. “We’ll be out all day at my sister’s party. Nathaniel will be coming over to work in the garden, but I expect you know that—”
“Nathaniel?” I feel an electric jolt. “He’s coming here?”
“He called this morning. The sweet peas need … stringing or looping or something?” She gets out a lip pencil and begins outlining her already lined lips.
“Right. I didn’t realize.” I’m trying to stay collected, but tentacles of excitement are creeping through me. “So … he’s working on a Sunday?”
“Oh, he often does. He’s very dedicated.” She stands back to look at her reflection, then starts shading in her lips with yet more lipstick. “I heard he took you to his little pub?”
His little pub. She is so patronizing.
“Er … yes. He did.”
“I was so glad about that, really.” She takes out a mascara wand. “We nearly had to look for another gardener, can you imagine. Although of course it was a great shame for him. After all his plans.”
I must have missed a beat or three. What’s she talking about?
“What was a shame?” I say.
“Nathaniel. His nursery. Plant thing.” She frowns at her reflection. “Organic something or other. He showed us the business proposition. In fact, we even considered backing him. We are very supportive employers, Samantha.” She fixes me with a blue gaze as though daring me to disagree.
“Of course!”
“All set?” Eddie comes out of the study wearing a Panama hat. “It’s going to be bloody sweltering, you know.”
“Eddie, don’t start,” snaps Trish, shoving her mascara wand back in the tube. “We are going to this party and that’s final. Have you got the present?”
“And what happened?” I ask, trying to haul the conversation back on track. “With Nathaniel’s plans?”
Trish makes a small, regretful moue at herself in the mirror. “Well, his father passed away very suddenly, and there was all that dreadful business with the pubs. And he changed his mind. Never bought the land.” She gives herself another dissatisfied look. “Should I wear my pink suit?”
“No,” Eddie and I say in unison. I glance at Eddie’s exasperated face and stifle a laugh.
“You look lovely, Mrs. Geiger,” I say. “Really.”
Somehow, between us, Eddie and I manage to chivvy her away from the mirror, out the front door, and across the gravel to Eddie’s Porsche. Eddie’s right, it’s going to be a boiling day. The sky is already a translucent blue, the sun a dazzling ball.
“What time will you be back?” I ask as they get in.
“Not until late this evening,” says Trish. “Eddie, where’s the present? Ah, Nathaniel, here you are.”
I look over the top of the car. There he is, coming down the drive, in jeans and an old gray T-shirt, his rucksack over his shoulder. And here I am, in my dressing gown with my hair all over the place.
And still not sure how things have been left between us. Although certain bits of my body are already responding to the sight of him. They don’t seem to be in any confusion at all.
“Hi,” I say as he gets near.
“Hi.” Nathaniel’s eyes crinkle in a friendly way, but he doesn’t make any attempt to kiss me or even smile. Instead, he just comes to a halt. There’s something about his intent, purposeful gaze that makes me feel a bit wobbly around the legs.
“So.” I wrench my eyes away. “You’re … working hard today.”
“I could do with some help,” he says casually. “If you’re at a loose end. Mum told me you weren’t cooking today.”
I feel a huge leap of delight, which I attempt to hide with a cough.
“Right.” I shrug slightly, almost frowning. “Well … maybe.”
“Great.” He nods to the Geigers and saunters off toward the garden.
Trish has been watching this exchange in increasing dissatisfaction.
“You’re not very affectionate with each other, are you?” she says. “You know, in my experience—”
“Leave them alone, for God’s sake!” retorts Eddie, starting the engine. “Let’s get this bloody thing over with.”
&nbs
p; “Eddie Geiger!” Trish shrills. “This is my sister’s party you’re talking about! Do you realize—”
Eddie revs the engine, drowning out her voice, and with a spattering of gravel the Porsche disappears out of the drive, leaving me alone in the silent, baking sunshine.
Right.
So … it’s just Nathaniel and me. Alone together. Until eight o’clock this evening. That’s the basic scenario.
A pulse is starting to thud somewhere deep inside me. Like a conductor setting the beat, like an introduction.
Deliberately nonchalant, I turn on the gravel and start to make my way back toward the house. As I pass a flower bed I even pause and study a random plant for a moment, holding the green leaves between my fingers.
I guess I could wander down and offer a helping hand. It would be polite.
I force myself not to rush. I take a shower and get dressed and have breakfast, consisting of half a cup of tea and an apple. Then I go upstairs and put on a little makeup.
I’ve dressed low-key. A T-shirt, a cotton skirt, and flip-flops. As I look in the mirror I feel almost shivery with anticipation. But other than that my mind is weirdly blank. I seem to have lost all my thought processes.
After the cool house, the garden feels scorching, the air still and almost shimmery. I keep to the shade, heading down the side path, not knowing where he’s working, where I’m heading. And then I see him, in the midst of a row of lavender and lilac-colored flowers, knotting a length of twine.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” He looks up and wipes his brow. I’m half-expecting him to drop what he’s doing, come forward, and kiss me. But he doesn’t. He just carries on knotting, then cuts the twine off with a knife.
“I came to help,” I say after a pause. “What are we doing?”
“Tying up the sweet peas.” He gestures at the plants, which are growing up what look like cane wigwams. “They need support, otherwise they just flop.” He throws me a ball of twine. “Have a go. Just tie them gently.”
He’s not joking. I really am helping with the gardening. Cautiously I unwind a length of twine and follow what he’s doing, cutting with a pair of secateurs he passes to me. The soft leaves and petals tickle me as I work and fill the air with an amazing sweet scent.
Nathaniel comes over to take a look. “You could tie a little tighter.” His hand brushes briefly against mine as he turns away. “Let’s see you do the next one.”
My hand tingles at his touch. Did he mean to do that? Uncertain, I tie up the next plant, knotting tighter than before.
“Yeah, that’s good.” Suddenly Nathaniel’s voice is behind me and I feel his fingers on the back of my neck, tracing around my earlobe. “You need to do the whole row.”
He definitely meant to do that. No question. I turn round, wanting to reciprocate, but he’s already on the other side of the row, intent on a sweet pea plant, as though nothing happened.
He has a game plan, I suddenly realize.
Now I really am turned on.
The pulse is growing stronger inside me as I move from plant to plant. There’s silence except for the rustling of leaves and faint snap of twine as I cut. Three more plants and I’m at the end of the row.
“Done,” I say without turning round.
“Great, let’s see.” He comes over to inspect my knotted twine. I can feel his other hand edging up my thigh, pushing up my skirt. I can’t move. I’m transfixed. Then suddenly he breaks away, businesslike again, picking up a pair of trugs.
“What—” I can’t even frame a sentence properly.
He kisses me briefly, hard on the mouth. “Let’s move on. Raspberries need picking.”
The raspberry cages are further down the garden, like rooms of green netting, with dry, earthy floors and rows of plants. As we enter there’s no sound except that of buzzing insects and the flapping of a trapped sparrow, which Nathaniel shoos away through the netting.
We work the first row wordlessly, picking the fruit off the plants. By the end of the row my mouth is tangy with the taste of them, my hands are scratched and aching from the constant plucking, and I’m sweating all over. The heat seems more intense in this raspberry cage than anywhere else in the garden.
We meet at the end of the row. Sweat is pouring down our faces.
“Hot work,” he says. He puts his basket down and strips off his T-shirt.
“Yes.” There’s a still beat between us. Then, almost defiantly, I do the same. I’m standing there in my bra, inches from him, my skin pale and milky next to his.
“Have we done enough?” I gesture at the basket, but Nathaniel doesn’t even glance down.
“Not yet.”
His expression makes me damp and prickly behind my knees. I meet his eyes and it’s like we’re playing truth or dare.
“I couldn’t reach those ones.” I point at a high cluster of fruit just out of reach.
“I’ll help.” He leans over me, skin against skin, and I feel his mouth on my earlobe as he picks the fruit. My entire body responds. I can’t bear this; I need it to stop. And I need it not to stop.
But it goes on. We move up and down the rows like two performers in a courtly dance. Outwardly concentrating on our moves yet aware only of each other. At the end of every row, he brushes some part of me with his mouth or fingers. One time he feeds me raspberries and I graze his fingers with my teeth. I want to get at him, I want my hands all over him, but every time he turns away before anything can progress.
I’m starting to shiver all over with desire. He unhooked my bra two rows ago. I’ve discarded my knickers. He’s unbuckled his belt. And still, still we’re picking raspberries.
The baskets are full and heavy and my arms are aching, but I’m barely aware of them. All I’m aware of is that my whole body is throbbing, that I can’t stand this for much longer. As I reach the end of the last row I put the basket down and face him, unable to hide how desperate I am.
“Are we done?”
My breath is coming in short, hot bursts. I have to have him. He has to realize.
“We’ve done pretty well.” His gaze drifts toward the other fruit cages. “There’s still more to do …”
“No,” I hear myself saying. “No more.”
I stand there in the heat and the dusty earth, panting and aching. And just as I think I might explode, he comes forward and bends his mouth down to my nipple, and I nearly swoon. And this time he doesn’t move away. This time is for real. His hands are moving over my body, my skirt is falling to the ground, his jeans are sliding off. Then I’m shuddering, and clutching him, and crying out. And the raspberries are forgotten, scattered on the ground, squashed, crushed beneath us.
We seem to lie still for hours afterward. I feel numb with euphoria. There are stones and dust embedded in my back and knees and hands and raspberry stains all over my skin. I don’t mind. I can’t even bring myself to lift a hand and remove the ant that is crawling up my stomach like a tickling dot.
My head is on Nathaniel’s chest, his heart beating like a deep, comforting clock. The sun is hot on my skin. I have no idea what time it is. I don’t care what time it is. I’ve lost all sense of minutes and hours.
At last Nathaniel shifts his head slightly. He kisses my shoulder, then smiles. “You taste of raspberry.”
“That was—” I break off, almost too stupefied to frame any sensible words. “You know … normally I …” A huge yawn suddenly overcomes me and I clap my hand over my mouth. I want to go to sleep now, for days.
Nathaniel traces lazy circles around my back.
“Six minutes isn’t sex,” I hear him saying as my eyes crash shut. “Six minutes is a boiled egg.”
By the time I wake up, the raspberry cages are in partial shade. Nathaniel has moved from underneath me, given me a pillow constructed from my crumpled, raspberry-stained skirt, put on his jeans, and brought down some beer from the Geigers’ fridge. I sit up, my head still groggy, to see him leaning against a tree on the grass.
“Slacker,” I say. “The Geigers think you’re tying up sweet peas.”
He turns toward me with a flicker of amusement. “Sleep well?”
“How long was I asleep?” I put my hand to my face and remove a small stone. I feel totally disoriented.
“Couple of hours. You want some of this?” He gestures to the bottle. “It’s cold.”
I get to my feet, brush myself down, put on my skirt and bra as a good compromise outfit and join him. I sink back against the tree trunk, my bare feet in the cool grass.
“God, I feel so …” I lift a hand and let it drop down with a heavy thump.
“You’re not as twitchy as you were,” says Nathaniel. “You used to jump a mile whenever I spoke to you.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Uh-huh, you did.” He nods. “Like a rabbit.”
“I thought I was a badger.”
“You’re a rabbit–badger cross. Very rare breed.” He grins at me. For a while neither of us speaks. I watch a tiny plane high above, leaving a white trail in the sky.
“Mum says you’ve changed too. She said she reckons whoever you’ve run away from … whatever happened … they’re losing their grip on you.”
The question is there in his voice, but I don’t respond. I’m thinking of Iris yesterday. Letting me take all my frustrations out on her. It’s not like she’s had it easy herself.
“Your mum’s amazing,” I say at last. I put the bottle down and roll onto the grass, staring up at the blue sky. I can smell the earth beneath my head and feel grass stems against my ears and hear a grasshopper chirruping nearby.
I have changed. I can feel it in myself. I feel … stiller.
“Who would you be?” I say, twisting a grass stem round my finger. “If you could just run away. Become a different person.”
“I’d be me,” he says at last. “I’m happy as I am. I like living where I live. I like doing what I do.”
I roll over onto my front and look up at him, squinting in the sunlight. “There must be something else you’d like to do. Some dream you’ve got.”