* This one is going to try to fill in the details behind that totally excellent Such Sweet Sorrow episode. Unfortunately, this story got kicked to the back of my books while I wrote With A Crooked Arrow, so it’s been a while since that episode aired, even in the UK.
* The characters are not mine, they belong to Constant-C, Warner Brothers, etc… I do this only for fun and gain no money from it.
* The song featured is ‘Babylon’ by a British artist called David Gray. It is taken from his latest album, White Ladder.
* Love it, or hate it, I would really like to hear from you all.
* And thank you once again to Leslie, for your time and your comments on all things American! I am indebted to you.
By Jo
dynamojo26@hotmail.com
****
Friday night and I’m going nowhere
All the lights are changing green to red
Turning over TV stations,
Situations running through my head
Looking back through time
You know it’s clear that I’ve been blind
I’ve been a fool
To open up my heart
To all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridicule
****
Although the last few weeks had been fraught with memories and internal monologues, the final conclusion hit Carol like a sledgehammer, albeit it one moving in slow motion. Luka had frightened her this morning with his barely veiled suggestion that it was time she moved on and forgot about Doug. Obviously, he hadn’t said it in as few words, but his bluntness had been enough for Carol to start erecting indignant walls. By the time she’d dropped the girls off in day-care, an unsteady panic had descended on her.
It was around lunchtime that the panic had escalated to fever. The firm friendships she’d thought she had built with her colleagues were shaking around her, cracks beginning to appear in the once solid foundations. And, ironically, she’d had time to think about it over a lonely coffee in Doc Magoo’s, her feet and head aching from the stress of having to work the long hours she needed to in order to support the girls. These days, Mark had Elizabeth; when he hadn’t been caring for his father or Rachel, he’d been spending his time with her. And Carol, who had once looked upon him as her greatest friend, saw for the first time how distant they’d become. When she’d told him about Luka, his response was uncharacteristic, or at least, not what she could have expected from the Mark who’d gently told her he’d miss her when she told him about Doug. In short, his reaction had hit her like a dash of cold water. Over the past three weeks, the tentative relationship she’d been weaving with Luka had begun to fray under pressure, but it had taken her to today to realise that the shadow hanging over it belonged to Doug.
And then there were the O’Brien’s. If she allowed herself to think about it, they were such a well-timed coincidence that it was almost as if someone with a greater power were writing a script for her life. Everything about them, from the way they acted to the terrible sadness betrayed by Mr. O’Brien’s brave words to her seemed to be calculated to make her understand just how precious time was. Then, as he turned away from her, with one daughter in his arms and the other by his side, she saw that she’d spent over a year wasting time, throwing it away with both hands like it were diseased water. Now it was time to try to get some of it back.
She’d practically flown home, willing the El to travel faster. With a baby swinging by each side, she wouldn’t have looked out of place in a sitcom, but that was the furthest thought from her mind. In her fervor, the curious and concerned glances she received as she flung herself down the steps at the El station barely even registered.
Once she’d dropped the twins hurriedly and with little explanation off at her mother’s, Carol ordered a taxi to take her to O’Hare. She’d called the airport the second she’d got home and discovered that it would take a mammoth effort of timing to catch the final flight out of the day at 5:45. She rushed through the airport, adrenaline scorching through her veins. Inside, half a measure of excitement and an equal one of doubt were burning her, sending her stomach into freefall, but somehow, and she knew not why, she felt certain she were doing the right thing.
She’d not heard from him in weeks. Not since after he’d asked her to join him again. He’d said he wouldn’t pressure her to make a decision, but his silence was frustrating, not to mention unusual. The animal crackers he’d sent had sparked off a train of thought she’d been following progressively each day. Was it right to keep the girls from their father? Was she denying herself happiness? Her mother was always quick to remind her that pride came before a fall and it didn’t take a genius to work out that right now, her life couldn’t fall much farther. She hated herself for being unhappy. It was not part of her plan. And it was not what she’d told herself she should be. At first, she had simply drawn deep breaths and told herself to stop indulging in her own emotions. But that was easier said than done and as the months passed, she saw that her new persona was like living with a shadow of her old self; the one who’d been too proud to share her problems with anyone so that they’d bottled up inside of her until she’d felt there was no way out.
She couldn’t talk to Luka, at least not about the things she needed to talk about. Mark was never around anymore and if he was then he had predicaments of his own to deal with. And her mother, in somewhat endearing objectivity, simply told her not to worry and that the answers would come to her eventually.
But, as the concerns grew wider and more massive, so her imagination began facing the bigger picture. Watching her daughters grow so rapidly had presented Carol with a terrible dilemma. The future was something that would inevitably bring questions. Tess and Kate would sooner or later discover that their father was not in their lives as he should be. And when those questions came, what would she tell them? Should she tell them the truth; that she’d been too stubborn to give up everything for their father, no matter how much she was in love with him? That she’d seriously wished more than once that they hadn’t even been conceived? Or would that simply fall on deaf ears, because she’d already begun, in moments of loneliness, to paint them a picture of Doug as some sort of demi-god? It was horrifying to think that someday, she would have to inform them that it was their own mother who had denied them the chance to know their father as he really was.It was during these moments of deep reflection that she made the first step; she realised that she’d been missing the late-night calls Doug had come to make regularly. One evening, lying awake in bed with her mind churning, she’d picked up the telephone, swallowed her pride and called him herself. She’d got his answer machine, and in peevish disappointment, had refused to leave a message. She had no idea where he was at such a late hour and the thought that he wasn’t waiting by the telephone was, with a little selfishness, annoying. In reality, it was simply another brick in the wall. It took for her to consider that he wasn’t putting his life on standby, waiting, for her to realise that she needed his time and presence much more than she had let on, even to herself.
She boarded the plane at the dying minute, flopping into a cramped aisle seat. The fat, rosy woman next to her leaned a little towards her and smiled, "You almost missed it…"
Carol let out a deep sigh, trying to catch her breath. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was half way there. "Yeah. I almost did." She closed her eyes for a second and as the stewardess brushed past, fixed her belt quickly. Just a couple of hours to go, she told her thumping heart.
As the plane took off, she sucked her finger in an attempt to stop her ears from popping and tried her hardest not to contemplate worst case scenarios. Perhaps he was away, or at work, or with friends. How would she feel if she knocked on the door and he was entertaining? Or if she arrived only to realise that he had gone away. She knew that if that were to happen, she hadn’t enough money in the bank to get her a room for the night on top of a flight back. She took a deep breath, calmed herself, and pushed these thoughts to the back of her head.
"You look in one awful hurry…" came the voice of the woman next to her. Carol opened her eyes and took in the sympathetic smile on her face. She seemed like the sort of woman who bore no false pretences, and her eyes held the unassuming look of someone who was a mother many times over.
She smiled weakly back, patting her thighs nervously. "Yeah, I… er… I have to meet someone."
"Oh, that’s nice…" she paused, as if hoping Carol would pursue the conversation. When she didn’t, she continued anyway, "Well, looks like you’ve made it. You’ll get there just after dinnertime, I’d say." She smiled with warmth in her eyes. Carol nodded. He had to be home, she told herself with tentative conviction. If he wasn’t, then she would just wait on his doorstep till he came back. There was no turning back now. No changing her mind just because the going was yielding. If she was going to do this at all, then it had to be now.
A few minutes passed while she comforted herself with this new perspective. She fidgeted with her coat and bag, pushing her bag to her feet and kicking it angrily when it wouldn’t go under the seat. "Can I ask who it is?"
"Er," She looked at the lady, surprised, and paused, not quite knowing what to call him. Previously, it would have come out as ‘my fiancé’, or ‘my partner’, but she wasn’t sure if that was still appropriate. The woman was looking at her with questioning eyes and an eager expression. "My partner," she allowed finally.
"Oh, well isn’t that lovely? Have you been apart long?"
"Er," Carol looked round, searching for a distraction. "Yeah, we’ve… we’ve been working apart."
"For how long?"
"Too long," she replied quickly.
"What do you both do?" Carol stared at the woman, amazed that she was quite so fearless but somehow also enjoying the fresh, non-judgmental chatting.
"Well, I’m a nurse, and he’s a doctor… he, he works in Pediatrics management and admin." Boy, that sounded good, she thought to herself as she settled back into her seat.
"Ooh, now that sounds like it’s a well-paid field," she giggled, raising her eyebrows.
Smiling, Carol wondered if she were right. She’d not really had the guts to ask Doug what his new salary was, though by the way he seemed to flash that new platinum credit card around, she reasoned that he was more than likely earning a mint. "Well, it’s more than he earned when we worked together." Strangely, she found herself relaxing into this conversation. It felt so unusual to have a complete stranger ask her questions about Doug. She remembered how she’d thought about how nice it would be not to have the judgment her colleagues gave her hanging over her head. But, like so much else, she’d pushed it to the back of her mind, dismissing it as much too risky.
And she was pleasantly surprised to discover that she felt no fear at this polite questioning. This woman had never seen her before and her words came with the gentle interest of someone who was assessing her for the first time. It was refreshing to not feel like she had to defend or prove herself after every statement.
The plane touched down in Seattle and she rushed out into the early evening light, her bag banging urgently against her leg. "Take care of yourself, then, Carol… I hope everything goes well…"
"Thanks, Mary." She shouted and waved at the friend she’d made on the journey. The nervousness had dissipated during the flight, but as her feet hit the tarmac, she felt it gather again in her belly, crunching into a ball. "See you around, maybe," she gave a grin and headed towards the hire-car office, reasoning that it would be easier than spending forever standing in line for a taxi.
A gruff and leering man in the office quoted her some extortionate prices with a dirty twinkle in his eye. She agreed, mostly to get away from his stare but also because her stomach was tightening by the second. If he’d taken much longer, she was certain she’d have been sick. As it was, a man in a business suit came to stand just behind her and distracted the attendant just enough for her to quickly sign the release documents and make her escape.
Once in the car, she dug out the sketchy map Doug had given her on his last visit from her coat pocket and studied it. His writing was all over it. The outrageous scrawl had always made her smile, if only because he filled the stereotype of the illegible doctor so effortlessly. Despite numerous entreaties to do so, he’d never once tried to alter it, and she could remember times when the nurses would come up to her and ask her to translate passages he’d written on charts. When they could barely make out a single word, Carol had always been able to deduce every letter, right down to the way he made his o’s and c’s look identical.
She laid it on the steering wheel, reasoning that a road with the name Lakeside Drive could be nowhere else but beside a lake, and then started up the engine. She’d not driven since the fateful trip to buy her own vehicle with Luka, but as she tested the clutch and bite, a beautiful feeling flooded through her. She could almost feel him getting closer.
****
Saturday and I’m running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green
Moving through the crowds
Chemicals are rushing in my bloodstream
Only wish that you were here
You know I’m seeing it so clear
I’ve been afraid
To show how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I’ve made
****
As she turned the car into Doug’s road, she flung the map over her shoulder onto the back seat and slowly glided along the expanse of fresh tarmac. The road was lined with expensive looking properties, each set back slightly from the road, some with broad iron or dark wood barred gates. Almost every drive was herringbone bricked or had the sort of deep crunching gravel only seen in designer home magazines. And to complete the picture, the cars parked in these driveways were BMW’s or Jaguars, with metallic paint glittering in the late evening sunshine. Carol’s mouth formed an unconscious expression of astonishment as she took this all in, trying to imagine herself living in one of these exclusive residences.
Following the house numbers, she identified his from this and pulled into the drive, past a mature cherry tree weeping its pink blossoms over the surroundings. Parking the car, she climbed out and took a look around, the slow gathering in her stomach mounting to a nervous shudder. Grimacing against herself, she took a deep breath in. There were three garages, each with immaculate wooden doors barring them. The absence of a car in the driveway made her think he was probably not home, but she went to the door and gave it a cautious knock nevertheless. Beside the door were daffodils in a brown and white planter, obviously purchased in a hurry from a garden centre.
She waited a few minutes, but it was clear that he wasn’t answering. At first, she thought she would wait in the car, but then, as her eyes toured around the enormous house, curiosity began burning at her. Convinced that he was not yet home, she found herself filled with inquisitive courage and stepped around the side of the house. The path led out into a moderately sized garden patch, open on both sides and looking out over a silvery mass of water. Enchanted, she began walking toward the lake, but then, as her view widened, she saw him.
He was standing on a large wooden jetty, one foot resting on a motor boat, the other balancing precariously on dry land. He was tying up rope, presumably mooring the boat and as she took the steps slowly, her shoes tapped on the concrete and his eyes flew up and then caught her, standing half way up the garden. She smiled and he stood straight.
His hands crept into his pockets and he made his way toward her, a smile so broad on his face that it would have been impossible to pin any other emotion on him other than sheer joy. They faced each other and Carol took such a deep breath that she had to let a little of it back out again to stop her lungs from bursting. "Where are the girls?" he asked, appropriately, his head tilting in his trademark manner, the smile still as strong, still as crooked.
"They’re with my Mom," Carol replied, letting out a half joking, half sincere sigh. A soft chuckle eased from his throat. She closed her eyes briefly, not completely sure whether or not she were dreaming. When she opened them again, he was still standing there and she had to take her eyes off him to stop herself from shuddering with happiness and fear at the sight of his lovely, familiar face. "It’s beautiful here," she added, pretending to look at the scenery. He nodded and she lifted her gaze back to him and almost exploded with joy as she saw his dark eyes glowing like super-charged marbles, brimming over with relief and love.
And then he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Her responding smile was so powerful, tugging so uncontrollably at her lips that she could barely make them kiss him back, even though at that moment, it was the only thing in the world she wanted. But his kiss soon caught that smile and pushed it down to her belly; he covered her mouth with his own and wrapped his arms around her until the smile in her stomach exploded in a flood of bursting warmth that seeped throughout her whole body. And his own joy so overcame him that he dropped at the knees. For a minute, she thought he was going to crumple at her feet, but then, summoning strength from his shaking body, he lifted her up and off the ground, whispering breathlessly in her ear: ‘You’re back."
****
And if you want it
Come and get it
The love that I was giving you
Was never in doubt
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Babylon, Babylon, Babylon.
****
Carol didn’t look up, but instead let her face fall onto his shoulder, her joy mixing with a sort of fearful guilt, not sure how she should explain herself. She murmured incomprehensibly into the cloth of his shirt and stood cradling him. Slowly, his embrace loosened and he gently pushed her away so he could see her. Keeping her head low, Carol tried not to show him the water that had gathered in her eyes. But, through the dark arch made by her cascading hair he saw a tear swell at her lid and then speed down her cheek.
"Carol?"
She shook her head but still didn’t meet his questioning eyes. He took one of her hands and gave it a small squeeze. "Carol… it’s okay…" He whispered softly and, gently catching her chin with the crook of his forefinger, tugged her head up. "It’s okay,"
"I know…" she struggled, fighting to suppress the emotion in her voice. "I, I just… oh, Doug, I’m so glad I’m here. It’s so beautiful."
He tilted his head, but said nothing. She looked him in the eyes finally and smiled, wiping her wet face hurriedly. There was a silent pause, a measurement of the unusual distance between them. Doug seemed on edge, uncertain how to deal with the situation. His eyes were restless, focused on her, but betraying a hidden depth to his expression. At length, he returned her smile and then inquired, "Should I make coffee?"
"Yeah," but her voice was faint.
He started towards the house and she strode to walk at his side. They crossed the garden in silence. Doug opened the side door with the four inch long steel key from his back pocket and ushered her into a tiled lobby. She kicked her boots off deferentially. "It’s okay, Carol, you don’t have to take your shoes off…" he smiled, opening another door that led into a kitchen.
"I know, but…" she grinned genuinely. "Doug, the place is like a show-home!"
His customary chuckle echoed through from the kitchen, enticing her. "Don’t say that yet. You haven’t seen the upstairs."
Carol came into the kitchen to join him. It was wall to wall fitted pine cupboards, open-planned, with a central island and a ceramic sink with big, brass faucets. Everything was perfectly designed, and the only signs that this was not the show home he claimed it wasn’t was the presence of an opened briefcase on the square table and the brief insignificance of bare plaster walls. "I bought some tiles," he said, as if reading her mind, motioning towards a palette dumped in the corner of the room, loaded with colourful earthenware tiles. "But I’ve been so busy, I’ve not had time to put them up. I was thinking about getting someone round to do it for me last week, but I guess I didn’t get time to do that either." His chuckle came again as he filled the kettle and dropped it back onto its base, flicking the switch with his other hand.
"You’ve been busy?" Carol asked, moving to lean against the island while he selected two mugs from a stand.
"Oh work, you know." He grinned. "I’d not done any paperwork for the best part of four months and Cindy was on my case."
Carol’s eyes flashed up. "Cindy?"
"Yeah," Doug barely even looked up from the refrigerator. "She’s my secretary. She’s great, but she does her fair share of whining."
"You have a secretary?"
At that, he did look at her, a smile creeping into his eyes. "Yeah. I’m not just being lazy though. If I didn’t have a secretary, I’d have to have four pairs of hands." He turned his back to her and added a teaspoonful of coffee to each mug.
"But," he turned back to her. "How are you?" His question was thinly veiled as a request for some form of explanation. Carol sighed, dropping her head a little.
"I’m okay… I’ve had a rough few weeks, but I’m okay."
"How are the girls?" he asked. The kettle boiled and he picked it up and added water to the mugs, stirring gently. He picked up the milk he’d taken from the fridge earlier and tipped some into her mug. "There you go…"
She took the mug carefully, taking a wary sip as he’d filled it a little too high for comfort. "Getting big." He smiled.
"How big?"
"Way too big," she said. "They feel like a couple of baby elephants when I’ve got them both in my arms." She grinned and, seeing his fascinated face, continued. "Kate can sit up on her own now, and just the other day I found her half way across the room. She doesn’t really crawl, but she sort of hauls herself along with her arms. She’d make a real good combat soldier."
"What about Tess?"
"Tess is just a pain in the ass."
Doug laughed. "Now you don’t mean that…"
"I do," she grinned. "She’s a little devil at the moment. When she’s not screaming in frustration because she can’t keep up with her sister, she’s waking me up in the night for no reason other than that she wants to sleep in the bed with me."
She stopped, watching his face change as she finished her last sentence. His frame of mind had visibly altered. "Why are you here, Carol?" he ventured after a second of taut silence.
Her eyes grew wide, surprised that he had thrown such a wrench into a conversation that had been flowing so easily. She opened her mouth to say something, but found she could not form the words she wanted to say and so lowered her head in defeat. "Because if you’re here to tell me… to tempt me… with these stories…" He paused, his brow knitting. "I don’t know if I want to hear them if you’re going to go away again. I can’t hear them."
She glanced up apprehensively. To her right, the tap gave a smooth spit and dribbled the water trapped in its faucet into the sink with a gentle splatter. Doug’s eyes were like two glowing coals, and as she stared at him, she knew that he was pleading honesty. She raised her face to look straight at him. "I’m not leaving, Doug," She took a hesitant step forward. He adjusted his position slowly, standing slightly straighter, becoming defensive. She took another step so she was now just a couple of feet away from him. "I’m here because it’s time I did what I should have done months ago."
Doug’s stare did not falter and his expression did not change. "I love you, Doug, and I won’t leave here without you. I don’t want to live alone anymore. I want to be with you…" She swallowed, amazed that she’d summoned the courage to spout it all in one go, but as she stared at his impassive gaze, her courage began to wilt. Her head slipped downwards, thinking that perhaps she’d done too much. Perhaps she’d played her last card and he was just too hurt to accept what she was saying as the truth. Perhaps he simply didn’t trust her anymore. "Will you have me…?" she managed to murmur under her breath, forcing the trembles that were beginning to shake her hands back to her fingertips.
He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and then put his mug down on the counter. He spread his hands out behind him, bearing some of his weight on them. "Do you mean that?" he said carefully, his head tilting, as if adjudging her, seemingly not wanting to commit to something that he was unsure of.
Carol reached forward and put her hands on his waist, searching his face. "I mean it."
They stared at each other, but then Doug pulled gently away, slipping under her arm like a fleeing animal. "Do you want to see the house?" Carol stared at him. He was behaving as if he were petrified, as if he dared not allow himself to accept the meaning behind her words. Taken aback at this, Carol answered quickly,
"Yeah, okay… that’d be nice."
Maybe this was his way of distancing himself, she told herself as he led her through to the main entrance hall, of buying himself a little time so he could weigh up the evidence. "Let’s go upstairs, first," he said, turning to climb the stairs, his hand running on the banister. "You won’t think it’s such a show-home when you’ve seen up here…"
Carol smiled, but she had been thrown by him. Even when she’d been expecting the worst, she’d never anticipated that he would act like this, treating her like an unexploded bomb, walking on eggshells around her. She knew she’d hurt him, but she’d never ever believed that he could be so utterly destroyed.
He led her up the stairs and through an unpainted hallway, telling her to watch for the spiders. "Urgh, spiders? Where?" she murmured nervously, looking around her. He grinned. "I think I’ve got them all, don’t worry." She nodded, but kept her eyes moving as he took her along the bare-boarded corridor to the first room.
The first thing she’d noticed was that all the doors were stripped, awaiting a coat of paint. As he swung open the door to the chosen room, he remarked, "I had the carpenter sand the paint off of them. There was years of it…" He chuckled low in his throat. "I went to work four days running with what looked like dandruff all over my suit. Cindy thought it was hilarious."
Carol giggled with him, but her mind was far from focused, wondering how she could corner him into talking so she could maybe leaven the bitterness. He took a side-step and allowed her to enter behind him. "See what I mean… the place is a mess…"
The room in question was large but bare. The walls were half stripped of an aging mottled green paper and no curtains hung in the window. "This is the spare room," he told her quietly, making a brief touring circle around it. "Well, all but one of them are spare at the moment…" He turned and looked at her pointedly. "But that can change."
Carol smiled at his unusual sentiment, letting him see her face. Perhaps, she thought, if she was genuine with her emotion, he would do the same in return. Doug returned the smile. "Yeah, change is good."
He nodded, ignoring the deeper meaning to her statement. "Okay, that’s about all there is to see in here. I think we’ve exhausted the four bare walls."
"Where are you going to take me now?" she asked, trying to maintain the light conversation. He twisted his body slightly.
"The next room, I think…" His grin showed a little of the old sarcasm, but still he was hanging onto something. He caught her giving him a critical stare and added, "Something going on with you that I should know about?" Carol shook her head.
"No, I’m okay… So, go on, show me this magical next room then…"
They worked their way through two further rooms, one of which was clearly where he slept. The big bed in the centre of the room was still unmade, the duvet crunched from what looked like a fitful sleep. She chastised him about dropping his standards, and he made no objection. Finally, he led her into the room adjacent to his own. He kicked the door gently with his foot and it swung open to reveal a room painted the lightest shade of blue. "I thought this one could be for the girls…" he said in a somber voice. Carol took a step in. It was bare, like all the others, but this one had at least found its way to a paintbrush. It faced onto the back garden, like the master bedroom, but instead of the slatted skylight of his room, this one boasted a sweeping bay window, complete with window seat.
"Oh, wow, look at this seat…" she walked up to the curved seat and kneeled on the cushioning. The view was tremendous, looking out onto the lake, without a tree to hide a single thing. He came to stand just behind her.
"On a clear day you can see fifty, maybe sixty miles…" He paused, and she heard him adjusting his position slightly. "You can see the boats on the lake and sometimes even the geese."
She released a slow, appreciative breath. "It’s beautiful, really beautiful,"
"Yeah. Sometimes I come in here in the evening and just watch the sun set over the lake." Carol turned to look at him and he smiled at her curiosity, his eyes intense. "I think it has to one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen…" Carol sighed, turning briefly back to the vista.
"And you set this aside for the girls?" she asked in an amazed voice.
"I thought they’d like it."
Silence descended in an oppressive blanket, forcing her to turn back to him and see his now vague expression. She decided to break the silence by changing the subject. Somehow the strain hanging in the air made her feel guilty. "How’ve you found the time to get things as straightened up as you have? I thought you said you were really busy…"
His eyes took a mildly embarrassed walk around the room and then he shrugged, grinning. "Er, three words, Carol; plumbers, carpenters and decorators." Without thinking, she added quickly,
"But how could you afford all that?"
His grin widened. "I’m not gonna answer that one." She shook her head with an ironic smile.
"Must be nice." He caught her wishful expression and pounced, trapping the difficult moment that had briefly slipped out of sight and dragging it back to the light.
"Well I did offer to help you out, Carol… but you wouldn’t take my help." She looked away from his piercing gaze. "If you were having trouble you should have called me. I’d have got the bank to transfer some cash for you. It’d have been in your account the next day."
Carol glanced down. Now that the moment had arrived, she wasn’t sure whether she was ready to tell him everything. She wanted first to work out what was going on under his apparently pleased exterior. She shook her head, "Doug, I couldn’t take your money. I, oh…" She sighed, bringing her fingers up to her face and squeezing the top of her nose, turning it into a massage. "I needed to do things on my own. I needed to know that I could do it all alone, because I was too angry with you to let you think that I was dependent…" she trailed off.
"I never once thought that of you," he told her quietly and sincerely. "I always believed that you were taking care of my girls. Do you think I would be able to sleep at night if I thought you weren’t?" A heavy sigh released itself from his lungs. "Carol, I tried my hardest to get you to come here, but when you wouldn’t, I told myself that if you loved me like I loved you, you’d come sooner or later. But then, when you told me about the girls… … I changed my priorities, Carol." He paused, as if searching for the words to conclude his thoughts. "As soon as I knew they were born, they became my priority. I want to be there for my kids, Carol. I know you can survive on your own with them, and I trust you one hundred percent, but… it’s not what I want." He stopped and took a breath. For a second, Carol thought he was going to continue, and waited for him to begin again. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave a sad nod of his head and said slowly, "I’m going to make some dinner. Do you want something?"
****
He cooked bacon ratatouille and served it with chunks of bread cut haphazardly from a fresh white ciabatta loaf. While he was cooking, he turned the radio on and spoke not a word. Carol watched him for a while, but then decided that the whole atmosphere was making her too uncomfortable. She got up from the table and walked out of the kitchen and went for a look around the downstairs of his house. The hall led off to a cloakroom, a small bathroom with room for just a toilet, sink and shower and then into a lounge-dining room. It was huge and had an enormous window looking out onto the garden, complete with French windows that opened out onto the decked balcony.
There were two armchairs and a cornflower blue sofa, a beech coffee table and various other furnishings. A giant fireplace held a wood-burning fire, encased in an old-fashioned black steel stove with a glass door so the flames could be seen. On the mantel sat the only photos she’d sent him of the girls, taken by her mother when they were only a few days old. Each one was framed with sterling silver and given pride of place. She sighed, picking the picture of Tess up. It was funny, she thought; she’d not thought of them at all until now, when the symbol of their measly presence in his life caused her mind to fly to them.
When he’d come to see them those two times, she’d told herself that it was enough. At least they’d had a few hours to see him and play with him. At least when he came the second time, they recognised him. It had been hard to see him with them, watch him gelling so effortlessly with them, to hear Kate’s delighted squeals when he’d blown raspberries on her stomach and watch Tess drift to slumber in his arms without so much as a brief protestation. But, despite the fact that this seemed to be even harder at present, she knew it was what she wanted. He had more than a right to see his children grow up and she had no right whatsoever to stop him. He’d bowed to her for the past eighteen months, but this time, she had the feeling that he wasn’t going to give up so easily.
She heard him clattering china plates in the kitchen and made her way back through the study. He’d switched the radio off and was spooning out the meal onto two waiting plates. "Hey," she greeted with a gentle smile. He looked up and returned the smile, but said nothing, simply holding out the filled plate for her to take. Feeling spurned once again, Carol took the plate and went to the table. He followed, after turning off the hob burners and throwing the dirty frying pan into the sink, choosing to sit at the other end of the table.
They ate in silence, Carol trying to think of non-stupid questions to ask that would somehow initiate a conversation. Unfortunately, everything she thought of couldn’t meet those requirements and so she kept quiet, focusing on her meal. Doug provided nothing in the way of talk; apart from polite requests for her to pass him the salt or whether she would like a glass of juice, he maintained a similar distance.
When they finished eating, he got up and placed their empty plates in the dishwasher. "Do you want coffee?" he asked, his back to her.
"It’s okay, I’ll sort it…" she said and went to fill the kettle. Doug waited and then turned the tap into the sink and filled it with soap and hot water. While she moved to look out of the window, he scrubbed the frying pan, knife and wooden spoon. The kettle boiled and Carol added water to the two mugs they’d used previously. "It’s getting late," she noted, watching the now much darker clouds gathering on the horizon. The room had become dim, but he had still not yet switched the lights on. Outside, the wind had settled a little and the water on the lake was less choppy than before.
"Yeah," He turned slightly and drew in a sorrowful breath. Carol did not look at him. "I’m sorry," he murmured after a few minutes, his voice heavy and lachrymose. She felt him come up behind her and then felt his hands slip around her waist. She heard him swallow, but said nothing to prompt him, wanting him to offer up the words himself. "I didn’t mean to… shout… I, I just…"
He was struggling, and Carol turned to look at him. His head was drooping and he looked for all the world like he’d given up the fight. He continued, anxiously repeating the same question he’d asked her just two hours previously, "What are you here for, Carol?" His eyes rose slowly to meet hers and in them she saw a distant hope, like a light shining in the darkness. She sighed,
"Because I don’t want to be alone anymore." She met his troubled stare. "I’ve changed my priorities too, Doug…"
His attention caught, he allowed himself a tiny, fleeting smile. For a moment, he said nothing, but then he frowned slightly, "What are they?"
"Doug, I’m here because I want to be here. I want to be with you… if you’ll have me. I don’t expect everything to be forgotten, but I’ve long forgiven you and I hope you can do the same. I’ve made myself unhappy… I hate it and I hate myself for making things that way… I want to be happy again." He remained impassive. Carol released a weary breath, somehow sensing she was making little progress. "I’m tired, Doug… and I don’t want to talk anymore. I think we both need to think about things, get things straight in our heads." She smiled gently at him. "Is there somewhere I can sleep?"
Mildly taken aback, Doug nodded. "You can sleep in the girls’ room, if you want." Carol swallowed. Somehow she knew that sleeping in the same bed as him would solve nothing. There was too much still unsaid for such closeness. He headed towards the kitchen door. "There are sheets and a duvet cover in the linen cupboard, in the bathroom. I can get you some fresh towels from the dryer too…" He disappeared off to the cloakroom and she headed up the stairs.
Taking a clean sheet, pillowcase and duvet cover from the cupboard in the bathroom, she numbly began making the bed, trying not to think how far this evening had deviated from her anticipations. She finished fighting the duvet inside its cover and then stood up to shake it out. There were no curtains at the window, and the last gray light still filtered through the clouds to keep the room on the brighter side of gloomy. She heard him climbing the stairs with dead footsteps and when he walked through the door he carried a bale of towels with him. He placed a hand-towel on the end of the bed and then proceeded to hang two large bath sheets over the curtain rail to block out the remaining light. "I’ll go get you my other light," he said absently and walked out. He returned a moment later carrying a small desk lamp. He plugged it into the wall and placed it on the dresser near the bed. It’s yellow glow filled the room and gave the bare walls a warmth that hadn’t been there before.
Carol stood while he moved some of the ancient furniture from the centre of the room and then went to him. "Goodnight, Doug." She kissed him on his cheek and he smiled.
"Goodnight, Carol. Sleep well." He walked slowly from the room. She followed him to shut the door, thinking that perhaps she’d done all this wrong. She’d assumed that everything would just fall back into place again, but now, she realised just how naïve she’d been. All of the happiness she’d been anticipating had turned so sour. There was so much going on under the surface.
But for now, she was shattered. Her legs felt like pieces of chewed string and she knew that if she didn’t lie down soon, they would collapse from under her. She sat on the edge of the bed and unpacked her little bag, putting her hairbrush, shampoo and make-up bag methodically on the dresser. In its mirror, she caught her own reflection and thought how tired she looked. Her face was drawn and there were gray shadows under her eyes. It was the legacy of seven months of broken nights and right now, she felt every one of her thirty-one years.
She took her blue pajamas out of her bag and slowly took off her clothes, laying them on the window seat. On the other side of the wall, she heard the bed creak and realised that he must have just settled down. It felt so strange to be so close to him, but with such a tangible barrier between them. She took off her make-up with cotton balls and cleanser, standing a few feet from the mirror so she couldn’t scrutinise her own face and then crawled into bed, pulling the duvet up around her chin. It wasn’t cold in the house, but she was still shaking and it took her a second to realise that there were tears behind her eyes.
The tears were simply a release of the stress of the day, and to calm herself, she thought of her girls. Tried to imagine them sleeping peacefully with her mother. She knew that whenever the girls had been forced to stay over at her mothers, Helen had told Javier he must sleep on the sofa and he had always agreed. For probably the first time in many years, Carol was grateful for her mother’s presence in her life and as she thought of Tess and Kate lying one on either side of their grandmother, the tears slowed, stopped and then soothed her to sleep.
On the other side of the wall, Doug listened to her every move. He closed his eyes and tried to silence the thoughts that were running wild in his head. It had been nearly eighteen months and here she was, trying to get everything back to how it had been. He wanted to follow her without question, so much so that it hurt to do otherwise. But there were a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t. She’d arrived at his door and explained nothing well enough for him to wrap his mind around. Why had she delayed so long? Why now? It was true that he’d been overjoyed to see her come, too amazed to do anything but kiss her in sheer thankfulness, but before he could let his feelings free, he had to know some answers. He had to feel sure that she was here to stay.
****
Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
And the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.
This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
It is sad? In one of the tenses I sing
An impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.
La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
The dark hills I would have to cross
To reach you. For I am in love with you and this
Is what it is like, or what it is like in words.
- Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Words, Wide Night’.
****
It was raining when Carol woke, sometime around five. Her body clock had been out of alignment for so long that it would take several nights of uninterrupted sleep for her to be able to sleep longer than six hours. She rose quietly, trying to make as little noise as possible, and dragged the duvet to the window seat. She pulled the towels down from the curtain rail and leaned onto the sill, curling her feet up underneath her.
It was a hard rain, hard enough to wash some of the slime from the gutters and send it tumbling down to the patio below. She stared out of the window, watching the rain pummel the ground and stream down the glass. She opened the right-side window a little and breathed in the cold air that blew through the gap and washed over her face. Unmoving, she remained at the window for an hour or more, staring out onto the lake, as if hoping that the scene could somehow inspire some sense of well-being within her.
She watched the dawn shift through a spectrum of gray, and a mist of drizzle descend on the lake. She heard the mail drop through the chute at around six thirty and decided to go downstairs to make herself some tea.
Carefully, she tip-toed down the stairs and crept into the kitchen, pushing the door closed behind her. She filled the kettle and while she waited for it to boil, she hunted through the cupboards for some tea bags.
When she’d made her tea, she stole up the stairs again and took up her position on the window seat again. The rain had slowed, but now there was the kind of Scotch mist in the air that tempted you to go without an umbrella, but which somehow managed to soak you to the bone. On the bank, three geese moved like smudged shadows towards the clump of birch trees in the centre of the garden, no doubt seeking shelter.
In the quiet of the early morning, she began to think. She knew her pride had got the better of her. Doug’s shirking away from her had revealed to her just what she’d feared and more. That she’d left it too long. She’d wasted all of her chances without thought of consequence. He was holding her at arm’s length because he probably wasn’t certain whether or not to believe her. For the first time she realised that the reasons he’d left had been the reasons she’d stayed. She had wanted him to stay with her, for her love to be more important to him than anything else. And he’d left thinking that her love for him would be strong enough to bring her with him. And now here she was, tired and emotional, understanding completely how he was feeling, but not knowing how to make it better. She needed to tell him things. About Luka, why she’d stayed and why she’d refused him access to his own children. She had the answers she knew he was looking for, but how she would throw them into the ring was another matter entirely. Right now, he was like a walking open wound, just waiting to bleed again, and she couldn’t bring herself to even touch him.
A tear slipped down her cheek and fell onto the windowsill. Her mother had told her before she’d left, trying her best to allay her fears, that if the relationship was meant to work then they’d be strong enough to fight through anything. Carol thought of what he’d said last night and started to cry harder. Everything he’d said had been so true that her guilt had swollen into a drowning wave. That he could be so vulnerable and so injured was something she’d never even considered. She’d simply selfishly assumed that she was the only one who was hurting and now that she’d stopped hurting and started loving him again, he would just welcome her back to his arms without question. The harsher reality had stung her to her bones.
She brought the duvet up to dry her face, the tears beginning to tingle her skin.
"Carol…"
It was his voice, from behind her. She turned sharply and stared at him, standing in the doorway in only his boxer shorts and t-shirt. "Oh God, Doug… you surprised me." She made her hands into fists and rubbed her eyes hurriedly, not wanting him to see the state she’d gotten herself into. He moved towards her, saying nothing, and then took her arms and pulled her to standing, bringing her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her.
"Carol, it’s okay…" he murmured and Carol, overwhelmed by sadness and happiness, let herself be held up by his strength and pushed her head into his shoulder, the tears spilling faster. "It’s okay to cry…"
"No, it’s not," she cried, shoving away from him, suddenly seeing how this would get them nowhere. Her face creased. "You hate me… and I’ve ruined everything…" Her crying was now almost hysterical and as fast as she wiped her face, more tears fell and drenched it once again.
"I don’t hate you, Carol… I’ve never hated you."
"You do! You won’t trust me, you won’t believe what I tell you… that’s as bad as hating me!" She coughed with emotion, sobbing violently, everything suddenly and confusingly spilling out.
He stepped towards her and took her by the arms again. She tried to wrestle free, but he held on and steered her backwards to sit on the window seat. He waited while she dragged her damp sleeve across her eyes then dropped onto his knees, taking her hands in his own. "Carol, listen to me." He looked directly at her. "I don’t hate you. I love you…" He sighed. "I only hate what you did to me. But that’s in the past now, and there’s no need to think about it anymore. What matters is that you’re here and I’m here and we’re gonna work this out together. For the girls and for ourselves." He paused for breath. Her tears had stopped and she was sniffling back her running nose, staring straight at him with confused, reddened eyes. "Now… I’m not going anywhere until you’ve told me everything… absolutely everything. You need to do some closure and I need to hear you be straight with me."
She stared at him. He was deadly serious, unexpectedly intense and patient, waiting for her to begin. She snuffled and pulled the duvet up around her shivering body, and began, her words interspersed with chokes, sniffles and occasional tears. "Oh, Doug… I’ve been so stupid and… and I, I can’t do it anymore. I’ve made myself so unhappy. I’ve missed you so much…" She reached for him, but he kept a steady distance, his only contact his hands holding her own. "But… Everything was hard… I was so angry with you, and then I was just sad. But I didn’t want to let you know because… because I was stupid, so damn stupid." Carol punched her own tensed thigh with the base of her palm. "I thought it would be giving in to you. I thought it would be just doing what I’d done years ago… just giving in to everything. But then, a few weeks ago, I started to think that maybe I was wrong…"
Carol drew breath. He was still kneeling before her, his face unreadable but still listening. "I started spending time with one of the new doctors." Doug looked down. "His name’s Luka and he’s been great. He’s helped me out with the girls a little and he’s been… a… well, a distraction, I guess." She paused, seeing his guarded expression. "But then, things started to change. And I thought that maybe that was a good thing…" She caught his eyes. "So I kissed him."
Doug blinked. His eyebrows briefly moved, but it was in his eyes that there was a world of expression. Carol panicked on seeing the light disappear from them and floundered, "But I was wrong… I," The tears brimmed up yet again and she tried to explain, "Every time we were together again I…"
He stood up suddenly and turned away from her, hiding his face. Her panic multiplied. "Doug, no, it wasn’t like that… I’m not seeing him…" He turned back to her, his face strangely fretful.
"Carol, if this is what you’re going to tell me, I…"
She cut him off, standing up to face him. "No. No, I’m not here to tell you that." The tears were bubbling under, trying as she was to fend them off. "I, I made a dreadful mistake. I want to be with you, Doug, forever. I don’t ever want to be without you. Luka was a mistake. He’s a great man, but he…" She paused, looking straight at him. "But he’s not you. And when I kissed him, that’s all I could think about. It wasn’t him I wanted, but it took for that to happen for me to realise… Doug, I’m still in love with you. I always have been." She stepped towards him. Now it was his eyes that were becoming watery. She came up close to him. "I’ve never stopped loving you. I was just too stubborn to follow my own instincts."
His emotions were struggling to break free, just under his skin. "Do you mean that?" he asked again in a subdued voice, his dark eyes tentatively searching her face.
"I mean it," He nodded, understanding. She put her arms around him and hugged him almost cautiously. They stayed that way for a few minutes, while her tears dried, and then she asked, "Doug…? Why didn’t you come back when the girls were born?"
"You told me not to… And I didn’t want to make you mad, so I stayed away." He pulled gently away from her, looking her in the eyes. "Why? Did you expect me not to listen?"
Carol smiled dryly. "I think so, yeah…"
"Why?" He thought briefly at how often he’d used that simple question in the past two days. But he didn’t stop because he knew it was how he was getting the answers he needed to hear.
She sighed, thinking how ridiculous her explanation would sound to him, "Because I thought it should be you that should come to me. I thought that if you loved me enough, you’d come to me. And when you didn’t," Carol paused, heaving out a deep breath. "I thought that you didn’t love me…" She started to cry again. "I thought that I’d pushed you too far away. And last night… when you told me those things… I, it was like my worst nightmare. I thought I’d ruined things for real."
He took her gently in his arms and explained, "Carol. You haven’t ruined anything. I can’t just switch off how I feel about you. I can’t change anything. I was… I was just so hurt." He was gazing at her and it was clear to Carol that this time, there were no more fronts, no more games of pretending to be strong. He was standing bare in front of her. "I thought that you didn’t love me. When you told me about the girls, all I wanted was to get on the first plane and come to see you, but you told me not to, so I stayed here. I made myself sick that night," he sighed. "I was physically sick with despair. I sat up all night, thinking that the thing I dreaded most had come true. You’d stopped loving me." Doug swallowed nervously, trying to gather his strength, silently stunned that he was telling her his innermost thoughts without a falter.
"Oh, God, Doug… I’m so sorry…" She tried to embrace him again, but he wasn’t finished.
"You hurt me, Carol. More than anyone has ever hurt me before in my life. And I’m sorry for last night, but it’s not that easy to just push something like that away. It’s too big." He rubbed his temple between his thumb and forefinger. "I want us to be together, Carol, but I have to be sure…"
"Sure of what?" she interrupted.
"Sure that you’re not going to hurt me like that again. Because I don’t think I could take it another time."
For a moment, Carol thought she would combust with guilt. His face was as plain as day, heartache seared through with trepidation and loss. It was too much for her to comprehend. And to think that she was the cause of it was soul destroying. He had told her everything, spilled forth every awful thought that had inhabited his mind for the last year and a half. And just as guilts of variant cause and intricacy were etched forever in her own heart, she realised that so too was the hurt she had wrought in his. "I won’t hurt you again. I promise." She told him, honestly.
He nodded, smiling, but she knew he still doubted her. Instead of offering up another line of discussion, he kissed her gently and then took her arm in a gesture that offered simply friendship. "Let’s go and get some breakfast. I don’t think it’s too early anymore…"
****
Sunday all the lights of London
Shining sky is fading red to blue
Kicking through the Autumn leaves
And wondering where it is you might be going to
Turning back for home you know I’m feeling so alone
I can’t believe
Climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there in front of me
****
Over toast and coffee, sitting casually at the kitchen table in their respective bed clothes, Carol wondered if he had seriously accepted her apologies or whether he was simply following the same courteous friendliness he’d employed the night before. He seemed much more relaxed, sitting next to her now, leaning over her to reach for the jam or butter, rather than asking her with polite reserve as he’d done before. He opened his mail, throwing half of it in the bin, and then munched his way through four slices of toast. "When did you last eat, Doug?" she teased him as he coated his fourth slice in butter and filled the cafeteria with hot water again. He looked up, smiling and answered with his mouth full,
"I haven’t had time to do much recently,"
"Has work been hard?"
"The coolies in Hong Kong work fewer hours than I do at the moment." He chuckled. "In the last three weeks, I’ve been to Cambridge, Dayton and Louisville. (I just picked three random names out of my Atlas here guys. If these are improbable or plain ridiculous, please let me know. Cheers.) I’m supposed to be at a conference in Toronto tomorrow, but I told Cindy not to book tickets cos I had to take some time off."
"And it’s not important?" Carol asked, thinking her presence was probably turning his few days holiday into a bigger stress than his work. Doug shrugged,
"Dunno, I won’t know till I get there, and I’m not gonna be there, so…" He grinned. "Ah, it’ll be alright. Cindy said she’d get the notes off the Internet for me. She says she’s sure they’ll be a webpage. And who am I to question her conviction…?"
Carol paused, wondering whether it was safe to ask the question that had been budding on her lips for the last day and a half. "Will I meet Cindy?" He looked up, raising his eyebrows.
"Sure you will. You’ll like her. She’s really friendly…" Suddenly, his face flashed with animation. "In fact, there’s something she gave me you should see… her kids didn’t want it, so she said I could have it."
Carol tried not to let her jealousy that this woman had suddenly jumped from friend all the way to mother figure show and followed him as he stood and left the kitchen, taking a detour route through to the entrance hall. "Bet you didn’t find this place last night…" he grinned. He opened the doors to what looked like a closet under the stairs and led her down a flight of about a dozen uncarpeted steps. They opened out into a wide, wood-floored room with a ping-pong table and a mini-bar. "This," he announced with a broad, theatrical sweep of his arms, "Is the games room, ma’am. How does one like one’s vodka martini? Shaken, or stirred?"
Carol giggled at his daft accent. "Over breakfast, Mr. Bond…? That’s not what happened over breakfast in the Bond films…" She glanced at him with a wicked grin and bobbed her eyebrows. He chuckled and flicked his head slightly, his grin flashing.
"Well, Mish Moneypenny, aren’t we on shparkling form today?" He swung himself around the ping-pong table and went behind the bar. He ducked and then emerged with two paddles and a ball. "Wanna play?"
"Okay," she laughed and took a paddle from him. They went to opposite sides and he held up the ball. "I’ll serve…"
"Okay, but I should warn you, I’m probably crap at this."
"That’s no problem, Carol. It just means I’ll beat you." Rising to his bait in a half-joking manner, she put one hand on her hip and gave him a transparent stare.
"I might not be crap, you know. I might have a natural gift…" He chuckled, turning slightly to serve.
"Let’s see about that, huh?"
****
"Oh… okay… I give up. I can’t play ping-pong…" Carol flopped into the ratty old armchair by the bar, her breath short, half from the exertion and half from laughing so hard. "You’ve got me beat. I’ve got a stitch." She rubbed her side and tried exhaling as deeply as she could. He walked up to her, still chuckling.
"I guess that natural gift you were talking about just chooses it’s moments to make itself known, huh?"
Carol nodded, trying her best to smile. "And look at you." She said, crossly. "You’ve not even broken sweat, damn you!" He was laughing now,
"Do you want a mask? I could call 911 if it’s really bad…" She gave an indignant yelp and threw her paddle at him.
"Oww…!"
"Oh, as if that hurt!"
"It did too. I’m handle with care, don’t you know?"
She chuckled. "Fragile, this way up more like it…" She leaned forward, trying her best not the laugh more, blowing air out through her mouth. Abruptly, he got down on his knees and stared her straight in the eyes, and said with a deadly serious expression,
"Exactly. Handle with care. Or I’ll end up broken…" Carol’s smile took only a second to retreat. His eyes were forceful, holding her. They were maybe half a foot apart, but no matter how much she wanted to pull away, she found herself unable to move. Finally, his eyes shifted and he whispered, "And then you have to put me back together."
His brown hand snaked up to her face and drew her towards him. His mouth found hers and this time it was no quick, friendly kiss like the one in the bedroom just hours before. This kiss was slow and sensual, their lips clinging together, tongues rediscovering the contours of each others mouths. Doug dropped the paddle she’d thrown at him onto the wooden floor with a noisy clatter that echoed throughout the silent room and his other hand joined his first on her face, pulling her closer to his body and further into his kiss.
For the first time in, oh such a long time, Carol felt herself melt into a kiss; her body felt weak and she was giddy, almost floating, as if someone had fished right inside her body and teased her brain out of her head. She sighed, and Doug responded only by switching the angle of his head, his hands holding her in a vice, preventing her from moving, not that she ever wanted to.
Right now, as his hands came down from her face and began creeping up her naked back, all she could think about coherently was wanting more, she wanted to feel his body even closer, wanted to feel his familiar form, his every muscle and sinew…
"Doug, what are you doing down here?"
Jumping apart as if they’d been scalded, Carol threw herself back into the armchair and Doug rushed over to the bar. He was standing, idly pouring orange juice into a tumbler when the door to the games room was pushed shut and a pair of high heeled shoes began to tap their way down the stairs. "Cindy, I think I could ask you the same question," he replied and casually looked up as a petite, mousy haired woman negotiated the stairs, riding much higher than her actual height on a pair of chunky black boots. She took the last step with a jump and landed with a loud crack on the wooden floor. He turned back to the tumbler, "You know, I don’t think Buck’s Fizz works with sparkling wine," he added in a slightly patronising and nonchalant voice, as if he’d been interrupted discussing the merits of supermarket plonk compared to Moet et Chandon, instead of having his tongue down Carol’s throat and his hands roaming seductively under her pajama shirt. "But, you don’t mind that Carol?"
Carol stifled an urge to snicker and replied calmly: "Bet you I can’t taste the difference." A quickly cast, faintly nervous glance over towards Cindy told her that she was standing with one eyebrow raised and the beginnings of a highly amused smile on her face. Doug turned back to Cindy, his own face now grinning as well,
"Cindy… meet Carol. Carol, meet Cindy." He motioned towards each person as he introduced them. Cindy took a step forwards and grinned,
"Hi, great to see you…" she chuckled. "Really great." Carol bobbed her head, taking in the overtly friendly demeanour she appeared to have with Doug, but trying not to be mistrustful.
"You too,"
"Oh nonsense, he probably hasn’t even told you about me." She sighed, rolling her eyes, "Have you, Douglas?"
Doug stuck his chin out in mock defiance. "Why should I want to tell her about you? You’re embarrassing. You turn up at my house without warning. What if I’d been dancing naked down here?" Cindy cocked her head on one side,
"Have you?"
"No, but that’s not the point…"
"Well, what is the point then? If you’re bothered about me seeing you in your boxer shorts, then don’t worry, Doug. I have enough knowledge of the male anatomy for that not to be a shock for me…" She grinned at him, her eyes flashing with goading. Carol, unable to swallow her chuckles any more, squeaked a strangled giggle out. He cast her a pleased, mildly surprised glance.
"See, I told you she wasn’t all that bad…" he said to her, throwing a thumb back towards Cindy.
"Stop talking about me as if I’m not here, Doug." She told him in an indignant but far from offended tone. Doug made no move, but carried on addressing Carol, his face excessively animated.
"She’s a bit of a dragon sometimes. Gets stressed easily. I think she’s taking tablets, though, so maybe it’ll pass…" A fist planted itself in Doug’s bicep and he flinched but didn’t look away, his face deadpan. "Prone to violent tendencies, the psychiatrist told me. Said she’d have to go on a course of injections… but I wasn’t going to tell her because they’re bovine in origin and I thought it might upset her more…" At that, Cindy’s punches escalated to an outraged yell and a swinging fist in the stomach. "Oww! Okay, I’m sorry!" he exclaimed, turning back to Cindy, who had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him with sparkle in her eyes.
"Sorry enough to lend me your car?"
Doug rolled his eyes. "So that’s what you’re here for, huh? I thought there had to be some ulterior motive going on…" Cindy made a face, mouthing ‘please’ with drawn out vowels. He turned back to Carol. "I told you she whined, didn’t I?" Cindy stopped in an instant. "What do you want it for?"
"Kate’s split up with Trevor and we were gonna go out. I said I’d drive and we’d have a girl’s night out. Kind of a Thelma and Louise thing…"
Doug chuckled. "You can have it, but don’t go driving it over any cliffs, or I’ll be making you pay for the repairs." He motioned to the kitchen, "You can’t have the top down either; it’s raining." Cindy made a face to suggest that having the top down was a triviality she hardly cared about. "C’mere, I’ll get you the keys… Carol you coming?"
She nodded and stood up, smoothing out her pajamas, acutely aware that she hadn’t even got a bra on underneath them. They trooped out of the games room in a line and headed to the kitchen. He selected a set of keys from the wall rack and then took them through to what Carol had thought was only the cloakroom. There was a door at the end of the narrow room and he unlocked it with the key that was already sitting in the lock and then stepped down a few concrete steps into the garage.
Once inside the drafty but clean garage, Carol saw that the three doors visible from the outside led into here and although there was a lot of space unused, sitting at the end was a very new-looking silver BMW Z3. Cindy skipped around to the driver’s side and held out her hands for the keys. "Doug, you’re a sweet-pea. I promise I’ll be gentle with her."
He sighed, bleeped the car and threw her the keys. "Please… my insurance is sky-high already without you driving it into a lamp-post." She opened the driver’s door and slipped behind the wheel.
"I owe you, Doug," she said seriously.
"I know you do, kiddo. You owe me free coffee for the next two weeks."
"Fair enough," she agreed, and reached into her bag, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and putting them on. Doug had his back to her, opening the garage doors, so she could reverse out, but when he turned, he let out a chuckle,
"You’re really going for it, huh?"
"Listen, Doug, I drive a seven year old Ford with kiddie seats and a ‘Simpsons’ sun-shield in the back. You couldn’t look cool in that even if you were wearing Gucci shades. This is a rare opportunity to have credibility. Don’t mock."
Carol, who was standing on the sidelines smiling at their banter, beginning to feel that she could have spontaneously combusted and neither of them would of noticed, took a few steps forward as Cindy reversed slowly out of the garage. "See ya, Doug," she called as she turned the car round. "We’ll talk more next time, Carol," she added with a wide smile. "I’ve been a bit rude this time, but I left Kate alone with sharp objects, so I’d best get back." Carol chuckled at her easy, joking manner. "See you again!" Cindy called as she eased the humming car out of the driveway, waving at them.
They waved her gone and then he turned to her. "Can you help me shut these doors up?"
"Sure," she answered, grinning at him.
"What?"
She giggled, "Have you been watching lots of Bond movies recently?" He gave her a perplexed look, so she explained: "The car, the mini bar, the games room… Doug, all you need’s the dinner jacket and the girl and then you might as well be him!" He chuckled,
"Hey, I don’t need a Bond girl," he stepped up to her as she fastened the latch on the doors. She looked at him and grinned as he gave her his sexy crooked smile and slipped his hands around her waist. "So… where were we?"
"Mmm… not here." She looked around at the now empty, concrete garage. She tilted her head slightly. "Can I maybe get a shower sometime?"
He took her hand and led her out of the garage, looking back over his shoulder with a smile playing on his lips. "Sometime, yeah…"
****
They started up the stairs, hand in hand, Doug trying to control his soaring stomach. She walked through the open door to the room she’d slept in and went to collect her shampoo from the dresser. He stood in the doorway, unsure whether or not to follow her into the room. She methodically made the bed and then looked up at him. Her eyes were calm, but strangely, he thought, the glitter that had resided in them just five minutes previously had vanished. Doug stared at her, trying to deduce whether he’d just had rose-tinted spectacles on earlier, or whether she had suddenly gotten cold feet. "You okay?" she asked him. He woke from his momentary lapse and shook his head.
"Yeah, I’m fine." She stood staring at him, waiting for something, but he couldn’t pin what she wanted down.
"Doug…? Can I use the bathroom then?"
"Oh, yeah… okay…"
He took her across the corridor to the bathroom and then directed her to the door. She padded across the carpet and dropped the towel he’d given her the night before on the floor by the radiator. He stayed outside, leaning on the door, waiting for her to make the first move. He was suddenly, and possibly for the first time in his life, self-conscious. She turned to look at him,
"Are you going to let me have a shower, then?" she said in a serious voice. "Or are you going to stand and watch…"
Doug swallowed, knowing which of the two options he’d rather do. "Okay," he looked briefly at his feet. "You just turn the handle to change the temperature," he blurted out, and left the room quickly, shutting the door behind him.
Carol shook her head, making a face and went to the door, opening it again to tell him that she’d not thought for one second that he’d follow the first, teasing suggestion, but he was already down the stairs and closing the door to the kitchen when she got onto the landing. She stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, gripping the banister railing with both hands, not really knowing what to do. She heard him briefly in the kitchen and then the house fell quiet.
Turning back to the bathroom, she decided to shower anyway. She closed the door and then switched on the shower, which was simply a wall fitting over the bath. It was a glorious power shower that promptly blasted out a vigorous stream of water, quickly filling the room with thick swirling vapour, not at all like the pathetic effort that had escaped improvement at home. That shower, if you could call it such, was more like a dribble, which gurgled and spat in objection if it was asked to generate anything strong enough to wet a rat. She took off her pajamas and bundled them, laying them on the floor next to her towel and then climbed into the shower. The water was perfect and she let her head fall back, the water soaking her hair and pouring down her neck in a wonderful easing torrent.
His reaction had been so unlike Doug that the thought seriously crossed her mind that maybe something was wrong that he hadn’t told her before. Under normal circumstances, he would have actually leapt at the idea of getting in the shower with her. But then, she thought, these were hardly normal circumstances. Perhaps she’d not been forward enough, or perhaps he’d backed away because he still wasn’t clear in his mind. Either way, he’d just done what no red-blooded male in the world would have done, he’d turned down sex with a girlfriend he’d not been with for eighteen months.
Carol tipped a pool of shampoo into her palm and began massaging her scalp with it, dragging her fingers through her curls. Her eyes were tired. She threw her head back again and held it under the water, closing her eyes and letting the water stream over her whole face.
She must have stayed under the water for ten minutes or more, for when she turned around to wash her face and body, the steam was billowing around the shower curtain, telling her that the room was filled. And when she turned off the shower and drew back the curtain, she saw that she’d guessed right. The window was open, but the steam had clouded the glass and coated the mirror in a milky silver condensation. She wrapped herself in her towel and went to the window to fling it open as wide as it would go, feeling guilty that she’d probably used the most of the hot water in the tank.
But, as she opened it wide, she caught sight of his shape, hovering on the end of the jetty, gazing out across the water, his back to the house. Hurriedly, she moved out of the bathroom, taking her pajamas with her, seeking a clear window from which to get a better view of him.
Once inside the bedroom, she went to the window once again, but this time, he was gone. Briefly, the thought crossed her mind that she’d imagined him, but then, she heard the boat’s motor roar into life. Craning her neck around so she could see through the branches of the beech trees, she saw him sitting in the boat, gently steering it around and out into the lake. As he turned the boat around, his head flicked back to the house, but his stare was directed at the bathroom and he didn’t see her standing by the edge of the window seat. He focused for a second or two and then turned away and jetted off across the choppy water.
Carol watched him leave a trail of white, whipping froth on the surface and then disappear from sight. It was beginning to rain again outside, but she dressed quickly, tying her hair into a pony-tail, intent on being on the jetty when he returned. He was going to have to come back sooner or later, maybe from the rain, or maybe because diesel could only go so far.
She took the stairs two at a time, grabbing one of his coats from the cloakroom as she went. Out into the spotting rain she went, tripping down the steps and walked onto the rocking jetty. She couldn’t see him at all, but she’d made up her mind and wasn’t about to change it. Her arms crossed against her chest, her feet planted firmly and her eyes staring off into the direction he’d left in, she determinedly waited for him.
The sky grew darker, huge inky storm clouds gathering over the lake and the wind slowly got up, beginning to shake the enormous beech trees like weak saplings. She wrapped his coat around her twice, holding her scrunched fists inside the cuffs but refused to move. The lake was getting choppier by the second, the wind stirring it into a lapping, almost tidal frenzy. She wondered how on earth he could stay out this long, and as the clouds started to noticeably shift towards the house, she began to panic. Even on a contained lake, it wasn’t sensible to be in a little, unstable motor boat while the weather was bad.
She paced a little and then stopped. The light showering was all of a sudden replaced by sporadic, bell-bottomed raindrops, mixed with hailstones, falling all around her, splashing into the water with violent miniature explosions. Seconds later, it was bucketing down and she was soaked to the bone, barely able to see further than ten feet in front. On all sides of her, it sounded like machine guns were being fired, but then, from out of the noise, she heard an engine straining not far away. Her head shot up and she could make him out as a shadowy figure, ploughing through the troughs and waves.
Doug looked up from the rotor and saw her, standing stock still on the jetty, looking striking even in crumpled jeans and his oversized coat. Her face was ghostly, tilted slightly against the buffeting rain. But, as he neared and pulled the boat around, the rain could not hide the resoluteness behind her eyes. Her arms were folded across her chest and as he secured the boat and climbed out, he called out over the clattering of the rain, "What are you doing out here?" She looked up and Doug realised that he’d just snapped, nerves and frustration making him sound harsh.
"Waiting for you."
"Why?" he said, trying to keep his voice mellow.
Carol was beside him now, her face held up, pushing up against him with her body. She put her hands on his arms and held him fast, "To tell you we’ve wasted too much time and we’re not wasting any more," she said firmly.
The water was pouring over Doug’s face and down his neck, but he made no move to run for shelter as he studied her face, taking in her sincerity. He longed to reach out and touch her, to run his fingers through that thick black hair, to feel her mouth against his. Then he blinked. What had she said?
"What?" he asked.
She repeated herself. "Doug, I love you and I’m not letting you out of my sight until you agree to be with me. Until you agree to spend the rest of your life with me."
Doug stared at her, bemusedly, but inside, his heart was singing. "Why?" he probed, gently, almost not sure whether to believe her, despite the obvious conviction.
"Because I want to," she told him simply.
"But… you just…" he turned his face away from her, but she reached up and turned it back to her.
"But what, Doug? I love you. I don’t love anyone else. No-one else can make me feel the way you make me feel. Not Luka, not Tag, or Shep… no-one," she explained, her honesty surprising even herself. "No-one else I would choose to have a family with. No-one else I would share everything with." She paused and he swallowed,
"You just… you were different… up there, I, I didn’t know whether you’d changed your mind. I thought you didn’t… want me…" He admitted.
Carol grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a shake and a perplexed look, dismayed that he was still doubting her. "Doug, what made you think I didn’t want you? Didn’t you believe me earlier?"
He closed his eyes at the pleasure of her touch and then shivered, from a mixture of cold and restlessness. "Carol," he sighed. "You’ve resisted everything I’ve tried to do to get back into your life. I just… I guess I couldn’t understand why you changed so suddenly…"
"Doug, it’s hardly been sudden. I think a year and a half would qualify as a pretty long time in most people’s books." He allowed himself a sad smile, letting himself to believe her.
"C’mon, let’s go inside…"
Taking one of her small, cold hands in his, Doug led her up the steps, through the driving rain, and into the house. He shut the door behind him and the noise was silenced. They stood dripping in the porch, facing each other, for a long moment, but then Doug pulled her into his arms and clung to her as if he would die if they were parted. He released a sigh that shook him to the core, and his head fell feebly onto her shoulder.
Carol clung back with equal ferocity and dependence, feeling his heart beating as wildly as her own through his shirt, knowing all this was right by how warm it made her feel, despite her soaking clothes. They stayed that way for a little while, simply basking in the freedom that releasing all the emotions and questions and doubts and guilts and all the other dreadful feelings that had haunted each of their minds for what seemed like an eternity. Then, he lowered his head to hers and their lips met.
It was the most beautiful kiss Carol had ever tasted. Gently, as if he were kissing porcelain, Doug’s mouth touched hers. She let herself lean into him, feeling his taut body against hers, his chest crushing her own. There were times in those bleak months without him when she’d believed she’d never experience this again, this wonderful, blissful love. Her whole body felt alive and vital next to his but also limp and relaxed, easy and comfortable. His mouth became more insistent. Suddenly, they were grinding together, as if to make up for all that wasted time when they could have been clinging to each other, making love and plans.
"Why did it take us so long to do this?" he murmured into the cloud of her hair when they finally separated. He lifted his head, "In fact, don’t answer that. I don’t wanna get into that again…" He looked down at her, a smile spreading on his lips. "I don’t wanna ever look back again, Carol. I want us to be together, and I, I don’t care how that happens. If you want to stay in Chicago, then I’ll come back with you…"
Carol shook her head, "No, Doug… I don’t want to be there anymore." She smiled wryly. "There’s too many bad memories. I want to be here, with you. I want to start again, make us a family, like it should be."
For the first time since she’d arrived, she saw his special smile and knew it was genuine. His eyes were glowing, and he reached up and took her face, wet from tears and the rain and cradled it in his big, warm hands. "I want to have my future with you…Carol," His smile was intoxicating. "Carol, I…" He stopped and swallowed, trying desperately to tame the emotion rumbling in his heart, gazing at her face, seeing the sweet beauty he’d always seen there. He took a breath, flicked his head, grinned and began again, "Marry me, kiddo…"
Happiness exploded inside her and, overwhelmed, she bowed her head and grasped him in desperate emotion, "Doug… don’t ever let me go…"
He took her in his arms again and kissed her, "I don’t plan to, sweetheart…" Carol sighed in his arms, thankful.
"C’mon…" She looked up at him, pulling slightly away. "Let’s go and change." And the smile on her lips told Doug all he needed to know.
****
Some men never think of it.
You did. You’d come along
And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.
The shop was closed. Or you had doubts –
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.
It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, Look, the flowers you nearly bought,
Have lasted all this while.
- Wendy Cope, ‘Flowers’
****
They climbed the stairs hand in hand, abreast of one another, not wanting to put even air between them. And when in the bedroom, they stood together, taking each other’s presence like precious life-giving essence. The rain was pattering the window panes, but it was like an ancient echo from another era to Carol. Inside the sanctuary of his room, filled with his familiar scent, she felt relief and anticipation wash over her like an encompassing tide, cleansing her tired soul. Doug took her jumper and sodden jeans off, dropping to his knees and peeling the heavy, restricting material away from her skin with the gentlest of caresses. His hands traced ghostly touches over her damp skin and Carol sighed, wondering how she’d lived without this man, without these sensations, for so long.
He stood and brought her into arms that were strong and solid and adoring. Carol looked up to him and saw his face, eyes closed, spilling the very core of his spirit. A little frown appeared on his forehead and his lips moved indeterminably. "Doug," she murmured simply, and he opened his eyes, lazily, his lids heavy as if he were drugged by some glorious substance. She reached up with her own hands to his face and steadied his quivering, then let them fall to ease the buttons of his shirt open, revealing his chest.
He was thinner than she remembered, tauter. Where before there had been just enough cuddly flesh now there were the shadows of his ribcage, and as she ran her fingers down his arms and then back up to rest beneath his armpits, she felt the furrows of his ribs through his velvety skin.
His lips were nuzzling at her neck, and she let her head loll, revealing the most skin to his warm mouth. Her hands fumbled with the buttons of his jeans, struggling to pull the wet, unyielding material through. His hands joined hers and the jeans fell in a crumpled pile at his feet. His shorts joined them a minute later.
Doug took her backwards, then turned away and pulled back the cream throw and then the faded duvet. He eased himself onto the sheets and she laid herself down beside him. A smile was on his face, painting the darkness of the room, and she returned it with smiling eyes. She rolled onto her side and supported her head with her hand, and he mirrored her. They lay gazing at each other for nowhere near as long as they could have done, but desire was tugging at his gut and with glittering eyes, he allowed his free hand to wander over her curves. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the moment, having to remind herself to breathe when the hand crept to her loin and gently rolled her onto her back. He eased himself down and then his lips replaced his traveling hand.
In the dull, stormy gray light, Doug saw the glowing pink line of a caesarean scar. The sight of it made him pause, moved, and then she felt his tongue trace its length and, with hot splashes, two lonely tears land on her stomach. "Oh, Doug…" she sighed and reached down to pull his head up. His eyes were happy and sad in the same moment, if that were possible, and she saw him swallow and blink, another pair of teardrops splash on her skin.
"I’m sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible.
"Hey, no… don’t be…" She cradled his head, supporting its weight for him. "No more doubts… no more doubts…" She smiled at him, trying to ease his pain. She reached for his lips and kissed him tenderly, rubbing the base of his spine. He slipped away from her and for a second, Carol thought he was about to pull away again, but he did not, and instead his mouth kissed its way down her belly and to the triangle of black hair beneath.
His face brushed against her and the warm, sweet smell he released made him close his eyes and momentarily catch his breath. Carol tipped her head back to rest on the pillow and felt him spread her thighs and then, the heat of his tongue touch her core. "Ohhh…" she moaned, and encouraged, he continued his quiet coax.
When he felt her begin to change beneath him, felt her body become supple and her hips begin to arch towards him, Doug lifted himself up and slowly slid inside her. Unable to help himself, a sigh escaped, and nervous lips cautiously caressed her nipples. Carol took in a jagged breath, moved by his tacit uncertainty.
As he felt her warmth and heat swallow him up, Doug’s mind went black and soared on an ever-climbing breath of wind like a wild eagle rediscovering the abandon of the skies after years of captivity. He felt as if he was returning from some distant land of exile and that here, and only here, he could be whole again. He opened his eyes and saw her face gazing up at him lovingly. "Oh, Carol, you… this is… it’s perfect," he murmured to her smile.
"I know," she answered.
And at that, he bent his head and kissed her, turning himself loose to their ecstatic coupling, reveling in the pleasure of the fulfillment of a hundred thousand dreams, one for every hour they’d wasted being apart. He’d never felt such all-consuming love for someone, and its culmination was like nothing he’d ever dreamt of, even in his lonely, passionate nightly fantasies. This was a thousand times better, because when he opened his eyes, all he could see was her, and she was all he ever wanted to see.
He felt her arms squeeze him closer, and then he felt it in his groin, shocking him with its suddenness and its fervour, sending waves of breathtaking trembling through his body. He looked down and saw her head fall back and her shoulders arch and then the trembling transmitted itself like brilliant electricity through to her and he realised they were coming together, arms reaching and encompassing, hearts brimming with joy. In the silence of the room, he heard her cry out and enveloped her in his arms, wanting the moment to never end.
But it did end, and when the trembling slowed and eventually stopped, he looked down at her and saw her smile spreading and knew in that moment that there would be no more lonely nights to endure. She wasn’t leaving him again. "I love you," she whispered, as if in confirmation, and this time, he did not doubt her.
"I love you too,"
There was a long, comfortable silence. Doug eased himself out of her and rolled onto his back and she nestled into his arm, her head resting against his shoulder, her hand playing with the hair on his chest. Finally, she shifted her position so she could look him in the eye and asked calmly, not fearing rebuke this time, "Will you let me come here? Let me bring the girls and let us live with you?"
"I want nothing more," he paused, smiling at her, caressing her hair. "If you’re gonna marry me, then I think it’s kind of a condition…" He was grinning, but she looked down a little,
"Can we just wait a while, Doug?" she glanced up at him.
"Sure we can," he smiled back. "We’ll take all the time we need."
His face was understanding, and she knew he was right. Now, they had all the time in the world.
****
And if you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was giving you
Was never in doubt
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Babylon, Babylon, Babylon.
****
The End.