Authors: Julie Cohen
Even so, I don’t deserve him and how kind he’s being to me.
This bubble bath supplied with the room is supposed to be calming and soothing, according to the words on the little bottle. I reach for another one and pour it into the bath, turning on the hot tap with my foot. Bergamot and jasmine rise up along
with the cloud of bubbles, along with something else. Something that’s stronger and that rapidly becomes more real.
The scent of frangipani.
I know it’s in my mind and when I close my eyes it gets stronger. My hands curl around the sides of the tub and I relax into what’s coming next.
It was eight days before I saw him again. I didn’t go to the life-drawing class; in fact, I avoided that entire
part of town. I stayed in my room with the Greek-blanket curtain, or sat in a park, drawing trees.
And then one Thursday afternoon I walked into my mother’s studio and there was Ewan with his shirt off. Standing surrounded by vases holding white and yellow flowers with a heady perfume.
‘What?’ I said, before I could help myself, before I remembered that he’d said he’d got a modelling gig with
some semi-famous artist, and realized he must have meant my mother.
‘Flick?’ said Ewan, at the same time that my mother, out of sight behind her giant canvas, said, ‘Now if you could manage
not
to move, that is entirely the point.’
‘Nothing.’ I tried to turn around and walk straight back out again, but Ewan came after me, touching my shoulder.
‘Flick, what are you doing here?’
‘I live here,’
I said, shrugging him off.
‘Darling, do you know my frangipani boy? Lissa sent him over and I’m trying him for this flower series.’ Mum put down her brush and peered around her canvas, intrigued.
‘He was the model in my life-drawing class,’ I told her. ‘Anyway, I’m just off out. See you later, Mum.’
‘Esther is your mother?’ Ewan asked.
Mum had come all the way out from behind her canvas now.
She glanced from him to me and back again. ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not at all.’
‘We should talk,’ said Ewan. I shook my head.
‘Well, you’ll have to wait until I’ve finished for the afternoon,’ said Mum. ‘Some of us have work to be getting on with.’
I ran down the stairs and out into the afternoon. I got on a bus and rode it, staring out of the window. When I got home,
Ewan was gone. The house still smelled of frangipani.
Mum was in the kitchen she’d had installed, making a cup of tea. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said, the minute I walked in. ‘I’ll send him away.’
‘No, don’t do that. It’s nothing, Mum.’
‘It’s not nothing.’ She came to me and stroked my hair. ‘It’s not nothing at all. I won’t finish the painting. It doesn’t matter.’
‘I don’t want you to send
him away. It’s fine. He’s got a girlfriend, and that’s that. If you send him away, it’ll make me look even more of a fool.’
She kissed the top of my head. ‘What a funny, precious girl you are. Just say the word, and I’ll send him packing.’
Fresh flowers arrived every day. I hid in the kitchen or in my bedroom. Ewan arrived after the flowers, so when his knock came on the front door, the house
was full of their scent. I couldn’t escape it any more than I could escape the sound of his footsteps as he went upstairs to my mother’s studio, or the awareness of him in the same house, breathing the same air. Once, I heard him laugh, and I had to go out for a long walk so I wouldn’t be tempted to run down the stairs and burst into my mother’s studio. Even then, I found myself walking in circles,
turning down streets that led me back to the house, back to the front door, back to the scent of frangipani.
Every day, I woke up thinking,
I’ll go to Paris and see Lauren
. But then the flowers came, and so did he, and I couldn’t leave, even though leaving would put all of this to an end.
‘Darling, let it go,’ said my mother on the evening of the sixth day. ‘Let
him
go. You’re obviously unhappy,
and he’s developing a sort of tortured expression. It’s getting deeper by the hour.’
‘Good,’ I said, pouring us both another glass of wine.
‘It’s quite interesting for my painting, but it’s not good for you. I’m ringing him and telling him not to come tomorrow.’
‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t.’
‘You want him that badly that you’d rather this than nothing,’ said my mother. She sighed. ‘I recognize
the feeling. It’s horribly romantic, but is it worth the agony?’
‘Don’t send Ewan away, Mum.’ Even saying his name was painful pleasure.
‘It’s silly, you know. If he wanted to be with her, he’d be with her, this girlfriend or whoever she is.’
‘I like him better for being loyal.’
She clinked her glass with mine, then took a deep drink. ‘He’s quite an intense young man. He reminds me of your
father.’
Usually when my mother mentioned my father, I was all attention, hoping for more information about him other than that he lived in France, other than that he was an artist, that he was married to another woman, that he didn’t know I existed, that he was the love of my mother’s life. But I had more pressing concerns right now.
‘Do you think Ewan likes me?’
She snorted. ‘
Likes
you? His
posture’s terrible and he’s got a face like a wet Wednesday, but you could bottle what’s in his eyes and sell it to weary lovers.’
‘Mum, I think I’m in love with him.’ It felt like a momentous announcement.
‘Of course you’re in love with him. And he’s in love with you.’ She pulled me to her. ‘I’m sorry it has to be so hard.’
I tucked my head under my mother’s chin. He was in love with me. The
wonder and the happiness of it swept through me. Even if I could never touch him again, even if we never spoke, he was in love with me.
On the seventh day, I went for a long walk in the sunshine. I swam through heat without noticing it. I saw the sunlight glimmering off the sides of buildings and I thought about one thing:
He loves me
.
It fizzed through my veins like champagne. It stirred my
skin into wakefulness and bounced off the pavements.
He loves me. Even if I can’t have him, he loves me
.
I laughed to the sky.
I closed the house door behind me and kicked off my shoes. My feet whispered on the wooden floor as I walked upstairs, into the scent of frangipani.
‘Oh,’ said Ewan’s voice above me. I stopped.
He was two steps down, as I was two steps up. He was bare-chested, wearing
jeans, barefoot as I was.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said.
He wanted me. He loved me. There was no explanation and no letting it go. I could see it in every line of him, his dishevelled hair, the clench of his hand. The look in his eyes that could be bottled for weary lovers. I took a step up.
‘I was walking,’ I said, my voice unsteady. ‘It’s a nice afternoon.’ Our eyes met and held.
‘I’m not a very good person,’ he said.
‘I don’t care.’
One of us moved first, or maybe it was both of us at the same time. Me running up, him running down, taking the stairs by twos. He caught my face in his hands and I grabbed hold of his arms and for a moment, we just looked at each other, faces close. His heart pounded, his skin was hot. We stumbled and he caught us with one hand braced against
the wall.
We kissed, on the verge of falling, with no need to breathe.
I open my eyes. My bath has gone cold and the feeling of being in love is gone, though the traces of it echo in my heart. I get out of the bath, shivering, and wrap myself in a towel. My fingers and toes look like prunes and my hair is a wet straggle.
Cautiously, I open the door between the bathroom and the bedroom. Quinn
is lying on the bed, fully dressed, his shoes off. The paper has fallen to one side and his eyes are closed. His dark lashes make semicircles on his cheeks.
Poor Quinn. I’m so sorry for making his last night here miserable. I pull the bedspread up over him and he makes a soft sighing noise before turning over onto his side in his sleep.
I gaze down at him. Quinn is handsome. He’s good. He’s
clever and polite and intelligent, careful and loving and tidy. Punctual and considerate, kind and generous, pleasure-giving in bed, a cuddler in the darkness. He pulls the curtains open every morning, hums when washing up, leaves food out for the neighbours’ cat.
He’s my husband. He’s the man I’ve chosen. He loves me entirely and without reservation. I love him.
Have I ever loved him like I
loved Ewan?
I kneel beside him on the king-sized bed. When he doesn’t wake I trace my fingers in the air over his features, knowing the shape of his nose, his cheeks, his closed eyelids, his lips. I remember his smile, the pain in his eyes this afternoon.
I love him. But do I love him with my whole heart and body, with a hunger and a need that don’t leave room for anything else?
A drop of water
falls from my hair onto my husband’s cheek. Quinn stirs and opens his eyes.
‘Oh, you’re finished,’ he says, and he sits up, blinking and rubbing his eyes. He yawns and stands, gets his pyjamas out of the drawer and goes into the steam-filled bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
In the morning, we’re kind to each other. He brings me a cup of tea in bed. In the newsagent at JFK I buy him the
New York Times
, the
Wall Street Journal
, the
Weekly World News
(headline:
BAT BOY FOUND IN WHITE HOUSE CHIMNEY
), and a snow globe with the Statue of Liberty in it. He shakes it and the snow swirls around the lonely woman inside.
On the flight, he puts his arm around my shoulders and we watch a film together, pushing up the arm rest so we can both see the small seat-back screen. It’s easier than
talking. His special celebration has been marred and we both know it was my fault.
Of the two of us, only I know that I’ve discovered I don’t love Quinn as I should. As he deserves.
The knowledge makes me more tender to him. I snuggle into his chest and I stroke the soft cotton of his shirt. I don’t want him hurt. I hate myself for being the one who has the power to do it.
I watch the film
– something about spies in suits and glasses, something I never would have chosen to watch if I weren’t trying to please Quinn – and I decide: if I’m pregnant with Quinn’s baby, I’ll forget what I’ve learned. I’ll embrace my marriage, my child, my husband, I’ll do my best, I’ll be happy with what I’ve got, and I won’t look back.
It’s only as we’re fastening our seatbelts for landing that I realize
I’ve made a decision very like this before.
‘
SURPRISE!
’
When we walk into our cottage, Quinn’s family is there. Derek and Suz are holding bottles of beer and our dining table has been spread with a flowered cloth and plates of food. Molly bustles up to us and hugs us both.
‘Welcome home!’ she cries. ‘I hope you’re not too tired. We couldn’t resist throwing you a little party for your anniversary.’
‘Good to have you back,’
says Derek, clapping Quinn on the back and kissing my cheek as if we’ve been gone for weeks.
I glance at Quinn to see if he’s planned this, too, but he looks as surprised as I am.
Suz hands Quinn and me each a bottle of cold lager. I start to take a sip, before I realize that I possibly shouldn’t. ‘How was New York?’ she asks.
‘It was lots of fun,’ Quinn says. I think that only I can detect
the hint of strain in his voice.
‘I loved it,’ I add. ‘I wasn’t expecting it at all.’
‘And did you like the exhibition?’ Molly asks. ‘Of your mother’s work? I was telling Quinn before you left what a wonderful idea that was.’
‘It was very thoughtful of him,’ I say.
‘I think I would rather have a cup of tea,’ says Quinn. ‘Do you want one, Felicity?’
‘There isn’t anything you two have to tell
us, is there?’ asks Molly. ‘If you’re not drinking, Felicity?’
‘Well …’ begins Quinn.
‘We haven’t had a decent cup of tea in two days,’ I interrupt. The last thing I want is for all of the Wickhams to know the pattern of the rest of my life before I’m certain of it. ‘Americans just chuck a tea bag in a mug of semi-hot water and call it good.’
Quinn throws me a look and I raise my eyebrows.
‘Well,’ says Molly, ‘you must be starving if you’ve only had that terrible airline food today. Come and have something to eat, and tell us all about your trip.’
Molly insists on doing the washing up before they leave, although Quinn’s clearly exhausted from our weekend of travelling and sightseeing. He sits at the kitchen table, rubbing his eyes and running his fingers through his hair until it
stands on end, answering his mother’s questions about every single thing we did.
Tell your mother to go home
, I think at him, but he doesn’t. He loves her too much to send her away, even when he’d prefer to go to bed.
I wipe the dishes and put them away into neat stacks. When my mother-in-law isn’t around, I let them air-dry, but I need something to do. I’m full of energy. I feel that I want
to go for a walk or a long bike ride – something physical to tire me out until I’m as tired as Quinn is so we can feel the same thing and I can stop thinking, over and over again, about what I decided on the plane home from New York. About how all of this might end.
‘I’m glad the two of you had a good anniversary,’ Molly says for at least the fifth time, drying her hands on a tea towel and hanging
it neatly on its peg. ‘You did well, choosing this one as a wife. The two of you really suit each other.’
‘Yes,’ says Quinn.
‘And you,’ she says, kissing me on the cheek, ‘you take care of my boy for me, will you?’
‘I will,’ I say.
‘Mum,’ says Suz from the doorway, ‘let’s allow these poor people to get some rest.’
Molly collects Derek from the front room where he’s been watching the sport
and they say several more goodbyes before we watch them walk down the flagstone path.
Quinn is quiet. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘that was nice of them.’ I turn for the stairs, thinking about a shower.