‘Yes.’
They kissed some more. When they broke off again, she said, ‘I set off early.’
‘Huh?’
‘To beat the heat.’
‘Oh.’
‘You can stay if you want.’
‘Isn’t that a bad idea?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m all out of good ideas.’
‘I’m thinking of you.’
‘I know you are.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t know, Mary.’
She took his hands in hers. ‘Let me put it another way,’ she said. ‘Edward—that’s my son—comes home in just over a week. He’s only seven, and I love him…’ Her words tailed off.
‘But…?’
‘But he’s difficult. If this doesn’t happen soon it’s never going to.’
‘Difficult how?’
‘Think Eugene then add a bit.’
‘Where’s the bedroom?’
They undressed in silence in the near-darkness, Hollis perched on the edge of the bed, Mary standing near the window, silhouetted against the moonlight striking the blind.
He was the first to slip between the sheets. They were crisp and fresh, as new.
‘That’s my side,’ said Mary.
‘Sorry.’
‘No, don’t move.’
She climbed in beside him, facing him. He ran his hand along her thigh, up over her hip, down into the dip of her waist. A different contour, a different landscape to Lydia’s—more rugged, angular.
‘He knew,’ said Mary.
‘What’s that?’
‘Eugene. He knew. That’s why he went for you.’
‘Be quiet.’
‘Okay.’
They made love, slow and tender, taking their time.
When it was over, she said, ‘Well, that was quick.’
‘Was it?’
He was a little stung, but genuinely curious; he really had very little else to judge it by.
‘I enjoyed it a lot,’ she said, stroking his face.
‘Did you?’
‘Couldn’t you tell?’
She had certainly seemed to enjoy it, but in truth he’d been a little distracted, his mind straying to other matters, such as how firm she was, how taut, just how slack and baggy he felt beside her, on top of her.
She took his hand and placed it between her legs, the oily warmth, the matted hair. ‘You see. Feel how wet I am.’
She didn’t release his hand.
This time they took longer, though he couldn’t say just how long. His desire—unchecked and unruly this time— pushed all other senses to the periphery of his world. She uttered words he’d never heard spoken by a woman, and her whispers sped him towards a conclusion she would then deny him.
The release, when it finally came, was somehow not his, or theirs for that matter. It belonged to the thing that had swallowed them whole.
He lay on his back, drifting in and out of sweet slumber, her arm draped across his midriff, her breath cooling the skin of his chest. He felt like a man who had unearthed a hidden mystery. He told himself it was only sex, but his heart rejected the words.
Had he really spent so many years of his life not knowing?
When he felt an involuntary twitch of sleep in her leg, he gently extricated himself, tugged on his pants and headed downstairs.
He pulled the car behind the barn, where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
As he slipped back into bed, she said, ‘That’s very thoughtful.’
