technology. “But it delivers oceans of hot water,” she had protested, and he had refrained from modernising it. Now those oceans were filling the tub and sending up clouds of steam, as in a Turkish bath. The water was soft to the touch—straight from the Pentland Hills. How they would love this water in London, where their own supply was so hard, so laden with calcium and other things. They might have opera and theatre in abundance in London, but when it came to water …
She turned off the taps and lowered herself into the tub, with its ample, Victorian proportions. They were not mean, the Victorians, at least in bathroom matters, and this bath could easily accommodate …
Jamie. He had followed her upstairs and was standing in the bathroom doorway. He was watching her, smiling. “Would you mind?” He nodded towards the bath.
It suddenly occurred to Isabel that they had never shared a bath. There was no reason why they should not have—no inhibitions, no reserves of prudery—but they had never bathed together.
She gestured towards the other end of the tub. “There’s plenty of room.”
He began to remove his clothes. He was just wearing a tee-shirt and jeans, and in a few moments he was divested of them. She looked up at him and then looked away, back at the water, which, for reasons of light reflected off tiles, was light green. She moved so as to lean against the back of the bath. The enamelled surface was warm to the touch.
He moved forward, the soft light upon his skin. He carried no spare flesh; had never done so. He was lithe; muscled, as in a sculpture by Praxiteles. I, she thought, am soft and pliant; Eve’s flesh.
“Jamie,” she said.
“Yes?”
She spoke what she was thinking; private, ridiculous thoughts. “Please don’t ever change.”
He laughed as he lowered himself into the water, facing her, his knees drawn up. “Everybody changes.”
“Not you. The rules don’t apply to you.”
He sent a small splash in her direction. A wisp of steam rose from the point where he had disturbed the water. “When did you last share a bath?”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t remember. When I was small, I suppose. I had friends to stay over and we used to share baths, I think. I must have been eight or nine.” She opened her eyes. “And you?”
He looked away. “I can’t remember. It’s so long ago.”
She felt he was saying to her that he did not want to talk about it. She sensed that, and stopped. She reached out and touched the side of his leg. She moved her hand against him. They did not speak. He turned on the cold tap, briefly, and let the cooler water mingle with the warm. She closed her eyes. It was a delicious sensation, that drop in temperature followed by a slow warming as he turned the hot tap on again. It took her back, far back, to a place of memories and longing. Why? she thought. Why should I feel this way? Because it is a return to our earliest memory, the memory of the comfort of the womb, when we are surrounded by warmth and liquid and there is no light to impinge upon the comfort of darkness.
DAMP, CLAD IN TOWELS, they left the bathroom and went back into the bedroom. Through the window the evening sun, even at eight, slanted across the cover of their bed, a white Ulster cambric. She loved cambric:
Jamie stood in the middle of the room, the towel about his waist. “I forgot to wash my hair,” he said. “I was going to …”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Isabel glanced at him. “Should we bother?” she asked.
“No, we should. You never know.” At odd times Jamie received requests to play; this could be one.
He went to the bedside table on which the telephone stood and picked up the receiver.
He answered a question she could not hear. “Yes.”
Across the room, Isabel heard the sound of a distant voice.
Jamie lowered his voice. “No. I can’t.”
Isabel turned away.
“I told you, I can’t. I just can’t.”
Isabel turned round. He was holding the handset in an odd way, half cupping the top against his ear, as if to muffle the voice at the other end. But she had heard. Their eyes met.
“Look, we can’t talk. I’ll … I’ll speak to you some other time. Tomorrow.” A pause while something else was said, something that elicited a heated response. “I didn’t. I did not say that. Sorry, but I have to go. Goodbye.”
Isabel stood quite still. She heard her heart beating hard within her; her breathing was shallow. “Who was that?” She knew, of course, but still she asked.
Jamie moved away from the telephone. “That girl.”
“I thought so.”
“I told her not to phone me. I told her.”
Isabel felt her cheeks burning. “She’s phoned you before? Here at the house? Our house?”
Jamie sighed. “I told her.” He made a gesture of helplessness. “What can I do? She’s pursuing me.” He paused. “She told me that she was feeling weak. She wanted me to come round to her flat.”
“This evening? Right now?”
He nodded miserably.
