The guilt was missing today and she thought that it was the guilt and the thought of being found out that had made this rough, easy sex with Bob worthwhile. There he was, running through and through her, and she had no sense of what that ludicrous organ was doing inside her walls. This pleasure was, perhaps, a numb one; so near, so far. She had a sense of the inside of herself, moist and aching for simply the right touch; and Bob probing uselessly like a cack-handed water diviner, an inept xylomancer, bless him; but he was trying. She imagined the terrible pleasure of being starving, yet not able to eat from a sumptuous buffet. The saliva creeping up your gums’ tidemarks, threatening to spill. Despite herself, she chose to ignore the numb throb of Bob’s workaday fucking and concentrated on the bizarrely tender rustling of his hair.
He came with a wrenching cry that filled the entire basement, which used to be a fairly sizeable car park. He collapsed to one side, slick hips still juddering to a faint pulse, trapped in his bones as if he were an overheated engine after a strenuous run. His shirttails were glued to his stomach, his eyes shrouded and misty. Sam felt the dusty chill of the basement running right up her cunt, so she hooked free her arms to pull up her knickers. Her fine blade of anger had lost its thrilling edge as a consequence of their swift tumble, and she felt able to deal with its cause. She jabbed Bob back to life and handed him the letter from her blouse pocket.
“I found this,” she said in a voice she thought was astonishingly clear. “This morning. It came this morning.”
He struggled up, still panting. She saw his penis retract almost completely inside him as she took the violet notepaper. She stared at the red, rumpled foreskin in its fluffed-up setting of hair and thought, He’s so natural and unspoiled this one.
BOB HAD CROPPED UP INITIALLY IN THE LINE OF DUTY. SOON AFTER SALLY was proclaimed imminent, Mark vanished.
They had been at the fair. Sam was driving a dodgem car and Mark was clinging to the rod that stuck out of its back and brushed with the ceiling, showering blue sparks. Sam drove recklessly and unfairly, barging into everyone, even when the proprietor screamed at her to stop. He looked unwashed; a Gypsy type by the look of him, so she took no notice. Mark clung on.
“We’re pregnant!” Sam howled as they collided with two rough-looking lads in a bright pink car.
Mark inhaled deeply; burning rubber and undercooked hamburger. A desolate sense of danger overtook him. “Take your fucking foot off the pedal,” he yelled, trying to grab the wheel. “What do you think you’re doing if—”
She cackled and veered wildly, trying to shrug him off. The steering wheel jammed and they were thrown out of the congested whirl at the centre of the rubber floor, rebounding gently to the side. The motor cut out beneath them. “Look, they’ve stopped our go now.” She cursed, clambering out. He tried to take her arms. She frowned. “That’s you, messing about on the back. They don’t like that.”
“How can you tell me you’re pregnant when you’re driving a dodgem car?”
She hopped off the wooden platform, allowing the next lot through. He followed.
“Have you got no sense of responsibility? What if…I mean, how do you think I feel, being told…?”
Sam was already in the queue; she wanted to be put in a dark cage and whirled about in the sky, far above everybody’s heads.
“What are you trying to do?” Mark cried, seizing her hands.
“I was trying to enjoy myself.”
“What if you damage…our child?”
“And what about me, Mark?” she flashed dangerously.
Mark waited by the rifle range when she went up in the cage. They went up in a group of ten, each strapped into place against a black grating that was silhouetted gruesomely against the murky evening sky when the cage was sent up to revolve, at first slowly, then faster…
He vomited round the back of the amusements, and played on fruit machines till she had finished. Let her look for me, he thought.
“Mark, isn’t it?”
He kept his eyes on the one-armed bandit until the fruits stopped whirling and he knew he hadn’t won anything. He looked around to see a young bloke in a blazer, longish hair, white shirt and jeans. He was very pale. “Yeah?”
“We…I mean, I’m Vince. We met, um, a while ago, one summer in Darlington. Um.”
“Oh.”
They stared at each other blandly, Vince kicking at the grass, which was flattened here inside the hot marquee. He smiled, a little shyly. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m married,” Mark said. “I’m really happy.”
“Right.” Vince shrugged. “Well, it’s funny seeing you.”
“Yeah. A coincidence.”
“See you around then.” Vince couldn’t resist a parting shot before swanning off. “Have a nice life, love.”
Mark rested his head against the cool metal of the one-armed bandit. He couldn’t even remember sleeping with that bloke. He remembered his face…but never…but there were all sorts of things that had gone on. He remember certain times, gruff and apologetic encounters in the open air…nothing to warrant abstracted reminiscences like that one, though. That Vince obviously read more into whatever went on. Mark was rueful; tattooed, he couldn’t help standing out. Especially naked; there was no anonymity for him.
And here was Sam, breaking into his reverie and nausea with a whiff of brandy on her breath and gloating over her triumph. She was surprised at him, making a show of himself, slumped over the amusements. When he looked at her,
