He set his luggage down next to the clean bed, never slept in, and said, 'This is so weird.'
Holly was still wearing holiday shorts.
'Well, from now on, this is it. So we'd better get used to it.'
He tested the bed with his hand.
'Shall we try it out?'
They tried it out. They tried out the other bedrooms, too: and the bathroom, and the living room. He fucked her on the windowsills and the stairs. Each time, it was quick. He would grasp her hair in his fist and she would arch her back and thrust herself towards him and he couldn't help it.
she didn't seem to mind. Afterwards, she would walk semi-naked and laughing, barefoot, brushing back her disarrayed hair with her palms, a pearl of semen glinting on her pubic hair.
Usually, Nathan was ready again in a few minutes. When that happened, he made sure it was okay; when her orgasm gathered he grinned to himself, and when he entered her, she screamed and dug her nails into his arse.
On her first day back at work, he looked at her in her sober grey suit and white shirt with wing collars, and he lifted the skirt to her hips and fucked her against the door; and when she came home that evening he undressed her before she said hello and fucked her on the sofa.
She said, 'It's only natural. Your body is trying to make me pregnant.'
'Reckon?'
'Reckon.'
'And how do you feel about that?'
'About what?'
'My body trying to get you pregnant.'
'Well, I don't want you to stop or anything.'
'But what if it worked?'
'What if what worked ?'
'My body. Trying to get you pregnant.'
She sat up, propped on an elbow. 'How do you feel about it?'
'That depends.'
'On what?'
'On how you feel about it.'
She lay on her back with a forearm across her eyes, slapping at his upper arm.
'I feel pretty good about it.'
What does 'pretty good' mean?'
'I'm ready if you are.'
'Okay.'
'It's not too soon?'
'I don't see why.'
She sat up again.
'Have you been thinking about this?'
'Of course.'
'For how long?'
'Since forever. I don't know.'
She tickled the short hairs on the nape of his neck.
'You're sure you're sure?'
That night they stood together over the lavatory and, one by one, pressed her birth control pills from the blister pack and dropped them like confetti down the bowl. She pulled the flush and watched them bob and dance away.
She said, 'It's not too late.'
He led her by the hand to the bedroom and laid her down. When they were done, she placed the palm of his hand loosely on the soft swell of her belly, and they fell asleep like that.
Late that night, she turned on to her side and nuzzled him. He pulled the duvet over her. He lay awake. He thought of the dark rooms below, and the dark hallway, and the dark bathroom with its uncovered mirrors. He thought of the dark cupboard under the stairs, where a human form could curl, to reveal its smiling face when the door was opened. And he thought of the flickering scraps of life, his essence, struggling blind inside Holly.
Eventually, in the darkness, he slept.
When her period arrived, they pretended not to be disappointed.
They'd only been trying for a couple of weeks. They were too polite around each other, but only for a day or two.
When it happened again, four weeks later, it was a little worse -- but only a little. But it was a little worse again, the month after that, and the month after that. But it was still early days, and they were young, and it was still fun trying.
And they tried and they tried -- but there was always blood at the end of the cycle. And with the blood came another spectral bereavement; the idea of a boy or a girl -- no more than a scrap of possibility, but beloved for all that -- had been wiped from the world.
Every year, as the anniversary of Elise's disappearance drew near, Holly became withdrawn. Slower to speak in the morning, she walked round the bedroom befuddled, as if her mind was elsewhere, before grabbing a towel or a clean pair of knickers or her watch.
One Sunday morning -- near Christmas, 2004 -- Nathan rose early and cooked Holly breakfast in bed, taking it up on a tray.
She sat up. Her hair was awry and the rucked bed linen was imprinted on her breasts and ribs. There was a diffuse red flush on her sternum. He passed her a T-shirt because she didn't like to eat naked.
She sat cross-legged with the tray balanced on her lap. She took a sip of orange juice, then coffee and said, 'So what's all this in aid of?'
'It's in aid of, I'm worried about you.'
She took the scrunchy band from her wrist and made a loose ponytail.
She pushed some scrambled egg on to an upturned fork.
'Worried about me how?'
'You know how.'
she popped the eggs into her mouth.
He watched her eat, saying: 'Look, it's not healthy.'
She gave him a silent warning.
He was longing for a cigarette. But he'd given up, long ago.
He said, 'You never really talk about her. Even now.'
'That's not fair. I talk about her all the time.'
'You think about her all the time. That's different.'
'What do you want me to say? You always look so uncomfortable whenever I mention her.'
He hadn't known that.
He said, 'That's not fair. How am I supposed to react? You don't give me any clues. Am I supposed to be comfortable about it?
Because I'm not.'
'I really don't want to argue about this.'
'I don't want to argue about it either.'
'Then what were you saying?'
'Look, Jesus. You haven't got any photographs of her. Perhaps it would be better, I don't know, after all this time - perhaps it would be better if you just hung some photos or something.'
For a long time, she was very still. And then she said, 'Sometimes, I don't believe you.'
He looked at her with a swell of horror.
But she was paying him a compliment. She drained the coffee and leapt from bed and scuttled around the room, naked but for his Tshirt, the pale ghost of a suntan still visible around her arse. She was gathering clothes.
