I was both curious and consumed by an intense curiosity about him. ‘So you don’t like it?’
‘Let’s just say it’s a temporary fix.’ His voice discouraged any further questioning.
I smoothed down the wrinkles in my skirt as if doing so could smoothen out my thoughts. When I looked up he was staring at my hands.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You have such delicate little hands. I bet all the boys fall over themselves to protect you,’ he said softly.
‘I don’t remember any boys wanting to protect me,’ I said, nervously rolling the buttery orbs on the two-string pearl necklace around my throat between my fingers.
His eyes flashed. He moved forward suddenly and rested his forearms on his thighs. ‘To be honest, I’m not really a tea person. If you don’t mind I’ll have a whiskey.’
‘Not at all.’
He stood and went to his desk. I watched him pour himself a generous measure of whiskey, and while still behind the desk, take a long mouthful. He made his way back to the couch more warily and sat down closer to the arm of the couch, significantly further away from me.
I leaned back and turned my head in his direction. He was looking into his drink and there was only one word to describe his eyelashes—lush. Seen from that angle they undid all his efforts to be taciturn, armored and completely impenetrable. He was like a peeled snail, achingly vulnerable. It made me want to stroke the tanned skin stretched across his cheekbone. He looked up suddenly. The silence stretched, holding within its body more than words we could have said. The air seemed thick with something. Our bodies were talking to each other.
But we both knew. Our politeness and evasion of the unspoken was chilling because it appeared to be set in concrete. As if it was the proper order of things that we were two people who could never be anything but strangers, unable even to carry a normal conversation.
A sense of urgency overtook me. Soon, even this moment would be gone, squandered away. It was already nearly over. I turned toward him, determined not to let it end this way
.
‘My sister told me a joke today,’ I said.
His eyebrows rose.
‘A filthy one.’
One side of his lips curved upward, sensual and unbelievably inviting.
‘Want to hear it?’ I asked with a cheeky look.
That beautiful smile widened. ‘Of course.’
‘OK. A German Shepherd and a terrier meet at the vet. The terrier looks so sad that the German Shepherd asks it why it is there. The terrier says, “I’m here because last night after my mistress came out of the bath she bent down to towel dry her feet, and her bum cheeks looked so smooth and inviting I jumped up and bit one of them.” The German Shepherd shakes his head in surprise; “By golly, almost the same thing happened to me. My mistress bent down after her bath, but in my case I jumped up on her back and gave her one.” The terrier is shocked. “Oh my God,” he says. “So you’re here to be put down too.”
Exactly as my sister had done I curled my fingers in towards my palms so they looked like paws, and looked at them while I delivered the punch line. ‘The German Shepherd says, “Oh no, I’m just here to have my nails done.”’
I turned to look at him and he was laughing. Really laughing. Body relaxed. Mouth open. Beautiful straight teeth on show. Warmth and joy flowed out of him. I laughed too. And suddenly I knew it could be so different with us. So different.
Our eyes touched and locked. He stopped laughing. For a few seconds we stared at each other, a current of super-charged energy sizzling through us. His eyes widened slightly. Then he stood, his movement abrupt and final.
‘It’s getting late. I’ll show you out.’
9
Olivia
Two days later a woman called.
‘Vivi,’ she gushed down the line. ‘It’s me, Cookie.’
It turned out Cookie was Lady Cressida Drummond-Willoughby. We went to school together and she was ‘dying’ to meet up. Dr. Greenhalgh had told me to mix with as many people from my past as possible. ‘You never know who might trigger a memory,’ she said.
So I told Cookie, of course, I’d like to meet up, but I warned her that in all probability I wouldn’t be able to recognize her and she’d have to come up to me.