she was just absent, gone. All that was left was this shell …’
I took Joe’s hand and stroked it with my thumb.
‘I’m so scared I’ll never be able to get that picture out of my mind,’ he said.
I leaned over and I hugged him then. ‘You will,’ I said. ‘It takes time, but you will.’
‘Promise?’
‘It’s evolution, not revolution, remember?’
He nudged me and gave a little laugh.
‘It is,’ I said.
We stayed like that, lying down, our arms wrapped around each other, my cheek against his. I inhaled his smell. I already knew.
What did it matter? Who did care, anyway? Wasn’t this what it was about, life? Seizing the day, just being; not thinking so much all the time? It was funny, I thought, how sometimes there was nothing like death to make you feel so alive.
He pulled away from me and we hesitated, then I lifted my hands to his face. He lifted his eyes to mine. I couldn’t stop staring at that face, seeing how his eyes, or rather the person inside those eyes – his gaze – was the same. Did he see the same thing in me? Does that ever change?
‘You’re strong,’ I said. ‘Stronger than you know.’
‘Not stronger than you, everything you’ve been through, all of that.’
‘We’ve been through,’ I said. ‘You are strong.’
Silence, except for somewhere in the distance I could hear a chicken squawking. It was incongruous, a rude interruption.
‘What did we do to each other?’ he said, the words toppling out, ‘that means nothing, nobody …’ I kissed him then and the curve of his lips, the way it moved with mine, the little dance we did, it was so familiar, it shocked me; and when I looked at his face, his lovely face, I recognized it so much, it was like looking at myself. We lay back on the straw: it scratched and prickled the backs of my thighs and my arms like anything, but I couldn’t have cared less, I didn’t care about anything, I wasn’t thinking anything – that was the beauty of it. And I looked into Joe’s eyes and told myself that he didn’t want to think either – not today. We kissed, but in a frenzy, as if we had no control over our movements because we were in shock, in shock that this was happening at all; at least, that’s what it felt like. Involuntary. A brilliant, beautiful shock. I turned on my back, Joe was next to me and I wriggled my bum, so I could lift my skirt up, and started to take off my knickers.
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Joe.
‘What?’ I said, pausing.
He ran a finger down my arm.
‘I want to savour you more than that yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve got lots more kissing to get through yet. Lift up your bum, come on.’
I shifted so I could do as I was told, and he gently pulled down my dress, then arranged it on my legs and lay down next to me. I looked at him, a bit unsure then, but he moved the hair from my face, gently slipping one hand under my head, so I didn’t have to crane my neck to reach him, and kissed me – sweet, sweet kisses, on my forehead, my eyelids, my mouth. My throat had gone dry and I was trembling. He reached down and, very softly, ran the tip of his finger up my leg, just getting to my knickers, before he sent it in little circle movements across and between my thighs and, then, just as I felt I might explode, back down again. I buried my face in his chest and dug my heels into the straw, so I could bear it, this feeling that was so familiar and yet so wonderful that I doubted I could ever have had it before – like déjà vu.
He looked beautiful in the half-light – his eyes shone. The tractor skeleton loomed over us, the height of two men. But I wasn’t scared one bit; I was safe. I leaned down to undo his flies, but he put his hand over mine, stopping me; he took my hand and kissed it, then lay it across my chest. I gave a low growl of frustration and he smiled. Then he continued stroking the other leg up to my knickers again, this time stroking underneath me, a feathery, gentle touch, barely detectable through the fabric, which was wet. He pushed the material to the side, slid one finger inside me, then another, and I gasped – I couldn’t help it – and when I looked at him, my eyes wide, disbelieving, Joe looked so happy as my whole body bucked, then shuddered. I could bear it no longer. I pulled at his trousers but my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t do it, so he kicked off his shoes, sat up and wriggled out of them.
‘I haven’t got one,’ he said.
‘It’s okay,’ I said, pulling his shoulders back. ‘It’s okay. It’s fine, honestly.’ I sat up and kissed him on the neck. ‘Just come here, please … For God’s sake.’
‘Robyn …’
‘Come on!’
I took my knickers off and flung them to the side; we were both giggling now and shivering, half with cold, half with desire.
I lay back down and then Joe was inside me, the length of his whole, warm, strong body against mine. I wanted to cry, I was so happy, and I cried out again. When I flung my head to the side, I saw that a chicken had wandered into the barn. I could make out its fat, black body silhouetted; its shadow was long on the straw floor, and in the moonlight its lidless eye was blinking at me.
‘Right, how do you like your eggs, Robyn?’
The atmosphere at the breakfast table at Dad’s the next day was frosty, to say the least. Denise was the martyred waitress, wafting dramatically in and out of the beaded curtain separating the dining room from the kitchen (I swear she only had it fitted so Dad could actually hear her go in and out of there). Dad was doing what he always did when there was an atmosphere: hiding behind his newspaper.
I watched him, reading the sports pages, picking his nose, unable to even believe myself, that I could possibly feel this bad. I’m not a big drinker, normally. I don’t like the feeling of being out of control. This wasn’t always the case. At university, I was that girl with traffic cones in my room, that girl to get in any old minicab. I once held up the traffic on Blackfriars Bridge when drunk (and spent a night in a police cell for the privilege). But there’s only so long you can carry on like that before you realize it’s not fair to have everyone worry constantly about you, even if you’re not worrying about yourself. Now, I never drink so much I’m out of control. Last night, I did. Maybe I felt safe? Still, I wasn’t going to let Denise have the satisfaction of knowing that.
I sat motionless at the dining table, my throbbing head slowly catching up with the pleasant dull ache between my thighs. If I sort of pursed my lips and closed my eyes, I could still smell Joe on my top lip: his muskiness, Jack Daniel’s. When Denise came marching back from the kitchen, I felt like she’d caught me in the act.
She plonked a cup of tea down in front of me.
‘You look like you need that,’ she said. The slogan on it said: DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A MUG? I chose not to take this personally. Then she rattled through the beaded curtain, to make my poached eggs. I might have helped, but feared that, if I moved, I’d most definitely
