closed, as if even the darkness wasn’t enough.
The folds of flesh seemed impenetrable but he pressed himself into them, willing himself to be able to enter her, now, quickly, before he could think of anything else.
Julia had opened her mouth to beg him, ‘Stop, please stop,’ but suddenly their mutual struggle brought them to the right place. She felt him bury himself inside her. It was a long, deep way. A second or two ticked by before she realised that the shock it gave her was more pleasure than pain.
They lay still, fitted together, their breathing slowing a little. Julia smiled, and rolled her head so that her cheek touched his.
Slowly, experimentally, Felix began to move.
Everything was wrong, he knew that at once. This softness, the spongy, alien warmth. Even the scent of her. Coldness touched the base of his spine, spreading through his pelvis, shrivelling him. He screwed his face up and drove himself harder, willing himself to make it right for her. He could sense her puzzlement now, her hands fluttering helplessly at his back. It was too late. He was shrinking, away from her, and then slipping away entirely.
Abruptly Felix rolled on to his back and stared icily up into the darkness.
Julia swallowed, and the muscles in her throat contracted painfully. In her bewilderment she put out her hand and touched him again. There were only limp, moist pouches and whorls of flesh. She snatched her hand back as if it was burnt, and pressed the knuckles into her eye socket.
They lay in silence for a long time. Even though she pressed her hands into her eyes, Julia couldn’t stop the tears coming. They ran down her cheeks and into the pillow. Felix didn’t move, or make a sound, but she had the impression that he was crying too. Let him, she thought, with deliberate bitterness. And then, there must be something the matter with me. Some reason why they don’t want me. Josh, and then Felix. She fought to stifle a sob.
At last Felix rolled towards her and tried to pull her into his arms.
Julia held herself stiff. ‘Don’t,’ she ordered. She knew that he had been crying because his face was wet.
‘It was my fault,’ he said. ‘Everything. All of that. You’re so beautiful. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
It mattered so much that she was ashamed of the words as soon as she had spoken them. After today, after everything today, at least they could try to comfort one another. She turned to Felix now, and he wrapped his arms around her.
Clinging together they cried for Jessie, and for themselves.
And then, when they couldn’t cry any more, with their wet faces still touching, they lay in the darkness and held each other.
‘What will happen?’ Julia asked childishly at last. She had meant, to everything. To all of us, because we are so fragile.
But Felix answered her carefully, deliberately. ‘To you and me? We’ll go on being friends. Will you let us?’
After the rush of grief he felt peeled bare, clear-sighted and precise. He loved Julia, and he wanted there to be no hope of anything else for them. No reopening of the murky, fetid labyrinth that had almost lost them tonight.
He felt her nod her head, slowly. There was a moment when she might have asked, ‘Why? Why is it like this?’ He sensed her turning the words over in her mind, and then delicately rejecting them.
Thank you, Felix thought.
‘Of course we will,’ she answered. She was imagining how it would be. As simple and as comfortable as before, but with a new measure of understanding, bred from tonight. They would go out to work and come home again. Felix would cook in the white kitchen and she would learn how to chop an onion with the same deft movements, how to bone and sauté and braise. What could she teach Felix, in return? Julia felt the burden of her own ignorance. But if she didn’t know anything now, then she could learn. Resolve and determination and a sudden optimism stiffened her. Mattie would come home again, and the three of them could be together. They couldn’t fill the abyss that Jessie had left, but they could remember her. The thought eased the painful memory of the raw graveyard earth and the rain-sodden flowers.
‘We’ll live here, together,’ Julia said softly. ‘Just like a family.’ Felix hesitated, but the need for precision impelled him. ‘I won’t be here for much longer. I wish I could be.’
Julia didn’t move. ‘Why won’t you be?’
‘I’ve been called up. I’ve got to attend for the medical in three weeks’ time.’
The idea of Felix as a National Serviceman was so incongruous that Julia laughed. It sounded shrill, and she swallowed it quickly.
‘But …’
‘It was deferred while I was at the art school. But I’m not, any more, am I? I notified them before Christmas and the letter came last week.’
He had set the wheels in motion gloomily, knowing that he would have to get it over with. But now the time was coming closer, the prospect almost attracted him. The army would lift him up from here and drop him down somewhere else, somewhere utterly different. And that could only help, after all, Felix thought.
‘Poor Felix,’ Julia said bleakly. She couldn’t help thinking, Poor me. Now there’s only me left. Of course there won’t be any family. Jessie’s dead, and Mattie’s gone. And now Felix will go too.
Felix heard her, as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud. ‘I’ll survive,’ he said gently, ‘and so will you. You’re better equipped for it than any of us. Look at you. You’re clever, much cleverer than Mattie and me. You see things clearly, and you feel them more strongly. That makes it hard for you. But you’re brave, and you’re determined as well. You must be, or you wouldn’t have got even this far.’
I’d still be in Fairmile Road, Julia thought. Perhaps that would have been better. But she answered herself, No, it wouldn’t. Whatever happens is better than that. She felt Felix’s fingers brush her cheek, and then stroke her hair.
‘And you’re beautiful, you know. That always helps.’
‘Does it?’
He had told her that she was beautiful in that ugly moment afterwards. Fending her off with assurances. Once again the questions quivered between them, but neither of them spoke. Julia understood that they would never be asked now. So close, but no closer.
‘Yes, it does,’ Felix said firmly.
‘Can I stay in the flat?’
‘Of course you can. I don’t suppose old Mr Bull will pitch us out, for Jessie’s sake. You could always share with someone, if Mattie isn’t here, to help with me rent.’
‘Oh yes,’ Julia said. ‘I could always do that.’
There didn’t seem to be anything else to add. She reached up and clicked on the light. She saw Felix’s coffee skin and her own, touching it. In the light it was somehow shocking and she sat up abruptly. Looking down at the space between them she saw a thin smear of blood.
She
