Randall parked his car and walked across to the small group of flats on the other side of the street. Beneath the sodium glare of the street-lamp he checked his watch.
10.43 p.m.
“Spot on,” he said to himself, pushing open the double doors which led into the hallway. There was a staircase ahead of him and a lift to his right. He chose the stairs, walking up slowly, feeling somewhat self-conscious carrying the spray of red carnations. Two kids, about fifteen, bundled their way past him laughing raucously and, minutes later, Randall heard the roar of motor-bike engines as the two of them sped off. They’ll probably be wrapped round a tree by midnight, he thought. He’d always wanted a motor-bike when he was a kid but his parents had resolutely forbidden it. Death traps, his father had called them. Over the years, with the number of accidents he’d seen, Randall had come to agree.
He reached the landing and found that it was bright and clean-looking with paintings hung on two of the walls. There was an enormous rubber plant outside one of the flat doors which looked like something out of “The Day of the Triffids”. The building consisted of just three storeys, six flats on each floor and it bore a marked contrast to the flats on the larger estates on the other side of Exham. No graffiti here, he thought. No dog shit in the hallway or cat’s piss on the landings. Sweetness and light he mused, somewhat sardonically. The small block was quiet, everyone either went to bed early or Maggie was the only one on this floor he thought as he found her number. He pressed the bell and a two tone chime answered him. He held the carnations beside him, finally producing them when Maggie herself opened the door.
She smiled broadly, her face lighting up and, once more, Randall was struck by her extraordinarily sparkling eyes. It was like looking at a June sky – two pieces of heaven captured within those glittering orbs. She was dressed in a crisply laundered grey dress and a pair of high-heeled gold shoes which seemed to accentuate the smooth curve of her calves. Maggie was a small woman, about five-three Randall guessed, but the graceful suppleness of her legs made her appear taller. He ran a quick, appreciative eye over her, thinking how different she looked from when he’d first seen her that morning.
She ushered him in, taking the flowers gratefully.
“I didn’t know what sort of chocolates you liked,” he said, somewhat self-consciously. “So I thought I’d play safe.”
“They’re beautiful,” she said and went off to find a vase. “Sit down.”
He sank into the welcoming luxuriance of the sofa and looked around him. The room was quite large but sparsely furnished with just the three piece suite, a sideboard and a coffee table. A gas fire blazed before him, one of those with mock flames. There was a portable TV perched on a high table in the far corner of the room, a small music centre to his left. Two doors led out of the room, the one which Maggie had disappeared through led into the kitchen, the other one, closed at the moment, led to the bedroom and bathroom.
Behind the sofa on which he sat there was a small dining table set for two and the policeman could smell food cooking. The lights were dimmed and the whole room had a cosy feel to it. Immediately Randall felt relaxed.
Maggie returned a moment later carrying the flowers in a white vase. She set it down on the coffee table. He smelt her perfume as she leant over, a subtle aroma which lingered after her.
She poured him a drink and they talked gaily for a while until Maggie got up, announcing that the supper was ready. Randall got to his feet and wandered across to the table, watching her as she carried the meal in.
Randall savoured the meal. It was indeed a treat to eat something prepared by a woman’s hands, especially when she was as attractive as Maggie. He looked up at her and for long seconds he imagined he was sitting opposite his dead wife but the vision hastily vanished.
“I’m not used to cooking for two,” she said.
He reached for the wine bottle and poured them both a glass.
“That surprises me,” he said.
“Why?”
“You’re an attractive woman. It’s not usual to find women like you on their own.”
“Men don’t seem interested in women who can compete with them on the same level,” she said. “I mean, as far as a career goes. It seems to frighten them off. A woman anywhere else but the kitchen sink is a threat to their egos.”
Randall raised his glass in salute.
“Come back Germaine Greer, all is forgiven,” he said, smiling. “Where did you dig that speech up from?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s ok, but, like I said, I’m still surprised you’re single.”
“I could say the same about you,” she said, smiling.
Randall grinned:
“I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere but I can’t quite find it.”
“You do live alone though?” she asked.
His smile faded somewhat. He nodded and sipped at his wine.
“Yeah, I have done for the last five years,” he told her.
He returned to his food, aware that her eyes were upon him.
“I was married. I had a little girl: Lisa. She was two when it happened.” He chewed his food slowly, finally sitting back in his chair, running the tip of his index finger around the rim of his glass. Maggie watched him silently.
“My wife, Fiona,” he began, “she asked me to drive her and Lisa to her mother’s. Well, I was just about to set off when I got a call through, could I come down to the station? They’d hauled a suspect in, wanted me to talk to him. I forget what it was about. Anyway, I told her that she’d have to drive herself, that the case was important.” He sipped his wine, the voice which he heard sounded alien, distant, as if it didn’t belong to him and he realized that he was speaking about the event for the first time since it had happened all those years ago. It seemed like an eternity.
“She’d only passed her test a few weeks earlier.” He smiled thinly. “I remember how pleased she was when she did pass. But she didn’t fancy driving at night, that was why she asked me to take her and Lisa.” He paused again. “A lorry hit the car. Big bastard it was, sixteen wheeler. It took the fire brigade four hours to cut them loose from the wreckage. Of course they were both dead by that time anyway.” He took a long swallow from his glass.
“Oh God, I’m song, Lou,” she said.
He nodded.
“If I’d have been driving, it probably wouldn’t have happened.”
“You can’t know that,” she said.
“Sometimes I wish I’d have died with them,” he confessed.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she said.
He smiled, humourlessly.
“People used to say that to me all the time after it happened. All except Fiona’s mother who seemed to agree that it was my fault. She hasn’t spoken to me since the day it happened.”
There was a long silence finally broken by Randall.
“Well, things are getting a bit morbid, aren’t they? Shall we change the subject?”
He suggested they clear the table, offering to help with the washing up. They carried the plates into the kitchen where she washed and he dried. They talked unceasingly, as if each had finally found some kind of confessor. Someone to whom their life’s secrets could be revealed without the risk of scorn or judgement. And, in their openness they discovered just how desolate and empty their lives really were, but the discovery of that fact seemed only to pull them closer until, by midnight when they moved back into the sitting room with a cup of coffee each, they felt as if they’d known one another all their lives.
Randall sat down on the sofa, Maggie kicked off her shoes and sat beside him on the floor, legs tucked beneath her. She rested her coffee cup on the cushion next to him and ran a hand through her hair.
Randall watched her, realizing that he wanted her badly. Maggie felt a similar yearning but there was something nagging at the back of her mind. Something which she had not experienced with the other men she’d known. She wanted him, that much she knew but, for some unknown reason, she was afraid of rejection. She knew that he felt something for her, even if it was only physical, but she could not shake the feeling that she would be betraying the memory of his wife and child if she gave herself up to her feelings. But those feelings were powerful and, even as she sat talking to him, she felt compelled to take his heavy hand in hers, gently stroking the back, tracing the outline of his thick veins, stirring the hair which grew thickly on his hand and wrist.
Randall too was thinking about Fiona, wondering if he should be sitting here with this very attractive young woman wanting so badly to feel his body pressing against hers, to feel her hands on him and his on her. He had lost more than his family when Fiona and Lisa had been killed, he had lost a part of himself. The part that once knew happiness, compassion and optimism, but, in Maggie, maybe he had found someone who might help him to rediscover what he had lost. He gazed down at her as she bent forward to kiss the back of his hand and he could not resist the urge to lay one hand on the back of her neck, kneading the flesh there with his strong fingers. She felt so soft, so pliant and a tingle ran through him. You only met her this morning, he told himself, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. They were together and it seemed so right. As if they belonged with one another. He felt a single tear burst from his eye corner. There was fear there too. It had been so long. So long since he’d allowed himself to share any feelings he wondered if, when the time came, he would be able to.
Maggie climbed up onto the sofa beside him. She brushed the tear from his cheek with her index finger but she did not speak.
She thought of all those men before. Was this one going to be different? Could she actually find someone to love? She felt his arms pull her closer and she rested her head on his shoulder. For long seconds they remained still then she twisted around to face him and, tenderly at first, leant forward and kissed him on the lips. Randall responded and suddenly their kisses were deep and probing, making them both shudder. Almost reluctantly, Maggie broke away, her eyes wide, searching his.
“Does it bother you that I’ve been to bed with men in the past just because I wanted to?” she asked.
“Why should it?” he said. “It’s your business, Maggie and, besides, the past doesn’t matter.”
“I think I’ve been very naive,” she confessed. “I was confusing want with need. I wanted physical relationships but I needed something more.”
Randall slid his arm around her, shuddering as he felt her hand touch his thigh.
“Do you always get philosophical at this time of night?” he asked, smiling.
“It depends on who I’m with,” she said, grinning. “You’re a good listener.”
They lay down together on the floor and made love in the heat from the fire.
For long seconds afterwards, both of them gasped and shuddered with the intensity of their passion. Coupled together and breathless, they held each other tightly.
She bit his shoulder, drawing the skin between her teeth for brief moments until, when she withdrew her head, there was a small red mark there.
“Ouch,” he said and nipped her ear lobe.
Maggie laughed, one hand stroking his hair, her finger finally tracing the outline of his eyebrows and, above those, the deep furrows which creased his fore-head. She propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. She seemed fascinated by his hard face with its many lines and creases, each of which she seemed to follow with her nail.
“You must worry a lot,” she said.
He looked vague.
“Wrinkles,” she said, kissing him gently on the end of his nose. He frowned and she giggled.
“Do you know it takes forty-five facial muscles to frown but only fifteen to smile?” she asked.
“Thank you, doctor,” he said, gripping her soft hand in his. “I don’t usually have much to smile about.”
She nodded, her expression softening.
“Will I still be smiling tomorrow, Maggie?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“This,” he said. “Was this just another one night stand?”
She kissed him softly on the lips.
“I hope not,” she whispered.
“The lonely doctor and the cynical, embittered copper eh?” he said and, for a moment, she thought she heard a note of sarcasm in his voice. “Sounds like a perfect match.”
She smiled as his tone lightened somewhat. He reached up and pulled her to him, holding her tightly. They gazed into each other’s eyes, he, once more captivated by those glittering blue jewels with which she stared back at him.
“Would it surprise you to know that you are the first woman I’ve had since Fiona died?” he said.
Maggie looked a little shocked.
“Lou, I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel guilty. I. . .”
He put a finger to her lips to silence her.
“I suppose I can’t live in the past forever,” he said softly. “Nothing is going to bring her or Lisa back. I’ve got my memories and I’m grateful for them. I loved Fiona more than I thought it was possible to love anyone, and even more so when Lisa was born. When they were killed, something inside me died with them.” He paused, swallowed hard and she could see his eyes misting over.
“Don’t talk about it,” she said, stroking his face.
“No, it’s all right,” he reassured her. “For the first time since it happened, I want to talk about it. For five years it’s been bottled up. Because, until now there’s been no one who I wanted to tell.”
Maggie felt something stirring deep inside her. A feeling almost of pity for Randall.
Her voice took on a reflective tone.
“You know, all these years I’ve been calling myself liberated,” she said, bitterly, “when all I’ve really been is a slag.”
“Don’t say that,” he said.
She shook her head.
“It’s true. I can’t remember how many men I’ve had or maybe I’ve been fooling myself there too. Perhaps they’ve been having me.” She kissed him on the cheek. “And do you know what I’ve missed more than anything?”
He shook his head.
“Kids,” she told him. “I’ve always loved kids but my bloody career came first where they were concerned too. Maybe that’s why I work with kids. I’m a frustrated mother. Parent by proxy.” She smiled humourlessly. “What I wouldn’t give for my own child. . .” She allowed the sentence to trail off.
“I think that’s enough soul-searching for one night, don’t you?” said Randall, touching her face. He pulled her close to him once again and kissed her. She responded fiercely for a moment then broke away and got to her feet. For precious seconds, she stood, naked, before him and Randall gazed almost wonderingly at the smooth outlines of her glowing body.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said, flicking off the light.
Once in bed they found their passions roused once again and this time they were joined with an abandoned intensity.
Finally, exhausted, they fell asleep, clutching one another feeling that a shared demon was in the process of being exorcised.