18

When Pixie returned home she wore a blankly anxious expression. Her mobile rang again and, turning her eyes away from Pitt, she began to chat to the French boyfriend, Bertrand whatever his name was, cupping her hand. She slipped away to take the call privately in her bedroom; her muffled voice sounding dissatisfied and miserable.

When this cross channel contretemps ended she insisted on going to bed straight away. Evidently she’d had a mild lovers’ tiff with Bertrand, brought on by the tension no doubt, but also related to her spontaneous outing to the theatre.

“Don’t think about disturbing me in the night,” Pixie warned him. “I have a double inside lock and a pistol under my bed.”

Pitt was taken aback. “What do you take me for?” Clive said. He assumed she was joking about the gun.

“There are unresolved places in your character,” she said; signs of strain around her eyes.

“Are there? So that’s what you’d call it?” he returned, disconcerted.

“Sleep peacefully, Clive, knowing that you are in the best place.”

“I really appreciate it,” he admitted. “You’ve risked a lot for me already. Now it seems I have put you into fresh danger.”

“We’ve got to protect each other, as far as possible,” she said, smiling.

“I suspect we are vulnerable even now,” Pitt observed.

“Let’s not worry about it,” she suggested, pulling away.

“You’re a really bang up girl, Pixie,” he declared.

“You still know how to flatter a girl, with your sweet northern phrases,” she teased.

“Always ready to turn on the charm,” he replied.

“I note you rediscovered a sharp haircut and a posh outfit.”

“Thanks to a friend of mine, not far away from our old house.”

“They used to hate you for that. You strayed away from Brooks Brothers,” she recalled. “So I assume that the rumours are true...that you were doing consultancy work for a rival.”

“I’ve no idea about that,” he said.

“You ought to understand...have no doubt... that Septimus and his new directors will not permit employment to a rival,” she argued.

“Just as they disapproved of our relationship.”

“Glad you’re listening,” she remarked.

But he was afraid of what it meant to desire her.

Nervously they went to bed at the same hour, if to different rooms. Clive was quickly conscious of her in the room next door. Pixie could sense him moving about and then his presence in the space as well. She had a pistol under the bed (resulting from their first affair). She was afraid of him, given those events and incidents. She knew how to fire a rifle; in Switzerland she had gone hunting with a group of local men; not just learning how to smile at a future husband or to iron his shirts, but to fully participate in a local culture and society, much to the chagrin of her Swiss guardians.

Pixie’s memory showed no flaws; they had been lovers once. Consequently she fretted for hours under soaked cotton sheets. She wasn’t just tormented by potential danger, but at the speed of that renewed bond with him. She was kept awake by memories of happy experiences together; as well as the clash between the cruel and the kind. She had tried to eradicate those memories and hardly dared to bring them back; chewing them over in her mind was like taking an emotional cyanide pill.

Intellectually she believed in him, yet in her body she was mistrustful and distressed. She called out from half sleep, suffering nightmares. Clive was awake and heard her, which prompted him to shout back in response, to ask if she was all right. The tension only grew heavier in the air as she refused to answer. Then she couldn’t get back to sleep again, as she was conscious of Clive, wide awake, troubled and restless. She listened out acutely, full of desire and fear, stiff and perspiring. She followed his movements in her imagination as he paced about, in the dead small hours of the night, when only urban foxes and service workers were about.

Indeed he suffered a feverishly restless night. He sweltered with the close humidity. At first he pushed his face into the pillow, as if trying to suffocate himself. He was sad and tormented by his actions during the lost year, which had caused him to be a pariah and to lose his wife and son. It was unthinkable that Noreen could have had an affair with that guy in town and then agreed to a new life in Seattle.

Exactly how was he supposed to have attacked Emily Winchurch? What were the circumstances? Pixie might give him the full background in the morning - or later that morning - if he was able to survive this nocturnal hell; an eternal torment of a bad conscience.

Even the brief blackouts had escaped him. He was intensely aware of Pixie in the adjoining room. What was wrong with him? The smooth curves of her creamy body, warmly naked, sleek with perspiration, deranged his imagination. Whether it was misery or lust, he couldn’t stifle a desire to find her: a voice that told him “why not?”

This convinced him that they’d been lovers in the past. He felt their relationship in his nerves. There was an intense attraction and sympathy; a friendship that picked up from where they had left off. He gained this insight just as, during their chat, he’d recognised her mannerisms. He sensed a habitual relationship with her, a passionate familiarity, in the recent past. Sleeping apart was mysteriously painful, as if they’d been torn away. He craved her intimacy, to feel her body next to him. Pitt’s nerves vibrated through the night like wires in a high wind, protesting against spiritual cold and hunger, after she had abandoned him.

In this manner they endured an interminable night. Not relieved by high humidity, wafting from the ground like acrid incense, which shrouded London outside, as the A/C in his spare room rattled like an old bus on a reduced timetable.