fifteen

Thursday, 18-Mar

Fact: Yesterday Nathan rang me.

At first I didn’t clock his phone number. My first instinct was to ignore the call and try an Internet reverse search on the number. The red warning flags aflutter in my brain. Paranoia at full throttle. Thankfully, I got hold of myself, recognized the number, and answered.

I was surprised to hear from Nathan after the awkward (some might even say “disastrous”) studio visit. The clinician in me tried to read his mental state. He sounded as if he didn’t want to be ringing me, yet was anyhow. Sweet, actually, and without artifice. I accepted his invitation to take a walk and offered to pick him up at his house. He defused that idea straight away, and I ended up picking him up off the side of the road like a vagabond.

In the Burren, early purple orchids and rock roses waved on a wild-garlic-scented breeze, but Nathan didn’t appear to notice spring all around us. He led an excruciating pace up to Mullaghamore’s summit. I struggled along, and by the time we reached the top, the lines of exhaustion and tension around his eyes had smoothed out.

We sat for a while on the summit overlooking a mosaic of dry rock walls, pastures, and lanes. He refused to be drawn into conversation about himself. Instead, he invited me to talk about myself. So now he knows that I’m “between jobs” and “investigating opportunities.”

At one point he leaned in and sniffed my neck. “You smell good,” he said.

I wore my old anorak. He’d rung while I was in the garden. “I smell like mildew and potting soil.”

“Perfection.”

Then … these facts, above all:

Fact: Nathan kissed me full on the lips.

Fact: I rather enjoyed it, even the tinge of desperation that came along with the kiss.

Fact: I might be doomed.