“Oh . . . my . . . God.” Jim slumped onto Nancy’s sofa with a long groan. “Could I have fucked it up any more royally?”
Nancy giggled. It was after six and they had just got back from Louise’s house, where they’d been playing a challenging game of Sorry with the girls for the last hour. Her mother had not returned to the party, saying she was worn out, and was currently watching television—at high volume—in her bedroom, with a bowl of broth and a ham sandwich on a tray for her supper. Louise had taken herself off for a long walk with a reluctant Ross; she had barely spoken to Nancy or Jim since the spilled-wine incident.
“Oh, I don’t know, the girls clearly love you and Ross would, too, if he was allowed to.”
Jim brushed his hands across his hair. “But Frances and Louise think I’m a nightmare.”
“Chucking wine in Mum’s lap probably wasn’t the best getting-to-know-you tactic.”
They laughed as Nancy sat down beside him and he took her in his arms.
“Then there was ‘Bugger!’”
“Yup, could have done without that as well.”
Nancy put her arm across Jim’s chest and laid her head against his shoulder. She wanted to forget about the tensions in her bloody family.
“You know how it is. Things start to slide and then everything you do only makes it worse,” he said, his voice lowered.
Looking up at him, Nancy said, “Louise is in a bad way at the moment, Jim. You just got in the firing line.”
“Hmm, not sure about that. Obviously things aren’t so hot between her and Ross, but I think she took an instant dislike to me . . . Just didn’t get me at all.”
“She’s tough, my daughter. But she’s fair in the end. She’ll come round.” Nancy paused. “In fact, I thought she might be quite well disposed toward you, considering the current fracas with her father and the diva.”
“I suppose she’s right to be wary of someone who’s after her mum.”
Nancy didn’t reply. She was embarrassed and disappointed by her daughter’s froideur toward Jim. She’d hoped they would get on—in fact, she couldn’t imagine anyone not getting on with Jim, he was so easy-going, so charming. But he hadn’t been at his best today, she accepted that.
“Too much bloody Rioja,” Jim was saying. “Always a mistake to drink on an empty stomach. I’m sorry, Nancy, I feel as if I’ve let you down, made more problems for you.”
“Rubbish. It’s just what happens with families, you must know that. What does your son think of you being with someone else?”
“Uh, he’s sort of on the fence. Very protective of his mother, like Louise, but he knows we haven’t been close for years . . .” He stopped, looked suddenly disconcerted.
Nancy wondered what this ex of his was like to make him so jumpy every time the subject came up. She waited for him to go on, but he didn’t, a tension similar to the one in the cafe descending on them both.
When Jim still didn’t speak, his gaze distant, distracted, she pulled away from his arms, perching on the edge of the cushion so she could see him properly. The look he sent her was anguished.
“What is it? Has something happened?” She felt a crush around her heart.
“No, no, nothing’s happened.” She could see him pulling himself together. But it seemed like an effort. “You’d think us being together would be so simple at our age,” he said, “but sometimes it feels as if we’re buried in our past and can’t get free.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
He sighed, forced a smile. “I just wanted your family to like me, Nancy. I’m frightened that if they don’t you’ll be put off me.”
She roared with laughter, relieved he was worrying about nothing more sinister. “It would take a lot more than Louise’s sniping to put me off you, Jim Bowdry.” She lay back on the sofa again, their bodies close.
Neither said any more for a while, but Nancy’s heart was beating double time. “Do you want to stay tonight?” She spoke impetuously, then held her breath as she realized what she was asking. She had thought of little else in the past few weeks, wondering what it might be like to make love again, to expose her aging body to another man, to give herself to Jim in such an important way. Christopher had been her first and only partner, and his lovemaking had been a cautious, controlled manipulation of his own pleasure. He’d been very specific about what he did and didn’t like, but rarely inquired about Nancy’s desires. It was never passionate, not even in the beginning. She knew things would be different with Jim—even the kisses they had exchanged were light years away from her experience with her ex-husband. There will never be a perfect time. Mum might be here forever, she thought, as she waited, trembling inside, for Jim to reply.
Jim seemed to have gone very still. “What about your mother?”
“She’s in the attic.”
They looked at each other.
“What do you think?” Nancy asked, her heart kicking against her ribs. “We don’t have to . . . you know . . . do anything.” She suddenly felt very bold.
Jim laughed, pulling her hard against him. “No, but then again . . .”
*
They drank some beers Nancy had in the fridge and she cooked a cheese omelet, serving it with a green salad. But although they ate the meal together at the kitchen table, neither was concentrating on the food. Nancy felt as if her whole body were suspended, as if she were holding her breath for a very long time, making her light-headed, giggly. Jim was animated too, his gaze constantly finding hers, drawing her in, flirting with her as she was with him, his blue eyes bottomless and hungry. It felt as if they were caught up in a feverish tempest, exclusive, just the two of them, her mother forgotten, the family forgotten, the rest of the world ceasing to exist.
Food dispatched, Jim reached over and took her hand, raised his eyebrows a little. “Ready?” he asked her softly. They got to their feet and tiptoed to the stairs.
He held her hand as they paused on the landing to listen, but there was silence from Frances’s room above, the television no longer blasting through the house. Without a word, they made their way along the corridor to Nancy’s room. It was a large, light space, windows on two sides as well as the skylight, although now it was dark outside as Nancy drew the heavy gray-blue patterned curtains along the wooden rail. She had kept the furnishings plain, the room containing only the essentials: a white-painted built-in wardrobe, bed, padded bucket chair, a rag rug on the bare wood floor next to the bed and a table in the corner on which was a mirror and the meager ranks of creams and cosmetics that constituted Nancy’s face care. On the bed there was a beautiful tartan rug from the fifties in faded blues, greens and pinks that she had picked up at an antiques fair the previous year. Nothing in the room remained of her marriage, for which, at that moment, she was extremely grateful.
They stood at the end of the bed staring at each other, neither seeming to know what to do next.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Jim whispered.
She nodded without hesitation, unable to speak, suddenly cold and shivery.
He pulled her to him, traced his finger along her lips, brushed a strand of hair off her cheek so gently so that she could barely feel his touch, yet every cell in her body responded as if to a clarion call.
Jim was hesitant, almost as if he didn’t believe it was finally safe to continue, but when their lips came together it was as it had been that night in the car: there was a certainty, an absolute rightness, which washed away any doubt.
“Let me look at you,” he said, pulling her T-shirt up until she lifted her arms and it was over her head and flung to the floor. He hooked the straps of her bra off her shoulders, pulling them down to reveal her small breasts, his hands cupping them as he bent to kiss first one nipple, then the other, his tongue teasing her skin until she was ready to explode.
Coaxing her back onto the bed, he hurled aside the rug and the duvet, then knelt in front of her, rhythmically running his fingers along her body from top to toe, dropping soft kisses on her thighs, her stomach, her breasts, her neck and upward to her lips again, his mouth seeking hers with increased impatience.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he muttered.
But all she could do was moan with pleasure, the recent fears about her figure, about her age, about her ability to allow another man full rein with her body seemed irrelevant now as she undid the buttons of Jim’s shirt, drew his jeans down over his buttocks, felt his hard smoothness in her hands.
For a while they did little else but revel in the closeness of their naked bodies, an endless kiss holding her spellbound, almost in a trance, so that when they began to make love, it felt like an extension of that caress, part of the all-consuming desire that had existed between them from the start.
Then, suddenly, it was over. Jim’s erection sank to nothing and a minute later he rolled off her uttering a low groan.
“What is it?” she asked, thinking he might have heard her mother call. She felt flushed, almost dizzy from the unaccustomed sex and lay there weakly, waiting for him to reply.
“Sorry . . . I don’t know what happened.” He covered his face with his hands.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly.
“It does! It bloody does!” Jim had hauled himself up and swung his feet to the floor, his naked back all she could see of him as he sat on the far side of the bed.
She reached out and stroked his skin. “It doesn’t. Come back to bed . . . please.”
He turned his head, a strand of gray hair, come loose from the ponytail, flopping across his face. She smiled. “Come on,” she urged, and he finally lay down again, pulling the duvet over their nakedness.
The silence was heavy with Jim’s angst. “It’s not been my day,” he said. Then rolling on his side to face her, he added, “I haven’t had sex for so long, seems like I’m out of practice. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop, Jim. I’ve told you, I don’t mind.”
“But I ruined everything. The first time . . . I’ve been imagining this for so long . . . It was supposed to be perfect.”
She lifted her head to kiss him lightly on the lips. “It’s been a stressful day,” she said. “Doesn’t help having Mum along the corridor.”
He smiled, his face clearing a little. “No, but . . .”
Nancy put her finger to his mouth. “But nothing.”
“I should probably go,” he said.
“No, please. Stay with me. Let’s sleep together. Don’t run away.”
For a long while they lay in the darkness in each other’s arms, neither saying a word. Nancy’s body gradually came down from the interrupted sex and she found her eyes closing, the nearness of Jim’s body, so loving and warm, allowing her to drift off into a much-needed sleep.
*
She awoke a long time later, in the half-light of the summer morning, to Jim’s hand running up between her legs. They didn’t speak this time, there were no lingering kisses, but the sex was fierce, almost greedy, unfinished business that, if anything, made this coming together all the sweeter. And when it was over, they both lay on their backs, smiling like idiots.
“That was perfect,” Nancy murmured.
“This sounds like a cliché, but I never imagined I could feel like this about anyone.” He rolled over to look at her. “You literally take my breath away, Nancy.”
She felt unexpected tears gathering behind her eyes. “It is the strangest thing.”
“Had I better get going?” Jim whispered, as he cradled her in his arms. “I’m not sure I can deal with your mother over the cornflakes.”
“If you leave now, you’ll wake everyone, including the girls. That gravel is the most treacherous on earth.”
He laughed. “What shall I do, then?”
“Well, we could go to sleep again and see what happens. Mum never gets up early. I take her a cup of tea about eight usually.”
“Louise and the children will see my car when they go to school,” he said.
“So they see it. We haven’t done anything wrong, Jim.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to antagonize your daughter any more than I already have.”
“Too late,” Nancy said, realizing she didn’t give a fig about any of it at that precise moment. She was buzzing with a hazy contentment. “Come here and stop worrying,” she said, pulling his tall body once more into her embrace.
*
“I heard that man leaving this morning.” Her mother’s mouth was set in a dangerously disapproving line when Nancy went in with her morning tea. Frances was sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, a very old Dick Francis, pages yellowing at the edges, open in her hand.
“I’m sorry he disturbed you.” Nancy steeled herself. Now Jim had left, the euphoria was fading and tiredness scratched at her eyes. For a moment she felt like a naughty child, but her body purred like a woman, delightfully bruised by Jim’s lovemaking. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had managed to let go to that extent, to find such a powerful sensuality within herself. Jim’s touch had made it so easy.
“Hmm,” said her mother. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m going to boil you an egg,” Nancy said, turning to leave the room. There was no mileage in having the discussion about Jim her mother so obviously wanted. “I’ll bring it up.”
“No need,” Frances replied, in a martyred tone. “I shall be down in a minute.”
Nancy plodded downstairs, her nerves jangling.
When her mother appeared, already dressed, about twenty minutes later, it was clear there was an agenda from the chilly smile she offered her daughter and the way she held herself unusually straight and stiff, every muscle in her body denoting opprobrium.
“I think I should go home today,” she said, as soon as she was seated and Nancy had placed the egg and crispbread her mother liked in front of her.
“Because of Jim?”
“No. I just feel I would like to be at home. I’m not ill anymore and there’s no need for me to be here.”
“Mum, please, you don’t have to go.”
Frances offered a brittle smile. “I know I don’t, darling. But I feel I should.”
“This is because of Jim, isn’t it?”
Her mother shook her head. “How you run your life is your own business, Nancy. You’re far too old for me to be telling you what you should do.”
“But you don’t approve.”
There was a long silence while Frances spread a thin layer of butter on the crispbread, carefully taking it all the way to the edges. When she finally looked up at Nancy, her eyes were cold. “This man. You barely know him. He drinks too much, swears in such a rude way in front of the girls . . . He’s hardly in Christopher’s league, darling.”
Nancy held her breath and tried to control the kick of rage that felt like a physical pain in her gut. “‘Christopher’s league’? Meaning a man who thinks it’s okay to have an affair with someone half his age, then run off and leave me after thirty-four years of marriage?”
Frances raised her eyebrows. “That isn’t what I mean, and you know it.”
“I know that you’re being snobbish, Mum. Your remark about the madrigals yesterday proved that.”
“Well, Christopher is a highly talented and sophisticated musician, you can’t deny it.”
“So what? Christopher left me, Mum! He left me. He isn’t my husband anymore because he walked out on me.” She couldn’t help raising her voice.
“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Her mother spoke softly.
Flabbergasted, Nancy was catapulted back to childhood. She knew she had never been the daughter her mother wanted. But no child could ever have lived up to her impossible standards because Frances’s mantra was always “Be the very best,” not “Do your very best.” There was a difference.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Nancy said tiredly.
But Frances hadn’t quite finished. “I know you’ve been terribly hurt by Christopher, and obviously I don’t approve of what he did. How could I? But that doesn’t mean you should settle for just anyone. I’m only saying this because I’m worried about you, darling.”
When Nancy said nothing because she was afraid of what she might say, Frances added, “I’m sure Louise would agree with me about this Jim fellow.”
And when Nancy still stayed silent, Frances got up from the table. “I’ll go up and pack my things, if you wouldn’t mind running me home later.”
Nancy sat alone in the kitchen, exhausted with anger. She should have been relieved that her mother wanted to go home, but she wasn’t. Things had been aired that it would be hard to forget, but Frances was old and ill, whatever she said, and Nancy couldn’t imagine how she would manage on her own. So she felt hideously guilty for provoking her mother’s departure, the guilt sitting alongside a dull knot of anger, anger that was both historical but also spiky raw, a painful reminder of what her mother really thought of her.
But fall out with Frances she could not, so she took a deep breath and dragged herself upstairs.
“Please, Mum. Don’t go. It’s stupid.”
“I’ll be fine, darling.” Her mother’s face had softened, perhaps thinking back on what she’d said. “You’ve been wonderful, but I really would like to get home.”
Nancy had no idea whether she meant it or not, but she didn’t argue, just went back downstairs to phone Heather, who was due for a lesson at ten-thirty.