MONDAY, AUGUST 16
“It’s strange,” I said, my head on Marc’s chest.
He waited for me to finish my sentence, his eyes following a cloud as it morphed leisurely across the summer sky. We had a couple more hours until we should head over to Patrick and Rebecca’s. There was a new doctor, Frances, at Patrick’s surgery and he’d been talking for weeks about how much we’d get on with her. Rebecca had promised her grandmother’s coq au vin for the occasion.
“What’s strange?” Marc asked eventually, propping himself on his elbows to look at me. The movement forced me to shift too, prising my eyes from a pair of ducks gliding with the current. Staring at the ducks, I’d been able to imagine us alone on some private riverbank in the middle of nowhere, at harmony with each other and nature. Sitting up, I was forced to acknowledge those we were sharing this privacy with: the dog walkers and cyclists crossing the bridge, the ice-cream truck on the opposite bank and the students picnicking and pretending to study.
“That I’m so happy here,” I replied, turning my attention back to the water. My ducks had gone.
“Why’s that strange?” Marc asked, a touch of nervousness in his voice.
“I don’t mean bad strange,” I said quickly, swiveling my head so I could meet his eyes. Had I said the wrong thing? I was trying to be honest, to share myself. Perhaps I just needed to explain. “Not bad strange, but curious. It’s an odd feeling for me, being so supremely content, especially so far away from the things I thought would make me happy. I almost feel like a different person.”
Marc tensed. I laid my palm over his heart. “Don’t—please, I mean it, I’m happy. You make me happy. It’s just weird when I think about my life last year, about how desperately I wanted to stay in Chicago and live, I don’t know, in a way that mattered.”
“Does this not matter?” he said.
“That’s not what I mean. You’re twisting my words. It’s just, for so long I’ve felt this anger and passion, this need to escape all this niceness. I mean, if you’d met me in a seminar having a shouting match with my tutor about the art industry’s inherent race and gender biases and told me a year later I’d be lying by the river in York eating grapes from the market and feeling this disgustingly, gushingly in love, I’d have punched you.”
“I didn’t mean to interfere with your plans. I’m sorry,” Marc said with a smile, but also an edge in his voice that made me wonder if it was really a joke.
“You should be!” I said, deciding not to push it. I sat up and reached my arms around him. My fingers crawled over his skin, tickling his sides until he squirmed as I panted, “I. Might. Have. Been. The. Next. Marina. Abramović. Your. Hideously. Amazing. Love. Has. Denied. The. World. My. Art.”
“The next who?” Marc said, gasping for breath between giggles.
“You philistine!” I said, rolling my eyes. “Fine, the next Andy Warhol or Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin.”
“You wanted to be the next Tracey Emin?” Marc said. “More like I’ve spared the world. I’m a hero!”
I growled in frustration and Marc took the opportunity to end the tickling by grabbing my hands and pinning me to the grass.
“I love you,” I said seriously, that second struck by the magnitude of the declaration.
He hovered above me, studying my features. I looked up at him, wishing I could read his thoughts. Was this strange for him too? He seemed so comfortable and at ease. Did he have no angst, no worries, no guilt? How to explain that I’d feel closer to him if he did, if he admitted he didn’t have a clue either. We could wade into the murky, mysterious water and glide into the unknown together. But Marc seemed okay. He seemed happy being happy, like it was natural and enough. Like it needed no extra thought.