‘I hear you want Adam to move in,’ she says.
I write my name in condensation on the window. My finger marks smeared across the glass make me feel young.
She says, ‘Your dad might agree to the occasional night, Tess, but he’s not going to let Adam live here.’
‘Dad said he’d help me with my list.’
‘He is helping. He’s just bought us all tickets to go to Sicily, hasn’t he?’
‘Because he wants to spend a whole week with you!’
When I turn to look at her, she frowns at me as if I’m someone she’s never seen before.
‘Did he actually say that?’
‘He’s in love with you, it’s obvious. Travel isn’t even on my list any more.’
She looks bemused. ‘I thought travel was number seven.’
‘I swapped it for getting you and Dad back together.’
‘Oh, Tessa!’
It’s weird, because of all people, she should understand about love. I fold my arms at her. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘Who?’
‘The man you left us for.’
She shakes her head. ‘Why are you bringing this up now?’
‘Because you said you didn’t have a choice. Isn’t that what you said?’
‘I said I was unhappy.’
‘Lots of people are unhappy, but they don’t run away.’
‘Please, Tess, I really don’t want to talk about this.’
‘We loved you.’
Plural. Past tense. But still it sounds too big for this little room.
She looks up at me, her face pale and angular. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You must’ve loved him more than you’d ever loved anyone. He must’ve been wonderful, some kind of magical person.’
She doesn’t say anything.
Simple. A love that big. I turn back to the window. ‘Then you should understand how I feel about Adam.’
She gets up and comes over. She doesn’t touch me, but stands very close. ‘Does he feel the same way about you, Tess?’
‘I don’t know.’
I want to lean on her and pretend that everything’s going to be OK. But I just smear my name off the window and look out at the night instead. It’s strangely gloomy out there.
‘I’ll talk to Dad,’ she says. ‘He’s seeing Cal to bed, but when he’s finished, I’ll take him out for a beer. Will you be all right by yourselves?’
‘I’ll ask Adam over. I’ll make him supper.’
‘All right.’ She turns to go, then at the doorway turns back. ‘You want some sweet and lovely things, Tessa, but be careful. Other people can’t always give you what you want.’
I cut four giant slices of bread onto the chopping board and put them under the grill. I get tomatoes from the vegetable rack, and because Adam stands with his back against the sink watching me, I hold a tomato cupped in each hand at breast height and shimmy back to the counter with them.
He laughs. I slice both tomatoes and place them on the grill next to the toast. I get the grater from the cupboard, the cheese from the fridge, and grate a pile of cheese onto the chopping board while the toast cooks. I know there’s a gap between the bottom of my T-shirt and the waistband of my trousers. I know there’s a particular curve (the only curve I have left) where my spine meets my bum, and that when I lean on one hip, that curve pushes itself towards Adam.
After grating the cheese I lick each finger in turn, very deliberately, and it does just what I knew it would. He walks over and kisses the back of my neck.
‘Want to know what I’m thinking?’ he whispers.
‘Tell me.’ Although I already know.
‘I want you.’ He turns me round and kisses me on the mouth. ‘A lot.’
He talks as if he’s been grabbed by a force that he doesn’t understand. I love it. I press myself against him.
I say, ‘Want to know what I want?’
‘Go on then.’
He smiles. He thinks he knows what I’m going to say. I don’t want to stop him smiling. ‘You.’
The truth. And not the truth.
I turn the gas off before we go upstairs. The toast has turned to charcoal. The smell of burning makes me sad.
In his arms I forget. But afterwards, as we lie quietly together, I remember.
‘I have bad dreams,’ I say.
He strokes my hip, the top of my thigh. His hand is warm and firm. ‘Tell me.’
‘I go somewhere in them.’
I walk bare-footed over fields to a place at the edge of this world. I climb stiles and trek through tall grass. Every night I go further. Last night I got to a wood – gloomy and not very big. On the other side was a river. Mist hovered above the surface. There were no fish, and as I waded out, mud oozed between my toes.
Adam brushes my cheek with one finger. Then he pulls me close and kisses me. On my cheek. On my chin. On my other cheek. Then on my mouth. Very gently.
‘I’d come with you if I could.’
‘It’s very scary.’
He nods. ‘I’m very brave.’
I know he is. How many people would be here with me in the first place?
‘Adam, there’s something I need to ask you.’
He waits. His head next to mine on the pillow, his eyes calm. It’s difficult. I can’t find the words. The books on the shelf above seem to sigh and shuffle.
He sits up and hands me a pen. ‘Write it on the wall.’
I look at all the things I’ve written there over the months. Scrawls of desire. There’s so much more I could add. A joint bank account, singing in the bath with him, listening to him snore for years and years.
‘Go on,’ he says. ‘I have to go soon.’
And it’s these words, with an edge of the outside world in them, of things to do and places to be, that allows me to write.
I want you to move in with me. I want the nights. I write it quickly in really bad handwriting, so maybe he won’t be able to read it. Then I hide under the duvet.
There’s a second’s pause.
‘I can’t, Tess.’
I struggle out from the duvet. I can’t see his face, just a glimpse of light reflected in his eyes. Stars shining there perhaps. Or the moon.
‘Because you don’t want to?’
‘I can’t leave my mum by herself.’
I hate his mother, the lines on her forehead and round her eyes. I hate her wounded look. She lost her husband, but she didn’t lose anything else.
‘Can’t you come back when she’s asleep?’
‘No.’
‘Have you even asked her?’
He gets out of bed without touching me and puts on his clothes. I wish it was possible to smear cancer cells onto his arse. I could reach from here, and he’d be mine for ever. I’d lift the carpet and haul him under the floor to the foundations of the house. We’d make love in front of the worms. My fingers would reach under his skin.
‘I’ll haunt you,’ I tell him. ‘But from the inside. Every time you cough you’ll think of me.’
‘Stop messing with my head,’ he says.
And then he leaves.
I grab my clothes and follow him. He gets his jacket from the banister. I hear him walk through the kitchen and open the back door.
He’s still standing on the step when I catch up. Beyond him, out in the garden, great flakes of snow are swirling down. It must have started when we went upstairs. The path’s covered, the grass too. The sky’s full of it. The world seems silent and smaller.
‘You wanted snow.’ He puts out a hand to catch a flake and shows it to me. It’s a proper one, like I used to cut out of doilies and stick on the windows at primary school. We watch it melt into his palm.
I get my coat. Adam finds my boots, scarf and hat, and helps me down the step. My breath is frost. It’s snowing so much our footprints are wiped out as soon as we make them.
The snow on the lawn is deeper; it creaks as we stand on it. We cross the newness of it together. We tramp our names, trying to wear it out, to reach the grass beneath. But fresh snow covers every mark we make.