When she is ready, Yvette opens her eyes and smiles gently. Then she jackknifes her leg and runs her instep against his thigh, which is his cue to mount her again and this time slowly tease her by conjuring pleasure out of gestures so subtle that only those locked together in the most claustrophobic of embraces might sense movement. Rather than quickly capitulate in one furious yelp of gratitude, Yvette punctuates the ‘second round’ with a continuous low burble of half-whispered imprecations and throaty gasps which diminish in volume as she approaches climax, and then she falls silent before releasing a cry of distress and shuddering against his body. For a minute she holds him tightly, as though she might burst into tears, and then she slowly spurns him and rolls to the far side of the bed and curls into a tight foetal ball. He watches as she loses herself in what he imagines is the familiar entanglement of female feelings of guilt and vulnerability, but he is untroubled by her temporary plight. Annabelle has left him yet another urgent message about Laurie and the problems he is experiencing at school, having fallen in with what she likes to call, ‘the wrong set’. He knows that he should have called her back, for she has been insisting that their seventeen-year-old son is growing increasingly ‘bolshy’ with her, although it is unclear what Annabelle expects him to do about it. After all, they are both fully aware that Laurie seems somewhat indifferent to the idea of spending any time with his father.
On the second message, the anxiety in Annabelle’s voice had alarmed him. Since their separation some three years ago, she has made it her business to carefully construct a steely façade around her emotions as a way of distancing herself from him. These days she is usually meticulous about keeping both her wit and her levity of spirit well out of sight. For his part, he is fully aware that through nobody’s fault but his own he now lives alone in a small flat, and his wife and son have every reason to be annoyed with him and every right to protect themselves emotionally. However, he is still not sure why he told Annabelle about sleeping with his annoying co-worker at the office New Forest retreat, for it was a nothing encounter, semi-drunken, and not pleasurable in the least. It was the first time that he had even thought of cheating on his wife, and once it was over he knew immediately that there would never be any repetition of his infidelity, yet two weeks later, and after he imagined that he had successfully negotiated the awkwardness of the workplace situation, he suddenly felt some foolish compulsion to confess everything to Annabelle as she stood ironing tea towels and watching Newsnight. He is unsure what kind of a reaction he expected, but having heard him out she calmly replaced the upturned iron on the ironingboard and told him that in the morning she wanted him to leave her and their fourteen-year-old son alone in order that they might get on with their lives. ‘Go away and sort it out,’ she said contemptuously, ‘because after everything you and I have been through I really don’t deserve to have to put up with your pathetic midlife crisis. So just go, okay?’ She abruptly unplugged the iron and left the room, and he realised that he would be spending the night alone on the sofa. In the morning he would do as she suggested and leave, but three years later he still questions himself as to why he felt the urge to put in jeopardy everything that they had worked so hard to build. What he is sure about, and doesn’t have to question, is the reservoir of resentment that Laurie is drawing upon whenever his mother suggests spending any time with his father. He turns over on his side and looks at the late afternoon light behind the thin curtains in Yvette’s bedroom, and then at his jacket which lies in a discarded bundle on the floor. He hears the roar of a passing aeroplane and he imagines the thin, wispy trails of departure in its wake. There is no longer any escaping the fact that today he will have to talk to Yvette and end their arrangement.
While she is in the shower he surveys the small, cluttered, bedroom and wonders about the young woman whose bed he is lying in. He knows that her ex-husband Colin was her lecturer at college, and that he is twelve years her senior. She shared this piece of information the first time they went to the pub together. ‘He left me for an older woman,’ she said, ‘somebody more his own age. But at least I got the house.’ She paused, moved the plastic stirrer to one side, and then took a noisy sip of her vodka tonic. ‘Well, we never really argued. It just became clear that we didn’t have that much in common and we’d even stopped, you know. Well not completely, but I had to ask for it.’ She blushed slightly and then tried to smother her nervous laughter with her hand, but she coughed as though something was stuck in her throat. He gallantly climbed to his feet and went to the bar for a glass of water, which she drank in a series of rapid gulps. She paused, as though eager to belch, but eventually she simply swallowed deeply then reached up and began to stroke and flatten her hair with the palm of her hand.
‘Too much information, right?’
He smiled and shook his head.
‘Don’t say much, do you?’
He laughed as he took in the gentle curves of her young body. Since Annabelle had put him out of the house there had been no other women. It’s not that he’d lost interest. He would still sit on the bus and try and sneak a look without being seen, and he would frequently follow a girl down the tube escalator and make sure that he got into the same compartment and casually sit opposite her. But he was too old to go to the places where he imagined men went to meet girls. Visiting clubs or going to parties lacked a certain dignity, and the idea of internet sites or, even worse, singles evenings with all that speed dating business filled him with dread. Computer porn was all right as far as it went, and he’d somewhat resigned himself to the reality that an occasional furtive log-on would have to do for now. At his age, it was better than making a fool of himself by going out on the pull, or gently soliciting friends for introductions. However, as he sat in the pub opposite her, he realised that Yvette could solve a problem for she had a vibrant personality and a well put together body, and she appeared to be interested. He liked her energy, and the fact that she didn’t seem to be afraid of saying whatever came into her mind, but Yvette worked for him. Unlike the New Forest encounter with the co-worker who was his professional equal, he was actually Yvette’s boss and, although she appeared to be unfazed by recent developments between them, he kept reminding himself that he was the one who ought to be responsible. Of course, what made their situation even more complicated was the fact that it was actually Yvette who was determining both the pace and the nature of their courtship.
By the time she strides out of the shower and back into the bedroom, with the towel tubed tightly around her body, she expects him to be dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed ready to watch her step into her clothes. She walks from one side of the room to the other and makes a performance of turning on all the lights, including the bedside lamps. He knows that this part of the encounter is all about her vanity, for she simply desires him to concentrate on her. He observes as she gently powders her body, then eases into her lamentable lingerie, then her jeans, and then she rolls a sweater down over her chest before arching her back and stretching her arms up towards the ceiling. His job is to study the supposed object of his passion as she declares herself now unavailable, and the expectation is that he should tightly rein in his lust and wait patiently until she is ready to lead him downstairs to the kitchen. Today she prolongs her performance, and poses as though unsure if she should wear the white turtleneck that he knows, from previous experience, to be an expensive cashmere and silk mix, or simply pull on a blue cotton blouse that looks disconcertingly like a working man’s shirt. She removes the turtleneck sweater and holds the blouse up as she twists and turns in front of the full-length mirror that stands to the side of the wardrobe door. She makes a decision and tosses the blouse to one side where it catches the arm of the wooden rocking chair.