The way he’d stared at her …
I was a shock. I was a shock to him. Even though I didn’t mean to be.
I’d made him nervous.
That wasn’t only a fault, though, it proved what type of man he was — he’s safe.
You’ll always be safer with somebody who gets scared. That’s how it works. You can be like two animals, hiding together.
But first you are scared and then you scare him and then both of you get more scared, because of each other and it hurts you and it’s fast.
The way he’d stared at her.
Sorrysorrysorrysorry.
Don’t hate me.
He had been definitely like an animal then: all startled and ticking and sprung.
His stride had stopped and then turned into a tiny stagger and — because she knew of nothing else to do — she’d said who she was and then hoped.
That’s the terrible thing about being sober, sober in an organised way. They tell you it’s to do with having hope, when that’s what you’ve always been avoiding.
Once they were inside the café, Jon had ordered and fought down his cappuccino so fast it must have burned him. And only her hold on his hand had allowed their meeting to be real.
If you’re scared you need someone to do that. And if you have trouble with hope, then giving out your hand and feeling it taken helps you, too.
She could remember the feel of his fist, hers cradling it and trying to seem sane for him and calm and safe and to touch his knuckles only as she might touch any nervous animal. They’d walked to the café with her hand on his, visibly linked. He’d dropped the contact as they worked themselves through the doorway, but then — she remembered this clearly, often — they both made this reach across the table towards something that could keep them steady — hand into hand — while apparently the tabletop and the walls and windows and so forth all shifted, all made her feel they were weathering large, unpleasant seas.
Corwynn had dropped his teaspoon and retreated from her, left her cold-handed, as he scrambled about after the thing, as if it were made of platinum, or some family heirloom beyond price, while telling her, ‘They’re all watching and thinking I’m a fool, I’m sure. And you’re …’ His face had flushed with effort and possibly shame, while his hair was disturbed — but not ginger — was ruffled as he surely would not have wished and he spoke on his knees, his chin almost level with their saucers. She’d thought at that point, his height is in his legs, isn’t it? He has that body, which is slim and all wires and tightness, but not long. It’s his arms and legs that make him seem big — they give him the reach and the height and that speed. She considered his legs, as if understanding his dimensions wouldn’t make her …
You’d be worried that if you really studied them you’d want to touch him a lot and that didn’t seem what he would want, or not yet.
You don’t touch wild animals, they take it badly.
And I was trying to look just sociable and normal and not insane about his legs.
So I listened very hard when he spoke and thought his voice might be drier than I’d expected. But it was him.
And it made me want to touch him, too.
Once he’d captured the spoon, he’d stood again and fussed at the twin patches of mainly theoretical dust on his trousers where he’d knelt. ‘Oh, dear. Sorry. I should have thought. I’m such a …’
And she’d taken his hand for the third time and said something she couldn’t remember afterwards. She could only recall his glance at her and the horror that coloured it and also this despair and a type of exhilaration. And finally he opened out a smile, a boy’s summery smile — lots of clear brightness, lots of racing and heat.
He’s not simple, Mr August. He’s all kinds of things, all at once, is Mr Jonathan Corwynn Sigurdsson.
He’d blinked and his mouth had worked for a few moments before he produced, ‘Well … It’s not really, because … If you think so, then. Yes … I don’t … Thank you.’ His other hand had placed the rogue teaspoon beside his cup. He’d checked his watch openly and twitched. ‘I do have to, I do …’ And then his fingers had been decisive and had laced between her own and had fastened in snug and hard and he’d leaned forward to be closer. ‘If you knew me by looking … This will sound extremely …’ His scent was here: a harsh brand of soap and self-confident cloth and a vague musti-ness — no cologne, no definable choice made beyond this old-fashioned, punishing soap the name of which she’d forgotten. She’d breathed in to gather as much as she could, in case she never saw him again.
I was declaring him a good thing and therefore assuming he’d soon be gone.
Gone in the way that doesn’t come back.
‘If you knew me by looking …’ He’d winced quickly, but his fingers stayed certain. ‘In your letters, when you wrote, you said that I was, you used the word — the word was … No, it’s all right, it’s perfectly — I’d be foolish to ask … I have to go. I’ll call. Later. I mean … I have to.’ He shook his head.
His eyes had tried hers for an instant and had appeared to be ready for some kind of blow. ‘Beautiful. You said. You used that word.’
And his hand had snapped away then, as if he had scalded himself and he was standing back and picking up his briefcase and no more to be said and no attempt to face her again and then he was out and away and striding and nothing of him remaining but a warm shudder in the light.
She’d abandoned her coat and followed, sort of kept a guard along behind him as he paced, then trotted, then pelted through the shadowy narrows of White Horse Street and out towards the tall, narrow slot of sun and sky over Piccadilly. Then he was fording the swell of upmarket pedestrians and then plunging into the traffic, crossing the road in its two, equally busy instalments. Meg had worried he was dashing too unwisely. She’d worried he’d turn round and see her. But he’d not looked back, had only sprinted into the park. He was, as she might have told him, beautiful as he ran.
As he ran away from me.
I thought that was it.
Sorrysorrysorrysorry.
Walking back to the café, paying the bill, avoiding the amused concern of the waiters … it had all made her want to cry.
I thought he wouldn’t write again.
I knew he wouldn’t call — it would make him too tense. And he hadn’t given me his number and that was probably a cause for concern …
The way he’d stared at her.
But, after three letterless weeks during which she couldn’t exactly eat — not really — or dream without being unhappy, he had sent her an envelope full of sorrysorrysorrysorry for making her wait, because he had been dithering over how to phrase things.
Only then he didn’t phrase anything much — it was a very short letter, more a note.
But sorry again and here was his mobile number and I should call. Or texting would be better because he often would be busy. But I might text soon if I wanted — soon or sooner than that.
Being funny for me.
And I didn’t forget that before he ran, he kissed me.
He did.
Here it is.