Then he sits down on the rug, looking up at me. Cigarette smoke rising, falling between. All this time gone by. The hours we’ve spent. Sleepy Song on the record player and his life run right through the room. And I am surprised I didn’t know before. It’s written all over him. All down his legs scars that must have been burns. I never asked but now I recognise them. Places discoloured that only show in the cold, where something hit him and hurt him long ago. Silvered nicks on his back that reflect the light. Were they cuts? And so many. I kneel down behind. Bless the place with my lips. His body all battle. Too thin, often sore. What he’s done to himself and what he’s had done. But this is the finish. The race is run. Lay my cheek on his shoulder and wrap my arms round. Just the soft of his breath then and weight of his life. We are long nights from the beginning. Come light years from the start. Now he waits, set for pain while I, it seems, hold the sword but I say All I want is you.
Really? Really. After everything you’ve heard? Even then. Are you sure? I’m sure. Then there’s one last thing. No, no more, I say for we are in such fragile skin, so close to getting lost in the in-between. But out of darkness and into what’s left of the night, he says I love you Eily and I’ve been wanting to tell you for nights, for weeks. I’m so in love with you I can’t think of anything else. And those words shift through my body as he pulls me round. I love you too, I say What took you so long? Then I watch it shift through him. See him know I love him then. He smiles at me. I smile at him. And the fall that was coming has come here now. We welcome it. Leap down into it. Cannot wait to see how far.
*
Could I grow up in a night? Grow up in this day? Curled here with him on his small bed, in the cradle of our arms and wrap of our legs watching him deep in his deep dream, far the threat of what he’s been while I lie here, in love. So much and sooner than I thought I’d be. Years off, I’d thought and not like this. But I have come into my kingdom where only pens and pencils were. Abrupt and all abrupt. No longer minnow in the darkness and the deep. Through the portholes and currents I’ve been. Going to the surface. Up into the sun. Touch my own throat. His long arm. Shining like a body come fresh into the light. And she is in the centre of life. I am. I am her. Not unspun either, for what can it mean, more than how a life was lived? His breath gone peaceful in the tight and warm. Twin mine to his. Indifferent dreams, I hope. And list in their pooling through the dark, across books and wine glasses, over my bags, contenting us while across the world she lies, his girl, who is not me. Does she love him like I would if he were mine, that way? That other way I do not want? Tie up your long hair that the salt drops have wet. Being young you have not known the fool’s triumph nor yet nor yet love lost as soon as won. No. That’s wrong. Only won here. Not lost at all. And dread? Won’t any more. For bound to him is what’s to bind and as for crying? For the wind.
*
Light falling all over, my legs ache awake. Kiss lips to his crepe lids and think Birthday cake! then cross his sleeping to do.
Outside this day is just as you’d want for the day when you are in love. Head up in clouds that aren’t in the sky and clouds where my head should be now. In Sainsbury’s I choose chocolate cake — Smarties and icing. Ridiculous perfect. Singing like a magpie all the way home, across the gutters, over the drains. But Where’ve you been? he says when I get in. To the shop, are you alright? I am I just I thought you’d gone. Why would I? I say. Because because. I went to get you a birthday cake. Oh God, he says Sorry, and taking my face. It’s alright. It’s alright. And kiss him and we sit on the bed and I touch and I really want to, he says But I don’t think I can yet, do you mind if we leave it a while? It’s fine, I say I’ll make some tea. Shall we have your cake for breakfast? Yeah, that’d be lovely. Then he sits watching me and we are fine. We are fine, I think.
What do you want to do today then? I ask, over the cup. Don’t know, he says What do you think? Well, maybe today’s the day to lie on the Heath and drink cold beers and read books whose spines we will not spoil, remember? Good idea, he says Sandwiches as well.
So get the sandwiches at M&S. A few cold beers from the corner shop. In my bag, a book of his. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Are you fucking kidding? You’ll be as old as me by the time you finish that and I only got it for research then barely read half. I like a challenge, I shrug. Yeah, I’ve noticed, he says and laughs and takes my hand.
Then we are revolting on the tube. Kiss all the way up to Belsize Park. Utmostly oblivious to ladies with their dog. Not really what you want to be in the proximity of, they loudly agree. Oh, but what you want to be at, I sigh. Him laughing Shhh you, hussy! and kissing me all the more.
Then lace we through backstreets down by the Royal Free. Holding hands. Being silly. Stopping to kiss, and touch, when others can’t see. On into the parkland. Up Parliament Hill.
In the white wrenching view I ask How do you feel? Relieved, he says But I can’t quite believe you’re still here. I am though, I say. And even if I feel spaces opening between that neither seem to know how to fill, I know we will. I know I will once I’ve worked out the right distance again.
So on we go until we find a tree unoccupied by students busily out-clevering or pop stars playing pop stars or lonely people alone. He spreads his jacket on the roots and we lie on it. Kiss on it. Open our beers. Get out books. Do you ever see your brothers? From Sheffield? Sometimes, he says Mostly the younger one, John. The first time I saw him again, he just showed up at the door. I had Grace that night — so early eighties, probably. He stayed on my floor, drank a lot, got an ear-bashing from me for being drunk around her, then borrowed some money and disappeared. I think Gracie picked up a few choice words that weekend, which meant I got an ear-bashing from her mother about swearing. I didn’t see him again for another five years when he just as suddenly reappeared. He’d been off to India, sorted himself out, become a psychotherapist — which made me laugh a bit — and he paid me back too. We get on pretty well now. I see him once or twice a year. We don’t talk much about back then. I did once ask what happened, after I left. She went mental, he said but their father pulled her up pretty smart and I wasn’t mentioned any more. When I asked if he was surprised I’d gone he said There were bite marks all down your arm, no one was surprised. He knew more than I’d realised about what had gone on as well, which means the other two must’ve had some idea also maybe who can say? He agrees with my theory though, that she starved herself to death. I doubt we’ll ever know the truth but we both think there’s something there. The other one, Peter, I don’t know much. Lives in Sheffield with his second wife. Big Christian apparently. Found his faith when Jesus forgave him for gambling his house away. Last saw him at his father’s funeral five or six years back, a real pious piece of work. Trying to convert me, complaining about John being gay. If he knew the fucking half of it he’d curl up and die of shame. Then he cracks open a beer, has a good long sup and stretches his lanky limbs out in the sun. And we roast a while, taking it on closed eyes. His at least. Mine are wide, tacking tales to his silhouette. His starved-feeling stomach breathing under my hand. Funny, after all my fancying, to find that I am loved and how much I love too. Come here. Sleepy kissed til there’s leaves in my hair. Then mud-thumbed and grass-kneed we find fits together but drowsy. Absolving. Estranging ourselves from the residue of last night’s rendered hell. Asking Tonight then? I trace his face Should I call him Mister? Just Rafi, he says, snapping at my fingertips And you don’t need to worry, you don’t have to impress, you’re already the most hoped-for woman in the world. Why’s that then? They never believed it when I said I was better off alone, kept telling me it was time to take a chance and never believed when I said that I was happy as I was. So humble pie for you tonight? True, he laughs But oh it tastes so sweet.