In any case, Fiona and I had more serious matters to occupy us, because the dramatic change which her illness wrought on our viewing habits happened to coincide with a period of political upheaval in both the domestic and the international spheres. Late in November, just a few days after she had been to see her doctor for the second time, the Tory party leadership crisis came to a head and Mrs Thatcher was forced to resign. It was a week of intense, if transient, media excitement, and we were able to gorge ourselves on a diet of end-to-end news programmes, special late-night panel discussions and extended bulletins. And then on the day she went for her outpatients’ appointment, we heard that Saddam Hussein had rejected Security Council Resolution 678, an ultimatum authorizing the use of ‘all necessary means’ if Iraq had failed to withdraw from Kuwait by January 15th, and soon he was on French television saying that he thought there was a 50–50 chance of armed conflict; and even though he now started releasing the hostages, so that they were all home a week or so before Christmas, it still felt as if the politicians and the army leaders were hell bent on dragging us into war. But the strange thing is that Fiona, who Was a peace-loving person and not very interested in politics, took a kind of comfort from all of this, and I began to suspect that, like my mother with her quiz show, she had chosen to use it as a way of shielding herself from the fear which was otherwise liable to swamp her.
This time the doctor had listened more carefully. He examined her neck when she told him about the growth, which was bigger than it used to be, she said, almost two inches across, and he wrote down everything she told him about it but still said there was probably nothing to worry about, that the fevers and night sweats might well derive from something else entirely, some aggressive but treatable infection. But there was no point in taking unnecessary risks, and she was booked in for this outpatients’ appointment in the last week of November. They took some blood tests and X-rays, apparently, and she was supposed to go back in three weeks’ time to get the results. Meanwhile she had a temperature chart to fill in, and so our evenings together would always conclude with me fetching the thermometer, and faithfully entering the relevant figure before putting out the light and returning to my flat with the tray and the dirty plates or soup bowls.
As I mentioned, there was a good deal of silence between us: on Fiona’s part because talking made her throat burn, on mine because I could never think of anything to say. But I do remember one conversation which took place in the dead half hour between the Nine O’Clock News and the News at Ten, and which began with her making an unexpected remark.
She said: ‘You don’t have to do this every evening, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean, if there are other places you want to be, other people you want to be seeing …’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘It can’t be much fun for you, being stuck here with me all the time. It’s not as if—’
‘You’re good company. Really. I’ve told you that before.’ (And it was true.)
‘I know, but — When I’m better, when I’ve got this thing licked, I’ll be … a lot more fun. And then — you know, then we’ll really start something, will we? Really try to make a go of it.’
I nodded. ‘Yes. Of course.’
‘I’m impressed, in a way,’ she continued hesitantly. ‘I mean, it’s not every man — There aren’t many men I’d feel comfortable with, having them around here all the time and seeing me in bed and everything. I suppose I’m impressed that … you haven’t tried anything on.’
‘Well I’m not going to take advantage of you, am I? Not while you’re feeling like this.’
‘No, but we’ve known each other a couple of months now, and most people, in that time, would have … I mean circumstances don’t permit, in our case, but — you know. You must have given it some thought.’
And of course I had given it thought, sitting night after night on Fiona’s bed, sometimes with her wearing a jumper, sometimes just her nightgown; touching her bare arms, brushing crumbs from her body, feeling her neck for signs of swelling, taking the thermometer in and out of her mouth, giving her consoling hugs and good-night kisses on the cheek. How could all of that attention be innocent, how could it not contain its quota of furtive glances and suppressed excitement? Of course I had given it thought. There was, and we both knew this, a strong undercurrent of feeling between us which it was both difficult to ignore and folly not to acknowledge.
But I merely smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, making for the kitchen to get two cups of cocoa. ‘Sex has never been further from my mind.’
suspenders black bullwhip stockings bra unhook orgy grope panties erect handcuffs stretch unzip fishnet tights protruding take off suck cleavage juices rubber striptease Mazola smooth nipple stroking pink mount lick moist leather thighs parted probing tongue tender back arching moaning softly Oh God Yes please don’t stop Yes
I left the contents of the tray unwashed in the kitchen, then went back to my desk and read through this list again. It filled me with apprehension. Ever since my conversation with Patrick, I had been determined to show him that I could write about sex as well as anybody, that it wasn’t a subject I would shy away from in my book about the Winshaws. And the situation I’d chosen to describe had presented itself without much difficulty. When meeting Findlay at the Narcissus Gallery, I’d happened to overhear some gossip about how Roddy Winshaw had once seduced a young painter he’d invited up to Yorkshire for the weekend, and since I knew nothing of the circumstances, and had decided that, for the purposes of this book, the boundary between fiction and reality was no longer one which I was interested in observing, the incident seemed to form an ideal starting point. But I’d been working on it, now, for more than four nights, and it was perfectly obvious that I was getting nowhere.