Page 53 of Gideon
“I’m sorry we haven’t met,” I say. “We would have met before if I’d got my act together.”
He shrugs. “Then or now doesn’t matter. It happens when we’re ready.” He smiles at me. “You know Silas is absolutely fucking cuckoo about this place. Swears it works a magic of its own.”
“Oh God,” I sigh, getting up to pour tea. “I had enough lectures about that when we were teenagers to last a lifetime. I’d rather do algebra than listen to him talk about his magic house. Once, I got off a train and stranded myself in Wakefield when he started talking about it. I can still see his face as I waved him off.”
He laughs, looking at me appreciatively, and for a second it seems like we’re rival armies who’ve come to a rapprochement that might end up in a permanent ceasefire. “Some of it makes sense, though,” he says meditatively. “Chi an Mordoes seem to attract people who need to find a home for a while or permanently.”
“Please don’t say that,” I say wryly. “I came for a break, not to grow a beard down to my ankles and talk in a Cornish accent.”
“At least your feet would be warm.”
Cora grins at us from her place on the floor by a cupboard where she’s occupied in removing some paper plates, and the sunshine fills the room as we settle down for a chat.
ELI
I let myself into my room. The air conditioning is on and the room is thankfully cool, which makes a difference from the heat. I thought I knew what heat was, having worked in Australia in the summer, but it’s got nothing on Dubai. Not for the first time, I yearn for the sunny cabin on the ship with the doors open, letting in the sound of the sea and a breeze that would billow the curtains. For a second I look at my balcony as if expecting to see a tall, dark-haired man with grey eyes and a sharp blade of a nose. I blink and the vision passes, but I hurry over to the table where I left my laptop charging.
This job is easy, caring for a middle-aged lady who had appendicitis and is rather frail. She’s friendly and funny and very appreciative, and it seems strange to say that I’d have loved a difficult client this time. Someone who’d have shouted and demanded. Someone who would have taken my mind off Gideon and how hard it was to walk away from him that day in Southampton.
I shake my head. “I did the right thing,” I say out loud. And the thing is, I know I did. It would have been abhorrent for me to have taken advantage of that situation. Gideon was vulnerable in far more ways than could be explained by the pneumonia. He was grumpy, demanding, impossible to deal with, and the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. He was also generous in a manner suggesting he was trying to hide it, soft-hearted, and astonishingly kind. I knew all that by the end of the trip, but what I didn’t know was how I’d end up feeling like my arm had been cut off when I left him.
A thousand times a day I turn to tell him something, and I find myself thinking about him at random times. Worrying whether he’s taking care of himself, hoping he’s not drinking or taking drugs again. Wishing he would find a healthy, safe path for himself and be the person he is underneath the bad-boy reputation that will take him nowhere but an early death.
It’s not just worry though. I want to tell him about the little black and white cat that comes to sit on my balcony in the late afternoon sunshine, and how her slightly disdainful air reminds me of him. I want to tell him about my dessert tonight of baklava, the crunchy texture of the pastry and sweet honey on my tongue, and how the strong coffee served in tiny cups is sharp and almost shocking. Somehow sharing those details with him makes them more real and wonderful.
“I did the right thing,” I say again and smile when I open my laptop and see a red number over my email icon.Gideon.I open the email, and for a second I try to slow my reading so I can savour the words that are so like his way of speaking it’s as if he’s in my room, his face alight with sardonic amusement. But I can’t restrain myself and I gallop through it.
To: Eli Jones
From: Gideon Ramsay
You would love this house. It’s tiny and already there are certain parts of it that are my favourites. Like the old armchair that nestles in a corner of the room by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves so I only have to reach over and pluck a book out.
I’m reading like I haven’t done in years. I used to read voraciously as a child, but I grew out of it when I started acting. There was always something or someone to do and a great deal of trouble to get into. Now, at night I sit in the chair and read rather than drinking the night away. So far I’ve read most of Ruth Rendell’s backlist, and I’m now working my way through the works of PD James.
There’s no drink apart from tea at my side. I’m even drinking that disgusting green-tea shit that you made me drink on board. Is it worrying that I find myself liking it?
There’s a TV, but I haven’t watched it since I got here. Instead, I’ve been listening to music. There’s a record player on a shelf, as well as a stack of records. There isn’t a record in there from the current century, but it seems appropriate for the sort of life I’m living at the moment. It’s actually like becoming a pensioner ahead of time, only without the sciatica, joint pain, and casual rudeness.
It’s actually the first time in my life that I’ve been alone for such a long time. Usually, I’m surrounded by people and noise. It’s one of the reasons why I tend to do films back to back and stay in hotels, because the silence has always seemed so full of noise.
I wondered at first whether I’d end up going mad and talking to myself. Although thinking about it, it’s usually the only time that I hear any sense spoken. However, I seem to have brought a little bit of you back with me. Thankfully, it’s not the opinionated part. Just the bit that can sit quietly. Maybe we’ve swapped personas, and while I’m behaving like an old man, you’re hitting the town like Robert Shaw on payday.
Every morning I have fresh bread and milk delivered by a Mrs Granger who makes the cakes in the tea shop here. She brings her granddaughter Molly with her sometimes, and they will come in and put the bread and milk away while Molly chatters to me as she does handstands and regales me with the minute details of her life, her voice as high and fluting as the blackbird who comes for the bread crumbs in the garden.
I’ve taken your advice. I’m actually wincing as I type that. Last night I went up to the big house to have dinner with my brother and friends. We ate chicken baked in a tray with chorizo and tomatoes and peppers. They washed it down with a rich red wine and I drank water. And we all mocked Oz for splitting his jeans on a house tour. Apparently he had to wrap a tea towel round his waist because he’d gone commando.
It was a nice dinner but a bit awkward at first, like meeting people for the first time. As I’ve been pissed the last few times I’ve seen them, I suppose Iwasmeeting strangers. A few months ago I’d have probably given up and gone out and got drunk. Instead, I stuck it out, and it got easier.
Later on, I walked back to the cottage along the gravelled paths. The air was heavy with the scent of hawthorn and my way was lit by a huge harvest moon as bats flitted above me. It was a beautiful night and all I could think of was how much better everything would have been if you’d been there beside me.
When I’ve finished reading it for the third time I sit back and smile. I can almost see the small cottage and the low-ceilinged rooms, and already my room seems brighter and clearer. It’s as if he’s sent me some mellow Cornish sunshine rather than the powerful white heat here.
“Four months,” I tell myself. “Then we’ll see.”
FOUR MONTHS LATER
GIDEON
