Page 55 of The Start of the Story
In silhouette his hair was on end, his face a pale smudge in the darkness.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’ I pulled myself away so I could sit with my back against the pillows, gathering spare bits of cover to my chest. ‘I don’t know!’ Tears overspilled and fell onto my neck and I mopped at my face with a corner of the duvet. ‘This is ridiculous!’
‘No, it’s not.’ Connor bent forward and groped around on the floor, then got out of the bed. He was, the writhing shadows told me, pulling his underpants back on. ‘Really, it’s not.’
‘But I want to… I mean, I’m here, I’m naked, it’s all going well, and I have absolutely no idea what’s wrong with me!’
Connor clambered back up the bed, sat beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. ‘That’s better. I was not going to talk any sense with my willy flapping about, now, was I?’
I snorted a laugh that was half muffled by duvet. ‘Now that’s an image designed to put anyone off sex.’
‘Well, good. Because sex is – well. It’s only a part of things, isn’t it? A good relationship doesn’t depend on how hot the sex is, or how often you have it or in what positions. A proper relationship can break down in tears and say, “I haven’t donethis since my husband died and everything feels different. And I actually feel a wee bit guilty even though I know I’m a widow and therefore technically not cheating even a little bit,” can’t it?’
‘Is that me?’
‘It is, now.’ The arm tightened. ‘It’s too fast for you. You don’t think it is, but your body has got other ideas.’
He smelled nice. Clean and with a little hint of woodsmoke; a friendly, domestic sort of smell. I snuggled against his shoulder. ‘I don’twantmy body to have other ideas. I’m going to sleep with men that aren’t Elliot, I know that. I’m not hastening to a nunnery at thirty-five.’
‘Ah, but knowing andknowingare two different things. Tell me that there’s not this little corner of your brain telling you that you’re being unfaithful.’
I slumped and his arm caught me, holding me in against his bare chest. ‘Why is it all so weird and complicated, Connor? Why can’t we just have a lovely time? And how do you know so much about all this?’
He laughed, but it was almost ironic in tone. ‘Catholic guilt. It does a number on you, Rowan.’ He sighed. ‘So I know all about deep, ingrained shame, even when there’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘Does that mean you’re ashamed about Saoirse and what happened?’ I asked, trying furtively to wipe my face so that I didn’t have trails of snotty tears all over it.
Another sigh. ‘Shame is probably the wrong word. I couldn’t know, how could I? But, like you said before, I took her word for everything without asking the questions – I was so bowled over that this attractive, successful woman wanted to be with me that I was very uncritical. I should have been at least a wee bit sceptical; I’m notthatgreat.’
I turned to look at him. He was a big blob beside me, one smooth shoulder under my cheek and hair everywhere. ‘You arepretty great,’ I said quietly. ‘You might want to hoick up my Fairy Stane, but apart from that you’re pretty damn great, Connor O’Keefe.’
‘ProfessorO’Keefe, if you please,’ he said but his voice was laughing. ‘Maybe there’s a way around this whole “lifting the stone” thing. Like I said, I need to do a bit more research and have a chat to Eamonn, but I think, maybe, there might be a way.’ He gave me a quick, one-armed hug. ‘We need to find out what’s going on, but without letting your fairies out into the world, now. The last thing we want is those flying bastards all around the place.’ The arm dropped away from my shoulders and Connor clambered out of the bed.
‘Are you going?’ I noticed how my voice trembled slightly. Urgh. I cleared my throat. ‘Where are you off to?’
Connor straightened from where he’d been raking the floor, with half his clothes over his arm. ‘I think that we’ll put tonight down to a trial run,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m going back next door so that we can both get a proper night’s sleep. Next time I’ll stay over. Er…’ He stopped talking and seemed to go back mentally over what he’d said. ‘If you want there to be a next time, of course. And if you can bear to have me around overnight.’
I thought about the way his hands had felt on my body, and the firmness of his lips on mine. ‘I think so,’ I said.
‘Right, then. I’ll bid you a somewhat Shakespearian goodnight.’
Not at all like a man who’d been sexually disappointed and who was wearing only his underpants, Connor strode from the room, carefully closing the door behind him, which caused a pair of trousers to flop to the floor, and I could hear him swearing quietly on the landing.
‘Goodnight,’ I called softly.
‘Sleep well, Rowan,’ came the reply from beyond the door, and I heard him head into his own room and close that doorcarefully. Then I punched the pillow very, very hard a few times and finished the cry that I’d started earlier, only this time with a good deal of annoyance mixed in.
23
When I got up the next morning, Connor had gone out. Where he had gone outto,bearing in mind the grey, overcast snowfield outside the door, I didn’t know, but I was quite glad of his absence.
It meant I didn’t have to look at him and remember last night, hungry mouths and hands and the kind of longing I had thought was in the past. I did some housework, called my parents, phoned the electricity company (‘power should be back by lunchtime!’), banked up the fire and watched some TV when the power finally reappeared.
The greenery still festooned the living room, giving it the look and smell of a forest glade. The branch in the bucket, which Connor had decorated with the fallen duck feathers, had a wild, random appearance, as though a festively inclined hurricane had blown through and deposited it where it could be appreciated. It kept snagging my attention, although I tried to lose myself in Christmas episodes of programmes I usually liked. Out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing the scarecrow version of the Christmas tree, its tufted twigs skulking. In the end it irritated me so much that I gave in.
‘All right,’ I told its stick-waving form. ‘You’re a Christmas tree. I get it.’ And I went upstairs, pulled down the ladder and squeezed myself up into the attic space. The cold and dust lay thick up there so I didn’t hang around. I raided the box for a random collection of baubles and brought them downstairs, carrying them cupped in the palm of my hands like precious eggs.
When Connor came in, red-faced and stamping the snow off his boots, I was sitting, firelit, the tinted glass balls rotating and reflecting in the draught from the warm air.
