So have a think about it while you're there, she said. I'll get dressed and packed and we'll talk about it when you come back, she said. He looked at his watch, and he rubbed his face.
He said, but, I don't know El, this was something, I was planning— He stopped, and tried again. He said, I imagined doing this on my own. She moved towards him and put an arm across his shoulder. She leant forwards and kissed the top of his head, his hair thin enough now that he could feel her lips against his scalp.
She said, with her face still so close to his skull that he could feel the breath in her words, you've been doing this on your own for too long now, don't you think?
17 Pair of cinema tickets, annotated '19th May 1967"
Tell me something.
I don't know, anything.
Tell me something about when you were a boy.
Anything. The first thing that comes into your head.
But he said nothing, and there was only the quietness of two people breathing, the scratch and shift of a skirt being straightened, a trouser leg awkwardly tugged.
Are you not going to say something?
I'm thinking, he said.
Her eyes, when she looked at him, kept flicking from one small point of focus to another, the way they would if they were looking at a waterfall, or a fire, or the view from a moving train. It felt as though she was looking for something, something new, or something familiar but forgotten. The skin around her eyes stretched and folded into tiny creases with the movement. As she blinked, an eyelash caught and fell on to her cheek. He looked at it. He wanted to reach out and dab it away.
What do you want to know? he asked.
Anything, she answered quickly. Just, I just want to hear your voice a while. He looked at the eyelash on her cheek and she reached a finger up to rub it away. Gone? she said.
Gone, he told her, smiling. There were footsteps somewhere, someone coughing, men's voices, and they both turned their faces towards the noise until it had passed.
How about, she said, were you ever in the hospital? Her voice was quiet and tense, as if she was afraid of being overheard. He thought about it for a moment, trying to think of something to say. She closed her eyes, and he noticed for the first time that she had faint bobbles of skin on her eyelids, like tiny colourless freckles, and he wondered why he'd never noticed them before. She opened her eyes and looked back at him, and almost without meaning to they leant slightly closer together.
He told her about when he was eight years old and Susan had left him in the park near Julia's house, and the boys had thrown stones and chased him until he fell.
Did it hurt awful bad? she said.
I've still got a very small scar, he said. It bled all the way back to Julia's house and they had to put a bandage on it. As he said this, they were both looking down at his knee, as if they could see through his trousers to the tiny pink stitch of a scar which was hidden there. He rubbed at it with the palm of his hand.
The room was very quiet again. She looked down at the floor, put her hands on the edge of the chair, crossed and uncrossed her feet. His shoes squeaked as he rubbed them together. He looked around the room, at their jackets folded together on the back of the chair by the door, at the clock ticking loudly on the mantelpiece, her parents' wedding photo on one side, photos of her and her four brothers on the other. She looked up at him and smiled. This feels a little strange, don't you think? she said.
She told him that her earliest memory was of being lifted on to her father's shoulders, having to hold on tightly as his long steps bounced her up the hill leading out of their side of town and on until they could turn round and look out over the city and the sea. She tu
rned and pointed as she said this, as if the high open moorland was just in the next room. He told her that he was ten years old before he saw the sea.
I couldn't believe how cold and grey it was when I finally got there, he said, or how huge.
Aye, she said, but I'll bet you it's even colder up here, and she laughed.
Their voices were soft and low, pressed close together, and when one of them spoke, murmuring, their words seemed to curl towards each other like a twist of smoke from a candle flame. Tell me something else, she said.
He told her about how when it was very hot in the summer his father liked to spray them with the hosepipe while he was watering the rose bushes, and how his sister and her friends would creep up behind his father until he span suddenly round and sent them all scattering into the road to escape the icy shock. He told her about the summer holidays they spent at his grandparents' house in Suffolk, about vague memories of pink cottages and fields full of poppies, of being taken by his grandfather to watch the blacksmith at work, of his uncle driving them all down to the sea. She told him about racing a cart down the steep streets, and how much trouble she'd got into when she fell out one time and hurt herself.
When neither of them had spoken for a few moments, he leant forward, resting his hand on the arm of her chair, and kissed her.
What was that for? she said.
He shrugged. Just because, he said. She lifted her face towards him, and he kissed her again, slowly this time, and she raised her hand to touch the side of his neck, his jaw, the faint rub of stubble around his chin. He moved his hand from the arm of the chair and up on to her shoulder. He lifted a finger to her cheek, trailing his hand down the neckline of her shirt. Their movements were slow and tentative, as if this was still the first time they had kissed. She leant away from him, opening her eyes, and he pulled his hand back. She looked at him for a moment, touching his lips with the knuckle of her thumb, then looked away.
Just, she said, just, I want to keep talking for a while, okay?