A Quiet Kind of Thunder(88)

We talk, at length, about sex. She says that the only good thing she has to say about Karam is that he made her first time nice – ‘Not orgasm-nice, but . . . you know. Nice.’ – and that the times since had never been anything but good. That she really hadn’t regretted it until he’d told her about the girlfriend.

‘I was saving it,’ she says, her brow scrunched. ‘I was meant to be saving it.’

I think hard about the best thing to say to this. ‘What were you saving it for?’ I ask finally.

She gives me a funny look. ‘Marriage?’

‘OK, yes, but why?’

‘Because I wanted it to be special.’

‘Don’t you think the marriage bit is the bit that will be special?’

I see her pause. ‘Well. Yes, I guess.’

‘I don’t see why the state of your hymen has anything to do with how special it will be.’

She snorts out a laugh. ‘I guess I always kind of thought I was saving it for him. Whoever my husband will be, I mean.’

‘Well, you weren’t,’ I say robustly. ‘You were saving it for you. And you decided when, and you said it was nice. That’s more than a lot of people get. You still made the choice.’

Tem looks at me, her head slightly tilted, eyes squinting a little. ‘Oh my God,’ she says, surprising me. ‘I’m lucky to have you.’

I laugh. ‘Obviously.’

She presses her hands into the bed and lifts herself slightly so she’s leaning against me. ‘I know that was probably best-friend-bullshit, but it actually helps.’

‘Good, that’s what I’m here for.’

‘Helpful bullshit?’

‘Any day of the week.’

I go home for lunch and then set off for the church with Rita. I end up getting there not long after one o’clock. It’s a cool day, but not so cold that I mind waiting on the bench outside the church and listening to the silence by myself.

I’m not religious, but I like churches. I like how I feel when I’m in and around them, like I’m standing in the past. I even like St Swithun’s, however sad its connotations are for me now.

Rhys arrives early too. He spots me from some distance away and waves automatically. I wave back and let Rita bound ahead of me to greet him. When he comes to sit next to me, I can see that some, if not all, of the frustrated tension has left him. His shoulders are looser and his face has lifted.

I lean over and kiss his cheek, allowing myself a second to rest my head against his shoulder and breathe him in.

Nice church, Rhys says when I lift my head back up.

I smile. Yeah, it’s OK, isn’t it?

We look at each other. I can see his eyes scanning my face, searching for clues.

I want to show you something, I say, standing. Come on.

We walk through the churchyard together, following the path round to the back of the church. Is it OK for her to be in here? Rhys asks nervously, pointing at Rita.

I nod. We’ve been here lots of times. This isn’t quite true – I haven’t been here for ages, let alone with Rita. But still.

My heart is starting to pound harder as I lead us off the path and towards the newer section of the graveyard. The gravestones become less and less shabby. The flowers get fresher. We pass photos not yet faded by the sun.

Rita gets there first. She sits down next to the grave, my well-trained, beautiful dog, and turns her head to look at me.

‘Good girl,’ I murmur. Her tail thumps.

I feel Rhys’s hand take hold of mine and squeeze. I look at him.

‘This is Clark,’ I say. I drop Rhys’s hand and take the pansies I’d collected from Lucy’s garden, sinking to my knees on the grass to rest them by the gravestone. ‘Hey,’ I whisper. ‘It’s me.’

Rhys puts a hand on my shoulder and eases himself down to sit beside me, settling his sling against his chest.

‘There’s a lot I want to say,’ I begin. I sign as I talk, taking things slow so I can get both right. ‘And I felt like I wanted to come here to do it.’

He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t understand.

‘Your email annoyed me,’ I say. ‘But after I stopped being annoyed I thought a lot. And I think we have the same problem.’

Rhys’s eyebrows lift a little. You do?

Yes. ‘I mean, we look like we have different problems. Really simply, you can’t hear and I can’t speak. But it causes the same thing, and that’s that we don’t talk to each other.’ I gesture to the gravestone and the small picture of Clark still leaning against it, curling a little at the edges. It was taken on his eighteenth birthday and he’s grinning that wide, unselfconscious Clark-grin that I miss so much. ‘Clark was a big talker. He wasn’t into keeping secrets or not saying how he felt. I used to find it annoying.’ I find myself smiling a little. ‘That’s why I wanted to meet you here. Just to have a bit of a memory of that.’

As I talk, I watch Rhys’s face. His eyes are slightly squinted, all of his concentration on my face and my lips, reading what I am saying to him. Am I talking too fast? I ask.

A smile creases his face and he shakes his head. No, he signs. It’s perfect.

‘OK, great. So. I forgot what I was saying.’ We look at each other for a moment, and then out of nowhere we’re both laughing.