The Dead Ex(9)

He laughed. ‘I usually am working. Doesn’t leave much time for personal relationships, but I’m happiest being active.’

‘Me too. I need fresh air.’

He nodded approvingly. ‘I thought as much. Do you like walking?’

I thought of the long corridors and the outside exercise yard with its jogging track. ‘Can’t get enough of it.’

His eyes looked as though they were somewhere else. ‘I love Dartmoor.’

‘So do I!’

‘Your favourite part?’ He placed a finger on my lips. ‘No. Wait. Say it together. One, two, three …’

‘Haytor,’ we both blurted out together. Then he moved towards me and we rocked in laughter and amazement, his body against mine.

‘I love to climb up and look down,’ he said. ‘It’s like being on the top of the world.’

‘Exactly. But I have to come down on my bottom. It’s too difficult otherwise.’

He gave mine a gentle slap. ‘I’d like to see that.’

‘What else?’

‘What else would I like to see?’

‘No.’ I giggled. I hadn’t felt this carefree for years. ‘What else do you do apart from walking or working?’

‘Give away my money.’ He laughed when he saw my sceptical face. ‘Really. It gives me pleasure. I’m a great believer in putting things back if you have good fortune yourself.’

I had a flash of the Big Issue seller I’d passed earlier that night. ‘Who do you help?’

‘I like to go for smaller causes that don’t get the big handouts. One of my favourites provides holidays for inner-city kids. And then there’s a hospice in Oxfordshire. In fact, I’m driving down tomorrow to open its new wing.’ He reached across me for a brochure on the bedside table, brushing my breast as he did so. ‘My mother died of cancer when I was twelve. Dad and I nursed her together at the end. We could have done with a place like this.’

A large lump sprouted up in my throat. ‘I’m sorry.’

He made one of those ‘It’s fine’ gestures. Maybe it was my intuition, but I sensed it hid grief. ‘My mother died of cancer too,’ I ventured. ‘I was eight.’

There was a flash of affinity between us. One that hadn’t been there before, despite the passionate sex.

‘I’d like to see you again,’ he said. ‘Do you think that’s possible?’

I thought of the rules and restrictions by which my life was governed. ‘I hope so,’ I said.

Over the next few weeks he rang me every night and took me out to lunch on the days when I was allowed out – evenings were more difficult for me. We usually went to bistros that were understatedly chic, tucked away in pockets of London that I hadn’t been to before. David actually had a Porsche! But he was a careful driver, I noticed, constantly checking his mirrors. He didn’t like to talk when he was driving, concentrating instead on the road. I liked that.

He didn’t judge or ask why I had done certain things. Instead, he made me feel special in a way that no one had done before. He opened my body. My mind, too. David was well read. We shared a love of Somerset Maugham’s short stories and went to a reading of one of his plays at the British Library. Like me, he ‘couldn’t paint for toffee’, yet he admired art, as was apparent from the huge colourful contemporary oils on his walls. This was a man who took his hobbies seriously. He listened when I allowed myself to cry at some of the things I had to endure, day after day. ‘You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known. A one-off. I’ve never met anyone like you before. And I don’t think I ever will.’

Men like David would have had several lovers. Common sense told me that. But right now, he wanted me.

Two months later we were married, with a prison officer as one of the witnesses. My only regret was that Dad wasn’t here to see it.

I have to stop right here with my memories. Stress is bad. Hadn’t they told me that over and over again?

Lavender. Quickly. Calming lavender. I reach for the oil next to the sofa. Inhale. Three deep breaths. Now massage into the pressure points. Two on the sinuses. Behind the ears. Above the eyebrows. That tender part on the top of the head. The two spots at the back of the neck. Press until they stop hurting. I learned that as part of the training.

I suddenly yearn for a lovely warm, deep bath with orange blossom oil. Showers aren’t the same. You can’t lie back and relax. Sit still, I tell myself. I resist the temptation to pick up the phone and hear David’s voice again. Where is he? Then again, hadn’t he gone walkabout enough times during our marriage?

My mind goes back again to the month after the wedding. When it all started to fall apart.

‘I had a deal to sort out,’ he’d said casually when I hadn’t heard from him for two days. ‘I told you. Don’t you remember?’

No. I didn’t.

‘That’s because you were tired.’

Nonsense! Nothing wrong with my memory.

‘I did tell you,’ David insisted.

But I couldn’t see his face because our conversation – as so often – took place on the phone. And even if I could have, I might not have known if he’d been lying.

Eventually it became easier to go along with it, rather than argue back. Perhaps now, I tell myself, he’s simply repeating his old patterns. Good luck to Tanya with her low necklines, little-girl voice and black eyeliner. There’s a certain justice that she’s having to put up with the same thing.