22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [82]
He tasted her, but when he tried to hold her she flicked her hips and was away again, sliding down his body. He caught her tightly in his grip and held her as they rolled together, bumping and bucking, on the barn floor, bruising elbows, buttocks, faces, knees.
They looked like a couple of wrestlers when they had finished, covered in sweat and dirt. He held her in his arms and she sank her head against his chest. They dozed for a while then he looked down at her and kissed her, his arms scooping her up, drawing her into his embrace. She wound her body around him.
She was a blanket then, against the world. He didn’t have to think of murdered old women and young men shooting themselves for the sake of drowning dogs. All the cold and the fear that had brought him here was gone. There was nothing more in his life than her, this warm, beautiful girl, the tough southern sunlight and the pungent smell of sex in his nostrils.
They sat together on the back seat of her brother’s car. For an hour they didn’t speak. There were no words for how he felt about her. He traced the lines on her hands, kissed the tips of her fingertips, the calluses on her palms, the span of muscle between her thumb and forefinger. Her stubby fingers and calloused palms delighted him. No matter what happened, no matter where he went after this, he knew he would always remember her hands. She asked him about his life and he told her about Silvana and Aurek.
‘Wait.’ He pulled a photograph from his trouser pocket. ‘There. That’s them. My wife Silvana, and that’s our son.’
‘She’s pretty. And the boy looks like an angel. I’m very happy for you.’
‘Are you?’
‘No. I’m jealous.’
He looked into her eyes. She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and kissed him.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ she said when she pulled apart from him. ‘I know I can’t keep you.’
Janusz allowed himself to think of being lost. Of being forgotten up there on the hill. Weeks passed. Hélène told him love was something that nobody could guard themselves against, and he liked to believe her. She visited him at night, slipping naked between his sheets.
‘We should be careful,’ he whispered, though the thought of her carrying his child was pleasurable to him.
Hélène sighed and stroked his forehead. ‘Don’t worry about that. I can look after myself.’
She climbed across him the next morning. He lay in bed and watched her go into a small back room, fingers of sunlight reaching in through the half-opened shutters and playing patterns across her long back, her short strong legs. She left the door slightly ajar so he could see her bent over, one foot up on a tin bath, talking to him about vinegar and lemon-juice douches. He’d never met a woman like her.
Ipswich
‘Bellissima’ is the first word Tony says when Silvana opens her front door. She blinks at the sound of his voice, as if someone has shone a dazzling light in her eyes.
Tony lifts his hat and smiles.
‘Silvana, it’s wonderful to see you. What a lovely dress. You’re a woman made to wear beautiful clothes. If only you could have met Lucy. She loved fashion. But how are you? Doris told me you had the flu a while back? I hope you’re better now. You certainly look radiant.’
She’d forgotten how broad he was, taking up the door frame with his size. Her first instinct is to throw her arms around his neck. Then, when he mentions his dead wife, she folds her arms across her chest instead. He steps back and Peter comes into view, carrying paper bags in his fists.
‘I’ve got sweets,’ he says. ‘Liquorice wheels and humbugs.’
Tony laughs. ‘We bought out the sweet shop, didn’t we, Peter?’
She smiles at the plump, red-faced child. ‘Why don’t you go up, Peter? Aurek is waiting for you in his bedroom.’
‘I’m sorry I haven’t seen you for so long,