A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [71]
‘He’s Misstra Know-It-All’ comes on the stereo system, a song I like, and it distracts me. What I should properly be feeling now is a sense of honour at being made privy to the secrets of their marriage, but even as Katharine is relating the most intimate history of her relationship with Fortner, my mind is caught between the loyalty demanded of friendship and a growing desire to take advantage of her vulnerability. When she is speaking I have tried to look solely at her eyes, at the bridge of her nose, but every time she has looked away I have stolen glimpses of her calves, her wrists, the nape of her neck.
‘You’ve repaired that?’
‘It’s a slow process. I’d been very honest with Fortner about how I’d gotten pregnant. I’d told him that it was a deliberate act on my part. That was a mistake: it would have been better to lie, to blame the Pill or something. It would have been better to say it was an accident. But somehow I wanted him to know, like an act of defiance.’
‘Sure, I can see that.’
‘It’s so good having someone who understands,’ she says. ‘I mean, you’ve had your heart broken, you’ve been through some tough times. You know how all this feels.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say, nodding. ‘But not to the extent that you’ve been through it.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ she says. She is attempting to come out of her contemplative mood into something more positive. ‘In a lot of ways, I’m lucky. Fort’s great, you know? He’s so smart and funny and laid-back and wise.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s great.’
‘Hey,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Thanks for listening. Thanks for being there for me when I needed you.’
‘That’s all right. Don’t mention it.’
In a single fluid movement she stands up and crosses the room to where I am sitting, crouching down low on her thick Highland socks. And before I have had time to say anything she has wrapped her arms around my neck, whispering ‘Thank you, you’re sweet’ into my hair. The weight of her is so perfect. I put my hand lightly on her back.
She stops hugging first and withdraws. Now we are looking at one another. Still on her haunches, Katharine smiles and, very softly, touches the side of my face with her hand, drawing her fingers down to the line of my jaw. She lets them linger there and then slowly takes her hand away, bringing it to rest in her lap. There is a look in her eyes which promises the impossible, but something prevents me from acting on it. This is the moment, this is the time to do it, but after all the thought-dreams and the longings and the signals coding back and forth between us, I do not respond. And before I have even properly thought about it, I am saying:
‘I should get a cab.’
It was pure instinct, something defensive, an exact intimation of the correct thing to do. I could not spend the night with her without jeopardizing everything.
‘What, now?’ she says, leaning backwards with a relaxed smile which disguises well any disappointment she may be feeling. ‘It isn’t even eleven o’clock.’
‘But it’s late. You’ll want to -‘
‘No, it’s not.’
I don’t want to offend her, so I say:
‘You want me to stick around?’
‘Sure. Relax. I’ll fix us a whisky.’
She gives my knee a squeeze and I simply can’t believe that I have just let that happen. Just kiss her. Just give in to what is inevitable.
‘OK, then, maybe just a quick one.’
She stands slowly, as if expecting me at any moment to pull her down towards me on the sofa. Just the action of her moving releases that exquisite scent as she turns and walks into the kitchen. I hear Fortner’s frozen Volvic falling into glass tumblers, then the slow glug-glug of whisky being poured on to ice. The noise of her moving quietly around on the polished wooden floor fills me with regret.
‘You have water in it, don’t you?’ she asks, coming back in with the drinks.
‘Yes.’
She hands me a glass and sits down beside me on the sofa.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she says, taking a sip of her whisky straight