Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [103]
Her dress was off and she was underwater before Lucy could respond.
Lucy squinted at Patrick. ‘Is this true?’
‘It was supposed to be a surprise…’
‘But then I wouldn’t have had a chance to get my glad-rags on.’
‘And you’d still have looked lovely.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere, young man.’
Patrick ran a hand speculatively over her hip. ‘That was what I was hoping.’
Lucy’s heart sank a little.
It wasn’t fair, was it, to keep comparing? This dinner, with that lunch of chips in a paper cone. So why did she keep doing it? They weren’t laughing, he hadn’t made her shake easing a little drop of ketchup off her top lip with his finger, she wasn’t desperate to get to the end of the meal so that she could kiss him. They were husband and wife, parents, eating dinner together for, what, the thousandth time? That should have been good too. Different, but still good. Richer, stronger, better. Maybe nothing in the universe was ever going to feel the same way again.
She drank three glasses of red wine, deliberately. They walked back slowly to their place, and Patrick paid the girl. Lucy checked Bella and Ed, one asleep so neatly, one splayed and exposed.
Patrick pulled her through to their side, and pulled the curtain, then started kissing her. She pulled away and shushed him, but he carried on, pulling her into the bathroom, closing the door behind them, and locking it. It was pitch black, and Lucy couldn’t see.
He undid the zip at the back of her dress and let it fall to the floor. ‘You’re so lovely. My beautiful, sexy wife.’ He took off his own shirt, over his head, and she heard his trousers fall too. He lifted her on to the vanity unit, where the marble was cold on her skin. A toothbrush clattered into the sink.
His hands ran up and down her body, and his kisses traced an invisible line from her neck to her breasts, then further down. Lucy tried to get into it. She put her hands into his hair, tried to pull his face up to hers, to kiss him properly and try to remember that she loved him and he loved her and that they were okay, but he wouldn’t let her. She couldn’t keep up – she couldn’t get to where he wanted her to be. Now his mouth was working at her, his lips and tongue tracing back and forth, opening her up. But still it wasn’t working. She wasn’t there. It was mechanical, and forced, and she was a million miles away from really feeling him.
So she put herself back into the flat with Alec. His face, his mouth, where Patrick’s was now, seeing her, tasting her for the first time. The newness and the excitement flooded back.
Two minutes later, she pulled his head in towards her, roughly, and came, hard, stifling her gasp with her fist. He laughed, triumphant and gruff, as he surfaced, then entered her. By the time it was his turn, tears were running down her cheeks, and she was glad that it was dark, and that he couldn’t see them, or her lying, cheating face.
The next morning it was better. It was clear that Patrick felt as though some demon had been vanquished. They had slept naked, and when they woke, he didn’t let Ed’s presence stop him roaming possessively over her body. A little of his old sparkle was back. Everyone makes themselves believe what they want to believe, Lucy thought, so why can’t I?
Three days later they were home, brown and tired. The children were weary of travel by the time they caught the bus out to the long-term car park, and Patrick carried Ed on his shoulders. Ed’s Mr Ted kept falling across Patrick’s eyes as his owner nodded and dozed above. Lucy pulled along the two wheelie suitcases, Bella beside her. They got nearer and nearer the car, and she felt herself speed up. She switched on her phone while Patrick put the cases into the boot. No flash or beep. No messages. She felt as if Alec had slapped her.
At home there was no milk, and the bread she had forgotten in the bread bin had gone green. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think about coming home.’ She’d thought only about going away. And Alec.
‘No problem. I’ll nip out.