Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [113]
‘Are you expecting kudos for resisting so long?’ Natalie didn’t mean to sound so hard.
‘I’m not expecting anything, Natalie. I’m just talking to you. You started this conversation.’ Her voice was meant to sound strong, but they both heard the little shake. ‘What’s happened to Patrick these last few months hasn’t got anything to do with it, really. I don’t think. This thing between me and Alec is a story playing itself, with its own momentum. It’s bad timing.’
Natalie snorted. ‘Bad timing!’
‘I don’t mean that the way it sounds. I don’t know what the hell I mean.’
‘Do you know how you feel?’
‘Like a girl, when I’m with him. Like a desirable, free, delighted girl. Like an absolute bitch, every other second of every day I’m not with him.’
‘Do you know what you want?’
‘No. Yes. I want to be with him. But it isn’t that simple, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Of course it bloody isn’t. I love Patrick. We have a life. We have children. If there was anything to be built between Alec and me, every day of the last umpteen years would have to be dismantled first. And how can I do that to Patrick? To Bella and Ed? And…’ her voice broke ‘… I don’t even know if that’s what Alec wants.’
‘But if he did, that’s what you’d do?’
‘Can you not hear me at all, Natalie? I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Lucy was crying now. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry that this has happened. No one will ever know how sorry.’
‘What can I do?’
Lucy blew her nose and patted her eyes with the tissue. She reached out her hand across the table, and Natalie put hers into it. For a moment they sat without speaking. Then Lucy smiled. ‘You can make sure you get it right, whether it’s with Tom or not. Be sure that you love him – whoever he is – so much, so truly, that there are no cracks and gaps in your heart where someone else can sneak in. Work hard every day to keep it like that. Pray to God every night not to let it happen. Just get it right, Natalie.’
June
Lucy
‘Alec, don’t!’
His hands were under her skirt, creeping up her thighs. They were behind his car. There were people twenty feet away. She could hear them talking, planning where to rig up the canopies for shade. It was the school’s annual summer barbecue. Patrick was shopping for ice to empty into big black dustbins, and Marianne was in the school kitchen, sticking marinated beef cubes on to skewers. ‘I can’t help it.’
She slapped away his hands. ‘You have to help it. It isn’t safe. There are people around.’
‘Well, come with me, then. Let’s go somewhere.’
‘We can’t just go somewhere, Alec. We’re supposed to be here, working. Marianne is just inside, Patrick will be back in a minute, and the children are running riot somewhere. They’ll miss us.’
‘I miss you. I want you, Lucy.’
She felt dizzy with desire.
‘Meet me in the wood. Five minutes. Come, Lucy. Please.’
She gave him no answer.
But she went. As always, with Alec, hearing him tell her he wanted her made her desperate for him.
It was very quiet, much cooler and dark. This was where their children did nature projects, innocently collecting leaves and insects. It smelt damp, and she heard every twig snap under her feet as she moved quickly towards where she knew they would be out of sight and sound.
Suddenly Alec appeared, so fast she gasped in something like fear, pulled her behind a wide tree and, pushed her against it, his mouth on hers, his tongue exploring hers. He pulled her cotton dress up and her knickers aside in one almost rough movement, lifted her and was inside her easily. ‘Christ.’
The bark hurt her back a little. ‘What are we doing here, Alec?’
But he wasn’t listening, and soon she didn’t care any more. He kept one hand under her bum and used the other to undo her buttons, exposing her bra, then pulled it down so that he could see and kiss her breasts. This felt so good. She felt wanton