The morning after their first night together, Robin Jackson sat alone on Emily Ilsford's settee, not knowing what to do. When he moved his clothes were stiff with sweat from the night before, and the television in the corner was showing a black and white film but he was not watching it. The room was large and the ceiling high; the old town house in north Leamington was split into separate apartments and Emily’s home was on the ground floor. A small kitchen with a pale patterned linoleum floor had been built onto the back of the flat, with another small room with a shower and toilet at the end. He could hear the water running.
He was tired and worn and felt good from the night, but his stomach was tight with uncertainty. He was not used to situations like this. He still felt the deep thrill from the early hours when she had invited him home, but now there was an edge of nerve to it and he tensed to hear the water from the bathroom slow and stop. He heard her feet cross the floor of the kitchen, and she stood in the door of the bedroom wrapped in a white towel.
“Are you sure you don’t want a shower?” she asked, and her face was bright.
“No, no I’m fine,” said Robin, sitting straight, facing the television.
She stepped around in front of him, let her towel fall, and walked across the room naked to her wardrobe.
“Are you all right?” she spoke with her back to him, knowing he was watching her as she pulled a pale pink nylon dressing gown around her and turned to him.
“Yeah, fine,” he answered, all of the awkwardness gone from his voice. She came and sat next to him on the settee, her legs curled underneath her, her arm on the cushion, her hand touching his hair.
“You got dressed,” she said.
Robin nodded.
“Are you leaving?”
He turned to her without knowing what he was going to say, and she kissed him and he raised his hands to her face and held it gently with his fingers in her hair.
“I don’t want to,” he said.
“Good,” she said, standing up. “Go and have a shower, you smell of smoke.”
He was standing with his face in the stream of hot water when he felt her hand on the small of his back and she stepped in behind him.
“Move over,” she said, running her hand around his waist as he turned.
He grinned through the water and she smiled and kissed him. He felt her body press against his chest and as he put his arms around her he couldn’t keep from saying it.
“So getting me to take a shower was just another way of getting my clothes off again?”
She cocked her head and blew air through the water as it ran down her face. She nestled into him, holding him, and sighed.
“Was it a bad idea?”
She felt him moving and she stepped back and smiled.
“Your body doesn’t think it was a bad idea.”
“True,” said Robin.
They were on her bed, later, and she was stroking his hair. His eyes were heavy.
“What does it feel like, afterwards?” she asked.
“Just like I’m really sleepy,” he said.
“Is it always like that? Oh, I’m sorry, I’m embarrassing you. I’ll shut up. It’s just that I’ve never asked, never felt able to ask, before.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said. “Pretty much every time.”
“That must be handy,” she said. “Whenever you want to go to sleep, you just- now I am embarrassing you.”
“No you’re not.”
They lay quietly for a time, both of them breathing softly.
“So how old are you?” he asked. Her cheek was on his shoulder. Sun angled through a gap in the curtains and made a line of bright light on the wall.
“That’s a very personal question,” she answered without opening her eyes. She breathed in deeply through her nose.
“I know,” said Robin, “I’m curious.”
“You are a curious boy.”
“I can’t help it.”
“I like that you’re curious.”
“So are you going to tell me?”
She rolled away from him and stretched, arching her back, pushing her chest out with her arms above her head. She let out a long breath.
“No,” she smiled, rolled back and kissed him. “But I can tell you that I am as hungry as all hell. What shall we do for food?”
He was too far away to see the light in her eyes. They were sitting on either side of a table against the wall in the restaurant section of a pub on The Parade, and a spot lamp hanging from a rail near the ceiling threw the shadow of her hair across her face.
Her hair had all the colours of sand, falling to richer, darker curls above the nape of her neck. She had pale blue, almost grey eyes, and they moved quickly, never resting. Her skin was lightly tanned from the summer and her bare arms moved as her hands flowed with her words. There was a thin strip of pale skin at the base of the third finger of her left hand, but it did not make Robin feel anything.
“I’m glad you’re back, anyway,” she said.
“You make it sound as though you’re the only one.”
“I might be. Everyone I know seems to treat September like the end of the world. It’s all ‘enjoy it while it lasts’, and ‘Peaceful, isn’t it? Not for long...’, and I think, Jesus, you’re students, not the plague.”
She sipped her wine.
“It’s too quiet in this town when you’re gone. One morning the parks are full of people sunbathing, playing football or whatever, and then pouf! Nothing. It’s like the circus left town.”
A car drove past in the lane behind the pub and threw a flash of low reflected sun into her face.
“What do you do?”
“For a living?”
“Yes.”
“I work in the chemist‘s at the top of The Parade, on the corner. Do you know it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s boring and it’s a pain in the arse, but it’s something to do, you know.”
Robin said nothing.
“So tell me again. What’s your course again?” she traced a pattern on the back of his hand with her finger.
“Art History,” he said.
“Shit! What made you choose that?”
Emily feigned horror, and they smiled at each other.
“Not knowing as much about it as I wanted to?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Right, okay, okay. But what do you want to do with it? What can you do? Become well...an Art Historian?”
“Doubtful.”
“But do you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
She lowered her eyes and sat back in her chair.
“I’m sorry,” said Robin. “It’s a sore point. I’m in my third year, studying a subject I love, but...”
“You have no idea what you want to do?”
“Yes.”
She took his hand again and squeezed it.
“I’m sure you could do anything,” she said.
“That’s the problem,” he nodded. “I’m terrible at making decisions.”
She laughed and the corners of her mouth rose up and made her cheeks rounded as her eyes creased the skin around them into soft lines.
“I just think it’s funny, I’m sorry. That you’re spending all this time to get a degree, I mean, a fucking degree, that’s no small thing - all the things you could do with that - and you can’t choose?”
“Yes,” Robin tried not to smile until the ache in his cheeks was too much and he failed.
“I’d say that was a pretty good problem to have,” she said.
“Or the worst one,” he replied.
When they came out of the pub he held the door for her, and she smiled and looked down with her hands in the pockets of her jacket as she passed him. They stood awkwardly on the pavement.
“I had a really nice time,” she said.
“Me too.”
“Look, you’ve still got my number from earlier last night, haven’t you?”
He grinned.
“Yeah,” he said, and she half-smiled back.
“Well, call me, all right? I’d like to see you again.”
“Me too,” he said.
“And don’t think I don’t mean that. Don’t think that I don’t want to see you, that I’m happy with one night, or we’re never going to see each other again.”
Robin looked shocked and began to protest.
“I know-”
She raised her hands, and then placed them both softly on his chest. He stopped.
“I’m sorry. I just...well. I mean what I say when I say I want to see you again, all right? I do.”
“Me too.”
“Good,” she kissed him. “Have a nice rest of your Saturday. See you soon. Call me.”
She turned around and walked up The Parade, and Robin stood for a moment, watching her walk. Two men came out of the pub behind him. They turned up the street behind Emily and one of them looked back at Robin and nudged the other, so Robin turned and walked away.
