New World in the Morning (5 page)

“But listen.” By now I'd raised myself from the hips up. “It's really wrong—
and
sad—that we haven't made love for at least three weeks.”

She smiled at me. She was pink and creamy in the lamplight. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“I don't know, I'll need to cogitate.” I grinned. “Cogitation completed!”

“Good. Do you know, leaning back like that, you look all glistening and golden and masterful up there?” She ran her hands across my chest, innocently tweaking dampish curls, then stroked my upper arms and shoulders. I felt myself begin to stir in her again.

“And don't I always?”

“Always,” she agreed.

“Shall I tell you the results, then?”

“Of all that careful thinking? Please.”

“Gonna fuck you in the morning—fuck you in the evening—fuck you at suppertime… Yes, ma'am, kindly take note, ma'am. I hereby file intention of turning into the world's greatest lover.”

If she had replied, “But you already are,” or, “I think you're practically there,” then the stirring might have strengthened into hardness. “Well, sounds all right to me,” she murmured.

I withdrew. “I love you, Junie Moon.”

“I love you, Samson Groves.”

Then I gave her a parting kiss on the cheek and leant over and pulled out a wad of tissues. After we'd mopped up and she'd struggled into her nightdress she switched off the lamp. I turned on my side, away from her, and she snuggled against my back.

“Thank you for that,” she said.

“Thank
you
, my love.”

“You know what the trouble is, Sam? Most days I get so tired. By bedtime all I can do is lie here like a sackful of flour.”

“Nonsense. You're a marvellous lay.”

“It's sweet of you to say so, but all the same… Well, just wait until the children have left home and then you'll see how different it will be. Not that I'm wanting to wish any of our lives away, obviously…” She sighed again and I felt her long release of breath, cool, fanning my shoulder blades.

“You shouldn't have taken on that extra job today. The decorating. You'd better let me finish.”

“Oh, but I told you. I find it creative. Relaxing.”

“Matt won't be leaving home for six years. Six at the earliest. I'll be forty-two by then.”

“What's wrong with that?” She laughed. “And besides. It'll give me plenty of time to lose weight.”

“I warn you: I'm not waiting six years until our next fuck. I might just get by—with a lot of self-restraint—until the morning.”

“No, you silly, I didn't mean that. I meant, until you chase me naked through the house again…”

“Ah… Good night, Junie.”

“Sleep well, darling.”

She turned again, and, retreating to her own side of the bed, soon settled into slumber.

7

I
couldn't sleep, though—not for ages. At first I turned restlessly from side to side but then lay mainly on my back, hands beneath my head. Was Moira awake? I pictured her red hair splayed across the pillow; her slim dancer's body sprawled languorously and bare; arms stretching in sudden exuberant abandon, as she, like myself, contemplated the future and felt an irresistible urge to express something wonderful. I felt confident that if she
were
awake she'd be thinking of me—and almost as confident that if she were asleep my shadow would be pressing on her dreams. And her dreams would be in Technicolor.

I was going to be so
good
, so worthy of those dreams. A new man. Dynamic, cheerful, kind. Patient; understanding. Aware. Truly the Rock of Gibraltar that Junie sometimes called me.

Away with gluttony. Meanness. Lack of charity. Away with jealousy and fear; small-mindedness. From now on I'd be living entirely for others. The doorway to life was so blazingly obvious once you'd discovered the key; I could only feel amazed and regretful I hadn't done so sooner. But at least, thank God, it had happened while I was young. With perhaps a second allocation of thirty-six years still to look forward to.

Yet even if there wasn't, even if there was merely one of ten years…five, three, two…why, even this could prove sufficient.
The Short Happy Life of Samson Groves
.

Yes. Even one year—broken down into segments—could provide abundance.

Of course there'd have to be deception. But purely for the common good. It was through Moira that I was going to grow and blossom and bear golden fruit; through me that Moira was going to encounter love and passion and fulfilment. And Junie would awake to find an incomparably more thoughtful and devoted husband. Ella and Matt would awake to find the best damned father on record. It was as simple as that. I aimed to become the kind of dad I myself had used to dream about.

I remembered not so long after the death of my parents watching a film on television:
Down To The Sea In Ships
. The story concerned a boy of my own age—an orphan like myself—who, by the end, had discovered not simply a friend but a father-substitute. This, in the person of the young Richard Widmark, whom the lonely lad (and I) had slowly come to idealize. And, oh, the envy that I'd felt! An unremitting ache which for days—weeks—had left me with a sense of deprivation not exactly more real but somehow more insistent than the one I'd experienced a month or two earlier…and of course was still experiencing. In February, in my pyjamas, I had climbed out of my bedroom window, which overlooked the back garden of my grandmother's house, and stood there on the sill for fully twenty minutes, trying to find the courage to jump off.

It had remained for sometime afterwards: that insistent ache in the pit of my stomach.

I suppose that for a boy of thirteen I was being remarkably immature. I could hardly imagine Matt, who frequently gave the impression of being almost a man (and who, I had noticed only that evening, was already—and disconcertingly—filling out his jeans), I could hardly imagine Matt ever fantasizing that he was the son of Alan Shearer or David Duchovny or…who were those others he had chosen? Well anyway, if he did, then all this was going to change—change dramatically. Move over, David Duchovny! Here comes Samson Groves.

I looked at my watch with its illuminated dial.

Two-fifty-three.

Very carefully I got up—went downstairs to the sitting room—did half an hour of vigorous exercising. Then ran a bath. Several times I started to sing in it; had to check my song abruptly. Washed my hair. In fact I'd washed it less than nineteen hours previously but I felt like total immersion. Total cleanliness. Baptism.

Mens sana in corpore sano
.

Likewise, although again they scarcely needed it, I trimmed my toenails, looked for any cuticle I should remove, looked for any hair visible in either ear or nostril. Rebrushed my teeth. Was almost going to shave but decided this was maybe overdoing it. Anointed myself in Cool Water.

It was ten-past-four when I went back to bed. This time I knew I'd sleep. Still marvellously happy, of course, but physically and mentally relaxed. Not that I worried about not sleeping. Sleep didn't seem important. Tiredness was nothing but a state of mind.

And, as if to confirm this, I was awake again by half-past-eight and feeling great. Sunlight buttered the edges of the curtains and I stretched and lay in blissful comfort, thoroughly conscious of my sense of well-being, drinking it in along with a dozen more tangible things: usually unnoticed details of the flowered wallpaper; the reproduction Pissarro above our mantelpiece, the faience candlesticks, the gilded and becherubbed mirror which I'd also brought home from the shop; my own bunched biceps as I stretched again, the well-shaped contour of my arms when I straightened them once more, the light gold sheen from wrist to elbow. I turned my head and let my right hand fall across the pillow above Junie's hair. She stirred and my fingers gently intruded into the short, thick, silvery mass. It was time for her to wake.

“I love you, Junie Moon…” I put my arms about her and she burrowed into me, all warm and sleepy. I kissed her eyelids and her nose and cheeks and she made small noises of contentment. When I entered her she still wasn't properly awake but made the same agreeable squeaks, wore the same beatific smile. This time I counted up to three hundred and thirty-eight. By the following Sunday, I determined, the score would have increased to at least a couple of thousand. I felt utterly confident. It had happened before but now the difference was, it would be permanent. And now I wasn't doing it simply for Junie and myself. I had the feeling that Moira would appreciate it more than Junie did—I mean, appreciate it more consistently, more wholeheartedly. Yet in any case…one thing was sure…both of them would benefit. I'd be doing it for the three of us.

I went and washed, then returned for my bathrobe. “Darling, stay there,” I said. “I'll bring you breakfast.”

“Really?”

“Got it all planned. One of a thousand small decisions I made during the night. From now on I intend to pamper you.”

“But you already do.”

“No, I've looked after you, protected you, but I don't believe I've pampered you. You're very precious to me, Junie Moon.”

“You, too.”

It was a good—it was the right—beginning to a day. Any day.

“What were the other small decisions?” she asked. “All nine hundred and ninety-nine of them.”

“Mainly to do with loving you more and taking better care of you.”

“All right, then, I approve. But I'm sorry if it means you had a sleepless night.”

“Don't be. I'm not.”

I fetched
The Observer
from the doormat.

“Better watch out,” she said. “You'll make me even more dependent.”

“Better watch out, had I?”

Perhaps she didn't realize I was joking. “I only meant…you mustn't spoil me too much. What would happen if you ever dropped dead?”

I laughed and went down to the kitchen. Susie uncurled from her basket and stretched and came forward to greet me. I fell to my knees and put my arms about her neck; gave her the sort of fussing she'd received on my return from work. “Did you sleep well, Susie? Did you dream you were chasing bunnies…or that you were lapping up beer and wolfing down crisps? If you tell me your dreams I'll interpret them.” She loved being spoken to like that; in my mind I slightly adapted the couplet by John Masefield: “He who gives a dog a treat hears joy bells ring in heaven's street.” I wished that Moira could have seen us—briefly pretended she could. The quarry tiles were cold and hard against my knees but such minor discomforts were well worth it for the sake of seeing Susie's expression: subtly different, yet not definably so, from her look of the previous evening. It was a pity, I felt, dogs couldn't purr.

Moira was still strongly with me as I washed my hands and carried out a recce of the fridge and larder. I began to sing. Although over the years, obviously, I had given Junie breakfast in bed on many occasions, I had never before done a cooked breakfast—and I was glad of that: the chance to be doing something for her for the first time. It would be good, in fact, if every day could hold some first-time experience. That or some new thought, insight, item of knowledge. This, then, was a further resolution to add to my list.

And perhaps it should also be committed to paper, that list—expanded on, made tangible. Yes…and thinking about it…why not a journal? Lists were dry but a diary could be lively and entertaining, creative too, a place in which to formulate and grow, be curious and open-minded. Suddenly I felt I should never have laughed at that man who claimed he'd been utilized to score a melody for Mozart; nor at the woman who said she'd many times met Freddie Mercury…but only after his death. There were melodies by Mozart now lining up for me. Meetings with Freddie Mercury. With Audrey Hepburn; Princess Di; Princess Grace. John F Kennedy.

But first I had to concentrate on breakfast.

I prepared two trays, one for Matt as well as Junie; went into the garden, barefoot, to pick a tulip to lay on each. I fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes—poured orange juice—decided to take this main part upstairs before starting on the toast and coffee.

It occurred to me what tune I was humming: an old one from
Annie Get Your Gun
. When we were in our teens I had used to serenade Junie with it.

“The girl that I marry

Will have to be

As soft and as pink as a nurseree;

Stead of flittin'

She'll be sittin'

Next to me

And she'll purr like a kittin…”

I smiled. I remembered her saying, “Yes, I like the idea of being a doll you can carry!”

And I
had
carried her—all round the house, all round the garden, all round her parents' house. Even, once, out in the town. In retrospect, people had seemed surprisingly indulgent. Is it true, then: all the world loves a lover?

“I'm so glad I have someone I'll always be able to lean on. Lots of girls haven't, you know. You can't think how happy that makes me.”

Now I delivered Junie's tray. The intake of her breath, the soaring of her hands, was undoubtedly genuine. “But what are you trying to do?” she cried. “Fatten me up for Christmas?”

“Why not?” I was Spencer Tracy. “What meat there is on you is cherce.”

“You're sweet. You're a liar but you're sweet.”

“Do you love me?” I asked.

“Ever so. Millions and millions.”

Matt, too, was happily surprised. He struggled to sit up and did so with the air of still being in the midst of dreams.

Like me he didn't wear pyjamas. In the light of what I'd noticed yesterday I thought his shoulders were also looking broader. A light shadow spilled across his chest: the possible forerunner to a quantity of blond fuzz. One thing was certain. If he meant to throw himself into his training with the dumbbells, I should clearly have to intensify my own programme of exercises.