Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (12 page)

“Not bad.”

“Are you ready for a walk on the beach?”

He smiles. “Can we eat first?”

I run downstairs and fire up a pot of coffee, then boil water for tea. I’ve no idea what he prefers. I’m toasting English muffins and slicing cantaloupe when he comes into the kitchen.

“Coffee—black—no sugar,” he says. “And one of those muffins. I’m starving.”

Zachary wanders in as we’re finishing breakfast. He rubs against Colin’s legs and jumps in his lap.

“Damn!” Colin lurches to his feet. His chair crashes over.

My cat skitters across the tile floor and fetches up with a thoroughly ungraceful thump against the fridge. A magnet lets loose. One of Anna’s drawings flutters down and lands beside him.

“Jeez, Colin. I’m sorry. Did he scratch you?”

“I’m fine. He just startled me, that’s all.” Colin rescues his chair. “How about that walk?”

“Sure,” I say, bending to pat Zachary, but he’s too quick for me. With his tail fluffed out like a bottle brush, my cat stalks into the hall and disappears. No doubt he’ll spend the rest of the day exacting revenge on my printer.

My garden is bare and bleached, devoid of color except for the stark outline of a storm fence rising like splintered red toothpicks from the wind-scoured sand. Not even my purple and yellow crocus are in bloom. Colin walks across the patio, turns to look at my house, and I watch him take in the old bricks, weathered clapboards, and bare trellises that bend beneath the weight of roses in June.

Does he see what I see? Drooping gutters, peeling paint, and loose shingles.

“This is charming,” he says. “I didn’t expect this.”

We follow the path through the dunes and onto the beach where a leaden sky leaks into a gunmetal Sound. Colin removes his glasses, wipes them on the front of his jacket, and stares with scrunched-up eyes at the water. The wind tugs his hair and he looks like a kid who wants to swim but can’t because the sea is too cold.

Am I going to sleep with him tonight?

He takes my hand, and we walk toward the breakwater and I distract myself from thinking about what’s going to happen later by babbling on about Sands Point, its history, and how it was one of the first permanent settlements in Connecticut.

“Why don’t you show me?” Colin says.

After poking through a couple of antique shops, we stroll across the green and stop to admire the gingerbread-style gazebo where the Lions Club sponsors free concerts in the summer. I tell him about the typo in last year’s flyer that promised wholesome, family-style entertainment hosted by the
Loins
Club of Sands Point.

Colin laughs and squeezes my arm. I think he’s enjoying himself.

We bypass the gift shops, boarded up for the season, and wander down one of the alleys that connects Bay Street with the harbor where a network of wooden docks creaks against the tide. A lone seagull sits atop a piling.

“This place will be full of cruisers and sailboats in a couple of months,” I say.

We have lunch at the Mexican restaurant.

“I haven’t tried this before,” Colin says.

“You’re kidding.”

“It hasn’t really caught on yet—in England. At least, not where I live.” He scoops salsa onto a corn chip.

“Careful! It’s hot.”

He gasps and reaches for his water.

On our way out of the restaurant we run into Tom Grainger. He smiles at us, but doesn’t stop because his little girl is running ahead.

“Friend of yours?” Colin asks.

“New neighbors. I don’t know them. His wife is much younger—” I stop before putting my foot in any deeper.

Driving home, I point to a small red barn. It has one door, no windows, and its sagging roof supports a weathervane that tilts vaguely northeast as if waiting for gravity to finish off what winter storms began years ago. “That’s where the Rotary Club holds its annual shad bake.”

“Shad?”

“Fish,” I explain. “They nail fillets to planks of wood, cover them with spices and bacon, and prop them around a bonfire. Everyone hangs about gossiping and drinking while the fish is cooking.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It is,” I say. “Especially when they throw away the fish and eat the wood.”

Colin gives me an odd look.

“Only kidding,” I say. “It’s a local joke.”

We cook dinner in a companionable sort of way and sit in front of the fire reminiscing over old pictures in my photograph albums. Colin produces the other half of the log and we burn both pieces. I see images in the flames. Sharing a mug of tea, a spider running up my arm, Colin giving me his shirt.

By ten, he’s almost asleep. He lies back against the couch, puts his arm around my shoulder, and kisses my neck. His mouth finds mine. I melt into him, but he pulls away.

“Perhaps I’d better put myself to bed,” he says. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

Is he waiting for a signal?

The choice is yours, Lizzie said.

“Would you like some company?” I ask.

His face crumples. “I’m so glad you said that.”

“Go on up,” I say, rising above my panic. “I need to—”

He turns and leaves me shaking with fear. Now I’ve gone and done it. There’s no backing out now. I undress in the downstairs bathroom and wrap myself in Anna’s Scooby Doo beach towel.

Great, Jill. Very sexy.

He’s lying on my bed with the covers drawn up to his waist. The room glows from a dozen scented candles.

“We’re both been waiting a long time for this,” Colin says, holding out his arms.

I drop my towel and climb in beside him.

Sands Point

March 2011

My body tingles when I wake, and I reach for Colin, but the space beside me is empty. Damn! It
was
a dream, except how do I explain the damp spot beneath my thighs? I check out the dresser. The candles are burned down. Okay, so I wasn’t dreaming, but where the hell is he?

“Jilly?”

I turn toward his voice. He’s perched on a chair by the sliding glass door, elbows on his knees, hands wrapped around a mug, leaning forward as if poised for flight. Outside, on my balcony, everything is white.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Almost six.” Colin hesitates. “Coffee?”

“No, but thanks.” I shove a handful of hair from my face. “I can’t face that much caffeine this early in the morning.”

“Then I’ll make you some tea.”

I stumble into the bathroom and attack my mouth with a toothbrush. Has last night’s romance turned into morning-after guilt? Is he regretting whatever impulse made him come over? I have a shower but it does little to wash away the sight of Colin sitting on that chair with a mug of coffee and a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

My tea’s on the dresser when I emerge from the bathroom, swathed in towels and drying my hair.

“I’d like to ring England,” Colin says.

“Don’t you have a mobile?”

“Yes, but it’s dead and I forgot the charger.”

“Then be my guest,” I say, nodding toward my bedside table.

Colin clears his throat. “I’d prefer a public phone.”

I stop toweling off. “Why?”

“Because it’s harder to trace.”

Oh boy, we’re into serious guilt here. “Then I’ll drive you to the village.”

It takes an hour to shovel the driveway and it’s almost eight when we pull into Sands Point. I park outside the drugstore between mounds of snow taller than my car. A sleepy-looking clerk is slumped behind the counter. He looks up from his magazine as we step inside on a blast of cold air. I point Colin toward the far corner where, amazingly, there’s still an old-fashioned pay phone. In a booth no less.

While Colin makes his call, I wander up and down the greeting card aisle. He’s still talking, hunched like a penitent in the phone booth, when I circle around for the third time and I wonder, childishly, if he’s now confessing his sins and seeking absolution from Shelby. I buy a bottle of shampoo and a gaudy St. Patrick’s Day card for Anna.

We have breakfast at the café next door. I order waffles. Colin asks for bacon and eggs and a large pot of coffee. He begins to talk, so softly I have to strain to hear him.

“I’m sorry for being distant, but … I’ve never been—you know—unfaithful before.” He pauses. “I don’t know how to handle it.”

“Furtively?”

He gasps.

My mouth needs a zipper. “I’m sorry. That was flip.”

“No, Jilly. That’s just you being you,” Colin says. He pulls a roll from the basket and spreads it with butter. “Those three years in Wickham Forge with Hugh and Keith … and with you and Sophie. They were the best. I’d never had friends like that before.” He pauses. “Or since.”

I take a deep breath. “So why did you disappear without a word?”

He flinches. “You heard what my father did?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t
your
fault.”

The waitress interrupts with food. I grab the syrup and smother my waffles. I need a sugar buzz to push this conversation forward. “Colin, what happened after you left? Where did you go?”

“Scotland. My mother had relatives there.”

“Edinburgh?” I say, visions of him in a kilt. “Dundee?”

“An island in the Hebrides.”

“Jeez! That’s a bit remote.”

“Ferry twice a week to the mainland, electricity—occasionally—and the only phone on the island was at the post office.” He shivers. “I remember being cold, all the time. Even in summer.”

I swallow a chunk of warm, comforting waffle. “Your mother?” I hesitate. “Is she still—”

“She killed herself when I was twenty-four.”

My fork clatters to the table, bounces, then lands on the floor.

Colin hands me another. “It was my fault. I wasn’t watching her carefully enough.”

“You mean—?”

“She’d tried several times before.” His mouth hardens. “But she finally got it right in the end. Sleeping pills. A whole bottle.”

He’s detached. Dispassionate. Brutal, almost. I guess that’s the only way to handle something as ghastly as this.

“And your father?” I ask. May as well spring all the family skeletons from the cupboard at the same time.

“Never saw him again. He got out of prison and buggered off to Australia.” Colin gives a bitter laugh. “Appropriate, really.”

“Why?”

“Convicts. Penal colonies in Oz.”

“What about you? Where did you go?”

His voice turns soft. “Back to Wickham Forge, looking for you.”

I choke and spit bits of waffle on the table.

Colin offers me a glass of water. “Claudia told me you’d gone to America. That you were married.”

“She never said a word.”

“I begged her not to.”

“Oh, Colin.”

“So I put your memory on hold and tried to get on with my life. I did a stint in the army, got married, had a kid, got divorced.” He looks at me. “But I never forgot about you, Jilly. Never.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you write me from Scotland?”

“Because you deserved better than me. I had no money. No home. I had nothing to offer except trouble. My mother was suicidal, my father was in jail, and I was—”

His voice breaks and his shame is so palpable, so intense, I can’t meet his eyes. My coffee’s gone cold, but I drink it anyway.

“How did you find Keith and the others?” I say.

“I was at a computer show, trying to figure out what software to buy for the lodge, and Hugh was one of the salesmen.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“That bald head threw me,” Colin says, “but when he smiled, I knew it was Hugh. He sold me the right program and invited me to Keith’s party. I almost didn’t go, but thank God I did.” He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “That day was a turning point for me.”

Our waitress bears down with the check and more coffee. I cover my cup and glance at Colin, but the light has gone from his eyes and he’s retreated some place I can’t follow.

He stands and lays a twenty on the table. “Is this enough?”

“Plenty,” I tell him.

Across the street, two men are shoveling the sidewalk. A biting wind rips down Bay Street. Icy rain stings our faces. Colin shivers and pulls up his collar.

“It’s a lot colder here. Colder than Scotland.”

“I’d like to explain about that phone call,” Colin says, coming in from the porch with an armload of wood.

I stuff newspaper and kindling in the grate, stand up, and wipe my hands across the seat of my jeans before collapsing on the couch. I’ve been wondering when he’d bring this up.

Colin lights the fire, then comes to sit beside me. “I travel, quite a lot, for my business. The lodge is Shelby’s department. I buy and sell property. Small hotels, mostly. That’s how I make a living.”

“I see.”

“So when I’m away, I always check in. Tell them where I am and when I’ll be back.”

“Okay, so where are you supposed to be now?”

“Ireland.”

“Then I’ll have to send you back with a shamrock,” I say. “Or this.” I pick Anna’s card off the coffee table and hand it to him.

“You don’t let things get you down, do you?” he says. “Or maybe you do, but don’t show it.”

There’s no answer for that. “Tell me about your wife,” I say.

He sighs. “I’d rather tell you about Shelby.”

Guilt taps a finger on my conscience. I push it away. It’s not my job to worry about Colin’s common-law wife.

Is it?

“Sure, go ahead.” I plump a pillow and settle back.

“I was a mess when we met. My marriage was over and my self-esteem was ten feet under. Shelby dug it up, nourished it. She helped me believe in myself again and I owe her for that. We traveled, we built up the business. Then we drifted apart. Probably my fault—most things are—but we don’t do anything together any more. We’re a couple of strangers who share the same house.”

Do they still share a bed?

Colin puts his hand on my thigh and I trace the veins with my finger. “Looks like an old man’s hand, doesn’t it?” he says, smiling. “Shelby’s hands are smooth.”