The Dish (30 page)

Adam opens his eyes a moment later and smiles at me. ‘You know one thing that would make this moment even better?’

The man’s a genius. We sit with a bottle of local red, watching the vast ever-changing sky like it’s a movie.

‘Everything good, Laura?’

I nod. I nod because I don’t want
to lie. Or rather I nod because I don’t want to tell the truth, which is this: I feel scared because I feel so happy. I feel the extreme happiness in my bones, which I’ve felt only rarely as an adult: delight, excitement, contentment, almost radiating through my body.

The last time I felt this good was on honeymoon. Tom could only spare five days so we’d poured the money into posh Sicily, and
while I’d baulked at the price per night, by the time I lay poolside in the baking heat, I’d managed to un-baulk. For five days we’d drifted along in a state of bliss, cosseted from the real world by an army of starched mind readers whose sole happiness depended on administering to our vital sensory pleasures.

You’re a fraction too hot right now – open your eyes and you’ll see I’ve just placed
a glass of iced water with cucumber and mint next to your lounger, and a fridge-cold flannel. Ooh, and now it’s six fifteen p.m. and you’re tired, a little dehydrated, your body’s craving giant green olives and a salty little deep-fried snack that will go perfectly with the fresh peach Bellini you didn’t even realise you wanted until you sat up – and yes, the pinky-orange hues do complement this
sunset nicely, don’t they?

I remember walking back to our room on the final evening, across a lawn cast with tiny pools of light, the throb of crickets surrounding us like a low fast pulse, and thinking: life is great, life is amazing, aren’t we lucky? I remember getting on the plane, cheeks burning from those last twenty minutes of sunshine grabbed at the airport. I remember landing smoothly
and then the shock of Dad’s face at the airport – the terrible fear in his eyes he was trying so hard to hide. I remember that first sight of Mum, eyes shut, face wrinkle-free, looking entirely at peace – but for the tube down her throat – and I wish I could forget everything after that.

Thirty-three days of staring at a monitor: four coloured lines: red, yellow, green, blue; thirty-three days
of increasing blackness. Days of thinking,
I understand what the blue line means now: oxygen saturation in the blood. That links to the metal clip on her finger, that number says ninety-two at this precise moment and ninety-two is much improved from eighty-four. And the green line, that’s heart rate. That’s not looking so good right this second but it was good this time yesterday. And that tube
straight into her neck, that’s noradrenalin, and we
love
noradrenalin because it stabilises her. And because I understand these numbers on the screen, am doing my homework, am starting to make sense of this impenetrable world of medicine, now you, God, will make her better. That’s the deal, isn’t it?
But that wasn’t the deal.

So I don’t trust this level of happiness at all, which is a shame.

But then I feel Adam’s hand in mine. I look up at this immense, shifting sky of blues and pinks and oranges and I think: this world is full of possibilities. Sometimes things do work out. Why shouldn’t I be one of the lucky ones? If I don’t believe I can be happy then of course I won’t be happy. Feeling scared won’t protect me from life. I just have to take a chance . . . And by the time I’ve run
through half-a-dozen mantras, I can’t help but laugh because I’m beginning to sound like one of Amber’s self-help fridge magnets.

‘What are you thinking about, Laura?’ he says, gently squeezing my fingers.

‘How random life is. How quickly things change. How you never, ever know what’s around the corner.’

He lets out a small, rueful laugh, opens his mouth as if to say something, then shakes
his head again.

‘What is it, Adam?’

‘There’s a poem Mum put up, after my father left. I can’t remember the words, but it’s by Rumi, and it’s something about greeting all things – good and bad – with the same attitude. Because what looks like bad news sometimes turns out to be good – and vice versa. Does that make any sense?’

I think back to Tom. How at the time it felt like my future was being
torn from me, but now it feels like I dodged a bullet. I could have had kids with him – he’d still have been a liar and a cheat.

‘You’re not going to say everything happens for a reason, are you, Adam?’

‘No . . . just that you don’t know what things are, sometimes, till you’re further down the line.’

‘What made you think of that poem?’

He pauses, as if he’s about to say something else, then
shakes his head. ‘I guess . . . being in Mum’s house. This view, this peace – seeing how she turned her life around.’

But there’s more to it than that.

‘You couldn’t drive to the shops even if they were open on a Sunday night,’ I say, holding up the empty bottle of red wine.

‘Grab another,’ he says, pointing to a small wooden rack nestled in the corner of the living room. ‘I totally should
have planned this whole trip better. I wanted to make you something with local ingredients. Not even a packet of pasta in the cupboard. Mum just buys everything fresh when she’s here . . . Hold on a minute – beans! One measly Tetra Pak of cannellini beans. All I’m ever going to make for you, Laura Parker, is beans,’ he says, laughing.

While Adam is cooking, I pop upstairs for a shower. It feels
mildly ridiculous to change into a little black dress if there’s just the two of us in the living room. Instead I put on my sexy underwear, a lower cut top and my jeans, and head back down to the kitchen when I hear Adam calling my name.

‘You look pretty,’ he says, kissing me. ‘Minty breath.’

‘Dinner smells amazing!’

Laid out on the counter are two bowls, each filled with a perfect pile of
creamy beans, flecked with little red dots of chilli and topped with tiny blue rosemary flowers.

‘It’s just beans, olive oil, chilli and rosemary,’ he says, leading the way again to the garden. ‘But actually the raw materials are pretty good quality.’

Back on the deckchairs we sit and eat, looking out at the distant yellow and white lights shimmering over the endless horizon. Lavender still
perfumes the air, and the night sky is crisp and clear. We gaze at the silver sliver of moon, and the constellations sprinkled across the vast black canvas, in wonder.

‘Are you sure the food was OK?’ he says, finally taking my bowl from my lap and placing it down on the grass, inside his.

‘I’d take that over dinner at Nobu any day – that was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.’

‘You say
the sweetest things, Laura.’ He sighs contentedly and takes my hand again. ‘Oh dear! Your poor fingers feel like they’re getting a little cold.’

‘They are! They’re freezing!’

‘Then maybe we should go inside.’

We move to the sofa and start kissing and before long I end up sitting on his lap, facing him. All I can think about is sex. I’m pretty sure the sex will be good – the kissing has been
amazing – but as Adam’s hands reach down my lower back and gently pull me towards him, I find myself so turned on I actually feel almost sick with desire. As he pulls off his T-shirt and my top, I find myself having to lean back and take a deep breath to compose myself.

‘You OK?’ he says, stopping to look at me, and tracing his finger down the middle of my body.

I put my hand down to touch his
firm, flat stomach. ‘Good, yeah, I’m good. Keep going . . .’ I say, as he gently strokes my nipples with the tips of his fingers. ‘That feels
so good
. . .’

Within minutes, he is down to his boxer shorts and I am in my knickers and I can feel him through my knickers, hard between my legs. I kiss his neck and I feel him push towards me, then suddenly stop.

‘Are
you
OK, Adam?’

He blows out in
frustration and looks at me with an embarrassed expression.

‘What’s wrong, Adam?’ He hasn’t lost his erection, I can feel it between the tops of my thighs.

‘I haven’t got any condoms,’ he says, looking pained. ‘I packed in such a rush. I’m sorry.’

‘Mmm . . .’ I say, kissing behind his ear. ‘That’s OK, we can do it anyway, I’m on the pill.’

He takes his hands away from where they are, currently
cupping my bottom, and puts them down by his side.

‘What’s wrong? You haven’t got any lurgies have you?’ I say.

‘It’s not that,’ he says, looking away awkwardly.

‘Well, I’m fine too . . .’ I say, kissing his neck and then his shoulder. I feel him straining against me, and I push myself harder against him. ‘Just do it . . . please, that feels so good, oh God I want you . . .’ I move to kiss
his lips but he jerks his head to one side, recoiling, as if I’d just belched.

That
does not feel good at all.

He pushes me gently but firmly off his lap and stands. ‘I’m sorry Laura . . . I can’t . . .’

‘Adam, I haven’t got anything, I even have the text from the clinic to prove it! Don’t put your jeans back on, Adam, what are you doing? Adam? Where are you going? Adam?’

Is this the most
humiliated I’ve ever felt, I wonder, as I sit on the side of the bed, fully clothed again, picking at my thumbnail? What has been worse than this? Food poisoning on the train from Delhi to Mumbai? Different sort of bad. Am I more mortified than humiliated? Mortified’s worse, isn’t it? Mortified’s probably the one.

Three twenty-five a.m. He’s been gone for nearly three hours. Has he gone back
to the airport to catch the first flight home? The car’s still here. Now what am I meant to do? Drink, clearly.

I walk back down to the kitchen and pour myself a large glass of wine and take it out to the garden. I strain my ears for any sound of taxis: nothing but silence and my internal soundtrack of shame. After half an hour of imagining I can hear cars approaching, I pour another glass of
wine, head back upstairs and lie down on the bed, fully clothed.

I wake to the sound of the front door gently closing. I hold my breath and hear footsteps treading softly up the stairs. I do hope it’s not a serial killer because that would just make a perfect end to my perfect night.

‘Hello?’

The door opens and Adam’s head pops round the side of it, looking thoroughly apologetic. ‘I didn’t
think you’d still be awake.’

I sit half up and rest on my elbows. ‘What time is it anyway?’ Outside it’s still dark, but the birds have started to tweet. ‘What happened, where did you go?’

He comes and lies down next to me on the bed and puts his arm out for me to rest on.

‘It’s OK, Adam, we don’t have to have sex . . . I can be your friend, I think. If you don’t fancy me? If you don’t fancy
girls?’

‘Don’t fancy you? Laura, you are so fucking sexy to me I just want to maul you.’

‘Then what the fuck was all that about?’

‘I just freaked out . . . I’m sorry.’

‘About what? Where did you even go?’

‘I went for a walk . . . to the nearest twenty-four hour chemist!’ He shakes his head, as if laughing at his own ridiculousness. ‘Forgive me?’

He moves in to kiss me again and our lips
touch and it feels as though I’ve been waiting not just the last four hours for him but my whole adult life. He pulls my top up and I yank his T-shirt over his head and he moves on top of me and with his other hand unbuttons his jeans and kicks them awkwardly from round his ankles as neither of us is willing to stop kissing. And now he is on top of me in his boxers and my top is ruched halfway up
my chest and most of our skin is touching and he feels warm and strong and solid on top of me and then I feel him, hard again, through his pants, pressing against my thigh and we are still kissing and he reaches over to his jeans on the floor and takes from the pocket the biggest box of condoms, rips it open, tears one of the foils and in less than twenty seconds he is inside me and I want this moment,
this exact moment to last forever and yet we are now both so breathless and turned on that we manage only seven minutes of urgent, life-depends-on-it shagging before he comes to rest on top of me, legs shaking slightly, his face buried in my neck.

And perhaps it was just two bodies taking what they wanted, what bodies are programmed to do. And yet lying here with Adam, the soles of my feet resting
lightly on the tops of his, I find it almost impossible not to think that perhaps this sense of absolute rightness, this sense of belonging – that this might actually mean something.

We spend the next twelve hours in bed, we miss breakfast, we miss lunch. At one point I must doze off and when I wake, Adam opens his eyes too. We smile, we kiss – and then he slowly takes his finger and points it
to his eye, to his heart and then to me.

On the plane home Adam dozes off and I find myself sitting with a dumb grin on my face, replaying my memories from earlier. Does everyone do this? I keep going back over certain bits, thinking maybe they’ll lose their charge if I play them too many times, but the thoughts still make me lose my breath. The look in Adam’s eyes when he was on top of me, that
absolute lack of apology or shyness – it was the eye contact, not some lad-mag move, that was the greatest turn on of all. And that is how I now feel: turned on. Like the body I had yesterday is not the same body I have now. It is different – yes, currently a little spent, but it feels charged, revved up – reminded what it is capable of.

How long does it take to fall in love? One breakfast, one
lunch, two dinners? A month? Does it creep up on you, or hit you in the face? Was it yesterday, when he was singing show tunes in the car like his life depended on it? I think I loved him a little from the doughnut.

Oh good lord, help me, I sound like a moony teenager. Sophie warned me this would happen – I’m lost in the hot sex cloud. It’s not love. It’s just hormones. Oxytocin. Nothing more.
It’s not love, just sex. My mind swings back and forth like a metronome. Everything/nothing/everything/nothing.

On the coach back into London I rest my head on Adam’s shoulder as we drive along the darkened stretch of the M11, the occasional light twinkling in the distance. The coach is packed, but the stifling heat and the smell of other people’s salami sandwiches does nothing to dent my happiness.