The Winter Children (18 page)

The caravan suddenly erupts with sound. The radio has been turned up full blast. A moment later, there is a strange rocking, and Julia feels the steps shifting slightly underneath her.

‘And that,’ Donnie says, cocking his head towards the caravan’s interior. ‘He’s a loony but I guess he’s far from home. Away from his wife and kids. Wanting
what all the men want. He’s just lucky enough to get it. But if he gets caught . . .’ He puffs violently on his cigarette. ‘It’ll be a bloody mess, that’s all.’
He shoots a look at Julia. ‘And you and me . . . we’ll get caught up in it, even if we both think it’s no good.’

‘You mean . . .’ Julia’s struggling to take in what he’s saying. ‘He’s married?’

‘Course he is. His fifth kid is on the way.’

‘I’ve got to tell Alice,’ she says, getting up quickly. Donnie reaches up and grabs her hand, his blue eyes shining in the refracted light.

‘No,’ he says urgently. ‘Don’t go in there. All right? Don’t go in.’

‘But what are they doing? Dancing?’

‘Oh, Holy Mary,’ Donnie says and laughs under his breath. ‘No. Not dancing. You can’t go in. It’ll be over soon enough. Wait out here with me.’

She looks down and realises he is still holding her hand. It’s smooth and warm, encompassing hers with ease. A strange feeling creeps upwards from her toes. Everything becomes concentrated
within her hand and the sensation of its being held by Donnie. It’s making her dizzy.

‘All right,’ she says, sinking down beside him.

‘Good girl.’ He lets go of her hand. She wishes he would hold it again.

They sit together in the cold, looking out into the night as the caravan rocks and rocks and rocks, and the sound of the music wails in the air.

Olivia wakes in bed, luxurious, replete with sleep. She has just had a delicious dream, but she can’t remember what it was about. She yawns, sighs and thinks. Then, suddenly, she is wide
awake. She rolls over to the broad white expanse of Dan’s back curving away from her. They generally start the night spooned into each other and wake back to back. She shakes him lightly.
‘Dan!’

He grunts, and is then alert, turning towards her. ‘What?’

Since the twins were born, they have both developed the ability to snap awake. Olivia thinks it’s like a superpower,
the way they can hear, in the depth of sleep, the faint mosquito-buzz wail that means one baby has woken up. Then there’s the race to get there before the other stirs and wakes too.

‘Listen,’ she whispers, and they are both still, straining to hear something in the silence.

‘What is it?’ Dan asks. ‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘Neither can I.’ She laughs, low and throaty. ‘That’s the point. It’s five to seven. And there’s not a peep.’

Dan looks at his watch and laughs too. ‘Oh my God. Do you think it’s started? The long walk back to a civilised life?’

‘It might have. It’s the first time but it’s a start. Right?’

‘Yep.’ Dan yawns loudly. ‘But you could’ve let me sleep a bit longer. I was just about to get Scarlett Johansson’s number.’

‘Oh dear.’ Olivia runs a finger along his arm. ‘I suppose you’ll just have to make do with me.’ She slides her hand along the smoothness of his back, over his waist
and downwards. ‘Well, well, you certainly were happy to get that number, weren’t you?’

She has his solid morning erection in her hand, caressing its smoothness as she drops her lips on his shoulder. He turns to her and presses his lips on hers. They both luxuriate in the warmth of
the bed, the closeness of their skin, and the softness of their mouths. She catches the slight staleness of his breath and doesn’t mind it. One of the things she loves about Dan is how he
always smells good to her, even when he ought not to. She likes him sweaty and tangy from the garden best of all but now, with the fragrance of their bed in his hair, he’s still delicious.
It’s always been that way, right from the start. She dates the beginning of her love for him from the first time he gave her his jumper to wear and she smelled its honeyed scent.

‘I didn’t get her number, remember,’ he murmurs against her mouth, his voice buzzing on her lips. ‘That’s the point.’

‘But you were pleased to see her.’ She laughs again, grasping him hard. His mouth opens on hers and they kiss properly. It’s sleepy and sweet for a while, then, at the
same moment, they are both possessed with need. Sex has been relegated to whenever they’re less tired than usual, and even then it’s become more perfunctory than ever before. She vaguely
recalls a time when they made love several times a week, and regularly spent hours at the pursuit. She can’t imagine that now. How on earth did they have the time, let alone the energy?

But in this moment, triumphant in the twins’ late sleeping, she is seized with some of the old vigour and enthusiasm. Dan seems to feel the same way. He dips his head to her breasts and
takes a nipple in his mouth.
Not quite the same breasts as they once were
, she remembers ruefully, thinking of the way they have shrunk and lost their firmness, and she hopes they still do
the job as far as Dan is concerned. He always used to love them so.
Still, he seems quite happy right now.
He’s rolling his tongue around the nipple while his hand grasps her other
breast. She is quickly and thoroughly aroused, and wants to have him as soon as possible. She pulls his head upwards so that she can have his mouth again, and they intensify their kisses. Dan
shifts and she makes way for him, so that he can lie between her thighs and rest his chest on hers. They revel in the sensation of skin on skin, and Olivia grasps him tightly, wrapping her arms
around him, knowing he likes to be held like this. When their mouths part, she inhales the sweet smell of his neck and bites lightly on the skin there. He manoeuvres himself so that they can be, at
last, joined together and as he presses down, Olivia sighs happily, closing her eyes and giving herself over to the feeling of completeness she always gets in that first moment, when her body accepts his. Then they start to find a rhythm, moving back and forth to meet each other. She loves the weight of his body on her and the solid strength of his
thrust. Her mind turns loose and fluid as she relinquishes conscious thought for animal enjoyment. They start to gather pace, feeding off one another’s excitement. Dan’s panting
whooshes in her ear before he returns to her mouth to kiss hard and thoroughly. Her limbs begin to tingle and she feels the rising of pleasure from deep inside.

There is a shout from down the corridor. ‘Maaaa-meeee!’

They stop, staring into one another’s eyes, panting.

It comes again. ‘Maaa-meee! Daaaa-deeee!’

‘Oh God,’ groans Dan.

‘Ignore it.’ Olivia pulls him close to her again and wriggles her hips to reinvigorate him. ‘Come on, we’re so close . . .’

‘Okay.’ He kisses her, and begins to move again, grunting with the pleasurable effort, and then buries his face in her neck, his breath loud in her ear.

She pushes up to meet him, straining to recapture the feelings of surrender and enjoyment.
Don’t listen
, she tells herself.
We only need five minutes . . .

‘Maaa-meee! Daaa-deee!’

They’re both resolute, pressing on. She rubs her hand down his back to his buttocks, urging him to continue.

Another voice joins in. ‘Maaa-meee, we’re awaaaaake!’

‘Oh God,’ Dan says again, and he stops, his eyes apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think I can. I can’t concentrate.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Olivia sighs. ‘Nor can I.’ They gaze at one another in regretful understanding. ‘Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.’

‘Same time, same place, tonight,’ Dan declares and gently lifts off her.

‘It’s a date.’ She smiles. It might happen, but they are usually too shattered at bedtime to do much more than read a few pages of their books and pass out. They move apart
and a moment later, they are both pulling on pyjamas, ready to respond to the treble voices piping along the hall.

‘Daaa-deee! Come and get us!’

‘Coming, you rascals!’ roars Dan. ‘Are you ready for the Daddy monster?’

Shrieks and giggles burst from the children’s room as Dan heads out, throwing a resigned look at Olivia over his shoulder as he goes. ‘Later,’ he mouths, and she nods with a
smile.

Olivia lies back in the rose-scented bubbles and lets the warm water wash over her. She and Dan have an agreement. One lazy Saturday or Sunday morning each. One gets up and deals with the twins
single-handed, getting both changed and dressed and breakfasted and taking the morning shift up until eleven. The other is free to do what they like: read, sleep, watch a movie, go for a run, take
a bath . . . With Olivia, it nearly always ends up with the bath. She never cared much for baths in the past, preferring the swift efficiency of the shower, but now she adores them: the long,
fragrant soak, the replenishing of hot water, the slow business of shaving her legs or buffing her skin with a loofah, the magazine from the Saturday paper to provide any entertainment she needs. But since they moved here to the Hall, she’s found stimulation enough in simply looking at the high ceiling, the decorative cornice like the icing on some elaborate
wedding cake, and the window that stretches upwards in a huge stone arch. It has panes of stained glass in it, coloured diamonds that glow azure, rose, green and orange. She wonders what this
room was once, long ago, before someone managed to install pipework and waste systems and a hot water cylinder.

I bet they could never have imagined what life in the future would be like.
She wonders what the future holds that she cannot imagine.
But that’s the point. If I could imagine
it, it would hardly be unimaginable.
She recalls from somewhere that Italian princes of the very early Renaissance, as early as the fourteenth century, already had hot and cold running water.
I expect Dan told me that.

That’s been the pattern of their relationship since they first met: Dan is the clever one, the informed one, the one with the Cambridge degree, while she is instinctive and bright without
being overburdened with knowledge. It was partly the reason why she was so reluctant to give him a chance. As soon as she met him, she thought that he was everything she liked least. For one thing,
he was far too good-looking and she’d long learned not to trust the really handsome ones. In her experience, they tended to be conceited, self-absorbed and of the opinion that a woman ought
to be grateful they’d deigned to notice her. For some reason, she found herself the target of the handsome men, not – she was sure – because she was a great beauty but because
they could sense that she was a challenge and they were determined to conquer her. After all, if they were so irresistible, it was a given that a moderately attractive blonde would thank her lucky
stars to get the attention of a truly good-looking man. Her evident imperviousness to their charms seemed to fire up their seduction reflexes. The whole thing bored her silly. She liked men who
amused her; the ones who thought just enough of themselves not to need her to fill a gap in their self-esteem, but not so much that they wanted a meek, hero-worshipping trophy.

When Dan came up to her at a party, she saw the determined look in his eye and thought,
Oh dear, here we go. How am I going to shake him off?

The first few gambits of his conversation only solidified her preconceptions. He tried to amuse her with an abstract joke about Dante’s rhyme scheme. She had no idea what he was talking
about but smiled indulgently and then said she really had to go and talk to her friend, and walked off, leaving him open-mouthed. A little while later, he was at her side again, a little less
ebullient but still trying to impress her and to find out if they had any common ground. ‘Were you at Cambridge?’ he asked.

‘Only for the day,’ she said sweetly. ‘Perhaps you remember me from that.’

He laughed, a touch sheepishly, as though he wasn’t sure who should be embarrassed by the admission.

He followed her around all night, but she’d already seen him with his gang of friends: loud, confident, thinking they were something special because they were among the latest few thousand to graduate from Oxbridge. She didn’t care about all that. She’d opted out of intellectual competition years before, when she’d abandoned A-levels to do a diploma
in gardening at a local college. She’d always longed to be outside, working with the earth and everything it could provide, learning about the beautiful, infinite variety of plants, and the
needs and patterns of the growing world. For years she’d met no one who’d gone to university but she’d learned marvellous lessons and ancient wisdom from the people who trained
her. She’d spent a few years at Kew as an apprentice, and been asked to contribute to the gardens’ literature. A chance appearance on a television programme set there had given her a
path into broadcasting too. Before she knew what was happening, she was writing a column for a national newspaper, involved with the Chelsea Flower Show and appearing on gardening programmes. Not
long after, a literary agent took her on, and she wrote her first book about gardening through the seasons. That was what had really brought her into the world of the cocky, overeducated, arrogant
men who thought that they knew it all, and that she was their willing pupil.

When she shook Dan off that night, she thought that was the last of it. Yes, he was attractive. She pictured his face as she rode the night bus home to Dalston: classically handsome, with dark
hair and piercing blue eyes.
But too arrogant for me. I don’t want to be talked down to. No thanks.

Nevertheless, when he phoned her, she was pleasantly excited to hear from him. It wasn’t going to go anywhere, but it might be fun while it lasted. He was attractive, there was no doubt about it, and when he dropped his lofty, intellectual act, there was an unexpected sweetness about him. They went on
a few casual dates: drinks in a pub, walks along the river, and, at his suggestion, a viewing of an exhibition of gardening paintings. Away from his circle of university friends, he seemed to
relax and return to some version of himself that didn’t need constantly to score points, as though life was a general knowledge game show where the winner had accumulated the most
information, relevant or not. She didn’t mean to play hard to get, it was simply that she didn’t see a future for them. Even when her initial indifference turned to a kind of friendly
affection – when she realised she was storing up jokes and stories to share with him – she still kept her distance. He wanted to kiss her, she knew that, but until she had finished
weighing up whether that was a good idea or not, she wouldn’t even let him hold her hand. He seemed mystified by her behaviour, but also intrigued by it. She noticed that wherever he went,
women’s eyes followed him. She began to see that if he was buying drinks at the bar, he’d be served quickly if it were a woman behind the counter. Waitresses appeared quickly at their
restaurant tables. He took her to a party and girls flirted heavily with him throughout the evening, ignoring her presence at his side.