Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

‘Sorry,’ I said quietly.

‘Sorry,’ Annis mouthed silently and crinkled her forehead with worry lines.

I closed the door gently, then clomped down the stairs to the kitchen. I grabbed the bottle of Urquell, emptied it, opened another from the fridge. I lit a cigarette and puffed at it, standing by the stove, looking at nothing in particular.

This had never happened before. The triangle that was Tim, Annis and myself had lasted for. . was it three years already? But we had been what I liked to think of as discreet about it. Annis lived with me but from time to time stayed the night at Tim’s place. No one counted the nights and we never talked about it. Normally Annis and I slept in my large bedroom with the big windows at the front; only when Tim stayed over did she sleep in her own room and Tim on a sofa downstairs. . We had never discussed this, yet an unspoken rule had just been broken. Only, when I thought about it, this seemed rather petty. A ‘not under this roof’ rule could surely only be there so I might conveniently forget that I was sharing Annis’s sexual favours with Tim and had done so right from the start. Then why was I so. . I was looking for the right word and was surprised when I found it. . bloody upset about it?

Behind me Annis padded barefoot into the kitchen. I didn’t turn around. Listened to her light a cigarette from the packet on the table and inhale. ‘You want to talk?’ she asked quietly.

I turned round then. She was wearing jeans, a crumpled black T-shirt and electrified hair. ‘What’s to talk about?’

She sat down at the table. ‘Then why make me feel like I’ve done something really bad? You’re unhappy, so let’s talk about it.’

‘No, it’s just. .it’s just it never happened before. I thought you and Tim wouldn’t. . I don’t know. Where’s his bloody car?’

‘He’d been drinking, came by cab.’

‘But you don’t normally. .’ I stubbed out the cigarette and fumbled for another one.

‘Sleep with him here? Not usually, no. It just happened like that today.’

Having got the cigarette lit I sucked hard on it, then nearly choked on the smoke trying to talk through it. ‘And it was really important that you. . shagged him this minute? It couldn’t have waited? I didn’t know things between you were so passionate, so urgent.’

‘It wasn’t like that, Chris. Tim was feeling down, he wanted to see me. He said he needed me and I told him to come over.’

‘So next time you’re at his place and I’m down and I need you you’re going to invite me round Tim’s for a shag while he’s out getting you a takeaway, is that it?’

‘No, of course not, but then it would never happen anyway.’ She twirled the glass ashtray around in front of her with a sudden, sharp movement.

‘What? What wouldn’t?’

‘You calling me and saying you need me.’

I was confounded by this. ‘But I do need you.’

‘Do you.’ It wasn’t a question, it was a flat statement of doubt.

‘Of course I need you, I love you,’ I protested.

Annis smoked silently for a while and chased a spent match round the ashtray with her cigarette. ‘You never said.’

‘What do you mean, of course I did, I must have done, I mean. . Didn’t I?’ I sank into a chair opposite her.

‘Believe me, Chris, I’d remember.’

‘But you know, don’t you? You do know I love you.’

She seemed to think about it for a moment. She looked sad all of a sudden, and tired. She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I know you’re fond of me, I mean we’ve lived here together for years now and. . But then we lived here for two years before we ever slept with each other. And if it hadn’t been for me climbing into the bath with you we probably never would have. And you didn’t object when you found out I was sleeping with Tim then.’

‘That’s hardly fair, I think your exact words were, “If you two are going to make a big deal out of this I won’t sleep with either of you again,” so what did you expect us to do? Specifically what was I supposed to do that I didn’t?’

‘I don’t know. But whatever it was you didn’t do it.’

‘We’d only just started going to bed together, I didn’t know then that. . how. . I was going to feel about you later, how could I, and then everything seemed to run along fine. It was you who made the rules, anyway. Tim and I had no say in it. You decided.’

‘You didn’t have to accept it, Chris. If I told you to jump in the mill race you wouldn’t do that.’ In a quieter tone she said: ‘Tim finds it hard. Tim always found it hard to share me. And you think it’s all on my terms but I find it hard to share me sometimes. This isn’t normal, you know, what we’re doing.’

‘You started it.’

‘Will you stop saying that? As though it made any difference! It’s got nothing to do with what’s happening now!’

‘What is happening now?’ I was suddenly scared. I was more scared than I had been for a long time.

‘I don’t know that anything is. Perhaps there should be, I really don’t know. You’re the grown-up. You’re nearly twice my age, I always thought you’d know all this stuff. I didn’t plan this, I didn’t go out of my way to create this kind of life for myself, it just happened and it happened because I was here and you were here. Getting it on with both you and Tim was just me in a weird mood then. I never thought about it for the long term, I never thought it through at all. As you said, it had only just started. And I didn’t do it so you could fight about me, either. But neither of you did, you just seemed to think it was all right that we had this triangle. It seemed quite hip, somehow, I was impressed. With myself as well.’

‘And now?’

‘I keep telling you, I don’t know. Your supper’s burning, I think.’

At that moment I could smell it too. I shot up out of my chair and pushed the pots off the heat. The pasta was just boiling dry and the sauce was nothing but a sizzling dribble at the bottom of the pan. This was becoming a habit.

I turned to Annis who was already at the door. She paused. ‘When did you first realize?’

‘What?’

‘That you loved me?’

I thought back, trying to remember.

Annis slipped out of the door.

There was no sign of Tim next day when I carefully carried my hangover downstairs, in the middle of the morning, following the smell of coffee into the kitchen. I lowered myself slowly on to a chair. Annis was there at the stove, insinuating long strips of bacon into a pan of sizzling oil.

‘Want some?’ she asked. ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’

‘No thanks, I’m feeling a bit. . delicate. Where’s that coffee I can smell?’

She poured me a mug from the cafetière and shoved it in front of me, then unsuccessfully tried to run her hand through my tangled hair.

‘Is your hair part of the Make Space for Wildlife initiative?’

‘My hair hurts, I can’t possibly brush it.’

‘I thought Pilsner didn’t give you a hangover?’

‘It does if you try and drink all of it.’

‘Ah.’ She rummaged around in a drawer and found a squashed carton of painkillers. So that’s where they lived. She doled out two pills into my eager hand. ‘Eejit.’

I looked round the kitchen. Annis followed my gaze in silent triumph. The place was spotless and sparkled, despite the gloom of the day. She hadn’t just cleaned the place, she had burnished it.

‘Talking of filth. .’ I told Annis my muddy tale while she sat down and attacked a couple of eggs, a mountain of fried mushrooms and a pile of crispy bacon. ‘Is that breakfast?’ I asked.

‘Second breakfast. I’ve been up for hours . You want to borrow the Landy then.’