Peter May - The Chessmen

I felt a constriction in my throat, and all the pent-up desires of my teenage years returned to flood my senses. Here she was, the object of all those fantasies, standing naked in front of me, offering herself in a way that no woman has offered herself to me before or since. By the time I reached her I had already stripped off my T-shirt. I was out of my jeans in seconds, and sharing her nakedness just moments later. We stood, inches apart, looking at each other, both listening to the other breathing in the dark. I knew that the moment I touched her there would be no going back. It would be like opening a floodgate, and I was destined to drown in her.

I cupped my hand around the back of her head and felt the soft bristle of her hair, the shape of her skull, and drew her towards me. From the first touch of our lips I was lost. Our bodies came together, and I felt my passion press hard against her belly as we fell backwards in slow motion on to the bed. Her body so white, framed against the black satin sheets stretched tightly across the mattress. At long last she was mine. But, as always, it was on her terms.

It lasted for more than three months. A relationship based on sex. There were no candlelit dinners or romantic moments. No holding hands or declarations of undying love. Just lust.

We made love at her place, in my bedsit, in the back of the van. In countless hotel rooms. And I never lost my appetite for her. I never stopped wanting her. Nor she me, apparently.

I understood that, really, we were just using each other. She as a means of getting back at Roddy, of flaunting me in his face, hoping to make him jealous. Although, in truth, I think she enjoyed our sexual dalliance as much as I did. For my part, I was only interested in the sex. I never really liked her, but in a strange way became addicted to her. When I wasn’t with her, I found myself missing her. We never spoke much, but in a sense I think that’s what I liked the most. She made no emotional demands on me. There were no moods or fits of jealousy, no requirement to say things I didn’t mean. It was, perhaps, the most sexually fulfilling but undemanding relationship I have ever had.

And so I took it badly when she ended us one night, suddenly and without warning.

We were supposed to be going to a party and had agreed to meet in the bar of the Cul de Sac in Ashton Lane, in Glasgow’s west end. Mairead had said she would meet me at seven. By 8.30 I was still waiting and was on my third pint. The place was crowded, and I could see people milling about in the lane below. There were several restaurants, bars and a cinema in the old cobbled street, and one of the restaurants on the far side had put out tables so that its patrons could enjoy the fine midsummer weather and take advantage of the light nights.

At first I wasn’t worried. Mairead was prone to bouts of lateness, when she decided five minutes before going out that she really had to have a shower. At least she didn’t have to spend hours on her hair, but the make-up could take half an hour. She was very conscious of her appearance or, as she liked to say, her image. Mairead had a mobile phone, and I would have called her. But I couldn’t afford one myself, so that wasn’t an option. I was about to leave and drive over to the Angel Building when I saw her pushing her way through the drinkers towards me. As usual she was turning heads.

‘Hey,’ I said, ‘what happened?’ I went to kiss her cheek but she averted her head in a strangely abrupt movement. I knew at once what was coming.

She moved closer, lowering her voice, and her eyes. ‘Fin, I’m sorry. It’s over.’

I waited until she looked up to meet my eye. ‘Why?’

There was something like exasperation in her voice. ‘You knew it wasn’t for ever, Fin. We both knew that.’

I nodded. ‘We did. But I’d still like to know why.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s no point. Explanations aren’t going to make either of us feel any better about it.’ She suddenly took my face in both of her hands, an intensity in her eyes that I couldn’t remember ever seeing there before, and she kissed me so softly, and with such tenderness, that I might almost have believed she really did feel something for me. ‘I’m so sorry, Fin.’

And she was gone. In those few moments everything I had been and known these last months came to an end. The dream was over. There was no hiding any more. I turned back to the bar and finished my pint.

Outside the air was cool, but soft on the skin. I walked in a daze through the west end, heading instinctively for the party that Mairead and I had been going to. It was in a block of red sandstone flats in Hyndland. I knew I didn’t want to go home. It was far easier to be lonely in a crowd. I would never have believed that breaking up with Mairead could be this painful. The thought that I would never kiss her again, or touch her breasts, or feel her legs wrapped around my back was almost more than I could bear. All I wanted to do was get drunk.

The party was already jumping by the time I got there. I said hi to a few familiar faces, and heard someone ask where Mairead was. I didn’t answer. I found myself a soft seat in a dark corner with a six-pack at my side and sprung open the first can.

The music was deafening, and people were dancing. The girl nearest me stepped back over someone’s handbag and promptly sat down in my lap. A pretty girl with short black hair.

She’d been drinking. She giggled. ‘Ooops. Sorry.’

Maybe there was something about her that reminded me of Mairead. I’m not sure now what it was, but I smiled. ‘Be my guest,’ I said.

She tipped her head and gave me a curious look. ‘Are you at uni?’

‘I am.’

‘I thought I’d seen you somewhere. What year?’

‘Second.’

‘I’m in first.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘We intellectuals ought to stick together. My name’s Fin.’

She giggled again. ‘So we should. I’m Mona.’

And that is how I met the girl who would wake me up in the morning to tell me that Roddy was dead. The girl I would marry, and who would bear my son. The girl I would divorce sixteen years later when the one good thing we had made together was no more.

Mairead was still wearing her coat as if, perhaps, Marsaili had hoped she wouldn’t stay and hadn’t offered to take it. It was long and black, and concertinaed on the floor around her chair. Her style had not changed in all these years. Years that had treated her kindly. They had pared away some of the flesh from around her face, leaving her almost hawk-like but still beautiful, with clear white skin and only the hint of crow’s feet appearing around the corners of her eyes. Her lips were full and strikingly dark in contrast with the rest of her face. There was a knowing quality in their smile, and an odd fondness in her eyes.

‘Hello, Fin,’ she said, and it was as if that final exchange in the Cul de Sac had happened just the night before.

Fin’s eyes flickered towards Marsaili and back again. ‘Hello, Mairead. I see you’re still going to the same hairdresser.’

She grinned, and ran a hand back through her stubble. There was just a little silver appearing in it now, but it hadn’t concerned her enough to dye it. ‘It’s my trademark. They’ll put me in my coffin with my hair like this. Only, I hope it’ll be pure white by then.’

‘You want a cup of tea, Fin?’ Marsaili’s voice cut in on the exchange like a child with her nose out of joint seeking attention.

‘I’ll have a beer,’ he said, and turned to get a bottle from the fridge.

‘Same old Fin.’ Mairead took a sip at her mug. ‘Always with a beer in his hand.’

Fin twisted the cap off the bottle. ‘What are you doing here, Mairead?’