Kate Morton - The Distant Hours

‘You’re wet,’ Tom had said, his back against the door he’d just slammed shut. He was staring at her flimsy frock, the way it clung to her legs.

‘Wet?’ she said. ‘I’m soaked enough to benefit from a good wringing.’

‘Here,’ he slid his spare shirt from the hook behind the door and tossed it to her, ‘put this on while you dry.’

And she’d done as he suggested, pulling off her dress and slipping her arms inside his sleeves. Tom had turned away, pretending business at the small porcelain sink, but when she’d looked, interested to know what he was doing, she’d caught his eyes in the mirror. She’d held them just a moment longer than was usual, long enough to notice when something in them changed.

The rain continued, the thunder too, and her dress dripped in the corner where he’d hung it to dry. The two of them gravitated towards the window and Juniper, who didn’t usually suffer from shyness, said something pointless about the birds and where they went in the rain.

Tom didn’t answer. He reached out his hand, bringing his palm to rest on the side of her face. The touch was only light, but it was enough. It silenced her and she inclined towards it, turning just enough so that her lips grazed his fingers. Her eyes remained on his, she couldn’t have moved them if she’d tried. And then his fingers were on the shirt buttons, her stomach, her breasts, and she was aware, suddenly, that her pulse had shattered into a thousand tiny balls, all of them spinning now in concert, right throughout her body.

They’d sat together on the windowsill afterwards, eating the cherries they’d bought at the market and dropping the stones onto the puddled ground below. Neither of them spoke, but they caught one another’s attention occasionally, smiling almost smugly, as if they, and they alone, had been let in on a mighty secret. Juniper had wondered about sex, she’d written about it, the things she’d imagined she might do and say and feel. Nothing, though, had prepared her for the fact that love might follow it so closely. To fall in love.

Juniper understood why people referred to it as a fall. The brilliant, swooping sensation, the divine imprudence, the complete loss of free will. It had been just like that for her, but it had also been much more. After a lifetime spent shrinking away from physical contact, Juniper had finally connected. When they lay together in that sultry dusk, her face pressed warm against his chest, and she listened to his heart, absorbed its regular beat, she’d felt her own, calming to meet it. And Juniper had understood, somehow, that in Tom she’d found the person who could balance her, and that more than anything, to fall in love was to be caught, to be saved…

The front door shut with a bang, and there was noise then on the stairs, Tom’s footfalls winding up and up towards her, and with a sudden rush of blinding desire Juniper forgot about the past, she turned away from the garden, from the stray cat with his leaves and the sad old lady crying for Coventry Cathedral, the war outside the window, the city of stairs that led to nowhere, portraits on walls without ceilings, and kitchen tables of families who no longer needed them, and she flitted across the floor and back to bed, shedding Tom’s shirt on the way. In that moment, as his key turned in the door, there was only him and her and this small, warm flat with a birthday dinner laid out.

They’d eaten the cake in bed, two enormous slices each, and there were crumbs everywhere. ‘It’s because there’s not a lot of egg,’ said Juniper, sitting with her back against the wall and surveying the mess with a philosophical sigh. ‘It isn’t easy to make things stick together, you know.’

Tom grinned up at her from where he lay. ‘How knowledgeable you are.’

‘I am, aren’t I?’

‘And talented, of course. A cake like that one belongs in Fortnum & Mason.’

‘Well, I can’t tell a lie, I did have a little help.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Tom, rolling onto his side, stretching as far as he could towards the table and capturing the newspaper-wrapped parcel – just – within his fingertips. ‘Our resident cook.’

‘You know he’s not a cook, really, he’s a playwright. I heard him speaking with a man the other day who’s going to put on one of his plays.’

‘Now, Juniper,’ said Tom, carefully unwrapping the paper to reveal a jar of blackberry jam inside. ‘What business does a playwright have making anything as beautiful as this?’

‘Oh lovely! How heavenly,’ said Juniper, lunging for the jar. ‘Think of the sugar! Shall we have some now with toast?’

Tom pulled his arm back, holding the jam out of reach. ‘Is it possible,’ he said incredulously, ‘that the young lady is still hungry?’

‘Well no. Not exactly. But it isn’t a matter of hunger.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘It’s a matter of a new option presenting itself after the fact. A sweet and glorious new option.’

Tom turned the jar round in his fingers, paying close attention to the delicious red-black spoils inside. ‘No,’ he said at length, ‘I think we should save it for a special occasion.’

‘More special than your birthday?’

‘My birthday’s been special enough. This we should keep for the next celebration.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Juniper, nestling in against his shoulder so his arm contained her, ‘but only because it’s your birthday, and because I’m far too full to get up.’

Tom smiled around his cigarette as he lit it.

‘How was your family?’ said Juniper. ‘Is Joey over his cold?’

‘He is.’

‘And Maggie? Did she make you listen as she read the horoscopes?’

‘Very kind of her it was, too. How else am I supposed to know how to behave this week?’

‘How else indeed?’ Juniper took his cigarette and drew slowly. ‘Was there anything interesting, pray tell?’

‘Marginally,’ said Tom, sneaking his fingers beneath the sheet. ‘Apparently I’m going to propose marriage to a beautiful girl.’

‘Oh, really?’ She squirmed when he tickled her side and a smoky exhalation became a laugh. ‘That is interesting.’

‘I thought so.’

‘Though of course the real question is what the young lady is forecast to say by way of reply. I don’t suppose Maggie had any insight into that?’

Tom pulled his arm back, rolling onto his side to face her. ‘Unfortunately, Maggie couldn’t help me there. She said I had to ask the girl myself and see what happened.’

‘Well, if that’s what Maggie says… ’

‘So?’ said Tom.

‘So?’

He propped himself up on an elbow and adopted a posh voice. ‘Will you do me the honour, Juniper Blythe, of becoming my wife?’

‘Well, kind sir,’ said Juniper, in her best impersonation of the Queen, ‘that depends on whether one might also be permitted three fat babies.’

Tom took the cigarette back and smoked it casually. ‘Why not four?’

His manner was light still, but he’d dropped the accent. It made Juniper uneasy and somehow self-conscious and she couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Come on, Juniper,’ he pressed. ‘Let’s get married. You and I.’ And there was no doubting now that he was serious.

‘I’m not expected to get married.’

He frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

A silence fell between them, remaining unbroken until the kettle whistled in the flat downstairs. ‘It’s complicated,’ said Juniper.

‘Is it? Do you love me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then it isn’t complicated. Marry me. Say yes, June. Whatever it is, whatever you’re worried about, we can fix it.’

Juniper knew there was nothing she could say that would please him, nothing except yes, and she wasn’t able to do that. ‘Let me think about it,’ she said finally. ‘Let me have some time.’