Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

The German tourist nodded knowledgably. ’Music is very important to the Irish. Boomtown Rats. Thin Lizzy. U2. It’s in their soul.’

He climbed on to the table with Blunt. Eamon came back. He looked up at Blunt and the German, shaking his head. ’Will you look what happens when they watch Titanic one time too many?’

A tray of pints was placed on the table and, trying to upstage the German, who was doing a basic acid house dance – arms waving, feet planted, the antithesis of the common or garden Riverdance – Blunt attempted to execute an advanced Lord of the Dance leap across the stout. That’s when he fell off the table and landed face first in an Australian tourist’s cheese and tomato toastie. Eamon sipped his mineral water and smiled at Kazumi. My spirits dipped. Eamon wasn’t going to try to sleep with her, was he? The drugs had replaced the girls in his life. But now the drugs were gone.

Then the band got stuck into ’Brown-Eyed Girl’ and the whole place was up on its feet. A handsome young Italian approached Kazumi and asked her if she wanted to dance. Suddenly Evelyn Blunt was between them, his red face scowling, and a slice of tomato hanging from one sweaty eyebrow.

’She’s taken, mate.’

They eventually threw us out.

The visitors were willing to go right through till dawn, but the young red-haired bartender had to get up for his IT course at college in the morning.

So the four of us walked back along a rutted country road where the only light was the twinkling canopy of stars and the only sound was the roaring boom of the sea.

That and the tourists throwing up in the coach car park.

It was hard to sleep in that farmhouse by the bay.

The night winds whipped off the Atlantic and made the ancient timbers of the farmhouse creak and groan like a ship tossed on a stormy sea. And it was freezing – my M &S pyjamas were supplemented with an old Fish on Friday T-shirt and thermal socks, and I still shivered under the wafer-thin duvet that was there for the summer trade.

But tonight it wasn’t the cold or the noise that kept me awake. It was the thought of Kazumi huddled beneath the sheets of the room at the top of the house. That’s what truly kept me from sleeping. And that’s why I was awake when she knocked on my door at three in the morning.

She was wearing tartan pyjamas. That girl liked her tartan more than any Scot I ever knew. She was also wearing chunky socks and a woollen hat. It must have been even colder at the top of the building. I blinked at her, uncertain if this was a dream. Then she spoke. In a whisper, as if afraid of waking the house.

’Sorry,’ she said.

’It’s okay. What’s wrong?’

’Problem in room.’

I followed her across the darkened living room and, carefully, up a short ladder to the top of the farmhouse. Evelyn Blunt was lying on his stomach across her bed, mouth agape and drooling, snoring loudly.

’Said he went to toilet and got the wrong room coming back,’ she said.

We looked from the drunken hack to the rickety ladder that you needed to climb to enter this room. Nobody gets as drunk as that, I thought.

’Big fat liar,’ Kazumi said.

’Did he – did he hurt you at all?’

She shook her pretty head. ’Grabbed my hot-water bottle and then fell asleep. I can’t wake him up.’

Til try.’ I shook his shoulder. ’Wake up, Blunt, you’re in the wrong room. Wake up, you sweaty fat bastard.’

He moaned a bit and held my hand to his cheek, a look of inebriated ecstasy passing across his bloated features. It was no use. I couldn’t stir him.

’You can have my room,’ I told her. Til sleep on the couch.’

’No, no, no.’

’It’s not a problem. Really. Go on. You take my room.’

She looked at me for a moment. ’Or we could – you know share your room.’

In the silence you could hear the sea smashing against the shore.

’Yes,’ I said. ’We could always do that.’

As shy as two five-year-olds on our first day at school, we made our way back to my room. Then we quickly jumped into opposite sides of the bed, and my hopeful heart soared, although I knew that she was driven not by passion, but by the possibility of hypothermia.

I lay on my back, with Kazumi turned away from me. I could hear my breathing, feel her body warmth, and when I couldn’t stand it any more I reached out and lightly touched her ribs, feeling the brushed cotton of her tartan pyjamas on the palm of my hand.

’No, Harry,’ she said, a bit sad, but not moving.

I took my hand away. I didn’t want to be like Blunt. Whatever else I was, I didn’t want to be that kind of man.

’Why not?’

’You’ve got a wife and son.’

’It’s a bit more complicated than that.’

’And other reasons.’

’Like what?’ I tried out a little laugh. ’Because you’re not that kind of girl? I know you’re not that kind of girl. That’s why I like you so much.’

’I like you too. You’re nice.’

’You do?’

’Yes. You’re funny and kind. And lonely.’

’Lonely? Am I?’

’I think so, yes.’

’Then what’s wrong?’

’You’re not that kind of man.’ She rolled on to her back and looked at me, her brown eyes shining in the moonlight, like a girl in a song by Van Morrison.

I rolled on to my side, loving the way her black hair fell across her face. I touched her foot with mine, woolly sock against woolly sock. She placed the palm of her hand against my chest and it made me catch my breath. Our voices in the dark were as soft as prayers.

’I want to sleep with you,’ I said.

’Then close your eyes and go to sleep.’ Unsmiling.

’You know what I mean. I want to make love to you.’

She shook her head. ’You’re not free.’

’The world wouldn’t care. It’s just you and me. We’re not hurting anyone. Nobody would know, Kazumi,’

’We would know.’

She had me there.

’I don’t want to be the kind of woman who sleeps with a married man. And you don’t want to be that kind of married man.’

’I do.’

’No, Harry. You’re better than that.’ She stroked my face. ’Just hold me,’ she said, rolling on to her side. I pushed up against her, two layers of pyjamas between her bottom and my erection. I put my free arm around her waist and pulled her close. She lifted my arm, placed a chaste kiss on my wrist, and squeezed my hand. We stopped talking, and for a long time I listened to the winds whipping off the Atlantic, the old farmhouse creaking in the night and the soft sound of her breathing.

And as Kazumi slept in my arms, I wondered how you keep a life simple. Do you keep it simple by staying where you are?

Or by starting all over again?

She was gone when I awoke.

I could hear voices down on the rocky beach. From the window I saw Kazumi already up and taking her pictures of Eamon.

Huddled up inside a red fleece, he struck his carefully casual poses – staring moodily out to sea, staring moodily straight at the camera, staring moodily at nothing in particular while she moved around him, briskly click-clicking her way through another roll, changing film, murmuring instructions and encouragement.

A Japanese person with a camera, I thought. One of the clichés of the modern world. The snapping hordes mindlessly documenting every tourist site, and then getting back on the bus. But as I watched Kazumi taking her photographs of Eamon on the wind-lashed beach by Dingle Bay, it seemed to me that this young woman with her camera was possessed by an insatiable curiosity for this world and everything in it, and I felt an enormous surge of tenderness for her and her camera. Plead the fleeting moment to remain, she had told me some poet said of photography. And that’s what she was doing. Pleading the fleeting moment to remain.