Permissible Limits (36 page)

‘
Of course you do.’ He reached up and kissed me. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘
Don’t be. There’s no need.’

‘
But I am. It must be horrible. Even if it’s not true, it must be horrible. Having to live with the thought that… you know…’ He broke off, shaking his head.

I lay back, watching a pair of headlights sweeping across the wall as a car drove into the courtyard below. After the engine died, there was silence.

‘
If you’re talking about Adam, you’re right,’ I said at length. ‘It’s worse than losing him really, worse than someone phoning you up and telling you he’s dead. Death’s easy. You can blame fate, or bad luck, or a million other things, but doing what Adam did…’ I closed my eyes and turned over in the bed, not wanting to take the thought any further.

After a while, I became aware of Jamie hanging over me. I didn’t know quite what I’d had in mind when I’d booked the room, but a couple of hours seemed to have taken us a great deal further than either of us had expected and I wasn’t altogether sure that I was keen on Jamie shouldering my burdens. That wasn’t his role at all. He was the sunshine in my life. He made me laugh. He made me sing. He made me pleased to be me. He made me forget about Jersey and Steve Liddell and Michelle La Page and all the rest of it. So why did the conversation keep coming back to Adam?

I found Jamie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, trying to share the thought. We were best mates. We had a fabulous relationship. He was the new start, the clean sheet, I’d so desperately needed. The last thing I wanted to do was turn the clock backwards.

‘
Clean sheet?’

I could tell by the tone of his voice that Jamie hated the phrase. Too late, I tried to substitute another.

‘
A challenge,’ I murmured sleepily. ‘The flying, watching you hack it. It’s wonderful, brilliant, I can’t tell you how -’

‘
And us?’ He made no apology for butting in.

‘
Us? We’re here. Isn’t that enough?’

He caught my hand, fending me off.

‘
That’s not what I meant. I love you. I care about you. I want you. Christ, if you only knew…’

‘
Knew what?’

He looked at me for a long time and then shook his head, and for that one split second the expression on his face told me everything. My chatter about clean sheets and new starts had touched a nerve. Like it or not, I’d just opened a brand-new chapter in Jamie’s young life and the consequences for both of us weren’t going to be something I could easily ignore.
Be gentle with him,
Ralph had said.

‘
Do you mind if I write to you?’

‘
When?’

‘
When you’re in Florida. While you’re over there.’

I saw the anxiety in Jamie’s face. He wants to be sure of me, I thought. He wants to rope me down, make me responsible, make me
his.

‘
You’ll be rushed off your feet as soon as the season starts,’ I said lightly. ‘Then there’s Andrea. Any spare moment, she’ll be on your tail, out of the sun, dagga-dagga-dagga.’ I mimed the rattle of cannon fire.

Jamie just looked at me. He wasn’t smiling.

‘
There’s stuff I need to tell you. Explain to you.’

‘
About what?’

‘
Me. The person I really am.’

‘
I know the kind of person you are.’ I brought my hands up from under the sheet, tallying my little list of virtues. ‘You’re talented, and funny, and strong, and wonderful in bed. You’re practical, and sensitive…’ I ran out of compliments. ‘What else could a girl want?’

‘
You think it ends there?’

‘
Of course it doesn’t. No one ends there. I’m just telling you what I love about you… telling you the way I feel… What’s the matter?’

Jamie had swung his legs out of bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he had his back to me. I got up on one elbow, wondering what on earth had happened, what I’d said, why - so suddenly - the mood between us had changed.

‘
Jamie?’

I could see him shaking his head. For a moment, I thought he was crying but when he turned back towards me, his eyes were dry. ‘This isn’t a game,’ he was staring at me, ‘is it?’

‘
A
game?
’

‘
You know what I mean.’ He gestured at the rumpled sheets. ‘A casual fuck. Therapy. Whatever you want to call it.’

I shook my head, appalled. Then I got up and knelt behind him, my breasts against his back, my arms encircling him. ‘Do I make you happy?’ I whispered. ‘Or was this a mistake?’

‘
Mistake?
Christ, no, far from it.’

‘
OK.’ I kissed the back of his neck. ‘So tell me.’

‘
Tell you what?’

‘
Tell me whether I make you happy or not.’

‘
You make me very happy, incredibly happy, that’s the problem.’ His eyes were glistening. I’d been right about the tears. ‘Past a certain point, I’m lost. I know it. I know the feeling, the way it happens. Past a certain point I just… cave in.’

‘
It’s happened before?’

‘
Yes. Once.’

‘
And here? Now?’

‘
Lost’ he mumbled, ‘Completely lost.’

‘
And you think I’m playing games? You really think that?’

‘
No. No, you’re not. Of course you’re not. I just have to ask, that’s all. I just have to be sure.’

He turned round again, imploring, and I tugged him gently back to bed. We lay together for a long time, cheek to cheek, belly to belly, not talking. I held him very close. I could feel his heartbeat against my flesh. After a while, it began to slow. I was on the point of reaching for the light when he slipped out of my arms and got up again.

I could hear him in the bathroom, running water into the wash basin. When he reappeared, he was wiping his face with a towel.

‘
Something’s wrong’ I said, ‘Isn’t it?’

He looked down at me, smiling.

‘
Nothing’s wrong. As long as we both mean it.’

I thought about the proposition for a moment, then I sat up in bed and made myself comfortable. We’d never been less than candid with each other.

‘
Do you think this was a mistake?’ I asked him for the second time. ‘Only it was my idea, my doing. We could push the beds apart. Pretend it never happened.’

‘
Pick up tomorrow morning? Where we left off?’

It was a good question. Both of us knew that was impossible. It had happened. Most of it had been wonderful. But what next?

Jamie was sitting on the edge of the bed again, the towel laid over his lap. I gave him my hand and he stroked it softly. Twice he told me he loved me. Then he stood up and went to the window, letting the towel drop to the floor. He parted the curtains and looked down into the courtyard. It was still quite early and I said something grown-up about people getting funny about guests wandering around naked. Jamie didn’t seem to have heard me. Something had caught his attention. Slowly, he closed the curtains again. Then he came back to bed.

‘
What’s the matter?’ He just stared at me.

‘
How many other people know we’re here?’ he asked at last.

‘
No one.’

‘
Are you sure?’

‘
Absolutely sure. Why? Why do you ask?’ He gestured back towards the window. ‘White Mercedes?’ he queried. ‘With a sunshine roof?’ For a moment I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Then I remembered the drive from the airport to St Helier.

‘
Harald?’ Jamie nodded.

‘
Watching,’ he said. ‘From down there.’

I got out of bed. There was a big blue towel in the bathroom. I wrapped it round myself and pulled back the curtains, staring down. The courtyard was empty. There was no sign of a car.

Jamie had joined me at the window. I could feel the heat of his body next to mine.

‘
He must have gone,’ he said. ‘He must have seen me.’

I looked up at him.

‘
Are you sure?’

‘
Yes.’ His hand found mine. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

Chapter eleven

A couple of days later I flew to Florida. The previous evening, Tuesday, Jamie drove me to London. We spent the night at a small hotel near Heathrow. It was wistful, and passionate, and sad, and we were still awake when dawn broke, talking.

At the airport, beside the queue for passport control, we said our goodbyes. We hugged, and kissed, and when the overhead TV screens announced Final Boarding, Jamie whispered a question in my ear.

‘
Three greens?’

I buried my face in his fleece. Three greens is one of the checks you make before you land. It means all three wheels are down and locked. I looked up at Jamie. He wanted me back in one piece. I couldn’t wait.

‘
Three greens,’ I confirmed.

My flight took off late, delayed by a no-show passenger. I cursed the extra time I could have spent with Jamie, watching Windsor Castle disappear beneath a veil of thin cloud. By the time we were over Ireland, I’d written him my first letter, read it, and torn it up. Halfway across the Atlantic, two more were in shreds around my
feet.
The
American woman sitting next to me thought they looked
like confetti. The image brought tears to my eyes.

By the time we landed in Orlando, I was more or less back in control. I knew Harald would be waiting to meet me and I was absolutely determined to be the Ellie Bruce he’d always known: levelheaded, sane, utterly normal. I no longer cared whether it had really been him in the hotel car park that night. What I did with my private life was none of his business. He was a kind and generous man, and we were the best of friends. End of story.

I spotted him the moment I emerged on to the arrivals concourse. He was standing beside a vending machine, nursing a can of Coke. The sight of me bumping my luggage trolley through a gaggle of kids bound for Disneyworld brought a brief smile to his lips.

‘
Here.’ He took charge of the trolley, kissing me lightly on the cheek. ‘Great to see you.’

We took a cab across the airport to the General Aviation Terminal. Nothing had prepared me for the heat and the sheer brightness of the light, and while Harald paid the driver I stood on the tarmac, feeling the first prickles of sweat inside the creased cotton of my shirt. The flight over had been full to bursting, ten hours in a cramped seat with bad food and worse movies, and I was only too aware of the way I must have looked.

‘
See the flight line?’ Harald was indicating a row of parked aircraft. ‘Second from the end.’

I followed his pointing finger, half-expecting to find a Mustang. Instead, shimmering in the heat, I thought I recognised the high wing and the gently angled tailplane.

‘
A
Cessna?
’

‘
Sure. A 172.’

I glanced at Harald. Adam hd been flying a 172 the day he died. Was this part of the training? An early test of character? Or should I blame it on coincidence and my own hyper-sensitivity? Shouldering the lightest of my bags, I decided on the latter: 172s, after all, were ten a penny. You see them everywhere.

There was a fuel bowser beside the little plane and I stole a moment or two with my vanity mirror while Harald checked the tanks. The face that looked back at me - wary and a little bit dazed -exactly matched the way I was feeling, and we were airborne on a long, climbing turn over the Orlando suburbs before Harald asked me about the flight over. When I told him more or less the way it had been he pulled a face.

‘
I tried for Executive Class.’ He sounded apologetic. ‘I’m sorry you ended up in Coach.’

I heard myself telling him it didn’t matter. The important thing was getting here in one piece. A good night’s sleep would sort me out and by tomorrow I’d be fit for anything.

Harald glanced across, his right hand easing back the throttle.

‘
I was going to talk you through the schedule,’ he murmured, ‘but maybe we ought to wait.’