Slightly Foxed (35 page)

"As far as I'm concerned, you are too. Oh, and

congratulations." I meant it.

"Thank you."

"How's Tamar?"

"Not too bad. Still a bit sickly. Otherwise she's blooming.

It's Piers we're most worried about. He's been a bit—"

"Hard." Whoops. "I mean, he must be taking it hard.

Moving out and all that." I think I got away with it, because

Alasdair never even flinched.

"Oh, he's decided to go back to the Argentine, work out

there for a bit. He's got dual nationality so there's nothing to

stop him. He's been so terribly restless these last few days.

Wondered if you might have a word with him. His mother will

miss him if he goes."

"Me?" I squeaked. "Why should he listen to
me
?"

"Oh, come on, Alys. You can't tell me you've never noticed

that Piers has the most almighty crush on you! If you told him

to go and live in the Sahara, he'd buy a camel tomorrow."

"Crush? Has he?" My voice had gone very small. How did I

feel about the prospect of him leaving the country?

"Good Lord, yes. Has done for years. No wonder he's

confused with the girls he goes out with. Maybe you could

have a quiet word with him about that too. You know, point

him in the right direction?"

"I'm not sure he needs any help with that," I muttered

weakly. "I'll go and find him, shall I?"

"Oh, no need, he'll have gone up to his flat. You know the

way, I believe? Oh, and Alys—"

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"Mmmmm?" I was thinking,
Please don't make me go into

his flat. Please. Things might happen. You know, things...

Things I had determined to myself would never happen again
.

Couldn't. Shouldn't. Ought not to—

"I admire you. Turning down the money that I offered. I

realise now that you were doing it from the most honourable

of reasons. I had thought that you were being typically

stubborn, all that 'I can do it alone' sort of thing, which is why

I used to overindulge Florrie a little. But now I see it was

because you
did
know and I think it was jolly decent of you.

Misguided, but decent."

"And you're not worried about her modelling?"

"Goodness, no. What is it Piers says? Ah yes, 'If you've got

it, flaunt it.' I am certainly prepared to give her the help she

needs to get her career underway, and if it fails...at least

she'll have stories to tell her grandchildren."

Well. Marriage to Tamar had certainly loosened Alasdair up

a bit. In fact, he was so loose he was nearly unravelled. I

made my way up the stairs which led to Piers's flat, thinking

that if Florence carried on modelling wearing the tiny little

clothes she had been, she'd probably have grandchildren

before she was thirty.

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On reaching his front door, I found myself physically

incapable of knocking. Only Alasdair standing behind me

stopped me from running. I couldn't do this. Piers deserved—

Piers
needed
someone, someone better than me, someone

who wanted him, loved him for himself. Not as a rebound.

When he opened the door at Alasdair's knock, I nearly

turned and flung myself down the stairs. "Go on, Alys. Piers

won't mind you going in," Alasdair encouraged.

I followed Piers inside, not knowing what to say. He draped

himself over a chair and waved an arm to indicate that I

should do the same, but I didn't have half his style and

settled for perching rather awkwardly, hands between knees,

searching for a conversational topic that wouldn't
and couldn't

be thought of as sexual. "I wonder where Jace is."

"Maybe it's something, y' know, private."

"If you mention the words 'women's trouble', I swear I'll

swing for you." God, I needed a drink. There were far too

many unspoken emotions around in this room.

"Hey, I'm a New Man, just had twenty minutes of Ma

telling me how her boobs are too big to let her get into a size

eight. You want vodka?" The grin he slid my way was as

warm and crisp as new toast. "Or are we still pretending that

yesterday didn't happen?"

"I don't want a drink. When I drink with you I end up with

a killer hangover."

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"Yeah. Ever wonder why that is?" Piers hauled himself up,

flipping to his feet with a twang of muscle tone. "D'you reckon

it's because the only time you can really relax, really let

yourself go, is with me?"

"I reckon," I called after him as he went into the see-

through kitchen and fetched drinks from the walk-in chiller

cabinet with the transparent door and mirrored back, "that

it's because you don't know when to stop and you drag me

down with you."

"That's not dragging, that's pulling." He came back

carrying a tray of assorted alcohol in bottles, little pearls of

condensation beading the sides like 1920's cocktail dresses.

My mouth watered as he handed me a frosted glass filled with

liquid and lemon slices. "Consider yourself pulled."

"Cheesy, Piers, very cheesy." But it tasted good and the

relaxation was welcome. "Do they teach you chat-up lines like

that at those expensive schools you went to?"

"All my own work, Ally, all my own work."

Dusk came slanting down across the gardens. The phone

rang and Piers answered it, while I suppressed a smile at the

thought of the damage a toddler would do to those beautifully

coiffed acres. Well, I wouldn't have been human if I couldn't

have indulged in a few moments of Schadenfreude on behalf

of Alasdair and Tamar. A perfect couple with a perfect lifestyle

which cried out for an injection of chaos. I stared at Piers

while he chatted, draping himself ornamentally against the

worktop. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't

even know what I wanted to happen.

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"Fuck." Piers hung up the phone. "Work. Sorry, Ally. Didn't

mean to ignore you."

"Don't worry about it." I helped myself to another tumbler

of the slightly yellow alcohol. Didn't know what it was, it

tasted of melons and grapes, passion fruit and papaya. Surely

anything with that much fruit in it
had
to be good for me?

"It's an on-site translation job, some contacts of Alasdair's,

wanting me up in Aberdeen for a coupla days. Got some guys

from Barcelona coming by." Piers rotated his shoulders

backwards, easing cramped muscles and causing more than a

little fluttering in my stomach, although I was carefully

keeping at least a hand-knotted Kilim rug's distance between

us. "Sorry. Won't bore you with it any more..."

"It's okay." My tongue seemed too big for my mouth.

"Nah. Rather talk to you, yeah?" And then, there he was,

standing beside me as the room grew darker, neither of us

making a move to switch on any lights as though anything

which happened in the shadows didn't really count. "Ally."

"Don't. Piers, it's not fair. You and me."

"What's this 'not fair'? Huh, Ally? We're made for each

other, babe."

"I can't do it. Don't you see, Piers, I'm just repeating what

happened before, with Flick and Alasdair—one guy out, one

guy in."

Piers looked at me long and steady. "You've given the guy

the push? Leo? Whoa, Ally, this is serious stuff. Why didn't

you tell me?"

"Because you're involved. Things were so much easier

when we were just friends. Then I could offload onto you, tell

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you my problems without worrying that you'd—" I stopped

myself.

"That I'd? Oh, I get it. You reckon I'd take advantage?

Hey, sweetie—" Piers came closer, brushed a fingertip over

the tears that fell. "Love doesn't take advantage."

"Piers—" I put one hand on his shoulder, pushed slightly so

that he stepped back. "I've lost Mrs. Treadgold. Now I've lost

you. I need a friend right now, that's all. I don't want to do it

again, jump from one guy to another, even when—"

He smiled. His eyes possessed my face, absorbed me.

"Even when you know you want to?" he asked, gently. "Even

when you want more?" His tongue moved on the side of my

neck, rippled its way down as his hands travelled up under

my shirt. "When this is the grand passion you've always

wanted, and you're going to turn it away because you reckon

you're on the rebound?" The silver on his fingers rolled

against my skin, cool on my nipples. "You are so fucking

screwed-up, Ally."

I gave a sigh, my body hanging in his hands. "Tonight,

because I want—I want to feel. And then—then it's over."

Piers bent over me. Dark hair tingled on my flesh, his

mouth dipping, licking. "You can say that now, Alys," he

whispered, accent much more pronounced when he spoke

softly. "But feeling isn't
here,
" and a light finger traced down

over my stomach, "it's in
here.
" The gentlest of touches on

my forehead. "It doesn't stop just because you think it

should."

Well, what can I say? It was a night of all the most

delicious things in life rolled into one glorious, duvet-twisting,

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sweat-sliding, panting, wanton lubriciousness. It was black

velvet, silk lace, cream, chocolate, strawberries, sunshine,

dead of night, summer rain and blasting thunderstorms. It

was—oh, add your own ideas of pure, ecstatic abandonment.

It was all that. And then he brought out the big guns, fired

the twin barrels of tenderness and concern to hit me direct in

the heart. Whispered beauty, romance and love to me in the

dark as we lay drying our heat in the cool night air, arms,

bodies, mouths entwined.

"Just tonight, Piers"—I found myself repeating like a

mantra which would save my soul—"just tonight."

"Don't cry, Ally."

"Just tonight."

"Yeah."

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I lay on my bed, alone in my flat. Alasdair had taken

Florrie shopping for the new wardrobe she'd need to rise like

a sun into her future while I lay with my head under a pillow

and a cat purring behind my knees, listening to the phone

ring.

Was this madness? I felt heavy, so terribly heavy. My

whole body wanted to sink right down through the mattress,

through the flat below and on down into the earth. The effort

of breathing, of raising and lowering my rib cage was so

taxing that I wanted it to stop.

The pain was sharp. Focussed under my chest but above

my stomach, like an ulcer, like some internal parasitic thing

gnawing away at me. A nasty alien feeling which stopped me

from thinking, simply absorbed me into the hugeness of itself.

The phone rang. Stopped. Rang again. I didn't care.

I must have slept. When I opened my eyes, the sun had

dropped away from my window, Caspar had moved from my

legs and was curled with his tail over his nose. Grainger was

crouching beside my head like a malignant Florence

Nightingale with a personal hygiene problem, staring at me as

though my face had become char-grilled tuna. "Wha'?" I

muttered, and the whole of last night crept up and hit me

round the head. "Oh. Shit."

Grainger continued the cat hypnotism. Caspar stretched

out his dark socks and arched his back but didn't wake.

Taking to my bed in the throes of misery was all very well,

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but it wasn't terribly practical. At least with sleep the sore

feeling around my heart had been anaesthetised to a dull

ache. I could almost forget about it. I tried to hasten the

healing by not letting myself even attempt to pick at the scab.

Instead I got on a bus and headed for work.

"Alys." Simon was outside, kicking next-door's pavement

sign unobtrusively until it was level with their window rather

than ours. "I wasn't expecting—"

"Ah, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition." I slid past

him and in through the door.

"I'm not saying any more about Jacinta." Simon followed

me, already on the defensive.

"It's a quote, Simon.
Monty Python
. Surreal humour. You

know what humour is, don't you?"

Simon eyed me askance. "Yes. It's the third section down

over there, under ghost stories."

"Hurrah. Another expensive education that wasn't wasted.

What
are
you doing?"

Simon was sidling along in front of me now, looking furtive

in a gangling, upper-class way. "Er. Nothing. No, nothing.

Umm. Alys, could you pop out and get me a sandwich

please?"

"Pop
out
? I've only just got here. And it's hardly 'popping'