It had been only the fourth night they’d spent together after a long summer of getting to know each other. Four nights since they’d shared those first ardent ‘I love you’s and fallen into Kelsey’s bed.
On their last night, they’d spent the evening drinking champagne at the Yorick pub with the rest of Norma’s tour guide staff, all out of work and wondering what the autumn ahead held for them, but they’d left before everyone else, keen to make the most of their last precious hours together.
Still light enough in the evenings for the room to glow with the orange and pink of a watery summer’s end sunset, they’d begun peeling away each other’s clothes, letting their eyes take in each new inch of skin as it was exposed, standing over Kelsey’s single bed in her pristine white bedsit at the top of the Victorian building under the terracotta tiles and the sloping eves where the summer heat still lingered.
Kelsey remembered how Jonathan’s breath caught and grew increasingly shaky as she traced her fingertips across his broad collar bones and down his chest, while both of them tried to forget his suitcase by the door, ready for his departure.
‘I can’t believe you’re going and I won’t be able to do this to you whenever I want,’ she said, stretching up on her arches to press a kiss into the thick sinewed warmth of his neck.
For a moment, Jonathan wordlessly relished her lips skimming his skin, rolling his head back and closing his eyes drowsily before bringing Kelsey’s face before his, steadying her with his hands cupping her jaw, his fingertips reaching the nape of her neck.
‘It’ll pass and I’ll come back to you, for Christmas.’ His eyes narrowed as his gaze fell to her lips again.
‘I love you, Kelsey. Now I’ve found you, I won’t ever let you go,’ he said as he trailed his mouth from her lips to her neck and slowly down over her stomach to between her thighs where he’d lingered, making her inner muscles tense and soften as he listened to her moans, letting her responses guide his tongue and soft lips.
She’d told him she loved him too, the words getting lost in gasps as she scrunched his dark brown waves in her fingers, loving the softness of his hair against her skin. There wasn’t a thing about this beautiful man she didn’t love.
No, they’d had no intention of sleeping that last night. She’d had time enough to make sure he understood exactly how she felt before three a.m. and the cabby’s knock.
He’d left, Kelsey calculated, staring at the blank phone screen in her hands with a heavy sigh, six weeks, four hours, forty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds ago.
Jonathan wasn’t the only one faithfully counting the days.
Chapter Eight
‘Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime’
(Sonnet 3)
‘Mirren! What a nice surprise, come in.’
Mari Anderson, Kelsey’s mum, knew how to make people feel welcome. She’d opened her home up years ago to her hairdressing clients, many of whom outstayed their appointment times to drink tea and chat. The house was often full of Calum’s friends too.
Kelsey’s little brother was known amongst his group of cosplaying, sci-fi obsessed pals as the host of his nerdy friendship circle. Moments before Mirren arrived, a four and a half foot tall Boba Fett and a surprisingly well made-up Queen Amidala had run inside and were now scoffing popcorn and energy drinks in Calum’s room. Mari never seemed to mind the stream of kookily dressed kids who appeared at her door, and she had always made Mirren feel welcome too whenever she’d called round. That was just the kind of woman she was.
Kelsey’s grandfather, who had recently moved in with the family, was reclined open-mouthed and dreaming in front of the TV. He’d been sleeping in Kelsey’s old room and benefitting from Mari’s home cooking and the lightening of the burden that looking after his old marital home had become since the death of his wife many years ago now. Mirren slipped the big bundle of Edinburgh rock she’d brought for him onto the kitchen worktop.
‘I’m sorry to intrude. Are you busy?’ Mirren asked.
‘Don’t be daft. I was just away to put the kettle on and you’ll save me eating this coffee cake all by myself.’
Mirren’s shoulders dropped with the relief. This was exactly the kind of welcome she knew she would receive, having been all but adopted by the Anderson family since her school days, and yet, having been raised in a volatile home, a small part of her still expected that one day the calm, friendly Andersons might not be pleased to see her and she might be turned away. Such is the never-ending insecurity that accompanies the adult child of parents who swing between extremes of kindness and cruelty.
‘Kelsey told me you might drop round actually, and I was hoping you would,’ Mari said with an easy smile.
After a little while chatting, brewing tea and arranging the plates and forks, the pair settled in front of the old range in the kitchen of Mari’s little grey stone terrace overlooking the steely waves of the Firth of Forth beyond the concrete sea wall.
‘So how are things back at your mum’s?’ Mari asked, diplomatically avoiding eye contact by pouring the milk.
‘It’s… well it’s…’ Mirren struggled for the words. She didn’t like to criticise her mother and would more often than not avoid the topic altogether, but Mari was familiar with the cycles of drinking followed by long periods of sobriety and renewed fervour for life that Jeanie Imrie suffered through. Mari knew all about the hospital admissions too and that one summer Jeanie spent in a private rehab facility which had prompted Mirren to move in with Preston’s family and the sixteen-year-old had started eating healthily, sleeping well, and for the first time in a long time she lost her gauntness and had the look of teenage bloom about her. Recently, Mirren had let herself wonder if she and Preston would have begun the search for a flat of their own at eighteen if it wasn’t for her precarious home life, but she packed the thoughts away now.
‘It’s strange after living with Preston for so long,’ Mirren said in a rush. ‘I’m looking for my own place, just haven’t found anything yet,’ she said with a shrug as though it was only a small worry.
‘Oh well, it’s not for too long then, is it? You’ll soon find somewhere nice,’ Mari said generously, but seeing through Mirren’s bluff.
A loud snore from the living room caused them both to turn their heads in Kelsey’s grandad’s direction. Mari’s eye caught Mirren’s, conveying so much without any words. She would have offered her daughter’s best friend a bed if she’d had the room, but with her elderly dad’s new living arrangements it wasn’t possible. Mirren returned the look with a crinkle of her eyes in an understanding, grateful smile.
