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I’d say so, she said. You are all grown up, aren’t you?
She watched him blush. This was still her favourite thing: when they came across all cocky but you could still make them blush.
He took the dog out of the room, and when she turned to pour a glass of water at the sink she felt him come back and stand very close behind her. She pretended not to notice. He was standing about as close as he could without touching her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, quickening.
You all right there? she asked.
He reached round, took the glass out of her hand, and drank.
Thirsty, he said.
She turned to face him. She had to press back hard against the sink to make sure she wasn’t touching him. She looked up into his eyes, frowning slightly, wanting to know what he wanted.
He was just waiting, it seemed. He put the glass down on the counter next to her, and his hands hovered.
She shook her head, very slightly, but she kept looking and she didn’t move.
*
She could leave Will.
That was something that could happen.
She could have this feeling again, or something like it.
This anticipation. The taste of it.
She was too young to have given these things up.
Will was too young to have given these things up.
She’d be doing them both a favour.
There were possibilities.
*
Donna came clattering down the stairs and started to ask Claire where they were heading. Jack had already moved away by the time Donna came into the room, but Donna still stopped what she was saying and looked at the two of them.
Claire smiled, innocently.
Jack gave Claire a look which she took to mean this would be continued. She ignored him, and followed Donna out to the car.
As they got in there was an awkward silence. Claire laughed.
You’re not thinking? We didn’t – what?
You just better bloody not, was all Donna said.
We didn’t! Claire said, trying to laugh it off.
So many reasons why not, Donna said. Jesus, what’s wrong with you?
Claire told her again that nothing had happened, and asked what Donna was even thinking, and she could tell that Donna didn’t believe her by the way she accelerated through the village and down the road towards Cardwell.
When they came down the hill past the woods, a group of kids suddenly burst out on to the road. Donna had to brake sharply, and swerve over to the other side.
They only stopped for a moment, but Claire recognised James Broad, and his friend Deepak, and the older Hunter girl, Sophie. Teenagers, although they looked younger because they were all in their swimming costumes. The Hooper boy was there as well. She knew them all from around the village. Their hair was wet and they were laughing. Who knew what madness they’d been up to. The Hooper boy was smeared with mud, and looked like he’d been bleeding. He wasn’t laughing. There was another girl there who Claire didn’t recognise. Donna gave them all a furious stare through the window, and drove on. They didn’t say anything about it. They’d both grown up in the village, with nothing much to do, and they both knew about the sort of things that get done to pass the time. Those long summers, with no way out. Seeing the same faces
