“I’ll get it first thing in the morning,” I said. “Easier in the daylight.”
“Smellier the longer you leave it, though,” said Gus. “I’ll get the torch and get it now.”
I stood up and he stood up, and we just looked at each other.
“I’m confused,” I said. He dropped back into his chair like someone had cut his strings. His head went down. His arms came up. I knelt down beside him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“It’s me,” he said, his voice thick and low. “I just assumed you meant right now when you said you’d do it. It doesn’t matter.”
But that was wrong. It does matter. The order things happen in makes all the difference in the world. I said I’d do it after he assumed I was going to. Totally different from the other way round. And if I started messing with what came first and what came second, I’d be right back at square one again.
“Jessie?”
I blinked and there he was, closer than he’d been a minute ago. He leaned closer still until he was resting against me, forehead to forehead, and it was like a Geiger counter. As soon as he touched me, something unrolled inside me like ink in water and I had to take a big breath.
Then he turned at looked at the telly screen. “Local news,” he said. “There might be a bit about Becky.”
So we sat through the speed-trap budget scandal-hypocrisy and cronyism-and the even bigger Peter Pan scandal-embezzlement and corruption-and all I learned was that someone in the newsroom at Look North had a thesaurus. We watched the same grainy film of the cops and divers at the Nith as they’d shown the night before-dead, drowned, body; no dressing that up-and then the bit where a senior copper stood in front of the railings saying the man was unidentified and calling for witnesses. Then, right at the end, just before the weather, suddenly there was a shot of the Wanlockhead road and the newsreader’s voice was saying mother of two, Rebecca King, inquiry on Tuesday, post-mortem completed, and police “not seeking any individual in connection with the incident.”
“That means they’re sure it’s suicide,” said Gus, sitting back in his chair and looking straight up at the ceiling. “They’ll never investigate now.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“What?” said Gus, rolling his head forward slowly to look at me. His face was drained and grey.
“I just can’t believe it,” I said. “You’re lovely. And the kids are great. This house is gorgeous and the beach and everything. And your work… that pram… and the garden and the cabbages… ”
“What the hell are you talking about, Jessie?” said Gus. “What cabbages?”
“In the garden,” I said. “In rows. Weeded and everything. I can’t believe there was any reason for her to kill herself. It’s insane. There’s abortion and divorce and Prozac. Even if the perfect life wasn’t good enough for her, how could she think she wanted no life at all?”
“I really need to stop talking about this,” Gus said. “Stop thinking about it, if I can. I need to go to bed.”
No arguing with any of that. So he went to bed and I went to bed. It wasn’t a decision. More like, we’d done it the night before, and what was different now? And things happened, like they had the night before, and why not again? Except it was different. It was worse. It wasn’t shock and raw grief and living in a dream this time. Tonight there was no excuse for it at all.
And it was different other ways too. It was better. I don’t know what kind of cold bitch I had been the night before, rating him, thinking to myself how he measured up. Bloody miracle he was still in one piece at all, was what I thought that second night. And anyway, it was more like therapy, really. Afterwards he was totally different, slumped half over me half under me like a… what it made me think of was a deflated dinghy, a tent with the guy-ropes down. I didn’t tell him. Couldn’t make that sound like sweet nothings, but it was the best thing I’d ever known.
“Hey?” I said. “Are you asleep?” He shook his head against my neck. “I meant to say earlier. I’ve got a job.”
“I know,” he said. “At the Free Clothing Project.”
“No, another one,” I said. “Here, actually.”
“Where?” He was still holding me, but he didn’t weigh so much now.
“Campsite,” I said. “Becky’s old job. With Gizzy. The hours suit-more or less-and I was needing something else as well.” Now it felt as if he was a tree and I was climbing him. Arms and legs rigid around mine. Head up off the pillow on his stiff neck, and I could tell he was staring at me. Even through the dark, I knew he was staring hard.
“Ros,” he said. “Not Becky.”
“Oh Jesus Christ,” I said. “I am so sorry. That’s the second time I’ve done that today.” Then I remembered that the first time was talking to Kazek, who Gus didn’t want to think about (and who could blame him?), or who I didn’t want to talk about (although I couldn’t have said why to save my life), so I bit off my words and hoped he wouldn’t ask me.
He didn’t. He just softened against me and lay back down, shifting me right into the hollow of his body, all four limbs wrapping me.
“Brilliant,” he said. “That’s perfect.”
We breathed in time with each other for a while. Drifting. Only I didn’t like where I was drifting to.
Love needs trust, and trust needs honesty. I can’t remember which one of the therapists told me that, but I believed her. Kazek wasn’t Becky’s other guy, and there was no excuse for keeping quiet about him. If I got it in the neck for putting Ruby and Dillon in danger, it was no more than I deserved. I opened my mouth to start speaking, but he beat me to it.
“Can I ask you a great big favour?” he said. I nodded. “I know it’s a lie, but could you not tell Gizzy we only met on Tuesday? Tell her we’re friends from Dumfries. Or tell her we’ve been seeing each other for months. Whatever. Tell her something she’ll understand, though eh?”
“It would be quite hard to explain,” I said. “I’m having a bit of trouble with it myself.”
“I’m not,” said Gus. He shifted his weight on top of me again, pushing my knees open with one of his. “I don’t care. I don’t even really care what Gizzy MacInstry thinks either.” He lifted himself up away from me and manoeuvred to the right spot. “Nobody else had to live with Becky but me.” And as he said Becky, he pushed inside me, all the way in, slick as I was from last time, and my stomach turned at the same time as everything south of it melted. “This would have happened whenever I met you. Just because I met you on the worst day of my life, it makes no difference.”
I wrapped my legs around his back and my arms around his neck, and I didn’t ask why he wanted me to lie to Gizzy if he didn’t care what she thought of him. Just enjoyed the feeling of his skin against mine-I’d never done it without a condom before. And thinking about that, imagining what was happening inside me, looking forward to him crying out, looking forward so much to that moment when I was the most important thing in the world to another person, one split second when you can be sure they wouldn’t be without you, no matter what came after, and then remembering that it wasn’t a split second-Gus cared and even the worst day of his life didn’t get in the way-and I felt everything that had melted start to burn, and then I was shaking and making a noise like a camping kettle and Gus was laughing and shushing me and my whole body bulged and then burst like a boil (except nice, though) and I yelled, and Ruby shouted “Dad?” from her room, and Gus shouted back “Wait a minute!” and then I started laughing and we stopped. Breathing like bulls, the pair of us, giggling like kids.