holding a vinyl. He set it on a turntable, and it began to play, the volume low so as not to wake his mother. It was Elvis Presley, one of her favorite songs.
Once he came back to the bed, he was close enough that she could feel the warm air breeze from his mouth to her face. “I’ve never met anybody like you before, Elizabeth. Most people just get on with things, but you do and say what you think is right. You’ve always been like it, right from when we were at school.”
“At school?”
“Don’t you remember when we were about six or seven, and they walked us down to the beach?” He stopped for a moment, remembering that walk. “We were supposed to be making a beach scene back at the school, but all you came back with was a dead bird and a tuft of yellow gorse. You told Mr. Nance that it wasn’t right for God’s creatures to die alone, or to be forgotten. That you were going to bury it in the churchyard. He made you throw it away.”
“You remember that?”
“Of course. I took the bird from the bin for you. I buried it in my garden.” It was hard to believe, but he was nodding to indicate his truth.
“But it was just a dead bird.”
“That’s not how you felt at the time. You’re rare, Elizabeth. You care about life, about dreams.” He swallowed hard. “About me. You make the impossible feel possible. You make me feel brave, even to the point of coming to your house and throwing stones at your window. Telling your father that I’m going to marry you.”
“Maybe I’m not so good,” she said. “I’m supposed to be engaged, yet here I am with you, in your bed, wanting things I’m not supposed to want.”
“Who says you’re not supposed to want them?” he whispered.
The room had warmed up, the heater on full. With a gentle push the covers slid from her arms, and she noticed his eyes following the curves of her body, visible through the thin material of his shirt. He opened his mouth again, but for a moment no words came out. He was so close that the outline of his features was blurry. They were merging together, becoming part of each other.
“I don’t ever want this to end.”
He smiled then, a little crease forming by the side of his lip. “Then I promise you it won’t. We can spend the rest of our lives in this room together, forget about the rest of the world.”
“I think I already did,” she said. And instead of answering her with words, he placed his lips on hers and pulled her body close.
Now
When Elizabeth opened the door and saw Alice, it was with both relief and concern. Dark bags hung under the young woman’s eyes, the skin tissue-paper fine. Her time away in Hastings had drained her. And Elizabeth feared that what she had to tell Alice was only going to make things worse. Since her day out with Tom, which even as she thought about it now was near perfect, everything had become steadily more difficult. Only yesterday she had found Tom leaning on the doorframe of the kitchen, looking out to the rear garden. When she’d asked him what he was doing there his answer had been simple enough but concerning nevertheless: pulling in the nets, he’d said. It reminded her of her mother in the months before her death, the spontaneous uncoupling of her mind from the reality of the surrounding world. There one minute, gone the next, like a little puff of smoke.
“Hello, love,” Elizabeth said as Alice moved into the porch. The chill of an early autumn day came with her, the summer already starting to fade. It did little to settle Elizabeth, who was already shivering with nerves. “How was your trip?”
“To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it much,” Alice said as she removed her coat. “I just wanted to get back.” Everything about her looked ready for some unknown event, like one of those antelopes Elizabeth had seen on a documentary last night, a perpetual awareness of the possibility of attack. “But I’m back now and today’s going to be great. Can’t believe we’re finally going to Cornwall. Is he ready to go?”
Dread coursed through Elizabeth like ichor in the veins of gods. Her body was weak, vibrating to the rhythm of trepidation as the words took shape in her thoughts. “No, love, I’m afraid he’s