corner into Woodlands Gate. I shook my head. ‘Why didn’t you ever say you knew it had been me?’ I asked her.
She shrugged. ‘The subject never really arose before.’
I shook my head again. ‘Good grief,’ I said. ‘All this time. Good grief.’
Ashley had been ravenous when she’d arrived at the house in Park Terrace a little after seven that Sunday evening, so she’d just dumped her bags and we’d gone straight out to the restaurant. When we got back after the meal, I showed her round the place. We opened a bottle of Graves I had in the kitchen - after first agreeing that of course we shouldn’t - and then walked from room to room while I did my guided tour bit and pointed out the more interesting or valuable works of art, while we sipped our wine and the statues gleamed and the chandeliers glittered and the paintings glowed and the carpets spread before us like gigantic blow-ups of oddly symmetrical printed circuits.
Ashley shook her head a lot. When she saw the main bedroom she laughed.
We went back to the kitchen. She demurred when I offered to top her glass up. ‘I should go to bed now,’ she said, pulling a hand through her hair. She put her glass down on an oak working surface. ‘Take some water in a big glass and get to me bed ...’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’ She looked at me.
I shrugged. ‘No, of course not. There’s glasses in the bathroom, beside your room.’ A terrible sadness settled on me then, and I had to swallow hard a couple of times. I drank, to hide it, then said, as matter-of-factly as I could, ‘What time do you want up tomorrow?’
‘About seven should do.’
‘Right,’ I said, looking at my glass. ‘Right. Seven. I’ll bring you tea and toast, all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘Okay then,’ I said.
I looked up and she was smiling. She looked at her watch. ‘Well,’ she said, and flexed her brows. ‘Night-night.’
She came forward, put one hand on my shoulder, kissed my cheek.
I put my hand on her hip, let my head nuzzle towards hers a little. She put her arm round my waist and I turned to her, hugged her, my lips at her neck, kissing delicately. She pushed her head against mine, and we started to turn to each other at the same moment, as she put her arms round me; the kiss just seemed natural after that.
It went on for some time. Ashley seemed to loosen and grow more tense at the same time; her mouth appeared to want to swallow mine, her hands grabbed my curls, nails scratching at my scalp. I pulled on her hair, kissed and licked her neck. She dug her nails into the small of my back through my shirt. We kissed again and I kneaded her backside, then pulled the dress up while she wriggled a little to make it easier, and I found skin, stockings, her knickers, and pushed my hands inside, gripping her smooth, warm bum. She pulled herself up against me.
‘This,’ she said, breaking off, breathing hard, while her hands stroked the nape of my neck and her gaze flicked from my mouth to my eyes and back again, ‘this might be better suited to that ridiculous bedroom, what do you think?’
I nodded. ‘Good idea.’
‘Bring the wine.’
‘Better yet.’
It was something. On that monumentally ostentatious bed of the late Mrs Ippot’s, Ashley and I made love like we’d done it for years and then been apart for years and just met up and hadn’t forgotten a thing.
A couple of times, lying there panting afterwards while we trickled with sweat and licked at each other, or were stroking and caressing and thinking about starting all over again, she laughed.
‘The room?’ I said, first time.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her gorgeous head, all tawny hair and flushed face. ‘It’s just you and me; I never thought this was going to happen.’
And, later, when she cried out, I heard the crystal bowl on the table by the side of the bed ring, pure and faint, as if in reply.
It was later still, when we’d put the lights out and had agreed just to cuddle, exhausted and drained, but had not been able to merely cuddle, and so had coupled once more, and I still lay on top of her, inside her, while she breathed and I breathed and our hearts gradually slowed down again, that I did what I’d done before in that situation, flexing whatever