They Do the Same Things Different There Read Free

was right, I
had
been missing this. They dripped soapsuds onto the floor. He pulled away. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time. Forgive me. I shan’t do it again.” And he left the kitchen.
    That night he phoned her. “Oh, hello,” she said. “Did you make it home okay?”
    “I’ve got to see you again,” he whispered at her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She supposed that would be all right. He said he’d make it over to her on Saturday, he’d find a reason to be out for the day, just leave it with him. And even though it was now arranged, and this was only Sunday night, he managed to find a reason to call her every night that week to confirm all was still well.
    She broke her shopping habit, went out on Friday evening. The supermarket wasn’t as crowded, she wondered why she’d never done it on Fridays before. And she made Dave a nice lunch for when he arrived. He didn’t want her potato salad, though. The first thing he did was to wrap her in his arms and kiss her all over, even before he’d taken his shoes off, even before his coat. Realistically Juliet had known they probably wouldn’t draw the line at kissing, and there might be a bit of sex involved. She just wasn’t prepared for how much. “Oh God, I’ve missed this!” he shouted out, sometime during the fifth bout. And Juliet said she’d missed it too, and she meant it, but she thought to herself she hadn’t missed it quite enough to
shout
about. Dave looked just like Colin, but they felt so very different; Juliet had imagined that in the dark she could have pretended they were one and the same, fair exchange, no robbery—but his hands were all over her, she wasn’t sure where he’d want to touch next, and it wasn’t in the dark, was it, even with the curtains drawn the sunlight was streaming in, she could see
everything
. And that was a bit disconcerting at first, and not necessarily all that pleasant, but it lent a definite thrill to the proceedings. Around half past five he said he’d have to head home now, it was a long drive ahead, and Saturday traffic was probably rubbish. And she surprised herself by actually minding. “Don’t go,” she said, “not just yet,” and, uselessly, “I’ve got potato salad in the kitchen.” “Can we do this again?” he asked her. “We’ve got to do this again.” “Oh yes,” she said. “I bloody love you,” he said, and kissed her, and drove away, and although she decided it’d be better to ignore that last bit, it replayed in her head a lot over the following week.
    The next Saturday she didn’t bother with the potato salad. She’d had a good think about what she should be feeling during the sex, about how much pleasure there ought to be—and she was able to get that right, she was very proud of herself, she’d caught the expression exactly. And then it occurred to her—my God!—she really
was
enjoying it, without having to consciously try. That made her panic a bit, she was lying there next to Dave when she realized that Colin was fading away, he’d been there in her head but now he was disappearing, how could he just disappear like that? This was grief, she thought, finally it was here, and she wasn’t sure when she cried out whether it was out of relief or the sudden loss knotted in her stomach. And Dave hadn’t known why she’d cried out either, but he held her tight, he held her until she felt better and he told her that he loved her. He was using the “love” word quite a lot. She told him once in a while not to be silly, and he said it wasn’t silly, the last thing in the world it was was silly, it was
love
, didn’t she deserve to be loved? And she asked him if he didn’t love Sheila. It wasn’t meant to be accusatory, but he went very quiet. He told her he had loved Sheila, of course he had, but that love had just gone. He didn’t know where. It didn’t make sense. How could something as important as love just fade away?