This is a sort of love story featuring older people. The protagonists are in their late fifties, and they’re (very) British.
Fiona Birchwood sat on a green cushion in the dappled sunlight, leaning against an ash tree, sketching in oil-based ink. The restless subjects of her art, then as always, were the woodland flora and fauna.
She used no easel, preferring to rest her pad against her bent knees, with the palette by her side on the ground. That way, she felt at one with her subject. It was a little bit of an uncomfortable position for her, sitting in the damp cool shade, with her arthritis, but this was the way she liked to paint; and besides, so intent was she on seeing, so unaware of her own presence, that she felt no pain.
A nuthatch marched purposefully down the trunk of a birch, head-first, seeking ants. Fiona quickly and smoothly sketched its outline, in a single flowing line. She glanced down to see what she’d rendered. She gasped, and tears welled in her eye at the beauty of it. She silently mouthed “thank you” to the oblivious bird. She decided not to add colour to the work.
Stiffly, she rose and gathered her things into her bag and started back to the cottage. She couldn’t wait to show Harry the sketch.
She entered her garden through the little back gate that led into the woods and passed by her wood and stone sculptures on the lawn. She smiled at the radiant marigolds adorning the borders of the flowerbed; they seemed to be laughing with joy in the April sun.
Fiona noticed Harry watching her from the kitchen window. She guessed that he was waiting for her to help him with his shoes so he could join her for elevenses in the garden. She returned his smile but felt the weight of her satchel and the soreness in her knees as she anticipated the renewed burden of tending to him, after her brief respite alone in the woods.
Harry was also an artist, but since his stroke, had all but given up. He was still quite capable of holding a paintbrush, although woodcarving was no longer possible for him. But he’d become too morose to paint. He was drinking a bottle of wine a day again, after being on the wagon for thirty years.
Their life was simple. Although they didn’t have a lot of savings left, they didn’t need much. They had no children to put through university; they didn’t take or need holidays; they had their lovely cottage, with its beautiful garden. They had their artist friends, and the local pub. And Fiona’s work was selling quite well. She’d started using Facebook to promote her work, and rather enjoyed seeing the encouraging feedback that she received – admittedly, mostly from her artist friends.
Fiona knelt and pushed Harry’s worn, comfortable trainers firmly but gently onto his inert feet, as he sat patiently on the wooden kitchen chair.
“I’ve made tea, Fi. If you could just carry the tray”.
“I’ll help you outside first, and then I’ll bring it. Here’s your cane.” He gripped the handle of the cane and tapped its rubber ferrule against the floor tiles to check that it wouldn’t slip.
Fiona guided Harry to the garden table, barely touching his elbow; she gave as little assistance as she dared: It was vital to him, she knew, that he maintained what remained of his pride.
Once they were seated, she showed him the sketch.
“Darling, that’s gorgeous!”
“Yes.” She laughed. “I agree!”
She rose suddenly and ran into the cottage.
Harry called after her, agitated. “Where are you going, darling?”
“To get the camera. I’m going to upload it.”
She returned with a camera and her laptop. Harry watched her as she propped up the sketchpad against a tree stump, which she’d decided would make a nice backdrop.
When she resumed her place at the table, Harry sighed.
“Darling, I think…”
Fiona flicked through the photos she’d just taken, peering down at the back of the camera.
“What do you think, Harry?”
“What do I think? I think, darling, you might be becoming one of those Internet addicts.”
Fiona opened her laptop, laughing. “I know, it’s awful isn’t it! But it really does seem to be the way everyone’s going now. Malcolm and Sheila, Bill Grainger, they all post their art on Facebook too you know. You would too if…” she trailed off.
“…If I still painted.”
“Harry, I…”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry darling. But surely it can wait till we’ve had tea.”
Fiona closed the laptop. “Of course. It’s just, that I’m so happy. About Nigel the nuthatch.”
“‘Nigel the nuthatch’?”
She laughed. “Yes, I had to give him a name, darling.”
Fiona waited until that evening to upload the photo. She had lit the fire earlier and it was now blazing merrily. Harry was seated in his armchair, reading. With a sigh, she closed the laptop and rolled herself her “nightcap”, a marijuana and tobacco mix; the marijuana was very weak, grown in their garden.
She seated herself in her own armchair, opened up the laptop again and checked for comments and likes on Facebook. There were already four ‘likes’! One of them was from somebody she didn’t know: He’d also written a comment:
“Love this! Are you the Fiona Birchwood who used to be friends with Pippa and Emma in London in the 70s? Not sure if you remember me, I’m Nathan Brown, a friend of Jeremy Cooper, from Hampstead.”
Fiona thought for a moment. She’d known Pippa Clarkson since they were teenagers, and still chatted to her on the phone every so often. But she couldn’t recall a ‘Nathan Brown’.
She found his Facebook profile. He was about her age, in his mid-fifties. A slim, grey-haired man, rather good-looking. Intrigued, she looked through his photos. Unlike Fiona herself, whose pictures were all photographs of her garden and the surrounding countryside, or of her paintings and sculptures, he’d posted mostly photos of himself. There was one old photo of himself playing the piano when he was a young man. And then she remembered: He was Jeremy’s skinny friend ‘Nat’. They’d had a single encounter after Jeremy’s party, when they were both eighteen.
She spent the next hour reading his posts and looking at his photos, learning about what had happened to ‘Nat’ in the intervening forty or so years since they’d last met. This was a completely new experience for Fiona, to investigate someone through their Facebook posts, and she found it exciting.
He was divorced, with two grown-up sons. His ex-wife, whose Facebook profile Fiona managed to find too, was a beautiful woman of Indian or middle eastern descent. She was a photographer. Nat himself seemed to be some kind of scientist now, but also still played piano. His sons were both musicians. Fiona recalled Nat playing the piano at Pippa’s party.
He now lived on a narrowboat on a canal in London. It looked lovely.
“What are you doing, darling?” Harry’s voice startled her.
“I’m just looking at some photos.”
“Ah. Well, I think I’ll go up to bed.” That was Harry’s way of asking Fiona to help him up the stairs.
Trying not to show her impatience to get back to her laptop, she put Harry to bed.
“Thank you darling. Are you coming soon?”
“In a bit.”
“Well, goodnight, Fi Darling.”
Fiona returned to the living room. Finally left to herself, she opened her laptop and replied to Nat’s Facebook post:
“Yes I am that Fiona! and I DO remember you! I still see Pippa often. Are you and Jeremy still in touch?”
By midnight, her mind was full of memories of her eighteen-year-old self: A big-eyed, dark-haired young beauty, with a passion for nature. A virgin, keeping herself for “The One”: He’d be an artist, like herself, with a love of nature and the countryside. Wealthy but not materialistic, Oxbridge educated, intellectual but not an academic. That was Harry, to a T.
She recalled more of her and Nat’s mutual friend Jeremy: A Cambridge undergraduate, a mathematician. His parents were professionals. He wasn’t upper-class, like Fiona and Pippa. But he was fun, and provided a good introduction to London life, which was new to Fiona, having just finished her education in France.
Pippa had invited her along to Jeremy’s party. Fiona had heard reggae music there for the first time. All the boys danced rather grotesquely to it.
She remembered that she’d worn a tight black dress to the party, which hugged her petite figure. And then she recalled that just before leaving for the party, she had panicked about looking too formal, so she had changed her heels for Doctor Marten’s boots and hung Indian beads around her neck, creating an absurd mishmash of hippy and punk cultures, and it would have given her away as the ingénue she had been.
At the party, she had received lots of attention from boys. Then, as now, she often laughed and smiled, showing off her wide lips and big black eyes. But whenever she had started talking, the boys would slowly lose interest. She hadn’t known how to flirt; she would be too intense. But she’d known that that The One would understand; he wouldn’t show off how smart he was or ask her to dance: He would talk about Art, Nature and Beauty as she did, as one enamoured. As Harry had done when they’d met.
One boy at the party caught her eye. He’d noticed her looking at him. Then he’d approached her, and they’d started talking. He was a little different from the others. He was a misfit, like her, which had made him easy to talk to. He was startlingly skinny, with a big shock of black curly hair. He wore a tight striped sweater and a big army coat bought from a surplus store. He wore big clumpy Frye’s cowboy boots which looked to be two sizes too big for his feet. That was Nat.
When there was a break in the music, Nat had gone over and played the upright piano in the corner of the room. His playing was improvised, but didn’t sound like jazz, it was more like what they would later call trance music. He was quite talented, Fiona had thought.
He wanted to leave the party with her. She’d told him she was going to walk home to Chelsea. She remembered his reply clearly: “I love walking, it’s my favourite thing after music!”
When he said that, she laughed, and decided that she’d let this funny skinny piano boy walk her home. It was five miles from Hampstead to Chelsea. But he walked with her, all the way, clumping beside her in his too-big boots.
When they finally got to her place, she began to feel awkward: He might want sex. She didn’t want sex.
“Can I lie with you?” he had asked. He asked so politely, so shyly, that she had smiled, and said yes.
They lay together on her bed. She lay on her back, he on his side. He was clearly terrified, and unsure what to do.
Eventually he rested his hand on her belly. Slowly his fingers moved down. She felt that if she so much as twitched a toe his hand would scurry away like a frightened cat.
Then she felt his hand slip under her panties. He stroked her pubic hair. Fiona stared up at the ceiling in fear. Recalling it now, she felt almost sorry for Nat, getting neither encouragement nor resistance from her. He’d have had no way of determining whether she was liking what he was doing or not. But then again, Fiona herself hadn’t known at the time whether she was liking it or not.
Eventually the tip of his middle finger rested on her clitoris. Then, like a lugworm at low tide, the finger suddenly dived and pushed deep inside her. It felt alien, cold and invasive, and it frightened her. She asked him to stop, which he did, instantly. She heard him quietly rubbing his finger against the carpet, in order to wipe off her juice, she supposed, which added to her embarrassment.
He lay beside her for the rest of the night, clutching her shoulder gently. She didn’t remember sleeping, but she must have done, because she remembered waking up to find him gone.
That had been Fiona’s first sexual encounter, and, naïve as she was then, it had taken her until now to realise that it must have been his too. They’d never seen each other since that night.
Fiona sat and stared at the dying embers in the fire.
* * * * *
Nat pushed the garden fork down into the earth with his foot until it struck another piece of buried rubble. He jiggled the fork until he found its edge. It felt larger than a brick; possibly a broken granite kerb stone. He knelt on the damp soil and dug doggy-style with his hands. Grimacing, he hauled out the slab onto the lawn. He stood up gingerly. He’d pulled a muscle in his back. He turned to the slab and kicked it: “Fuck you. Fuck you.”
He limped to the narrowboat rubbing his sore back and sat down on the cold metal gunwale at the front deck. Painfully he reached down and retrieved a mug of cold tea from the deck and gulped it down. He entered the boat, bumping his head on the low doorframe, and washed his hands with washing-up liquid, wiping them dry on his muddy jeans. He flopped on the couch and opened his laptop.
So it was that Fiona. He remembered her huge eyes and sensuous lips… she was really cute. Was… “But the ravages of time, old chap, the ravages of time…”, he said to himself, as he composed a reply. He stopped short of demanding a current picture of her:
“No, I haven’t seen Jeremy for decades. I know he married an Irish woman and they moved to Dublin. I think he’s a professor at Trinity.”
He continued:
“I remember you were the first tree hugger I’d ever met – you literally hugged a tree at three in the morning in Hyde Park on that walk from Hampstead to your place!”
Her reply came instantly: “I STILL AM a tree-hugger! Even more so now! I’m also a vegetable-talker! And I still see Pippa every now and then!” – For reasons unfathomable to him, Nat got turned on by the speediness of her response.
Excitedly, they exchanged more personal details, in real-time. Nat read between the lines: She was evidently unhappy, supporting her alcoholic, invalid husband, “Harry”. And she was horny, like him.
Then she sent a recent photo of herself.
“The ravages of time… Fuck”.
Nathan didn’t know how to let people down gently. He just ignored her messages until, after a week or so, she got the message his Facebook silence conveyed: He was not interested.
* * * * *
July came. Nat sat on the warm metal gunwale in the warm morning sun, a hot mug of tea on the deck. A plate of scrambled eggs on toast was balanced precariously on his knees. He stared blankly at the dancing patterns of sunlight on the canal. It was going to be another hot day.
“Nathan? Is that you? It’s me, Fiona!”
She was standing on the opposite towpath. She was wearing white shorts and a floral shirt.
Nat put his plate down and stood. “Hi!”
“Permission to come aboard, Captain!”
He couldn’t say no.
Fiona walked across the bridge to his side of the canal and stepped onto the front deck, rocking the boat with her weight.
“Careful, it’s a little wobbly until you get used to it.”
“I am used to it, Harry and I lived on a narrowboat for the first five years we were together.”
They stepped inside. The galley was just by the entrance. He filled a kettle. Fiona blocked the narrow front door, holding the door frame. She smiled.
“I was in London, visiting my mother. She lives near here. So I thought I’d pay you a surprise visit.”
Nat busied himself with the teapot.
“Can I look around your boat? It’s been ages since I’ve been on a narrowboat. I forgot how magical they were, with the sunlight on the water.”
“Sure. It’s a bit bachelor-y in here I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid, Nathan. You are a bachelor.” Nat laughed.
She squeezed past him: He raised his hands to give her more room to pass. He noticed that his armpits smelled of sweat.
At the rear of the boat was an unmade, king-size bed. A lead crystal pendant hung in the window. Fiona twirled it lightly and watched the dazzling rainbows madly dancing on the crumpled white sheet.
She returned to the galley. Nat had prepared a tray with cups, a milk jug, the teapot, and a plate of plain biscuits. “Just in time! Outside? Or in?”
“Inside, please Nathan. Your boat is lovely. I saw you even have a little electric piano on your boat!”
“Yes, not as nice to play as proper piano, but better than nothing.”
“It’s just so romantic!”
“Yes, this boat is my babe lair.”
“I see. And how many babes have you caught with it?”
Nat smiled. “A couple… to be honest I’m not sure who caught who. Anyway they were way too young. ‘Babes’ is the right word.”
Fiona didn’t respond to directly this. She sat down on the sofa and gazed out the window. There was an awkward silence:
“Nathan, can I ask you why, I mean, what do you, – Why did you stop replying to my messages?”
“Oh, I, er, I don’t know, I guess, it’s just…”
“…I think I know why.”
“You do?”
“Yes. It’s because of that embarrassing night. It was my first. And it was yours too, wasn’t it?”
Nat sat down next to her. It was easier to agree with her than to admit the truth, that she was too fat and too old for him: “Yes, I guess, I guess that’s it.”
“Well, that was a long time ago.”
“Yes.” Nat had a sudden thought, and glanced at Fiona, who was now looking at him, with her unnerving smile – and saw that she was thinking the same thing: It would be a whole lot different now…
Nat was suddenly aware of Fiona’s perfume. He placed his hand on her thigh, which made his dick stir. He kissed her lips, gently.
He pulled away, examining her face. He was finding her expression impossible to read – a smile of – pity? Pleasure? Or did it mean “Thanks, but no?” He stroked her grey hair. She rested her head on his shoulder, sighed, and spoke, as much to herself as to him: “I love my husband. I feel, I feel, so confused, I’ve never, we’ve never…”
Nat’s dick, fed up with all this hesitancy and indecision, took command of the situation: Nat stood quickly, and held out a hand for Fiona to take, and said, “Come on, Fiona. It’s why you’re here. You know it.”
She let him guide her down towards the stern of the boat until they were in the bedroom. Nat sat at the foot of the bed and beckoned her beside him. The crystal by the window swung like a pendulum on its fishing-wire thread as the boat rocked, making the rainbows dance a minuet on the bed and over Fiona’s white knees. Nat started to lower the blinds, but Fiona asked him not to.
“But people can see in…”
“I want to see out. The sunlight in here is so wonderful…”
“Okay.”
She kicked off her sandals and lay on her back, her legs together, her hands behind her head. She stared at the ceiling, wide-eyed and smiling. Nat was now convinced that it was a smile of fear.
Nat lay on his side beside her. He kissed her lips, her neck; he sucked her earlobe.
His hand ran up from her knees, slowly, until it rested on her lower belly, his middle finger poised over her groin. He patted her gently… then squeezed his hand, hooking his fingers firmly up into her crotch. She gasped. He was relieved; it was the first unambiguous sign that she wants this.
Steadily kneading her crotch, Nat spoke softly to her. “You know, I remember that first time… it was the first time I felt a woman’s pelvic bone. I was fascinated. I can’t do that to myself. My dick is in the way.”
Fiona parted her lips but couldn’t speak. She raised her pelvis and pushed down her shorts to her knees but didn’t remove them.
Nat slid his warm hand under her knickers and patted the arch of her pussy. He leaned over her and kissed her lips, lightly, delicately. And again. The third time, the kiss was more forceful. He clamped his lips over hers. He plunged his tongue deep inside her mouth and plunged his middle finger deep into her pussy. She let out a muffled squeal. His tongue flickered over hers and his invading finger trembled and pushed even deeper.
He withdrew his face slightly so he could observe her reaction, while his finger violated her womanhood relentlessly and irresistibly. Nat watched her, rapt, as she climaxed with a deep sigh: Her eyes had stayed wide open, and they looked straight at him, into him, deep into his soul. He shuddered, and the hairs on his arms stood on end. And then…
“Fuck, Fiona…” Nat came in his pants.
He lay on his back beside her. He wiped his finger on the sheet. And now Fiona laughed… but the laughter turned to sobbing tears.
“Wow. Hey, hey… Are you okay?”
“Yes. Oh my God. I’ve wanted that for so long.”
“Can I tell you something? That was the best sex I’ve ever had. You’re…” Nat trailed off.
“…I’m what, darling?”
“I don’t know… a witch. Earth-mother. I don’t know. A power. Really strong. In your eyes. Like a witch.”
“Yes, that’s what Harry calls me too.”
At the mention of her husband, Nat felt a pang of jealousy, which surprised him. He opened his mouth, intending to ask her if she felt guilty about what they’d just done, but she stopped him with a kiss.
“More. Please, Nathan, I need your lips on me.” She pushed down her knickers to her knees. Nat stood and removed them, throwing them to the floor behind him. She spread her legs apart.
She turned to the window. “Spin the crystal. Slowly.”
Nat twirled the crystal.
He knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed and tugged at her ankles, bringing her towards him. Resting his hands on her breasts and running his thumbs over her nipples through her white brassiere, he bent over and ran his tongue around her full labia, with long slow licks. He started to speed up as his excitement grew.
“Slower. Slowly, Nathan. I want this to last forever…”
Time slowed… and Nat licked and nibbled at her pussy lips, slippery with his saliva… he breathed in her scent…
Nat lost his sense of time and place; he was no longer aware of anything other than her pussy. His cock was ardent now…
…Fiona arched her back and squeezed his ears between her thighs. He heard through muffled ears, once more, “Oh God… Oh my God…”
Nat rolled onto his back and began to stroke himself. Fiona grabbed his hand and guided it instead onto her wet pussy. He slid his finger inside her and squeezed his hand rhythmically. They faced each other, gazing into each other’s’ eyes…
* * * * *
Fiona sat on the foredeck, her pad on her knees, sketching a trio of mallards, a female and two males, who were swimming close by the boat, begging for food. Nat threw a biscuit into the water for them and sipped his tea.
“Fiona, I’ve never, in my whole life, experienced an orgasm without, you know, without wanking or fucking, or being sucked off – you know, without direct stimulation to my dick. Is it – is this, you know, something you can do to men? Have you ever-”
“Nathan, what happened was a one-time thing. And in answer to your question: I don’t know; I’ve only been with Harry.”
“Yes, I know it was a one-time thing. Thank you. I’m an idiot.”
“Why are you an idiot?”
“Oh, it’s just that I’ve spent the last two years miserably looking for women. Trying to validate myself with stupid ego-boosting Facebook posts.”
“Well, I do that too. And anyway we met because of your ego-boosting Facebook posts.”
“Can I see you again, Fiona? I mean can I come and visit you and Harry in Hereford?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She kissed his lips and smiled at him. A smile of “Thanks, but no”. A smile of pity.
She leaned back and appraised her sketch. “There. It’s finished.” She blew the three ducks a kiss and thanked them silently.
* * * * *
Fiona quickly gathered her brushes and paints into her satchel and prepared to leave the cottage.
Harry had noticed a change in her since her return from London. She seemed distracted, and a little sad. Maybe her mother had said something to her when she’d seen her, something to upset her, he guessed. Fiona had never got on well with her mother, who’d not approved of her marrying a struggling artist like Harry. She would have seen the toll Harry had taken on Fiona’s strength, the years of coping with him, and said something to the effect of “I told you so.”
“I’ll be back in an hour or two, darling,” Fiona said to him without turning her back, as she hurried out of the door.
Harry stood at the window and watched her stepping past the flowerbeds towards the back gate of the garden, until she disappeared into the green gloom.
He turned to the kitchen table and saw her sketchpad – She’d forgotten to take it.
He flipped through the pages and found her latest sketch, of the three mallards on the canal. Why hadn’t she shown him it?
His eyes scanned the sketch. There was a character to it he hasn’t seen before – her choice of colours was not her usual style; she’d used a strange purple for the shadows. The painting unsettled Harry deeply. He shut the sketchpad and waited for Fiona to return once she’d noticed she’d forgotten it. But she didn’t return.
He decided to brave the uneven ground of the woodland and go after her. He clutched the sketchpad in one hand, and his cane firmly in the other. After half an hour, he found her. She was lying naked on her back in a grassy glade half a mile into the woods. She hadn’t noticed him.
He stood in the shadow under a holly tree and watched her spread her legs and pat her pussy, faster and faster, until she plunged two fingers deep inside her. She stopped and lay still. A blackbird suddenly sang a complex song, as though it had been waiting for her to finish. Startled, Harry turned away quickly and hurried back to the house, as quietly as he could, before being spotted.
When Fiona returned, Harry was smoking his pipe, sitting in the evening sun on the bench by the wall of the cottage.
“Hello, darling! I forgot my sketchpad, so I just went for a walk in the woods up towards Sternham.”
“I know. Does he love you?”
“Excuse me, darling?”
“Does he love you? The man you were thinking about while you lay in the grass naked?”
Fiona sighed, and decided to tell Harry about what happened in London. Harry listened without interrupting. Finally he said, “so, to answer my original question, he does love you.”
“Oh Harry, I’m such a fool. I’m so sorry. But of course he doesn’t love me, any more than I love him.”
“You don’t know your own power, darling. You’ve only been with me. The question is, what are we going to do about this?”
“Well, if you can forgive me, I’m going to forget all about it. It was, I swear, a one-time thing.”
“Why make three people unhappy?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re not going to forget it. Neither is he, and neither am I, I’m afraid. So I suggest we invite him here. I’d like to speak to him. Do you think he’d come?”
“No, Harry, please, no.”
“Alright… alright. Let’s forget about it for now. Let’s talk about it another time.”
* * * * *
Nat quit Facebook because it reminded him of Fiona and would make him obsess over her even more than he was already doing. He’d started running again, as an outlet for his frustrated desire. She’d really got to him.
One day, on his way out for a morning run along the towpath, he checked the post box. There was a letter from her: She was inviting him to her place. She’d told Harry about their afternoon together, and he’d been very understanding. His heart leapt. And at that point he knew it was more than lust, more than obsession. He’d fallen in love.
Nat re-read the letter that evening. The cynical, ugly side of him said to him, “Threesome”: Not his cup of tea. He remembered Harry was an invalid and couldn’t get it up, so he’d probably want to jerk his shrivelled dick while he watched Nat and Fiona doing it. Then Nat suddenly felt disgusted with himself. “Fuck off. FUCK OFF! Leave me alone! Let me be happy, for once in my life, please!” He shouted.
Nat took a deep breath. He exhaled, expelling and exorcising his inner cynic. He replied to her letter, accepting the invitation.
A week later Nat parked his car on the gravel driveway outside their cottage. He noticed a tall, fit-looking man of about sixty-five standing at the doorway, resting on a cane. Nat had pictured Harry as a shrivelled old man in a wheelchair, with a Burberry blanket draped over his legs.
“Nathan! Welcome.”
“Harry, nice to meet you.” Not nice to meet him, but that’s what you’re supposed to say.
“A drink, after your drive?”
“I’d love some tea, please.”
“I was thinking of something stronger than tea.”
“I’ll join you in a whiskey later, but tea would be perfect for now.”
“Excellent! I’ll get the kettle on. Come in.”
“Is Fiona here?”
“She’s out sketching. She’ll be back soon.”
Nat followed Harry inside. They passed a folded-up wheelchair in the hallway. “The hospital insists I have one. Never use it,” explained Harry to Nat’s unasked question.
Harry sat at the kitchen table; he’d neglected to put the kettle on, so Nat volunteered, hoping Harry wouldn’t take the offer as a tacit comment on Harry’s obvious alcoholic intoxication. Nat opened cupboards looking for the tea.
Harry took a slow gulp from the half-full glass of white wine on the table, and said, “bottom-shelf, on the right. Only Sainsbury’s teabags, I’m afraid.”
“Got it.”
When Nat seated himself at the table with his tea, Harry became quiet, as though unsure how to proceed. Nat decided that it was up to him to break the ice:
“Well, this is a bit awkward!”
“Yes. But it needn’t be. In fact, it really isn’t, you know.”
Encouraged by this, Nat asked Harry, “Were you angry? at her? Or at me?”
Harry drained his wine and poured himself another glass. “I don’t tend to feel anger anymore. But specifically in answer to your question, No, I’m no angry. I understand. Anger? No. But I suppose I felt a little sadness, because it made me aware of how much she’s been suffering all these years. To see how much happiness she’s been denied.”
Nat felt Harry wasn’t being sincere. He was unable to take Harry’s lack of anger as genuine, being himself overly prone to anger. He responded sharply, “Look: Fiona and I had sex. We just had sex. She wanted to, and so did I. She loves you. But, well, she just needed sex.”
“My dear chap, there’s no need for you to become defensive. I already told you I wasn’t angry with her, or with you. In fact, I’m grateful to you. You made her happy. The way I used to make her happy.”
Harry said it with such dignity that Nat felt ashamed for his outburst and grew silent.
Harry stood. “I want you to see something. It’s upstairs. Our bedroom. A portrait I painted of her, many years ago. Go and look at it. Then you’ll understand how I feel about her.”
Nat rose and climbed the steep, creaking stairs and found their bedroom. He stared at the painting hanging on the wall above their bed, dominating the room.
Harry called up at him from below. “Found it? Good. I painted it in the bedroom of the hotel we were staying at in Venice. She was nineteen. We’d spent the day looking at Titian’s and Tintoretto’s.”
Nat recognised her expression, immediately. The wide eyes, penetrating his soul, and the smile, wide and joyful. Her erect nipples pink against her creamy skin, her jet-black hair spread about her. Her hand was pressed onto her groin, like the Venus of Urbino. Harry must have painted her while standing over her on the bed where she lay, capturing her moment of rapture from above.
“Wow. Fuck.”
“Yes, Nathan. ‘Wow. Fuck’, as you so succinctly put it. It’s been twenty years since I saw her looking like that. Until two weeks ago. And for that I’m grateful to you.”
Nat stood spellbound, unable to avert his eyes from the picture. Still transfixed, he called down to Harry, “you know, how can I put this…”
“What, Nathan?”
Nat finally tore his gaze away and returned downstairs.
“What I did – what we did… well, to put it plainly, you don’t actually need a working dick for it. I, well I basically fingered her and went down on her. I hope that’s not too graphic.”
“You underestimate yourself. You’re a piano player. You no doubt have clever, sensuous fingers, I don’t doubt. Surely you don’t need a sex lesson from me. Anyway, for whatever reason, you have restored my Birchwood Venus to life. That’s what I named that portrait of her. A little vanity on my part.” Harry paused and listened. “She’s coming. She doesn’t know I’ve invited you here.”
“You invited me??”
“Yes, on her behalf. I doubted you’d have come if I’d invited you directly.”
“Well, I think that’s pretty-”
-Fiona entered, and saw them. Silently she put down her sketchpad on the table and went to the kitchen sink to wash the paint from her hands, and to hide her face. She dried her hands on her dress and turned, smiling. But both Harry and Nat could tell that the smile was hastily composed, hiding anger. Her eyes blinked rapidly.
“Darling-” Harry began, but Fiona interrupted, busying herself with teacups and spoons.
“-Nathan, how lovely to see you again.”
Nathan stood, a polite gesture hitherto alien to him, and said “It’s lovely to see you again. Your husband – Harry, rather – invited me.”
Fiona refused to look at Nathan. “That was a little sneaky of you, Harry. Did you do that for me? I did say I didn’t want to see him again.”
“I wanted to see him. And I wanted him to see you.”
“Why, Harry? Oh why couldn’t you just let it be?”
“He deserves to see you again.”
“Deserves it? What do you mean?”
“Because it would be too cruel otherwise.”
“I don’t understand.”
Nathan understood. He deserved one last look at the woman he loved.
Harry poured the last of the Chablis into his glass. “Fiona, I’d like Nathan to move in with us.”
Fiona finally turned and looked Nathan full in the face, her wide eyes holding his gaze. He shivered, and his dick stirred.
“Well, Nathan, is that what you want?” She asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m in love with you. And I think I always will be. For what it’s worth. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. It’s not your fault.”
“Nathan, I’m so sorry.” Fiona lowered her head.
So that was it. He’d been jilted.
“Well,” said Harry resignedly, “I did my best. I won’t try and persuade you darling, I know it will just make things worse. Terrible shame. Ah, well.”
Ah well. Nathan refused Harry’s invitation to “at least stay for dinner.”
As he was fastening his seatbelt, preparing for the long drive home, Fiona ran out of the house towards him. She’d changed her mind!
“Wait, Nathan, don’t go just yet.” Fiona ran back to the house.
“What is it?” Nathan called after her.
“Wait!!” Fiona shouted as she disappeared inside.
She emerged a few minutes later carrying something big in her arms. It was her portrait – the “Birchwood Venus”.
“Here.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Fiona, I can’t take it.”
“We want you to have it. We don’t need it anymore.”
“There’s no room for it on my Narrowboat.”
“Well, keep it for when you move somewhere big enough for it.”
“It will be safer here in the meantime. Maybe I – I’ll come and collect it one day.”
“Please do Nathan. I mean it. Nathan… Never mind.”
“Say it.”
“You were my first, and I think you’ll be my last.”
Nathan was silent. Suddenly Fiona laughed. “But I won’t be your last, Nathan. Promise me that.”
“I promise.”
She watched as he drove away. When the sound of his car had faded, she turned back to the house, aware once more of the summer evening birdsong.