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  He felt his throat tighten as she climbed from the low car, her long fair hair flowing and her short skirt dancing around her legs. She saw him and waved, clutching a carrier bag to her chest.

  “My God, she’s beautiful.”

  She disappeared as she entered the house, then emerged through the back door carrying a bottle of Chardonnay and a glass.

  She climbed the sloping lawn, and he watched her as if seeing the woman for the first time. It was little wonder that she was a sought-afteractress with dozens of TV credits to her name; her fresh, Nordic beauty turned heads, and yet she was more than just a pretty face: fifteen years on the London stage had taught her how to act.

  She deposited the wine and her glass on the table, dropped into his lap, and kissed him; and not just some pleased-to-meet-you peck. She straddled him, held his face in her hands and pressed her chest to his. “Missed you,” she breathed between kisses. “Been thinking about this all the way home. Christ, Ed, you make Woman so damned hot…”

  He laughed, not in pleasure at her attention – though it was pleasing – but in recollection of another thing that had slipped his memory: how she sometimes dropped the personal pronoun and called herself Woman. It was one of the many idiosyncrasies that he told himself he’d loved about her.

  She pulled away, breathing hard, and looked around, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  “No,” he said, pre-empting her suggestion.

  “Why not, Ed? You prudish? Woman not.”

  “But people will…”

  “What people? There’s no one for miles around. And if someone turns up…” She shrugged. “So what? Let ’em watch.”

  She began unbuttoning her waist-coat, and then her shirt. She reached up behind her and unclipped her bra. She pressed her breasts to him and they kissed, Richie groaning with the pain of lust as he slipped his hands up her ribcage, gripped the back of her neck and pressed her lips to his.

  She jumped up and danced away and, with one quick twist, divested herself of her skirt. She curtsied, a demure movement belying wanton intent as she pulled down her panties, then kicked off her trainers and rose up before him, gloriously, uninhibitedly naked.

  They made love on the lawn for an hour until, exhausted and spent, he rolled off her and sprawled on the grass; she came to him on all fours and flopped on top of him, breathing hard and laughing.

  “Sleepy now. Bed. Then dinner, mmm?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Carry Woman to bed, my man.”

  “Don’t know if I have the strength.”

  She poked his ribs with a pointed nail. “Carry!”

  Another recollection: her demands, often backed up with minor violence. He’d found them perversely fetching at first, the slaps and blows, digs and nips, surprising himself with his masochistic acceptance of her low-key sadism.

  He knelt and scooped her into his arms, surprised anew at how light she was, child-slight, as he carried her from the lawn and through the house to bed.

  They made love again, and then she fell asleep against his chest, and Richie held her, stroked her long hair and wept.

  IT WAS EIGHT o’clock before they descended to the kitchen and ate.

  Richie watched her, this woman who had walked back into his life, and his love-cum-lust was tempered by something else. He was surprised that he could feel so dispassionately about her; he could see what had attracted him to her, what had made him love her, but at the same time could detect, now, the small things that would in time become annoyances.

  She played on her beauty, her sensuality, to manipulate; she was egotistical and demanding, and ultimately selfish. Perhaps with hindsight he should blame himself for it, blame himself for being the passive audience to her act, of lapping up her performances and proffering no criticism.

  “Finished the outline?” she asked at one point, licking a stray noodle from her lip.

  He recalled the outline he’d seen on the PC earlier. “I think so.”

  “Great, want to read it.”

  “I’ll give it a final polish tomorrow and you can give it the once-over before I send it to Carter.”

  “Big part for me, I hope?”

  “The biggest. Anyway, how did it go…?” He was purposefully vague, as he only had Diggers’ word for it that she had auditioned today.

  She shrugged. “Who knows? Casting directors are a law unto themselves. But I met Shelly afterwards and we went shopping. Bought that little watch I’ve been promising myself ever since that notice in Stage and Screen.”

  He remembered that; the magazine had singled out her performance in a TV play, calling her portrayal a grieving mother moving and profound, a performance that elevates Ms Charlesworth to the first rank of British actresses.

  He recalled her being hyper for days afterwards, recalled how she’d carried the clipping with her wherever she went, forever pulling it out and reading it to herself, her lips silently moving. He’d been touched by it back then, only later wondering at her need for such approbation.

  His own reaction to reviews was severely pragmatic; he’d had enough of them over the years, good and bad, to know that neither really mattered, and ignored them.

  She finished her pad thai, drained her Chardonnay, and said, “Know what I want?”

  He almost winced at the thought of going back to bed: she’d wrung him dry.

  She went on, “Let’s have a session at the Bull, okay? See who’s down there? A couple of pints and a bottle of pinot blanc, and a long lie in tomorrow, hm?”

  He nodded, relieved. “Let’s do that.”

  With the ill-deserved wisdom of retrospect, he understood now that it was more than just pride he felt when showing Samantha off to the regulars at the Black Bull: it was egomania. He was an overweight hack on the wrong side of fifty and he’d managed to pull a well-known actress who looked twenty years his junior.

  This realisation hit him in a flash as he hauled open the door to the public lounge of the Bull and ushered Sam in before him. Heads turned; Nigel, propping up the bar, declared, “What an entrance! The Beauty and the Beast. We’re honoured… What’ll you have?”

  Sam kissed him, standing on tip-toe to do so – she liked making a show of kissing acquaintances; it was part of being an actress.

  “A bottle of Prosecco, Cindy,” Sam said, “and the Beast will have a pint of Theakstons.”

  Paul and Debbie, artists recently moved to the village, arrived soon after, followed by Charles and Greg, an older couple who’d become part of the Tuesday night group; they repaired to a table beside the empty hearth and a long night of boozing and banter began.

  At one point Nigel wandered over, raised his pint and beamed. “I was out on the moors earlier, with my old binocs.”

  “Bird-watching?” Sam asked, with a grin at Richie; she knew where this was heading.

  “You could say that,” Nigel went on, “and guess what I was lucky enough to spot?”

  “That pair of buzzards?” Charles said.

  “A pair of mating… I don’t know quite what they were,” Nigel said, “but they were going at it hammer and tongs. Happened to be in your back garden, Edward.”

  Richie found himself colouring, while Sam was lapping it up. He stood abruptly, gesturing to the empties. “My round.”

  As he moved off, he saw Sam leaning into Nigel as she said, “Tell me more? Did you get a close up?”

  He heard no more as he sought refuge at the bar. He caught Cindy’s attention and ordered, then watched as she pulled the pints. She was still adolescent with puppy-fat, yet to become the pretty twenty-one year old he recalled.

  When he returned with the drinks, Debbie said, “We’ve heard all about it, Ed. Sam’s making a dishonest man of you.”

  “He loves it!” Nigel chortled.

  “Slowly bringing Ed out of his middle-aged shell,” Sam said, squeezing his knee, “though it takes some doing.”

  Please don’t mention the picture window, he thought…

 
; To his relief, Paul asked Sam about gettingtickets to a play she was starring in at Manchester, and the conversation turned to other matters.

  The evening wore on. Richie downed five pints of Theakston bitter and felt pleasantly abstracted from proceedings. He was happy to sit back and watch as Sam held the floor, downing the Prosecco all by herself but not letting it show.

  He remembered something Digby had said at their last meeting, that Sam had been to see him and Caroline and had complained of Richie’s apathy, his lack of emotional openness, or some such. He had been offended at the time, and surprised.

  But perhaps he’d been rightly accused.

  When he’d first met Sam Charlesworth, he’d been beguiled by her ego, her ebullience, seeing it then as an attribute, not a defect. Now, having known her for three years, he could see through her act after just a few hours.

  So perhaps old Diggers was right, and he had worked subconsciously to undermine his relationship with his lover.

  Midnight came and went; the night fragmented into drunken recollections, stray images: Sam insisted on showing Charles how a real woman kissed, sitting on his knee and planting a smacker on the old gay’s shocked face. Nigel called out, “My turn next!” and received a rather too forceful smack across the cheek for his trouble. Sam called for another bottle at one o’clock, and Richie recalled gripping her arm and saying, “I think you’ve had quite enough, my girl.”

  “No! Woman wants wine!”

  And then they were outside, in the late autumn warmth, and saying their drunken goodbyes as if they might never meet again, and Sam was pulling him back and insisting, with blows about his head, that he give her a piggy-back all the way home.

  He recalled panting up the drive, almost slipping once or twice, and her riding him like a jockey into the house and urging him up the stairs with prods of her heels. He dropped her on the bed where she struggled from her clothes, and he undressed. In bed she tried to raise his passion, with little luck, then gave up and turned her back on him.

  And Richie passed out.

  In the morning he woke to an empty bed, reached out and encountered a tundra of cool sheets.

  He wondered, for a second, if he’d jumped again, then heard noises from downstairs: music on the radio, and Sam singing along.

  He looked at the bedside clock. It was after eleven. He sat up, surprised that he only had a medium-bad hangover. After all the beer last night, he’d expected a real beauty; he was relieved he’d stuck to the Theakstons, and not mixed his drinks.

  Sam joined him a while later, carrying a plate of toast and a mug of coffee. She looked fresh-faced and bright-eyed, as if the wine had affected her not at all.

  She sat cross-legged beside him, munching her toast.

  “And where’s mine?”

  “You don’t deserve breakfast in bed,” she said.

  He was genuinely surprised. “And why not?”

  “After last night’s performance?”

  “Last night’s…?” he began, nonplussed.

  “You were awful, Ed. You hardly said a word, just sat there in gloomy silence with a face like thunder, watching.”

  “Well, you did act up a bit.”

  She stopped eating and stared at him. “‘Act up’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, I know you like to be the centre of attention, but there’s a limit.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Egging Nigel on about seeing us making love… snogging Charles… insisting that Paul paint your portrait… naked. And did you really need to drag out that damned review and read it aloud? And another thing, I don’t like being assaulted in public.”

  She widened her eyes. “Assaulted?”

  “All those slaps and pinches and digs in the ribs. What the hell got into you?”

  With downcast eyes she said, “I was just trying to get your attention, Ed.”

  “Well, there are better ways of going about it.”

  She leapt off the bed and ran from the room, still gripping her mug and spilling coffee.

  He lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  He thought back to their time together, wondering why they had never argued then. Perhaps the fact that he knew it was going to end was making him boorish now.

  She returned bearing a fresh plate of toast and coffee in his Leeds United mug.

  She knelt on the bed beside him and murmured, “Woman sorry. Peace offering. Your favourite: Marmite. Forgive me.”

  He took the mug and the plate and placed them on the bedside table. He kissed her small hands. “Sam…”

  “I’m sorry. It’s… I know it’s wrong, Ed. I…” She shook her head. “I think there’s something wrong with me, you know? You’re right – I like to be the centre of attention. It’s as if… the more attention I get, the more I need. I’m insatiable. I can never get enough. I crave more and more attention and will do anything to get it. Why the hell do you think I act?”

  He squeezed her hand. “But why the craving?”

  “Because…” She stared down at his hands. “I’ve never told anyone this,” she said in a small voice. “My father… He and my mother separated when I was six. He visited every month. When you’re a kid, a month’s a year. It was as if he never came, and then only for a few hours, which were always over too soon. I lived for his visits, Ed. And when he did come, I had to make the most of it.”

  “You acted?”

  “I suppose I did, but I didn’t realise I was doing it. I was hyper, craving his attention, his… what’s the word? You’ve used it… Approbation, that’s it. I craved his approbation. I really wanted his reassurance that I was the centre of his world, just as he was mine.”

  “And… did you get it?”

  She shook her head minimally. “I found out that he was living with another woman. She had twin girls, a little older than me. He didn’t tell me, but I saw them together in town one day. He was holding their hands, laughing. They were having a great time.” She was weeping, now. “How do you think that made me feel?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So the next time I saw him, I acted all the more, put on a show, tried to make him love me, want me. I didn’t understand his… his reluctance at the time, of course. Only now…” She smiled through her tears. “Now I can see that he was protecting himself. I lived with my mother, and he could never get her back, or me, so he was distancing himself, protecting himself. I wish he’d lived long enough for me to tell him that I understood. But he died when I was ten.” She blotted her eyes on the cuff of her pyjamas.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t think you do, Ed. You see, all this craving attention, needing to be the centre of things… Why do you think I love you so much?”

  “I…” He swallowed. He knew what was coming.

  “You remind me so much of my father,” she said in a small voice. “I’m not wrong, am I? I’m not sick for… for searching for what he couldn’t give me?”

  He smiled. “I don’t think so, Sam.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his lips, then moved down his body, kissing his chest, his belly, then taking him in her mouth.

  “Oh…” he said.

  She looked up at him. “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Strange. Sticky with jam and scratchy with toast crumbs.”

  They made love with a passion he recalled from the early days of their relationship, then dozed in each other’s arms.

  He woke before her and held her head to his chest, stroking her hair and staring through the window at the sun on the distant spinney, thinking over what she’d told him.

  They’d never had this conversation during the time they’d been together; he had never understood her. Sam’s craving for attention, for his attention, had slowly begun to annoy him, and he realised in retrospect
that he had withdrawn, become apathetic. No wonder Sam had gone to Digby and Caroline with her worries; no wonder she had left him for someone else.

  And now?

  Would he soon jump from this time, shunted into a younger version of himself? Or might he never jump again, might he live on with Sam Charlesworth, understanding her now, so that she never had reason to leave him? And, if so, how did he feel about it?

  A painful thought occurred to him. He considered what Digby would tell him, two and a half years down the line. If he did remain on this time-line, then would something deep and buried within him seek a way to undermine his relationship with Sam, despite his new understanding of her? Would he drive her from him?

  Or perhaps, he thought bitterly, perhaps I was right when I wondered if I was in a coma, and all this is my traumatised brain’s way of coping…

  But Sam felt so real in his arms, and he knew he was not hallucinating.

  He slipped into a troubled sleep, and was jerked awake later by Sam’s startled exclamation. “Look at the time!”

  It was one o’clock.

  She danced from the bed, a naked sprite, and ran into the en suite bathroom. “I said I’d meet Kath in Leeds at two,” she called. “Retail therapy, and then a meal at Angelo’s.”

  She returned ten minutes later, dressed and applied a little make-up. All set, she knelt on the bed and said, “You’re going over to see Diggers?”

  “Caroline’s cooking an Indian, then we’re watching the match. Well, me and Diggers will.”

  “Staying the night?”

  “No, I’ll be back.”

  They kissed, staring into each other’s eyes for seconds. “Loves,” she murmured.

  “Loves,” he said.

  She hurried from the house and he heard her E-type reverse down the drive and roar off along the lane.

  HE DOZED AGAIN, then at four forced himself to get out of bed and shower. At five-thirty he drove over the moors to Digby’s farmhouse, pulling in along the way to admire the armada of bruise-blue cumulus piled over a valley; it was raining in the distance, and with the late afternoon sunlight a startlingly vivid rainbow had appeared, arching from one side of the valley to the other.