Did The Earth Move? (28 page)

Jen appeared in the canteen, flushed, hair all over the place, red marks on the back of her neck where the plastic apron had been tied over her party clothes.

'Congratulations,' she'd hugged Eve, in a voice edged with tears because she had just delivered her best friend's grandson and it still felt like a present: 'You're a grandma. You're a grandma now. They've had a beautiful boy, 8 pounds 10 ounces and Eve, he's perfect. He's absolutely perfect.'

Everyone was on their feet.

'How is she doing?' Eve managed to ask. 'Can we go and visit?'

'Of course! She's fine... tired. But wait till you see them, they're just thrilled!'

They were all allowed in, even Joseph who was initially stopped at the door by Sister Leanne, who told him 'family only', to which Tom said, 'It's OK, that's my dad.'

Eve wondered fleetingly what Sister Leanne made of that, but then there they were in front of her, the brand new family of three – Tom, Deepa and their tiny curled up, folded in caramel kiss of a baby.

'Oh . . . oh . . . congratulations.' Eve hugged and kissed her son, who looked exhausted, but dazed with happiness in his sweat-soaked wedding T-shirt, 'Well groom-ed' spelled out in silver across the front.

Then she moved on to her daughter-in-law, all cleaned up and starchy white in her hospital bed with the baby asleep in the crook of her arm.

'He's just beautiful,' Eve whispered and let Anna and Robbie get right up to the bedside for a look. 'Are you OK?' she asked Deepa.

'Yeah... that was a bit sore, though. To put it mildly.' Deepa managed to take her eyes from her son to look up at Eve now. 'But he's wonderful,' she whispered and for a moment they almost all cried all over again.

'Well done, darling,' Eve said, kissing the top of Deepa's head. 'Do your family know yet?'

'Yeah, Tom's made a few calls.'

'There'll be no problems remembering our wedding anniversary now,' Tom added, not able to tear his gaze from his wife and their baby.

'What are you going to call him?' Joseph asked.

'I think we're going to name him after Mum,' Tom replied.

'Eve?' Anna asked, a little taken aback.

'No ... Adam,' Tom said, smiling. 'If you see what we mean.'

'Oh! Sweet!' was the general consensus.

'Thank you,' Eve said, too overcome to add anything else.

'Deepa? Will the baby drink milk from your boobies?' Robbie wanted to know.

Finally, it was time to go home. Eve carried Robbie and Joseph carried Anna back to their cars.

'You'll need some sleep before you drive back to Manchester, won't you? Or a cup of tea or something?' Eve asked when they were back at the flat, desperate for him not to go. This had been too much of a day. She needed him to stay just a bit longer.

'Maybe I could kip on your couch for a bit. If that's OK?'

'Of course. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep at all. Ever again!'

They bundled Anna and Robbie into bed, party clothes and all, each of them noticing the other kiss the children and stroke them tenderly.

In the kitchen, he sat down at the table and watched her make tea, in her faded rose-patterned dressing gown with her pink and blond hair clipped up all wonkily on top of her head and her face scrubbed clean, because she'd taken off her tired and smudged party make-up as well as her party dress.

She went to the two tea caddies and spooned out tea leaves from each just the way he expected her to, poured in the boiling water, stirred it meditatively. He felt a pain, which he knew was heartache and homesickness. This was his home. This was the place he should be and this was the person he should be with. The feeling was so strong that he was going to have to do something about it. Say something. At least try. Was there ever going to be a better moment?

She brought the pot over with two mugs.

'Why did Tom thank you for the ring?' she asked before he could say anything. 'Did you lend him the money?'

'No ... I gave him the ring. I thought Deepa might like it.'

Eve was frowning at him, awaiting further explanation.

'It was Michelle's,' he said.

'Oh.' She was frozen, teapot in mid-air.

'We've called it off. Split up... You don't need to say anything sympathetic,' he added: 'It was entirely my fault.'

There was a big, expectant pause hanging between them. Eve hardly dared to breathe. She set the teapot down again.

'I think you only know how much you've loved someone when it's over,' he said, suddenly developing an intense interest in a stain on the tablecloth, which he started to scrape at: 'I didn't love Michelle nearly enough to marry her... But what happened between you and me still seems really important and I sometimes wonder if I'm ever going to get over it... If I even want to get over it.'

Her gaze dropped to the floor and rested on the caramel suede boots he was wearing underneath his suit. He was jiggling his foot a little and with every jiggle she could see a flash of his socks. That was when Eve saw what Jen had meant. They were probably very expensive socks – Paul Smith or something groovy – but nevertheless, they were stripy socks... and quite incredibly, they were purple and turquoise stripy socks.

She looked back up at him and tried to read his expression. She didn't know that he was rolling all his courage up into a ball to ask her:

'Eve?' he said, clearing his throat slightly, 'has it ever occurred to you? I mean, have you ever thought that maybe? For the children . . . we should, perhaps ...'

Her eyes were fastened on his and for a moment he wavered. What was she thinking? Was he about to make a terrible mistake? He glanced round the room for any sort of sign. And as he paused, her hand moved against her mug with the slightest of clinks and he looked down to see that she still, after all this time, wore the ring he'd given her. The slip of platinum and emerald which hadn't been thrown back at him. It must count for something. Surely? OK, deep breath.

'Eve, I'm so in love with you still,' he said, voice barely above a whisper.

Long silence.

'Do you realize that I'm a grandmother?' she said finally.

'That doesn't matter.' He almost laughed.

She looked at him for a long, long time. He felt in fear of what she might say next. 'Do you really think we can do this?' she asked him, head tilted to one side. 'Go back?'
Could he really know how much she would like to go back?

'No. We can't go back.' He put his hand over hers. 'But maybe we can go forward.'

'I don't know if I can believe in it all again.'

'Then believe in it a little. Take a chance.'

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Mum.
Tom's words in her mind.

She looked at the warm hand held over hers.

'What about the children?' she thought out loud. 'I couldn't bear to see them hurt all over again.'

'I love the children, Eve,' was his answer to this. 'Don't use them as an excuse when they're another reason to try again.'

She looked at his face – so serious, so sincere, so downright, perfectly lovely. Who wouldn't want to wake up next to this face every day of their life?

'This is all wrong,' she told him.

'Is it?' He sounded very worried.

'Yeah, you should definitely have started with kissing. Loosened me up with a bit of kissing and then moved on to the big speech.'

'Should I?' A wash of relief over his face. 'OK ... Keep me right. Kiss now? Would that be any good?'

'Ah ha, kissing now ... very good.'

He leaned towards her and kissed the tip of her nose, very lightly. 'I've missed you so much,' he said. 'Every single day.'

'And night,' she added, leaning in to kiss him on the mouth, wrap her arms round him and let herself fall... fall into him, fall back in love with him, fall forward into love with him.

He tasted, just as she remembered, he smelled, just as she remembered, he felt, just as she remembered, from the very best of her dreams.

The kiss finally melted apart and they were looking at each other, very close up, nose to nose. Big wide pupils fixed on her.

'Come outside with me,' she said and led him by the hand out of the kitchen door into the garden.

And there, underneath the tallest palm plants, pressed up against a trellis of sweet pea flowers, they began to kiss again. Again... again. He was perfect. She ran fingers through his hair, pulled him in against her, impatient to feel again every single thing that had once been so amazing between them. How had she lived without this? Lived without him?

Her dressing gown fell to her feet and she fumbled over his shirt buttons, in too much of a hurry, licking and kissing at his soft, salty neck, tugging at his zip and feeling him wrap his arms and his jacket tightly around her.

And only when he was inside, their bodies pressed right up against and into each other, moving with intent, did she dare to open her eyes.

'It's OK,' she whispered against his ear. 'It's OK.'

She meant the practicalities – no further surprises on the baby front – but 'it's OK' covered everything else right now. The strangeness and the familiarity, the newness and the known of making love to him again. Her man. His face pressed hard against her neck. Her one and only. She knew the little breathe and catch sound, breathe and catch, he was making. The love of her life. His hands on her hips, moving her with him until she was breaking apart, breaking into pieces underneath him, mouth and nose buried into his shoulder skin. This was how it was meant to be. She was
so
coming, unwinding, unravelling all the way through him.

Joseph could hear only the blood pounding in his ears as he reached the very edge of letting go. He was being rushed to the top of a mountain and aaaaaaaaaaah, pushed down over the other side into freefall.

I'm coming . . . I'm
coming .
. . Eve,' he was sighing against her ear.

'Yeeeeeah,' was her reply.

'Oh ... you've no idea.' He wanted to let her know how good it was to come again. It had been so long. To feel the rushing and
the relief!

'Oh ... wow,' he managed. He didn't want to open his eyes yet. The earth was actually spinning and he would have to come back down slowly.

He leaned back into the crushed sweet peas, realizing he'd probably stained the back of his new suit irredeemably but, fuck it, who cared?

'Hey, lovely person,' she said and he prised his eyes apart to look at the smiley, fuzzy face pressed up against his.

'You did, didn't you?' he asked.

'Oh yeah,' she nodded. 'But sex isn't everything, you know.' Little laugh caught in the back of her throat.

'No. But it's a very good start.'

'How is this going to work, then? Have you thought about it much?' she asked.

'I call it a day in Manchester and move back in with you,' he answered.

But she shook her head.

'No?'

'We're going forward aren't we, not back?' she reminded him.

'It's OK. I'm a changed man. I'm going to bike to work, recycle everything, save money ...' he told her.

'Shhhh,' she grinned at him. 'Silly boy. Of course you are. But we can't live here. It's too small.'

And all of sudden it seemed easy. She would stop struggling against all this stuff and just let go, let it happen. Make the changes. She would take the promotion at work, offered to her two days ago, she would sell the flat and the garden and maybe the four of them would move into the big house on the corner. The one she walked past almost every day and dreamed about. The solid but shabby square house with broken windows and the huge, wild, unloved garden. They would fix it all up and make it home.

'Shall we buy a house together?' she asked him.

'A house?'

'Yeah. There is this house on the corner, three streets down. It's a mess, huge garden, totally wild ...'

He saw the light in her eyes.

'An expensive house? Big loan? Having to earn lots of money situation?'

She was nodding at him.

'And this isn't worrying you?'

She shook her head, but said, 'Well a bit... But I've got you. You'll help me out of my little rut, won't you? Because we both have to change ... just a little.'

'Put your dressing gown on before you freeze,' he said and kissed her on the lips.

She tied the gown on, then turned to him, cupping his face in her hands, smoothing down his dark brows.

'Is this really going to work? Can it be as good as it was?'

'I love you,' he said. 'It'll be better. I promise. This is what I really, really want. And I'm not the only person.'

He was right, Anna would love it and probably Robbie would too.

'Don't answer this question now, Joe, don't say a word.' She put a finger over his lips, took a deep breath and asked the question that until tonight would have terrified her: 'Will you think about marrying me?'

He pushed her finger away, face breaking into an irrepressible grin: 'Yes, yes, yes.'

'Don't answer now!'

'Why? Are you scared?'

'Yes!'

'Too bad. The answer's yes.'

'You've only just got unengaged.'

'I know, I'm like a toilet cubicle... Engage me, please.'

She laughed at him, feeling even more of a fizz of happiness inside, and told him: 'It's just I really like the dress I wore today and I've got nowhere else to wear it.'

'That would be a shame. So marry me.'

'We'll see.' She knew she meant yes, just couldn't quite bring herself to say it... yet.

'That's a very mumsy answer.'

'Mumsy? I'm a granny now – which is quite scary and you should be warned.'

'Not scary to me . . .' He clasped both hands round her back and leaned in to whisper in her ear, 'Less youth... more experience.' It sounded filthy.

They kissed again mouth to mouth, eye to eye, holding hands, breaking off to laugh at each other. This was the way it was meant to end for them, or rather, begin again for them. They saw that now.

'Are we really back together. Really, really?' he asked.

'Honey, I don't just sleep with anyone,' was her reply.

'Honey, that's not what I heard.'

'How jealous were you of the vet, then?'

'He took one look at me and threw in the towel,' he joked.

She laughed at this and he held her in to kiss again.

'Promise me all this isn't just about you feeling jealous?' she asked.

'I promise. This is all about me doing what my daughter wants me to do,' he joked.

'I know,' she smiled. 'We are but pawns in her paws.' Then she pulled him away from the wall and surveyed the damage. 'Oh the poor sweet peas ... completely mashed.'

'Eve, this is all very picturesque but it's very cold and we have to go inside now,' he told her. 'And I'm still going to sleep on the sofa.'