The Seed Collectors (52 page)

‘Oh my God,’ says Bryony, cringing. ‘But why . . . ?’

‘It was a total fucking ambush. I’d given her my number because . . .’

‘You gave her your number?’

‘She said she didn’t have any friends! She was suicidal!’

‘Right.’

‘I have to speak to Clem. Clem doesn’t understand. I never even had any sexual feelings about Charlotte May. If anything I fantasised
about her being my
daughter
. Which of course I can’t say in public because it makes it sound even worse.’

‘So why did you offer her fifteen more marks?’

‘Because she had her top off and . . .’

‘Oh my God,’ Bryony says again.

‘I offered her the marks to make her put her top back
on
again. If anything it was just for the camera, to show how desperately I did not want to have her topless in a room with me. But apparently offering to give students more marks is gross misconduct whatever the circumstances.’

‘So what did Clem say?’

‘She said she knew for ages that something weird had been going on with me. But not only that, like everyone else she is sick of me. Apparently I lie, and I cheat, and I’m sexist and I’m racist and . . .’ Ollie looks out of the window. ‘Shit. Great. Press.’

‘How do you know?’

‘That cunt’s been following me all day.’

‘I don’t think he’s seen you.’

‘No. But he will. They hack your phone, apparently.’

‘Look. Let’s just get a room and a bottle of wine and work this out. I’ll pay.’

‘Are you propositioning me? Because I think I’ve had all the . . .’

‘Of course I’m not propositioning you. Don’t be stupid. It’s just practical. Where else are we going to go if you’ve got press trailing around after you?’

‘I suppose I do need somewhere to stay since I’ve been thrown out of both my house and my office.’

Bryony breathes hard as she climbs the stairs ten minutes after Ollie. She feels light-headed, as if her mind is climbing the stairs faster than
her body. It’s similar to the way she felt running that 5k, when this all started. Or maybe it started long before that. She thinks about her landing strip and her toenails and how they were all for him. But not really. Well, only sort of. Only sort of for the fantasy version of all this. But it’s OK because the reality now is that they are going to sit in the privacy of a hotel room for a while and then . . . Bryony looks at her watch. It’s 4 p.m. She has one hour max. Maybe an hour and a half. And she mustn’t drink too much before driving home. One more large glass.

In the room there is nowhere comfortable to sit except the bed, so Bryony and Ollie sit next to one another with their legs stretched out. Bryony pours wine. It’s a blah blah Merlot that turns out to be a rather nice deep red when poured. The same colour as her dress.

‘Things aren’t great for me at home either,’ she says. ‘If that makes you feel any better. I don’t really know what to do about Holly, and . . .’

‘I’m not sure I’m going to be a great listener, but . . .’

‘No, don’t worry. I’m not going to offload. Just didn’t want you to feel alone.’

For a moment there is just the hum of something. Probably a mini-bar.

‘When did you last have sex?’

‘Me and James?’

‘Yes.’

Bryony thinks about it. ‘I think maybe July. On Jura. We had a massive row and . . .’

‘I haven’t had sex for over a year.’

‘Oh God. That’s . . .’

‘Part of the YouTube experience is a close-up of my erection.’

‘What?’

‘Through my jeans. But you can see it. Well, just.’

‘But why . . . ? I mean . . . ?’

‘I am a man. A beautiful girl was jiggling her tits at me. Even if she had been my daughter, I . . .’

‘God.’

‘But don’t you think after a year, I mean, it’s not that weird to . . .?’

‘No, no, of course. It’s completely understandable. So what’s wrong with Clem?’

‘She just doesn’t love me any more.’

‘But that’s no reason not to have sex with someone.’

‘Really?’

‘Sex can be about different things.’

‘Can it?’ His hand moves from his lap to her leg.

She gulps. ‘Yes. Um . . .’

‘Hmm?’ He has his eyes closed.

‘Ollie, this probably isn’t a good idea.’

‘Isn’t this why you’re here?’

‘No! I mean, well . . .’

‘I feel as if no one in the whole world wants me.’

‘That’s not true. I do want you. You know that.’ Bryony touches his bicep. ‘It’s just I’m sort of trying to patch a few things up with James, and . . .’

‘I am a bad person.’

‘Maybe I am a bad person too.’

‘So we’re two bad people in a hotel room. My life is fucked anyway . . .’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Undo your dress. I want to see a real woman’s tits.’

‘Ollie . . .’

‘And I want to see your bum.’

He pulls up her dress and strokes the inside of her leg. Finds the edge of her stocking and gasps ever so slightly. Here’s the problem. Bryony can no longer resist this and . . . Her phone rings. What now? She gets it out of her bag. It’s James.

‘Tell whoever it is to fuck off.’

She flicks the decline button, which is hard to see now that Ollie has his hand . . .

‘You bastard,’ she says, giggling.

‘Am I? What are you?’

‘Call me a bitch,’ she says. ‘Call me anything you like.’ His finger slips inside her. ‘Call me a whore.’

‘What am I? Say it again.’

‘You’re a bastard.’ Bryony struggles out of her dress. Every single thing she is wearing, from her silk underwear to the red crêpe de chine dress, which she now drops on the floor, was chosen with this man in mind. Or, not exactly this actual man but the fantasy version for whom the real Bryony would never really undress. Only the fantasy Bryony would ever . . . But here she is. And here he is.

‘You can leave those on.’ He nods at her stockings.

‘Bastard,’ she says again, raising an eyebrow. But she does leave them on. She did that French thing of putting her knickers on after her stockings, which sort of means that . . .

‘What else?’ He unzips his fly and pulls down his boxers and his jeans. Bryony is now naked apart from her stockings and suspender belt, but he doesn’t seem to want to take any of his clothes off. He holds onto a tit with one hand while fingering her with the other. He doesn’t seem to have noticed her toenails, but he may have seen her landing strip and . . . ‘What else?’

‘You’re a disgusting bastard.’

He enters her. Which he can do without her having to go on all-fours, which is something she wishes the fitness instructor could see. Or maybe not. He keeps his thumb on her clit. She gasps.

‘You’re a cheating bitch.’

‘You lie and you fuck everything up and no one trusts you because . . .’

‘Shut up, whore.’

‘Is that the best you can do, cunt?’

‘Fat bitch.’

‘Sad wanker.’

‘Fat slag.’

‘Pathetic, ridiculous, small-dicked loser . . .’

They both come.

When Fleur gets back to the cottage, Pi is already packing.

‘I thought . . .’ he says.

Fleur frowns and sighs. ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘You should go.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK. Go and find yourself. You deserve that.’

‘At the beginning I was so fucking angry with you because of your mother. Even though you were so kind . . . I haven’t always been very nice to you. I’m sorry. If it helps, I did love you, despite everything. Although that made me hate you a bit too. But I know that you don’t love me, at least not now.’

‘I did love you once. Sort of. I mean, when we were kids here in the house, having to survive, never having any money. All those scams. Your massages . . .’ Fleur smiles. ‘But then of course there was Kam. I couldn’t forgive you for that. I have now though.’

‘Do you remember when you used to tell the celebrities’ fortunes?’

‘Yeah. Although in those days the celebrities had no sodding money either.’

‘And our market stall . . . All those little lavender bags that you sewed.’

Pi sits on the bed. Fleur sits next to him. Takes his hand in hers.

Above them the portrait of Gita hangs in its ebony frame. Pi never seemed to notice that Gita and Fleur were so similar. Fleur’s skin is paler, of course, all these generations on, but that is the only difference.

‘You earned this place,’ says Pi. ‘You worked for it. Harder than I ever did.’

‘Well . . .’

‘I went to see the Prophet earlier. He’s given me money for the trip. Said you wouldn’t mind.’

‘It’s his money. But of course I don’t mind.’

‘He says it’s your money. Your inheritance.’

‘Well, I still don’t mind.’

Outside, one of the churches strikes six o’ clock. It’s getting dark.

‘But you can’t go now,’ Fleur says.

‘I’ve booked a taxi. I arrived here in the dark. I may as well leave the same way. My flight’s first thing tomorrow. I’ll stay at Heathrow overnight. Better than waking up at two in the morning or whatever.’

So Fleur’s last night with Pi has already happened. It is over. It passed without her even knowing that’s what it was. What would they have done if they had known? Would they have made love? Would they have cried? As it was she went to sleep early while he read the
Upanishads
on his Kindle. But of course he did know. He’d already bought the tickets.

Pumpkins. Everywhere. Thousands of pumpkins.

Is there nothing you cannot PYO now?

Bryony’s hair is still wet from the hotel shower as she steps out of the car into the cool blue October twilight outside the Old Lorry Farm Shop. She has driven beyond Ash, beyond home, trying to dry her hair because it didn’t really rain that hard today, and how do you explain . . . And of course she couldn’t use the hotel hairdryer, can never use a hairdryer on this frizzy mop that needs particularly gentle teasing and stroking and finger drying . . . She can hear the chainsaws going out the back where the men cut firewood all winter long while
an Alsatian barks at everyone who walks past. But at least Holly will have her pumpkin. Quite why it became Bryony’s job to get the pumpkin on her graduation day is still a mystery. But it is a reason to be late. Is pumpkin something Holly would even eat? Perhaps in a nice, thick creamy soup, or in a pie. But how can Bryony think about pie now, after what she has done? But of course she is actually thinking about Holly, and Holly is the important thing in all this . . . Holly must have her pumpkin for school, and James will make something out of the insides. Maybe cake. Can she undo what she has just done with Ollie? No. But maybe she can unthink it. Tonight she will be a good wife and a good mother, and . . .

But she can feel the sting from where Ollie was inside her, and of course she can still hear the things he said. But she asked him to say them. Perhaps she should have asked for something else instead. ‘I love you, my darling’ would have been nicer. But what they did was real and brutal and dangerous, which is how life is sometimes. It just doesn’t feel much like that when you are in a field full of pumpkins, and it’s getting too dark to see anything, and . . .

‘Are you all right, love?’ calls one of the chainsaw men.

‘Yes, thanks. Just trying to work out how to pick one.’