LITMIR.BIZ

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Saulan-Thea. The balance between them was such that little rocked their proverbial boat. They got along too well for that, liked each other so much that they never found reason to disagree, or much point in arguing.

      Do I take Thea for granted? Is that what Alice implied?

      When Saul finally walked up Great Portland Street it was gone six o’clock. He’d been walking for three hours and his feet were sore, his mind still fugged. Was he doing something wrong or just not doing right enough? He meandered circuitously to his street. From the corner, he looked up and saw that his lights were on. He stood still for a while and regarded the run of his windows, stopping to thoroughly analyse what he normally gave no second thought to. Thea Jessica Luckmore, aged thirty-three, was up there. That was a fact. Five feet four inches high, around nine stones in weight, natural mousy hair, hazel eyes, slightly skew bottom teeth, impressive scars from a vicious dog, favourite colour turquoise, favourite book Black Beauty, all-time favourite song ‘Cygnet Committee’ by David Bowie, favourite film Jules et Jim, favourite animal tortoise. Supports Chelsea FC but prefers watching rugby. Electric toothbrushes make her gag. Drinks hot Marmite when she has a cold. Once performed a tap dance on Blue Peter. All facts he knew off by heart. At that very moment, she was in his flat. Probably watching the early-evening news or taking a shower. Or perhaps she was just sitting quietly letting the physical tensions she’d massaged from her clients all day ebb away from her. Saul walked a few paces closer but stopped again, looking up at his flat.

       I don’t know what she’s doing up there, actually, but the fact is that I much prefer returning home to a flat full of Thea than one devoid of her. She is part of my world. She is synonymous with Home. She lights my life. She makes my space personal. She defines it.

      He continued to loiter on the corner, engrossed in thoughts about light bulbs. They were on in his flat and, as if in a cartoon strip, Saul envisaged one suddenly sparking into light atop his head. As if he’d just had the best idea in the world. Like the answer to life itself had clicked on. How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, actually – and I don’t think that’s very funny. How many Theas does it take to change a light bulb? None, actually. Saul had systematically gone through her flat just that weekend and replaced the lot.

      February may have been unseasonably mild but Saul acknowledged it was downright deluded to have the Isley Brothers’ ‘Summer Breeze’ soaring through his mind. Over the years, when discussing his Desert Island Discs with friends or compiling his Top 8 by himself in the bath, it had been the only mainstay on his list. It was one of those songs that in his head he sang perfectly but out loud, when he so wanted to put the power into his voice that the song instilled in him, the result was discordant and cringeworthy. Just then, though, it wasn’t the summer breeze per se, nor the bizarre notion of having jasmine in one’s mind; it wasn’t the sweet and melodious tune nor the joyous vocals. For Saul, the immediate connection was with a man returning home; knowing from the mere hang of the curtains, from the little light shining in the window, that his love was there, with her arms reaching out to hold him, to make his world all right. More than all right. The blissful domesticity of it all. What more could a man want?

       And I come home from a hard day’s work

       And you’re waitin’ there

       Not a care in the world

       See the smile a-waitin’ in the kitchen

       Food cookin’ and the plates for two

       Feel the arms that reach out to hold me

       In the evening when the day is through

      Saul takes the stairs, two at a time, music filling his soul, mirroring his feelings, reverberating around his head, providing the answer. He bursts through the door and Thea looks up. There she is. There she is. Sitting on the sofa with her feet on the coffee table. Painting her toenails. Wearing a T-shirt of his, inside out. A mug and a screwed-up KitKat wrapper by the bottle of nail polish. The Simpsons on the television with the volume turned down. David Bloody Bloody Bowie on the stereo.

      ‘Hullo,’ she says, ‘I’m painting my toenails. It’s a freebie from Alice – it’s Chanel. I’ve cooked us something delicious. It’ll be ready in an hour. How was your day?’

      Saul doesn’t know what to say because he hasn’t a clue where to start or how to say it. The Isley Brothers desert him. All he can do, just now, is nod and say hi, kiss the top of her head and kick himself, as he passes by on the way to the fridge for a beer.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Thea asked him, a couple of hours later. She regarded him with a softly suspicious expression.

      ‘Fine,’ Saul assured her. ‘God – why?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Thea said lightly, ‘you’ve seemed a little pensive and you keep looking at me when you think I won’t notice. Makes me think I have a Biro mark on my chin or a stray bogey.’

      Saul drew her against him, enfolding his arms around her, and gently placed his lips to her temple while they watched the nine o’clock news.

      He slept fitfully that night. They’d had intercourse by frantic fucking rather than refined lovemaking more akin to his earlier mood. He should have been worn out after that, drained after all his thinking on top of a long walk home. But he’d drift off then wake up, every hour or so. At two a.m. he awoke to the Isley Brothers playing again and again in his head. Be quiet. At four a.m. he woke again because he could no longer hear the Isley Brothers, his heartbeat drowned it out. And Alice. Oh shut up, Alice. I can think for myself. By five a.m. Saul had reached a turning point.

       I’m confident I haven’t done anything wrong – but perhaps, just perhaps, it really is time to do the right thing.

      The notion made him feel exhilarated and terrified and like waking Thea right there and then. However, at some point, he must have slumped down into a soundless, dreamless sleep because when he woke with start at eight o’clock, he felt exhausted and fuggy and, as a consequence, non-communicative.

      ‘See you later, grumpy,’ Thea said, kissing his cheek as she left for work.

       Shall I email her?

       Ask her by text message?

       But not over the phone.

       Should I write a love letter or dictate a message to a florist and have it sent in someone else’s handwriting with a huge bouquet?

       Shall I just stride into the Being Well, burst in on her and ask her outright?

       Perhaps I should whisper it to her while we make love?

       Or ask her nonchalantly after we’ve had sex?

       I could do it over dinner – a ready-meal or after sausages at the Swallow or even a table at Sheekey’s?

       I could call to her from my window when I see her approach.

       Ought I to whisk her away and do it on some glorious bridge in Venice or Paris or Las Vegas even?

      Blag an Aston Martin DB7, take her for a spin and then ask?

       Should I run any of this past Alice?

       Or Ian?

       Should I let Barefaced Bloke do the talking for me in my piece this Sunday?

       How about a singing telegram?

       Balloons in a box?

       Icing – literally – on a cake, spelling it out?

       First

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