Page 29 of The Love Game

I’m meeting T tonight. Henry has taken Della to visit his mother for the weekend – he didn’t ask me to go and I didn’t push it, because in truth I wanted the time alone.

It’s not my fault that Doris doesn’t like me.

I could try harder I expect, buy her some leather gloves or a hat, but I don’t think anyone would ever be good enough for her darling son so I’ve given up.

I’m praying for the strength to say no to T, we both know it’s wrong but we’re powerless. It’s as inevitable as the tide.

Violet sipped her tea and closed the diary, laying it in her lap with her hand resting on the cover.

Her grandmother shouldn’t have written this down.

Had Grandpa Henry ever read it? Had he found out about the mysterious T?

God, had she met him herself today on the pier?

She cast her mind back over the day as best she could but it was a blur of faces and memories, no one leapt out at her as especially odd.

Beyond Gladys, of course – and Hortensia Deville too, for that matter.

Maybe she’d ask Cal about her, see if he could shed any light.

Gathering her things together for the most unlikely of slumber parties, she let herself out of her apartment and headed across the landing.

‘Hello neighbour,’ Cal said, opening the door. ‘Come in.’

Vi smiled and followed him inside, glimpsing the room that used to be his workroom through the open door and pausing to exclaim how much bigger the place seemed now he’d reclaimed it as living space again.

He nodded, chatting about his redecoration plans as he led her through to the living room.

Vi nodded in the right places, accepting the glass of wine he poured for her and trying to feel relaxed and grown up instead of nervous and slightly hysterical.

He’d changed already into old faded jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair was still slightly damp from the shower.

He looked at home, barefoot with a bottle of beer in his hand.

‘You go and grab a shower,’ he said, when they both lapsed into silence.

‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ she said, because it felt slightly weird now she was here.

‘Honestly, go for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and crack a few eggs.’

There was very little Vi could think to say to that, so she did as he’d suggested and headed for the bathroom.

Cal’s place was different in every way to Violet’s.

Sleek lines and dark wood, white tiles and ink-blue towels, and not a gilt loo-roll holder or mermaid in sight.

It was masculine, but calmingly so, quite Zen-like in comparison to Violet’s glitzy glam pad.

Locking the door, she stood still for a moment.

It was a bit odd stripping naked in Cal’s home, even if the door was bolted – she’d checked it twice to make sure.

Telling herself to just think of it like going to the communal shower block on a campsite rather than intimately as Cal’s bathroom, she stepped out of her clothes and under the shower.

Five minutes later, she wondered why she’d ever contemplated saying no.

It was absolute bliss letting the powerful jets rain down on her skin, and joyful to wash and condition her hair without bending forwards over her grandmother’s small, shell-shaped bathroom sink.

She’d brought her favourite lotions and potions with her, and by the time she stepped out of the bathroom again in her PJs with a towel around her hair, she was a relaxed and rejuvenated woman.

‘You have quite the PJ collection,’ Cal said, glancing up from the armchair when she walked through into the lamp-lit living room.

He had the newspaper spread out on his crossed knee and glass of red wine in his hand, a man at one with his surroundings.

There was a jolting intimacy to the situation, him relaxing, her fresh from the shower, a couple about to eat a casual dinner and catch a movie.

It didn’t escape Violet’s notice that she felt strangely peaceful here with Cal; the bathroom Zen filtered all the way through his well-kept home and seemed to seep from the man himself too, tonight.

Over in her own apartment she was surrounded by theatre and colour, and by memories and diaries and watchful mermaids.

She loved it, but she hadn’t realised until that very moment how difficult it was for her to relax amongst all of that visual and emotional noise.

Here, there was quiet. Here, there was space.

And here there was a man raising his eyebrows at her favourite slouch-wear, which just happened to be super-soft grey jersey-knit leggings with a matching top dotted with pale blue stars.

She’d ummed and ahhed over underwear, because who normally wears underwear with their PJs?

But then, who normally wears their PJs to dinner with their neighbour?

So she’d erred on the side of yes, you should most definitely wear knickers and a bra in company, especially when your PJs aren’t remotely baggy and it would be glaringly obvious that your boobs were swinging free and unfettered.

That would probably be seen as suggestive.

‘It’s not a slumber party unless you’re in PJs,’ she said, looking pointedly at his jeans and T-shirt.

He glanced down, and then back up. ‘I don’t own any pyjamas.’

Ahh!

‘Oh,’ she said, looking at the ceiling and trying not to imagine him sleeping naked.

‘I could always …?’ he gestured down at his outfit, half laughing.

‘No,’ she said, too fast and too sharp. ‘You’re good as you are.’

He folded the newspaper and stood up. ‘I’ll make some eggs.’

Violet sat at the small dining table nursing a glass of wine as she watched Cal move around his kitchen.

She’d offered to help but he’d shooed her over to the table, and to give him his due he seemed perfectly at home in the kitchen.

Vi was mildly surprised. He seemed more of a takeaway or dinner-out guy; she couldn’t imagine him spending many nights alone in here cooking.

‘Do you cook much?’

He shrugged, tipping the whisked-up eggs into the butter sizzling in the frying pan. ‘Not massively. Enough to get by. Breakfast stuff mainly.’

‘You mean there isn’t going to be three courses?’

‘Toast. Eggs. Wine. There you go, three courses.’ He looked along the kitchen counter. ‘Oh, and popcorn for dessert. That’s four.’

‘Practically gourmet,’ she said.

He looked pleased with himself as he slid the toast and eggs onto the plates and carried them across.

‘ Voila ,’ he said, taking a seat opposite. ‘ Oeufs .’

‘All this and you speak French, too,’ she said. ‘So much talent for one man.’

He nodded gravely. ‘ Où est la piscine? ’

Violet swallowed her eggs, summoning any random schoolgirl French she could think of. ‘ Sous la table .’

He leaned back and glanced under the table. ‘The swimming pool is under the table?’

Violet pushed her glass towards him. ‘ Plus de vin, s’il vous pla?t? ’

Cal topped her glass up. ‘Do you like to swim, mermaid girl?’

Violet pushed her eggs around her plate, because the intimacy of his nickname made her stomach flip. ‘Yes. I love the water. I just don’t get to go much these days.’

‘Me too.’

They cleared their plates, both hungry after their long day.

‘So, what kind of movie do you fancy?’ she asked, laying her cutlery down. ‘Action? Funny? Weepie?’

He looked horrified at the idea of a weepie. ‘Definitely a no-tissues-required option.’ He paused, and then looked freshly mortified. ‘I mean as in a tear-jerker, not, well, as in porn.’

Violet paused, and then shook her head, catching up with his teenage-boy-style mistake. Picking up the plates, she put them in the sink, grabbed the popcorn and then led the way back through to the living room.

‘That was one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen,’ Violet said, eating the last of the popcorn from the bowl between them on Cal’s oversized leather sofa.

‘ Hot Tub Time Machine is an all-time classic,’ Cal said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen it before.’

Violet shook her head. ‘Never even heard of it.’

‘Everybody needs a bit of random comedy sci-fi in their lives every now and then,’ Cal said, laughing.

Vi couldn’t argue. ‘Up to my arrival in Swallow Beach, my life didn’t include much in the way of random in any aspect,’ she said.

‘And now it’s one big random party?’

She looked down into her almost empty wine glass. ‘Something like that.’

He looked at her levelly. They were on either end of the sofa, feet up.

‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’

‘Good, in the main, I think,’ she said. ‘Although it scares me most of the time.’

‘Really? Life here scares you?’

She snorted. ‘Have you seen where I live? Have you seen your mother blocking me at every turn? Have you seen that hulking great pier out there that I’m now solely responsible for? My life here is big, and bewildering, and it scares the pants off me ninety percent of the time.’

Cal placed his empty glass down. ‘And right now? Are you scared right now?’

She sighed, relaxed by the wine and the company. ‘Am I scared right now? Yes, a little bit.’

‘Of me?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes. Of you.’

He leaned forwards. ‘Come closer.’

She hesitated, then slid her wine glass onto the table and moved forwards to the middle of the sofa. To him.

‘You scare me a little too,’ he said, smoothing his hand over her hair. ‘I’m careful who I spend time with, Violet, because I don’t want to get in over my head. I’m sure you’ve heard all about the fact that I was married.’

His honesty and openness took Violet by surprise. ‘Was?’

Cal played with her fingers, linking his own through hers, though it seemed more for distraction purposes than as a come-on. ‘Was. And in truth, I still am.’

Vi nodded, finding it hard to swallow her disappointment.

‘Ursula left without a trace. I thought we were forever, and she just took off without looking back when the bright lights of America beckoned.’

Violet looked down at their hands. ‘You don’t wear your ring.’

He shook his head, a derisory sound in his throat. ‘I felt like a fool after a while. What kind of guy still wears his wedding ring several years after his wife left him?’

Heavy-hearted, Vi squeezed his fingers. ‘One who still loves his wife?’

He didn’t rush to deny it. ‘Something like that, at the time. It’s hard to end something without knowing why, or what you did wrong. We were so young, we probably shouldn’t have married at all.’

‘And you haven’t heard from her since?’

Cal shook his head. ‘Not a thing. I know she’s alive and well through her brother, but that’s as much information as I’m allowed. It’s taken me a long time to get my head around it, Violet.’

‘And have you?’

‘I’ve had to learn to live with the situation. I expect one day she’ll send a letter asking me for a divorce, that she’ll fall in love with someone else and finally decide to cut our ties.’

It was hard to read his words, to decipher the emotion behind them. ‘Do you want that too?’

He looked into Violet’s eyes for a few quiet moments, and she held her breath waiting for him to answer, because it mattered.

‘You know what I really want right this very second?’ he said. As he spoke, he ran one fingertip over her collarbone.

He was going to kiss her and she wasn’t going to stop him. She wanted it every bit as much.

‘What do you want, Cal?’

The trace of a smile ghosted his lips, and that trademark Cal spark lit his eyes.

‘To go skinny dipping.’