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Chapter 18.
"It was dreadful but I'd warned the police and they wouldn't listen."
"It could have been me," I said.
"Yes, up to a point, it could. You need to be on your guard."
I didn't want to find out what was meant by 'up to a point'.
"Are you really going?"
"I guess so ..."
"Where?"
"It's probably better you don't know that ..."
"What about the video you were going to make?"
She looked misty eyed and uncomfortable.
"I don't think I will go ahead with that now."
"Why not?" I knew why not but I couldn't help but ask the reason. It was like scratching an itch. You know it will hurt more but you cant help doing it.
"Oh, because of a number of reasons," she said evasively.
"What about us?"
"You mean our friendship?"
"Us!"
"Maybe, after I've sorted things out. At the moment, all relationships are doomed for me for as long as I've got my ex. hanging around my neck."
"Perhaps the police will be able to prove it was him."
"That's highly unlikely and he's moved away from across the road. By the way, thanks for letting me know. I thought it was amazing you managed to find out about him."
"It was a bit of luck really," I lied, "I saw the telescope and put one and one together. By the way, Ron told the accountant man where you lived. He saw you coming in here when he was out for a walk." She nodded, looking away from me.
"I didn't think it would have been you that told him," she said.
"What will happen to Tommy?"
"A new school and new friends - he's used to it."
"Couldn't you stay here?"
"I can't stay here because of my ex. He knows where I am ... it makes living here impossible."
She stood up. She was taller than I remembered. I realized I'd spent very little time with her even though it felt like forever. She looked very beautiful with the sunlight shining in her hair.
"I know so little about you."
"Perhaps it's better that way."
I stood up too.
"I never wanted us to just be friends."
"I know ..."
I felt my eyes drawn to the open door to her bedroom. I could just see a double bed with a paisley pattern duvet. Her eyes followed mine. I suddenly noticed there was a tear in the corner of her eye. I tried to say something lighthearted but it died in my throat.
I stepped forward to go but she didn't turn away to lead me out. Instead, my step took me closer to her. Her presence was overwhelming me. I could smell her and feel her even though she wasn't touching me. It was as if she'd invaded all my senses and was overloading my mind.
She reached forward and looped her arms around my waist underneath my brown leather jacket and pulled me to her.
"Perhaps we had better deal with this thing that's between us. We may never meet again."
I slipped my fingers under the wisps of hair cupped her face in my hands, feeling completely drunk on her sad smile.
We kissed and I felt my world slip away spiraling into the clouds. It was like before when we were together. Nothing mattered but the sensation of her lips and her face close to mine. I knew it would always be like this for as long as I would live. In the distance I felt her slipping my jacket from my shoulders and drawing me towards the bedroom.
Then we were full length on the paisley duvet together, our fingers entwined and our mouths discovering new ways to say I love you without words. She pushed me onto my back and loosened my shirt, slipping her fingers through the fair hairs of my chest and pulling my shirt from my shoulders as she sat above me. Then slowly she reached down, her kingfisher blue eyes beaming into mine, crossed her arms and in one easy motion raised her dress up and over her head.
Regally she towered over me, letting me drink in the beauty of her face, her hair and her soft breasts. I raised myself up from the pillow and at last her skin was against mine. We kissed again and I knew it was more than our skin; it was also our souls that had become entwined.
The knocking was becoming insistent.
"I'd better go." She slipped her dress back over her head, checked her hair in the mirror and disappeared to see who it was.
I put my shirt back on and waited for my pounding heart to slow to a rate that would let me breath more easily.
Jennifer was back.
"It's the agent. He says he has somebody outside to see the accommodation. You'll have to go."
I pulled her to me and kissed her hard. I wanted to tell her that I mattered, that I couldn't just be sent away and that we needed to finish what we had started.
"I really am sorry. We'll have to get together again soon." She seemed distant now. Her mind had moved on to other things. "I do badly need to get rid of this place. I really am sorry."
So I left and as I turned the corner, the agent was bringing his client back from where he had been waiting in the agent's car. I didn't know whether to laugh of cry when I saw him.
His baldhead and bland face looked no less menacing from a distance. He had stopped us being together but legally and I knew there was nothing I could do.
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