Page 114 of Mad About You

‘I’m thrilled for you. I always had a good feeling about him. And did he feel good?’

It was a night Harriet would never forget. She liked to think that although Cal probably had had many more nights like that than her, he’d rate it in his top five at least.

They had been lying in the sleigh bed that Harriet had previously only seen on the photographs, lit by the streetlamp outside, a tangle of bare limbs and sheets. Cal said: ‘I’ve wanted to be here so long. With you.’

‘Haveyou?’ Harriet sat up to face him, head propped on elbow.

‘Since Bruce Springsteen at least.’

‘My singing was erotic?’

‘I don’t want to objectify you, but it was more your everything else.’

‘I remember you giving me a look when I sat down. I thought you were worried Sam and I were going to cop off. You were worried he’d spite you by keeping me in your life, remember.’

‘Thatwasmy fear, but by that time it was because it would feel like torture, not spite.’

‘You could’ve simply made a move. Not to blow smoke but you’re quite sleepable-with.’

Cal stroked her hair from her face and said nothing, then kissed her again.

The following morning, their newfound intimacy made loading her car loaded with subtext. She couldn’t see his hands on anything without remembering them on her. Cal handed her a coffee and then kissed her neck as she drank it. He took the cup back out of her hands and set it on the side and kissed her in earnest, Harriet’s hands sliding under his t-shirt as his body pressed against her. She wondered, amid their fevered grappling – Cal murmuringHarriet you are too much– if they were about to do it against the sink. She decided if so, she was cool with that. What a house share this had turned out to be. Thank God her next rental was with a librarian called Valerie.

They were interrupted by the doorbell.

Cal paused, his hands holding Harriet’s face, then pulled back.

‘Fuck my life, I told Sam I’d go to the match with him today!’

Harriet laughed. ‘It’s fine.’

‘I can’t cancel him now he’s here.’

‘No! Probably for the best, else we’d end up back upstairs.’

Cal looked at her with dilated pupils.

‘Harriet …’ he began.

The doorbell went again like a fire drill and Cal shouted: ‘Alright I’m coming and sadly not in the way I want!’ and as Sam was let in, Harriet was still laughing.

She pushed her hands into her jean pockets, as Cal found his jacket.

‘I’ll leave my keys in the kitchen,’ she said to him.

‘Sure,’ Cal said, with a tender smile.

Call her a coward, Harriet was actually relieved at Sam’s presence removing the need to find the way to say farewell. She had accepted from the outset that Cal Clarke was a one-night stand. She knew what Kit meant about her being wrong for him, and she was sure Cal did, too. That didn’t mean she wanted to face into the hard limits here, by confirming it in so many words.

In the hallway, Sam looked suspiciously from one to the other.

‘You two seem very pleased with yourselves.’ He looked at Cal. ‘He’s grinning like a cat with a raspberry-flavoured arse.’

He looked at Harriet.

‘And you are … what’s the word. Radiant. You’reradiant.’

Pause.

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