Page 66 of One Night on the Island

She looks at me and slowly treats me to that full-beam smile – the one that makes my fingers itch for my camera and my mouth ache to kiss her.

‘If you say it, it might come true.’

‘I should get your autograph now while I don’t have to stand in line,’ I say.

‘You’ll never be at the back of my queue.’ She holds my gaze, clear and bold, and I realize how much I’m going to miss her when she isn’t in my life any more.

‘You’ve been so good for me,’ I say. I hold her hand now and tears dot her lashes as she looks at me. ‘Don’t cry, it’s your birthday.’

‘All brides cry,’ she half laughs. ‘It’s an emotional day.’

‘Okay,’ I sigh. ‘Drastic measures.’ I get to my feet and hold my hand out to her. ‘Dance with me?’

She blinks up at me, surprised, and then slips her hand in mine. ‘I guess I should have a first dance.’

I pull the picnic rug to the side of the porch, clearing some space. ‘The floor’s ours.’

‘Okay, but hang on, let me find the right track.’

I don’t know what she’ll choose, and I feel something suspiciously like prom-night nerves as I wait for her to come join me in the middle of the porch. She glances over her shoulder at me, barefoot with flowers in her hair, and my God, she’s glorious. Then a familiar harmonica strain drifts on the air and she turns, laughing as she walks towards me.

‘Springsteen, huh?’ I say, failing to keep the smoke of emotion from my voice.

‘You mentioned it sometime,’ she says. ‘I added it to my list the last time I was up at the café. Feels like a little piece of you I can hold on to.’

‘Come here.’ I pull her close. ‘Let me hold on to you tonight.’

And so we dance on the porch to ‘Thunder Road’, and although it’s cold I don’t feel it because the girl in my arms warms me. She’s like holding fire.

‘I’ve seen him sing this live a fair few times,’ I tell her, my mouth against her hair. ‘The roar of the crowd at those first notes from his harmonica, thousands of people singing every line back at him.’ I know every word, every chord. This song is part of the fabric of my life, and now Cleo will be forever stitched in amongst its notes and melody too. Bruce sings of Mary dancing across the porch, and I lift Cleo’s arm over her head and spin her into a slow pirouette, her white dress swirling out around her thighs as she tips her head back and laughs. Oh, for my camera to catch the colours the Christmas lights throw across her face, the movement of her hair as she dances, the joy in her eyes when she laughs. I pull her close and bend her back over my arm, laughing with her. Springsteen, a beautiful girl in my arms, the low, gold moon suspended over the ocean. We dance and we kiss and we laugh like teenagers. We’re the only people in the entire fuckin’ world tonight.

‘Happy Birthday,’ I say, as the track comes to an end.

‘I love being thirty,’ she says.

I touch my fingers to my head in salute. ‘Then my job here is done, pretty lady.’

She leans back to study me, her face serious, and then she pulls me in and winds her arms around my neck.

‘Oh no it isn’t.’

Her legs wrap around my waist when I lift her up, and I can only agree that maybe the night isn’t over just yet.

We’re lying face to face, the sheet draped over her hip, her hair all around her on the white pillows. She looks like a painting, shadows and light, hollows and curves, too intimate for any lens to do her justice. Her white dress is flung somewhere over by the sofa, the flowers from her hair jaunty over the brass bedpost.

‘One,’ she says, ‘that was the best sex I’ve had in my entire thirties.’

I wind her hair around my fingers. ‘Funny girl.’

‘Three – I love you a little bit,’ she says, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘Not so much that you’re going to break my heart. Just enough for you to take a sliver of it home with you, and every now and then, if you press your fingers in just the right place –’ she touches her fingertips against my heart to show me where – ‘I think I’ll feel it and think of you too.’ I look into her eyes and I swear I feel that sliver slide under my skin.

‘You didn’t do two,’ I say, curling my fingers around hers on my chest.

‘I didn’t need to. Three was kind of big.’

‘It really was,’ I say, and I smile because she’s lionheart brave to be so honest when she knows there’s no future for us. ‘One – I promise to take extra special care of this sliver of your heart,’ I say. ‘Mine was kind of bashed so your donation is very welcome.’ I tap my chest. ‘Consider me patched up.’

‘I’m practically a doctor,’ she says with a low laugh.

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