Page 118 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘What?’ says Janey, panicked.

‘I can’t kiss you if you won’t stop smiling,’ he says. Then he frowns, that characteristic little line on his brow she has grown so familiar with. ‘Unless you’re laughing.’

‘I’m not laughing,’ says Janey. ‘It’s a happy smile.’

He grins back at her.

‘I . . . good,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, terrified she’s going to giggle, nervously. ‘It’s . . . I’m out of practice.’

‘We weren’t very practised at eighteen either.’

‘True.’

‘Shall we discover it together?

She has never been to his bedroom, of course. He takes her small hand in his huge one and leads her upstairs. It is on the mezzanine, metal and glass lining the deep, soft wooden steps. The window looks out over the fields behind the house, so they don’t have a view of any dog-deprived rioters.

Even his bed is beautiful: simple wood, pale grey sheets. What an interesting man he is, she thinks. What an interesting person he will be to discover. And then she starts to panic again.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she says. ‘Why aren’t we drunk?’

‘Because we’re too old and we have to drive places and it makes us feel really terrible the next day.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ says Janey. ‘Well, is it too much to ask for dim lighting?’

‘We don’t have to do this, sweetie.’

‘No,’ says Janey. ‘I’m just wittering because I’m nervous. Can you shut me up, please?’

And he absolutely can. Just to kiss him is a delight; she loves the warmth and bulk of his body. She was right: he does have a hairy chest to go with his thick hair, and she runs her fingers through it, inhaling the wonderful scent of him.

And he, she notices, doesn’t ask if she minds a hairy chest, or apologise for his large girth which she doesn’t mind a bit, finds comfortable, in fact. He is perfectly happy, she can tell, just to be there, in the moment, on a golden afternoon in spring, alive in that moment, with her.

And she tells herself that she can do that too. Step out of her scrubs, her job, her divorce, her worries and work and friends and family and care and concern. Live like a rose. She boldly pulls her shirt off in front of him and he is delighted.

‘Look at you,’ he says, happily, and sits down on the side of the bed. ‘Can you come here, please?’

‘You’re very polite,’ she says, walking towards him.

‘Oh, you’re about to find out how wrong you are about that,’ he says, and pulls her towards him until she is sitting astride him.

She looks up at his face, terrified, excited, turned on, joyous, everything at once cascading through her brain. She smiles. ‘We’re not too old.’

‘I haven’t got my glasses on,’ says Lowell.

‘Me neither,’ says Janey.

‘But I can tell you I want you as much as . . . Kelly LeBrock inThe Woman in Red.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Well, then, I want you as much as Patrick Swayze inGhostand alsoDirty Dancingbut notRoad House.’

‘Do I have to dance?’

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