Page 57 of Not Moving Out
Joe
When I awoke, the first thing I realised was that I was alone in Freya’s bed, and then all the moments from the night before began cascading through my mind one after the other. Freya and I had slept together, and it seemed inconceivable after everything that had happened between us, but it was true. We’d had sex, and if I remembered correctly, and I was sure I wasn’t that drunk, it had been fucking fantastic.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes and reached for my phone. No messages, and twenty-seven emails, of which twenty-six were spam, and one was from Carl following up on an email I had sent him about the script. I put my phone down and looked around the room. My old bedroom. Our old bedroom. How had I ended up there again, and what did it mean? Apart from the pain in my head, the early signs of a certain hangover, the main feeling was one of absolute confusion.
We had spoken the night before about needing one last time together, and perhaps if it had felt like the last turgid comeback of a once famous pop star, desperately trying to get his career back on track, then I would have been happy to let it go, but it wasn’t. The sex had been the best we’d had in years. It didn’t feel awkward and hackneyed, as if we were just going through the motions, and instead it felt really, really fucking good. And it wasn’t just because I had been starved of sex, it was genuinely fantastic, and the sort of sex that made you stop and think.
I sat up, the noise of life already happening outside, and downstairs I heard the television was on, and I started wondering whether there was still some hope left for us. Yes, things had been shit for a long time, and we would need to rebuild our relationship from the ground up, but it was possible, wasn’t it? Karen had asked me what it was I was holding on to, and perhaps it was hope. Hope that Freya and I might actually be able to get back to the ‘us’ who had been so happy, but was it possible or just some ludicrous dream, like the time I thought that despite being in my thirties I could start skateboarding? That had ended up painfully at A & E with a fractured wrist, and maybe that’s all my relationship with Freya would be, too. A painful reminder that sometimes in life, we were too old to go back again.
I eventually got up, made my way back to my own room, and got dressed. I went to the toilet before I went downstairs, and I was actually a little nervous about seeing Freya again because I had no idea what she was thinking about our night together. When I reached the hallway, I realised that someone was watching a film in the living room, and when I walked in I saw Freya and Dolly together, under a blanket, watching the first Harry Potter film together.
‘What’s happening here?’ I asked.
Dolly paused the film, and she and Freya looked across at me.
‘Having a Harry Potter day,’ said Freya.
‘Oh, right.’
‘Want to join?’ said Dolly, patting the empty space on the sofa next to her.
I could tell from Dolly’s face, the puffiness around her eyes, the redness in her cheeks and the tone of her voice that she had been crying. Something had obviously happened. It had also been a few years since I had seen Harry, Hermione and Ron on the television in the living room, when for years before it felt like they had hardly left.
‘I just need to get some breakfast. Coffee?’ I said to Freya.
‘Can you give me a moment?’ Freya said to Dolly, pulling the blanket off herself. Dolly immediately reached for her phone, and Freya stood up and walked with me into the kitchen.
There was definitely an air of something between us. A frisson. Not an awkwardness, exactly, but tantalising unspoken questions and things left unsaid dancing in the air between us, while fleeting memories of the night before, our naked bodies entwined as one, groaning and moaning in passion, filled my head.
‘It’s Dolly and Maya, they’ve broken up,’ said Freya when we were in the kitchen.
‘Shit. How’s she doing?’
‘Not great, hence the Harry Potter marathon.’
‘Good old Harry Potter,’ I replied, but still, despite Dolly’s relationship problems, I wanted to at least make a pass at discussing what had happened last night.
‘Poor thing’s had her heart broken, and really needs our support. I’m going back in. Will you join us after breakfast?’
‘Umm, yes, will do.’
‘Okay, right,’ said Freya with a hint of a smile, and then she left and walked back into the living room to join Dolly for a Harry Potter marathon, leaving me alone in the kitchen, completely unsure of everything.
It was Sunday evening, and Dolly was in her room, deep in conversation with Maya on the phone, and Freya and I were in the living room, and it was finally time to have the conversation. Yesterday we had spent the day with Dolly, trying our best to keep her mind off Maya, and we ended up watching five Harry Potter films, and I dashed out and got us fish and chips for dinner. Freya and Dolly eventually fell asleep on the sofa, and I put a blanket over them and left them to it. This morning, Freya went to Cold Water Club, and then she took Dolly out for lunch, and now, finally, Freya and I had some time alone.
‘Freya?’
‘Yes, Joe.’
‘Can we discuss what happened the other night?’
‘The night we slept together?’ said Freya, and I nodded. ‘What’s to discuss? We both wanted one last time together, it was our wedding anniversary, and I think it was lovely.’
‘It was lovely.’
‘Did it confuse things for you, Joe?’
She turned and looked at me. She was being rather glib about it, wasn’t she?
