‘What for? I haven’t done anything.’
‘You’ve done plenty,’ replied Angie. ‘You’ll never know how much.’
35
Maggie let herself out of Leon’s flat and set off in the direction of the train station. The first few times she had made the trip across to Leeds she had driven, but actually, she found the half-hour’s train journey quite restorative, and now that she had time on her hands, she didn’t mind the forty-five-minute walk from York station to her house. Also, she had started leaving a few bits and pieces at Leon’s, toiletries mainly, so she didn’t have to take a bag each time she went, and it was working well.
It had taken them both by surprise, this . . . she wasn’t sure what to call it. Relationship sounded so grown up, but she supposed that that was what it was.
The first time they had had sex had been the night of the thirty years’ reunion. It hadn’t been on the cards, or definitely not Maggie’s cards, when she had suggested that he stay the night with her. But somehow, when they got home, their bodies had had other ideas.
It had begun with one of those corny moments that you see in a film. Maggie stumbled a little as she stepped into the house, and Leon put out a hand to steady her, their faces close, closer than Maggie had ever been to him before. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek and watched the look in his eyes change from surprise at their proximity to desire. Then they had kissed, tentatively at first, each not sure what the other wanted, and then with a passion that Maggie had rarely experienced.
The resulting sex had been frenzied and urgent. They were in her kitchen, her back against the cupboards. They didn’t bother to get undressed, simply removing the articles of clothing that impeded them. This too might have been shot in a studio, except that they were both so drunk that they found everything funny rather than smouldering.
Afterwards, sitting rather awkwardly opposite each other at her kitchen table and drinking hastily brewed coffee, they had been more shell-shocked than anything. Maggie had never thought of Leon in those terms before. He was just Leon, her friend. Now, though, she wondered if there had been the odd signal over the years to suggest that the idea had crossed his mind before, signals that she had chosen to ignore. She was probably wrong, though. Reading men wasn’t something that Maggie had had much practice with.
‘Well,’ said Leon, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘That was fun and not quite what I was expecting. Are you okay? I mean, is this okay?’ He looked at her then, a gentle questioning look that told her that the Leon she knew was with her.
Maggie, despite her age and the fact that she had just shared an extremely intimate moment with a man that she had known for more than half her lifetime, was suddenly as shy as a teenager. She could feel her cheeks burning and she lifted her coffee cup up in front of her face to hide them. She wasn’t sure what to say, although she did feel suddenly sober, which was a blessing at least.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she managed. And then, ‘I’m not sure what happened.’
Leon’s grin was downright lascivious and threw her even further off-kilter.
‘I know exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to do it again in a bit. If that’s all right with you.’
That had been three months ago, or at least it would be on Saturday. That made her feel like a teenager, counting anniversaries month by month, but was there anything so very wrong with that? There hadn’t been time to behave like a teenager when she had been one. She had been too intent on where she was going and how quickly she could get there to be bothered with such trivialities. Now, though, with the surge of hormones flooding her brain, she wondered whether her younger self might not have got her priorities a little bit out of whack. This being in lust thing was so much fun.
Still, better late than never. Maggie was positively delighting in the buzz that she got each time her phone screen lit up. Even the surge of disappointment when it was someone other than Leon was kind of appealing. It made her feel more alive than she had in years. Leon was the first thing that she thought about when she woke up and, on the nights when she wasn’t actually with him, the last, delicious thought to scamper across her mind before she drifted off to sleep. And she was enjoying every moment.
Leon, it seemed, was as bad as she was and he could be quite romantic when he put his mind to it, his text messages all sprinkled with little hearts and kisses. Maggie had thought that he was teasing her to start with, but no, this appeared to be a whole new side to him that had previously been hidden under his down-to-earth manner. When they had been together a month, she had found a little note in her purse, handwritten on a tiny scrap of parchment paper. It was a simple heart with an arrow scored through its centre and their initials carefully added, just like you might see in any schoolgirl’s exercise books, but on the back he had written ‘One perfect month’。 It was so corny, and at almost fifty years old she felt that she ought to be impervious to its charms, but actually she had been unfeasibly touched by it and had placed it carefully between two store cards so that it didn’t get bent or damaged. If she could have framed it and not looked like a love-sick fool, then she would have done.