“Perhaps you moved too fast with this,” Lynley offered. “I mean getting them out of the caravan so quickly after your mother died.”
“There was never going to be a good time to do it, Tommy. And if they return now, it will just reinforce the idea of running away from whatever they fear. It seems to me that, when one is afraid of something, the only way to change that—to become unafraid of it—is to face it head-on.”
And there it was, his opportunity. He should have avoided it like an enormous sinkhole on the landscape of his life, but instead he seized on it. He began with, “As to that, Daidre . . .”
“As to what?”
“As to facing one’s fears head-on . . .”
“Yes?”
She was not about to pick up the lead. He could tell by the set of her jaw, which he was looking at as she was in profile, her back against the headboard and pillows piled behind her.
“I very much want you to be in my life,” he told her.
“I am in your life. Look where we are, Tommy.”
“Yes, of course. But I mean . . .” What did he mean, he wondered. What did he want from her beyond what he already had? A declaration of love? A commitment to some sort of future with him? She’d never once used love to describe her feelings, but was that so important? He lowered his gaze to the sheet that covered them both, to the hillocks made by each of their bodies. He realised that it was important. But then he was forced to ask himself why. And to that, he didn’t have an answer. “Because I want it” was utterly insufficient unto the day. He settled on, “I suppose I want there to be a we, an us, an our. I love you and I want to take another step forward.”
She shifted her position then, turning to face him directly when she said, “I’m here for you. I’m available to you. I want you in my life. I love having you in my life. Why isn’t that enough?”
“Because it leads us nowhere.”
“Why must it lead us somewhere?”
“Because that’s what love does. At least that’s what my love for you does. Or wants to do.” Again, he thought, there was the opening. She could walk through it or she could slam it shut.
She shoved her sandy hair back from her face. She reached for her glasses on the large cardboard box that was still serving as her bedside table. She put them on. She said nothing, and a wise man would have let the conversation go at this point. But . . . Lynley sighed. When it came to Daidre, he was not a wise man. He said, “Why are you afraid?”
“I’m not afraid.” She rose from the bed and gathered from the floor the T-shirt she’d been wearing, as well as her underwear. She put these on. When she’d done so, she said, “To be frank—”
To his credit, Lynley did not take this coming frankness as a positive sign.
“—where we are just now—you and I, Tommy—in this moment, is where I’ve always ended up with men. Men want something from me, and I don’t understand what it is. Nor do I understand why what we have isn’t enough.” She placed her hand on her sternum and searched his face. She said, “This is who I am. Who I am at this moment is who I’ll always be. I’ve tried more than once to explain this to you, but you seem to believe that if you continue to bang away at the bloody topic, to delve inside me, to . . . I don’t even know what to call it. But you seem to think that if you keep on with these discussions, there will be something more you’ll knock loose from me. But there just isn’t.”
He, too, swung off the bed and began to dress. He said, “And you continue to believe that there’s nothing inside you intent upon keeping you at a safe distance from the rest of humanity in general and from me in particular. That’s living a half life, Daidre, and I don’t believe that all you want is a life by halves. You’re afraid of moving into a future with me, and I don’t know why, and I won’t know why if you refuse to tell me.”
“This isn’t about fear. This whatever-we-have isn’t about fear. Who I am isn’t about fear.”
“What is it, then? How can you get past it if you don’t know it and can’t name it?”
“Honestly, Tommy.” She put on her jeans and began to walk towards the bedroom door. Instead of leaving the room, however, she turned back to him and said, “What are you, then? My analyst? My psychiatrist? My vicar? My . . . Oh, for God’s sake. I don’t even know.”
“I’m the man who loves you,” he told her.