Perfect People

27

In the small editing suite, Naomi sat watching the rough cut of the first episode of the new series on disaster survivors she had been hired to promote and then left to drive home.

She needed to concentrate, somehow to blank out the news about Dr Dettore, blank out her anxiety over the child growing inside her and blank out her suspicions that John had slept with the bitch reporter Sally Kimberly.

And blank out the looks she got from everyone she worked with. She wondered which of them had read the piece or heard about it. Some of them must have, for sure, but no one said anything to her, and that made it worse. Lori was the only friend who contacted her. ‘Darling, what amazing news!’ she said, her voice different to usual. Still as bubbly as ever, but today almost too damned bubbly, as if it was an act, as if she was doing her best to mask distaste but not quite succeeding. ‘You didn’t tell us!’

It seemed that in the past two days her entire world had been turned upside down. She was having a girl, not a boy. Dettore was dead. Fanatics were making threats. Her face was on the front of America’s biggest newspaper. And she could no longer trust her husband.

She wished desperately she was back in England. Back with her mother and her sister. John always talked about marriage being a wagon-train circle you formed against the outside world, but he was wrong. Your flesh and blood were that wagon-train circle. They were the people you could trust. No one else. Not even your husband.

She remembered a poem she had read a long time ago, which said home was the place where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in.

That’s where she wanted to be now. Home.

English home.

Real home.

‘Shit.’ She braked sharply, bringing the elderly Toyota to a halt by a fire hydrant, and stared in horror at the sight greeting her. Cars, news vans and news trucks were parked along the tree-lined street either side of their house. A small crowd of people stood on the grass verge brandishing cameras and microphones.

She was surprised to see John’s Volvo already in the narrow carport. It was twenty past six. He was never normally home before eight at the very earliest. The reporters surged across her path, closing in around her like pack animals as she turned into the drive and pulled up alongside John’s car. As she opened the door, voices were yelling at her from all directions.

‘Mrs Klaesson!’

‘Hey, Naomi – look this way!’

‘How do you feel about carrying the world’s first designer baby, Mrs Klaesson?’

‘Will Dr Dettore’s death have any affect on-’

‘What is your reaction to Dr Dettore’s death, Mrs Klaesson?’

She pushed her way through, tight-lipped, and made it to the porch. As she pulled open the fly screen the front door opened. She stepped inside and John, wearing shorts and a singlet, slammed it shut behind her.

‘Get rid of them!’ she said angrily.

‘I’m sorry.’ He gave her a kiss but she turned her face away so sharply he barely touched her cheek.

During the morning, the rain had cleared up and it was a hot Thursday afternoon, with the forecasters predicting a scorching weekend. John had switched the air conditioning on and the interior of the house at least felt pleasantly cool. Stirring music was playing loudly, Mahler’s Fifth – John liked to immerse himself in music when he was troubled.

‘Just ignore those bastards,’ he said. ‘They’ll get bored and go away. We mustn’t let them get to us.’

‘Easy to say, John.’

‘I’ll fix you a drink.’

‘I’m not allowed to drink.’

‘OK, what would you like? A smoothie?’

Something in his voice and his expression, some boyish naivety, reached out and touched her, reminding her of one of the many things she had always loved about him. He could infuriate her, but he could instantly disarm her, too.

They just stared at each other. A couple lost. A couple under siege. Anger wasn’t going to get them anywhere. They couldn’t row, they could not be divided right now. From somewhere they had to find the strength to deal with it.

‘Great,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Do that. Something without alcohol that will get me smashed. I’m going to change.’

A few minutes later, wearing just a long T-shirt, she peered out through the blinds. Some reporters were chatting, some were on cellphones, a couple were smoking. A cluster of them were sharing out what looked like burgers from a large carrier bag. You bastards, she thought. Can’t you just leave us alone?

Out in the hall, the music was playing even louder now. Above it, she heard the rattle of ice cubes coming from the kitchen, and walked through.

John was standing close to the sink, barefoot. He had a cocktail glass out, a bottle of vodka, a jar of olives, and a bottle of dry Martini, and was jigging the silver cocktail shaker hard. He hadn’t heard her come in.

She saw a single cube of ice lying on the floor, knelt and picked it up. Then, quite spontaneously, she crept up behind him and rammed it down inside the back of his shorts, pressing it against his buttocks.

He shrieked, dropping the shaker in shock, and spun round, straight into her arms. ‘Jeez!’ he said. ‘You scared the hell out-’

She had no idea what was inside her head, suddenly she just wanted him, now, this minute, absolutely desperately. Pulling his shorts down over his knees, she knelt and took him in her mouth. Gripping his buttocks, she held him firmly for some moments, then slid her hands up his lean, strong body, hearing him gasp with pleasure now, feeling his hands pushing through her hair, grappling her head, desperately turned-on herself, aching for him.

She tilted her mouth up, stood and kissed him hard on the lips, put her arms around his neck then slowly pulled him down, onto the floor, on top of her. They rolled, kissing furiously, each fuelled by the other’s crazed turned-on desire, John naked now, tugging away at her clothes, then he was above her, entering her, forcing himself in, feeling him pushing, feeling his huge – wonderful – gorgeous – incredible – thing – sex – filling her, filling her body.

She pulled him even harder into her, gathering him tighter and tighter against her, pushing back against him as he slid deeper and deeper in, heady with the scents of his skin, his hair, his cologne. They were safe like this, totally safe, inside their wagon-train circle here, no longer two people but one, solid, incredible, beautiful rock. She murmured, almost delirious with pleasure, as he gripped her with his arms, thrashing her body against the hard tiles of the floor, pressing deeper and deeper inside still, until both of them began to judder together. She heard him crying out and clutched him still tighter, whimpering with pleasure, wanting this moment to last, to never end, wanting them to stay locked, to stay as one body, one rock, forever, right to the end of time and never move.

Afterwards they lay back on the floor, looked at each other, grinning and shaking their heads. It had been that good.