Still Waters

Five

Hannah was wearing a Cowboy Junkies T-shirt, white with a picture of the band low over her waistline; if she hadn’t been wearing it loose outside her jeans they would have been tucked from sight. The Lay It Down tour, is that what it had been called? She remembered the way Margo Timmins had performed half of her numbers sitting down, hands resting across the microphone, a voice that was clear and strong, stronger than on their recordings. Unhurried. Hannah had liked that. Liked, too, the way she had prattled on between songs, seemingly inconsequential stories she felt needed telling, despite the hectoring calls from young men on the edges of the audience. Beautiful, also-but then they always were-Margo with her sculpted nose and perfect mouth, bare legs and arms. Well, women were beautiful, Hannah knew that.

She reached out toward the mug of coffee she had made after she had showered and changed from school, but it had long grown cold. A handful of small boys, primary age, were playing football in the park, an elderly woman in a dark anorak was slowly walking with a lead but no apparent dog; the foliage was several shades of green. Beside Hannah, on the floor by her comfortable chair, were folders for her to mark and grade, fourth-year essays on soap opera-realism or melodrama? For tomorrow, there were lessons still to prepare, chapters of Hardy to reread, Lawrence short stories, poems by Jackie Kay, Armitage, and Duffy.

Hannah folded her arms across her lap and closed her eyes.

When she awoke, the telephone was ringing. Disorientated, she made her way toward it; although it had probably been no more than twenty minutes, she felt she had been asleep for hours.

“Hello?” Even her voice seemed blurred.

“Hannah? I thought perhaps you weren’t there.” It was Jane, husky and concerned.

“Has something happened? Are you okay?” She had seen Jane in the staff room less than two hours before.

“Oh, yes, it’s this stupid thing.”

“What thing?”

“This day school, what else?”

Alex, Hannah had been thinking, something’s happened with Alex. Some monumental row. “I thought everything was in hand,” she said.

“So did I. There was a message when I got home. The film we’re meant to be showing-Strange Days-it looks as if it might not be available. Apparently the distributors saw some of the advance publicity about the event and got cold feet. They’re worried we’re setting it up as an easy target so it can be rubbished.”

“Oh, Jane, I’m sorry.”

“I wish I’d never taken it all on.”

“It was a good idea.”

“Was is right.”

“Come on, it’ll be fine. And, anyway, maybe they’ll change their minds.”

“I suppose so.” There was a silence and then: “Hannah, would it be all right if I came round?”

“You mean now?”

“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“Jane …”

“Really.”

“Jane.”

“Yes?”

“Stop off at the off-license, okay?”

When Resnick got to Hannah’s house a couple of hours later, the two women were sitting in the kitchen with the remains of a bottle of Chardonnay between them, plates pushed to one side.

“Charlie, sorry, we’ve already eaten. I wasn’t sure if you were coming or not.”

“I should have called. Let you know.”

“No. No.”

Resnick glanced across from Hannah to Jane, the patches beneath Jane’s eyes suggesting she had been crying.

“I should go,” Jane said, pushing back her chair.

“There’s no need,” Resnick said. “Not on my account.”

Jane banged her hip hard against the table and stifled a cry.

“Are you all right?” Hannah asked.

“Uum. Yes.”

“You weren’t thinking of driving?” Resnick said, giving the bottle a meaningful glance.

“I was.”

“I’ll make coffee,” Hannah said, getting to her feet. “Charlie, coffee?”

“Thanks.”

“Jane, why don’t you take Charlie into the other room? Tell him about your day school. You might be able to persuade him to come along. Represent the male point of view.”

Resnick was looking at her carefully, uncertain from her tone how ironic she was being.

He found bits and pieces in the back of Hannah’s fridge: a jar of black olive paste, three anchovies at the bottom of a foil-wrapped can, feta cheese; in a wooden bowl on the side were two sorry tomatoes and a small red onion. The bread bin yielded a four-inch length of baguette which, when he took the knife to it, shed crust like brittle paint. Five minutes later, he was sitting with a can of Kronenbourg and his sandwich and chewing thoughtfully, while Hannah made the last of her notes on Carol Ann Duffy’s dramatic monologues, and music played in the background, light and pleasantly soporific.

“You staying, Charlie?”

“If that’s okay.”

Hannah grinned at him and shook her head.

“Don’t take things for granted, that was what you said. Don’t take you for granted.”

“You don’t,” Hannah said.

“Good. I’m glad.”

“Oh, Charlie …”

“What?”

She let her copy of the book slide through her fingers as she reached for him along the settee on which they were both sitting. Her cheek was cool against his mouth, her hand warm against his neck.

“What?” he said again, but by then she was kissing him and neither of them said a great deal more, not even is the back door locked or is it time for bed?

They had not been together long enough for familiarity to determine the when and how of making love. Sometimes-most often-their first movements would be gradual: slow, generally cautious kisses and manipulations; then, in the quickening of arousal, it was generally Hannah who rose over him, hips swiveling down, eyes closed, Resnick’s hands or her own pressed hard against her breasts.

Later she would cry out, knees locked fast against his ribs, a cry that filled Resnick with a kind of aimless pride, even as it scared him with its abandon, its closeness to despair.

No longer inside her, he would fold himself around her, touch the roundness of her calf, the inside of her thigh; pliant, the sticky swell of her belly, fall of her breast against his palm; Resnick’s mouth against her hair.

Leaning back against him, comforted by his size, the bulk of him, Hannah closed her eyes.

Resnick had slept and woken again. From the top of the chest of drawers, Hannah’s clock told him it was shortly after one-thirty. He considered the possibility of sliding from the bed without disturbing her and going back to his own home. Why? Why would he do that? Was he still not really comfortable here?

He had almost reached the bedroom door when Hannah stirred and, waking, called his name.

“You’re not leaving?”

“No.” He pointed to the stairs. “A glass of water. Can I get you anything?”

“Water sounds fine.”

Hannah bunched up the pillows and when Resnick returned they lay on their sides facing one another, Hannah supporting herself on an angled arm as she drank.

“What was the matter with Jane, earlier?”

“Oh, you know … When she got involved in this gender thing, I don’t think she realized how much it would involve. One minute she was making helpful noises, the next she was half an organizing committee of two. Or so it seems. And she thinks it’s important: she wants it to work.”

“And what’s the point of it again?”

“Oh, Charlie, really!”

“I’m only asking.”

“For about the twelfth time. And you can stop that.”

Resnick’s fingers hesitated in the warm cleft behind her knee, looking at her face in the near dark, endeavoring to see if she was serious or not.

“All right,” he said, “I’m listening. Tell me now.”

“Women as victims of violence, sexual mostly. Only what they’ll be looking at here are movies, books too-they’re by women.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better?”

“Different, anyway. Sado-masochism, rape. The whole thing about violence and sexuality, but looked at from the woman’s point of view.” Hannah lay back down again, angling onto her side. “I meant what I said before, you know, when Jane was still here. You might find it interesting; you should go.”

“Hmm,” said Resnick sleepily. “I’ll see.”

After not so many minutes, Hannah heard the tone of his breathing change and in less time than she would have imagined, she was fast asleep herself.