On the far bank, two mallards, a male and a female, make their haphazard procession out of the water.
“Would you like a family, Frank?”
Do you know, I had never thought about that until you asked? I felt it was out of my reach to find someone to share a night with, let alone enough days for that to be a question on the cards.
You were the first woman I’d ever felt this way about. My first love, a decade later than everyone else seemed to experience theirs. I’d spent the last few years seeing all my friends coupling off while I languished on the starting blocks. I’d had enough trouble finding the right person, without the issue of the right time coming into play too.
I often found myself wondering why I hadn’t met anyone before. Since Fiona, I’d had trouble getting up the confidence to ask anyone out, but even on the rare occasions when I did, I never seemed to have any success. At the pub, I could laugh it off, but once I was home, curled up in the single bed in my room (a good two inches too small for me, but beggars can’t be choosers), I ran through what had gone wrong. I wondered if my potential love interests had noticed the tremor in my voice when I asked? That off-putting quiver that suggested I wasn’t a leader or a man’s man or whatever else they might have wanted. Did I not lay enough groundwork? After a few failed attempts, I drew my conclusion: I was kind, reliable Frank. The friend. I didn’t have the self-confidence, the pizzazz, to be the great love of anyone’s life. Until you, Maggie. You magicked something new out of me, all right.
Your question hangs in the air.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps. Yes, I suppose. I’m sorry, that’s not a very good answer, is it? Anyway, what about you?”
“Yes, yes. Very much so.” You answer without so much as a pause for breath.
“Are you close to your own family?” I ask, running my right hand through the water. I watch as it cuts the surface like a blade and then glance up at you.
“Not really. My dad died, two years back . . .”
“I’m sorr—”
You cut me off, almost as if you didn’t notice the apology at all. “It’s fine. Now it is, at least. We weren’t very close, but well, it’s still sad, isn’t it?”
For the first time since we met, I see a new side to you. Gone is the gregarious, good-time girl, the joker, and the raconteur. You are contemplative and wistful. You are struggling to meet my eyes, and I sense there is something darker afoot too. You fiddle with the sleeve of your cardigan, twisting the loose fabric against your wrist before hooking it over your thumb like a tiny cotton cap.
“What about brothers and sisters?”
“Two brothers, both older. One’s in New York. The other’s . . . I’m not sure, actually. He’s an artist. Last I heard he was in Scotland for an exhibition.”
“And your mum, is she . . . ?”
“Alive? Yes. Just not very present. She left when I was thirteen. Remarried.” There is something in your tone that is more than matter-of-fact. What is it? Resignation? Despair?
“Do you see her much?”
“Every now and again. She lives abroad, moves around a lot with her new husband. It’s all . . .” You make a gesture with your hands, circling them and then opening the palms up to the sky as if to say it is out of your control.
“Complicated?” I suggest.
“And difficult. But that’s family, huh?”
Just as that familiar worry is settling at the base of my stomach—What will I say next?—I feel a cool rush on my forearm. A frog has temporarily mistaken me for a lily pad. Slowly, so as not to startle it, I bring my left hand over and, in one deft motion, close my hand over its body. There is a second of panic when its eyes bulge, but then, safe in my cupped hands, it settles.
“What on earth?” Your attention snaps back to the boat.
“Oh, this guy? Just a friend.”
“You are very good with him, Frank.”
“Cheers. A compliment at last.” Teasing you comes easily, but I am still keen to tread carefully. “I work with frogs.”
“Really?” Your incredulity is almost as wide-eyed as the amphibian chirruping in my hands.
“They’re great. Honest. To look at how far we have evolved. At the moment, we’re looking at something called ‘genetic drift’; that’s the part of evolution that produces random changes over time. So, not selection, not what Darwin says. But at least it gives a chance to those of us who wouldn’t make the cut in the survival of the fittest.”
“Helpful for me too, then.” There is a little color in your cheeks, a pinprick of red that is spreading out wider and wider. I didn’t know you had the same bashfulness as me. What else had I read wrong?
“We all have silent genes—well, that’s the current theory. Little bits of us that we can’t see, not obviously, at least, which can cause mutations—good and bad.”
“I like that.” Your voice is barely above a whisper. “The little things that no one sees that could make the biggest change of all.”
I reach over to you and begin to trace my finger in a circle over the goose pimples on your knee as if they were Braille. What silent secrets will I find there?
Just as my confidence is increasing, the tremor in my hand quietening, there is a rumble in the skies above.
“Shit,” I say as I fumble for the oars. “Better get back.”
Luckily, we haven’t gone far. It is only as I am heaving our dinghy out and draining it under the boathouse awning that the rain starts. You don’t rush for cover, not like me. No, you don’t move an inch. You throw your coat at me and continue to stand in the full spray of the downpour, your arms above your head as you let the drops, fat and heavy, course down you.
“Maggie, you are a madwoman—you must be freezing!” I shout.
“Yes, just a bit.” It is as if the thought of the cold has only just occurred to you. You head toward me, and I rush over with the coat outstretched.
“We need to get you home, before you get a chill.” There is a fumble as you struggle to wriggle your arms into your coat sleeves, which I have straightened.
“Whose home?”
I have a distinct sense of being tested. I know what I want to do, but I am wary of pressuring you. I’m scared I will lose you altogether. Besides, I am a lodger, and the sort of hospitality I would like to share is hardly appropriate for a family home with two children under ten.
“What about mine?” you offer.
Silence.
“Jules and Edie will be in, but they’ll keep themselves to themselves, I’m sure, and I’ve some food that needs eating.” You are remarkably perky for a woman whose teeth are chattering.
“Yes.” You appear not to have heard as you begin a full inventory of your cupboards and our supper options. “Yes, I’d like that,” I say, a little louder than I had hoped this time, and rather too loud for the empty river path we are on.
“Oh, well, great then—grab your bike!”
I learn then that you are a demon on two wheels, powering down the cobbled lanes and main roads that lead back to your shared house with the sort of vigor I had previously assumed you reserved for conversation. So much for a romantic cycle, side by side: I play a ten-minute round of quite literally chasing your coattails before you squelch off the saddle and brandish your keys.