The Deep Dark Sleep

The attraction, I knew, was mutual, but grudging on her part. Call me finicky, but when a woman is filled with self-loathing because she finds herself attracted to me, it tends to dent my ego. The truth was, and it confused the hell out of me, Fiona White tended to bring out the gallantry in me. Which was highly unusual, because, generally, an act of gallantry for me would be to ask the young lady to remind me again of her name before we did the dirty deed in the back of my Austin Atlantic.

There were a lot of things about me that were complicated: my relationship with women wasn’t one of them. Or maybe it was.

I found that whenever I looked at Fiona White, I felt something that I didn’t feel with other women. I wanted to protect her, to talk with her. Just to be with her. To watch her laugh. Strange feelings that did not necessarily involve unbuttoning my fly.

Perhaps foolishly, I had made my feelings known to her. I had been in a particularly sentimental mood, having handed over a large amount of money – something to make me misty-eyed at the best of times – to someone for no good reason other than I felt they deserved it more than me. So, giving my shining armour a final polish, I had knocked resolutely on Mrs White’s door and asked to speak to her. Sitting with her in the small kitchen of her flat, I had done all the talking … about what the war had done to us both, about how I felt about her, about how I wanted to put the past behind me – behind us – and how we could perhaps repair the damage in each other. To help each other heal.

She had sat quietly listening to me, a hint of the sparkle that should have been in the green eyes, and when I had finished my declaration of affection she had held my gaze and, without hesitation, given me notice to quit my lodgings.

I had taken that as less than a maybe. I had, of course, tried to talk her round, but she had remained resolutely silent, simply repeating that she would be obliged if I quit my lodgings within the fortnight, as the Brits referred to two weeks. I had been, I have to admit, more than a little dejected. And that in itself told me something about my feelings towards Fiona White. Hard though it was to believe, I had occasionally encountered some women who actually managed, somehow, to find me totally resistible. But this stung.

It had been the day after when I heard a soft knock at the door. Mrs White came in and, standing awkwardly and stiffly, proceeded to tell me that I need not look for new lodgings, unless I had found some already, and that she apologized for having been so brusque. I was relieved to hear it, but the way she delivered it was so impersonal that I felt I should have been taking down minutes. She went on to explain that, while she appreciated that what I had said had been well intentioned, there was no way she would be entertaining the idea of a gentleman friend.

As she spoke, there was a breathlessness in her delivery and I could see the neck above the white collar of her blouse blossom red. I was filled with the urge to rush over to her and kiss the bloom on her neck, but I decided to hang on to my lease instead. When she had finished she asked if I was in agreement and I had said I was and she shook my hand with the tenderness of a rugby-playing bank manager.

But it had been significant. I had known that what she was telling me was that she didn’t want me to go, and her protestations that nothing could ever develop between us had rung less than convincingly.

Over the months since then, we had gradually moved to a situation where I spent the odd evening watching the television I had bought, but had suggested was better kept downstairs, together with Fiona White and her daughters. I had arranged the odd excursion to Edinburgh Zoo or the Kelvingrove Art Galleries, again always with Fiona chaperoned by her two daughters.

I was playing the long game.

In the meantime, there was the usual itch that had to be scratched and scratch I did, as I always had, but with more discretion than before. I had always sensed that Fiona White had me measured as a bit of a bad sort, based on the flimsiest of evidence: like the fact that on one occasion the police had banged on her door in the middle of the night and dragged me away in handcuffs, or the time that a young lady with whom I had recently parted company turned up and created something of a scene. I therefore did my very best to make sure that my liaisons were kept as out of view as possible.

The one major difficulty this presented was the fact that I had guessed Fiona White had always taken mental note of the occasions when I had remained out all night. So, after our heart to heart, I made sure I never stayed away overnight, unless I had given my landlady advance warning, explaining that I had to go away on business. Which it hardly ever was.