Where There's Smoke

“You don’t have to justify seeing him to me,” Lucy said once, when Kate grew defensive. “I think it’s great. I just can’t understand why, since you obviously like the bloke, you’re still intent on using the poor bugger as a donor. I mean, what’s wrong with having it draught, like everybody else?”

“Lucy!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it seems odd to me. I mean, have you slept together yet?”

Kate’s face grew hot. “That’s none of your business!”

“So you haven’t,” Lucy said, blithely. “Why? What’s wrong with him? He’s not queer, is he?” She held up her hands before Kate could object. “All right, sorry. I mean gay. But he isn’t, is he?”

“No!”

“So why don’t you sleep with him, then?”

“Because we’re just friends!”

It sounded trite, even to her, but she doggedly refused to admit there was anything more than friendship between them. The ground rules of their relationship had been set at the beginning, by her, and since Alex seemed content to abide by them, Kate didn’t let herself so much as consider an alternative.

One hot and restless Sunday, though, Kate broke with routine and phoned him to suggest they go for a picnic. She was mildly surprised to feel nervous in case he said no, but he didn’t. They caught a train to Cambridge, where they bought a bottle of wine and baguettes filled with cheese and salad, and queued on the steps of the river for a punt. They took turns in poling the unwieldy, flat-bottomed boat upstream, laughing at each other’s clumsiness, until they reached a relatively quiet spot in which to picnic. Kate almost overbalanced climbing onto the bank, and when Alex grabbed her arm to steady her, the sudden contact embarrassed them both.

She busied herself unwrapping the sandwiches, while Alex uncorked the wine and poured it into paper cups.

He had taken a camera with him, and unobtrusively snapped Kate before she knew what he was doing.

“Right, in that case I’m going to take one of you,” she said, and, over his protests, took the camera from him. She caught him in the frame, grinning and flushed from the sun, looking absurdly boyish in his white T-shirt and faded jeans.

The fine silver chain he wore around his neck gleamed in the sunlight. Kate had been meaning for some time to ask what he wore on it. She was about to now, but before she could phrase the question a middle-aged Japanese man detached himself from a family group and came over. Smiling, he pointed to himself, then to Kate and Alex, and mimed taking a photograph.

“I think he’s offering to take our picture,” Kate said. The man nodded, still smiling as he reached for the camera. A little uneasily, Kate relinquished it and moved next to Alex. The Japanese man motioned them to stand closer together. They edged nearer to each other. Kate felt her bare arm brush Alex’s. He smelled of sun-heated flesh, deodorant and, ever so faintly, of fresh sweat. She remained aware of the contact as they both grinned, self-consciously, at the camera. The Japanese man pressed the shutter and handed the camera back.

“Thank you,” Kate said. The man smiled again and bobbed his head, then went to where his family, a woman and two teenage boys, stood waiting.

The camera went back in its case, like a dangerous toy, while the two of them ate their picnic.

It clouded over as they took the punt back. The first fat drops of rain began to spatter on the steps leading up from the small wooden quay. They took cover in a nearby pub as the drops became a downpour, and other people ran inside for shelter. They managed to find a table overlooking the river before the pub became too full, and watched as the water’s smooth surface splintered into fragments. A flash of light lit the copper-coloured sky, followed by a crack of thunder a few seconds later.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got an umbrella handy, have you?” Kate asked Alex, and for some reason that struck them both as funny. They laughed helplessly as the other customers gave them curious glances, and the storm clamoured overhead.

Afterwards, Kate was always to think of that as the end of summer. The sun returned in the wake of the rain, but now with that subtle change in light that comes when the season has peaked. The mornings became fresher, and the evenings were shattered by more storms that spiced the air with ozone and the mustiness of rain on hot pavements. In the space of a week it was autumn.

The trees began shedding leaves, stirred by breezes that carried a chill hint of winter. Nights grew darker, afternoons dusky and seasoned with the smokiness of autumn.

On bonfire night, Kate and Alex arranged to go to a firework display with Lucy, Jack and the children. But the day before, Lucy phoned to say that both Emily and Angus had been stricken with chickenpox.

Alex sounded disappointed when she told him. “There’s no reason why we can’t still go,” she said. “Is there?”

They met in a pub near the park where the display was being held. Kate laughed when Alex presented her with a packet of sparklers. “God, I’ve not held one of these since I was a kid.”