The Water Is Warm Page 10

  Catherine was a devoted mother. She and Martha seemed inseparable and I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for them during the case. I would watch Martha following Catherine with her eyes as Catherine moved about the flat and I could feel her urge for Catherine to be with her. Catherine would talk as though Martha understood everything and always made sure that Martha was part of the conversation. Martha would reach out for her mother if ever they were separated. I remember expecting, with a family lawyer’s hat on, that the court case would have left them both insecure but I could not see anything like that at all.

  I did notice, though, that there were times when Catherine would appear to freeze out; that’s the only way that I can describe it - times when the shutters went down and nothing seemed to get through to her. When that happened she would become almost mechanical in the way she would handle Martha.

  I also remember how, on the day that we first really got together, she became extremely stressed with Martha when we were out in London.

  It must have been in December because we were Christmas shopping. It was cold and the buses were full. Martha had started screaming when we were on a crowded bus going to Oxford Circus and would not stop; we realised that, although we had an empty bottle and milk powder, we didn’t have a made up bottle for her in her changing bag and Martha was hungry and needed changing.

  ‘Stop it, Martha,’ Catherine turned away from her as she bawled her head off. ‘Just stop it.’

  ‘Poor girl’ a woman in the row of seats in front turned round to us. ‘Are you hungry, sweetheart?’ It was something like that, anyway. I certainly remember the woman on the bus. Catherine would have none of it.

  ‘Oh stop interfering,’ she blurted out to the woman.

  ‘Only trying to help, darling,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Yeah. Well don’t.’

  I smoothed it over as best I could. ‘I’m really sorry. Everyone’s a bit tired,’ I said to the woman who, by this time, was justifiably pissed off and was muttering to herself.

  ‘We’d better get off,’ I said to Catherine.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked her after we had struggled to put the still screaming Martha into the buggy. It was a stupid bloody question to ask. Martha was puce and yelling her head off.

  Catherine was in tears and shaking. She seemed to be falling apart on the pavement. ‘Everyone thinks that I am such a crap mother. Even that woman.’

  I went towards her thinking that I would put my arm around her but she held both of her hands up, signalling ‘don’t touch me.’

  ‘Well I don’t. And you are not. Come on.’ I pushed the buggy along the pavement with Catherine trailing behind trying to pull herself together.

  As luck would have it there was a Spanish tapas bar near the bus stop and so we went in and I spoke to a young barman.

  ‘My partner and I have a very hungry baby here. Could you do me a favour and put some water in this bottle for her, please, and warm it up while we order some food?’ It was the first time that I had called Catherine my partner; I did it on purpose and she picked up on it and I could sense her mood lighten a bit. Thankfully, as well, the barman picked up on the ‘we are having a meltdown’ message and did the business.

  Catherine took Martha to change her nappy while I sorted out the food. Yes, Catherine had calmed down but I remember thinking to myself ‘what the hell would have happened if I hadn’t been here?’

  ‘Those toilets stink,’ she said when she came back

  ‘What do you reckon Martha?’ I tried to lighten things and held my nose. ‘Bet your nappy improved things. Where is it?’

  ‘In the bin,’ Catherine said. I looked at her.

  ‘Oh, crap’ – and she laughed.

  ‘Can I feed her?’

  ‘Be my guest’

  ‘Suits me.’ Then we both sat down, me feeding Martha and Catherine slugging away at the wine.

  ‘Thank you Simon,’ Catherine said as the wine took its effect and she began to relax. And then she took my hand under the table as I fed Martha. My hand was resting on the top of my leg under Martha as I used the crook of my arm to support her head, holding the bottle of milk in my other hand. Catherine had moved across the bench so that she rested against me. Then she started rubbing her hand up and down my leg. It felt good, really good. I remember that very well, although I can also remember feeling completely bewildered - what a swing from untouchable meltdown on the pavement to this.

  ‘Catherine…’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything, Simon.’ She closed her eyes and put her head on my shoulder. When Martha had finished the bottle, I winded her and then put her in the buggy where she went off to sleep. As I sat back at the table I took Catherine’s hand again and rested it back on my leg.

  ‘I like that,’ I said.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Let’s forget about the Christmas shopping.’ I had already bought her presents, a leather bound diary and a sterling silver fountain pen with her initials engraved on it, and the rest could wait.

  We finished the wine and shared some more tapas. Then we took the bus back to Battersea and walked to Catherine’s flat.

  ‘I’m sorry I have been such an idiot,’ Catherine said as we got to her door. ‘You must think me a complete dipstick.’

  ‘I don’t. You know I don’t. I’ll help you in with the things.’

  ‘Thanks. Tea?’

  Like the time before I made the tea, this time knowing my way around the flat. But once again I did not know what to do. We chatted for a while but then there was a pause.

  ‘Simon,’ Catherine spoke really carefully, ‘I’ve had a lovely day with you.’

  ‘Yes, it’s been really good for me too.’

  ‘I don’t really know how to say this. I know that I should ask you to stay and a huge part of me wants to. But I’m too afraid. I am sure that sounds nuts.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘And I do realise that you might not want to.’

  ‘That’s not the case.’

  ‘Please can I ask you to do something for me? Please can you think, really think, what you would like from me and Martha.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I am afraid of loving anyone. After everything that has happened. I am afraid that we are getting so close to each other and then that you will go away. That it won’t work out because…well you know why.’

  ‘Are you asking for time?’

  ‘Yes, I think I am.’

  ‘Then you’ve got it. Because I want to do the same. I don’t want to mess this up. Come here.’

  We both stood up and I put my arms around her and I held her. I held her in a way that I had wanted to for a long time.

  ‘I’ll go now’ and I kissed her on the forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  This is how we broke through the barrier eventually. This is how good it got.

  ‘What are you doing over Christmas?’ I asked Catherine one time that we met for coffee.

  ‘Don’t know, really.’

  ‘Seeing your mum and dad?’

  ‘My mother and step-father? No thanks. What’s more, Andy is home and so they will have plenty to occupy their time.’ Andy is her half-brother.

  ‘And you? Are you going to France?’

  ‘Same as you. No thanks.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s the first Christmas without Penelope and it would upset my mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not a bit. At least I am spared Penelope’s father.’ I pretended to yawn. ‘Do you want to meet up? I’ll cook you lunch…well, give you food poisoning, probably, but…’

  ‘I would love to,’ she said. ‘Oh, and by the way, I am singing at a Christingle service that the hospice has arranged in the Temple Church on Christmas Eve. Do you want to come? It’s at four o’clock.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘You could even look after Martha for me while I am singing. If
you like.’

  ‘Bribery?’

  ‘Bribery.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘OK, I am duly bribed. See you there. And lunch next day?’

  ‘Haven’t had food poisoning for ages. Can’t wait.’

  The church was candle lit, decorated and warm. Full of kids, parents and Christmas excitement. I had hovered outside by the Inner Temple Hall until Catherine and Martha arrived and then took over with Martha while Catherine went in to join the choir. Martha slept through most of the service and, when I realised that she had woken up, I picked her out of the pushchair and held her. Catherine caught my eye, and smiled. Everything seemed to come together that day.

  The service only lasted for about 45 minutes. Afterwards there was mulled wine and members of the choir came round to talk to the audience. I was talking to a woman who was enjoying giving Martha attention and was speaking to me as if I was her father, asking me about feeding and sleeping and also wanting to tell me about her own children. Martha was wrapped up in her cold weather gear and was as good as gold.

  ‘Are you a member of the choir too?’ the woman asked after I told her what brought me there.

  It was at that moment that Catherine joined us, put her arm through mine and said ‘No, he’s with me.’

  And I looked down at her and kissed her on the cheek in front of the woman, as a loving husband might; it was just a natural thing to do. The woman looked at us in a kind, almost envious way and then smiled at me.

  ‘You’re a lucky man,’ she said. ‘I know I am.’

  When the woman moved away, I was still holding Martha. Catherine touched my arm and lent towards me.

  ‘Come back to my place tonight.’

  ‘Are you sure, Catherine?’

  ‘Yes, if you are.’

  I moved my leg so that it rubbed against hers. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Let’s go. It’s such a beautiful evening. Let’s walk to Waterloo.’

  ‘Can you walk in that gear?’ I asked. She was wearing her concert clothes.

  ‘Never unprepared’ – she had a battered pair of trainers in her handbag.

  As I pushed Martha in her buggy across Waterloo Bridge, Catherine put her hand on the push-bar over mine. And then we stopped and I wrapped her in my arms and we kissed as lovers do, with the Thames flowing beneath us and the Christmas lights of London around us.

  ‘I love you, Catherine’ I said and I really meant it. How could I have said anything else?

  ‘Simon, I love you too.’ That somehow sealed it.

  She took over with the buggy and we walked to Waterloo, me with my arms around her shoulder. And on the train, we behaved like lovers do – like all those couples that I used to see looking so happy and of whom I had been so jealous for so very long.

  From Clapham Junction we caught a cab back to her flat.

  ‘I feel out of my depth,’ I told her as we got through her front door, ‘I don’t know why but I don’t know what to do. I really don’t want to get this wrong.’

  ‘You won’t, Simon. Anyway, it’s me you are talking to. No one else. I will get you a towel and you can have a shower.’

  I came out of the shower bare footed and with my shirt half buttoned. Catherine passed a glass of wine to me, reached to my face and touched it gently with an open hand, drawing me to her. I put the glass down and then we kissed with all the longing that we felt. And yes, I loved her then. I loved her softness, the way she made me feel like a grown up man, the excitement that she gave, her need for me, her ability to deal with what was happening and her beauty, because Catherine is beautiful. Very, very beautiful. I know that sounds disloyal but it isn’t – you knew all about it and encouraged me to express it.

  ‘Wait here. I need a shower, too,’ she said and after she had showered I followed her to her bed and there we showed our love for each other, because it was love. It really was love, it was not pretence, I can see that as I write about it and the sex that followed was brilliant and fulfilling. Catherine’s slight and beautiful body responded to each touch, each exploration so that it was easy for me to know what to do and her mouth was soft and her kisses gentle as they passed over my body, leaving me gasping with joy. It lasted all night and it was natural, making me feel clean and whole when we woke; it was as though I had made the break into proper and real adult life, where people love each other emotionally and physically and have a future to build upon. It was what I wanted. Before I met you I re-lived that night many, many times. It used to be my fantasy and, as I write this, it gives me a tremendous boost to think that I can do heterosexual sex within a full relationship. I can do heterosexual love and really mean – really feel - it.

  I had the best Christmas that I could ever remember. Just the three of us. And Catherine cooked, leaving the defrosting turkey breast radiating food poisoning in my unoccupied flat in Camden.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  On Valentine’s Day 2003 my present from Catherine was a card with a key to her flat taped inside and which bore the single word ‘Please.’ I did not need to be asked twice. So we began living together in February 2003. I want to write now about how happy Catherine and I thought that we were then.

  I felt as though being with Catherine made me years younger, as though the past didn’t matter and could be shunted into the shadows. I did feel normal – a man in love with a very attractive woman, who wouldn’t? I thought that the margin began to dissolve in my own life not through discussion, because we never sat down and talked about the past until the crisis happened, but through living; I also felt that the shutters stopped closing in Catherine’s life so often. My past, my hidden self, was still with me and it only took one drink too many, lack of sleep or time on my own when I was doing a case away from home for it to catch up with me, but when we were together I could block it out, forget about it. I thought that I had found a role with someone who depended on me as her emotional rock, someone whom I could trust and that, strangely enough, pushed me to toughen up; and, it seemed, Catherine started to edge herself forwards, slowly, testing if she could trust me too; after everything that happened, we thought that we were laying the foundations of trusting each other.

  I remember the night times and want to write about them in particular because that is easy and nice, something good to say. When the rush of the day and the deafening cry for sex had all subsided we both slept, curled around each other and if I woke I could move my body gently against hers and feel its warmth and healing. Her body was softer than Josh’s, smaller, a separate, different and distinct entity. Josh’s body was home, so much a part of me that I could not manage without it; as with my body, something we shared like everything else.

  At night, I slept on what is now Josh’s side of the bed and she would curl up against me. I could put my arm around her and she felt light, so it was easy to sleep like that. I could feel her move closer to me in her sleep, in the cool of her flat in fresh linen, so very different to many nights here where it was so hot that we needed to keep our distance. Sometimes, if I woke, she would wake too and we would talk and hold each other but nothing like the life changing, open-minded talks that you and I had, because that is not how we operated. It didn’t feel necessary. I knew she needed me, desperately, and that she looked to me to give her safety and love, things she had never had before and I thought that I was giving it to her, and to Martha. I had a role to play and I liked the script.

  If Martha woke and needed comforting we would take it in turns to go to her, padding down to her room at night in the flat and, against all advice, often bringing her into our bed so that she slept between us. Even now I can put myself back in that bed and remember the warmth, the comfort of being there, watching them both sleep safely and soundly – safe and sound is about right.

  We became a family. I also think that I became a much nicer and less driven person because I was happy and, what’s more, I did not want to work so hard so that, when I did work, I was able to concentrate better and my work stopped being an exc
use. I even stopped drinking vodka. In court I was less angular and tight in my advocacy and felt more able to use a lighter, and I suspect, more attractive approach with people including judges. I was living the life that I had thought I had always wanted.

  There were tensions, of course. For instance, Jennifer was incredibly protective of me and unimpressed about my relationship with Catherine. She met Catherine once – we all went for coffee.

  ‘How do you take your coffee, Jennifer?’ Catherine asked as she and I were going to order.

  ‘Simon knows,’ Jennifer replied, ‘we’ve shared a room for a long time.’

  When we got back to the table things didn’t improve.

  ‘How’s work going?’ Jennifer asked of Catherine, ‘Busy?’

  ‘Ticking along. I am somewhat uninterested in it all at the moment.’ Catherine looked towards me and smiled. I thought Jennifer was going to throw up.

  ‘You mean disinterested. They’re different,’ she said.

  ‘Well we can’t all have mega practices like you, Jennifer.’ I tried to lighten things up. ‘How did yesterday go?’

  ‘I lost,’ she replied.

  The other area of tension was over Catherine’s family. We never saw them. Catherine remained good friends with the health visitor, Helen, who had given evidence at the hearing; so, if ever we needed someone to babysit Martha, Catherine would ask Helen.

  ‘Why don’t you get your mum to babysit tonight?’ I asked Catherine one evening when we were going out, ‘she hasn’t seen Martha for ages.’

  ‘It’s easier if Helen does it.’

  ‘I’m sure your mum would love to see her.’

  ‘Well she’s not going to.’

  I left it. I just assumed that Catherine wanted to reinforce her own role as Martha’s parent after the five months that they had been apart and I suppose, I didn’t want to rock the boat.

  Catherine seemed so much happier. She knew how to stand by her man and it was obvious that she took great pride in caring for me. She bought me nice clothes, worried about my welfare, prepared good food, listened to my stories and told me hers. In any social gatherings she was attractive, witty and slightly rebellious in a way that made her entertaining; she could charm the pants off senior members of the legal profession, especially judges, because she knew how to talk with them and make them feel valued and young again. People kept telling me how lucky I was. Everyone loves a love story and it was plain to all that we loved each other. I was a lucky man.