All the Rage by A. L Kennedy Page B

he’d talked her horny.
    Private tits, quiet tits, tits that will never be shown to a jaded nation.
    But she’d show me.
    She wouldn’t want it stated. Our conversation would be pleasantly oblique. We’d talk about this journey, other journeys, other passengers, anything really, it wouldn’t matter as long as I kept the music of it rubbing forward and no chance for her to doubt. I needn’t say anything filthy, just keep a hunger in the smiles, the right catch in the eyes, and by the time our train came I’d get her on board and then have her in a toilet.
    Done it before.
    She wouldn’t realise it had been sordid until tomorrow, maybe the end of the week. Today it would be passion and romance.
    And then tidy up and out into the carriage. I’d suggest that we sit apart afterwards, because of what fun that would be: acting like she’d never met me, when I’m still a ghost between her legs.
    Those red plush silk and shaky minutes between her legs.
    I could tell her if she’s good that we’d do it again past Swindon.
    Maybe not a lie.
    Maybe give her my genuine number and save hers. Hook up, if we felt like taking longer and she didn’t live ridiculously far away.
    Although there is much to be said for women who live ridiculously far away and the trend towards exponential fare increases for public transport. And petrol’s hardly a bargain.
    We could improvise.
    She would let me.
    Sometimes people want nothing. It is a necessity.
    But then Mark gave her an altered smile.
    And this is to say that I would if I could.
    And it is such a pity I can’t.
    Have this instead – the sting of possibility. It’s a much neater present, a nice one: the way that your body will rouse and insist where I would have kissed it.
    You know the places. You do.
    Mark let his hands fall sadly and, because he considered this polite, he whispered his knuckles against the woman’s as he passed her, headed into the glare and walked to offer Pauline interwoven lies.
    â€˜Well, you won’t believe it, but they said another twenty minutes.’
    I really did go and speak to someone and serve you as you wished.
    â€˜Sorry, darling. It’s outrageous.’
    I am not 40 or 50 per cent turned on.
    â€˜I could go back. If you want, love.’
    I wouldn’t like to scream until it hurts me.
    â€˜But I don’t think it would be much use, and the sun’s giving me a headache. I feel a bit out of it, actually . . .’
    I am not thumbing through random memories of working inside other women until I felt the sweat run, the insect tickle of being entirely waylaid.
    â€˜I am sorry.’ And he kissed her, squeezed her hand in his.
    She withdrew from the pressure and pursed her lips. Mark took pains to understand her point of view.
    That’s sixteen years of history between us in one motion – and having no kids and her needing her glasses more badly than I need mine. Varifocals.
    That’s me having, thus far, decided not to be dead yet and this causing a further difference of opinion.
    Their history wasn’t uniformly bleak. Nobody’s ever was, not without significant rewriting. For three years he’d been relatively happy and as faithful to Pauline as a rescued dog. Then he had rather reverted to type and it was hugely regrettable and he did feel bad about it, but equally he’d never let her know. He hadn’t insisted they share an open marriage and hadn’t been prone to regular confessions. He hadn’t confessed at all.
    Because I was nothing. So I had nothing to confess.
    I washed thoroughly after them, extra soap and water for the hands, the betraying hands, and I used mouthwash and set aside a holdall of specifically adulterous clothing – like a gym bag. Salted money away for the costs. I suppressed my traces.
    She didn’t know.
    Not a clue about the girl I met in a hotel car park during a late-night fire alarm, the girl on