Selma
Kent, UK
11 August 1991
In all the drama of the past few days, I almost forgot I had to return to work on the Monday. But the evening before, it hit me like a sledgehammer. I couldn’t see any way around it though. If I stopped working, the impact on my chances of getting joint custody of Becky would be diminished – my solicitor had said it herself.
‘Back to work tomorrow then?’ Donna asked over dinner that night.
I sighed. ‘Yep.’
‘We’ll miss you,’ Idris said softly. ‘You don’t need to go in, you know.’
‘We’ve had this discussion before, remember?’ I said with a wry smile. ‘You all might hate numbers, hell, I hate them too. But the fact is, I have a mortgage to contribute to. Plus not having a job won’t go down well with social services.’
‘It’s just proof of an income they want,’ Julien said. ‘What about your book royalties?’
‘They’re only paid twice a year,’ I replied, playing with the soup Donna had made for us. ‘That won’t be regular enough for social services. Plus there’s the mortgage still to pay.’
‘But your royalties must be a decent whack,’ Donna said. ‘What with you being a bestseller and all.’
‘I’m not a bestseller,’ I said, my cheeks flushing.
Donna frowned. ‘But that’s what the other mums at school told me.’
I may have told a few of the school-gate mums my book had hit the charts. ‘It was just a few days,’ I quickly said.
‘Why are you talking about numbers, Donna?’ Idris said. ‘You know we don’t do that.’
Donna looked wounded. ‘Sorry.’
I smiled at him, pleased for the support. I took a deep breath, looking towards the town where my office was. In just thirteen hours, I’d be back at my desk, writing copy I hated as people gossiped worthless nonsense around me.
I clenched my fists beneath the table, pressing them into my legs.
‘Did you know,’ Idris said softly, ‘two thirds of many people’s lives are spent working in an office? Many of those people hate their jobs, yet they call that life.’ He looked at everyone around the table who had stopped eating and were listening intently. ‘If you open the dictionary, life is defined as organisms that are not dead and inorganic.’
Great. I didn’t need a sermon about how rubbish the nine-to-five rat race was when I had no choice but to face it. I loved being in the cave, it was doing wonders for my writing, but sometimes the naivety of the group astounded me.
Idris got up and walked outside, leaning down and picking something up from amongst the seaweed and shells left behind by the tide. When he returned, he had a red starfish in his hand, its legs bent out of shape.
‘This is dead. But in life, it moved and it changed, like the current.’
He stood behind me, and placed the dead starfish by my plate.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Gee. Thanks for that, Idris.’
He didn’t smile like he usually did when I said something like that. ‘Are you moved by your job, Selma? Like you are by the current? Or are you dead when you’re there, like this starfish?’
I stared at the hopeless starfish, my jaw tightening. Then I looked up, seeing the way everyone was looking at me like they felt sorry for me. It infuriated me how naive they were!
But it also infuriated me that I had to return to normal life the next day.
I flung the starfish to the ground and stood up. ‘How many times do I need to say it? I have no choice.’ I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling horribly wary. ‘I’m going to bed.’
Then I walked to my bed, feeling Idris’s eyes on me.
I barely slept that night and woke early, getting ready for work in silence. As I stepped out of the cave into the morning sun, I yanked at the collar of my blouse. It felt like I was wearing someone else’s uniform, the wrong size, starchy, unfamiliar. It was like being back in court again. I’d been so used to my long flowing skirts and soft tops with flip-flops lately.
‘Packed your lunch?’ Caden called out to me.
‘Ha ha,’ I said.
‘Have a good day!’ Oceane shouted out, waving.
‘Yeah right,’ I grumbled back. I took a deep breath and headed towards town. When I walked into the office a few minutes later, the receptionist greeted me with wide eyes.
‘Wow, you look tanned!’ he said.
‘Yep, the summer has a way of doing that to humans!’
I carried on until I got to the main office, stopping at the glass doors. I could see them all in there, machines as Idris would call them, faces lit up by the synthetic glare of their screens, circles under their eyes, fingers tapping to the dullest of tunes. They all looked so grey, so dead like that starfish.
But that was life. Real life – not the refined bubble of life the cave dwellers lived in. I held Becky’s face strong in my mind and took a deep breath, walking in.
Monica caught sight of me and looked over at a colleague, frantically gesturing towards me. Everyone else stared up at her as I walked through the office, my head held high.
Jesus, their lives really must be dull if they found a new tan this exciting.
‘Selma!’ Monica called out as she passed, causing more people to raise their heads. ‘Welcome back!’
‘Thanks!’ I said without looking at her, waving my hand in the air.
Just keep walking, I told myself. Just eight hours and it’ll be over for the day. You can get back to the cave, drink gin and forget about this godforsaken place.
I got to my desk and sat down, leaning my head on the heel of my hand as I waited for my computer to turn on. I looked up and peered out at the summer sun in the distance, imagining it warming my skin as Idris painted nearby. I tried to focus on that instead of the shadows that sat in angles over me in the reality of this office. I imagined the smell of salt, paint oils and oranges in contrast to the synthetic office stench of coffee, printer ink and air freshener. I imagined a breakfast of fish caught by Idris instead of the dry croissant I’d bought myself on the way in. And then nightfall, guitar music and the flames of a fire, Idris’s green eyes on mine.
Not long …
‘Ah, she’s back.’ I looked up to see Matthew swinging his bag onto the table and sitting down, his chair bouncing. ‘Monica cornered me in the kitchen after that article was printed,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Seriously, that woman has no space boundaries.’
‘You lucky man,’ I replied with a raised eyebrow. ‘All your dreams coming true.’
He gave me a disgusted look. ‘Please don’t put that image in my mind. Oh God, here she comes,’ he said, quickly putting his headphones on and pretending to type.
‘So,’ Monica said, sitting on my table as I resisted the urge to shove her off, ‘is it true you’re living in the cave with all those people?’
‘Yep,’ I said, logging into my computer.
‘What does Mike think?’ Monica asked.
‘I don’t need his permission to be there.’
‘So Becky’s with you?’
‘She’s visited.’
Monica frowned. ‘I see. So what’s he like then – Idris? Did he mention the bottle of wine I left him?’
More people were walking over, desperate for information about the mysterious cave dwellers.
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘Look, I have a lot of work to do. Maybe I’ll see you in the kitchen later?’ I added, having no intention whatsoever of stepping foot in that gossip pit.
Monica frowned. ‘Okay. But can you please tell everyone he’s not a kiddie fiddler? He saved my son for God’s sake! I keep telling everyone not to believe the rumours, but you live with him so you can tell them yourself.’
‘For God’s sake,’ I hissed.
‘Yeah, like he’s shagging that blonde kid who never wears a bra,’ the man from accounts shouted over.
I shot him a look of disgust. ‘No, he bloody isn’t. He wouldn’t go near Oceane.’
‘Oceane?’ Matthew said, taking his earphones off. ‘My little brother was at school with her last year. Apparently, she’s been telling her friends she and Idris have a thing going on.’
I looked at him incredulously. ‘What?’
He put his hands up. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’
‘But she has a boyfriend,’ I said.
‘Since when has that stopped you hippy types?’ the man from accounts piped up.
‘All I know is that she’s seventeen,’ Matthew said, brow creased. ‘Just a kid really. If it is true …’ His voice trailed off.
I stood up, grabbing my bag. ‘I can’t be here. Tell Daphne I have a tummy bug.’
‘Another one?’ Monica said, shooting me a cynical look. ‘You’ve had an awful lot of those this year.’
‘Fine, tell her I quit instead. Haven’t used that excuse yet, have I?’ I shoved away from my desk and walked out.
It was just rumours about Idris and Oceane. Surely it was just rumours? But as I drew closer to the cave, anger twisted and turned inside me.
What if it wasn’t?
Even worse, when I got there, the first people I saw were Idris and Oceane who were at the edge of the waves, peering down at some fish.
Had the naivety of the people who lived in the cave infected me? Was I seeing Idris through rose-tinted glasses; seeing the man I wanted him to be? What if he’d been taking me for a fool all this time, making me believe he felt something for me? Taking Oceane for a fool too, a naive seventeen-year-old?
Oceane let out a giggle as Idris twirled her around. Had he slept with her already? That silly lithe teenager. That would make sense, a kid like Oceane falling for his charms. But me? Nearly forty, a writer and a mum. What a fool I’d been! What a fool to think he’d be attracted to me. I thought of the dimples on my thighs, the stretch marks on my stomach. How, when released from my bra, my breasts sagged down slightly now, bumping against the top of my stomach.
So why did he look at me the way he did?
I thought of my mother then. There was this one time when I was about ten, when she’d been acting unusually kind: cuddling me lots, buying me pretty dresses. I’d dared to hope she might have changed. But it wasn’t long before I realised why she was acting like this – there was a potential new boyfriend on the scene, a rich one left with three kids to care for after his wife died. My mother had seen the pound signs, pretty dresses and parties, and the man had clearly seen a new mother for his unruly children, which was ironic considering she was barely able to care for her own daughter, let alone three new kids. But my mother was astute enough to know the way to impress the man was to weave a lie and show him what a wonderful mother she was. It didn’t last long. My mother soon realised what a handful the kids would be. As soon as her ambitious plans to snare him fled, the affection she’d feigned for me did too. I’d cried, asking for the ‘nice mummy’ to come back.
‘Oh you’re so naive, Selma,’ my mother had said. ‘It was just an act, didn’t you know? You know I hate cuddles and all that fuss.’
Was Idris the same, just putting on an act? Tears pricked my eyes at the thought then I shook my head, clenching my fists. How ridiculous, to react like this! Nothing had happened between me and Idris anyway!
Over dinner I barely talked, just shrugging when people asked about work. I avoided making eye contact with Idris, but could feel his stare. After, I walked along the beach in the dark, not wanting to be around them … especially Idris and Oceane. After a while, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see it was Idris.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked.
Another shrug.
‘You’re in turmoil,’ he said, looking sideways at me. ‘Did someone say something to upset you at work?’ He seemed so concerned, his green eyes searching my face.
I took a deep breath. ‘Oceane’s been telling her friends she has a thing going on with you.’
Idris’s hands dropped from my shoulders. There was a look in his face that made me hesitate.
‘She’s seventeen, Idris!’
‘It’s just a number.’
I closed my eyes, pinching my nose. ‘So something is going on between you both?’
‘No! You need to stop listening to people. Just know the truth in your heart.’ He put his hands on my shoulders again. ‘You know if a tree—’
‘I don’t want one of your bloody adages, Idris,’ I said, shoving his hands away. ‘I just don’t want to be lied to. I thought you were more than the sex-mad cult leader people have been making you out to be, but maybe they were right all along?’
His face hardened. ‘There were no lies, Selma. Nothing is going on with Oceane and me. And anyway, you’re hardly the person to complain about lies, are you?’
I glared at him, my face turning hot. Then I strode down the beach away from him. ‘Don’t follow me!’ I shouted over my shoulder.
I eventually ended up in the cave Idris had shown me that first day we met, peering up at the outlines of the stone birds and bats hanging from the ceiling as I thought of my mother, beautiful face frozen like stone, eyes hard.
‘You can hardly talk of my lies, Selma,’ I remembered her hissing at me once, ‘when you’re the queen of deception.’
Maybe I’d been lying to myself about this whole thing at the cave, about Idris? What was it that the old man at the café had said? I for one can’t wait to see it all fall down around your ears.
Maybe that was what was happening now? The newspaper article, the revelations about Idris and Oceane. Even if he was telling the truth and they were all lies, that was what people thought. Add to that the fact I’d walked out on my job and I might lose custody of Becky …
The horrible reality of it suddenly hit me. What had I done?
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears sliding down my cheeks.
‘Selma.’ I looked up into the darkness to see Idris entering the cave. ‘Can I join you?’
I didn’t say anything but he walked in anyway, his shadow spreading across the cave, making him seem like a giant. He sat down next to me, his shoulder close to mine. We both looked up at the frozen birds.
‘Maybe I’ve been frozen here all this time,’ I said, wiping my tears away angrily. ‘In a stupid naive little bubble, lying to myself about the cave, about you, just so I had an excuse to get away from my marriage.’
He looked wounded.
‘I think it’s time I go back home,’ I added.
He looked down at his hands, a frown puckering his tanned forehead. ‘The night I saved the boy, I saw you first. Among all the crowds, I saw you. Your sadness, your complexity.’ He looked up at me, eyes deep in mine. ‘Now I see your wings unfurling and the idea of you leaving, just as it’s all about to take flight, it kills me.’ He took my hand, our fingers lightly touching. ‘I feel my wings unfurling with you and it hurts. I know how much it hurts as it’s so new to us. I’m sorry if I hurt you just now, Selma. I really am. It won’t happen again, I promise. And there is nothing going on between me and Oceane.’ He took a deep breath, his thumb caressing my hand. ‘There’s only one person I desire and I think you know who that person is.’
I felt my breath quickening, ripples of feeling building inside as I looked at him.
‘We’re both so afraid to take the leap,’ he said. ‘But isn’t it time we jumped that final hurdle together?’
I swallowed. That was my problem. I was always so scared. I should have left Mike years ago. I should have told my mother to go fuck herself earlier, left home way before I was eighteen. I should have written a novel when I had more time, at university. I should have, I could have, but I always left everything too late. Just like coming to this cave, running away from a life that made me miserable at a time when my daughter needed me most, not when I should have done it – years ago.
And what of Idris? Was that another opportunity I was about to let slip through my fingers?
I put my fingertips to his face, felt the soft bristles of his blond beard. Then I glided my fingers towards his neck, gently curving my hand around the back as I kept my eyes in his.
His long hair brushed against my knuckles and I sighed.
‘I’ve been trying to fight this,’ he said in a low voice as he put his hand to my face too. ‘I was worried how it would look, being attracted to someone in the group. But I can’t resist any more.’
He leaned towards me, pressing his lips against mine, his arm circling my waist and pulling me close, both of us growing more and more frantic, our fingers in each other’s hair.
I felt something release inside me then. Something I hadn’t felt for a long time. With Mike, I always felt a calmness, a sense of coming home. But with Idris, I felt untethered, unravelled, heart thumping to an uneven rhythm, every fibre in my body frantic to get as close to him as possible.
He pushed me against the cool stone of the rock and I felt him hard against my thigh as I lifted my leg up, hands moving down to his buttocks as I pressed myself against him.
Then I suddenly became conscious of my lumps and bumps.
‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘You could choose anyone.’
‘The way you write,’ he replied in a whisper. ‘The words you choose say a million things about you. Your strength and leadership. Your beauty,’ he added, tangling a lock of my hair around his finger. ‘Your cynicism,’ he added with a smile.
We were both breathing hard, pressing into each other, one heart thumping against the other. The ebb and flow of the waves outside seemed to match that rhythm, the silver ripples cast by the moon in sync too.
I leaned my head back, felt his lips on my neck, trailing down to my collar bone and under the top of my blouse, his thumb nudging the silk material of my bra aside and circling my nipple. I groaned, sensation throbbing within me as I ran my hands over his taut muscles.
He turned onto his back, bringing me with him so I lay above him, my legs either side of his waist. I leaned down, dipping my tongue into his mouth as he groaned against my lips. Our kisses grew more urgent, more intense, barely noticing as rain started thundering down outside, the wind picking up.
Idris hitched the bottom of my skirt up, fingers finding the wetness beneath my silk knickers. I slipped my hand beneath the waistband of his shorts, felt him hard in my palm. Thunder roared outside, the waves now frantic as I pushed Idris’s shorts down and guided him between my legs, eyes still in his.
Then I lowered myself onto him.
‘Oh God,’ he moaned, seeming more human now, less godlike.
I moved up and down on top of him, bending over to kiss him, my fingers running through his long sandy hair as he thrust his hips up, deeper within me, making me cry out.
As I arched my head back, I thought I saw two eyes blinking at us in the darkness. But the next time I looked, they were gone.