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“Tiger?” Maud’s voice is low in Lesley’s ear. “Hun? Is everything okay?”
She’s cuddled behind him, arms draped loosely over his shoulders as usual, her body warm and grounding against his back. Thirty years give or take of spooning[1], every night except for when he’s making a delivery, and he’s never gotten tired of it. But still, for whatever reason, tonight Lesley is far more conscious of Maud’s presence — her breath, heartbeat, body heat, and his own as well — than normal.
“Fine, love,” he whispers back, hoping it’s true, and also hoping his aimless tossing and turning hasn’t been too bad. He didn’t mean to keep her awake. “Long day, that’s all. Everything worked out all right, though.”
He feels their shared pillow shift slightly with the movement of Maud’s head; possibly a nod, possibly a shake, possibly just a motion of acknowledgement. “Those deliveries?” she asks. “You were gone longer than I expected. Thought you said they were local.”
“Traffic was heavy,” Lesley explains. That seems right. He remembers hearing something on the radio about the M25 being especially bad. Worse than usual, that is. “But they were local deliveries,” he confirms.
Or… were they? Suddenly, Lesley isn’t sure. He’s positive they were local — he has a vivid, somewhat unsettling recollection of being back by the old riverbank. And he knows too that he came straight home from that little Tadfield village, which was no great distance either. But somehow, he’s also positive that he went far, far away today… much further than he’s ever been before, further than even the Middle East or America.
Can those certainties both be true? How could they both be true? Are they both true?
He shivers, slightly, though it’s still August and the bed is warm.
A movement of the blankets, and then Maud is sitting up beside him, one hand resting on his, live warmth seeping back in where her fingers meet his knuckles. He rolls so he can see her face in the dimness of the bedroom.
“You know, Lesley?” Maud is doing that thing she does with her voice: somehow simultaneously teasing, tender, and matter-of-fact. He’s always loved that voice… and seldom more than now, the well-known timbre and cadence a comfort even without the meaning of the words themselves. “You don’t have to tell me what happened,” she goes on, the words soft as the night around them, softer even than the duvet, “but you can if you want to. I’m here.”
If I was to tell my wife what happened to me today, she wouldn’t believe me. Lesley’s own voice echoes suddenly in his head now, the thought edged with a sense of disoriented melancholy. But even as he recalls the sentence, he’s not sure anymore what he was talking about when he said it. Can’t quite place the memory; feels it blurring more, slipping farther and farther out of his grasp as Maud squeezes his hand again.
Lesley squeezes back, and something in the gesture, their pulses beating against each other, is reassuring. He’s here, at home, in his bedroom, holding his wife’s hand, both of them well and together and…
And, his mind finishes the thought, stating the obvious, alive.
Something happened today, Lesley is certain of it. What happened?
If I was to tell…
But, no. He shakes that uncomfortably clinging thought off. Whatever strange mood brought it into his head, it is not welcome here. It makes no sense, so there is no reason to dwell on it. Maud would always believe him. Of course she would. Because Lesley would never dream of lying to her; Maud knows that, and he knows she knows that, and he knows he knows she knows that.
So, that’s that. Whatever happened today, he could tell Maud about it. If only he remembered enough to tell.
“I know,” he whispers in answer to her quiet offer. “I will, if I think of anything. It was just a long day.” He pauses, then adds — because it feels somehow important to mention right now, and because it never hurts to remind them both of what they already know — “Maud?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, tiger,” Maud says easily, and Lesley can hear the smile in her voice as she lies back down.
She puts an arm around him and pulls him close, settling in again for the night, their bodies pressed together. Warm, and solid, and so very living.
He remembers once, back when they first fell in love, Maud said that being with him made her feel more alive. Lesley is having the same feeling now, he thinks.
“Everything worked out all right,” he tells her again… and this time, as Maud snuggles in and closes her eyes, he has no doubt that it’s true.