Archive of Our Own ^beta

University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI
December 1962

Jeffrey Fairbrother was not a runner.  He was not built for it.  Running hurt his knees.  In any case, he'd learned early in life that he had quite the silly gait to his run.  To showcase this in public was a feat to be avoided.

Put simply, running was something he never did.  He went out of his way to avoid it.

It was therefore something of a surprise to realise that whatever he was currently doing, it qualified as more than a brisk walk.  More, even, than a jog.  It appeared he had abandoned his long-established anti-running philosophy.  There was probably a good reason for this, though his brain hadn't caught up with the rest of him on that issue; not yet.  For the last thirty seconds, he'd acted purely on instinct.

Which, by the way, was another of those things that he never did.

Jeffrey attempted to review.  He had heard someone give a gasp, and he'd caught a glimpse of what looked like a familiar face amid the crowd of people spilling out of the faculty building and heading for the parking lot.  His heart had briefly suspended operations in his chest.  This had, frankly, been very uncomfortable.

And in the moments it took for him to process what he had seen – a dark-haired woman turning her back and hurrying away from him – his legs had apparently decided to start moving.  Very quickly.  In pursuit.

It couldn't possibly be Gladys.  Of course it couldn't.  She was in Melbourne with her faithless, feckless cad of a husband.  Unless, of course, she'd already come to her senses and flown back to the UK, where, presumably, she'd be playing to her strengths once again: being simultaneously challenging, exasperating and utterly indispensable to some lucky, lucky so-and-so.

Either way, it couldn't be her.  Jeffrey was jumping at shadows.  Running at them, in fact, full tilt, and all in spite of the habits of a lifetime.  This was ridiculous.

"Gladys!" he heard himself call out.

Because it appeared to be the case that basic common sense had no power over the rest of his body.  He was racing along the road, the freezing December wind scouring his skin, in full view of the students hurrying between department buildings and the nearest cup of coffee.  It was an undignified and damn foolish thing to be doing, this running business, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

Before him, bodies parted momentarily and he was gifted the vision of a long, beige raincoat in a style rarely worn by Madison's student populace and certainly not in the middle of a Wisconsin winter.  The tails of the raincoat flapped with the wind as its owner hustled along, the collar turned up against the chill.  Above the collar, a head of hair so black it carried hints of indigo.

The height was right.  The gait was right.  The hair – that beautiful black hair – was right.

But it couldn't be her.

"Gladys, please!"

Inside him, a tiny voice muttered: 'Please, please, please let it be her.'  Months, he'd endured, of silence.  Months since that last, heartbreaking letter in which she'd begged him for an indefinite hiatus in their correspondence: something that would allow her time to reflect.  Right now, he knew he would cheerfully sacrifice half his soul just to see her again.

He hadn't even realised it until a minute ago.

"Hey, y'okay, Professor?" someone shouted.  Jeffrey turned, distracted, to see one of his students looking over in concern.

"Yes, yes, quite all right, thank you, er, Mr Donovan."  And because politeness had been hammered into him when he'd been able to muster no resistance at all, he heard himself add, "Please excuse me," as he continued to run.

The raincoat hesitated at the crowd milling outside the nearest Commons building on Elm Drive, then it went off-road and dashed along the footpath through the trees towards the lake shore.  Jeffrey swerved past a few more students and attempted a sprint once he reached the emptier path.  His knees complained, but as the trees began to thin out he finally gained a decent, clear vision of his quarry.  Or at least the back of her.

"Gladys, please wait!"

He hadn't realised he was capable of bellowing.  Neither had his quarry.  The woman cast a nervous look back over her shoulder and, in the process, stumbled.  She looked down at the path she was traversing, realised that she had already moved on to the short, rocky shoreline of the lake, at which point – with a sense of comic timing that one really couldn't learn – she slipped on an icy rock and flailed to find her balance.

Arms windmilled.  Raincoat flapped.

Jeffrey ran as he probably hadn't run since he was thirteen years old.  Just in the moment before the woman's balance failed completely, threatening her with a sudden and ungentle acquaintance with iced-over rocks and boulders, he caught an arm around her, swung himself to a stop and clutched her body to his.

The world seemed to pause.

For a few blissful seconds there was only the sound of the waves over the lake, and of two human beings breathing very, very hard and trying to pretend that they weren't.

Jeffrey forced himself to let her go when he was convinced they both had their feet.  Part of him was terrified she'd start running again.  Another part was even more frightened that when he met this woman's eyes, looked at her properly, she'd turn out to be another sultry Welsh beauty.  Sultry Welsh beauties being ten-a-penny, of course.

But he made himself look…

It was her.

Oh, god, it was her.  It was all he could do not to reach for her again.  Jeff sternly reminded himself that the scenarios in which they fell into each other's arms had happened only in his head.  (Well, probably Gladys's head too, but rather longer ago than the last few months.)

He wished to high heaven that he had more of a talent for knowing what to say in such circumstances.

Gladys was looking at the rocks which had almost unfooted her.  "I ran out of path," she said in an oddly small voice: the kind of voice someone uses when they're at the end of their tether, and the most absurd, tiny disappointment is the absolute last one they can take.

"Er, yes," he ventured.  "Normally people walk back around a-and along er, er, Willow Drive."  He was trying to point, to explain the route.  When he caught sight of his vaguely-waving hand he forced it back to his side.  He knew when he was being ridiculous.

She looked up at him, blinking.  The cold air had made her pale cheeks raw and red.  Her eyes were shining, and for some reason it took him a moment to understand why they looked different from the image locked into his memory: she was wearing less cosmetic.  Indeed, the smaller amount she had applied now formed a muddy rivulet as the wind made her eyes water.

He would assume it was the wind.  He didn't want to be the man who'd made her cry.

"Gladys, why on earth didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked.

She sighed.  She looked exhausted.  "I should have given you some warning," she acknowledged.  Then, more bitterly, "The men in my life usually need some warning.  They like to know when I'm going to show up.  Makes it easier to avoid unpleasantness."

Her eyes flashed at him.  Just a small flash, of accusation and anger and passion and – god – everything that Gladys Pugh could do and be, everything that was now threatening to go straight from his brain to parts of him less disciplined.  He swallowed the inappropriateness of this response down.

"I-I just meant I could have, er, met you at the airport," he said.

"You looked busy," she retorted.

He frowned.  He thought back to what he'd been doing five minutes ago, before that strange moment of revelation when he'd realised that someone's sharp intake of breath could sound as familiar as their voice.  Before he'd seen this black-haired woman running away from him, and something had creased hard in his gut, and his legs had started moving.

What had he been doing, prior to that moment?  He couldn't even…

Ah.  Yes.

That.

Between panted breaths that were beginning to ease, he couldn't help himself and gave a swift giggle.

"What?" she snapped, not quite so exhausted that she couldn't be offended as well.

"Oh dear," he said, trying very hard to quell the misplaced humour.  "Oh dear me."

"Jeffrey Fairbrother, I am tired and I am emotional and there's a good chance I just twisted my ankle.  But don't think I won't deck you on the jaw if you keep on laughing at me."

It was the ankle-news that smothered his mirth.  Jeffrey lowered to a crouch before even considering that getting back up again might be an issue.  He examined Gladys's legs.

"Um, which one?" he asked.

She sniffed.  "The left."

He looked closer.  Her left shoe was scuffed on the outside edge, as if she'd turned her foot on the uneven surface.  Above the shoe and protruding from laddered nylon was an ankle bone with a pink graze visible.  He traced around the small wound with his thumb.  "I can't see any swelling," he said.

"Well, in this weather it's on ice already, isn't it?" she murmured.

He glanced up, mainly because her tone of voice had undergone yet another transition.  She'd moved from exhausted to furious to seductive, and their reunion had yet to include a 'hello'.  And this behaviour was so very 'Gladys Pugh' that his heart skipped a beat, as if in welcome.

Which meant that it was time for another revelation.  He loved this woman.  He'd loved her for years.  How the hell had he not noticed this before?

Still crouched at her feet, he gave a smile that he knew would be lopsided.  Couldn't be helped; there was no altering the wonkiness of his jaw.  "Hello Gladys," he said.  "It's wonderful to see you."

She frowned, presumably at the oddness of their current disposition.  "Hello," she said shortly.  "Get up, will you?  You look a right 'nana."

His smile widened into a grin.  He reached for the nearest rock that offered a bit of height, and used it to lever himself back to his feet.  "Ow," he grumbled, and his knees creaked and popped but thankfully held.  "Can you walk?"

"I think I'd better."  She looked him up and down.  She'd noticed the lack of springiness to his legs.

He shrugged, feeling rueful.  She wasn't wrong.  He was hardly a cinematic hero, all bristling muscles and possessed of that unlikely ability to bend a woman backwards into a clinch without dropping her on the floor.  Still, he reached for her hand and she let him take it.  He began to pick his way back towards the path.

"Gladys," he said as they chose their slow, careful steps, "I-I feel I should explain.  You just saw me with my colleague, Dr Robben."

"Did I now?" she said.

Her hand was like ice in his.  He pulled her close enough that he could place his other hand around it too, and he rubbed some warmth there as best he could.  "Dr Emilia Robben," he clarified.

"Hmm.  Well, she didn't much look like a Humphrey."

He hid the smile this time.  "She lectures in osteoarchaeology."

"That's nice for her."

"The, er, s-study of human bones."

"Well there's lovely.  I adore her already."

They reached the less treacherous terrain of the path.  Jeffrey stopped, turned Gladys to face him and reached for her free hand, which was of course as cold as the first one he'd touched.  He scooped them both together and rubbed them briskly.

"She's leaving the university," he told Gladys, ignoring the twinge of disappointment that still accompanied that particular thought.  "She's taken a job elsewhere."

"Oh," she said.  "Good for her."

"The point being, you managed to time your arrival to coincide with the moment I was saying goodbye and good luck to a friend and colleague."

She waited a beat as she processed this information.

"Oh," Gladys said.

"That's why we were, um, close."

"I see."

"Er, hugging."

"Yes, I saw what you were doing."

He sighed, exasperated.  "Honestly, Gladys!  In the last three years I-I-I've spent a grand total of about five seconds in a woman's embrace, and you had to choose those five seconds to make your entrance?"

Another beat, before the seductive voice was back.  "Master of timing, me."

They looked at each other then down at their hands.  Jeffrey's brisk rubbing had slowed to a more sensual caress.  He noticed this and belatedly snatched his hands back.

"Sorry," he said.

"That's all right," she replied.  Dark eyes, shining eyes, sultry eyes.  "You don't ever have to apologise for…warming me up."

He swallowed.  Protestations about how she was a married woman were beginning to make their way past the lump in his throat and the undeniable churning in his belly.

"What are you doing here?" he asked plaintively.

"Always wanted to visit the Dairy State," she said.  Then, more sharply, "What do you think I'm here for!"

"You came to, er, visit me?"

"You invited me," she insisted.  Then her expression grew cautious.  "I mean, not in as many words.  But you did.  Didn't you?"

He recalled the enthusiasm with which he'd tried to convince her of Madison's worthiness in his letters.  He recalled a comment – perhaps ill-judged – that he'd made about the comfort and support he wanted to offer her.  He'd conjured up the image of them sharing a sofa and a pot of tea: an image of trust and togetherness, with Gladys's weary head resting upon his shoulder.

Gladys, he had to acknowledge, was correct.  He had definitely extended an implicit invitation to visit.

"Well, er, er, yes," he said.  "I-I suppose I did."

"Well then.  Here I am."  Her eyes narrowed and she said, flatly, "Surprise."

"You could have called.  Sent a telegram.  Written."

"It was a last-minute decision."  Her chin came up.  "I filed for divorce and skipped the country."

It took him a moment to understand what she was telling him.  During this time, he stood there, slack of jaw, staring at her.  Something occurred to him as he did so.  "You didn't even pack a bag?"

Gladys frowned and looked down at her hands, still held together in front of her as though entreating him to resume those warming caresses.  "Oh," she said, confused.  Then, as her eyes widened in alarm, "Oh no!"

She turned around, took a step, staggered on her bruised ankle and swore in Welsh with what was probably impressive creativity.  Jeffrey had already reached to steady her.  She grabbed at his arm, no longer seductive, merely practical, and she tugged them back in the direction of the WH Sewell Building.

"What is it?" he asked, as he slipped around to her injured side and then tucked her arm in his own so she could find some support.

"I dropped my blasted suitcase!"

"Where?"

"Outside your building.  When I saw you.  With your good-looking grave-robber."

"Osteoarchaeologist."

"That suitcase has got two hundred and fifty Australian dollars in it!  Along with the only clean change of clothes I own."

"We'll find it," he assured her.  "And if not, we'll go shopping.  They make clothes here.  In America, I mean."

"I did not come here to be taken care of," she snapped.  "I'm not going to be a burden."

"Well of course you're not," he retorted.  "Even though you'd be perfectly entitled to some care and attention."  He glanced at her as they hurried along at the best pace they could manage.  "You spent most of 1959 taking care of a-a-a burden like me."

"That's not all I spent 1959 doing, and you know it, and by the way, we are going to discuss that at some point."

Jeffrey ignored the cringe within.  It was Pavlovian.  Threaten an emotional conversation and he cringed.  He couldn't help it.  Didn't mean that the emotional conversation wasn't entirely necessary.  "I'm sure we are," he said, as levelly as he could.  "Everything else besides, I-I owe you an apology of mammoth proportions."

"Well.  Long as you realise."

His half-smile was bittersweet.  "Do you know, Gladys, I'm not sure I've thought about much else, this last three years."

This, apparently, rendered her silent for a few minutes.  Her weight began to lean more heavily on his arm.  He slowed their pace.  He had no real hope that Gladys's suitcase would still be out on the sidewalk in front of the Sewell Building.  There'd been too many people milling around.  Still, they had to try.  He didn't want her sense of independence to be completely eroded.  Her husband had done more than enough damage to her confidence.

The crowds had thinned by the time they neared the building.  The cold air had sent most students home, or in search of hot food and coffee.  Jeffrey scanned the area ahead.  He could see the steps and the doors now.  Emilia had taken him by surprise when she'd hugged him close, and he'd been thinking about how sorry he was to be losing her as a friend.  How much the department needed people like her.  Still, the position at U-Penn was too good to turn down, and things had been awkward between them since last Christmas.

He marvelled at how a relatively ordinary day had turned into this.

"Jeff!"

He turned, surprised by the sound of Emilia's voice.  Idling at the kerbside was a taxi.  The rear door was open and Em was getting out.  He wondered about steering Gladys clear of yet another confrontation, but didn't see how he could do so without being rude.

And then, miraculously, Emilia slid out a suitcase from the back seat and offered it up.

"Your friend left her bag," she said, sounding so innocent that the tease was unmistakable.

Gladys reached to take the suitcase.  "Thank you," she said, with just a hint of acid.  "You're very kind."

"Oh my god," Emilia murmured.  "South Wales.  Rhondda?"

"Pontypridd," Gladys acceded.

"I did some work at Maerdy," Em said.  "Back when I was a student.  You've got some incredible sites over there.  Early Neolithic, mostly."

"Oh.  Really?  That's nice."

Emilia realised she wasn't talking to an archaeologist.  She flashed Jeff a grin.  "That's my good deed done for the day.  Gotta go.  You guys need a ride?"

"No, er, thank you," Jeffrey said.  "And thanks for watching the, er, suitcase."

"No problem."  Her eyes held his for a moment, gentle, sad, accepting.  This was still goodbye for her, even though his day had turned into more of a 'hello'.  "See you around, Jeff."

"Drop me a line when you're all settled, won't you?"

"Sure."  Emilia smiled at Gladys.  "Nice meeting you.  Give my love to the valleys.  Still got me some of that 'hiraeth', you know?"  She glanced at Jeffrey, then back at Gladys, whose eyes seemed to narrow a little.

Then Emilia slid back into the taxi, closed the door to, and the taxi moved off.

"She seems nice," Gladys observed.  She put her suitcase down, given that she was already leaning most of her weight on Jeffrey's arm.  This allowed Jeffrey to turn them slightly and pick it up himself.

"A-and so she is," Jeffrey agreed.

"You didn't tell me you and she were involved."

"We aren't!  Er, er, weren't!"

"She wanted to be."

"Oh.  Um, yes.  I suppose."  He made an attempt to change the subject.  "What exactly does 'hiraeth' mean?"

"There's no direct translation."  Her voice was airy.  "Why'd you turn her down?"

"Gladys!"

"Just a question."

He sighed.  "I-I wasn't ready.  To start something new."

"Since your divorce?"

"Yes, let's say 'since my divorce'."  He breathed deep, let the air go, felt the chill from the wind through his jacket.  He didn't even have his overcoat on.  "My office, I think," he decided.  "I have to collect a couple of things.  Then I'll drive us home."  He looked down at Gladys, whose face was turned to look up at him.  "You're, er, all right with that, are you?  Staying with me, I mean?"

"If you're happy," she said.

It had been over three years since he'd known happiness like this.  And of course, this made no sense, because what had actually happened today?  A twenty-minute adventure that encompassed a humiliating chase, an icy almost-fall, creaking knees and a misplaced suitcase.  All triggered by a farcical act of bad timing.

Funny, how it felt just like the good old days.

~~~

"This is nice," Gladys said almost an hour later, as Jeffrey set her suitcase down in the wood-panelled hallway of his house on Chadbourne Avenue.  "Suits you, I think."

"It's one of the older neighbourhoods, University Heights," Jeffrey acknowledged, hanging up his overcoat.  "If that's what you mean."

"I was thinking more 'classical' than 'old'."

"Oh.  Good.  Yes.  Um, can I take your, er…?"

Gladys shot him an amused look, perhaps acknowledging the kind of comment that question would have earned him back at Crimpton-on-Sea.  She turned and allowed him to help her off with her raincoat.  "Careful with that," she said.  "My passport and papers are in the inside pocket."

"Ah.  Yes, good point.  Let's find somewhere safe for those."

He took the items from her after she retrieved them, and hung up her coat before walking through to the back room that served as his study.  In the bureau which stood in the corner he found an empty slot and stored Gladys's papers.

"Here," she said, hobbling up behind him, and handed him an envelope.  "Better put the cash in there too.  Not like I can spend it until I get it converted."

That job done, Jeffrey's instinct was for tea.  More pertinently, his instinct was to keep busy, keep his evening routine going, because if he allowed himself to dwell on the fact that he and Gladys Pugh were alone together in his private home, with that new queen-sized double bed upstairs and no reason to wake up early tomorrow because it would be Saturday, and the first day of the Christmas break…

It was always best not to get carried away, and the situation here was not exactly obstacle-free.  So he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.  Gladys hovered in the doorway.  She leaned, holding her weight off her left leg.  She looked lost and unsure, all of a sudden.

"When did you last eat?" he asked gently.

She frowned.  "Los Angeles to Chicago, I think.  Was it chicken?  No, no, that was after we'd taken off from Hawaii.  Refuelling.  Maybe meatloaf?  Yes, meatloaf.  I hadn't had that before."

But the enormity of what Gladys had gone through was finally sinking in.  Something traumatic had happened back in Melbourne.  It hadn't been news of Dempster's infidelity, because she'd known about that for a year or more.  But something had happened to change the unhappy status quo – something that had sent her to a solicitor in order to begin the process of bringing her marriage to an end.  She'd then packed a small suitcase and organised a series of flights which would take her halfway around the world.

Jeffrey did some mental arithmetic.  Melbourne to LA, refuelling at Hawaii, then to Chicago, and finally the last hop to Dane County, just up the road.

"You must have been travelling for more than twenty-four hours," he pointed out, rather lamely.

"Maybe.  It's hard to keep track, when the time zones keep changing."

"When did you last sleep?"

Gladys blinked as she thought.  "I think I nodded off after Hawaii, for a doze."

No wonder she looked so exhausted.  She was running on fumes.

"What?" she said, and he realised he was staring at her.

"You are remarkable," he said.

"Am I?"

"Yes."

"Why?  I didn't get here by flapping my arms, you know.  They just put you on a plane and you sit there."

The kettle began to whistle.  He was able to turn his attention to preparing some tea.  She'd always had a sweet tooth, and he added two sugars before he even thought to double check that her tea preferences hadn't changed in the last three years.  He glanced up, uncertain, only to see that her head was leaning against the frame of the door, and her eyes were closed.  Her hands were trembling.

"Oh, Gladys," he murmured, feeling like an idiot.  He crossed the kitchen and reached for those hands.  "Gladys?  Don't fall asleep just yet."

"I'm not asleep," she asserted, which brought back a brief but exotic memory of being in her darkened Maplins chalet, breathing the vanilla scent of the lotion on her skin as he wondered how to wake her up without touching her.  Her eyes opened, found his, and for a moment he was convinced she was sharing this memory.

"Let me get you to bed," he said.

She tutted.  "You couldn't have offered three years ago?"

"I-I'm afraid not," he said, steering her back into the hall.  "Though perhaps it is no longer indelicate to confess that, er, there were times I thought about it."

She made a 'hmph' type of sound that would have been charming, were it not aimed so unforgivingly at his own shortcomings.

"Yes, I know," he said, mainly to keep talking because he was now having to half-lift Gladys along with him as they stumbled to the staircase.  "There are things we should discuss.  And I will offer that apology.  I-I promise.  But I'll do so when you're in a better state to make the most of my contrition."

"Jeff," she murmured.

"Yes, Jeff's here.  All is well.  Can you manage the stairs on that ankle?"

"Course I can.  Not helpless, am I?"  Stirring in his arms, Gladys took the first step, tried for the next on her left side, buckled, and fell back against him.  She gasped with pain.  Her breath hitched.  "I'm not going to cry," she told herself, though not convincingly.

Sod his aging, creaking knees.  He was five inches taller than Gladys, and she was hardly heavy-set, and if the only thing he could offer her at present was a chance to sleep without needing to crawl up some stairs on her hands and knees then, damn it, that's what he was going to do.

"I'll apologise in advance," he said.  "Just in case I make a complete hash of this."

He scooped an arm under her knees and did his best to lift her body up against him.  It was easier than he'd anticipated.  Perhaps this was thanks to the adrenaline coursing through him.

Confident that she was settled in his arms, he angled himself such that there was no chance of bashing Gladys's head or feet against the banister or the wall.  Then, too slowly to be impressive, he began to take the stairs one at a time.

"If I'm dreaming," Gladys murmured, "don't wake me up."

"If this is the stuff of your dreams," he said back, between breaths and the clenched teeth of effort, "I can only apologise."

She smiled at that, as if she knew a secret, and her head fell against his upper arm.  Jeffrey climbed steadily and was almost surprised when he found himself navigating the corner at the top to mount the final stair to the upstairs landing.

There, he hesitated.  Another thought had struck.  "Gladys?"

"Mmm."

Good.  Still awake.  "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

She snorted a laugh, fortunately, rather than stammering her offence.  "Oh, it's never like this in the films, is it?"

"No," he said, seeing the humour in their situation.  "No it isn't."

"You can put me down.  Now we're on the flat, I can hop."

"I thought you were asleep."

"I suspect I still might be."

As gently as he could, Jeffrey settled her feet back down to the floor.  She reached an arm over his shoulders and looked around.

"Bathroom?"

He supported her as she hopped to the bathroom, and reluctantly let her go as she slipped inside.  The door closed between them.

He gazed at it for a moment.

Suddenly feeling empty and alone, he shook his head at himself and considered the other practical arrangements required.  The spare room had a bed in it, three-quarter size, since his mother had been threatening to come and visit now he'd bought a house and was clearly not going to come rushing back to England any time soon, begging forgiveness for his transgressions.

The spare bed wasn't made up, though.  And he wasn't sure he could put some clean linens on it in the time Gladys was likely to spend in the bathroom–

"Jeff," she called through the door.

"Yes?"

"Would you mind fetching my toilet bag?  It's in the suitcase."

"Oh.  Y-yes, o-of course," he agreed.  Damn it.  He should have thought of that too.

He trotted downstairs, ignoring the ache now present in his knees, and grabbed her suitcase.  The lid, however, was unclasped, probably because Gladys had already opened it to fish out her envelope of money.  Jeffrey managed to spill the entire contents across his hall floor.

"Damn it," he muttered.  He caught up the clothes and items and began to stuff them back into the case.  With the perversity of fate, the last item he had to return was one of intimate apparel that had fallen further than the rest.  He gingerly picked it up, folded it over, placed it on top of the crumpled bundle in the case.  Then he looked at what he'd done to Gladys's neatly-folded attire.  "Damn it all," he said.

He picked up the bra again, ready to make a neater job of things.  Then he wondered whether it wouldn't make more sense to take the case upstairs and unpack it there.  She'd be waiting for her toilet bag in any case, which was right at the bottom of the bundle now, because he'd been so flustered about the spilled suitcase that he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be doing–

"I won't be needing that until tomorrow," Gladys said.

He looked up the stairs, to see her leaning over the upstairs banister, watching him as he fondled her brassiere.

"Oh god," he said, mainly to the universe at large.  He wondered about putting the bra down, but it hardly seemed worth it now.  "I-I-I managed to drop everything out of your case."

"Of course you did.  You're Jeffrey Fairbrother."  She smiled with such genuine affection that he couldn't help but huff a laugh.  "Come on, then.  Keep the bra if it makes you happy, but I need toothbrush and toothpaste."

~~~

He took her through to his own bedroom.  It was the obvious solution.  The bed linens had been changed yesterday, courtesy of Mrs Eriksen, the woman who made keeping this house so very much easier with her weekly visits.

Jeffrey turned back the bedclothes and switched on the bedside lamp.  He drew the curtains – he hadn't yet assimilated the word 'drapes' into his vocabulary, in spite of managing 'sidewalk' and one or two others – and then felt the radiator.  Nice and hot.

He faced his bed.  Gladys had sat down on the edge.  "I'll, er, leave you to get yourself sorted out," he said.  Inspiration struck.  "I'll bring you that tea, if you like."

"I already brushed my teeth," she said.  Then she shook her head.  "But I don't care.  Tea would be nice."

Jeffrey nodded.  He walked downstairs, trying not to wince with every other step though his left knee was complaining still.  In the kitchen, the cups he had already poured had cooled, so he made fresh.  He checked the central heating boiler.  The system had seemed quite the modern convenience when he'd first looked at this house.  Most of his life had been spent in huge, cold, draughty properties, and he'd always assumed that hot-water bottles and extra layers were simply the norm.  But Madison's temperatures swung to greater extremes than those of England.  The winters were generally colder.  He'd decided, about two weeks after moving in last year in October, that he really liked radiators.

Thinking of temperatures, and of modern conveniences, he remembered that Gladys's ankle was swelling with that nasty twist.  His limited first-aid knowledge stretched to the treatment of this ailment, at least.  The little tray in the freezer compartment of his refrigerator offered him numerous cubes of ice.  He gathered them into a tea towel, set them in a bowl and then placed everything on a tray to take upstairs.

Without a free hand to knock at the door, he said "Gladys?" quietly, just outside.

No reply.

"Gladys?  Are you asleep?"

There was a vague "Hmph."  Jeffrey decided that this constituted an invitation to enter.

He stopped just inside the door.  Gladys had slumped to her back on the bed, but at ninety degrees to the conventional way of lying on it.  Her jacket and blouse and bra had been tossed in the vague direction of the chair by the window, and she'd managed to drag her nightdress on.  It was rucked up around her waist, and her skirt, nylons and shoes were still in place.

Jeffrey resisted the urge to back immediately out of the room.  Instead, he went to place the tray down on the bedside table.

"Do you need some help?" he asked politely.

"Hmph."

Barely awake.  A fully-functioning Gladys Pugh would not have missed an opportunity for innuendo in circumstances such as these.  Even if her surname was, now, Dempster.

He shook his head.  This evening was not, yet, about them.  Together.  It wasn't about wrongs done, or apologies, or revelations.  It had to be about Gladys.  Damn it, he'd been right earlier.  She'd spent her life being indispensable – shouldering the burdens of others.  For this one night, during this hellish time in her life, he wanted to offer her some care and comfort.

He went to where her legs dangled over the side of the bed.  She'd unstrapped one shoe.  He eased it off her right foot.  Her toes twitched, but she didn't complain.

Her left ankle was bulging in a sore-looking way around the strap over the bridge of her foot.  He supported the shoe underneath and worked the buckle with clumsy fingers.  When he managed to release the strap, she gave a soft whimper of pain.

"Sorry," he said.

"Hmph."

He slid her shoe off her foot, considering his next move.  "Gladys."

"Mmm."

"Can you manage the rest, now I've got your shoes off?"

"Mmm."

Definitely barely awake.  Still, he gratefully took this for assent, and went to turn his back for a moment.  "I'm not looking," he assured her.

There was the sound of some half-hearted struggling, then a tired "Ow…"  Then a sound of growled effort.  Then a thud, presumably as she slumped back on the bed.

"Gladys?"

"Hmph."

Jeffrey risked a look over his shoulder.  She was still lying across his bed, but her nightdress now reached down to her knees and her skirt was on the floor.  He focused on that, picked it up and went to fold it over the arm of the chair.  Then he folded her jacket and blouse.  He placed her brassiere on top.  It was still warm; he ignored the way this made his loins pulse with interest, because such a reaction seemed little short of rude in the circumstances.

Finally, he had to turn back to her and acknowledge what he already knew: she'd only managed to draw her nylons down as far as her calves.  Ah well.  If Crimpton had been an early catalyst in the evolution of Jeffrey Fairbrother, three years in America had worked wonders on his inhibitions.  Everything else besides, he'd been tasked with much more unpleasant challenges in his life than rolling down a pair of nylon stockings worn by a sultry Welsh beauty like Gladys.  He set to the task, as carefully and respectfully as he could.

The stockings were added to the pile of clothing on the chair.  Jeffrey then grasped Gladys's legs and gently lifted them up.

"Spin round," he encouraged her.  "Pillows are to your right."

"Hmm."

Between them they managed to reorient her body on the bed.  Thankfully, in the process, her nightie seemed to settle further down her legs.  Jeffrey went to get the ice he'd prepared, and he placed it on that swollen ankle.  Gladys grunted once, eyes still closed, barely awake–

Then her eyes flew open and her arms flailed as she tried to sit up.  She gasped for air.

"I know," he sighed, "and I'm sorry.  Sorry.  But i-it'll be much better in the morning if we deal with the swelling now."

And still she saw no opportunity for innuendo.  Small mercies, he supposed.  Gladys slumped back and shuddered.  "Ow," she decided.

"Can you hold this in place for a tick, if I help you up?"

Reluctantly, Gladys allowed him to sit her up and arrange the pillows in support.  She pressed the icy bundle to her ankle.  Jeff, meanwhile, went to get a clean towel from his linen closet.  He foresaw a need to avert soaking wet sheets as the ice began to melt.

Twenty minutes later, this series of awkward practicalities had been navigated.  The swelling in Gladys's ankle seemed to have receded.  She'd managed some tea.  They'd even succeeded in manoeuvring her body properly under the bedclothes.  Jeffrey left her to settle while he removed the tray.  When he came back, she was breathing steadily.

He clicked off the lamp and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light from the landing beyond the open door.

"I'll leave the door ajar," he murmured.

"Mmm."

"Call out if you need me."

"Mmm."

He smiled to himself and shook his head.  "I can hardly believe you're here."

"Mmm."

He nodded.  "Mmm.  Sweet dreams, Gladys."

He walked out of the room and half-closed the door.

Next job: working out how to put some clean linens on his spare bed.

~~~

It took more willpower than he'd expected, but by the time he was ready to retire at just gone eleven o'clock, he'd only checked on Gladys twice.  Each time it felt like an unforgivable intrusion, but he couldn't make himself close the door properly and offer more privacy.  If, for example, she woke and needed to get to the bathroom but found she couldn't walk, she'd need help.  He might not hear her calling if he shut the door to.

The spare bed felt unfamiliar and thus less than comfortable.  The room was also colder than his bedroom; the radiator installed within did not, for some reason, get very hot, no matter how he fiddled with the valve at its base.  Cold rooms were well within Jeffrey's comfort zone, however.  He piled extra blankets on the bed and placed a hot-water bottle between the sheets to warm them through.

After brushing his teeth, he stood for a moment at the half-open door to the main bedroom, just long enough to hear the reassuring sound of Gladys's breath.

He smiled.  It was rather absurd, actually, how he came to be standing here nursing the most delicious ache in his chest.  But there it was.  As he made his way to his own spare bed, he considered that both he and Gladys had been victims of abominable timing ever since they'd met.

That wasn't the whole story, though.  Yes, he'd been a married man in the spring of 1959, and there had been every reason to avoid romantic complications while his divorce was ongoing.  But his marriage had already been over for long months before he left Cambridge, in deed if not in words.  And he could have finalised the divorce by the end of May if he hadn't been so obstinate.  Looking back, he despaired at how tightly he had clung to a union that had already fallen apart  He'd told himself at the time that it was about constancy and honour, but truly it was about how terrified he'd been.  He hadn't been able to bear it: the notion of starting his romantic life all over again, from scratch.

He'd been quite the coward.  And he'd been a pompous idiot, to boot.  All those reasons he'd found to keep Gladys at arm's length!  They were just too different, he'd told himself.  There was no reason to enjoy a fling – for how could they ever have had more than that? – with a working-class girl from the Welsh valleys.  And what awkwardness would await them after that first rush of desire?  Because he saw no other way forward: only awkwardness could ensue, once they realised that the only thing they had in common was a throwaway summer in a holiday camp and a spot of fun in the bedroom.

They could never talk about anything meaningful, he'd decided back then.  There was nothing they could share: not at a cerebral level.  And what was likely to happen if they tried to introduce each other to their respective worlds?  Embarrassment and shame, that's what.  Gladys's limited education would fail to impress Jeffrey's social set, and the good lord only knew what her family would have made of a neurotic academic like him.

He'd left the employ of Joe Maplin because he'd recognised that a career in the leisure industry was not a good fit for him.  Looking back, however, he could admit that at least part of the reason why he'd grabbed at the opportunity in Wisconsin with both hands was down to the situation with Gladys.  By the time he'd left Crimpton in 1959, he had – in spite of his excuses – come to realise how much better his life was simply because Gladys Pugh was in it.  It was a truth he'd recognised and then stubbornly ignored.

Alas, he'd been concerned that after a winter without her, their anticipated reunion in the spring of 1960 would lead to one inevitable conclusion.  He'd realised this when he found himself daydreaming about it – the way they might encounter each other on the train down to the coast, perhaps even embrace in greeting…except that the friendly 'hello' would lead to a lingering need for closeness, a locking of their gaze, the sudden, desperate need he would feel to press his mouth to hers and to hell with all their differences…

This flight of fancy had been exciting, titillating and, ultimately, unnerving.  So he'd run away.

At least he'd run in the right direction.  Madison had worked out splendidly.  Things could have been an awful lot worse.

Just like they had been for Gladys.

Because the letters he'd sent and received in the last couple of years had brought home the consequences of his cowardice.  Gladys had been distraught at his departure, especially the curt and clinical manner in which he had advised her of it.  In a desperate attempt to convince herself she'd moved on, she had pursued Clive Dempster.  By the end of the summer she had lost her job and gained a husband, only to find herself living in a strange country, too often alone.

And to cap it all, that final betrayal: her husband's extramarital affair.  Gladys had learned that, in spite of giving up everything for this man, she had never been considered worthy of his honesty and fidelity.

It pained Jeffrey, the way he could trace every trauma Gladys had suffered back to the choice he had made.  Though she might have denied him his culpability months ago on the flimsy blue pages of an airmail letter, he knew this messy situation was primarily his fault.

When he slipped into sleep, it was uneasy.

~~~

Gladys was some distance out in the lake.  She loved to swim.  Even on a crisp winter's day like this, she had found the nearest body of water and was ploughing through it.  Jeffrey called her name and waved.  He knew he needed to get her out of there.  Gladys hesitated, turned, saw him and waved back.  Then she went on with her swim.

The shark's fin cut through the surface of Lake Mendota.  Panic gripped Jeffrey, before the snorkel blew a raspberry into the freezing air, offering up a puff of vapour.

Relief.  It was only Peggy…

…except Peggy's body was not twenty feet long.  Nor was it pale grey and muscular as it sped through the water.  Nor did Peggy possess fins.  Or about a thousand razor-sharp teeth in a gaping, vicious maw…

It wasn't Peggy.  The animal's sleek body flashed close to the surface before it turned and moved away.  There was nothing latex about it.

"Gladys!" he yelled from the shoreline.  He wasn't a strong swimmer, but he knew he was going to have to try.  He began to toe off his shoes, but found they were frozen hard to the surface of the rocks.

Gladys screamed.  He looked up in panic.  The shark had come close, then veered away.  Could no one help her?  Jeffrey drew breath to call out again, but this time he could hardly make a sound.  The more he forced air through his voice box, the more his voice disappeared.  He managed an almost-silent wheeze.

He dropped to a crouch and began to unlace his shoes.  His frozen fingers fumbled.  The mirror ball suspended above the lake turned the choppy surface an oddly-spinning purple.  He felt slightly nauseous with it.

With a strangled cry of effort he managed to wrench his feet from his shoes.  He stumbled towards the water, took a few staggering steps until it came up to his waist and then threw himself into it.  The warmth startled him, until he remembered reading how victims of frostbite start to feel warm just before they die.  He'd been in this water three seconds; Gladys had been in it for much longer.  He cast around, arms flailing, desperate to see some sign that she remained within reach.

"Gladys!" he tried to call.  Only a whisper came out.  He tried to swim, but something had turned his arms leaden and unmoving.  "Please…"

Unable to propel himself forwards, he sank into the depths of the lake.  He held his breath as long as he could before his lungs insisted he inhale.  Jeffrey prepared for the cold sting of drowning, but it never came.  He'd forgotten that he could breathe underwater.  More confident, he tried to kick out for where he'd seen Gladys last.  If he could breathe down here, so could she.  He could save her yet.  They could still be together–

He'd forgotten the shark.

It came rushing at him, all that effortless power and speed.  Tiny, greedy eyes and teeth that would tear and snap and mangle.  He lurched away, twisting, swallowed up by the dark and murky depths, trying to scream, no, no, no, but the shark was always there, toying with him.  His muscles were growing ever more weak and sluggish, as if every attempt at motion required him to fight free of some invisible binding.  He knew he was seconds away from a violent demise–

"Jeffrey!"

Oxygen.  Air.  He needed air: that was why his muscles were unresponsive.  All of a struggle, he pushed himself away from the shark and found something to hang on to, something that might raise him to the surface, and he clung, clung, clung to…

…to Gladys.  Who was lying across him on the spare bed, holding his arms and apparently being dragged this way and that because his limbs just couldn't keep still.

"Gladys?" he squeaked.  It was not a manful sound.  He made a very great effort to stop struggling, and when he grew still, Gladys flopped wearily on top of him with a sigh of relief.

"Thank god for that," she muttered.  "I was getting seasick."

"Why…?"  He paused, swallowed, breathed.  He ignored the sweat plastering his hair to his face, and the way the heavy blankets had rendered this bed far too hot.  Deliberately lowering the register of his voice to a more acceptable level, he tried again.  "What are you doing in my bedroom?"

She let go of his arms, cautiously, as though she was waiting for him to start flailing about again.  Then she managed to haul herself up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

"You shouted," she informed him.  "You shouted out my name."  And she shot him a look that dared him to blame her for whatever was happening here.

Jeffrey, fortunately, had more sense.  He blinked at her.  "Oh.  I'm, er, I'm sorry.  I must have been dreaming."  He tried to recall the dream.  Something about drowning, and not being able to call for help.

"I'll say," she said.

Jeffrey sighed.  His heart rate was slowing down.  Real life had replaced whatever dreamscape his mind had conjured, and now it was reminding him of all that was unusual about this particular Friday night in his Madison home.

"How did you get in here?" he asked.  "Is your ankle better?"

"Enough for me to limp about," she said.

He wriggled up to a sitting position and swept a hand over his hair.  His fingers came away quite wet.  "Oh, god," he grumbled, disgusted with himself.  He wiped his hand on his pyjama top as best he could.  "Some supportive friend I've turned out to be."

"Well, you were dreaming about me," she said lightly.  "That's a start."

"Was I?"

As if speaking to the slowest student in the class, she repeated the rather salient fact of, "You shouted my name."

"Yes.  Yes, I did.  I think it was a nightmare," he mused.

"Oh."  Her voice hardened.  "Smashing."

His lips twitched.  "Some kind of monstrous thing, wanting to eat me up."

"Jeffrey Fairbrother!"

He cracked a smile.  Gladys's eyes widened.

"Are you teasing me?" she demanded.

"Perhaps just a smidge."

Her head tilted.  "You never used to do that."

"I never used to know how."  He reached for her hand.  "But I am sorry I disturbed your rest."

"You didn't.  It's two o'clock in the morning.  I was stirring, in any case.  Must have been asleep for six hours."  She raised an eyebrow at him.  "That's about average for me.  Not good at lie-ins."

He nodded.  Still sleep-addled, he wasn't sure what to do.  "Oh.  Well, i-if you want to get up, do feel free to make yourself at home."

"I don't think so," she murmured.  "It's the jet-lag, isn't it?  You have to force yourself into the new routine."

"Oh.  Yes.  All right, then."

"Jeff."

"Hmm?"

"You're trembling."

He glanced down at his chest, noted the dampness of his skin.  The colder air in the room was getting to him now; outside the temperature would probably be around fourteen degrees.  And he was shivering.  She was right.

"I need clean pyjamas," he observed.

"You need a wash."

"I'll pop in the shower."

"You have a shower?"

"Yes, over the bath.  Didn't you notice it earlier?"

"Oh, you know, to be honest I'm struggling to remember very much that happened after we left your office."  She shook her head at the inconsequential thought.  "Won't the water be cold?"

"I'm not a stranger to cold showers," Jeffrey said ruefully.  "But the tank's so well-insulated here that there's usually enough warm water for a swift shower, any time of day."

Gladys arched her brows.  "There's posh, isn't it?"

He looked at her a moment.  "Yes, so, I-I-I'll be getting out of bed now."

"Oh.  Right."  She stood up and backed away, supporting herself against the wall as she favoured her bad leg.

He grabbed his dressing gown from the foot of the bed and then swung his legs over the edge, throwing the covers back with relief.  He'd really overdone the extra blankets.  God, he hoped he wasn't coming down with a chill after that dash along the lake shore.

"Can you get back to bed all right?" he asked, after standing and stretching out the kinks in his spine.  The air in the room was brisk indeed.  In the small gap where the curtains didn't quite meet he could see the spiderweb shapes of frost on the outside of the pane, glittering in the light from the lamppost that stood outside his house.

Gladys examined his clinging pyjamas with a critical eye.  The light from the landing was on, he noticed, before he remembered that he'd left it that way in case she tried to get to the bathroom in the night.

"Are you ill?" she demanded.

"No."  He put his dressing gown on and tied the cord securely.  "Just a little on the warm side."

She reached across and pressed a hand to the sheets.  "Your bedclothes are damp."

"Yes.  I was drowning in my dream."

Gladys shook her head, which was a reasonable reaction to the kind of nonsense he seemed to feel the need to spout.  "Well you can't get back in there after your shower."

"No, I, er, I suppose not."  He considered his crumpled, damp and unwelcoming spare bed.  A solution occurred to him.  "I'll wrap up in some blankets and lie on top."

She made a sudden noise, part growl, part scream, all frustration.  "God in heaven, I liked it better when you didn't even give me a hint!"  He turned her way, startled by this eruption.  "At least I knew I was banging my head against a brick wall, back then.  Now I don't even know what to think!"

He looked at her for a long moment.  She'd done her mood-shift trick again, and seemed desperate and forlorn and angry, all at once.

"Gladys," he said.

"What?"

He wanted to tell her she was being silly.  He wanted to point out that the facts were the facts, and while she was married to another man, his sense of propriety forbade certain lines being crossed, no matter how he'd come to recognise that crossing them was something he wanted very badly indeed.  He wanted to say that she'd been back in his life for barely nine hours, and most of that time she'd been asleep, and he certainly wasn't going to start anything with her until they'd at least had the conversation they needed to have about his departure from Maplins.

He wanted to tell her that if he loved her any more, his heart might just burst.

He didn't do any of that.  What he did do, however, turned out to be the right thing.  He reached for her hand, pulled her towards him, and sat her down on the edge of the bed.  Then he sat beside her and took her in his arms, and he waited until the stiffness in her body melted into relaxation.

Her head dropped to his shoulder.  Her hands clutched at his dressing gown.  A peripheral thought allowed him a sense of relief that his dressing gown, at least, was not unpleasantly damp.

"I don't know how to do this properly," she admitted after a while.

He didn't really understand, but he knew the words were important to her.  "We'll have time," he said, hoping he was offering the reassurance that she needed.

"Promise?"

"You have my solemn vow."

She nodded against him.  He stroked her hair.

After a few moments she began to cry.  And with every heartbroken sob, the anguish she'd been holding tight to herself disappeared into the night like sparks from a bonfire.

~~~

Thirty minutes later, Jeffrey found himself sitting up in bed: his familiar, wide and comfortable bed, not the one in the chilly spare room.  He had gravitated to the left-hand side of the mattress, which was the side he always favoured when he slept alone.  Indeed, with the exception of a handful of nights early in his marriage (and, come to think of it, a separate handful of nights years before that, when his twenty-three-year-old self had become unexpectedly well-acquainted with his widowed landlady in London) he always slept alone.

Except that Gladys was sitting beside him.  So it was possible, he mused, that this was yet another 'habit of a lifetime' that was about to undergo a paradigm shift.

Still, he had made a decision while sluicing his body clean in the shower.  Gladys had slept off most of her travel-fatigue.  She'd even hobbled about in the spare bedroom, stripping damp bed linens in order to allow the mattress to air while he cleaned himself up.  She was so very determined not to be a burden, but the fact remained that she had been through a lot and deserved the chance to regain her equilibrium.  Having a good cry had been cleansing for her, he thought, but there was more to be done to set things right.

And Gladys was not the only one struggling.  He was the one who was having nightmares.  Since he was not generally prone to such things, he was quite certain that the unhappy visions flooding his subconscious were rooted in the guilt and anxiety he still felt in connection to Gladys.  It was long past time to deal with it.

These were the small hours of the morning: still and silent and just a little bit ethereal.  But he was clean, clad in fresh pyjamas and warm in his bed, and Gladys had not so much as blinked when he'd suggested they make themselves comfortable in order to talk.

A quietness had settled upon them over the last minute, perhaps as they both got used to the intimacy of this situation.  The only light came from the bedside lamp on Gladys's side of the bed.  Outside the house, University Heights was tranquil.  Most of the houses here belonged to academics.  The student dorms on campus a little way north would no doubt be lively all through the night with end-of-semester parties, but in this community the residents valued their peace and quiet.  Jeffrey had chosen the neighbourhood for good reason.

Into this calm, Jeffrey asked, "Do you feel able to tell me what happened in Melbourne?"

She gave a big sigh.  "I walked in on something."  She seemed to decide that this was explanation enough.

He thought about her words.  He recalled the comment she'd made earlier: how she needed to give 'the men in her life' some notice about her intended presence in order to avoid unpleasantness.

"You walked in on your husband with his mistress," he guessed, with a wince.

Gladys let her head fall back against the headboard.  Her eyes closed.  "Not in the way you're thinking," she admitted.  "They were just talking.  In the hall."  With a shudder of her shoulders, she seemed to try to pull herself together.  "I'd got back from shopping to find the front door open and Clive in the middle of an argument with a woman I didn't recognise."

"Ah."

"He was trying to get her out of the house, probably before I came home.  But she was being stubborn."

"I see."

There was another pause.  He didn't press Gladys, nor did he try to change the subject.  He sensed there was more yet to come.

"Clive is a liar," Gladys eventually said.  "A very good one.  So good, I don't think he even notices any more when he tells his lies.  Actually, I think he's very good at lying to himself."  She drew in another deep breath.  "So there I was at the front door of my home.  Clive was still in his pyjamas – he, er, isn't an early riser, not on his days off – and there was this beautiful woman standing there with him.  Early twenties maybe?  A good fifteen years younger than I am, anyway.  Tall.  Blonde.  Flustered with the argument she was having with Clive."

Another brief interlude of quiet.  Gladys seemed distant, as though she was reliving the tableau she had just described.

She stirred suddenly, cleared her throat.  "The other thing she was…was pregnant.  Very, very pregnant."

Jeffrey stifled a groan.  "Oh, Gladys."

"Clive said to me, all of a panic, that he doesn't know who this woman is, that she knocked at the door, and she seems to be having some kind of mental breakdown."  Gladys sniffed.  "The woman just looked at me and said, 'I'm Helena.  I'm sorry about this, but I think you can see I have bigger problems than covering up for your husband.'"

He nodded slowly.  Gladys dropped her head and pinched her nose at the bridge.

"Did your husband realise you knew the woman's name?" he asked.

"Oh yes.  I didn't mention it a year ago, when the first postcard arrived.  But when the second one came, back in April – I confronted him.  It was about the same time I asked you to stop writing, actually.  Back then, Clive tried to deny everything.  I had a list, though – all the other things I'd noticed.  All the things that proved he'd been playing around, like the unexpected items in his suitcase, the perfume on his clothing, the French letters he always made sure to pack when he spent time away from me.  Spent time away from his wife–"

She had to stop and steady her breathing again.  Jeffrey reached to touch her hand and squeezed, but he withdrew again afterwards.

Gladys shook her head.  "Anyway, back in April I'd got him to admit it.  He'd said it was a silly dalliance that got out of hand – as if a dalliance wasn't bad enough – and he'd end things immediately.  And he did.  Got on the telephone, told the girl he didn't appreciate her upsetting his wife with 'inappropriate postcards', put the phone down before she could say anything back.  And he got in touch with his boss, too.  Asked to be put on a new flying schedule, one that didn't require overnight layovers in Perth."  She shrugged at the memory.  "He put some effort into demonstrating that he knew he'd made a mistake and wanted to make amends.  Right or wrong, I decided to give him a second chance.  See if things got better."

There was a brief spell of quiet.  Gladys sighed heavily.

"Did they?" Jeffrey asked.  "Get better, I mean."

"No."  She turned to look at him, before she frowned down at her hands.  "I mean, I tried.  But by then I'd worked it all out.  Why I'd married him.  How blind I'd been.  How stupid."  Another sigh.  "How I was still all knotted up in the way I felt about you."

He nodded his understanding.  It was a mess, but it was their mess.

"If I'm completely honest," Gladys added, "when I got back from the shops and saw Clive and the other woman, I think a part of me was…I think I was relieved."

Jeffrey arches his brows.  "Really?"

"Oh, yes.  More than six months, we'd spent, pretending things were getting back to normal.  I'd be astonished to find out Clive didn't hate every minute of them as much as I did.  I suppose I'd been hoping for something else to happen.  I knew I needed to leave him – I'd known that for a long time – but I couldn't do it without a solid reason."

"This was an issue of-of overcoming inertia, then, was it?"

"Well, you could put it like that.  I'd say it was more an issue of kicking me up the backside."  She made a tut-tut noise.  "Annoying, really.  All that wasted time.  Why the young lady couldn't have shown up and made a big scene back in April or May, I don't know.  But there it was."

"And did she do anything more than introduce herself?"

Gladys huffed a grim laugh.  "She told me everything, did Helena.  Just spilled it all out, as if she couldn't stand holding the secret in for one second longer.  She was crying her eyes out.  Pregnant and young and alone and obviously terrified.  I actually felt sorry for the girl.  Of course, Clive just stood there in his pyjamas looking completely out of his depth."

Jeffrey shook his head.  "What did you do?"

"What could I do?  The girl was unsteady on her feet, one hand trying to ease her poor, aching back.  Distraught.  So I brought her through to the living room to sit down.  Told Clive to go and make her a cup of tea, for heaven's sake.  Then I listened to what she said."

"And what was that?"

"How long it had been going on.  How she's been tearing her hair out, wondering what to do, since Clive finished things.  How he hasn't returned any of her letters or taken any phone calls at the airline office."

Jeffrey can only sympathise.  "An awful situation."

"Yes it is.  Anyway, I heard her out.  Told her she didn't have to compete with Clive's wife any more.  Then I went to pack a suitcase.  Clive followed me and begged me to sit down and talk.  Helena just sat there in the living room, twisting a paper hankie in her hands, trying not to cry even more."  She shakes her head at the memory.  "I suppose I should be glad Clive hadn't sunk so far that he was ready to shove a weeping pregnant lady out of the house and slam the door on her."

"You just packed and left?"

"What else was there to do?  I told him I would be talking to a lawyer, and what he did with his extramarital affair was his own business, now."  She sat up straight and looked across at Jeffrey.  "I couldn't stay there, Jeff.  Months, I'd spent, trying to find some way to make that marriage work.  I'd even made myself turn my back on you, on your wonderful letters.  I have always tried to do the right thing!"

"Nobody could claim you were at fault for any of this," he said softly.

"Well, that's nonsense.  I married the man in the first place."

"And marriage means trust.  Respect.  Faithfulness."  He pinched between his eyes.  "I-I do understand, you know.  I understand how infidelity changes things.  I tried to keep my own marriage together because I thought it was the right thing to do, but discovering that Daphne had already crossed that line with someone else…"

"The difference is, I knew about Clive's affair a whole year ago.  I still stayed."

"You were in a strange country, dependent on your husband's income, and you are a woman.  Your situation was a thousand times more vulnerable than mine."

"Yes, well, I didn't feel very vulnerable when I marched next door to my friend Shirley and asked if I could stay a couple of nights until I sorted things out."  She sniffed, and tilted up her chin.  "Actually, I felt as though I was finally taking charge of my life again."

"That's a good thing.  Doesn't mean it wasn't difficult.  Doesn't mean you don't need time to get used to the change."

Gladys shot him a sharp look.  "Was I wrong, to come here?" she asked.  "When I booked my travel, I knew Clive would find out where I'd gone.  I used his employee discount, see, on the flights.  Paid for them out of our current account.  Maybe it was a mistake, but as soon as I'd decided to leave, I couldn't see myself doing anything else.  My world had shattered, and all I wanted was to run to you."

Jeffrey took her hand again, and smoothed his thumb over her knuckles.  "Whatever happens next," he said, "I think we should face it together."

"Clive might try to claim we were having an affair, though.  You might get dragged into the divorce."

"I think he'll struggle to make that argument stick when you and I have not seen each other in more than three years.  But even if he claims some kind of, er, long-distance connection between us, we'll deal with that if it happens."

Gladys turned to him, leaning on her hip, making the mattress they shared bounce a little.  Her lower lip trembled.  "What are we to each other, Jeffrey?  I need to know.  If it's just friendship, that's fine.  I won't make waves.  I don't want to push too hard, like I did at Crimpton.  But I need you to tell me."

"We are friends," he said firmly.  "And always will be.  But we are more, besides.  We'll figure that out in due course."  He clears his throat.  What he is about to say is important.  "For the record, however, I will not be exploring those other feelings – not yet.  Not until I am sure you are on a-a more even keel.  You have just been through a great deal.  You are fragile.  I cannot permit myself to take advantage."

She glared at the way his hand still caressed hers.  "I'm a lot less fragile than you'd think."

"Even so."

Gladys nodded,  She pulled her hand away and straightened up again.  She huffed another laugh, but this one felt more genuine.  "Well, then.  I suppose there's something comfortingly familiar in me being libidinous and you being honourable.  That was 1959 in a nutshell, wasn't it?"

It took Jeffrey a moment to deal with Gladys's declaration of lustful interest.  Being respectful and cautious was all well and good, but his desire for her was no longer something safely buried beneath layer after layer of inhibition.  He cleared his throat and said, "If we are looking back to 1959, I'd say it is high time I apologise in person for the way things went between us at the camp."

"If you feel the need, fine."  She was trying to sound dismissive.  She didn't quite pull it off.

He drew a deep breath.  "I let you down, Gladys.  Twenty weeks together, and you offered me nothing but support.  Twenty weeks of all the silly adventures Crimpton-on-Sea offered up, and you never left my side, never failed me in any way.  And after all that?  I turned my back and walked away.  I'm sorry."

She considered his words before shaking her head.  She breathed out through her nose: almost a weary laugh.  "It's all right.  I told you when we started writing.  I forgive you."

"You forgave me for the letter I wrote – that awful, cowardly letter.  A-and I'm still appalled that I thought that was the best way to say goodbye.  But I need you to understand – here, now, I am apologising for more than that."

"Why?" she asked.  But she didn't sound confused, or curious, she still sounded weary.  "Leaving Maplins was the right thing for you to do.  You've been happy here.  You told me that yourself, in your letters.  No reason I should have intruded on your decisions."

He looked properly at her.  She had her hands clasped neatly atop the folded-back bedsheet.  Her dressing gown was primly buttoned up over her nightie.  It occurred to Jeffrey that the two of them probably looked like an old married couple who had long since set passion aside in favour of simple companionship.

He wondered how he could explain himself.  It was a little worrying that he felt drawn to Gladys's remark – that he wanted to agree with her, to simply set the matter aside.  Instead, he reminded himself of those letters: all of them, beginning just after his arrival in Madison.  He remembered the guilt Spike had prompted when berating him for the manner of his departure; the queasiness he'd felt when Spike had told him that Gladys had found happiness with someone else.  The panic, when Ted had contacted him more than a year later to say that Gladys was in trouble.  The happiness he'd known when he and Gladys had renewed their contact, and the nervous anticipation he had come to feel as he waited for her letters.

For a long time after he'd moved to America, he had refused to think of their summer together at Crimpton.  His inhibitions had demanded that he draw a line under that experience and move on.  But gradually, one memory at a time, it had come back to him.  Each recollection had imbued that Crimpton-summer with more colour and vibrancy, and not just in terms of the events that had taken place; he recalled the way he had felt.  Indeed, he could recall those feelings much more vividly now than he ever had back then, because in 1959 he'd been a man who had learned to keep feelings at arm's length.

Madison had been good for him, Jeffrey knew.  Emilia Robben had been good for him too.  And time – that great lender of perspective – had done its work.

"I never even thanked you – not properly," he said.  "That was the most dreadful lack of manners, never mind what else might have happened."

"Thanked me for what?"

"You did so much for me, that summer," Jeffrey explained.  "Taught me the job.  Got me out of so many scrapes.  Pledged your help and loyalty and-and your, er, affection.  And I took what I wanted and turned my back on the rest.  I took you for granted."

"My support for you wasn't conditional on something I expected in return," Gladys said, looking confused.  "I never felt taken for granted."

"Even so, it's what happened.  All the choices I made that summer – I always did what was comfortable for me.  I never once took your feelings into consideration."  He was surprised at the words he was finding.  Perhaps he shouldn't be; he knew himself better, now.  No longer was he a man who scrambled for excuses.

"You tried," Gladys said.  "Sometimes.  You tried to be kind."

"I should have done more."

"You weren't ready."

"No."  He pinched his lips together.  Gladys's eyes were sad, burdened by old disappointments.  He needed to tell her more.  "Look, I, er, I want to be honest," he declared.  "To tell you how things really were for me, back at the camp.  But after all you have been through in recent days…"

"Oh, go ahead," Gladys said.  "Say what you need to.  I have quite the tough skin, these days."

"That," Jeffrey said, "is the very last thing you have."  His pulse quickened as he jumped on her own metaphor.  "Your skin is exquisite.  And your smile is warm as sunshine.  And you are brimming over with kindness and courage and loyalty and humour and a thousand other traits besides.  Gladys, I was in a dark place in 1959.  That is why I shied away from everything you made me feel.  But I need you to understand – the feelings were there."

She'd lifted her head as his words began to find a rhythm.  Her eyes found his.  They shone.  Her lips pursed into a little 'oh' of surprise.  Jeffrey was taken aback at how desperately he wanted to convince her of his words.

"But those same feelings frightened me," he added.  "So I hid from them, as long as I could, and when I realised I couldn't do so indefinitely, I ran away.  And I let you down.  And that is why I am sorry."

Gladys blinked several times before she said, "Did you think I didn't know?"

He frowned.  "Um…"  In truth, he was quite certain he had done an excellent job in keeping his feelings under wraps.

"Did you think I never noticed the way you looked at me?" she pressed.  "Those times I wore a silly costume that gave you a few unexpected ideas?  Did you think I forgot all about that conversation we had on the night those hooligans laced your drinks in the ballroom?  Or that I was too stupid to work out why you spent the last weeks of the season provoking so many tiffs?"

"No, I did not think that.  If anyone was too stupid to work out why I was behaving in that way, it was me.  I may be able to look back on that time now and recognise how the tension was nearing breaking-point.  But at the time, I made myself wilfully blind to it."

She slumped against her pile of pillows.  "So much for hoping you were thinking the same as me: 'Shall I shout at him some more, or just kiss him to make him shut up?'"

Jeffrey managed a small smile.  "I was a blinkered fool.  Of the two of us, you were always the one who brought a healthy dose of common sense to our attachment."

Gladys arched an eyebrow.  "Well, now.  We have an attachment, do we?"

"I sincerely hope so, since we are currently sharing a bed."

She smiled at that, conceding the point, and drew a deep breath that she let out in a sigh.

"All right," she said.  "You liked what you saw, even all those years ago, but you were all in a tangle over your marriage ending, and you got scared and bolted.  I understand.  And you are forgiven."

"But how can you say that?" Jeffrey asked.  "When the choices I made had such grave consequences?  How can you forgive me so readily?"

"Oh, don't be such a pompous buffoon," Gladys berated him.  The sharpness of her words made him startle.  "No, I mean it.  If we're being honest here, saying the things that need to be said, then I'm saying this."  She waited for him to nod his acceptance.  "You hurt me.  Yes.  It happened.  And it wasn't only your fault, because there were two of us involved, and just as you could have dealt with things better, so could I.  But everything that happened after?  That wasn't all your fault.  That was down to me.  My mistake.  And I need you to accept that I am as flawed and as ridiculous and as guilty in all of this as you are.  And as Clive probably is.  I need you to accept me, warts and all, because god knows, Jeff, this is not going to be the last time I make a stupid mistake."

He thought about this.  He could see the truth in her words.  They still surprised him.  There was so much guilt on his side; he saw no reason why Gladys should take some on herself.  Perhaps his outlook was warped by his experience.  After all, the only lengthy romance he'd known in his adult life had been with a woman who was congenitally predisposed to always being right.

He reached out and took Gladys's hand again.  She allowed this with no complaint.  "I am still frightened," he admitted.  "Not of being with you – not of everything you and I might become, together.  Not any more.  But I am frightened I will mess this up.  My 'pompous buffoonery' will no doubt rear its head from time to time.  At this point in my life, I fear my shortcomings are well established."  His shoulders moved with a breath.  "Can you accept me, with all my quirks and failings?  Because I give you my word that there is no part of you I do not want to see, and know, and cherish."

Her bosom heaved, reminding him of that Crimpton summer and the charged moments they had shared.  "Well," she said, in a voice that sounded unusually high-pitched.  "Someone's been hiding a silver tongue."

Jeffrey realised in that moment that he had moved too fast.  As needful as his apology had been, he had said more than he should to a woman who was only a handful of days beyond a decision to divorce.

"And there's that other face," Gladys added.  "The panicky one.  Some things don't change, eh?"

He nodded.  "Some things don't change," he agreed.  "But Gladys – there are a dozen reasons why we should slow down, here.  This is not a time for overt declarations."

"Bit late for that, cariad," she said dryly.  "For both of us.  Don't think there's much use pretending we aren't already…what was the word you used?  Attached?"

"Maybe not.  But how far I am prepared to act on that is another question."  He studied their clasped hands.  He didn't want to let go.  Indeed, he wanted to slide lower into his bed, pull Gladys into an embrace, enjoy the warmth and the closeness and the privacy they shared.  It was a damned shame that even intimacy of that kind felt compromising.

Gladys's thumb stroked the back of his hand.  "You don't approve of making love before marriage," she said, and made it a statement.

"Well – I mean, that's not…no, if I claimed such a philosophy I would be a hypocrite," he told her, thinking of the handful of occasions prior to his involvement with Daphne when he had indulged in such a thing.

"You don't approve of making love to a married woman, then.  Even one who is in the process of divorcing."

"I find that a much grey-er area," he acknowledged.  "My ex-wife had been haranguing me for a divorce for some time before she and the, er, the other fellow…"  He sighed.  These were not ideas he had ever tried to put into words before, because why would he talk about such a godawful mess with anybody at all?  But it seemed the right time to try to explain how he felt.  "I have no idea whether Daphne's lover was hesitant in allowing their relationship to become, er, physical while she was still technically married to me.  I do know that, separated or no, I felt betrayed."

"Would you have felt betrayed if you'd been the one to stray first?  And your wife had left you for it, and then found someone else?"

"Oh.  Um…"

"My point being – I haven't left Clive just because I fancy a go with you."

"You make a valid point.  And it's one I can't answer."  He shook his head.  "In fact I find the idea moot, because I do not believe I would ever behave in the same way Dempster has behaved."

Gladys breathed a humourless laugh.  "Well, I gave you plenty of chances, back at Crimpton.  You never looked so much as tempted," she acceded.

"Oh, I was tempted," Jeff corrected her.  "As we have just discussed."

"But you were married, and therefore you refused to give in."

"Yes."

"You're not married now."

"No."

"But my marital status makes you need to be – what, gentlemanly?  Honourable?"

"I try to behave with decency," he told her.  "I don't always pull it off, but I try.  In truth, though, this is less about your marital status per se, and more about you."

Her expression grew guarded.  "So you don't want to make love to me?"

"You know that is not the case – this whole conversation should have advised you otherwise."

"Then explain it to me!"  Gladys was becoming exasperated.  Perhaps she had good reason.

Jeffrey lifted his chin.  "I'll try," he said.  "Before you and I move things any further along…"  A deep breath.  "I suppose I need to be sure that it is happening for the right reasons."

She thought about this for long moments, frowning.  Then she looked at him and said, rather quietly, "You don't believe that I love you."

"How could I not believe that, after everything that has happened?" he said with a dismissive gesture.

"Oh, quite easily," she put in.  "Two years running, I flirted with the boss – maybe you think I've always been chasing a status symbol."

"I most certainly have not–"

"And at Crimpton, I was pretending to be almost ten years younger than I was – maybe you think I needed a marriage, any marriage, because I was getting so long in the tooth."

"Well that's just–"

"And now things with Clive have crumbled to bits, so maybe you think I'm falling back on the previous option.  Looking for some other man with a bit of money and authority to seduce.  Or maybe–"

"Gladys, please," he said, trying to stop this diatribe of self-loathing.  He leaned closer in an attempt to distract her from these words, but the momentum of them was too great.

"Or maybe you think I came here to find you because Clive betrayed me and I'm looking to pay him back in kind?  Looking for revenge with someone I know isn't completely put off by the wrinkles at my eyes and the thickening of my figure and the sag of my bosom–"

"Gladys!" he said again.  Interestingly, he was not offended by the references to her anatomy but rather the way she dismissed her own allure.

"Or maybe you think that the kind of woman who does something so utterly, unspeakably stupid as to marry a serial philanderer and expect things to be different once he ties the knot – maybe you think that kind of woman doesn't have the brain on her to make a sensible decision about a relationship?  Maybe you think I've already shown I'm a complete idiot when it comes to romance, and there's no way you could take advantage of such a dimwit – not without feeling like a scoundrel yourself?"

"Gladys, stop!" he said, voice raised.  The volume surprised her into pinching her lips closed.  She watched him with wide eyes, looking angry and upset and frightened, all at the same time.  But it would seem that his preference to slow the pace of their relationship was, in fact, the right approach.  Gladys had just proved that she was not in any place to make an informed decision about sex.  Not just now.

"Well, go on, then," she pressed, when he didn't know what more to say.  "Tell me which one it is."

"None of the above," he replied, calm but firm in his delivery.

He saw a flash of disbelief in her expression.  Her recent history had seen that innate confidence she'd had at Crimpton – such a big part of all that made her so undeniably attractive – lose its lustre.  He wanted the shine back.  He wanted the old Gladys Pugh, who could smoulder and tease and leave him breathless with her come-hithers, who could smile knowingly, and, yes, who could be quiet and diligent and practical and indispensable, and who could also be exasperating and unpredictable and even infuriating at times…

He wanted his Gladys.  And she was still there, under the emotional detritus of the last few years.  He'd known this; he'd known it mere seconds after looking into her eyes on the rocky lake shore, after she'd demonstrated that she could be weary and then angry and then seductive without needing to pause for breath.

Jeffrey smiled as these thoughts coalesced.  He knew her.  He knew this woman.  He believed in her.  And as they had established, there was no part of her he wasn't ready to accept.  Recognising all of this, he found he was filled with a sense of calm.  A sense of hope.

"I love you," he told her.

Clearly she wasn't expecting to hear those words, because she blinked with surprise, and her lips formed that o-shape again.

"And I want you," he added.  "There is no part of you that I do not find desirable.  I may have come to this realisation only recently, when I recognised how desperately I was awaiting every letter you sent.  But the feelings have been there for a long time.  I do not see them changing."  He managed a small smile.  "Don't look now, but I am a man who has a tendency to be set in his ways."

"Oh.  So…?" she asked.  She sounded tentative.

"So let's not do everything all at once," he said.  "You need time to recover from what happened in Australia, and I need time to work out how to avoid messing this up."

"Why would you think you'll do that?"

"My track record is far from stellar, Gladys."

She blew out her cheeks.  "We take our time, then."  She didn't sound enamoured of the idea.

"Yes."

"You're asking for some distance?  Start over?  Do the courtship properly?"

"Not as such.  I-if that is what you want, I will abide by your choice, but I see no reason why we should draw further apart when we have only just found our way back together."

"All right, but you don't want us to be lovers."

"Oh, we're going to be lovers," he said, surprising himself by the conviction in his words.  "And the anticipation is going to be unbearably delicious – for both of us, I hope.  But for now, I believe that would be a step too far."

"And what's the step that is just right?"  Her eyes narrowed, as if she'd grown pensive, but her voice was lower and husky and with that familiar smoulder that whispered over his skin like the most teasing caress.

"For this moment?"  He glanced past her shoulder, at his bedside alarm clock.  It was the thickest part of the night, and he had enjoyed little more than two hours of rudely-interrupted sleep.  "I want to lie down, and close my eyes, and know that when I awake in the morning you will be there and all will be well."

Her eyebrows arched.  "You want to snuggle up?"

He smiled at the words, and at the memory they triggered: the chilly confines of the Three Bears Cottage during a downpour.  "I think it's about time."

Gladys smiled back.  "Took you long enough," she teased.

She turned to the bedside table to click off the lamp, and they both slid down underneath the covers.  It felt natural, in the end, to have her shuffle nearer.  He rolled to his side and found her shoulder, which he rubbed gently in welcome.

"Too soon for a kiss?" Gladys whispered.

It was not.  Indeed, it felt like a natural step.  Their lips met slowly in the darkness, tentative because neither of them could see very much.  The slowness was right too, though.

Gladys drew back first.  She sighed, and he sensed her breath.  "I'm glad I came here," she whispered.

Then she turned to settle with her back to him, and she drew his arm around her to hug it close in the warm curve just below her breast.

"Night, love," she murmured.

"Good night," he murmured back.

He thought it might take some time to relax: to get used to this kind of closeness.  It did not.  His breathing slowed, and the eroticism of Gladys's body pressing his own quickly became a more simple, more happy sense of warmth and belonging, and his weariness gave way to sleep.

If he dreamed, he did not dream of monsters.

~~~~~~