A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and/or put me on their alerts. Your comments are challenging and provoking - a writer's dream.


Part I: Bristol

Chapter 6. … and Water

The next time, another six weeks later, she doesn't pretend to any business in England, but baldly informs him that she'd like to come down and see him for a few days; was he agreeable to seeing her?

He messages back, "What's the deal here? Does it include sex?"

He knows it's crude, but honestly, this is the kind of set-up that includes all the disadvantages of a long-distance relationship without a single redeeming feature. The disadvantages of a long-distance long-term relationship: she's projecting all her previous fucked-up relationships onto him, as though he was her partner these past twenty years and was responsible for each and every one of them, and there's bloody nothing he can do about it because he hardly sees her at all. Besides, he's not really interested in having anything with a woman as complicated as she is; she's the poster girl for perfectionism, feminist issues, career issues, feminist-career issues, food issues, security issues, religious tradition issues, etc., etc.

Her emoticon glowers at him, while her message reads, "I'm not having sex with you. Not again!"

He pastes an emoticon that's flipping the bird into his next message. "Where will you stay?"

If he isn't getting sex, she isn't getting his bed. He's not spending a few nights on the sofa with blue balls so she can assuage her guilt over that idiot of an abuser. He wonders what happened to the fellow. It must have been something dire if she's feeling guilty about it instead of angry or hurt, as she should be.

His laptop pings at him. "A friend has recommended a B&B. BTW, you haven't answered my question."

He reads through the last few messages again and has to hand it to her: she's either remarkably thick-skinned or remarkably persistent. Had she been any other woman, he'd have said she was remarkably dense, but he knows she's anything but that. He'd be flattered by so much dedication on her part - this is the second time she's flying across the big pond to see him - except that it's obvious that it has little to do with an objective appreciation of his positive features (what positive features were you thinking of, you cretin!), but a lot with her tendency to obsess over someone and believe that her salvation somehow lies in his hands. Would she have put up with an abuser if she hadn't seen him through totally distorted goggles? Now she's transferring that behaviour pattern onto him, that's all. And it's causing all sorts of conflicts in her, because rationally she knows that what she's doing is stupid and she'll just get hurt again, which is why he feels sorry for her - but empathy really isn't his strong point, so he'd better tell her to go bother someone else ...

He stares at the answer he has just sent off: "Feel free to come."

What. The. Fuck? Has he gone completely crazy? Why the heck did he do that? She probably has a browser window with her flights open where she'll promptly have pressed the Confirm button to finalise the booking, so there isn't much he can do now. Oh, yes, you can. Un-invite her. If she cancels the flights now, she'll get a tidy sum back, and what do you care anyway? But he knows he'll do nothing of the sort.

He offers to pick her up from Heathrow, but she says she'll hire a car this time and drive down to Bristol. She reaches Friday afternoon, calling him to tell him she'll be over at his place after she has showered. He's been dithering the past week, wondering how to make it clear to her that he's perfectly fine with a non-relationship, no matter how he came across the last time she was here. She probably expects him to cook for her again, but that would conjure up images of their last meal together, which ended in the sheets. Wrong message - bad option. But what can they do together that doesn't convey a desire to get into her knickers or get involved in any other way? He has no idea what fellows do with 'girl' friends who are not girlfriends. Does he know anyone he could ask for advice, someone who does something of a non-romantic nature with women on a regular basis? He has no idea. Come to think of it, he has no one he can ask for advice, full stop. He meets up with a set of people regularly at a pub, but he'd never tell them enough about this 'thing' with Lisa for them to form any sort of opinion, much less ask for their advice.

The doorbell rings, and he realises he has no plan whatsoever. He lets her in, and she gives him a quick hug before stepping away. Then she presses something into his hand. It's a GPS device for runners. He quirks an eyebrow at her.

"I saw it and thought of you," she says. "Throw it away if you're too proud to use it."

She pretends not to care, but he can see she'd be hurt if he did that. He turns it over and presses its buttons experimentally. She walks along his bookshelves, browsing the odds and sods that he has collected there. It's the pickings of the charity bookshops along Whiteladies along with some heavier reading that he got cheap from students. Anthony Horowitz rubs shoulders with Beowulf, medical textbooks share a shelf with porn magazines. He goes over to his laptop, googles the coordinates of his favourite jazz joint, enters them into the device and checks the display. Distance: four miles. The thing seems to work.

"Have you always been this disoriented?" she asks. She's leafing through a book, one of his medical texts on the brain. It's one from the University library that he 'forgot' to check out correctly; their security is rudimentary, and his need is greater than that of the students: they merely want to understand the brain, while he has a damaged one.

"What do you think?" he replies.

"I don't think so. If you had, you wouldn't be so ashamed of it and you'd have learned to compensate better."

He likes her skills of deduction, so he responds as honestly as he can. "Damage to the brain in the same accident that cost me my leg."

She replaces the book and leans against the bookshelf. "So what happened there?" she asks, nodding at the leg.

"Car accident. A head-on crash." It's the story he concocted early on; simple, so that he doesn't contradict himself in details at any point.

"Your spatial abilities were the only ones that were compromised?"

He can see that she considers this unlikely. She is, after all, a doctor, even if she mostly wipes snotty noses. Again, a half-truth is the simplest solution. He's never told anyone about his amnesia, not because he worries about negative consequences, but because he doesn't want to be regarded as a freak or, even worse, an object of pity. It's easy to cover it up, usually. He has enough general knowledge that his lack of personal background goes unnoticed. Besides, he doubts that he'd impart much about his past to others even if he knew about it, and it seems that others doubt it too, so no one has ever called him on his lack of history.

So he says, "Well, there was a bit of amnesia right after the accident; couldn't remember what happened, and I still can't, and I was pretty disoriented for some days, but it cleared up quickly."

"I see."

He needs to change the topic. "So what do you want to do?" he asks awkwardly. "Go out for a meal? Go to the cinema? Or the theatre?" The latter is an afterthought; he's never been to the theatre and has no idea what's on or whether it's possible to get tickets at such short notice.

"What do you normally do on nights off?"

"Watch telly. Or meet friends at a pub."

"Fine, let's do that."

He stares at her, trying to envision her mingling with Baz, John, Ellie and the rest of his crowd. The mind boggles.

"What? Ashamed of me?" she asks provocatively.

"No," he says quickly, "not at all." He picks up his keys. "Let's go."

At least his favourite joint is nothing to be ashamed of. It isn't one of those factory-like troughs where people come to get plastered after work, but an offbeat place in Clifton frequented by students and music aficionados. He'd found it in his second week in Bristol, following up on a poster about live jazz in the city. This was where he'd met the rest of his crowd: Baz, who got him the job at the Brunel after he'd lost his previous one at the coroner's office; Annabelle, Baz's girlfriend who works somewhere in management at the Brunel; John, who owns a small unprofitable bakery that sells organic produce; Ellie, a primary school teacher.

John and Ellie are already sitting at their regular table. Ellie is too polite to show her surprise, but John's jaw drops open when he sees them. One would think they'd never seen him with a woman before, although he's picked up the odd woman here and disappeared countless times with Sharon at closing time. So, he's never arrived with a woman, but just because he never has, doesn't mean he can't.

"The codfish is John. That's Ellie." He jerks a thumb at his companion. "Lisa." Then he slumps down in a chair, infinitely grateful that no matter how curious the others are, there'll be no probing, crude comments or judgments until Lisa has left - he holds the monopoly on embarrassing his friends in front of strangers. There's the usual round of pleased-to-meet-you's.

"How can one be pleased to meet someone one didn't expect to meet or look forward to meeting, and to whom one may take an intense dislike within ten minutes?"

John, who is a good enough chap, but not up to following his convoluted thoughts, asks blankly, "Why should I take a dislike to her?"

"Are you such an incurable optimist that you assume the best outcome regardless of previous experiences or do you simply lack the foresight to anticipate probable developments?"

"God, you're a bundle of joy today," Ellie mutters.

He is feeling slightly edgy, but given the circumstances that's hardly surprising. It's only a question of time before Lisa and he are at each other's throats again, and his anticipation of probable developments tells him that this will in all likelihood happen before closing time, which means it'll be witnessed by the lads and be food for anecdotes till the end of time.

John has lost the plot completely. "'Pleased to meet you!' is just a figure of speech, a greeting," he says, flustered.

"So you're not pleased to meet her."

"Ignore him," Lisa advises. "It's his weird way of marking his territory."

John opts for a strategy of polite retreat. "My round," he says. "The usual?" Turning to Lisa, he asks, "What would you like?"

"Whatever you recommend. But," she scans the neighbouring tables, "in a small glass."

While John is gone, a band gets ready on a small stage at one end of the room. Their average age seems to be around twenty.

"Oh, Christ, a bloody student band," Ellie grouses, rolling her eyes.

John, coming back with the drinks, places a half-pint in front of Lisa, saying, "It's a bitter from an organic brewery near Gloucester. Local produce."

Great! A student band and unpalatable beer - the place is ganging up to disgrace him. But Lisa, ploughing her way valiantly through her tepid dishwater, is soon immersed in a discussion with John on the advisability of buying organic produce sold by mainstream supermarkets. He relaxes slightly and leans back to listen to the music. Ellie and he agree that the bassist is mediocre and the saxophonist should be shot. Opinions are divided along gender lines on the lead singer, who croons in a sultry, bluesy voice, and on the pianist. Ellie, with typical female blindness to the visual components of a live act, won't concede that a great bust and long legs embellish a singer's natural talent rather than detract from it. He accuses Ellie of reverse sexism - denying women who are more attractive than she is the right to talent - while she insists that he listens to music with his prick. (Although he doesn't admit it, he feels she may have a point when she declares that covering Janis Joplin is not a good idea if one has a voice like Paul McCartney.) Conversely, she is fascinated by the piano player's dreamy, abstracted expression - a sign, she says, of his absorption in the music.

"Bollocks! It's all show, and it appeals to your mothering instincts that are on the lookout for men who are likely to form an emotional bond with their offspring. Your fallacy lies in interpreting his grimaces at the instrument as a sign of heightened sensitivity."

"Just because you play with a dirty grin plastered all over your stupid face ..."

"Children, stop fighting!" John admonishes. "What's Lisa going to think of us?"

Lisa moves on smoothly from John and wholegrain bread to Ellie and literacy skills. When Baz and Annabelle wend their way to the table she's listening to Ellie's opinion on phonetic reading programmes. Baz, who is no one's fool, tips his head at Lisa.

"Wasn't she dining at the Brunel the evening you got canned? Didn't you force your gravy on her?" he asks sotto voce.

"Yep," he answers tersely.

Baz sighs. "Oh, brilliant!"

There are now enough people at the table that no one notices or cares whether he joins in the conversation. He leans back, nursing his pint, listening with half an ear to the music and watching Lisa making small talk withhis friends. She goes to get the second round - a gesture that meets with unalloyed approval -, compliments Annabelle on her self-made jewellery, and listens to Baz's anecdotes about troublesome underlings that, unsurprisingly, feature Pete in a leading role.

Lisa counters with an anecdote of her own. "I once had an employee who cost my hospital 100 million dollars." There's a general gasp of disbelief. "He refused to hold a ten-minute eulogy on our biggest donor's latest pharmaceutical innovation. The donor withdrew his money. End of story. Oh, yeah, no new paediatrics ward."

"Did you sack him?" John asks, his voice hushed in awe.

She shrugs. "Couldn't do it: he was right - the product sucked." She gives Pete a side glance that he can't quite interpret.

He feels vindicated. "See?" he crows, aiming an accusing glare at Baz. "That's fair play; that's justice! But although my sauces are perfect, I get sacked because some malcontent complains."

There's general laughter, while Baz tries to defend the hotel's hiring and firing practices.

"It explains how you manage to put up with him if you're used to rebels," Annabelle says to Lisa.

Lisa flushes and glances over at him. "Oh, we're not an item."

He keeps his face impassive - he never suggested to anyone that they were. Baz, who overhears Lisa's reply, looks politely incredulous.

Later, while Lisa is absorbed in Annabelle's list of Bristol Sights That Must Be Seen, Baz leans towards him. "Sharon is going to fry your testicles."

This is the kind of convoluted fuck-up that he tries to avoid. This is why he stays away from relationships. "I'm not doing anything, am I?" he says. "Is she working tonight?"

"Yes." Baz, who got the third round, tips his head towards the bar. "Don't look," he hisses. "I'll bet she's fuming already, and ... oh, shit!"

He cranes his neck, finally spotting Sharon behind the bar where she's drying glasses. Their eyes meet, and Sharon drops the tea towel, dries her hands and comes out from behind the bar. He has a bad feeling, a very bad feeling about this; there's going to be some sort of giant misunderstanding, and he'll get the blame. He has a few moments of reprieve as she winds her way between the tables along her route, replying good naturedly to greetings and warding off unwanted attention, for Sharon, with her alabaster complexion, thick auburn hair and voluptuous figure is a balm for sore eyes and a general favourite among the regulars.

When she reaches their table, she greets everyone in general with a, "Hey there, everything alright?"

There's a general murmur of assent, but the atmosphere is instantly tense. Annabelle and Baz are sending worried glances in his direction, John is fidgeting around trying to look nonchalantly at no one in particular, and Ellie is scowling even harder than usual. How come everyone but he saw this coming? He risks a side glance at Lisa; she has noticed the change in the atmosphere and is mustering the newcomer with interest.

Sharon walks casually round the table to the gap between him and Baz, leans over and kisses him on the side of the mouth. Then she straightens, placing a possessive hand on his shoulder, and says, "Hello, darling."

She never calls him darling. And she never singles him out among the guests with such a public display of - whatever. When they do start something here, it's never more than subtle exchanges - she'll spend some time at his table, maybe she'll place a hand on his arm in the heat of the discussion and leave it lingering there longer than necessary, or he'll let his hand trail down her hip casually when she gets up to go back behind the bar. And then, after closing time, he'll be waiting outside for her when she's finished cleaning up. That's how it works. Everyone knows what's going on, but it's nothing that anyone who isn't sitting at their table would necessarily notice.

Sharon looks over at Lisa, a challenge that is barely disguised as polite curiosity. "Haven't seen you here with this lot before. I hope you're having a good time."

Lisa still has the look of interest on her face, and one has to be aware of her body language to notice the subtle changes - the slightly more upright posture, the tensing of the neck tendons, the smoothing of the crinkles around her eyes as her smile fades away from them until it is confined solely to her lips. She rests her chin on her hand as she musters Sharon. Then she says curtly, "You can have him. I don't want him."

His brain splits into three separate entities. One part is completely useless, a gibbering bundle at the immensity of this cataclysm. Another is clapping wild applause at Lisa's nerve: everyone at the table is shock-frozen, including the overt victor of this battle, Sharon. The third part is wincing with hurt.

Sharon is stuttering, "I'm s-sorry, I don't think I ... I understood you."

"I think you understood perfectly. He's all yours." Obviously, Lisa didn't get to her current career position by allowing anyone to walk all over her.

The first part of his brain takes up its duties again, and the second gives the third part a good shake. This is better than mud-wrestling on telly because it's 100% real, none of it rigged. A lot of similes from the animal kingdom spring to mind for the present situation; unfortunately, none of them bode well for Sharon. So, although he still can't quite fathom why he's being held responsible for this bitch fight - everyone, but simply everyone at the table is rolling their eyes at him - he gets up and takes hold of Sharon's elbow.

"Let's take this outside," he says, steering her past the tables to the back exit. Regulars at the other tables, who saw the kiss but didn't hear the exchange between Sharon and Lisa, hoot or make ribald comments.

Outside, he takes out his fags and lights one. Sharon leans against the wall of the pub, her arms folded over her chest.

"So what the hell was that about?" he asks.

"You bring a slag here, right under my nose, and you ask what this is about?" They've hardly started talking, and she's yelling already.

"So? You don't own me."

"This isn't about 'owning' you. We're in a fucking relationship! That's got to mean something."

He can't help himself: "Yes we're in a 'fucking' relationship; we fuck whenever it suits us. But that's about it."

She stares at him indignantly, incredulously. "Is that what it means to you?"

He's more than a bit confused now, though he tries not to show it. "Oh, come along. You know I pick up other women, and I'm sure you pick up other men when I'm not around."

"No, I don't!" she denies quickly, adding, "Not for some time now."

"Okay, but you know I have other women. So why this fuss now?"

"Normally you're discreet about it. This time you're rubbing it in, aren't you, dangling her under my nose!"

"Discreet?" That isn't exactly a term he'd apply to himself. "I've never made a secret of it."

She scrapes one foot along the ground, mustering her toes. "You never do it when I'm around."

"Yeah, right, as though you wouldn't hear about it when I do it in the pub you work in, where your stand-in or one of the regulars is bound to tell you right the next day."

She shrugs at that, still not meeting his eyes. "That's just gossip then, innit? I can ignore that."

"Even when you know it's true?"

She doesn't answer. He leans back against the wall himself, tiredly closing his eyes. He can see now how this whole mess came about. Yes, he only hits on other women when Sharon isn't working here, but she's confusing cause and effect: when he feels horny and Sharon is here, he takes her home because it's less of a bother. She's almost always willing, and it's a lot less of a hassle than chatting up a stranger. It's also undeniable that he's been as good as 'faithful' to Sharon lately, but that isn't a symptom of settling down on his part. No, it's pure convenience - sex with strangers means initiating them into the mystery that is his leg at some 'appropriate' moment between coming to a mutual understanding about hitting the sheets and the actual act itself. Usually he emphasises the slight unevenness of his gait when they leave the pub, and with a bit of luck his companion will ask about it, but it's an exercise in self-revelation that he increasingly shuns. Lately he mostly opts to wait until Sharon is available to get his rocks off.

He tries again. "You're saying it's okay for me to fuck another woman if you can ignore it, but it isn't okay for me to bring a woman here that I'm not even having sex with."

"Aw, come along! Not shagging that dish?"

"I slept with her once, about three months ago. That was it."

"This isn't about how often you shag her."

He's totally confused again.

"Look," Sharon says, straightening and looking him straight in the eye, "you've never been the companionable or the romantic kind, and that was okay with me. I've never minded that you don't pay compliments or show appreciation or even spend any time with me. I thought it wasn't your nature, that you were the reserved type."

"I am," he can't help interjecting, and it's only half meant as a joke.

"No, you're not, not the way I thought. You've been observing her half the evening like ... like some obsessive parent whose child won a school prize. You're proud as punch to have her next to you. The way you look at her and treat her - you never look at me like that. Now that I know you can treat a woman like that, I ... I feel like a whore."

He can't blame her. Seen from a certain angle, he's been treating her like one. There's no sense in continuing this conversation; he can't reassure her by telling her that he loves her or that she is 'the one', so he turns to go back inside.

"Why her?" Sharon almost wails. "She's old, and she's no better-looking than I am."

"I have no idea," he says truthfully.

"Is it because she's clever, and successful, and classy? You think you're better than us, don't you? You know more than we do and you can use complicated words and you can argue people right into the ground, but you're no better than we are. You're just a cook, like Baz. You're less than Baz or than me - you can't even hold down a job. You think she's your passport out of here - you're even talking like her, with that American accent -, but you're fooling yourself! She's just slumming, and when she's had enough of us, she'll return to her upper-class life in America and tell her friends about the 'quaint English working-class'." She draws the back of her hand over her eyes, and practically runs inside.

He smokes another cigarette, and then he goes back inside too. Lisa, unsurprisingly, has left. The others look at him expectantly, but he just shrugs as he slides back into his seat. Baz, spokesman in awkward moments, says, "Lisa apologised for the scene. She said she was sorry she had caused stress between you and your girlfriend, and that it would be better for her to leave."

Again, he shrugs, as though to indicate that it doesn't matter to him either way. He stays until closing time as a matter of principle; anything other than that would give rise to comments and speculation. But seldom has he been so happy to hear the words, "Last orders, please."


He starts the next morning off with a swim in the university pool that is empty enough at this hour to not make him too self-conscious about his stump. As he towels himself dry afterwards, he wonders what to do with his day. He's taken the next two days off to have time to spend with Lisa, but after last night ...

After what exactly last night, he asks himself. Sharon may have reason to be mad at him, but Lisa has no cause to complain. She isn't his girlfriend, and she said herself that she didn't want him. It's not his fault if she felt awkward after her mud-slinging contest with Sharon, but there's no reason why he should let a perfectly good weekend go to waste.

Outside, he reaches for his mobile. "Pete," he says when she answers her phone. "Any plans for today?"

There's complete silence at the other end. Then: "What about your girlfriend? Did she leave your balls on?" She sounds as though she'd prefer them pickled in brine.

"I don't see how my personal relationships concern you. You've made your lack of interest clear," he says with relish.

"You're hurt," she surmises quietly. That's so ridiculous that he's left speechless. By the time he has thought of a suitable retort, she's talking again. "I don't want to interfere or get in the way or open the door for further misunderstandings," she says in a tone that tells him she's truly bothered by what transpired last night.

"You mean you want to avoid the blame for wrecking my relationship. You needn't feel guilty; I'm capable of taking the responsibility for my actions."

That knocks the sentimental note right out of her voice again. "Oh, don't you worry - I have no intention of flagellating myself just because you behaved like a bastard to that poor girl. But now that I know she exists, I see no need to increase her undoubted suffering for the sake of a few of hours of dubious entertainment." She sighs, and then she adds in a gentler tone, "Be sensible about this: I'll be back in the States in two days, but you'll have to stay and deal with the fall-out. You've got a good thing there - I'm sure she's a wonderful person. Why jeopardise that?"

"She - isn't my girlfriend," he admits. As he says it he can hear for himself how improbable, how convenient that sounds. Had he started the conversation differently, saying for instance, 'Hey, this is Pete. I think you may have misunderstood the situation last night - Sharon is not my girlfriend. She's merely a deluded stalker,' or something to that effect, he might have stood a chance.

Lisa, however, is not only an unquenchable fount of guilt, but also amazingly gullible. Her tone is reprimanding but not disbelieving as she says, "You had me fooled there - and her, too!"

He draws a weary hand over his eyes. "Yep, apparently."

Out of nowhere she says, "Annabelle says the harbour is worth seeing, and the ss Great Britain."

"Forget it - I'm not clambering around an old rusty wreck." He's seen pictures of the museum ship with its steep narrow stairwells, and he knows he'll have difficulties navigating those.

"Fine! Then you suggest something better!"

"Harbour it is, but with style," he promises rashly. He makes a few quick calculations in his head. "Can you find the Castle Park ferry landing?" It's fairly quiet there, away from the main ferry routes. "Be there at noon."

"Noon? That's ... you wake me at this time so we can meet at noon?"

"Can't wait to see me, huh? Style takes time, okay?"

"Fine, noon it is."

Three hours is cutting it tight, but it's feasible. He anticipated having to feed her sometime this weekend, so his fridge is stocked, and he soon has a decent picnic packed. He has no picnic hamper, so it all has to go into his backpack. Now all he needs is a boat. He'd like a small sailing yacht, nothing too fancy. It's somewhat more difficult than he anticipated - the weather is lovely, the jetties are heavily frequented, and the ones that aren't so crowded that his presence would be immediately noted and questioned are surrounded by fences higher than his leg will allow him to surmount.

Lisa is waiting at the ferry landing dangling her feet off the edge when he arrives with his prize at a quarter past twelve. She quirks an eyebrow at the rowing dinghy, saying, "Style, huh?"

"Size," he says with dignity, "isn't all that counts. It's also about performance, endurance, reliability."

"We're still talking about boats here?"

"Get your mind out of the gutter!" he says, stretching out a hand to help her on board.

A rowing boat wasn't quite what he'd envisaged, but at least he can row. He wasn't sure, really, whether he'd ever done it before, but the moment he was in the boat, he'd known what to do and how to do it. And finding the ferry landing with the help of the GPS device had been a breeze. It occurs to him, as they potter along the harbour, that he's been avoiding unknown places for ages now, confining himself to known routes, and that the reason that he hasn't tried to take up running may not be the quality of his prosthetic, but his fear of getting lost.

Lisa is riveted by everything: the tacky city centre area, the converted warehouses, the ss Great Britain ('It's not rusty, you mendacious bastard - it looks wonderful!') and the Matthew, the brightly painted houses meandering up the hillside next to rows of red-brick Victorian houses, the crescents of white Georgian facades further up. He rows strongly, enjoying the exertion of muscles he doesn't normally need, filled with a mix of dread and joyful anticipation at the thought of the muscle pains awaiting him tomorrow.

After they've rowed around the harbour for a bit, he finds a quiet spot for their picnic.

She trails her hand in the water and yawns. "This is great!"

"Jet lag works the other way round," he points out. "You're supposed to be wide awake till three a.m."

"I'm missing about eight hours' sleep," she argues. "I hardly got any on the flight, last night I was wide awake till about three, and this morning you woke me at an ungodly hour."

"Eight-thirty is ungodly for you?"

"That was three-thirty in the morning by my inner clock."

"One night of sleep - what's that to a doctor who has to do night shift, be on call, etc.?"

"That's one and a half nights for me, as department head I don't do night shifts anymore, and I'm too old to be able miss out on so much sleep and just keep going like nothing happened."

"True," he agrees. "You've got nasty bags under your eyes." She splashes him with water, he splashes her back, and soon they're both wet and awake.

When the light begins to fade he puts her down near the city centre. "I need about an hour to bring the boat back and get back. Do you want to catch a bite somewhere? I'll need to take a shower first, though."

"Okay, I'll meet you at your place in about two hours."


Other people can recall childhood holidays with the family, their first school day, graduation, their first job, falling in love, their first time, and so on. He has no such memories to fall back on; his life is crammed into three short uneventful years. Seen from that perspective a night in the nick isn't necessarily a disgrace or a calamity, but rather, an edifying experience that widens his horizon. It leaves a lot to be desired as far as the level of comfort goes, but it's quiet and peaceful - until the night wears on and his hosts start escorting binge drinkers and the like into the cell he's occupying. His remonstrance falls on deaf ears.

"Should'a thought of that before you took that boat, shouldn't you?" he's told.

Around midnight - one of the teens in his cell has just puked violently all over the floor - a constable appears.

"Peter Barnes? - Oh, Christ, someone get a mop over here! - You're being picked up. By your mum."

He has no idea what this is about, but he's prepared to go anywhere that'll get him away from those idiotic kids. Lisa is waiting at the front desk, dressed in one of her trouser suits and with a touch of make-up to show that she means business.

The constable stops in his tracks. "You're his mother, ma'am?"

"I didn't say I was his mother," Lisa answers testily. "I said I was keeping an eye on him."

The constable opens his case book. "Apprehended while stealing a dinghy."

"I wasn't stealing it; I was returning it. Which makes it borrowing, not stealing, as I tried to explain to your colleague."

"By calling him a ..." The constable glances down at the case book. "A 'thick pencil-pusher', is that right?"

"Officer, he gets grumpy when he's tired and his blood sugar level drops," Lisa interposes. He shoots her a glare. "He's going to apologise for that."

"I am?"

"You are," she says with iron determination. He presses his lips shut tight, like a four year old. "Hou- ," she starts, then stops short. "Peter, it's past midnight and I'm dead on my feet; just apologise and get it over with."

"Okay, I apologise for calling the other constable a thick pencil-pusher," he says. "What I really meant was ..."

"No!" She yanks him back sharply by his T-shirt.

The constable's mouth twitches. "Alright, ma'am, take him home and keep two eyes on him from now on, not just one."

Lisa puts a hand on the small of his back and propels him out of the doors before he has a chance to smartass his way back into a cell, heaving a sigh of relief when they get outside into the crisp night air. She digs a car key out of her handbag, and a car parked in the no-parking zone in front of the police station lights up. They get in, and she starts the car, driving it briskly up the hill. The silence in the car is only broken by the monotonous voice of the Satnav. He supposes he ought to thank her for getting him out of jail.

"How'd you find me?" he finally asks, wondering how mad she is at him.

She chuckles. It doesn't sound mad at all. "Figuring out what had happened wasn't too difficult. It was finding out where you were that took some time. I called about five different police stations till I had the right one. You're an ass, you know," she adds without rancour. "You could have called."

"Thought I'd save my phone call for my lawyer." He hadn't asked whether he was allowed to make a phone call, because he'd had no intention of letting her know that he'd been banged up.

When the car draws up in front of his house, she gets out and follows him upstairs without waiting for an invitation. He opens the door to his flat, drops his keys into the bowl on the dresser in the hall, and goes through the living room into the kitchen without waiting to see if she's coming inside. He gets a beer from the fridge and returns to the living room, throwing himself onto the sofa and switching on the television. He can hear Lisa rooting around in the kitchen. She comes in ten minutes later with a beer of her own and a plate piled high with sandwiches. She sits down next to him.

"The 'meaty' ones are here," she says, pointing to the side of the plate that she has turned towards him.

He flips the top slice of toast up to inspect the contents: roast ham, slices of cheddar, lettuce, onion, some sort of dressing. Good; nothing he doesn't like, and a lot of stuff he likes. She's got wimpy stuff like cucumber and tomato on hers. After a few bites his annoyance at her for coming to his rescue ebbs, leaving room for appreciation at the calm with which she handles his delinquent tendencies. They sit in companionable silence, eating, drinking and watching the BBC's late night offerings, old Blackadder episodes. He's sure he has seen them before, but he can't remember when, so it must have been in his old life. He wonders whether it might be worth it to analyse his knowledge of television programmes in order to trace his past; he has noticed that he has some significant gaps in his knowledge base with regard to children's programmes that most of his peers seem to know. He also remembers being confused initially by some of the television programmes that are now part of his staple diet, whereas others, like Dr Who, seemed like old friends right from the start. Right at the beginning, knowing that he was suffering from amnesia and not quite sure yet which areas of his memory were affected, he hadn't thought it odd. Now he wonders whether he could have been living outside Britain for a considerable period of time during his childhood and later again as a grown-up.

He also ponders what Sharon mentioned as an aside in her rant yesterday: the more time he spends with Lisa, the more he speaks like her. It isn't only his accent which changes, it's his entire vocabulary. It could, in theory, be his mad linguistic skillz that turn him into a veritable speech chameleon, but he hasn't noticed this effect when talking to colleagues from India, Ireland or the Caribbean.

He turns to Lisa to ask about television programmes in America dating back four to five years, but she's asleep, her head tipped against the back of the sofa, her mouth open. The position looks uncomfortable, or so he tells himself, and he's going to end up with drool all over the backrest, so he reaches out and pulls her gently onto his lap, half turning her into him. She opens her eyes blearily, but closes them and cuddles into him when she realizes what's going on. As soon as she has settled, he goes back to the television programme and his musings, his brain tired but unable to find rest.

Two hours later he needs the bathroom. He tries to move Lisa off his lap without waking her, but she snorts into his T-shirt. It sounds like, 'God, house.'

Oh no, not that again!

"The house is fine. You're in my flat," he says. "You're safe," he adds as an afterthought, holding her slightly tighter. She isn't tense, though, nor does she seem to be panicking. She opens her eyes and looks up into his face. He holds her clasped a moment longer, examining her mien closely for signs of anxiety or panic attacks, but there's nothing. Instead, she smiles and raises a hand to his face, cupping his cheek. His hesitation is of short duration; he lowers his head to kiss her. The moment she realises his intention she draws back and sits up; it is only by pulling back that he avoids having his teeth knocked out by her head.

He watches her straighten and put a little distance between herself and him. She draws her fingers through the tangles in her hair, avoiding his gaze, her breathing laboured. "I should go."

"You know, you're sending out very mixed signals," he says conversationally. "On the one hand you insist that this isn't a relationship. You won't have sex, and you're using a different shampoo - to avoid setting me off, I assume. On the other hand, you come over specifically to see me, you spend whole days with me, and now you're practically all over me. That sort of thing can confuse a chap."

"I'm sorry," she says, rubbing a hand over her face.

"That's not an explanation. It's just lame. An apology doesn't get me anywhere."

"Okay." She picks at imaginary lint on her trousers. "I like you."

"That's lame, too. I like steak, but I wouldn't travel four thousand miles to eat one."

She puts a hand on his arm and looks up at him earnestly. "We wouldn't work. We'd hurt each other."

He draws back slightly. "Then why are you here? Why are you investing this much time? You're a woman whose days are perpetually too short for her tight schedule, yet you're wasting an average of two days a month on me, a guy who you say will hurt you."

"Whom I will hurt," she corrects.

"Right. How many guys' hearts have you broken in your life?"

The question is meant rhetorically, but she considers it seriously. "Three," she answers, "but one - one never got over it. I don't need that again."

He has no doubt that she's talking about the man who still gives her nightmares. She's unbelievably obtuse for such an intelligent woman - she's blaming herself for whatever he did to her and to himself, instead of accepting that while she may have been the catalyst for his actions, his deeds are entirely on himself.

"Let me see whether I got this right: you have made a vow of chastity and celibacy because some moron couldn't get over himself."

"No. I have decided to keep my life simple. I have a career and a daughter." She hesitates for a moment, before continuing, "A challenging daughter. The guys I date tend to be challenging too. At the moment it's too much for me."

"So you come here and play around with me for a while," he rolls his hand in illustration, "because you know that if things get out of hand, you can hop on a plane and put an ocean between us. You get all the advantages of dating - what did you call it - a 'challenging' guy with none of the risks. Doesn't explain the chastity, though."

She bites her lip. "I come here because I worry about you."

If she'd been trying for a turn-off she couldn't have done better. He feels like a seven year old. "Don't worry - I'm doing fine."

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Getting fired? Getting busted?"

"Both because of you," he points out.

"Great!" she mutters. "Go ahead, blame me!" She stands up and picks up her handbag. "I'm going."

He doesn't bother to rise. Instead, he taps his cheek with a demanding finger and tips his head expectantly. Huffing, she leans down and plants a peck on his cheek.

"You're impossible!" she grouses.

He switches channels. "When are you picking me up tomorrow?" he asks the screen.

He can hear her taking a deep breath and can sense her counting to ten in her head. "Eleven o'clock," she finally says, "and you'd better pray that I don't murder you."

By eleven o'clock the next morning he has come to a decision regarding her. He has sifted through the facts.

Item A: He likes her. She's bossy, messed up, with excess baggage - starting with her abusive relationship, ending with her kid, and with tons of other stuff in between - but she's sharp, funny, and indifferent to those flaws of his that drive others crazy.

Item B: He enjoys her company. (He'd assumed till now that he simply doesn't like other people; he hardly ever wants to spend one-to-one time with - with anyone really. Certainly not with the women he has sex with.)

Item C: She's going to keep turning up like a bad penny every few months unless he can figure out how to stop her. But then, why should he stop her? (See items A and B.)

Item D: What he saw as a disadvantage a few weeks ago, namely having a long-distance relationship with no sex, could in fact be an advantage. He's just experienced all too painfully the downside of short-distance non-relationships involving sex: people suddenly develop weird expectations; the things he does outside the relationship are weighed and measured; he is expected to invest time and emotional capacity. In a long-distance relationship there are no such constraints. The time he invests is clearly defined by her arrivals and departures. Outside that time frame, he isn't accountable to her in any way, not if he isn't her boyfriend. As for getting some, since she won't cater to his needs, she can't object to his having a sex life of his own, so he's as free as he ever was. If she continues coming over three or four days every six weeks or so and if he accordingly takes a few days off work, then he'll be seeing more of her than he ever did of Sharon. There's another upside to this non-relationship arrangement: he doesn't need to bother about the kid in any way. Or, seen from the opposite perspective, if she were interested in a relationship, she'd have to ask herself sooner or later where her girl fits in, and sooner rather than later it would strike her that a long-distance relationship and a child don't go together at all. And then he'd be history.

So, all things considered, he's better off catering to her whim of 'looking after him in a platonic fashion' than trying to press their whatever-it-is into a 'normal' mould. Hugs and cuddles seem to be allowed, pecks on the cheek too, while French kisses apparently aren't. Holding hands? He'll have to try that out.

She breezes in at eleven sharp. "You look terrible, and you have sunburn."

"Well, thanks. I didn't spend two hours crashing on the sofa drooling over other people's shirts last night, so I'm sleep-deprived. And I'm not sunburnt. I have a healthy tan."

"Your bald spot is sunburnt. And there's no such thing as a 'healthy' tan." She sounds like Hermione Granger. He wonders whether he's Ron or Harry. Or, God forbid, Neville. He wonders, too, whether he'd rather be Ron than Harry. He feels his head gingerly. She's right, damn her.

"My flight leaves at five, so I have to be in Heathrow by three at the latest. What can we do till then? And don't even suggest sex!"

He grins and stops leering at her. Four hours, of which two will be needed for the drive to London. That cramps his style, to put it mildly. Unless one combines the drive and the activity. "Okay, we'll drive over to Bath, and then we'll have cream tea in the Cotswolds. Culture, nature, food." He makes shooing movements towards the door.

When he holds out his hand to her she hesitates, but then she takes it.