A different take on a chapter from another story I've written called 'The Return'. This is for CocoBacon to help with with the wobbles and, I hope, inspire.
I
Six weeks.
It's the longest time without her since he landed at Heathrow. Everything about London reminded him of how lonely he was back then, going back to the chaotic apartment, living from a suitcase, surrounded by his landlord's dodgy taste in ornaments. Weeks turned to months, all the time, trying to appear confident, to cover for the reasons why he was here. Bullish and sexist to hide his soul being seen by the partner he never expected to have, his heart being stolen and his world turned upside down as he realised he wasn't going to leave these shores without her, even if she didn't know it.
Landmarks taunt him again now, bittersweet with memories. Tower Bridge where he'd hauled up from the pavement loomed over him as he trudged. Roads go nowhere and he's turning it to the criminal he detests. Just like Harry had always warned him would happen. Her gentle observation over bogeymen cut close; was he a murderer at heart?
He took Lupino to the coast, hidden him away in a cheap room cultivating a walk and posture in seafront. He swapped his recognisable cigars for cheap cigarettes and tried to rid himself of Dempsey, but he can't bear the emptiness that Lupino seems to attract. He happens on Butch outside a brothel near Notting Hill, looking up into the windows and watches him turn away with a shake of his head. He buys the guy a drink. Butch unable to afford a prostitute and he, Lupino willing, but Dempsey is unable.
Dempsey leaps over the back wall into her garden, using a dustbin as leverage and despairs as the back door gives under his lock picking skills. He has a key for the front door but it's entrusted back to her until he's safe or officially dead. Wherever they've been hidden, he hopes not to see them, the temptation of discarding Lupino is stronger than he thought as he stands in her kitchen, looking at the haphazard collection of photos on her fridge. Of him with her at a party just weeks ago when he thought they had a future. He vows to take her out, to the opera maybe when it's over. Right now, if he saw the keys to his Merc, he'd wake her up and drive them away.
He just wants to see Harry's face. Have her yell at him or hug him. To call him a selfish prick for leaving her when they were so close to being more. To be reassured that she misses him as much as he craves her. He creeps through the living room, knowing the layout far too well for a mere partner. Past the cluttered piano, around the ticking grandfather clock, taking a wide step over the squeaky floorboard and begins to climb the stairs.
He hears her sigh as he reaches halfway. Then a rustle of sheets and a moan. He stops dead. Arrested by his own stupidity. He had never considered she has found someone else, that she may not have meant all the words she spoke with a gentle smile. The signals he must have misread.
It's been six weeks, that's all. But in six weeks of his past life, he'd tried to buy services from Gloria who refused him on account of Harry, stuck his tongue in Harry's mouth and bedded a hit woman. Through it all, Harry had remained as stoic as she could afford to be. He thought he was redeemed for not dating the friend who managed the bookshop. Maybe he has it all wrong?
His absence gives her time to meet another man, even if he's been living like a monk, his mind and body attuned to her, like a place of pilgrimage. This feeling leaves him cold from the bones out, feverish with hurt and paralysed on the staircase, ironically and bitterly aware of himself.
The sheets move again, and the bed squeaks. Then he hears his name, softly at first. It's her voice. Only hers. Then it's said louder. Oh Harry, he thinks, oh honey.
Dempsey wants to preen like a gilded cockerel. He wants to watch and see how he makes her feel, but he's not that man anymore. He has discarded the meat head who peered at her body through the bedroom door and stood under the shower with a mind full of fantasies. Thoughts that occupied his mind ever since, even when he was enjoying the body of another woman. He wants the real deal but he's got to be worthy of her first.
Dempsey kills the overwhelming urge to fall onto the bed with her and give her the real thing. To walk up, head held high and strip off, to show her what she's missing and claim her. Make her see the stars and all the heavens. He'd pull down the moon if she asked.
Lupino would. He fingers the moustache and then turns away, forces Dempsey to move his feet.
He'd never embarrass her. Not like this. She's too precious, too important. As her moans become a cries, Dempsey slips away. Goes back to his crummy bed sit and makes a mess of himself and the sheets.
Dempsey won't tell her, she'll never know. He vows, as he cleans himself up, that he'll tell her about Joey, it's too lonely in his head and he'll earn his place in her life.
II
He feels more like Dempsey as soon as he sits in the chair. In an act of fake bravado, he cracks open the beer can. The liquid fizzes in his mouth and washes away the taste of Mara's poison. The feel of her lips on his is lost when he wipes his hand over his face and listens to Harry; watches her mouth move and remembers all the times he's felt her lips on his.
It wasn't his intention to give a confession. Somehow, in the space between absolving himself from the fake seduction of a gaudy woman to needing the honesty purity of his partner, he's spilled out everything about his hurried arrival and Joey. She sits quietly, listening to every uncomfortable truth. In saying the words, and studying London from her window, this city which gave him freedom, he seems to find his roots.
He's prevented from moving by Harry's hand on his arm. She's the only person capable of doing so. She carefully removes the can of beer from his grip and understands why he detests Lupino.
"When did you last eat anything?" She asks, walking to the linen closet on the hall.
"I had fries..." He can't remember when he last ate, he's been so high on adrenaline and alcohol, it's not been at the forefront of his mind.
"Shower and then come downstairs," She commands quietly and pushes a clean bath sheet into his arms with a pile of his clean clothes. At his curious glance she explains, "I've been to your flat, I picked up some things in case you turned up. Someone has to water the plant."
"Thanks…" He's not sure why she should, but he's grateful she cared. The shirt he is wearing has Mara's perfume on it and he's feeling nauseous from it.
"You might not be so grateful when you see the pile of bills I brought home." Harry comments as she walks down the stairs.
He can't understand why he's still here after all he said. He killed Joey. Surely she's biding her time, maybe letting him down gently, like a regretful owner of a temperamental dog handed back to a pound.
"You're stooping." She observes. He rolls his shoulders, is he? "You're barely Dempsey anymore."
"I know my way home." He says, biting into the sandwich she's packed out with tomatoes and lettuce. An attempt to keep him healthy which melts away at the lump of cold fear inside him, that she does care.
"You knew you way here." Harry comments casually.
"Like I said, I knew my way home." He sips the tea and she holds his curious gaze for a moment, as they test their boundaries. She seems to nod.
"When you light one of those bloody cigarettes, you stoop like a professional smoker." Harry returns to safe ground with her observation.
"I can't have a cigar." He complains.
"You can go for days without them." She's right, he can now. "Anyway, that's not my point. You're becoming him, the way you... well, how you're behaving. You're not the Dempsey I know."
He can't think of an answer. He is, but he isn't. He remembers standing on the stairs and forcing himself to walk away.
"Did you use a condom." She asks and he chokes on his mug of tea.
"I didn't, because I haven't." He catches his breath, he hadn't considered that she might assume he'd go all in with Mara. Oh Christ.
"Yet?" Harry is unreadable, her face almost statuesque in the shadow of the under cabinet lighting.
"I left her at the hotel, she's wasted," Dempsey feels queasy and sits down again. "I came here. I don't want sleep with her."
"If you're hoping I'll oblige..." Harry turns away unable or unwilling to say the words to his face. He's about to lose his patience when she turns, shiny-eyed, "Sorry, I didn't mean it. We'll find another way."
He hesitates and then opens his arms, wondering if she might step closer. He holds his breath when she does. "I keep saying life is hard, then you die for so long, I began to believe it. I wanna get Coltrane, bastard deserves everything and so does Mara, but..."
"I don't want to lose you." She says muffled and then lifting her head up, "I can feel you slipping away."
"It's why I'm here, princess." He touches her cheek, "I need you to kick my ass."
Harry looks up, still breathtakingly close with a nervous smile, "I'm good for that."
"Yeah, so you are." He shrugs, fully aware she's still in the cradle of his hold, "I realised I wanted to stay in London. I got friends here... and you."
She really smiles now as she pokes his chest with a manicured finger; "I'm stealing that and calling it a compliment."
"You should." He wants to say so much more but he's too fearful for his life. How unfair to love her when he could be uncovered any moment. He lets her go as she moves to attend to the boiling kettle.
It's midnight. She watches him, perched on the worktop, long legs crossed and looking ethereal. He gathers his coat from the chair, looks for his socks and boots, "I'd better go back."
"Are you expecting her?" He thinks there's a note of jealously in her voice and he chooses to ignore it. He hasn't earned the right to question her.
"Nope, but you need to sleep." He hesitates, "You don't need my mess here."
"I'm not sleeping either, Dempsey," Her confession surprises him. She was quick to wake up, he recalls, as if caught napping. "I don't think you are either."
For this he has no clue. "I... uhm... pass out after a few hours."
There's a look of worry in her eyes that causes the longing that he's trying to keep buried, to rise up. He feels his composure start to slip, everything he is meant to be is muddied and if he confesses again, he'll break them both. "I'm just gonna... bathroom."
He splashes water on his face, and tries to find Dempsey underneath the half crazed look. He fails and resolves to leave. He'll see her again in a few days. Go back to the bed sit, keep it going. He's been here before, after Joey. Say his goodbyes and slink back to New York, assuming he can stay alive. The thought makes him feel sick. He wants to mourn the loss before it's began.
He hasn't counted on Harry blocking his exit, standing outside the bathroom door with her hand catching his. "You're not leaving until I let you go."
He tries for bleak humour laced with an insult, an attempt at the normality they had before Mara; before Coltrane. "You're a tough woman to please, Makepeace."
He follows her lead, quietly and respectfully undressed to his underwear. As he stands beside her bed he wants to be certain that she understands. "I didn't come here for this."
"Maybe I need you to stay for me?" She slips into the sheets and he meekly follows, stunned by her words, unable to comprehend that she needs him.
In the darkness he finds courage. He grips her hand and when she shuffles to his side, he weeps into her neck and she doesn't let him go. Not until the sun rises and they're both ready to part.