Dead Man's Grip

had a job like that. Still see his kids every night and every weekend.
    Except, he knew, he’d never be content if he was stuck in one place. He liked the freedom of the road. Needed it. He wondered if the guy turning the lock of the estate agency door had ever looked at a rig like his and thought to himself, I wish I was twisting the ignition key of one of those instead.
    Other pastures always looked greener. The one certainty he’d learned in life was that no matter who you were or what you did, shit happened. And one day you would tread in it.

3
    Tony nicknamed her Santa because the first time they made love, that snowy December afternoon in his parents’ house in the Hamptons, Suzy had been wearing dark red satin underwear. He told her that all his Christmases had come at once.
    She, grinning, gave him the cheesy reply that she was glad that was the only thing that had come at once.
    They had been smitten with each other since that day. So much so that Tony Revere had abandoned his plans to study for a business degree at Harvard and instead had followed her from New York to England, much to the dismay of his control-freak mother, and joined her at the University of Brighton.
    ‘Lazybones!’ he said. ‘You goddamn lazybones.’
    ‘So, I don’t have any lectures today, OK?’
    ‘It’s half eight, right?’
    ‘Yep, I know. I heard you at eight o’clock. Then eight fifteen. Then eight twenty-five. I need my beauty sleep.’
    He looked down at her and said, ‘You’re beautiful enough. And you know what? We haven’t made love since midnight.’
    ‘Are you going off me?’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘I’ll have to get the old black book out.’
    ‘Oh yeah?’
    She raised a hand and gripped him, firmly but gently, below his belt buckle, then grinned as he gasped. ‘Come back to bed.’
    ‘I have to see my tutor, then I have a lecture.’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘Galbraithian challenges in today’s workforce.’
    ‘Wow. Lucky you.’
    ‘Yeah. Faced with that or a morning in bed with you, it’s a no-brainer. ’
    ‘Good. Come back to bed.’
    ‘I am so not coming back to bed. You know what’s going to happen if I don’t get good grades this semester?’
    ‘Back to the States to Mummy.’
    ‘You know my mom.’
    ‘Uh huh, I do. Scary lady.’
    ‘You said it.’
    ‘So, you’re afraid of her?’
    ‘Everyone’s afraid of my mom.’
    Suzy sat up a little and scooped some of her long dark hair back. ‘More afraid of her than you are of me? Is that the real reason why you came here? I’m just the excuse for you to escape from her?’
    He leaned down and kissed her, tasted her sleepy breath and inhaled it deeply, loving it. ‘You’re gorgeous, did I tell you that?’
    ‘About a thousand times. You’re gorgeous, too. Did I tell you that?’
    ‘About ten thousand times. You’re like a record that got stuck in a groove,’ he said, hitching the straps of his lightweight rucksack over his shoulders.
    She looked at him. He was tall and lean, his short dark hair gelled in uneven spikes, with several days’ growth of stubble, which she liked to feel against her face. He was dressed in a padded anorak over two layers of T-shirt, jeans and trainers, and smelled of the Abercrombie & Fitch cologne she really liked.
    There was an air of confidence about him that had captivated her the first time they had spoken, down in the dark basement bar of Pravda, in Greenwich Village, when she’d been in New York on holiday with her best friend, Katie. Poor Katie had ended up flying back to England on her own, while she had stayed on with Tony.
    ‘When will you be back?’ she said.
    ‘As soon as I can.’
    ‘That’s not soon enough!’
    He kissed her again. ‘I love you. I adore you.’
    She windmilled her hands. ‘More.’
    ‘You’re the most stunning, beautiful, lovely creature on the planet.’
    ‘More!’
    ‘Every second I’m away from you, I miss you so much it hurts.’
    She windmilled her hands again. ‘More!’
    ‘Now you’re being greedy.’
    ‘You make me greedy.’
    ‘And you make me horny as hell. I’m going before I have to do something about it!’
    ‘You’re really going to leave me like this?’
    ‘Yep.’
    He kissed her again, tugged a baseball cap on to his head, then wheeled his mountain bike out of the apartment, down the stairs, through the front door and into the cold, blustery April morning. As he closed the front door behind him, he breathed in the salty tang of the Brighton