Pulse

to this part of the coast.
    ‘How about that swim, then?’ he asked as she brought the bill.
    ‘Oh no. No swim.’
    ‘I’m guessing you might be Polish.’
    ‘My name is Andrea,’ she replied.
    ‘Not that I mind whether you’re Polish or not.’
    ‘I do not also.’
    The thing was, he’d never been much good at flirting; never quite said the right thing. And since the divorce, he’dgot worse at it, if that was possible, because his heart wasn’t in it. Where was his heart? Question for another day. Today’s subject: flirting. He knew all too well the look in a woman’s eye when you didn’t get it right. Where’s he coming from, the look said. Anyway, it took two to flirt. And maybe he was getting too old for it. Thirty-seven, father of two, Gary (8) and Melanie (5). That’s how the papers would put it if he was washed up on the coast some morning.
    ‘I’m an estate agent,’ he said. That was another line which often hampered flirting.
    ‘What is this?’
    ‘I sell houses. And flats. And we do rentals. Rooms, flats, houses.’
    ‘Is it interesting?’
    ‘It’s a living.’
    ‘We all need living.’
    He suddenly thought: no, you can’t flirt either. Maybe you can flirt in your own language, but you can’t do it in English, so we’re even. He also thought: she looks sturdy. Maybe I need someone sturdy. She might be my age, for all I know. Not that he minded one way or the other. He wasn’t going to ask her out.
    He asked her out. There wasn’t much choice of ‘out’ in this town. One cinema, a few pubs, and the couple of other restaurants where she didn’t work. Apart from that, there was bingo for the old people whose flats he would sell after they were dead, and a club where some half-hearted goths loitered. Kids drove into Colchester on a Friday night and bought enough drugs to see them through the weekend. No wonder they burnt down the beach huts.
    He liked her at first for what she wasn’t. She wasn’t flirty, she wasn’t gabby, she wasn’t pushy. She didn’t mind that he was an estate agent, or that he was divorced with two kids. Otherwomen had taken a quick look and said: no. He reckoned women were more attracted to men who were still in a marriage, however fucked up it was, than to ones picking up the pieces afterwards. Not surprising really. But Andrea didn’t mind all that. Didn’t ask questions much. Didn’t answer them either, for that matter. The first time they kissed, he thought of asking if she was really Polish, but then he forgot.
    He suggested his place, but she refused. She said she’d come next time. He spent an anxious few days wondering what it would be like to go to bed with someone different after so long. He drove fifteen miles up the coast to buy condoms where no one knew him. Not that he was ashamed, or embarrassed; just didn’t want anyone knowing, or guessing, his business.
    ‘This is a nice apartment.’
    ‘Well, if an estate agent can’t find himself a decent flat, what’s the world coming to?’
    She had an overnight bag with her; she took off her clothes in the bathroom and came back in a nightdress. They climbed into bed and he turned out the light. She felt very tense to him. He felt very tense to himself.
    ‘We could just cuddle,’ he suggested.
    ‘What is cuddle?’
    He demonstrated.
    ‘So cuddle is not fucking?’
    ‘No, cuddle is not fucking.’
    ‘OK, cuddle.’
    After that they relaxed, and she soon fell asleep.
    The next time, after some kissing, he reacquainted himself with the lubricated struggle of the condom. He knew he was meant to unroll it, but found himself trying to tug it on like a sock, pulling at the rim in a haphazard way. Doing it in the dark didn’t help either. But she didn’t say anything, or cough discouragingly, and eventually he turned towards her. She pulled up her nightie and he climbed on top of her. Hismind was half filled with lust and fucking, and half empty, as if wondering what he was up to. He didn’t think about her very much that first time. It was a question of looking out for yourself. Later you could look out for the other person.
    ‘Was that OK?’ he said after a while.
    ‘Yes, was OK.’
    Vernon laughed in the dark.
    ‘Are you laughing at me? Was not OK for you?’
    ‘Andrea,’ he said, ‘everything’s OK. Nobody’s laughing at you. I won’t let anyone laugh at you.’ As she slept, he thought: we’re starting again, both of us. I don’t know what she’s had in her past,