Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson

Author:Nicola Upson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2011-09-28T05:21:38.394000+00:00

Chapter Ten

I sat in the car coming home this afternoon and wanted you so much that I stopped breathing. Are your eyes blue or grey, or grey-blue? Grey, aren’t they? Perhaps I should never see you again. Perhaps it will take not one, but a hundred and one years to get over you. It’s odd, this vivid physical realisation of someone whose body one has never known, and amusing to be scunnered at every physical approach to a new person by a love months old. You are like a ghost, my dear, coming between me and every other human being, but I’ll lay you yet—in the accepted sense of the word. And London is lovelier when you are in it.

Josephine put the pages of Marta’s diary down for a moment and walked over to the window. The snow in Cavendish Square was looking a little the worse for wear now, having been trampled underfoot by a procession of excited shop workers taking full advantage of their lunch hours, but at her level it was still fresh and magical, settling peacefully on the branches of the trees and, across to her left, providing a striking contrast to one of the city’s finer bronzes. The sculpture was of a mother and child, and Josephine had found herself admiring it more on this visit than she ever had before; the stark, tender intensity of the bond between its figures resonated poignantly with the book she was writing.

For the moment, though, her work had been all but forgotten. The narrow bed was covered in a sea of blue paper, and she sat back down amongst it, curled her feet under her, and began to read again; had this been a book, she would have been fascinated by emotions so eloquently and intimately described; as it was, her confusion at being the object of them destroyed any pleasure in the writing.

I am very happy. Last night, I dreamt that we kissed. This is the first time I have dreamed of you. I have not allowed my imaginings to run riot; I have taken nothing from you in my thoughts. But last night, just after I went to sleep, you were there. You moved towards me and I knew, surprisingly, that you would kiss me. I lay looking at you and you took my face in your hands and kissed me. And then I awoke and heard the clock strike in the darkness. This morning, I know more about you than all your books and spoken words have taught me, and if you ask how one dreamed kiss could have shown me this, I cannot answer.

A knock at the door pulled her sharply back from Marta’s world, and she looked up impatiently. ‘Come in,’ she said, and then: ‘Archie! What on earth are you doing here? Why didn’t you telephone?’

‘Don’t take this personally, but I didn’t really come here to see you.’

‘No?’ She smiled at him, and started to gather up the pages. ‘Well, you certainly know how to humble a girl.

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