Skin Tight by Gary Henderson

Author:Gary Henderson [Henderson, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
ISBN: 9781472525949
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

She hums the tune softly to herself idly swirling the water in the tub with her hand. Slowly he gets up and walks to the tub. He kneels opposite her, but doesn’t catch her eye. She looks at him, then lifts her hand and flicks water into his face. He looks at her. She does it again, this time with a flicker of a smile. She raises a handful of water to her mouth, then looks at him with a slightly mischievous expression. Suddenly she spits the water into his face.

A beat. They both dip their faces in the water, draw in a mouthful, and kneel, facing each other.

A beat, then simultaneously they spit water at each other. They move to embrace, but she has some left, and as their faces draw close, she spits again. He recoils, she giggles. They move to embrace, and he spits the remainder of his. They burst into laughter, hugging each other, falling sideways to the ground, her on top. The laughter and hugging turns to a deep, sensual kiss. They draw their faces apart.

Tom Remember our hay barn?

Elizabeth I remember everything. What made you think of that?

Tom I’m just remembering how good you looked with straw in your hair.

Elizabeth Oh. That. It had its moments. One particularly memorable one.

Tom Which was that?

Elizabeth One day when we were . . . playing in the hay, and you started to . . .

Tom What? What’d I start to do?

Elizabeth Well . . . tickle my bottom. And I thought, ‘Ooh, Tom. This is new . . .’ and I started to . . . respond – you know. And the tickling got more . . . insistent. . . and I suddenly realised I could see both your hands.

They laugh and roll apart.

Tom And you let out an almighty scream and were out the door in one leap.

Elizabeth Do you blame me?

Tom Leaving behind the flattest-looking field mouse I’ve ever seen.

Their laughter continues.

But boy, did he ever have a big smile on his face!

Their laughter increases then subsides.

Elizabeth I miss the farm so much.

Tom We’ve got mice here.

She swipes at him playfully.

Elizabeth You know what I mean.

A beat.

You do too, don’t you.

A beat.

Don’t you.

Tom It was a big part of me. Of both of us. While I was overseas it was like an anchor. The still point in all the chaos.

He gets to his feet. Moves around. She is lying on her stomach, listening to him.

Not just our farm, but this whole place. The plains. The Southern Alps. Names used to roll through my head like some kind of litany. Geraldine. Pleasant Point. Fairlie. Little nothing names full of magic. Up through Burke’s Pass to the big lakes. Tekapo. Pukaki. And the rivers. The Waitaki. The Rangitata. And the big Rakaia churning milky and rich through the gorge. Names that seemed to invoke something vast. That recalled me to who I was and where I belonged. I knew when I came home it would be time to take the farm.

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