Before You Say Goodbye

Chapter 3

Autumn’s tiny top-floor apartment had actually been the attic of the flat below, but her landlord, Walter, had knocked a hole in the ceiling forty years ago and put in a wrought-iron spiral staircase. He’d been renting the space out, illegally, as far as she understood, ever since. The apartment was thirteen stories up, but the lift, when it worked, only went up as far as the sixth floor. It had been fixed for several weeks now and experience had taught her it was almost certainly due another breakdown soon.

Autumn and Bowie climbed the staircase in absolute silence. She really wished he would say something. She thought about trying to make conversation, but he looked breathless and consumed by something, so she went back to focusing on not falling over instead. It felt like the longest climb she’d ever done. She was relieved when they reached the door and she finally let them in. There was no hallway, the door opened straight into her very small, neat and tidy living room.

“This is lovely,” Bowie said, smiling kindly.

“Make yourself at home.” She tossed her bag onto her dressing table — irritatingly positioned in the living room because her bedroom was too small and there was nowhere else to put it — and headed to the kitchen to put on the kettle.

“What’s your favourite movie?” he called from the living room.

“ Stand By Me ,” she said immediately. He set about navigating her television set to a streaming service. She realised as she added soya milk to their teacups that she was smiling to herself. She forced her face straight before rejoining him in the living room.

“You’ve seen this, right?” she asked, handing him a mug of tea. He tutted a yes.

She sat down beside him and stared at the television. They were silent for the longest time, but she got the distinct impression he was not watching the movie. She wasn’t, either. She was too busy feeling confused and a little bit ashamed of herself.

Seeing Bowie sitting on the sofa had imprisoned her self-control and restrained her capacity for rational thinking. She was stopping herself from kissing him now, not because he was Bluebell’s brother but because she was not sure if he wanted her to. She felt reasonably guilty about that, but she liked him too much to hold back anymore.

She watched Bowie from the corner of her eye, wondering what he would do if she straddled him, or took off her tea dress, or hiked it up and touched herself. He moved, distracting her from her sexy thoughts by stretching his legs a little wider so that his knee was warm against hers. She didn’t know if it was deliberate or not. She was not usually so confused about how men felt about her, but Bowie was different. He seemed like the type of man who might innocently accompany a woman to her home in the middle of the night. He caught her eye once or twice and smiled. For a while she felt something fizzing between them, but then he ran his hand through his straight, blonde hair, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. He was tired. He might be bored. He could be here without intention. She might make an idiot of herself.

She admired him from head to foot for what must have been the sixth or seventh time. He was tall, but apparently uncomfortable with it, because there was a little stoop in his neck when he walked. His demeanour was far from what she normally went for. She usually liked men who were much more confident.

Yet men usually expected her to be better behaved. They could rarely believe she really wanted them to come home with her. One of her most recent conquests had asked her if she was secretly a serial killer.

“Why would a girl like you take a man home on the first night?” he asked her. “Don’t you think you’re worth a little more than that?”

Autumn slept with him once then never called him again. He left forty-two messages on her answering machine in three weeks. Autumn thought that spoke volumes about who was worth what.

She knew that there were people out there who might describe her as loose, but Autumn didn’t care for one-dimensional descriptions of people based on something as trivial as who they slept with and how often.

But with Bowie, it was different. She cared how he felt about her. It was all very confusing and it was making her act weirdly. Typically unshakably confident, she did not feel like herself tonight.

Suddenly, he was speaking. “Tell me what you do?” he asked her. They’d spent hours talking earlier, but not, so far, about work. They’d had so many other more important things to say to each other. Small talk had been abandoned in favour of politics, economics, and social justice.

“I’m a writer.” Autumn could still barely believe she got to say that about herself. She’d once been a social media manager for a charity, but had written a book three years before and seen some success when she’d published it online. Recently, it had been bought and released by a publishing house with a good reputation. It was all she’d ever wanted for herself, ever since she’d won a second-hand typewriter in a school tombola when she was eight years old.

“Ah, yes, Bluebell did mention that. What do you write?” he asked her.

“Everything.” She beamed. She meant it. She wrote short stories, blogs, poetry and novels. Bowie laughed.

“OK, but what do you mainly write?”

“Novels,” she said.

He looked impressed.

“Have you written anything I might have read?”

“Probably not. I wrote something online. It was picked up by a publisher and recently released.”

“What’s it about?”

“A pig called Beans—”

“ Beans: An Extraordinary Pig Tale ?”

“Yes!”

He smiled and turned his body excitedly to face her, spilling some of his tea on her sofa as he did so. He wiped absently at the cushion as he talked.

“Oh my God. I read your book. I read it last year. I thought it was amazing. I actually pre-ordered it from Amazon when I heard that they were releasing it in paperback because I wanted to give it to my dad. It hasn’t turned up yet, though.”

She leaned across her coffee table and moved a newspaper to pick up one of three copies she had kept for herself. She handed it to him and told him he could keep it for his father. Bowie held her work in his fingers and flicked through the pages. Autumn had never been prouder. It was her fourth attempt at having her work published and, although she had known it was a good story, she had been surprised by its success.

“I wrote the truth, as I saw it, from a pig’s perspective. I wanted meat-eaters to read it, but the vegan community has been carrying my sales. I’m not complaining. I’d be mad to. But I do hope it might reach the right people eventually.”

“As soon as you said that you’d written a book about a pig, I knew it must be this. I can’t believe I’m meeting you.”

She eyed him sceptically.

“I am not bullshitting you, I really have read it. And I really do love it.”

“I can’t believe you’ve read it.”

“I can’t believe Bluebell never told me you wrote it,” he said. “Actually, I don’t talk to her much about what I’m reading. We have completely different tastes. And she might have told me, actually, a while back, one afternoon when I wasn’t very well. Now that I think about it, it’s ringing a bell. Wow! This is like fate or something. You were in our lives long before we knew you. Bluebell will love this. She’s crazy about this stuff!”

Autumn stopped herself from rolling her eyes, turning her attention back to real life.

“She’s the most unique person I have ever met,” Autumn said.

“An amazing sister,” he said. “Protective.”

He gave Autumn a pointed look. She winced, feeling suddenly guilty. He was confirming her concerns, that being here without speaking to Bluebell first was inappropriate. An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Autumn gripped the top of her beer bottle in frustration.

“I think I should get going,” he said, standing up quite suddenly and moving towards the door. Autumn was incredulous. Had she been reading this completely wrong? Sure, there was the Bluebell thing, but she’d still been sure they were seconds away from kissing. He liked her work and was attracted to her, or so she’d thought. He’d been ranting and raving about fate and serendipity thirty seconds before, for crying out loud. But Bowie, who she wanted more and more with every step he took away from her, was nodding with purpose.

“It’s late and you have your big meeting in a few hours.”

She’d told him that and now he was using it as an excuse. It disappointed her but she nodded, standing up to follow him to the door.

“You’re right,” she said.

“And my family will be wondering where I am. And Bluebell would just hate this.”

“OK,” she said. He opened the door and turned to face her, pulling her into a hug and then dropping her before she’d had a chance to hold him too close.

“It was really nice to meet you. I hope to see you again one day. Thanks for the tea. Bye, Autumn.”

And then he was gone. Autumn stared at the door, listening for his footsteps on her rickety old staircase, but there wasn’t a sound. He was still standing outside. She put their empty teacups on her dresser and stood a little longer. Silence. Enough men had come and gone from this apartment for her to know it was impossible for them to leave without making a noise. Why was he still standing there? She didn’t know what to do now. She knew she should let him go, but she didn’t want to. Clearly, he did not want to leave either.

Groaning at her lack of self-control, she marched to the door and opened it. Bowie was standing at the top of her staircase, his head in his hands. He peered at her from above his fingertips. In his eyes she saw embarrassment and relief.

“Whatever it is, stop thinking about it.” She held out her hand, her eyes pleading.

With one stride of his lanky legs, he was before her. He lifted her up and kissed her.

* * *

He tried to carry her into the bathroom, but she grabbed the wall and guided him to her bedroom, hoping she’d moved her dirty washing off the floor. As they toppled onto the bed, he was hard against her. She moaned. Every move he made was fraught with desperation. This was going to be good, she could tell. She freed herself from his grasp, reached to pull his T-shirt over his head, but he stopped her, grabbing her hand and pinning it to the pillow.

“I have a scar,” he said. He froze and closed his eyes, in obvious embarrassment. Autumn didn’t know what to do, so she lay there, watching the part of his neck where his heartbeat was still expressing the extent of his desire, and waiting for him to elaborate.

“Excuse me?” she said, when he didn’t say anything further.

“I have a scar. On my stomach. Quite a big one, so I normally don’t take my T-shirt off when I have sex.”

She had no idea what she should say. Would he want her to reassure him? Probably.

“That’s fine. It’s OK. You don’t have to take it off.”

It wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d imagined them together, but her insides were aching for him and she’d take him half-dressed over not at all. He wet his lips, pressing them together. She panicked. Had she said the wrong thing? Did he think she’d be disgusted by his scar? She was quite sure she wouldn’t be. Should she tell him that? What if she saw it and was disgusted by it? Autumn didn’t think she had ever seen a real scar. Not a proper one.

“Or you can take your top off if you want to. I’m sure it will be fine. I don’t think I’ll find the scar disgusting or anything.”

Autumn felt him tense. That had definitely been the wrong thing to say. She scolded herself for being the most inadvertently uncouth person in the whole world. This was why she normally said virtually nothing at all. She was much cooler when she was acting aloof. Bowie released her wrist, but did not vacate the space between her legs. They were silent. Autumn, who had once traded sex acts for a safe place to sleep, marvelled at how difficult it had been to coax this bashful man into bed with her. She watched him blink at her, his head hovering a little way above hers, his hips still pinning hers against her mattress, his T-shirt still raised half-mast, and felt a type of terror she’d never experienced before. She was frightened he might try to leave again.

Autumn had never been so frustrated. She’d never found herself so incapable of predicting an outcome. She had expected Bowie to cast himself upon her and burst like a volcano for two reasons. First, that’s what men usually did. Second, there’d been sexual tension raging between the two of them for several hours. She was eager to begin the inevitable and he’d thrown himself at her as though he was, too. But now, this.

She tried again. “I’m sure they’re fine. I don’t mind. Or care. I bet I wouldn’t have even noticed. If I had, I wouldn’t have said anything. I mean, I might have, but nothing bad.”

Bowie’s mouth twitched. She implored herself to shut up, but her mouth was moving again.

“I—”

“Stop, Autumn.” He laughed.

She was glad he found her conversational clumsiness funny. She relaxed a little, but he rolled off her and it made her feel empty. Bowie dragged the duvet over himself and sighed. She wanted to climb beneath it with him, but was afraid he was putting up a barrier between them and she didn’t want to push him if he wasn’t comfortable with what they were doing.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s OK.”

“It’s just that I don’t do this very often. Not with women like you.”

Women like her? She used her eyes to question him. He reached out to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“Look at you. You’re incredible. I bet you don’t have a single flaw.”

Autumn didn’t know what to say. She worked hard to look the way she did. She practised yoga and went to the gym. She was confident and comfortable with how she looked. She couldn’t really identify with someone who wasn’t and didn’t want to pretend that she could. She took his hand in hers.

“We don’t have to do this, Bowie.”

What was happening to her? She was ashamed to admit she would typically be irritated by dramatics like these, but she felt concerned for Bowie and didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable around her.

“Get into bed with me?” he asked.

She nodded, thought about taking her clothes off, remembered she didn’t want to pressure him, then slipped beneath her flowery bedspread fully clothed, shuffling as close to him as she could get. They lay side by side, wrapped in her floral duvet, staring at each other.

“Everything you do is so sexy,” he said. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing he would normally say, but she could tell he was being sincere. She smiled shyly.

“I don’t do it on purpose.”

“Yes, you do.” He called her out. She giggled, then blushed. Despite her confidence, she wasn’t used to people looking her in the face for so long.

“I like your freckles,” he said.

“I like your eyes,” she replied.

“I like your nose,” he said.

“I like your mouth,” she replied.

“I like your hair,” he said.

“I like your hair,” she replied.

They were silent for a minute or so, his fingertips drifting seductively over the bare skin of her neck.

“This is so stupid,” he whispered. He was staring at her as though she was the best thing he’d ever seen.

“I know,” she said. She wasn’t quite sure which bit of ‘this’ he was referring to: his shyness, the intensity of what they were feeling, or a familiarity neither could explain. To her, all of it was stupid. They should be having sex by now.

He shuffled closer and kissed her with a level of tenderness she was not expecting. She resisted the urge to press her mouth more firmly into his. Autumn had never desired a man like this before. She knew she needed to move slowly. Bowie was nervous and needed to lead this. Her patience paid off as a few moments later, he moved himself on top of her and back between her legs, but he didn’t try to take her clothes off. Instead he wrapped his arms around her back, so that every part of him was touching every part of her, and kissed her mouth for the longest time, then her neck, then her collarbone, so gently she wasn’t sure if it was his lips or his breath she was feeling against her skin. For someone who did not do this very often, Bowie knew what he was doing. She shuddered in anticipation and felt him smile in response.

“Tease,” she said. He laughed and it broke the ice. Until then she’d been frozen rigid, afraid anything she did might scare him away. Now, she let her hands wander across his chest and torso. When he did not object, she pushed him up onto his knees and pulled his T-shirt up over his head. His arms moved across his torso to protect her gaze from the scar he was so obviously self-conscious about, a scar she had forgotten existed until now. It was large. She didn’t know anything about operations, but she knew a scar like that didn’t come from insignificant situations. She guessed there had been an accident. Perhaps even a transplant. She could see now why it made him feel self-conscious. She bet there’d been women who’d lost interest in him because of it. She was ashamed to admit to herself that, had Bowie been any other man, she might have been one of them.

Pained by his uncertainty, she sat up.

“Don’t do that, Bowie,” she whispered, touching her fingertips to his cheek. “You’re beautiful.”

When he didn’t move, she took hold of his wrists and pulled them gently away from his stomach. He resisted at first, then relaxed. She pulled him back on top of her and ran her hands to the button on his jeans, gently rocking herself against the weight of him and moaning when his erection hit her knickers.

There was no stopping him then. He ripped the rest of their clothes off, with no further hint of shame. She was about to stop him charging into her body to talk about protection when he took it upon himself.

“Tell me you have a condom,” he said.

“In the drawer beside the bed.”

He nodded, moving to retrieve one. Whilst he did what he needed to do, Autumn found herself inexplicably reassured by the fact he clearly didn’t have one himself. Perhaps he was telling her the truth, maybe he really didn’t do this very often. That felt important to her not because she would ever judge anyone for having sex often, but because it suddenly felt really important to her he hadn’t lied about it. She wasn’t sure why.

She was so busy ruminating that she missed him putting it on, and he was suddenly inside her. He was big and it took her by surprise. Autumn whimpered with pleasure. He lifted his head from the pillow beside her head.

“Are you OK?” he whispered. He sounded alarmed by her reaction. “I mean . . . I’m sorry, is this OK?”

She was breathless in her reply.

“Yes.”

This first time was quick and ugly. They bit and scratched one another, until she came and he followed. The second time was sweeter and gentler. He stroked her hair and kissed her, no teeth this time. By the third time, they were sleepy and satisfied, but thoroughly relaxed with one another. The sex was slow and punctuated with conversation. It ended with her orgasm but without his when he said he could no longer keep his eyes open. He held her to him and quickly fell asleep.

Autumn lay beside him, staring at his sleeping face with an earnestness that might alarm him if he caught her. She felt like she might be in trouble.

* * *

She must have been dozing because suddenly her alarm was screaming at her. She’d last looked at her clock less than two hours before. Autumn loved sleep, but she didn’t feel tired today. She was thrilled to find Bowie beside her and as excited to see her as she was to see him.

Still, she hurried their fourth tryst along. There was nothing for it. She really had to make it to her morning meeting and it was important that she looked presentable when she did. On no sleep, that was going to take some effort, and as an irregular user of public transport she still hadn’t completely worked out how to navigate the complicated New York subway system, so she needed plenty of time to get there. Six months in this city had taught her she could not rely on online time estimations to accurately predict how long a journey would take. Anything could happen: a burst water pipe, a public emergency, a flash mob, a parade or protest. She thought Bowie understood, but he followed her into the shower and she realised his earlier passion had been prompted by his own lust rather than an understanding that she was in a rush.

Bowie was insatiable. Less than half an hour later, as she sat at her dressing table trying to put on her underwear, he knelt pointedly before her, running his hands up her smooth legs and eyeing her suggestively. She sighed. Oh, God, how she pined. Still, she pushed him playfully away.

“I have to get ready.”

“I’m helping.” He grinned, rolling her knickers vaguely in the right direction.

“You are not helping.” She pushed him again, reluctantly raising her shoulders to stop him from nuzzling into her neck. He sighed and stood up, throwing himself dramatically onto her sofa.

“Love-hoarder,” he mumbled sulkily. She laughed and cocked her head, desperate to lock away a memory of him until she could see him again. It was no good — she would forget what he looked like the moment he left. She was imaginative, but he was perfect to her now, like the sunset or a budding rose, and she knew her mind’s eye could never do him justice. He was unimaginable — a dream — and he’d be nothing except a jumbled mess of frustratingly pretty features whenever she thought of him. She wondered if he was on social media. Bluebell was not as she didn’t like it, and Autumn knew, somehow, that Bowie would feel the same.

“What’s your last name?” she asked. Bowie blinked at her.

“Your best friend is my sister and you don’t know our second name?”

“It never came up.”

“It’s Whittle,” he said. “But don’t try to find me on Facebook. I’m not on it.”

“There’s still Google,” she said. He laughed a little nervously.

“What’s yours?”

“You’ve read my book and you don’t know my second name?” She mimicked him and he laughed. “Are you going to google me?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“It’s Black.”

“Any middle names?”

She didn’t want to tell him. The reaction was always the same.

“Rain.”

He laughed.

“Your name is Bowie and your sister is called Bluebell — you’re in no position to laugh about names.”

“That’s why I get to laugh,” he said.

“Don’t you have a job to get to too?” she said teasingly. “Bills to pay? Bread to put on tables?”

He scrunched up his face. “You really don’t know anything about our family, huh?”

She felt her mood deflate. No, she didn’t. Both Bluebell and Bowie had managed to make her feel as though she had known them for ever without really telling her anything about themselves at all. He sensed her apprehension.

“I do have a job, but I don’t need to get to it.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a songwriter and musical director. I’m in the theatre.”

She smiled, turning back to her mirror.

“What?” He sounded a little defensive.

“Of course you are.” She smirked sarcastically, watching him in her mirror.

“Don’t be like that. I bet it annoys you to death when people snicker at you being a writer, and look at you. You’re wildly successful.”

She looked pointedly around her tiny flat. It had four rooms: a living room she had struggled to squeeze a sofa, a television, a coffee table and a dressing table into, a bedroom with just enough floor space for two people to slip past one another if they needed to, a functional kitchen and a teeny tiny bathroom. Autumn could walk across the entire apartment in ten strides. Bowie could probably do it in five. Still, she’d done her best with it. She’d ripped the shoddy carpets up and painted the floors white to lighten up the rooms, adorning each of them with pale pink rugs that matched her curtains. There were blankets and cushions everywhere, and attractive antique furnishings. She had made it the best it could be.

She scoffed. “ Wildly successful? Sure I am.”

“You live in Manhattan,” he said.

“I can only afford to do that because I flirted with my landlord, Walter, until he asked me what I could afford to pay.” She was worried about how he might react to her admission, but he laughed.

“Doesn’t he want anything in return?”

“He’s about a hundred and two years old,” Autumn said, exaggerating. Bowie laughed again. “He doesn’t need the money. He just wanted a tenant who wouldn’t cause him any trouble.”

“Well, you look like all sorts of trouble to me.”

“I’m not the kind of trouble he’s afraid of,” she said. “I bring him food and cigarettes. Sometimes I clean his apartment for him. I’m undisruptive and quiet.”

“That’s not my experience of you.” Bowie smirked. She blushed and he smiled. “Well, you can afford to live in New York. That’s impressive. And success isn’t measured by the things you own, it’s measured by how happy your heart is.”

He stood up and walked towards her, leaning down to bring his face close to hers. It was an incredibly intimate gesture.

“Is your heart happy, Autumn?”

She kissed him. She thought it might be the first time she had ever moved in to kiss a man first. She pulled away before they got too caught up in each other.

“What are you doing to me, Bowie?”

“Magic,” he said, standing up. He looked thoroughly pleased with himself. He reached out and gestured for her to join him on his feet, cupping her face in his hands. “Can I see you tonight?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. I don’t have a mobile phone, but write your number on my hand and I’ll call you later.”

“From a payphone?” she asked.

“Probably.”

She shook her head as she wrote.

“No mobile phone, no Facebook. You’re the most bohemian person I’ve ever met.”

He smiled, kissed her nose and turned on his heel. Hopeful and excited, Autumn watched from the door as he lumbered, ungracefully but with absolute purpose, down the stairs and across the hall, swinging his arms to a tune and whistling a song as he went.

* * *

How sure she had been before she’d met Bowie that instant connections were the invention of romantic minds. How adamantly she had believed that real love did not exist. Autumn revisited their first evening together many times in the years that followed. She could never figure out what it was he had done differently to everybody else. She’d compared him to the dozens of other men she’d slept with in the run-up to their meeting, analysing their conversations, desperately searching for something he might have said or done to forge the connection that had formed between them the second their eyes met. Why had her heart chosen this man? Plenty of perfectly adequate potential partners had presented themselves over the years, some more impressive than Bowie at first glance, and Autumn had never been interested in any of them.

She searched, but there was nothing there out of the ordinary. No perfect storm, no algorithm, no rhyme or reason, no explanation. It just was. Their love for each other had been instant and impossible to ignore.

Celestial, even.