The bonnet of the Anglia rises in a shark’s fin to meet her curving spine. A hand dangles over the edge, stroking metal, steaming chrome. On her right he traces honeyed patterns across her bared stomach, he whispers nonsense words into skin, and lets language lean against her intimately, the way he wants to. The Ford sags under their weight, and all around them the jacarandas sigh under their heavy lilac blossoms.
They lie that way for an hour in the afternoon sun. Rebecca sometimes murmurs nonsense words to him, he sometimes rests in silence, and breathes the scent of her. Musk, orange, the strawberry Chupa Chup she has just finished. Holidays never seem pure. Not compared to this. Adventures started on home streets and finished in a secluded driveway. Their skin fanned out on a violet carapace of car, pale purple flowers falling around them, onto them.
He had never considered himself romantic before.
She turns to him, eyes hazy and filled with calm, soft lips pulled back over teeth. She has a chipped smile.
“I want to stay here . . . but it’s getting cold.” Rebecca whispers and he bites his lip. If he thinks about the taste in his mouth, he remembers the liqueur of her skin. If they go inside he knows that the jacaranda blossoms will be forgotten, instead they’ll find their way to a bed, forget romance, remember themselves in a moment of lust.
Tomorrow he’ll go back to his day job, a men’s barber. She’ll go back to the hospital, to care for her patients, to disregard herself. They know this is the way it will be. The resignation is not reflected in their eyes, but in the fine lines around them, the frown wrinkles settling at their mouths. He forgets these when he sees her on the Anglia (and sometimes he forgets them when they’re in bed). She hadn’t noticed his until he’d pointed them out. They were getting closer to a place which the young resisted with fervent stabs of desperate hands.
“We’ll stay here,” he says, turning to flick a velvet-soft flower from the windscreen, just to feel the texture of it. As she settles sinuous against the curves of the Anglia once more, he takes a second flower and turns, presses it against her stomach curiously. He strokes a petal, then strokes the curve of her hip and lets the flower fall.
“What do you want for dinner?”
She chuckles throatily against the still-warm metal. “I want anything. I don’t care. Food doesn’t matter. I just . . . don’t want to spoil the taste in my mouth.”
“We’ll get you another lollipop.”
“I don’t want another one.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I don’t want to sell this car.”
“We won’t.”
“We need the money.”
He strokes his tongue against her skin, watches in awe as gooseflesh ripples away from the point. He marvels, it’s been fifteen years, and she still responds to him. A sigh against her skin, and he keeps his eyes open, staring past her to the lilac fin. He watches—interested—as another blossom falls in front of his eyes, lands on her belly. It rolls off as she shivers.
“We need this more,” he says against her skin, nonsense words washing over her. Rebecca sits up slowly, groans a little as she captures his mouth with her fingers.
“I know.”
“Forget about tomorrow.”
“I can’t.” And suddenly he can see all those fine lines again and a weariness pushes at him. He grimaces, moulds his lips against her soft fingers, breathes in the strawberry scent and watches as some of those fine lines start to fall away from her face again. He knows he can make her forget about tomorrow, wipe past and future away and centre her. He always feels stunned as he watches the hidden pain in her eyes collapse, leaving nothing but amazement.
“Two flowers just fell on your head.” She giggles suddenly. “God, that was so . . . ”
“Awesome?” He volunteers, knowing her penchant for the word. He reaches up with one scissor-scarred hand and touches the two flowers that have settled like birds, delicate and soft. He leaves them there and grins.
“We’ll get a blanket, we’ll get some snapper from Charlie’s, we’ll stay here.” There is urgency in his voice. She nods.
“You go. I’ll stay here. Get the blanket with the feathers. I’ll be waiting.”
er voice presses into him like Maricopa honey as he slides bonelessly off the car and walks quickly to the house. He turns back to see how she’s settled and notices how the flowers rain over her cold but reclined form. He knows when the heart of winter settles around them they will no longer do this and will move into the garage instead, where The Beatles will fall around them instead of violet flowers, where they’ll share their timeless moments. He, Rebecca, and a lilac Ford Anglia.
