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‘I know what you’re after,’ she grinned back at him, knowing full well he’d have a raging hard on. He woke up with one every morning. In that way he was a bit like the Queensland weather, predictable.
‘Just shut up and come here,’ he said, flinging back the sheets to reveal that her guess was indeed correct.
Not needing to be persuaded, Jennifer approached the bed and succumbed to half an hour of intense passion. Before Aidan, she hadn’t been aware of ever having such a voracious sexual appetite but he’d definitely woken something up inside of her that she supposed must have been lying dormant before.
After what was, as ever, mind-blowing, energetic sex, they both lay flat on their backs panting, sated, sweating.
‘You’re amazing,’ said Aidan, idly tweaking her left nipple.
‘So are you,’ she replied. ‘Seriously amazing.’
‘Love you,’ he said, hugging her tight. As he did so Jennifer marvelled at how safe he made her feel. The chemistry between them was something she doubted could ever be replicated with anyone else, to the point that sometimes they were almost savagely passionate with one another. She didn’t think there was anything she wouldn’t be prepared to do with him physically and, as a result, she had never felt so confident in her own body or so empowered in terms of the effect she knew she was capable of having upon him.
‘Are we going to the beach then?’ said Aidan.
‘Not the building site?’
‘Nah, that can wait. It’s too much of a scorcher. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘OK,’ she agreed, flopping over to her side so she could get up and start getting the beach bag ready.
Just then the phone rang.
‘Yours,’ said Jennifer lazily, though a second later she regretted this when she remembered it would probably be the scheduled phone call she’d arranged with her parents before they retired to bed on the other side of the world.
‘Yup, here she is,’ Aidan was saying, in a fed up, vaguely unfriendly tone which simply confirmed it was them.
Jennifer sat up and reached over for her vest top which she pulled back over her head before taking the phone from him. It was such a small apartment that there wasn’t anywhere for her to go where she could talk without Aidan listening in, so rather than standing up in the tiny kitchen, where he’d be able to hear every word anyway, she just stayed where she was. Never having any privacy did get to her sometimes.
‘Hi Mum, how are you?’
‘Oh all right,’ said the so familiar voice, made tinny from the sheer distance it was travelling.
Jennifer pictured her parents, sitting by the phone together, probably ready for bed in their dressing gowns, in the lounge with the radiators blasting.
‘What have you been up to this week, Jen?’
‘Oh, this and that,’ she replied ‘Working, bit of beach action. You know? The usual really.’
‘I thought you were going to that Surfers Paradise place.’
‘Oh yeah, we were, but we didn’t in the end,’ said Jennifer, turning around so she had her back to Aidan. He was looking grumpy like he always did when she chatted to her parents. It was getting on her nerves.
Three months ago, at exactly the time her mum and dad had been expecting her to be landing at Gatwick, back from her holiday with the girls, Jennifer had rung them from Athens to break the news that she’d essentially decided to throw caution to the wind and take an unplanned gap year. In Australia…
To say they’d been furious had been an understatement. Her dad had shouted, her mum had wept though, as it transpired, it was less the fact she wasn’t coming home which enraged them so much, but more the fact she wasn’t coming back because of a man they hadn’t met.
Their reaction had been so bad that Jennifer had seriously considered giving up on her adventure altogether. Had even thought it might be best just to admit defeat and head home straight away, tail between her legs. In fact she’d just been about to tell them that she was sorry and that she would do exactly that, when her mother had interjected with, ‘One whiff of male attention and you go and lose your head, Jennifer. It’s pathetic when you think about it.’
And that one comment changed everything. For at that point, Jennifer’s mood had switched from apologetic and shamefaced to resolute and determined. She’d been utterly insulted by her mother’s accusation and had said as much to Aidan when she’d got off the phone a few minutes later in order to have a think, on the proviso that she’d call them back with a decision.
She’d left him drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette in a dusty roadside cafe in a busy square and as she’d approached, it was obvious to her that despite trying to appear nonchalant he was in fact really nervous.
‘What happened?’ he’d asked, as soon as she was in earshot.
‘They went bloody mad,’ she replied, still a bit shell-shocked from the whole experience. She jumped as a moped whizzed past, almost knocking her off her feet.
Gathering her wits and checking left and right she finally reached his table, mind whirling as she tried to comprehend what had just happened.
She’d always hated confrontation and miraculously had managed to avoid too many bust-ups with her fairly conservative parents up until this point, which was partly why she was so livid with them now. How dare her mother have talked to her like that? Like she was some stupid, dozy tart who was so needy of male attention she’d do anything to get it. She’d never given them any cause for worry or upset in the past and yet now she was deviating off the path just a little bit, they didn’t have the patience to at least try and understand her reasons. Yes, Aidan had been a massive part of the decision not to go home, but that was life. You met people and things happened and given that they hadn’t even met him it seemed ridiculous for them to have formed an opinion of him already. It was so unfair. They gave her no credit whatsoever.
‘So what’s the score then?’
‘I said I’d call back in ten minutes so we could all cool off,’ she’d replied, avoiding both the question and his stare.
‘And?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she’d replied truthfully, feeling unbelievably torn ‘They’re really mad at me, Aidan, and it was awful hearing them so pissed off. Plus, Mum’s desperately worried that if I defer I might lose my place altogether.’
‘Well she would say that wouldn’t she,’ suggested Aidan.
Jennifer shrugged, doubtful her mum was that manipulative. ‘I’m so thirsty I almost feel faint, have you got enough money for me to get a beer?’
‘Yeah, go for it,’ said Aidan pulling some ancient Drachma notes out of his pocket and signalling to the waiter.
A few minutes later, once Jennifer had had the chance to glug back some of her cold lager, he enquired again. ‘So what’s it to be then, babe? Sunshine, the land of opportunity and some hot romance with me? Or back to mummy and daddy and the rain?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jennifer had replied honestly. She felt really conflicted and a bit stupid. She’d probably been deeply deluded thinking her parents would just accept her reasoning for ducking out. Plus, deep down she really didn’t want to throw away her chance to go to university, even if it meant admitting she’d been rash. Their fury had knocked her though and treating her like a child made it harder for her to decide what to do. She was so cross with them.
Realising she needed time to think Aidan dropped the subject so they sat in slightly tense silence, watching the world go by, until Jennifer got up. ‘Right, there’s no point sitting here putting it off. I’d better go and ring them back.’
As she marched back across the busy road to the centre of the square where the phone booth was, her head was spinning. What should she do? She still had no idea, so decided it would probably be best just to see how the conversation panned out.
Her dad had picked up the phone. ‘Right, now I hope you’re phoning to tell us you’ve seen sense.’
This wasn’t a good start in terms of making her feel like returning to the bosom of her family.
‘I’ve phoned to discuss things like an adult,’ she shot back.
‘Well, that’s a start,’ he said. ‘So in that case, surely you can see that running off with some good for nothing beach bum, while ruining your life in the process, is entirely the wrong thing to do?’
It was a shame he’d taken that approach. It was a shame he hadn’t simply asked her how she was and how she was feeling because he might have got a very different response to the one he received and the conversation may have played out another way.
As it was, three days later Jennifer and Aidan boarded a plane to Australia and, although she was experiencing an underlying sense of panic as to whether or not it was definitely what she really wanted, the fact she was proving a point to her parents had become enough to prevent her from changing her mind.
If relations had been bad at that point they’d taken an even worse turn once she’d phoned them again from Sydney, where they’d stayed for the first few weeks before heading to Queensland, at which point her furious dad had demanded to speak to her boyfriend. At first Aidan had refused, which had made Jennifer feel very uneasy. Eventually however, sensing that if he didn’t Jennifer was going to freak out, he’d eventually acquiesced, albeit reluctantly, at which point her dad had given him very short shrift, venting all his frustrations and feelings of helplessness at the person he held responsible for his daughter’s unfamiliar behaviour.
Aidan hadn’t appreciated being shouted at though. Rather than taking the reprimanding on the chin, he’d retaliated with a few barbed insults of his own which hadn’t helped matters in any way. Now, a few months on, things had calmed down a bit but no matter how much Jennifer tried to explain that Aidan had only been sticking up for her, her parents wouldn’t budge on their opinion of him. Meanwhile, Aidan refused to understand that perhaps they were only feeling protective and worried about their daughter.
So here she was having yet another awkward conversation with them while Aidan glowered and sulked next to her.
‘So why didn’t you go to Surfers Paradise then?’ her mum asked now, in a way that sounded to Jennifer somehow accusatory.
‘Because we decided to go another time,’ she lied. In reality they couldn’t afford to hire a car or go at all but she certainly wasn’t going to tell them that.
‘Hmm, well it seems a shame since you are there not to be doing anything, or seeing anything other than Brisbane,’ remarked her mother pointedly.
Jennifer swallowed, determined not to have another row.
‘How’s dad?’
‘He’s right here, do you want a word?’
‘Please.’
‘Hello, love,’ said her dad and Jennifer blinked back a tear. She didn’t half miss them.
‘You’ll never guess what happened to Martin at work the other day.’
It was true, she never would, so Jennifer let her dad witter away, filling her in on the day-to-day minutiae of his life in a way that made her feel closer to home.
Afterwards her mother came back on the phone. ‘I saw Karen’s mum the other day.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Jennifer, rolling her eyes and wishing Aidan would stop staring and listening, while simultaneously preparing herself for the next dig.
‘Yes. Karen’s loving university apparently. She’s got loads of new friends and is really enjoying the course.’
‘Good for Karen,’ huffed Jennifer.
‘Oh don’t be like that Jen, I’m just saying. There’s no need to be so defensive.’
‘You’re not just saying though are you? You’re having another go at me for coming here, only I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I can go next year.’
‘If they agree to you deferring your place. We’ve still not heard yet have we?’
‘No, not yet,’ she agreed.
Minutes later as she finally put down the phone she swallowed hard.
‘Hey you, you OK?’ said Aidan. ‘Don’t let them make you feel like shit.’
But Jennifer’s previous good mood had dissolved entirely. Every time she spoke to them it was the same. It stirred up so many mixed emotions, doubt, fear and anger at both their handling of the situation and her own.
‘Listen, fuck ’em. Just forget about them, babe. Now let’s get up and head to the beach.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said flatly, wishing it were that simple. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t be going today you know. Perhaps it would be more sensible to head down to that building site to see if we can get you some work.’
Aidan rolled his eyes. ‘You’re such a killjoy you are. Don’t let your parents ruin our day. Just because they want to be miserable buggers doesn’t mean we have to be. I mean, look how gorgeous it is out there and you want to sweat into town because some idiot from the cafe says there might be some work going. That’s hardly making the best of the day is it?’
Jennifer despaired. ‘I don’t know to be honest. I mean, yeah, it is a beautiful day, just like it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that. But it would also be good to be able to tell Mum and Dad that between the pair of us we had a bit more money coming in. Besides, we’re not in England now you know? We don’t have to drop everything just because the sun’s out. I suspect it will be a beautiful day tomorrow too, only by then, if there is any work going it will have gone.’
Feeling decidedly grumpy now, in that second Jennifer wished heartily that it would start chucking it down with rain. A bit of damp and drizzle might force Aidan into doing something useful and they could have a day off from feeling required to be on the beach. She only had a couple of shifts in a cafe every week and he was working as a bouncer every Friday but that was the sum of their income at the moment. They were totally skint and their lack of a ‘plan’ bothered her greatly, though every time she raised the subject Aidan didn’t seem to understand what her problem was. As far as he was concerned, they were living in hot sunshine, near a beach and having a lot of sex so there wasn’t anything else to worry about. His needs were pretty simple.
‘Look, I’ll go tomorrow when you’re at work. There’s no point wasting a day when we could be together, hanging out,’ he said.
‘All right,’ she said, suddenly too hot and lethargic to protest. Besides, by now she was also keen to get out of the stifling apartment. She decided to make an effort to snap out of the mood which she knew deep down had been caused by speaking to her parents. She just wished they would be a bit more supportive. Aidan, who could see she was feeling tense and sad, came over and started to stroke her back in a way that instantly made her shiver with physical pleasure.
‘Hey baby, it’s OK,’ he soothed.
‘I know,’ she said unconvincingly.
His hands carried on lightly travelling up her back and then around to her front where he gently rubbed her breasts. His touch was incredible and never failed to arouse her.
‘Is that nice?’
‘Mm,’ she sighed, giving in to the sensations and reaching around to feel if he too was getting excited. He was.
‘Wow. We only had sex five minutes ago.’
‘That’s what you do to me, little baby,’ he whispered in her ear before pulling her around and kissing her passionately and deeply.
They fell into bed and gradually her troubles faded away. There was no point stressing about anything too much, she supposed. She was in Australia so had to just make the best of it and to enjoy being with this amazing man who had the ability to frustrate and delight her in equal measure. Had she done the right thing? Who knew? Ultimately, she guessed, only time would tell but for now she was lost in the moment, and the moment felt unbelievably good.
PRESENT DAY (#ulink_0f22d60f-e0f1-5438-82fc-71716a59a2e1)
Jennifer didn’t exactly emerge from the tunnel. The sensation felt more like an expulsion, one which was sudden, brutal, and delivered with precisely no warning whatsoever. She was left feeling confused and utterly depleted. Her brain desperately needed time to rest and recover from what she’d just experienced, which was frustrating because there was so much she wanted to absorb, mull over and digest. But for now she was nowhere near capable. She needed to sleep. Before she surrendered to the grey ether however, she quickly glanced around and noted that the three tunnels all still existed, though the first was definitely shining ever so slightly less brightly.
She knew then that she would have another opportunity to visit each of them and was swamped with relief. She wanted to find out more about how things would have gone with Aidan. This was the most fascinating, terrifying, yet privileged gift she could ever have been afforded. For now though it was time to regain some strength and with that final thought she allowed herself to slip away.
SUNDAY (#ulink_4d6fdef4-856e-5fc8-8279-a466e28b623a)
‘Polly and Eadie need to get out and burn off a bit of energy,’ announced Jennifer.
‘Take them to the park then,’ said Max, finishing the last bit of his toasted bacon sandwich, and only narrowly saving himself from being swatted with a copy of The Sunday Times by winking, to make sure his wife knew he was joking. ‘Come on then, let’s take them to the swings now, and then perhaps we should go out for lunch, so you don’t have to cook?’
Jennifer acknowledged that this was a kind thought but couldn’t help but wonder what was preventing him from rustling anything up.
‘Or should I say, so you don’t have to buy in any revolting stuffed chickens that don’t actually look or taste anything like chickens.’ Another wink.
‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Jennifer, laughing despite herself. ‘OK, that sounds good. And there’s a pie in the fridge which we can all have for early dinner but not much more than that so hopefully it’ll be quiet at work tomorrow, so I can do a shop in my lunch break. Otherwise I’ll have to go later.’
‘Good,’ said Max, who didn’t really care. Food was his wife’s department as far as he was concerned. ‘Right, Po-lly, Ea-die, come and get your shoes on, we’re going to the park,’ he yelled in the general direction of the kitchen door, getting up to put his plate in the sink.
‘Let’s aim to wear them out as much as possible,’ said Jennifer.
‘Definitely,’ Max agreed. ‘Then we can plonk them in front of a DVD this afternoon totally guilt-free.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Jennifer, wondering hopefully if that meant that he was thinking they might be able to sneak back to bed for some canoodling.
