My Dinosaur Era Chapter 3

 

I did like jane and jane liked me

 

ginny took me straight around to her flat, off the seafront in Hove, a high ceilinged palace compared to the places I’d been living

 

we waited for the door to be answered, I stifled all the questions in my head, ginny will sort it,ginny knows

 

jane opened the door that morning, a chewed up cardigan hanging from her tall frame, faded jeans, a long smile that almost touched the floor.

 

I’ve brought you someone, ginny said as they hugged in the doorway, this is timmy

 

ginny was the only person to ever call me timmy, and then there were two

 

hello timmy, jane said, her smile picking up

he has nowhere to live, said ginny

oh dear, said jane, well there’s plenty of space here, three bedrooms though the smallest one is full of junk but you can sleep where you want, she carried on describing her flat, her life

the kitchen was a mess of clean crockery stacked up on most of the surfaces, an expensive chrome coffee machine sat like a skyscraper looking over the ceramic park.

jane took me to a bedroom, ginny held my hand as if it was my first day at school, jane, the kindly matron, me a man in his forties wondering what had happened to him

 

the bedroom, huge and stark, a view out over rooftops to the sea, linen curtains swirling in the breeze from the balcony

 

ginny left, me and jane sat on the sofa, long hair spilling over her face

eyes so intense I felt uneasy

yet

all about her was serene

she smiled the whole time

brought me a cup of tea, two biscuits on the side

I don’t think you have much money, timmy

she said, so gently I started to cry

it’s ok, you can stay here

we can have a nice time

I nodded, wiping away tears

she stroked my face as I bit into a custard cream

 

no one has ever been as kind to me as Jane was, she’d bring me snacks, endless teas, never coffee from the expensive machine

she’d sit with me whilst I watched the football on tv with her head on my shoulder

she spilled love all over me

 

we slept apart, each in our own massive rooms

 

until one after a month, on a  thursday evening, she said

would you like to come to my room

and I was startled and looked at her, frozen

I just would like you to hold me and I to hold you

it seems silly not to, doesn’t it

she continued, her smile telling me that it was all going to be fine

we should be naked, she said

but not sexy naked, just friendly naked

ok, I said

 

I woke in the morning with jane clasped to me like a brooch, I rolled her slightly with my arm to get comfy, her face sliding into my chest, she spoke, so quietly

what was that, I said

she lifted up her face, I said would you like some tea

how about coffee, I said

her face slumped back into my chest

what is it, I said

she looked back up at me, her smile dormant for a second

I’m silly, she said

why, I said

I don’t know how to use the machine

I smiled down at her

ok then, shall we figure it out together

she sat straight up, her fantastic smile once again lighting us both up

yes, yes, she said,

jumping up from under the covers I saw her naked body for the first time,

she looked she had been moulded from a bar of imperial leather, rolled out on a bench  to produce this long creamy figure, I realised that it was the first time I had seen her without jeans on

I followed her into the kitchen, unclothed also, we spent twenty minutes

pressing buttons, burning our fingers in steam, almost weeping with the hilarity of it all

 

we stayed naked all that day, drinking coffee,devouring biscuits of every variety, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet

there were never any questions of gravity, we just existed together, our pasts and futures were vacant spaces

jane made us spaghetti bolognese and we dripped sauce on our chests

we knew nothing of each other that wasn’t already there

 

after three months we were still just like this, though we dressed on occasions, walked by the sea hand in hand, pointed at things that we could see, such glee hidden within the mundane

 

she slowed, I could feel it, her smile never wavered but her body sometimes refused to follow, her leaps from bed shallow, sometimes not even a leap at all, she stayed in bed, scrunching the duvet up and almost into her.

are you ok, I said

oh yes, timmy, I am just fine, she said

do you like me being here, I said

oh timmy, of course I do, why on earth would you think otherwise, she said

you seem different, I said

yes, I may be a bit under the weather, she said

ok, I said, would you like a biscuit

 

after 5 months I was summoned by ginny

come to my flat this afternoon at two, she said

she sat me on the sofa and handed me a gin and tonic with a decaying piece of lemon in it, I hadn’t been drinking much with jane, she said she didn’t like the taste.

 

ginny looked at me without really looking at me

 

timmy, you have to marry jane, she said

why do I have to marry jane, I said

because she wants to get married, that’s why, she said

this is silly, ginny, why are you saying this, I said

because she is going to die soon, timmy, that’s why, timmy, she said

why is she going to die, I said

because she has a lot of cancer inside her and it’s too late to do anything, she said

I drank the gin and tonic in one go

ok, then I will marry her, I said

good, I knew you would understand, she said