R was in the car beside me and we were heading out of London for the first time. I was going to show R my much-loved cottage and the journey flew by as we counted down the strawberry sellers by the side of the road heading further and further west.
Finally we reached the village and a day in the garden followed attacking the over-grown mess that is a Cornish garden within 24 hours of abandonment. Supper was simple - a good roast chicken and a bowl of strawberries in the summerhouse with lots to drink.
We'd been naked now a couple of times before but not like this. We took advantage of an abandanoed mattress and had sex on the summer house verandah. The sounds of raucous Saturday-night laughter from yachts down in the estuary gradually gave way to quiet as we ducked and swayed under a a great dancing Cornish sky long into the night.
The next day we drove back to London - we were way behind schedule but I didn't care - at keast not at first. I felt free and terribly happy. The full impact of what I was doing became clearer as London grew closer. I was supposed to be meeting my boyfriend of nine years from the airport and we were late. Not only were we late but he had landed and was calling to find out where I was.
R was unceremoniously bundled from car in a parking bay on one floor of the arrival car park (a boarding school goodbye with the associated ache) as I drove back to arrivals and met my boyfriend. I felt the guilt must've been written all over my face and I remember being asked why the passenger seat was so far forward a seemingly innocent question which felt laden with god knows what implications.
The next day the tension of that journey manifested itself in the fact that I couldn't walk.
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