Brenton Brown (27 page)

Emerging into the hallway, Brenton had his mobile phone pressed to his left ear. He took a long look at Juliet standing opposite him. ‘I’ll call you back later,’ he said into the phone. ‘My sister’s just come in from London. I might come in on Monday to check the foundations and shuttering.’

Walking slowly towards Brenton, Juliet took the phone out of his hand, led him by the other hand to her room, placed the phone on the dressing table and kissed him on the lips.

‘Juli–’

She placed her arms around his neck, gazed into his eyes and kissed him again on the forehead. ‘No point me kidding myself anymore,’ she said.

They stood there kissing each other softly, looking at each other, stroking each other’s cheeks and foreheads, and smiling. Juliet arched back her neck. Brenton kissed her throat and the entire length of her collarbone. He unwrapped her towel. It fell to the floor in a heap. Brenton pulled off his vest. Juliet helped him.

‘You’re gonna need another shower,’ he joked.

Juliet laughed out loud. She pulled down his khaki shorts. They fell onto the bed. Juliet hit her head on her handbag. Brenton massaged and kissed it better. He pulled off his boxers. As she lay on her stomach Brenton kissed her from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. He delighted in watching the tiny pimples of her skin. They took their time getting to know one another’s bodies once more. They did not speak in fear of spoiling the vibe. They spoke with their eyes as they pressed their cheeks and foreheads hard together. He moved down and circled her nipples with his tongue before sucking them. She could feel his hard muscled stomach rubbing against her and she arched her neck again, raising her knees. She caressed his
shoulder
blades and she could feel his longing in every movement. Brenton kissed and licked further down her chest and stomach and she could now sense his growing energy and excitement. The kissing became harder, almost violent. The hand that had caressed her inner thighs was now pressing down. She felt her legs being spread apart. She wanted him to enter her at that moment but he was wildly pawing and squeezing her backside and kissing and licking her. She glanced at the top of his
perspiring
head. She opened her legs wider, inviting him to enter her. He came back up and started to kiss her throat once more. He
nibbled her ears as his fingers stroked her cheeks. She could feel his manhood pressing on her stomach. She slid further up the bed, opened her legs even wider before linking them around his back. Brenton entered her but after two minutes or so, turned her over on to her stomach and entered her again. He cupped her breasts as he made love to her and she could feel his
perspiring
temples against her neck.

Afterwards, Juliet lay on top of Brenton, resting her head on his chest. Brenton was stroking the top of her head. ‘I was
thinking
on the plane about the possibility of this happening,’
admitted
Juliet.

‘I’ve always thought about the possibility of it happening,’ laughed Brenton. ‘
Every
day. Since … since … you know. Nothing changes, does it? After what? Twenty-four years?’

‘Twenty-five,’ corrected Juliet. ‘And four months.’

‘You’re an MP. I’m out here. We’re meant to be what? Wiser? And here we are. The best feeling in the world!’

‘I know … what are we going to do?’

‘If … if you come over here,’ said Brenton. ‘Then as far as I’m concerned you’re not with
him
.’

‘He’s my husband, Brenton.’

‘Is he your husband now?’

Juliet thought about it. She looked at Brenton’s naked body. She looked at her own. She observed how blissfully happy he was. She finally shook her head.

‘You coming over every year,’ said Brenton. ‘Or whenever you can. I can live with that.’

Kissing Brenton on the forehead, Juliet cradled his jaw with her palms. ‘I’ll come over whenever I can … but …’

‘But what?’

‘What if Breanna comes with me?’

‘Then we go back to brother and sister.’

Juliet thought about it again and then nodded.

‘Don’t ever bring
him
over here though,’ said Brenton. ‘I don’t think I could stand that. Back in the UK the jealousy t’ing was slowly killing me.’

Juliet nodded again.

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Brenton.

‘What is it?’

‘The laundry basket is in the laundry room next door to the kitchen.’

Juliet burst out laughing and picked up a pillow and smashed it against Brenton’s head. They started a play-fight with Juliet winning, two submissions to one.

Brenton watched Juliet stretching out on the bed. ‘You’re still gone clear,’ he said.

‘Gone clear? What does that mean?’

‘Something Floyd used to say about really pretty girls.
Gone clear!
’

‘It can be a bitch too,’ said Juliet. ‘Looking like this.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you’ve noticed, I haven’t got many close friends. Only Tessa.’

‘Join the club,’ said Brenton. ‘I’ve only got Floyd who I can be real with.’

Juliet gazed at the ceiling. Brenton kissed her on her forehead but he detected sadness in her eyes. ‘I was real popular at school,’ she said. ‘But as I got older and friends started dating, they were different to me. They wouldn’t trust me. If I said hi to any of their boyfriends they’d automatically think I was trying to steal him from them.’

‘Their boyfriends probably fancied you,’ suggested Brenton.

‘That was the problem,’ said Juliet, still staring at the ceiling. ‘A few of them did. I didn’t lead any of them on but two of them asked me out while they were still going with my friends. Did my friends believe me? Oh no! I was labelled a relationship
breaker, a fucking bitch. They reckoned I thought I was
too pretty
and all that and I would go for any man I wanted and not give a shit. One of them threatened to scar my face.’

‘Must have been rough,’ said Brenton.

‘It was. At the time I met you, friends were just drifting away from me. I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘Their loss,’ said Brenton. ‘You’re with me now. Fuck them.’

Brenton kissed her again on the cheek and gave her a
reassuring
hug.

She fell asleep in Brenton’s arms for two hours and when she woke up they made love again. They showered together before leaving for a South American steak restaurant. Following their meal they departed holding hands and shared a kiss before Brenton switched the ignition on.

‘How is Breanna?’ asked Brenton.

‘Opinionated,’ answered Juliet. ‘Headstrong. Ever since Malakai passed away she’s become more confident, outgoing. We should always be thankful to him. She doesn’t worry so much about her looks anymore. Finally she likes herself. She’s comfortable in her own skin.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes, it is, but she argues with me over everything.’

‘How’s her job?’

‘She loves it. She’s just done a course about identifying
children’s
behavior that could mean problems within the home and she’s taken over the youth club’s homework sessions. Clayton’s a patron of the organisation so sometimes we drop in to where Breanna works. I tell you what; she’s much more patient with kids than I ever was.’

‘Yeah, I hear that,’ said Brenton. ‘When she was over here all she would talk about is the kids she works with. How she likes making some kind of difference to them. I’m seriously proud of her.’

‘Me too,’ nodded Juliet.

‘Any boyfriends on the scene?’ asked Brenton.

‘Not that I know of,’ answered Juliet. ‘It doesn’t bother her that she hasn’t got a man like other girls of her age I know.’

‘She might as well wait for a good one.’

‘Yeah … by the way, I bumped into Sean the other day.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘He’s working and going to college,’ said Juliet. ‘You know you were great for him.’

‘He wasn’t that bad, you know,’ said Brenton. ‘Just made some wrong choices. He just needed someone to tell him that yeah, he’s OK; he can do shit and get a good job. He can be a part of society. I just gave him stuff to do. I was strict about him turning up on time and I wouldn’t take any fuckery. He soon learned that I wouldn’t take his chatting on his mobile every minute. One time I told him to give me his phone first t’ing in the morning and I gave it back before he went home. He got used to my ways.’

Juliet leant over to her left and kissed Brenton on the cheek.

‘Wasn’t I the same?’ asked Brenton. ‘I wasn’t any different. But you came along. Remember that first time I saw you?’

Juliet nodded. She smiled.

‘You told me I could do shit,’ resumed Brenton. ‘What was it? You told me to get my backside to college and ask about courses.’

Juliet grinned at the memory. Brenton glanced at her before concentrating on the road again.

They arrived home and Brenton helped carry Juliet’s luggage into his room. They made love again before getting up together in the middle of the night to share chocolate ice cream and Dominican rum in the lounge beneath a large framed photo of Charlie Chaplin and a very young Jackie Coogan in a still from their silent movie
The Kid
. Hanging from the opposite wall was a poster from the classic musical
Oliver!

Juliet was lying on her back on the leather sofa as Brenton fed her the ice cream. He was making her laugh and the ice cream didn’t go where it was meant to go. Brenton kissed the chocolate off her face.

The next day they toured around Miami Metrozoo in a tandem and Brenton accused Juliet of not doing her share of the
pedalling
. In the afternoon they drove to Southridge Park where they picnicked, massaged each other and lazed under the hot Miami sun. They went home and started to make love in the shower before finishing in the bedroom. They fell asleep naked on top of the bed, spooned together. A lovers’ rock CD was playing on a loop.

They both rose in the early hours, not bothering to put on any clothes. They snacked on mango and melon chunks and finished off the Dominican rum.

Driving down to the Keys the following day, Juliet was dressed in a black bikini, a wide-brimmed straw hat and a rainbow-
coloured
sarong. Brenton decided to drive with the windows open and while Juliet was marvelling at the views of the blue
Atlantic
on either side of her, Brenton was admiring her body. Her wraparound sunglasses perched on the top of her head, she was sipping from a carton of guava juice and eating a bunch of red seedless grapes. The trailing wind messed up her hair but she had no thought about that. She glanced up at the cloudless sky and then to Brenton.
You always get what you wan
t, she recalled Tessa telling her. Why shouldn’t I get what I want, she said in her mind. Just for a little while. Two weeks of the year. Why not? Brenton knows my situation. He’s OK with it. He’s more than happy that I’m with him. What Clayton doesn’t know can’t hurt him or anybody else for that matter. So much for this being a sin.
Fuck it!
If there is an all-powerful God then He made me fall in love with Brenton. I can’t choose not to love him. Nothing will stop me from seeing him.
Nothing
!

‘So what’s it like being an MP?’ Brenton asked, interrupting Juliet’s thinking.

‘Frustrating,’ she said. ‘We’ve just been re-elected but instead of getting on with what we should be doing, the talk and memos are all about how we must appeal to the public, how we must come across on TV and forums. Even now they’re thinking of how they’re going to get re-elected in the next election. Can you believe that?’

‘So not how you thought it would be?’

‘Not really. The whips go on like they’re enforcers …’

‘Whips? Who the fuck are the whips? Brothel madams and t’ing? I always knew MPs were kinky.’

Juliet laughed. ‘They’re just people in the parliamentary party who try and tell you what to vote for, toe the party line, what to say and all that. They walk around Westminster like they’re your parents.’

Brenton glanced at Juliet. ‘And you put up with that?’

‘Fuck no!’ Juliet answered. ‘I tell them what to do with
themselves
. I won’t let them intimidate me.’

‘So how is it working at the … what is it? Where do you work?’

‘I’m a junior minister at Works and Pension. I was offered a junior ministry at Health and the Home Office but I turned it down. I really wanted the Children’s minister job.’

‘So what’s it like then?’

‘To tell you the truth all of us new junior ministers and the so-called ministers of state didn’t have a clue the way the whole thing worked. We’re so reliant on the civil service. Trust me; it’s them who really run the country. MPs might pretend they know what they’re doing but we haven’t got a clue. One ex education minister told me he was in the job for four years and still didn’t totally know what he was doing. After five years he had a little idea but then there was a reshuffle and he got sacked. Now he’s saying
what he always wanted to say from the backbenches while the new education minister sits in his office all confused. At the end of the day it’s all about jobs for the boys from Oxbridge. Most of them don’t care about people. They only care about who might be the next Foreign Secretary or Chancellor or who gets to chair some jumped-up select committee or what City job might fall into their laps when they leave office. Now and again they might give a woman the Home Office or Health just to make it look like they’re not sexist. But really, it’s a boys’ club, looking after themselves.’

‘Sounds like a lot of fuckery,’ remarked Brenton.

‘I will serve out my time and then maybe do something else. Maybe work for a children’s charity or something.’

‘Enough about politics,’ said Brenton. ‘Sometimes I don’t know half the fuck of what you’re going on about.’

Juliet burst out laughing.

‘You’re seriously going to love this beach,’ he added.

An hour later, Brenton pulled up within walking distance of Big Pine Key beach. He walked hand in hand with Juliet across the sand towards the curved shoreline. The ocean shimmered in tones of blue; the darker the further they looked out. Brown seaweed rode on the gently breaking frothy waves. The smell of salt filled their nostrils. The sea was calm. Juliet found it hard to believe that hurricanes ripped through these beaches on a regular basis. She looked out to the ocean. Quiet, still vessels skirted the wavy horizon. Excited shouts from children playing with lilos and rubber rings broke the serenity. Sunbathers on long towels glanced up at the only black couple on the beach.