Sun at Midnight by Rosie Thomas Page A

completely still. He bent his head and kissed her, then whispered something in her ear. She angled herself closer still, the movement eloquent of intimacy and familiarity. The two of them knew one another’s bodies.
    A second later the girl ducked away from him. She used her thumbs to flick her long hair back behind her ears and smiled at him from beneath her eyelashes before she skipped down the stairs. Pete leaned against the wall for a second, staring down into the garden. If he had looked the other way, up the stairs, he would have met Alice’s eyes. But he didn’t. He rose up on to the balls of his feet, as if balancing on the brink of something delightful, then followed the girl.
    It was just a kiss at a party.
    She told herself that it meant nothing, it was what parties were for. She would go downstairs herself and kiss Mark, or preferably Vijay.
    But everything about the tiny encounter told her that it wasn’t nothing; it was much more than just a kiss at a party.
    Becky and Jo both stared at her as she came back.
    ‘Hey,’ Becky said softly.
    ‘Are they all right?’ Jo was already heaving herself to her feet.
    ‘They’re fine. I just saw Pete kissing some girl on the stairs.’
    Now it was Becky and Jo who looked at each other.
    ‘Which girl?’
    Alice glanced around the crowded room. Faces nodded and mouthed through the smoke and music. A tide of dirty plates and ashtrays lapped against the walls.
    ‘That one.’ She was standing by the mantelpiece. Midway between the prominent crest of her hip bone and her neat bellybutton there was a butterfly tattoo.
    ‘Never seen her before,’ Becky said.
    ‘She’s one of Pete’s students.’
    ‘And where is he?’ Jo asked in a let-me-at-him way.
    Alice forced a smile. ‘He’d better keep out of my sight for an hour.’
    She drank some more wine and tried to reconnect to her earlier enjoyment. She kept talking and laughing, then she danced with Mark and with Harry. She saw Pete moving through the skeins of people, even caught his eye as she had done at the start of the evening, but it was only a brief connection. She wanted to dance with him, but they were never in the right place together.
    At 1 a.m. Jo and Harry went home, carrying a baby seat apiece down the stairs. Becky and Vijay left at two.
    ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Becky said, concern showing in her eyes.
    ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’
    The hard-core guests stayed until it was light. She would have liked to be drunk herself, but all she felt was cold. Pete had spent the last hour playing his guitar and singing with the remaining handful of people. Now he was sitting on thesofa, picking out chords and humming with his head down. There was a glass of whisky at his feet.
    Alice stood in front of him and he raised his head to look at her. His eyes weren’t quite focusing. The room seemed to press in around the two of them, full of the weight of their combined belongings and the evening’s events.
    Pete strummed a chord and sang, ‘Just the two of us, just you and… me .’
    ‘Pete, come to bed.’
    The bedroom was disorientatingly light. Alice took off the black dress and hung it up in her cupboard, Pete stripped off his clothes and left them in a heap. They lay down and Pete gave a long sigh, then turned and lay against her, one arm heavy over her hips.
    ‘Who was she?’ Alice asked.
    ‘Who was who?’
    ‘The girl with the tattoo.’
    ‘Tattoo? I dunno. All girls have tattoos. ’Cept you.’ He laughed into her hair and she shivered with the first wave of longing for intimacy that was already gone.
    ‘She was with you yesterday. In the punt.’
    ‘Punt? Oh, yeah, her. Georgia.’
    Alice lay on her back, watching the ceiling. If he says anything else, she thought, it will be all right. If I have to ask him what he was doing with her it won’t be. The seconds passed. Out of the furthest corner of her eye she was aware of the digital clock on the bedside table. The green numerals