“He might tell me he doesn’t like me,” Lily said.
“He won’t say that,” Madge replied. “Anyone can see that he’s crazy about you. But he won’t say so. You want to move him on a bit, Lil. Get him going. There’s only a fortnight left of the tour and then you might never work with him again. If you want him, you’d better catch him while you can.”
10
LILY WALKED HER WAY THROUGH the evening performance and was white and silent at supper at the digs. Even the conjuror noticed it. “Have you got a gyppy tum, darling?” he asked. “I can let you have a drop of brandy if it would settle it. I happen to have a little bottle in my room.”
Lily flushed scarlet while Madge snorted on a laugh. “No, no, I’m fine,” Lily said. “Just a bit tired.”
“Better go to bed early then,” Madge said with a wealth of meaning.
Lily shot a reproachful look at her. “I’m fine,” she said again.
After dinner had been cleared away and the teapot served and Madge had poured everyone a cup, the cast started drifting off to their rooms. In the first weeks of the tour they had often gone out after supper, to clubs or late-opening pubs. But as they had moved further and further west the towns had become smaller, and even in June at the start of the holiday season there were few late-night bars. They would still go out on a Saturday night, booking a table for all of them and going out as a gang. But in the middle of the week even the chorus girls would go to bed after the late supper and sleep in until midday.
Lily lay wakefully in her bed. She shared her bedroom with Susie, who had sat at the mirror for ten minutes, creaming her face, and was now fast asleep. She had a little travelling clock by the bed and Lily could see it in the moonlight if she leaned up. She had promised herself that she would go to Charlie’s room at midnight. The clock said five minutes past and Lily still had not found the courage to make a move.
The minute hand clicked to six minutes past and Lily sat up in bed. From there she could see her own reflection in the dressing table mirror: the smooth bobbed hair, her big dark eyes and the prosaic candy-stripe of her pyjamas. Lily thought with envy of Sylvia de Charmante’s lace-trimmed negligee. Charlie would probably take one look at her in her faded hand-me-down pyjamas and laugh aloud. Lily grimaced at the mirror and swung her bare feet to the cold oilcloth floor.
On the dressing table was Susie’s turquoise and gold bottle of eau de cologne. With a guilty glance at the girl fast asleep in her bed, Lily put a generous dab behind each ear, down her neck, and then tipped a chilly rivulet which ran down between her breasts under her pyjama jacket. She screwed the little metal cap back on, and tiptoed for the door.
It creaked as it opened and Lily froze, expecting Susie to wake and call out. Nothing happened. Susie turned over in her bed and stayed asleep. Lily shut the door cautiously behind her and crept down the corridor.
There was a narrow strip of red and blue patterned carpet over the stained wood floorboards. Lily slid her bare feet cautiously down the carpet runner, flinching from boards which creaked as they received her weight. Charlie’s room was at the back of the boarding house, near the bathroom. If anyone should open their door and see her, Lily could say that she was going to the toilet. Only her intent face and the strong waft of eau de cologne would deny her story.
Lily reached Charlie’s door and put her hand on the door knob. It turned easily under her touch. “Oh blimey,” Lily said miserably and stepped into the room and shut the door behind her.
The curtains were drawn open and the room half-lit by moonlight. Lily could see Charlie lying on his back, one hand behind his head, the other hand outflung. He was wearing pyjamas but the buttons of the jacket were undone. Lily could see his pulse beating steadily and unhurried at his throat, and the smooth skin of his chest. She felt her longing to touch him rise up like a fever and obliterate her nervousness. As she watched his eyelids flicker as he dreamed, and his chest rise and fall with his steady confident breathing, she knew that whatever it cost her in embarrassment or even shame, she had to feel the skin of his chest against her face. She had to lie beside him. Even if it were only for a moment. Even if it were only once.
Lily untied the cord of her pyjama trousers and dropped them to the floor, undid the buttons of her jacket and shrugged it off. Then she lifted the bedclothes and slid into bed beside Charlie.
He did not wake at first. He moved over to the far side of the bed as if to make room for her and he smiled in his sleep as if he welcomed her. He stretched out a hand and touched her shoulder, and, as if he had been shaken awake by the sense of that smooth skin under his fingertips, his eyes flew open and he said at once: “Oh my God, Lil! You’d better go.”
Lily didn’t move. She lay on her side, her head on his pillow, her eyes fixed on his face, and said nothing.
Charlie flinched away to the far side of the bed and gathered his pyjama jacket around his body. “Lily, you must go!” he said again. He passed a hand quickly over his face, to rub his sleep away. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Lily extended a hand cautiously, like someone reaching out to touch a strange animal. She put her fingers on the base of his throat where she had seen his pulse beating steadily as he slept. Under her touch she could feel his pulse speeding up. Lily smiled. She no longer felt like a young girl, a silly girl, with an infatuation for a man who cared nothing for her. She felt his pulse thudding faster at her touch and she knew he desired her.
“I love you,” she said wonderingly. “I couldn’t bear for you not to know it. I’ve loved you from the moment I first met you.”
Charlie sat up in the bed, drew up his knees, and rested his head on his crossed arms, his whole body armouring itself against her. “Lily, this is crazy,” he said. “You must get out of my bed and go back to your own room and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Lily shook her head. “No,” she said simply. She sat up beside him. The sheet slid away from her and Charlie could see the smooth pale skin of her shoulders and the curve of her breasts.
“This is very unfair.”
Lily chuckled irresistibly. Charlie felt himself smiling in response.
“Put your arm around me,” she commanded.
He put his arm around her and she leaned her fair head on his shoulder. He could feel the warmth of her skin through his thin pyjama jacket, he sensed her nakedness and he felt the start of the long ache of his pain.
“Don’t you care for me at all?” Lily asked.
Unconsciously his grip tightened. “Don’t think that,” he said softly. “I do care for you.”
Lily turned her face up to him. “I don’t mean like a friend, or a pupil. I want you to love me. Like a lover.”
Charlie’s face was dark with tension. “You don’t understand,” he said softly. “You’re too young, Lil. You don’t know what you’re asking. And I cannot . . .”
Lily tipped her head back. In the moonlight the smooth column of her neck was pale, her breasts emerged from the rumpled bedclothes. Charlie, despite himself, put a hand to her cheek, her chin, stroked down the sensuous line of her neck, cupped her breast in his hand. Lily put her arm around his neck and drew his head down to kiss her. They slid down into the pillows together and Charlie kissed her face hungrily, like a man snatching at a meal; kissed her lips and her closed eyelids, kissed her ears and her neck, kissed her breasts and then lipped tenderly, and then more roughly, at her nipples. Lily moaned very quietly and arched her back, reaching up for his touch. Charlie’s arms held her close. Lily buried her face in his neck. She could smell the clean smell of his hair, the tang of his sweat, she could smell the overpowering scent of warmed eau de cologne. Charlie sighed and then rolled on top of her, Lily opened her legs and wrapped them around his thighs, tightened her arms around his back and arched her body upwards to meet him.
“Oh yes,” she said.
As if that word of assent broke a spell, Charlie wrenched himself away from her and flung himself to the edge
of the bed. He threw back the covers and got out of bed, not even looking at Lily.
“It’s not possible, Lil,” he said tightly. “Please believe me. This is not possible.”
He picked up her pyjamas from the floor and thrust them at her. “Put these on. Get them on, Lil, I won’t speak to you until you’re dressed.”
“I . . .”
“Get dressed!” he ordered angrily.
He flung himself to the hearthrug before the gas fire and fumbled with matches. He turned the brass tap for the gas and with a little pop-popping the flame rippled along the base of the fire and the white spiky bones grew pink and then orange and then glowed a steady red.
Lily fastened the buttons of her pyjama jacket with shaking hands. She slid out of bed and pulled on the trousers. She was scarlet with shame. Then she sat on the edge of the bed like a naughty child sent to her room as a punishment, with nothing to do but to wait for adult forgiveness.
“I’m dressed,” she said in a small voice.
Charlie turned around and saw her stricken face.
“Oh, come here,” he said, holding one arm out to her. Lily tumbled off the bed to the hearthrug and into his arms. He held her firmly, affectionately. He patted her back as if he were consoling her for some little hurt. Then he seated her in the chair beside the fire and sat back on the hearthrug, at a little distance from her so that he could see her face.
“I’ll have to tell you something which I prefer to keep private,” he said. “Will you promise to tell no-one?”
Lily nodded.
“It’s about my injury, from the war.”
Lily thought of half his lung missing, and then remembered the smooth skin of his back, the silky warmth of his chest, his run up the cliff path when he had raced her to the motorbike, and how he had reached the top without being breathless. “You said you were injured in the lungs.”
Charlie shook his head. “I was injured in the groin,” he said precisely. His face was stiff, the words forced out. “Castrated. I’m not a proper man, Lily. I couldn’t ever be your husband. I took a piece of shell across my thighs. It took out my balls and half my penis.” His face was grim, he was forcing the words out. “We were trapped in a shellhole, heads down into the earth. Half of the men took wounds in their legs and buttocks. It was a pitiful day—a long, long day. We were on a night patrol which went wrong, we were pinned down in no-man’s-land from dawn till twilight. They couldn’t get stretchers out to us till dark.” He was silent for a moment then he shook his head at the memory.
“It’s a common injury,” he said. “Fighting over that ground with no shelter. There were a lot of men injured low. It’s your instinct to get your head down, to shelter your face. We must have been a funny sight.” His smile was as bitter as gas. “Our heads ducked down and our bums left out. We must have been a funny sight,” he said again.
Lily put her hand out gently and rested it on the sleeve of his pyjama jacket.
Charlie gave her a brief unhappy smile. “So I can’t give you children, and I can’t give you pleasure, normal pleasure,” he said. “I thought that I might be able to be your friend. But I can offer you nothing more than my friendship.”
Lily said nothing. The fire made a little popping noise and the flames flickered and jumped from orange to yellow. Charlie reached behind Lily’s chair and put another sixpence in the meter from a little pile balanced on top of the metal box. The gas flowed steadily again and the bones of the fire glowed.
“I don’t care,” Lily said, scarcely taking in what he was saying. “I love you. Do you love me, Charlie? That’s all I want to know.”
He shrugged with a hard smile as if none of it mattered very much at all. “Oh yes, I love you, Lily. I utterly and absolutely adore you.”
She reached forward at once but he fended her off. “It doesn’t matter—don’t you see? It doesn’t make any difference. You should marry a man who can give you all the things you deserve. I wouldn’t want anything less than that for you. You should have the best. I want the best for you. I don’t want you married to a cripple, to half a man.”
Lily shook her head.
“It does matter,” Charlie insisted. “You think now that you love me enough to overlook it. That we could be happy together in spite of it. But you would want children. And you are young and beautiful and passionate. You need a lover, Lil, not half a man. I am not the man for you. I am of no use to any woman.”
He had been looking at the prosaic flicker of the fire but now he glanced up at Lily’s face. She was very still but her face was shiny with the wetness of many tears. He pulled her down beside him on the hearthrug and held her close.
“If I loved you any less, then I would marry you and make you stay with me,” he said softly into her hair. “If I loved you any less I would marry you and keep you and try to convince you that children don’t matter, that making love doesn’t matter. But I love you so much that I won’t do that to you.” He took a breath. “I made up my mind when I was first injured. I wouldn’t do that to any woman. I’ll even play ragtime at your wedding.”
Lily shook her head and turned to argue but Charlie kissed her into silence. Her mouth was wet and salty. He took the sleeve of his pyjamas and wiped her face very gently.
“I’m not a child,” Lily said.
He nodded. “I know it. You’re a beautiful and desirable woman, Lil. And I wish to God that my luck was different. There have been times when I’ve wished that the shell had killed me outright; but I don’t think that any more. Not even now—with you in my arms and nothing I can do for you. There are things that I have had to put from me and forget, and there are things which I can still have and enjoy. I cannot be your lover but I’m damned if I’ll spend my whole life regretting that. I didn’t come out of that shellhole and on to that stretcher and through that bloody dressing station where young men—children—were dying all around me, to spend the rest of my life wishing it away. I won’t grieve, Lil. Don’t you grieve either.”
Her young bright courage rose at that, as he had thought it would. She pushed back her hair. “But you do love me?”
He smiled. “Oh, you’re a woman all right! Yes. I love you, and I will never love anyone else like I love you tonight. Will that do for you? I never have loved anyone as I feel for you. And I have never told anyone else about this—my injury. I love you and I trust you, Lil. And I’ll help you with your career when I can, and sometimes we’ll work together and we’ll always be friends. Will that do?”
Lily nodded, and tried to smile.
“But I won’t stand in your light. I won’t overshadow you. You have to go forward. You’ll meet other men and you’ll like them and one of them you will love. You’ll love him even more than you love me now. That’s how it has to be, that’s how I want it. I want you to promise me that you’ll love and marry when you wish. Don’t hold back for me. Because I won’t thank you for it.”
Lily nodded forlornly, her face strained, dark shadows under her eyes.
“You look all in,” Charlie said. “That’s enough for tonight. We’ll talk more tomorrow if you want, sweetheart. But you go now. Off to bed with you.”
“Can’t I stay here? Just for a few moments? Can’t we cuddle up together and just hold each other?”
He pulled her to her feet and settled her into his bed. He got in beside her, careful that their bodies did not touch. He put his arm around her shoulder and she rested her head on his chest. He lay very still until the steady rhythm of her breathing told him that she was asleep. Only then did his face relax and he felt the warmth of his tears on his own cheeks as he acknowledged the ache in his body where his balls had been, and the pain of his heart, still thudding too fast from impotent desire.
• • •
They both jumped awake at the hammering on the front door. Charlie, with an old trained response, was out of his bed and at the bedroom door before he was fully awake.
“Damn. That’s torn it,” he said.
Lily slipped out of bed and came to his side.
They could hear the landlady opening the door and the flush of the cistern from the next door bathroom.
“Miss Pears?” the woman said to the caller. “I think all the girls are still asleep.”
Lily shot a quick anxious look at Charlie. “You’ll have to make a run for it,” he said. “Try and look as if you’re coming out of the bathroom.”
He half-opened the door but then pulled her back behind it as the conjuror’s partner saw the door open and said jovially, “Morning, Charlie! What’s all the damned noise about so early?”
“Miss Pears,” said the man clearly from the doorstep. “It’s an emergency.”
“That’s Stephen Winters,” Lily hissed. She paused for a moment and then realized. “My God! It must be my ma.”
She slipped from Charlie’s restraining hand, tore open the door and ran to the stairs.
“Stephen!” she called, running downstairs towards him, careless of her striped pyjamas and her rumpled hair. “Is Ma ill? What’s happened?”
Charlie followed to the head of the stairs to listen.
“She’s very ill, Lily,” Stephen said. Charlie could hear the triumph in the man’s voice, his self-importance. “She’s got Spanish flu. She’s at the Royal Infirmary. I drove all night to come and fetch you. I’ll take you home to her now.”
Lily turned away from him and looked up the stairs to Charlie. Stephen followed the direction of her gaze and saw Charlie, dark-jawed and weary, standing at the head of the stairs.
“What should I do?” Lily asked him.
He nodded at Stephen. “You’d better get dressed and pack, Lil. You’d better go at once.” He spoke past her to Stephen. “Are you fit to drive back? There are trains.”
Stephen gleamed at him. Despite driving all night he looked glossy with health. Charlie felt rumpled and dissolute, blinking in the late-morning brightness, still aching from the distress of last night.