The words pleased her so much that she said them aloud.
“A faint, ring-shaped pleasure.”
“What?”
He collapsed on her, gasping, and angry.
“You meant to put me off—and when I was—and for you, too!”
“But I—”
“For Godssake, girl—”
Some deep rage boiled out of her. Her right hand found it still held the familiar shape of the little knife. She jabbed it fiercely into Roland’s shoulder. Distinctly she felt the skin resist, then puncture and give way as a separate substance from the flesh into which the blade slid, a meaty moment—Roland gave a howl, then jerked away and went bending and doubling up round the room cursing and groaning with one hand clapped to his shoulder. She lay still, spread on the divan and felt inside her the breaking of the skin and the smooth slide of the blade. She held the tiny thing up before her eyes. There was a thin, red smear on it.
Not mine. His.
Something strange was happening. The feeling from the blade was expanding inside her was filling her, filling the whole room. The feeling became a shudder then an unstoppable arching of her body. She cried out through her clenched teeth. Unsuspected nerves and muscles took charge and swept her forward in contraction after contraction towards some pit of destroying consummation into which she plunged.
Then for a timeless time there was no Sophy. No this. Nothing but release, existing, impossibly by itself.
“I’m still bleeding!”
Sophy came back, sighing gustily, drowsily. She got her eyes open. He was kneeling by the bed now, hand still clapped to his shoulder. He whispered.
“I feel faint.”
She giggled then found herself in a yawn.
“So do I—”
He took his hand from his shoulder and peered into the palm.
“Oh. Oh.”
She could see his shoulder now. The wound was so small and faint and blue. The blood had come out mostly from the pressure of his palm. By contrast with the tiny puncture there was so much of him, such muscle, such a silly, square, male face. She felt almost affectionate in her contempt.
“Have the bed for a bit. No. Not Toni’s. Mine.”
She got off it and he lay there, hand once more covering his shoulder. She dressed and sat for a while in the old armchair that they had talked of re-covering but of course had never re-covered. Stuffing was still coming out of one arm. Roland began to whiffle and snore but faintly as if he had swooned in his sleep. Sophy returned to contemplating the upheaval in her own body that had changed so much, lighted up so much, calmed so much down. Orgasm. That was what the sex lectures called it, what they had all talked about, written about, sung about. Only no one had said what a help a knife would be—kinky?
All at once a world fell into place. It was all part of—a corollary? Extension?—of that axiom discovered when sitting in a desk ages and ages ago. It was all part of being simple. With their films and books and things; with their great newspaper stories of hideous happenings that kept the whole country entranced for weeks at a time—oh yes, of course, all outraged and indignant like Roland, and perhaps all frightened like Roland—but all unable to stop reading, looking, going with the feel of the blade sliding in, the rope, the gun, the pain—unable to stop reading, listening, looking—
The pebble or the knife to the hand. To act simply. Or to extend simplicity into the absolute of being weird whether being weird meant anything or not—as it must when magic efforts fester with dirt—
To be on the other side from all the silly pretence. To be.
Roland made a honking noise, then sat up.
“My shoulder!”
“It’s nothing.”
“I must get one, quick.”
“Get what?”
“Anti-tet.”
“Anti-what?”
“Tetanus. Lockjaw. Oh Christ. Injection. And—”
“Of all the—!”
But it was what he did. She only just managed to get a seat in his car, he was so preoccupied and violent.
“What happened when you were a boy if you fell down?”
But he was too busy driving. He took his large and violated body to the hospital not caring whether she came or not. He came back from the room where it had been punctured—more expertly perhaps—and slid in a dead faint to the floor. When he had recovered a bit, he drove her back in silence to his mother’s house and went into his room without a word.
Sophy mutinied. She went out by herself, back to the disco called The Dirty Disco, which was supposed to be a joke, but it was actually filthy. Even her jeans and the sweatshirt she had pulled on with BUY ME stencilled on it seemed sweet by comparison. The noise was solid but she had not been there for more than a few seconds when a young man pushed through the dancers and pulled her to her feet. He proved to be everything, marvellous, inventive, and oh so strong without thinking about it; and he lifted them to a level where Sophy discovered she was marvellous, too. Soon there was a space round them so that in their twoness they were wilder and wilder, going from one extravagance to the next endlessly. All the place began to applaud so that there was as much clapping and cheering as music, except the beat of course, the beat in the floor. When the beat stopped they stood looking at each other, panting. Then he muttered see you and went back to his table where there was another man, and a nignog grabbed her and dragged her into the dance. When he let her go she went looking for the young man and they met half way like old friends and he shouted to her (his first words!) “Two minds without a single thought.” It seemed the sun rose or something. This time, by an agreement that neither of them needed mention, they put virtuosity on one side and shouted their whispered inquiries at each other. She glimpsed the other man sitting at the table but she knew this one, Gerry, oh yes, this one was no more queer than she was and everything had happened at once.
He shouted.
“How’s your father?”
“My father?”
As she said that, the beat stopped—stopped more suddenly than Gerry was able to—so that his reply was shouted into the silence.
“The bloke you were with the other night—the elderly gentleman in the lounge suit!”
When he heard himself he clapped both hands over his ears but took them away at once.
“Oh my God! But what’s a girl like you, etc.? There—they’re off as the monkey said. We fit like the hand and the glove.”
“Mm?”
“Consummate.”
“Well of course.”
“Promise?”
“Necessary?”
“Still. Bird in the hand, you know. No? Not tonight Josephine?”
“It’s not that. Only—”
Some sort of necessary preparation. Wash Roland off me. Wash them all off me.
“Only?”
“Not tonight. But I promise. Faithfully. Cross my heart. There.”
So they sat and he gave her his address and they sat and at last Gerry said he was falling asleep and they parted for the time; and only when they had parted did she remember they had no special date for meeting. A black man followed her back to the house so she rang the bell since the door was not only locked but bolted. After the briefest of pauses Mrs Garrett unlocked and unbolted and let her in; and glanced across at the black man loitering on the other pavement. After that she followed Sophy up to her room and stood in the doorway, not leaning against the doorpost but upright this time.
“You’re learning, aren’t you?”
Sophy said nothing but looked back good-humouredly at the eyes gleaming so liquidly in their charred cups. Mrs Garrett licked her thin lips.
“It’s one thing with Roland. Boys will be boys. Men, I mean. And then, he’ll settle down. I know things are different nowadays—”
“I’m tired. Goodnight.”
“You could do worse, you know. Much worse. Settle down. I wouldn’t say anything about him.”
“Him?”
“The nig.??
?
Sophy burst out laughing.
“Him! But after all—why not?”
“Why not indeed! I’ve never heard—”
“And then—I do like to be able to see what I’m doing.”
“You like to see!”
“Just a joke. Look. I’m tired. Really.”
“Have you and Roland had a tiff?”
“He went to the hospital.”
“He never! Why? On a Sunday? Was he—”
Sophy scrabbled in her shoulder bag. She found the little knife and took it out. She began to laugh but thought better of it.
“He got cut. With my fruit-knife. Look. So he went to get a what d’you call it. Anti-tet.”
“Cut?”
“He thought it might be dirty.”
“He always was—but what was he doing with a thing like that?”
The words peeling fruit of course formed in Sophy’s mind and rose to her lips. But looking at those liquidly glistening eyes she understood suddenly how easy it was to deny them anything—any entry. They could not look in. All this Sophy in here was secure. Those eyes in Ma Garrett’s face were no more than reflectors. All they saw was what light gave them. You could stand, allowing your own eyes to receive and bounce back the light; and the two people behind, each floating invisibly behind her reflectors need not meet, need give nothing. Need say nothing. All simple.
But then, still looking, she saw more. In immediate contradiction, whether it was from knowledge of the world up to that moment, whether it was to be read in the subtlest changes in the woman’s stance or in her breathing or in the arrangement of her face, Sophy saw more than those twin reflectors intended. She saw the words approach Ma Garrett’s lips, You’d better leave, and hang there, inhibited by other thoughts, other words, What would Roland say, she might just do, and if he’s hooked on her—
Sophy waited, remembering simplicity. Do nothing. Wait.
Ma Garrett did not precisely slam the door, but closed it with such an elaborate absence of noise it was just as good an indication of anger. After a moment or two, listening to quick steps on the stairs, Sophy let her breath out. She went to the window and there was the nig still standing on the other pavement and looking across inscrutably at the house; but as she watched, he glanced to one side then ran away round the corner. A police car cruised down the street. Sophy stood for a while, then undressed slowly and remembered the fullness, the clearing out of want and urgency like the fall of a great arch; and it was easier to give the credit for it not to Roland at all but to nameless masculinity. Or if it must have a name, give it Gerry’s name, Gerry’s face. There was tomorrow.
Chapter Ten
All that day it seemed to Sophy that nothing could be sillier than having to tell people what it would cost them to fly to Bangkok or how to get to Margate from Aberdeen; or how to get from London to Zürich with a stop-off somewhere, or how to take a car to Austria—not only silly as could be but more and more boring as the day dribbled away. When the job was done she hurried back to the house and watched the clock till it was just possible the disco would be open and away she went. Every now and then she ran a few steps, as if afraid she would be too late rather than too early. But Gerry wasn’t there. And Gerry wasn’t there. And Gerry still wasn’t there. At last she danced a bit and fended off mechanically with a smile like on a statue. She saw it was all intolerable, all quite, quite impossible too; and short of being weird—how the old thoughts could come back!—if a man won’t be where you want him, there is only one thing to do.
Next morning, instead of going to work she went straight to the address that Gerry had given her. He woke, late and frowsty, to hear her at the door. He fumbled to let her in with eyes half-shut. She edged in sideways with her load of belongings in shopping bags. She had an apology for her own untidiness on the tip of her tongue but abandoned it when she saw the room and smelt it.
“Phew!”
Despite himself he was ashamed.
“Sorry about the mess. I haven’t shaved either.”
“Don’t shave.”
“You want me without or with?”
It was a hangover. With a kind of automatic libidinosity he reached out at her but she swung a carrier bag in the way.
“Not now, Gerry. I’ve come to stay.”
“Christ. I must go to the loo. And shave. Oh hell. Make some coffee will you?”
She got busy in the dirty corner where the sink was. It could be considered a flat if you shut one eye and—she thought this as she cleared a space for the kettle—if you could shut your nose. They said men were less sensitive to smells anyway.
Gerry himself cleaned up astonishingly well. When he was dressed as well as shaved, she sat on the chair and he sat on the unmade bed and they looked at each other over the mugs of coffee. He was satisfactorily taller than she was but on the slight side and loosely put together, with a head and face that in daylight was—well, pretty was wrong and handsome wouldn’t do either, so why bother? Rhythm—and as if he saw the word in her head, having looked in right past the reflectors—he began a sort of toneless whistling, the sketch of a tune and one finger beat on the side of his coffee mug—rhythm was everything to him, which was why—
“Gerry, I’m out of work.”
“Sacked?”
“Left. Too boring.”
The sketched tune stopped, to be replaced by a whistle of surprise that did achieve some tone. Overhead, a brief argument flared and there were a couple of thumps then comparative silence.
“Desirable neighbourhood. Hang on a moment.”
Gerry put down his coffee, pulled out a cassette player and switched it on. The air swingled. Relieved, he took up the rhythm, nodding his head, eyes closed for the time being, ripe lips pursed; lips that would—that would avoid the four-letter word which she never used herself so that this could not be pair-bonding as with ducks, was it?
“What bird were you with, then.”
“No bird, dear thing. Chap I know.”
His eyes flicked open, large, dark, and he smiled at her round them. What girl could pass up that smile, those eyes, that dark hair with its forward flop—?
“Yeah?”
“Fairly thick night.”
“Is that all?”
“Word of an officer and gentleman.”
“So that’s—”
“That’s. Care to see my commission? Once you have it, you have it even when you’ve declined a posting. Second lieutenant. Imagine being shot at in Ulster. Paff!”
“Have you been shot at? Really?”
“Well. I would’ve been if I’d stayed in.”
“I wish I’d seen you in uniform.”
He pulled her to the bed and hugged her. She hugged him back and kissed him. His gestures became more intimate.
“Not now, Gerry. It’s too early. I wouldn’t be fit for anything later.”
“There’s nothing to do later. Not till they open.”
All the same he took his hands off her.
“Look, dear thing. You’ll have to sign on for social security. But I was looking to you for the occasional hand-out.”
She doted down at him in recognition of what they shared right from those first few seconds; the complete acceptance of what each was; or what each thought the other was.
“We’d better not let on we’re living together.”
“Oh. So we’re living together are we?”
“Sheer gain, mathematically.”
“And you could always earn a bit on the side.”
“Mm?”
“Red lamp in the window.”
“Too much like work. I’ve—well. What about you?”
“Dodgy market. Know any rich old ladies?”
“No.”
“Used to be loads of them. We were talking about it last night. Nowadays they’re all poor old ladies. Unfair to junior officers. No, dear thing. It’s social security or paff paff.”
“Paff?”
“Mercenary. Make
you at least a captain if you can produce evidence of being an O and G in herself’s forces. Loads of lolly.”
“That’s all very well for you—”
“Oh is it my God? Not so hot if you get wounded or captured. Time was, you used not to get wounded or captured. Nigs had a decent sense of who was who. Now you get shot like those poor bastards. Then again, I’ve got prospects, sort of—no. I’m not telling you, sweet thing, chubby prattler.”
She took him by the arms and shook him.
“No secrets!”
“You trying to get rid of me? You need my social security as much as I need yours.”
She collapsed, giggling on his chest. The words popped out. “Thank God I don’t have to pretend any more!”
For a day or two, what with the Employment Exchange and trying to make Gerry’s flat habitable for two people, she had some time away from him and spent it thinking about him. No indeed, they did not, must not use that four-letter word, the many-splendoured, but all the same, when you are young and have told yourself what nonsense so much is, you cannot help an occasional glance at the current situation and say to yourself—is this it? You examine the curious fact that this twin, this discovered twin, could outrage and yet not annoy. There were those moments when a funny struck them both and they fell towards each other, hugging and giggling and not needing to say anything—also those moments when a smile round those big eyes, or fall of a lock of hair on his forehead could be a sweetness in the stomach—oh, he was sweet!