Zennor in Darkness

  Her dressing-gown peels back, catching on her arms. They are side by side and then John William turns to her and suddenly, quickly, he ducks and with one movement sweeps his bare hands up under the night-dress from her calves to her thighs to her buttocks and round to her stomach and her breasts, sweeping so firmly that it is hardly a caress, rucking up her night-dress so that her bare white legs and stomach are exposed and she stands there and laughs at him, feeling the wind blowing all over her and his hands all over her. He pulls her close to him, his hands under her armpits, and all sensation goes as she rubs against his buttons and rough cloth and his stubbled cheeks. They buckle together and lie down. They are on the black, glistening edge of the rock, but they are safely wedged. Now, with her head on the rock, she hears the underground lion’s cough and then the pause and shock of the wave beneath her. John William is pulling off his clothes. He bites his lip as he unbuttons his trousers, the way he always does when he’s concentrating. He looks up and gives her his sudden, intimate, white-toothed, cousinly smile.

  ‘Lay down your dressing-gown,’ he says. ‘It’ll be better’n lying on the rock.’

  She kneels up and her night-dress drops down, covering her body while she spreads out the dressing-gown. It’s like laying out the rugs to air on the back lawn, after she’s beaten them. The thought makes her pause. But already he’s lying down, and he pulls his cousin on top of him. What kind of game is this? Is this how you play it? She’s always thought –

  He draws her night-dress up to her neck again, and she lies white and spread on top of him, her back to the moon.

  ‘Open your legs, Clarey!’ he says, and because he has always known how to do things she opens them and he runs his hands up the inside of her thighs and along the cleft of her buttocks and up to the moist surface of her vulva. And again. And again. He makes velvet of her. So this is what you do. She jolts and laughs and rubs her face against his.

  ‘You touch me, Clarey. You touch me.’ His voice sounds as if she is hurting him.

  But she doesn’t know how, or where to touch him, and when he guides her fingers she is astonished, for where can such a thing have come from or grown in the few years since she’s seen John William naked, swimming around the boat? And it’s hard. Is this what is supposed to go inside her? How can it? But all the same she touches him, first tentatively, then boldly exploring, caressing him as he has caressed. He groans and twists his face into the angle of her neck. She feels his tongue lick her skin, and she relaxes. Now she feels older than him and sure of herself. She is doing it right.

  He raises himself and twists them both over so that she is underneath. He rests on his elbows, his face above hers so she can’t see it in the shadow.

  ‘You never done it, have you, Clarey?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t’ve. Here. Lie like this. Put your legs up. I won’t hurt you.’

  And he doesn’t. She’s wet and ready for him. Maybe all that swimming and running and those pretend weddings with Hannah have made her ready. He is too big, she thinks, and for a desperate minute it won’t work, it’s all impossible and he strains while she tries to arch back from him and hits solid rock. Then with a sharp burn he’s in her and it’s done and they fit as she widens and has him. He’s so heavy, but she has the rhythm now and then she’s leading them. There’s a rise in the rock under her back, just where it needs to be. Her body knows what to do now – she spreads herself wider and wider and then just like a sea-anemone when the tide goes out she folds in and laces her legs across his back and now they are one rocking thing, sweating and crying out with the thump of the sea and their own blood equal in their ears.

  The wind sifts against Clare’s naked left side. She lies triumphant, taking John William’s weight. There is cold air blowing around the soles of her feet. She doesn’t care. She lies still for as long as she can, then the pressure of rock under her wins and she shifts minutely.

  ‘Mind out,’ says John William. ‘We’re near the edge.’ The words echo.

  ‘Not too near,’ she says.

  ‘No, not too near.’

  She moves another quarter-inch and her lips brush his shoulder.

  ‘Here, keep still,’ he says, easing himself off her. ‘I’ve made you messy.’

  He reaches for his cotton singlet and wipes down her stomach and the inside of her thighs. She wriggles to free her night-dress, and he smooths it down over her legs.

  ‘There. That’s it. You’re fine,’ he says. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘It didn’t hurt at all.’

  Does he remember that she never used to cry at falls and fights? Only at words. He picked her up once, after she’d fallen running down Smeaton’s Pier and cut her knee open so blood splashed on the cobbles, and he rode her home to Nan’s on his back. There should be blood, she knows, since she’s a virgin. But now she’s like Hannah, not a virgin any more.

  ‘There’ll be rain tomorrow,’ he says, looking at the little clouds shadowing the moon.

  ‘Is it tomorrow now – or today?’

  ‘Today, I reckon.’

  She says nothing more. If it’s today, then it’s already the morning when John William leaves on the eleven o’clock train.

  ‘Hours to go,’ she says. ‘The moon’s not even set.’

  She sits up on the rock and looks out to sea. It winks and glitters – maybe there’s a shoal of mackerel running. Like a shoal-place in a moonlit field.

  ‘Take off your things,’ says John William. ‘You don’t know how nice you are without your clothes.’

  ‘Do you remember,’ she starts, then trails off. She feels herself blushing through the dark.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. When we were little. That game we used to play. You and me and Hannah.’

  Silence for a moment, then he laughs softly. ‘I’d a thought you’d forgotten all about that, Clarey.’

  Does he see what she sees?

  Two solid, bare little girls caper in the cove. They are Hannah and Clare, prancing in warm, shallow water. John William has his back to them, because he is digging the deepest hole in the world. His skin is dark brown all over but for the shallower tan over his buttocks. He is slicing through cold, hard, water-seeping sand towards Australia.

  ‘Let’s play our game,’ says Hannah.

  They sidle up to John William. Now he’s standing aside from his hole. He is very busy, mending gear. Bits of driftwood crisscross importantly on the sand.

  ‘Please, sir,’ says Hannah. ‘I found a mermaid.’

  ‘Oh a mermaid,’ says John William in a deep, growling voice. ‘S’pose I better take a look at her.’

  ‘Here she is, sir,’ says Hannah, leading up Clare.

  ‘You lay her down on the rock and I’ll take a look and tell you if she’s a true mermaid. Hide your eyes and stand over there till I tell you.’

  Hannah arranges Clare on a flat rock, legs together, arms straight by her sides.

  ‘Shut your eyes. Remember you can’t talk cos you’re a mermaid.’

  Then she leaves Clare and stands in the cold shadows at the back of the cove, digging her feet into wet sand, knuckling her eyes until red spots come.

  John William walks over to Clare with his hands folded behind his back. He marches up and down beside the rock on which she lies. Her legs are in the shape of a tail, and her eyes are screwed tight shut. After a minute she peeps at him through the slit of her eyelid. His face is solemn as he parts her knees with a smooth bit of driftwood and looks at her bare little vulva. Now she pretends to wake up. She sighs and opens her eyes.

  ‘Are you a human boy?’ and her blind, straying hand touches his little coiled penis. She shuts her eyes.

  He turns and calls to Hannah, ‘This is a true mermaid you found! Now take her back to the sea before she dies.’

  He bends down, digging, while Hannah leads Clare into the water. But suddenly they see a jellyfish and Clare shrieks and the gam
e is forgotten. It goes down and down to the bottom of their minds and they never even think of it until next time.

  How many times did they play it? She can’t remember. All these years she’s never once thought of it. The next summer Hannah and Clare wore their bathing-dresses and screeched if anyone even caught a glimpse of them changing. John William swam with the boys then.

  Now Clare sits naked on the rock for John William. They’re quiet for a long while and they don’t touch. It’s getting darker, and the moon is going down. There’s not much time – soon dawn will start to streak in the sky behind them, and there’ll be people about, and voices, and the milk-cart moving, and the boats ready to go out, and the coal that’s lying heaped in the sidings will be stoked into the train John William will catch. But she’ll keep her back to all of it – she’ll only look at the sea. Or she’ll shut her eyes and when she opens them it’ll be blazing July and they’ll be six years old again, sent out for the day by Nan with their pasties and a bottle of cold tea and a handful of cherries. ‘And don’t come in till you hear five o’clock on the church bell, for I’ve all my washing to do. And you, Hannah, you’re the eldest, you watch out for our Clarey. Mind she don’t run too much and start up her coughing.’ For Hannah is seven, and responsible for them.

  ‘I’ll watch Clare,’ says John William.

  She opens her eyes and it’s dark. The waves shoot in under the rock with a sound like gunfire. They say in the south of England you can hear the guns from France.

  ‘Come here,’ says John William. ‘S’pose I better make sure if I found a true mermaid, before I take you home.’

  Fourteen

  John William was right about the rain. By ten to eleven on Grandad’s watch big drops of rain are falling, pocking the sand of Porthminster Beach below the railway station. The wind has whipped up coldly, and everyone’s clothes are quickly spattered. They stand in a tight family bunch, smelling of damp cloth and hair. Nan is in her best black, standing with Aunt Annie and Aunt Mag. Aunt Mabel isn’t here yet – perhaps she’s not coming. The women surround Aunt Sarah, who is struggling to keep back tears the way she managed to do last autumn, when John William went out first time. She held them back until the train was past the platform then. Heroic, uncharacteristic effort; but it’s plain she won’t equal it today. Uncle Arthur stands aside, talking to Uncle John. They’ve heard this morning that Harry has been called up for re-examination. Clare watches Uncle Arthur fumble the letter out of his pocket and show it to his brother.

  The station is full of family and well-wishers, for three other young men are going out. One has come in on a farm trap from Zennor. He has a basket of eggs with him, hard-boiled, and his mother is fussing over two which have cracked, for fear the dirt will get into them.

  Nobody fusses John William. He has his greaseproof packet of ham sandwiches in his pocket, and his cigarettes, and his kitbag. He stands with Hannah and Clare. The train is in already, hissing in the wet, but nobody gets on to it. They stand still, and the rain begins to fall more heavily, in long vertical streaks. Clare looks right through the train windows and sees a mist of rain settling on the sea.

  ‘I better say goodbye to Mother now,’ John William says to Hannah.

  ‘She looks very bad. Do it as quick as you can.’

  He pushes his way through the aunts to Aunt Sarah. She turns and sees him, and she can’t hold back any more: she clings to his arms and his shoulders, terrible jerking sobs come out of her, her hat falls off, and she would fall herself if he wasn’t holding her.

  ‘There now, Sarey, come away now, come away,’ says Nan, gripping her daughter-in-law’s arm. Sarah shudders all over, and peels herself off from her son. They grip her, Uncle Arthur on one side, Nan on the other. The aunts flurry their goodbyes. If only the train’ll go now, and it’ll be over and they can get Sarah home. She’d’ve been all right, if it hadn’t been for that letter about Harry coming this morning.

  ‘Johnnie,’ says Hannah. She hugs him, but she does not cling. She is giving him her strength, thinks Clare, not draining his courage out of him. And I shall do the same.

  ‘There’s my girl,’ says John William.

  ‘Write, mind.’

  Now it’s Clare. And it’s really time to go now – people are bundling on to the train. Some of them are going on ordinary errands, Sunday visits from which they’ll come back safe tonight with eggs or butter in their baskets. Back home, back safe. Shielded from the rest of his family by Hannah, John William takes Clare fully into his arms. It feels strange. They have no public history together. They know each other naked, not clothed. They’ve never held each other like this with their clothes on. Everything has been the wrong way round. Pudding before meat, Nan would say. His cheeks are smooth – he must have shaved. She feels the shape of him through the clothes – his arms tight, his chest flat and hard, her breast bruising against him. She breathes in the smell of him.

  ‘Look out for me now,’ he says, then there’s nothing against her and he’s gone. He pulls down the window strap and the window is full of him, looking out over her head at Aunt Sarah, who cannot look at him because she has turned faint and they are forcing her head down. The guard walks swiftly past with his two flags in his hand, then waves down the green one and steps on to the train. It’s moving. Steam hisses and the engine pours down a rain of smuts on them. Kitchie begins to run along the platform, waving his cap in his hand. The rain slashes.

  ‘Get in, get in!’ shouts Hannah, seeing her brother take the rain full in his face. And he’s gone.

  Clare sees her father on the edge of the family group, looking down the line after the train. She hadn’t noticed him there. The rest are still gathered around Sarah, who is smelling Nan’s salts and coughing.

  ‘I’ll walk up along with you,’ says Hannah to Clare.

  ‘No, let’s go by the harbour.’

  ‘All right, if you don’t mind the rain.’

  Clare doesn’t.

  ‘No Peggy this morning,’ remarks Hannah dryly.

  ‘She’ll be at chapel with little Georgie, I daresay.’

  ‘I thought they were church?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they are,’ says Clare dully. She hasn’t the heart for malice just yet. She yawns hugely.

  ‘Johnnie was late home last night, after the concert,’ remarks Hannah.

  ‘Yes,’ says Clare.

  ‘I was glad of it.’

  No need to say anything. Hannah knows. It has made her glad to think of John William being with Clare, on his last night. The last night of his leave, that is, she corrects herself quickly.

  But what about Sam? She hasn’t asked Hannah – she hasn’t helped Hannah. She’s only thought of herself. And yet Hannah looks happier than she did the day before. Has she heard something? Has she had a letter too?

  ‘Hannah. Have you heard from Sam?’

  ‘I got another letter.’ Her voice is low; she glances around. Nothing but seagulls and a thicket of masts and sails humping up and down in the choppy harbour water. The cobbles gleam with rain.

  ‘What’s it say?’ asks Clare.

  ‘He’s going to stop in London for a while.’

  So she knows. How much does she know? I must pretend it is new to me.

  ‘What do you mean – stop in London? He can’t. He’s in the army.’

  ‘London’s a big place, isn’t it? You’ve been there, Clarey. You should know. People can lose themselves there, easy.’

  ‘But not if you’re in the army. They’ll come looking for him. There’s the military police, you know. Then he’ll be court-martialled.’

  ‘There’s a girl,’ says Hannah with difficulty. ‘He’ll be staying with her. He won’t need to go out. Nobody’ll know.’

  Clare is silent.

  ‘But Hannah –’

  ‘Why should I mind?’ says Hannah fiercely. ‘She’ll keep him alive, won’t she? If he can get through this war alive, what’ve I got to mind for? When it’s over, he’ll com
e home.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be able to?’

  ‘He’ll have to,’ says Hannah simply. ‘I know Sam. He won’t be able to keep himself from coming home. He’ll be lonely for it.’

  ‘And you don’t mind – if he’s a deserter?’

  ‘Once the war’s over, they won’t shoot them for it any more, John William says. He might have to go to prison, but he’ll come back. It won’t be for ever. Not like it’d be for ever, if he’s killed.’

  ‘A deserter,’ says Clare, trying the word over in her mind.

  ‘And I wish they would desert, all of them, every last one,’ says Hannah. ‘But they won’t. Our Johnnie won’t, so there’s no use ever thinking of it. But now he’s to get his commission, maybe that’ll keep him safe.’

  There’s a couple of kids playing out, barefoot, their hair streaking down over their faces. Hannah knows the mother, who drinks. She’ll be snoring without so much as a fire lit in the house. The kids play out forlornly in the rain, with no one to shout at them or to chivvy them back home.

  We’ll talk about it later, thinks Clare. She is so tired now that she cannot help Hannah. And Hannah is braver than she is. Clare’s missed first Mass now, and second Mass. Anyway, she isn’t going to go. She’ll be no worse off committing two mortal sins than one.

  ‘I’m going home to sleep,’ says Clare. ‘My head aches.’

  ‘You might as well. A day like this, there’s nothing to stay awake for.’

  Better to sleep. She might dream. His touch. The smell of him is still on her. The inner muscles of her thighs ache from gripping his back, and she’s sore, bruised, tender. She’ll tell Father she’s ill, and climb the stairs to her bed and lie in her cool sheets and go back in time, holding on to the night before. The wind’s rising – she’ll hear the noise of it roaming over the bay from her bedroom, and the noise of the waves around the rocks where she lay with John William.