When he let himself back into the room, it was a quarter to six. The shops had been crowded with late Friday shoppers, and hung with banners with the inscription ‘Shop Early for Christmas’. He stood the two bottles of white wine on the window-sill, near the open window. For the next quarter of an hour he swept the room, dusted the books, and re-made the bed with clean sheets. He collected together the greasy plates, still unwashed from the supper of the previous night, and the cups and glasses and took these up to the kitchen. While the kettle boiled, he read the evening paper, sitting at the enamel-topped table. The front page dealt with the letters received by the police, and quoted both of them in full. There was a photograph of one of them with the caption: Do you recognise this writing? The writing itself was an illiterate scrawl, with two blots, but no visible fingerprints. The first letter read:
Dear Boss, So the police are looking high and low for me are they? They’ll have to look bloody hard to find old kiddo, because he’s allergic to flatties. But he’ll keep you all entertained with more saucy work if you don’t try to rush him. Next time, he’ll clip off the ladies ears and send them to you. I’m not a commie, so don’t let the sods take credit for my risks, your faithful servant: Leather Apron. P.S. Please keep this letter back til I can do some more work.
The second letter was shorter:
Dear Boss, I was not kidding when I promised some more work. Got interupted on both jobs, so couldn’t get the ears. Will send later. I got some of the real red stuff to write this but it went thick. Thanks for keeping back my first letter, your faithful servant: Leather Apron.
The report stated that both letters were written in red ink, and that both were free from fingerprints.
Hello, Gerard!
The voice from the bottom of the stairs startled him. As she came up, he said:
Blimey, sweet, you nearly gave me heart failure!
Sorry.
He put his arms round the heavy overcoat and kissed her, then lifted the large collar and pressed it against her ears, kissing her cold nose and eyelids. She said:
Mmm! You need a shave!
I know. I’m just about to have one.
Can I help you cook?
No thank you, sweet. You can go and sit in front of the fire and play yourself some music.
As her lips brushed past his cheek, she whispered:
I don’t have to go home tonight. I’ve told mummy I’m staying at an all-night party.
Good.
She asked: Why are you smiling?
At what Gertrude’d think if she found out. . . .
. . . . .
The neon lights at Camden Town gave him a sense of wellbeing. He walked with his arm around her, and was suspicious of the pleasure he took in feeling her next to him. He could never cease to be conscious of her inexperience, of the fact that she was nearly ten years his junior.
She said: Darling, I feel horribly drunk.
That’s all right. You can sleep it off.
Will your landlady mind, do you think?
She won’t know. Nobody need know if you leave fairly late.
He felt a kind of pity for her. Her inexperience made her offer herself with no reservations; it was pleasant and a little frightening.
He opened the front door softly, and sent her in first. As they were mounting the first flight of steps, the telephone started to ring. He said, groaning:
Oh, Christ, if that’s Austin I’ll have kittens. . . . Go on up to my room, sweet. I’ll answer it.
He said: Hello?
Could I speak to Carlotte, please?
I’ll get her for you.
He called into the basement: Carlotte! He went back up the stairs, muttering underneath his breath: Thank God!
She was lying on the bed, still wearing her overcoat. She said:
Oh, sweet, I feel so drunk. . . .
Well, sit up! It makes you feel drunker when you lie down.
Does it?
He collected the greasy plates off the table, and the two empty hock bottles, and took them to the kitchen. He scraped the plates into the waste-bin, then placed them in the bowl. He felt too sleepy to go to the bathroom for hot water.
When he got back to the room she was in bed. He felt disappointed; he had hoped to watch her undressing. Her clothes lay across the chair. She lay with her back to him, her face buried in the pillow. He smiled at the blonde head that was almost completely concealed by the sheets; there was something endearing and childlike in her complete lack of any attempt at feminine mystery. Within a few seconds he was in bed beside her, his bare arms encountering the nakedness of her shoulders with a physical shock.
He had been right in supposing her sleepiness would not withstand the strangeness of sleeping with a man for the first time. She turned over immediately, and put her arms around his neck. Exultation bubbled up in him; he remembered the frustration on the boat, and later on her bed at Gertrude Quincey’s, and his suspicion that something might prevent him from ever feeling her naked body beside him in bed. It was not true, and the realisation seemed to involve some more general truth that he was too excited to examine. A phrase from the Sibelius third symphony came into his head, and combined with the pleasure that rose in him as he touched her breast. They lay there in the dark, not speaking, only exploring one another’s bodies. At that moment, he felt a desire to engulf her, to absorb her completely. She stopped him as he moved his weight across her.
Is it . . . will it be safe, sweet? I don’t want a baby yet!
It’ll be all right . . . don’t worry. . . .
He felt her tense under him. He said:
Bite my shoulder if it hurts. Don’t worry.
Oh sweet . . . it . . . it hurts . . . oh, it does hurt. Stop it, please.
Her loins tensed, and she writhed away from him. He was not disappointed; on the contrary, he was delighted that he continued to want her, that he had not experienced the usual lurch of the stomach and paralysis of desire, the feeling that it had all been a mistake. He said gently:
Don’t get so tense, sweet.
I can’t help it. God, does it hurt all girls as much as this?
I expect so.
Have you ever . . . done it before?
Yes . . . but let’s not talk about it.
I don’t mind, really I don’t. I wouldn’t like you to be a virgin too.
She suddenly began to giggle.
God, imagine what it must be like when the man’s a virgin too . . . !!!
They recognised that in the Middle Ages. You know about the droit de seigneur?
No. What is it?
I suspect it was to prevent women from having their first marital experience with an inexperienced husband. The lord of the manor—who was assumed to be an accomplished lover—would sleep with the wife of his tenant on the first night, and take her maidenhead.
Did they really do that?
He had been speaking with the deliberate intention of relaxing her, and he could feel the success of the attempt.
I’m not sure that the custom doesn’t still exist in some countries.
He started to kiss her again, and felt her response immediately. As he started to move his weight, he said softly:
Try to help me this time. Relax.
I do try, really. I just can’t help it. That’s right, sweet: it’s soothing. I’m sorry I’m not very good, Gerard.
Don’t be silly.
I am. I suppose you’d much rather be in bed . . . ooh, sweet, careful . . . oh, it hurts. I . . .
She pressed her clenched teeth against his shoulder, then suddenly wriggled away.
I’m sorry, sweet . . . I can’t. It hurts.
Lie still. Don’t worry.
. . . . .
He heard a clock somewhere strike three, as he stared into the darkness. He suspected she had just fallen asleep; her breathing was quiet. He now felt no sexual excitement, and no sense of strangeness in her presence. He lay on his back, and remembered previous occas
ions like this, and the violence of unresolved feeling, forgotten the next morning, but revealing in its upsurge areas of himself that he had never explored. He remembered the girl on the Embankment whose dress had blown over her head, the fever of lust, and thought; perhaps that’s all sex is . . . a fever. A cheat. If it had been Caroline, I’d have felt the same lust. Yet she lies here, and I take it calmly. Is it a confidence trick? Supposing I succeeded next time I tried. What would be the difference? She would be my ‘mistress’, that’s all, a symbol of my domination, of success. But would there be any revelations as I made love to her? Would I feel curiously renewed, brushed by a sort of immortality? What about all the D. H. Lawrence stuff? No, he was a fool and a fraud. It can be good, but never that good. Never in its own right. Only as a part of your bigger aims. The orgasm is just raw energy, light and heat. What makes it important are the ideals it illuminates.
She sat up suddenly. He asked:
What is it?
I want to go downstairs. . . . I’ll put my overcoat on. . . .
Take my bicycle lamp. It’s on the bookcase.
He stretched out in the bed. It was a wide single bed, big enough for two, but it was a luxurious sensation to have it to himself for a moment. The room was not dark. He could see the outline of her clothes on the chair. By reaching out his hand, he could feel the silkiness of the slip between his finger and thumb. It reminded him of a train journey from Liverpool to London; across the gangway sat two schoolgirls, both about fourteen, dressed for the holidays and travelling with large suitcases. One of them was exceptionally slim, and wore a brown tweed skirt; this had slipped about two inches above her knees, showing the elaborately embroidered hem of a nylon petticoat. Her stockings—obviously new for the occasion—were sheer hose. He suspected she was a little proud of the embroidered hem of the slip, for she made only two perfunctory attempts to pull down her skirt in the course of a four-hour journey. At first he had tried to ignore the sight, feeling slightly ashamed of the desire that rose in his throat. He tried staring out of the window, and allowed his imagination to toy with the idea of holding her in his arms. Finally, he had possessed her so completely in imagination that it caused a shock of surprise to look at her—and at the tantalising area of embroidered nylon—and to realise she was still a stranger. Once she met his eyes, and looked away, blushing. What amazed him was that she still made no attempt to conceal the lacework that hinted at bedrooms and surrender. At Paddington, he seized his bags and rushed along the platform, possessed by a sudden conviction that she would catch the same bus, sit opposite him again for a further half-hour, and print her image indestructibly in his brain. But he never saw her again.
If it had been she who was sleeping with him now, whose clothes lay on the chair beside the bed, no fulfilment could ever reproduce the intensity of travelling opposite her from Liverpool to London. It was somehow a cheat, a desire without an object.
Caroline came back into the room; her body was cool as it encountered his. He began to kiss her hard, delighting in the instantaneous reflex of desire that pressed her body against him. This time he made no sudden moves to alarm her, only caressing her as she lay by his side, kissing the hardening nipples. As her body recovered its warmth, her arms tightened around him; the tension in her muscles suggested that she was trying to force their bodies to interpenetrate by physical pressure. His own desire was lagging behind the excitement that constricted her breathing. He allowed himself to be led by her, moving across her, responding as her hands fumbled to adjust their position. He heard her breathe: ‘Now’, and knew it was successful, encountering warmth where before there had been only resistance. She moaned suddenly: Oh God, it hurts. He felt the sharpness of her teeth on his lower lip as the resistance of her loins disappeared. She said: Lie still . . . still. . . . Don’t move.
He lay there, obediently, his face buried in the pillow, feeling her relax under him. He felt no sexual excitement; there had been no pleasure in the act; now he felt only the detached pleasure of an accomplishment. When he stirred, accidentally, she said instantly: Don’t move!
Some time later he had began to doze, lying in the same position, when she woke him by movements. He had relaxed completely; now, as he began to feel desire, she said: Oh God, it still hurts.
Never mind, sweet. It worked.
She said, in his ear: Yes. I’m not a virgin any more, am I? It’s really worked. Oh . . . please stop moving, sweet. Please. . . .
He felt her tense underneath him, concentrate on the pain; this time he ignored her, and kept on moving. When her hips began to move rhythmically, he knew it was all right. Abruptly, he knew it was not a cheat. What was happening now was realler than any of his thoughts about sex, more real than anything except pain: it was an intimation of the reason behind the tireless continuity of life. He felt astonished at his own stupidity for not realising it before. He wanted to make a vow: to accept always, only accept, accept anything, embrace everything with the certainty that all things would yield like this, an engulfing pleasure. Her body was curved up to him, her teeth on his lips, her nails in his back. The light threatened to hurt him, to burn and shatter as it flooded from his loins and stomach and brain.
When their bodies were relaxed, still throbbing, like two cars standing by the roadside after a long race, he asked her: What happened, sweet?
I don’t know. It hurt horribly. And I just concentrated—ever so hard—on the pain, just thought of nothing else. Then the pain went, and I was enjoying it.
CHAPTER THREE
She insisted that he stay in bed while she made tea. The thought that she might be seen walking around in his dressing-gown alarmed him, but her pleasure was so obvious that he could not bring himself to stop her. He sat up in bed, trying to read, but with only half his attention on the book, listening for the noise of Callet moving around in the next room or Carlotte cleaning the stairs. Caroline was in the bathroom. A few moments later she came out and mounted the stairs; at the same time he heard other footsteps on the lower flight. As she came into the room, he asked:
Who was it?
Who was what?
That.
The noise of footsteps passed his door, and went on up the next flight. She said:
I don’t know. I didn’t notice.
Probably Carlotte going to clean the old man’s room. Unless it’s a new tenant.
Footsteps sounded across the floor above them. He said:
You look sweet in that dressing-gown. It needs to be a foot shorter.
She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed him. Even without make-up, and with her hair uncombed, her face looked pink and childlike.
How do you feel this morning?
Sore. Otherwise fine.
Tired?
No. I’ll get back into bed if you like!
He pulled her shoulders back on to the bed, and kissed her. There was a heavy thump from overhead. Sorme looked at the ceiling, saying:
Are you there, truepenny?
There was a grinding noise, as of an armchair being moved on castors. Caroline said:
I expect it’s the girl tidying the room. Let me up. I’ll make the tea.
He watched her as she stopped on the hearthrug, spooning tea into the two-pint thermos, and tried to observe the emotions she aroused in him. He was glad he had slept with her; he was glad he knew her body now; but that was all. There was no deeper satisfaction, no assuaged hunger. It was something he could not define. It worried him. The experience had left almost nothing except a slight physical tiredness. He thought: What do I want, anyway? What do all men want? The need is universal. Caroline. . . .
She was getting dressed now, standing naked on the hearthrug in front of the gas-fire, slipping into her clothes without self-consciousness. She is a natural mistress. Or wife. Same thing, I suppose. Wants a husband. Thinks she’s in love.
But I don’t want to be a husband. Nice little hubby, good dog.
I am too many people. Need to express myself.
With her body under mine. How else? Watching the dawn rise over Yamdrok Tso or Sadiya. Why not Islington or the Welsh Harp?
. . . from Islington to Marybone
To Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood,
Were builded over with pillars of gold;
And there Jerusalem’s pillars stood.
Could never kill. Life delights in life. I have too much. Too comfortable. Need a battle to fight.
The press studs at the waist of her skirt engaged with a snap of metal. She poured tea into two mugs through a strainer. She said:
I wish we could go away somewhere. For a long time. . . . It’d be nice to live together, wouldn’t it?
He said, smiling: Why not? You could move in here.
What about your landlady? What about mummy and daddy? What about Aunt Gertrude? And what about Austin?
Well, what about Austin?
He’d be jealous.
I doubt it. . . .
As he was about to take the tea from her, someone knocked on the door. He said softly:
Oh blimey!
He jumped out of bed, and snatched his dressing-gown from the back of the chair, afraid the door would open before he could reach it. He was tying the cord as he opened it; Carlotte said:
There’s someone on the phone for you. . . .
Oh, thanks. . . .
She leaned towards him:
And I’m afraid . . .
She gestured with her head towards the stairs. He stared at her without comprehension.
What?
She said, in a conspiratorial hiss:
He is back!
Who? Not the old man?
She nodded. He was divided between indignant incredulity, and a fear that she might look into his room and see Caroline. He said: