She went back into the kitchen and said to him: ‘I can’t answer questions first thing in the morning.’
He frowned, so she didn’t doubt that he was wide enough awake to answer any question put to him. But she had none to ask. Questions were finished, for the moment. His intense gaze suggested he hardly knew what to say for fear of uttering useless and puzzling words that would push them apart.
There seemed an absolute end of talking. She took off her coat and folded it over a chairback. He looked, but did not move. She had no wish but to be as close as it was possible to get, as a way through what complications might needlessly build up between them. Any less action seemed destructive. She gave reason no chance, but pulled her nightdress over her head and went to him, thinking as the cool air rushed at her body that since she wanted him so much it didn’t matter what was in either of their minds.
3
Her body had decided, so her will was free. Yet the course her body would take had been decided long ago, though she was not aware when the agreement had been reached. It had grown in her, but she had so far ignored it, a half deliberate neglect that had given the fragile plant a possibility of survival.
The inevitability of their becoming closer began during the total preoccupation with his aunt’s documentary belongings, a task which had taken him too far into the area of a peculiar past for her to follow. She had been left alone long enough and in sufficient ease to reflect on her feelings, though she was careful to deny any force which they threatened to assume.
Knowing what she wanted to do, she had been afraid on waking that she would feel some old-fashioned twinge of shame should the event take place at his convenience. If anyone knew that they had been together she wanted to be able to say that she had not allowed anything to be done to her, but that she had started whatever they liked to call it herself, out of the need of her own pride and unsurfaced dreams.
Guided by her own will, all sense of the tawdry had been sidestepped. Having nothing to lose by beginning, neither had she any of the shame which she would have dreaded had it been he who had taken the first step. No one could reproach her. Feeling love, a move had been made, and what came afterwards would be his reaction to the thing she had started, and so could never be a matter of regret to her. She would not be in any way demeaned if he couldn’t bear the sight of her and they parted never to meet again, though because her initiative had grown out of the ease she had known since their first meeting, such action on his part seemed unlikely.
His instinct, to wait until what he most wanted happened so that neither would appear to think about how to begin what seemed impossible, had indeed been right. He reflected while holding her warm body that they had mindlessly given in to their need for each other. But all in their lives that had led to it had been by no means mindless. The transition was impossible to detect, a fusing spark that was never to be defined and isolated but which had brought them together.
His regard for her had bred the necessary patience, and had been the true guide of his action. The only value received from his orphanage schooling, and throughout a long age at sea, was to know when to wait and how to bide his time, and he considered that the power of this virtue had not disappointed him now that the first real call on it had been made. Thus every move was a combination of calculated choice and inherited need.
His shirt was wet with her tears, and she smiled at the thought that at least they were old enough to know what they were doing. He held her tight but his kisses were tender. He moved away. His cultivated indifference had succeeded, like everything else, at a cost. But his arms relaxed as he kissed the tips of her breasts. ‘It’s only a few days, but it seems that we’ve waited years.’
Her eyes opened. ‘There’s plenty of time now.’ She felt like a child, not yet a woman, an unexpected innocence which had nevertheless been hoped for. Was it only an infatuation which people often said such feelings were? She did not admit the word. There was too much cruelty in it, and for herself it was impossible to use. She smiled that she had only ever held her son with the same affection – when he had been a child.
He watched her bend at the bed in Clara’s room to pull down the covers. She was thin, flesh firm at her stomach. It was fitting that they should make love here. There was a small mole on her left shoulder. He held her from behind, and kissed the nape of her neck. She fought off the thrill, and turned. ‘I must go to the bathroom.’
She closed the door and sat down. She felt relaxed, yet the body was tense. Had she ever been in love, even when George had fixed her bicycle chain by Wollaton Church all those years ago? He had played the gentleman, and ever after called his bike ‘The Courtship Special’. Yet who could say what words had passed, or how much the atmosphere had been in control?
Later, when he had asked her to ‘be his wife’, they called it love. She couldn’t remember, but they must have done. The memory was a torment throughout her marriage. All was distortion. Their difficulties had been fixed and pervasive, nonetheless. There was nothing worthwhile to remember, and little to regret. When considering events from another life, memory was fickle and dubious, and hardly the word to use – or blame. The sensation that remained was one of damage. Being held by Tom could easily be called love, for it eradicated whatever might have been thought of as love yet could in no way have been. Love only came once in life, she had told herself while stroking his chest and shoulders under the shirt which tears had dampened. In those far-off days she had been taken up by the slavery of expectation and mistaken it for love.
A pull at the cord set a two-bar heater on the wall glowing at her back. She turned to the mirror, and though she looked pale, a smile held weariness at bay. Her breasts were small but shapely, reflecting the likeness of a skimpy model, she thought, in the long mirror.
He stood at the window looking towards the sea. The coppery midwinter glow drew back as a cloud closed off the sun. He didn’t doubt that it would show again. The sea looked after itself, he thought, as softened footsteps sounded on the carpet.
She came to him, her breasts flattening against the coarse hair on his chest. His expression seemed solemn. Did he already regret what had not yet happened? She hoped not. She was no longer that sort herself, and doubted that she ever had been. ‘We’ve landed ourselves in an unexpected honeymoon.’
He kissed her lips, and answered that they were in the perfect place. She wanted no tomorrow and, passionately kissing him, closed her eyes, legs weakening as if about to fall.
His gentle support moved her towards the bed. He kissed the delicate skin that closed over her eyes. The words that said he loved her were torn from him by forces beyond his understanding.
No loving had ever been so slow and harmonious, yet she still did not finally want it to happen. While knowing that she had committed herself, and that any further struggle was useless, and unjust to them both, she could not let go. It was like the objections to being born. Not to contest the change would have denied its value. She pleaded, and then fought, and closed her eyes to the lack of understanding in his expression.
But as if in her thoughts, he held her, giving in to what she didn’t dare ask for. Her silence drew him on, conferring a passion without hurry, going against both her will and his as he touched. She seemed to be at the edge of life, about to fall into a trance before death. Is this what fainting was like? She had never lost her consciousness. She was trapped in a private world of love, and didn’t care. They seemed as familiar with each other’s interchange of pleasures as if they had been together for years. But he was a stranger, no matter what she knew of his past. His fingers played at her and, keeping her lips on his, she held his hand firmly so that she gave in, and went on until she heard herself.
The shock diminished and spread, and he knew sufficient to stroke her for as long as the pleasure lasted. She felt her tears loosen. His free hand flattened her breasts. He sucked and soothed the nipples. She lifted him and looked at his face. He looked at her, but she didn’t car
e whether or not he saw an intensity that had never taken her so completely – whether or not it made her ugly. She opened her legs, and putting out her hands she drew him in.
4
After ripples of sunlight, rain beat from the sea and the air grew dark. Hail flashed and pattered the glass. She turned to press against him but, feeling weightless, hardly knew where she was. He kissed her down the stomach till he brought her back to consciousness. His tongue would not let go. She tried to get free. No one had done this before. She protested, then gave in to her shame, and in a few moments felt no shame at all. He held her to the pleasure that seemed drawn from outside, and as it began he moved into her with an ease that allowed her orgasm to run its course before she felt his own explosion deep inside.
The dreams floated, and she drifted in sleep. He got out of bed, and drew the clothes over her shoulders. A match scraped, and there was a smell of tobacco smoke. She couldn’t move, curled in hiding from the rain which fell against the window. She hadn’t slept for years. Yet she wasn’t sleeping. His weird battering left her sore. She didn’t know him, yet wanted to. His intense and purposeful love made him unknowable. He was a stranger home from the sea and she was a woman in from the storm. He touched her shoulder. ‘Here’s something to eat and drink.’
‘I can’t move.’ She leaned on her elbow. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s hard to say.’
The light was on. ‘I want to know.’
He held a cup for her to drink. ‘My watch has stopped. And I didn’t look at the kitchen clock.’
‘I feel like a baby.’ She sat up, and took the cup. He put the tray down and sat by her. ‘You must have been dreaming.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Couldn’t make it out.’
She ate a biscuit. ‘I haven’t slept at this time of day before.’
‘Sometimes at sea you catnap at all hours. Never in a bed like this, though.’
‘Did you have hammocks?’
He wore trousers and shirt, but had no shoes on. ‘Once or twice. I slept in one four weeks on my first trip to Singapore, and then four weeks back. They were comfortable.’
She brushed crumbs from the sheets. He kissed her breasts. In friendship she felt accessible, and liked it. ‘I must get dressed.’
‘I’m getting used to you with no clothes on.’
She was not embarrassed, and wondered why. Such freedom had been impossible with George. She felt a remote but friendly pity for him. They had existed, but had not been made for each other. Familiarity and time had failed to bring it about. Yet with someone so new she didn’t mind how he saw her, or what they did. She kissed his hand, and placed it between her legs.
He stroked her hair.
No words could explain her feeling of ease and helplessness. Did you have to go through the stage of being with no clothes on before getting to know someone, and was making love also part of it? She knew him, yet did not, but felt there was no need to consider it. She wanted to slide back into bed and dream, but drew the eiderdown around her and stood up.
‘We’ll go out for a meal,’ he said. ‘I know a place where they serve food upstairs. It’s nice and casual.’
In the street a wind blew the umbrella inside out, and he fought in a doorway to right it, while she stood in the rain and laughed. He held part with his foot and worked systematically to get the circle of spokes into place, but by the time he had gone fully around, the ribs shook themselves out again. He tried to do it more quickly, but the spokes still would not jump back into a firm circumference, so she held half the circle with both hands spread wide, using all her force, and they passed it round and round to each other till the umbrella was usable again. People looked at them as if they were mad. Swinging the umbrella high, rain clattered against the cloth, then he held her arm as they walked.
The room was smoky and warm, with a piercing smell of cooking that either made your mouth water, she thought, or drove you back into the street. She noticed him hesitate at the threshold, as if unsure who should go in first. Perhaps the only places where he had ever felt secure were the orphanage, a ship at sea, and his aunt’s flat.
The prolonged love-making in strange surroundings had sharpened her perceptions as if she were at the beginning of a cold or the flu. She was glad to sit down. The candle flame shook whenever the door opened. She took a napkin from the wine glass. ‘I feel as if I’ve been rolled down an endless slope in a barrel. My thighs ache, among other things.’
He touched her wrist. ‘I’m not surprised. We must have been three of four times around the world!’
The waitress gave them a folded card to look at. Pam didn’t know him. He didn’t own the flat at all, but had obtained the key while whoever it belonged to was on holiday. And was he really a retired naval man? Judy Ellerker had confirmed it, though perhaps he had deceived her as well, and the story from his day-long sorting out of the lumber room had also been fabricated. The documents matched his tale, though they could have been assimilated from somebody else’s. Maybe he was a man out of prison or back from abroad who had perfected his tricks for living off the land. He brought people into life again, and went on his way. His brown eyes looked dully at some far-off scene, until he sensed her attention. Then he came back with such immediacy she felt nothing but tenderness. She knew so little of the world that anything could be true, though in this case it wasn’t, and she decided not to retail such thoughts but say what she would like to eat.
He asked the waitress what champagne they had, and Pam let them sort the matter out. ‘It gets around the clubs of Nottingham,’ she said, noting what he chose.
‘I once took a case of it on board, to bring back for my aunt, but the captain sniffed ’em out, so Clara only saw one bottle. She opened it the first night, took a sip, gave me a swallow, then poured the whole lot down the sink. It was counterfeit, Clara said. She was right. It was worse than vinegar. God knows what it was. But the captain quaffed off eleven bottles without even a murmur. Perhaps it just didn’t travel.’
The door opened, and he looked towards the sound. He flinched before turning back to his soup, having seen that raven-dark hair, parted at the middle and smoothed tightly back, in some other place. The skin of her cheeks was fresh, like that of a doll still in bloom, and he remembered her from the time of his aunt’s death, and the hour they had made love in the bed-and-breakfast place near the station. He hoped she hadn’t seen him, but cursed a large mirror along the wall which made the room seem endless and damned all privacy. He lifted his glass to Pam’s. ‘Here’s to us.’
Beryl came close, and he felt a tap at the shoulder.
‘Hello, sailor! A different one every night, is it?’
He stood up. Pam noticed his eyes harden. The woman was good-looking, but brazen. Tom indicated whom he supposed to be her boy-friend standing some yards away: ‘Would you both like to join us?’
‘No fear,’ she laughed.
‘Boy-friend?’
‘Who else?’
He touched Pam’s elbow. ‘Let me introduce you.’
Pam said: ‘Hello!’
‘He’s good,’ Beryl said. ‘Aren’t you, sailor?’
Maybe she’s drunk, he thought. ‘Am I?’
‘But I must go.’ She nodded. Her boy-friend looked left out of things. ‘He’s not so bad, either, sailor. So long!’
Tom sat down.
He must know scores of girls. ‘Someone you met?’
‘She was the nurse on duty at the hospital when Clara died. Is the fish all right?’
She felt stupid at having her mood spoiled so easily. He sensed the weather-change, but there was nothing to do except regret the barometric pressure and curse his luck. ‘The sky’s turned foul for no good reason.’
She nodded, then drank. ‘The sun’s still out as far as I’m concerned.’
He called himself a fool. He had swaggered off such a close call more than once, but now felt clumsy and vulnerable, unable to speak for a while
– till he noticed a newspaper on an empty seat saying there would be a rail strike as from midnight. ‘We won’t get back to town tomorrow unless we take a bus, and I don’t feel like fighting for a seat. It’s inconvenient.’
‘Strikes usually are,’ she said.
‘My pay for the first ten years was enough to bring anybody out on strike, yet it wasn’t even thought of. I’d have felt ashamed creeping off a ship and saying I’ll do no work till I get more money. But times have changed. Your work is your weapon. Everyone can go on strike now. It’s bad for the country, of course, but who cares about that? It’s like chipping bits of wood from a raft in the middle of the sea. Sooner or later you sink and become food for the fishes. It’s a pity there’s nothing anyone can do, because it’s rather a good raft, and I’ve grown to like it, having done some of the work to keep it afloat.’
She thought of George’s brothers, and surprised herself by saying: ‘I’ve known people who found it hard enough to live on their money. But even if they have enough not to go short of anything, they want more – on the principle that they can never have enough. If others have it, they must have it. They see the easier lives of others on the telly, so you can hardly blame them.’
He dissected his fish. ‘It’s more than envy. It’s restlessness, and a craving for change without any spiritual values. People who could set an example don’t care to any more. They’ve lost their nerve, perhaps.’
‘People want to be happy,’ she said, ‘and they’re persuaded it costs money.’
He was as close to bitterness as she had so far seen him. ‘But happiness never comes. They’re poor, duped fools. When you have it, you don’t want it. Often you don’t even notice if you do have it. That’s probably the best sort. But as soon as you think to want it, it goes out of the window if you already have it, and becomes unattainable if you don’t. It’s a tricky kind of balance, all in all.’