Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations

by Alexander McCall Smith

  There were small signs of comfort. A table, with a lace tablecloth, a tattered green easy-chair, a bed with scattered cushions to make it look like a sofa. There was a framed photograph on a sideboard, a girl in a frilly dress, standing in front of the house.

  He sat down on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, at the fly-spots, at the decoration on the tin cornice.

  “It’s a nice place, isn’t it?”

  She was standing in the doorway, a cigarette drooping out of her mouth.

  “It cost my sister a bomb,” she said. “But it’s a really beautiful house. Really classy.”

  He nodded. “It’s nice.”

  She was staring at him.

  “What do you do?” she asked. “Do you work on the railways?”

  He smiled. “No. I’m a teacher.”

  She took the cigarette out of her mouth.

  “A teacher? You’re not joking are you?”

  He shook his head. “Mathematics. Cricket.”

  “God.”

  There was a silence. She was still staring at him, but now she left the doorway and came into the room and moved over to the window and drew the curtains.

  “Gives us a bit of privacy,” she said. “You get all sorts of people outside, you know. People who won’t pay for a ticket to the bioscope.”

  He watched her. She had taken the cigarette out of her mouth and stubbed it out in an ashtray. The ashtray was a stubby chrome model aeroplane on a spindly stand. The country was full of them.

  She stood before him, her heavily-reddened lips parted, revealing white teeth.

  “Do you need to learn anything, Mr Teacher?”

  He watched as she unbuttoned her blouse and wriggled out of her jeans. She tossed her clothes aside, as if glad to be free of them.

  “Like that, Mr Teacher? Like that?”

  She crouched beside him and her hands were upon him, upon his chest. He could feel his heart; he could hear it. She laid her hands upon his chest, and then moved down and slipped her fingers under the waistband of his trousers.

  “So, Mr Teacher. Lots to learn …”

  “Don’t …”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t.”

  “You scared or something? Do you want something different? I know how to do lots of things, lots. You tell me. Don’t be ashamed.”

  Her body was honey-coloured, long-limbed. For a moment he imagined that he could, that it might be possible, that with those honey limbs, that long body, that shape. But he closed his eyes.

  “Could you pretend …” But he stopped.

  “You’ve just got to tell me. Girls can act dirty too.”

  He rose to his feet, pushing her hands away lightly.

  “I’ll pay you,” he said. “Here. Is this enough?”

  She took the money and tucked it behind a cushion.

  “You don’t like me because I’m a coloured. Is that it?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing to do with it. You’re very beautiful.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  He turned away and started for the door. She watched him leave, and lit another cigarette, which she smoked naked, thoughtful, watching the smoke curl upwards to the ceiling.

  She laid aside her book. The school was quiet; the half-term holiday meant that most of the boys were away, leaving only those who could not get home for whatever reason or who had had no invitation to stay with their classmates. Those left behind were often given small tasks to perform around the school or the houses, and won points for service in the elaborate competition of house standing.

  So that boy was painting the generator shed near the house. He had been there since yesterday, she saw, and he was making slow work of it. She watched him from the verandah; he was clearly not enjoying the task. He was one of the senior boys, one who would be leaving that year. Why was he not at home? Divorced parents?

  She picked up her book and read a few lines before putting it down again. The boy was standing back from the shed, contemplating his handiwork.

  She stood up and walked over towards him.

  “How’s it going? I’ve been watching your labours from the verandah.”

  He turned round and smiled at her.

  “Slowly. Really slowly. I’m not a very good painter.”

  Her eye moved to the shed. “I can see that. Sorry.”

  He laughed. “I’m doing my best, I really am. It just all seems so … so uneven.”

  She looked at him. He was tall, and had a mop of fair hair; an interesting face. She had seen him before at school functions; noticed him. He stood out.

  “Would you like a break?” she said. “I could give you something on the verandah. Cold lemonade maybe?”

  “I’d love that,” he said. “Thank you Mrs Anderson.”

  He followed her back towards the verandah.

  “What’s your name by the way?”

  “Gordon,” he said.

  “Your first name?”

  “James.”

  She suddenly felt reckless. “You don’t have to call me Mrs Anderson, you know. It makes me feel … Just call me Anne.”

  She looked at him, meeting his eyes for a moment, and then she looked away.

  “If you want me to,” he said.

  * * *

  They talked as he drank the lemonade. He told her that his parents lived in Northern Rhodesia and that it was too far for him to go for the half term. His father had a business in Lusaka and a tea estate up near Lilongwe, in Nyasaland.

  “He wants me to run it when I finish with university,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that. It’s so isolated. It’s the middle of nowhere. I’d go mad.”

  “What do you want to do? Yourself?”

  “I’d like to live somewhere like Cape Town or Johannesburg. I’d work for Anglo American. Run mines.”

  She thought of her own future. They might stay here forever, surrounded by the same people, the same tight, self-righteous community. What would there be to talk about down the years? How could she cope with emptiness?

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “To be able to get away.”

  He looked at her sideways.

  “I think of you as being luckier than me,” he said. “I feel as if I’m in prison. You can get away. You can go off to Bulawayo when you want to. You can do anything you like. I can’t even go beyond those gates without permission from my housemaster, and even then, where is there to go?”

  She stared at him. She had never heard one of the boys talk like this before, but then she had never spoken to any of them, she thought. She had not thought of them as people with longings, frustrations. They were just that amorphous mass, the boys. Now she was talking to a young man, not a boy.

  “You hate it?” she said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  He was studying his hands, at the tiny splashes of paint on the tanned skin.

  “I suppose so,” he said. “I bear it. But I’d love just to get out more. I’d love to go off to Bulawayo now and then, just for a day. I feel so … so itchy.”

  She looked out past the pillars of the verandah. The sky in the distance was heavy, deep purple with rain. It was a sky that she loved; towering stacked clouds of water. There would be a storm, and already there was a warm wind, the first warning.

  “I could take you into Bulawayo,” she said. “You could come in with me.”

  He looked up sharply, and she saw the colour in his eyes.

  “Could I? Really?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Why not? Would anybody notice that you were away?”

  “I could fix it,” he said. “I could get one of the others to sign me in for afternoon duties. Nobody would be able to tell.”

  “Then why don’t we go into Bulawayo?” she said. “I’m fed up too.”

  She noticed him hesitating and she guessed at the reason.

  “My husband’s away,” she said. “He’s gone up to Salisbury to sort out next term’s cricket away matches. Don�
�t worry. He’s not going to ask me what I’m doing.”

  That evening she ate her dinner alone in the dining room, listening to the radio. There was one of those endless political discussions that depressed her so: I’m telling you that there is only one way forward in this country. Only one. We have to take the Africans into our confidence and show them that the Federation can be made to work and that there’s something in it for them. This is partnership. We’ve simply got to recognise that there’s no other way. If we keep denying them a part in the business of government, then that is going to lead to trouble sooner or later. Yes, I mean that. Riots. Stonings. It’s no good running away from it. You can’t turn the clock back, you know. The fact of the matter is that there simply isn’t a British Empire to stand behind us any more; it’s evaporated …

  She turned off the radio and sat before her half-empty plate. She felt uneasy, unsettled; as if she was brewing an illness of some sort. The storm had passed them by; perhaps that was it. The electricity in the air had not been discharged, but was still there, and she could feel it.

  She pushed aside her plate, rose from the table, and went outside. The air was warm and heavy, scented by the arum lilies and the white flowers of the frangipanis. Above, the sky was a field of endless constellations dipping and swinging from black horizon to black horizon.

  There were the lights of the staff houses; curtained squares, illuminated, and the lights of the school houses, dotted irregularly, some distance away. She walked out on to the path that led towards the school, regardless of the warnings Michael had given her of the dangers of snakes at night, especially in hot weather.

  She approached the house, keeping back among the gum trees, which separated it from the playing fields. There was a smell of eucalyptus, which she loved, and dried leaves beneath her feet. This was his house, and he was there, although he said there were only five of them left in it over the break. She stopped, among the trees, not daring to go closer, to risk being spotted in the light from the windows. She saw that there was a light on downstairs, and several on the floor above. That was the common room, but it was empty. There was a table tennis table and a cupboard; chairs.

  She waited. There was a rustling noise behind her and she started; a snake? But whatever it was had moved off, and there was silence. She turned back to look at the open window, and at that moment she realised why she felt uneasy, why she felt that something was wrong. She yearned to see James again. She wanted him. She closed her eyes. It was impossible. She had to fight it. She could not allow it. But there was a feeling in her stomach, a wrenching, undeniable feeling. She wanted him.

  She turned away, and walked back towards the house, through the night. She tried not to think about it, but she knew that she had already embarked on it and she could not stop. She would see him tomorrow. They would go to Bulawayo, as planned.

  He came to the house the next morning, and she felt the same. He walked with her to the car, and they drove off, and she felt the same.

  “I haven’t asked you what you wanted to do,” she said. “I thought that we could go for lunch at a place I know. The Orchard. It’s on the Matopos Road. I’ve been there once or twice before.”

  “That would suit me,” he said. “I don’t care what we do. I just want to get out of here. By the way, I haven’t got much money.”

  She laughed. “I’ll take care of that. I’ve got plenty.”

  “I’m so fed up with the food we get here,” he said. “Lunch somewhere else would be great.”

  They chatted as she drove in. He was an easy companion, a good conversationalist, mature beyond his years. She stole glances at him from time to time, and she felt her stomach lurch. I want to touch him, she said to herself. I want to touch this boy. What would he say? Would he be surprised if I were to lean over and put my hand on his arm, on his shoulder? Would he say: Look, I’m sorry, but … He would be shocked, of course. She was a married woman. They arrived at the Orchard and they were led to the table which she had booked by telephone. It was a large restaurant at the back of an hotel; a paved area shaded under trellises with vines and grenadilla plants.

  “This is great,” he said. “It’s a good choice.”

  The waiter appeared.

  “I’m going to have wine,” she said. “Would you like some too?”

  He looked at her for a moment.

  “It’s against every rule.”

  “I know. That’s why I asked you if you wanted some.”

  He relaxed. “Of course. Please.”

  She ordered, and a bottle of chilled white wine was brought to the table in a bucket of ice. The waiter poured them each a glass and then left them.

  “This is very kind of you,” he said. “I hardly slept last night, thinking about today.”

  It was a disclosure; she would tell him too. “Neither did I. I was looking forward to it as well.”

  Their eyes met, and searched, and she knew that they had each made everything plain. She reached for her glass, and took a sip, watching him. He looked away, and then back at her, and his lips parted slightly, as if he was about to say something.

  She reached across, suddenly, and touched his hand, which was resting on the table. She felt him start, as if he had had a shock, but then, a moment later, his fingers brushed against hers and he pressed her hand briefly. Then he withdrew his hand and picked up the menu.

  “You should order for me,” he said. “I eat anything. You choose.”

  She looked at the menu.

  “All right. I’ll choose.”

  Then suddenly he said to her: “You’re married … I …”

  She looked up from the menu. “My marriage isn’t working all that well, James.”

  He looked down at the tablecloth.

  “I’m fond of Michael. It’s just that sometimes people aren’t suited to one another as husband and wife. It happens, you know.”

  He nodded. “I see.”

  “So don’t let’s talk about it.”

  They finished lunch and sat for a long time over coffee.It was almost four o’clock before they rose from the table. She told him that they would drive back straight away, so that his absence would not be noticed.

  “I don’t want to,” he said. “I’d much prefer to stay here.”

  “So would I. But let’s not court disaster.”

  “It’ll come by itself,” he said. “Disaster does, doesn’t it?”

  They drove back, largely in silence, but a comfortable silence. She hoped that they would not meet another car on the school road, as she did not want him to be seen with her. The road was quiet, though, and there was nobody.

  She parked the car at the back of the house and he got out. It was now dusk, and here and there lights had been turned on.

  “I should get back,” he said.

  She stopped him, and touched his hand.

  “Not yet. Come inside.”

  She led him into the house, which was in semi-darkness, and he followed her through the living room and corridor to the spare bedroom. Mutely, she took him in and closed the door behind them. Then she turned round and put her arms about him, and slipped her hand beneath his collar.

  She took him gently, slowly, to the bed, and they fell upon it, wordlessly. His skin was soft to her touch; so smooth; his breath came in short bursts, from excitement.

  “Let’s run away,” he said. “Let’s leave.”

  He held her to him, his hands against her back, warm.

  “Go away? Where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “We could go down south. To Cape Town maybe.”

  She laughed. “And do what?”

  “Live together,” he said. “I get money from my grandfather’s will when I turn eighteen. If we could last two months until then.”

  She kissed him, lightly, and pushed the hair back from his forehead.

  “What a wonderful idea.”

  “So we can go? I could phone and tell my father I’m fed up with this place and I’
m taking off for a while. I’ve only got a few more months here anyway – there’s nothing to keep me.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  She lay back, with him in her arms, his skin warm against hers. He was eighteen, almost; she was twenty four. Six years. He was a boy still, though, and she was a woman. She imagined her father hearing the news; she imagined the scandal. And how long would it last? A few months, perhaps, until he got over the novelty of it and began to think about his future. No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t expect to tie him down, this beautiful boy, her plaything.

  She said, suddenly: “It’s late. You really must get back.” And he arose from the bed, and dressed, and she glanced at him, at the last moments of precious, vulnerable nakedness.

  She got up too, and stood before him.

  Then she said to him: “James. When you go back tonight, don’t be cross with me. I’m going to go away, but just by myself. So we won’t see one another again. We can’t. We just can’t.”

  He protested, but she put her finger to his lips, and he became silent. Then she led him out of the house and watched him until he was swallowed by the darkness of the night.

  She went back into the house and retrieved her suitcases from the wardrobe. She packed indiscriminately, mixing clothes, and papers, shoes, books. Then, when the suitcases were full, she dragged them out, one by one, to the car and manoeuvred them into the boot.

  She closed the house, but did not lock it. Michael would be back the following evening and everything would be safe until then. He would be pleased, she thought. He would be relieved that she had solved the problem for him.

  She got into the car and began to drive down the school road, going slowly for the bumps that came suddenly and unexpectedly. Going slowly, she saw him at some distance, standing in the roadway, waiting for her. She slowed to walking pace, and he walked out and stood before the car.

  “I was waiting for you,” he said. “I’ve got my bag over there.”

  He pointed into the darkness.

  “Don’t go without me,” he said. “Please.”

  She turned off the car engine and doused the lights. He was leaning in at the window, and had reached out to touch her.

  “I’m in love with you,” he said. “I really am.”