Neither of us seemed to have a clue as to what to say next.
The sun continued beating down on us, we listened to the shouts of laughter of children playing on the beach and paddling in the water. We heard the dull sounds of transistor radios. We watched the birds as they wheeled and turned around in the bright sky. Holly ran sand nervously through her fingers.
“It doesn’t matter you know. I thought you probably had been with him right from the first day you came back and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change me and it hasn’t changed you. It honestly really doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t answer because I was kissing her and she was kissing me back, though she had to break off quickly because she couldn’t breathe. “It’s pretty difficult to kiss and cry at the same time!” so I handed her my handkerchief and waited while she wiped her eyes and blew her nose before kissing her again.
“Thanks for telling me. It can’t have been easy.”
“We won’t ever have secrets from each other will we?”
“Never.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
So I kissed her again.
An hour later we set off hand in hand to walk back across the sands towards the red-bricked buildings on the shore.
“Chalk and cheese. We’re chalk and cheese. That’s why we get on so well. We’re different nationalities for a start.”
“You’re ten years older than I am.” She joined in the game.
“You’re blonde and I’ve got dark hair.”
“I’ve been married before and you’re a confirmed bachelor.” I let that pass.
“I’ve lived here all my life and you’ve only just arrived.”
That seemed to exhaust the differences. “What about the similarities?”
“We’re both human?” She asked as if to emphasise what had gone before. I liked her sense of humour.
“We’re both orphans.”
“Neither of us have any real close family.”
“We’ve both been lonely, frightened, miserable, unhappy, uncertain, unsure, lost, alone and friendless.”
“This is getting too heavy.”
“OK OK. We both like our work.”
“That’s a point, we’ll be together all day every day, no getting away from each other when we’ve had enough!”
“Actually, that is a point we’ll have to think about. We must be careful not to shut Linda out, look what trouble that got us into in the Spring.”
“We’ll be super-professional, super-efficient and we’ll never use the office desks for anything other than their designated purpose!”
“So it’ll be OK on the office floor?”
And again she made a small fist and thumped me on the arm before grabbing hold of my hand and snuggling up to me as we walked back across the sands.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next day was an important one at work. At the end of the week the company would have completed its first year of trading. “I’ll give it 25 years to make my million and then I retire. 2001. A whole new millennium.” Linda had sounded as if she was joking as she led the regular Monday morning meeting when we three partners did our best to plan the events of the coming week. But we all knew she was deadly serious. “We’ve got to get the books together now, everything hunky dory for the accountant. He’s coming to check us out at the end of the week so I’m going to be busy in here adding and subtracting”
“And getting through at least 15 pots of correcting fluid by the look of things.”
“It’s important! Everything’s got to add up and look right.”
We went through the work in hand and the regular jobs that we knew would be coming in, trying to anticipate which clients might spring a surprise project and what staff we had to do what work. It was very similar to many of our meetings.
“I must say, you two are doing a remarkable job of pretending you’re not together.”
“We’re not going to embarrass people during office hours. You will tell us if we’re being too familiar won’t you.”
“You can count on me! But honestly I think it’s great. The girls are so pleased for you, Luci said they won’t giggle and tease you any more than they would tease each other!”
All day Thursday we pored over the ledgers, making sure everything added up.
“Do you need all these? I mean it’s only a small business and you’ve got eight, no nine, files and three books and God knows how many packets of bills and slips.
“It’s all got to be done right and we don’t want the Inland Revenue thinking we’re trying to get away with anything.”
“We know. What time do they arrive tomorrow?”
“10, and it’s a ‘he’ not a ‘they’.”
“Do we know who the ‘he’ is?”
“Yes, I met him at his office. Ted recommended the firm and took me round a week or so ago.”
She saw the look that passed between Holly and me. “Oh yeah?” Holly sounded very American sometimes.
“You were both busy, doing other things, at the time.”
“Sorry. We did rather leave you to it.”
“No problem. It is rather my fault we’ve got the business in the first place.”
The next morning we were all in the office early.
Holly commented that Linda looked particularly smart in a fresh white shirt, navy linen skirt and, for the first time since the end of May, high heeled shoes. ‘She’s even wearing make up.’ Holly whispered. She and I were in the informal clothes that had become the unofficial uniform of the office that summer, denim shorts and t-shirts.
As soon as the accountant came into the office Holly caught my eye and mouthed silently ‘gorgeous’. Ramesh Kambli was a very good-looking man. He walked straight to Linda and shook her hand.
“Good morning Miss Forster.”
“Linda, please. Mr Kambli”
“Ramesh, please. And these are Mrs Eccleston and Mr Donaldson?”
“Do call me Holly.”
“And Charles.”
It was all so formal but perhaps because Holly and I were in the early stages of finding out what it was like to be in love our understanding of what was going on between Linda and Ramesh was heightened.
Perhaps we just read signs which were not very subtle.
While he was punctilious in his politeness to Holly and me, at every opportunity Ramesh turned back to address Linda, who didn’t stop smiling.
“I’ll get the drinks. Tea? Coffee? Water?” Holly offered, I suggested she needed help and we managed to leave the room and reach the kitchen before we started to laugh.
“Was that electricity or what?” Holly was “No wonder she kept quiet about him!”
“I think we might see quite a lot of Ramesh.” I agreed “Let’s just finish these drinks and then leave them to it.”
At the end of the day it was a group of four that went over the road to the pub for the winding down session and we took the opportunity to find out more about Ramesh.
Linda didn’t have to ask many questions but she was very interested in the answers.
Through the course of the four rounds of drinks we discovered that Ramesh was 28 years old, had been born in London but his family had originally come from Bombay where his grandfather, uncles and cousins still lived. They were all accountants. ‘It’s just something everyone in the family can do. I will have the choice, when I reach 30, to stay in England or to go to Bombay and take over the office there. I am the oldest grandson, the eldest son of the eldest son.’
“Will you have the choice in other things?” Holly was always forward and I was worried he was take offence, as, I noticed, was Linda, but he answered openly and without embarrassment.
“I am lucky, my family will let me choose my wife, as they will let me choose other things in my life, we’re not as traditional as some.”
Unusually I found I had a lot to talk about with Ramesh. A shared interest in cricket breaks down a great many barriers an
d Linda seemed miffed that he spent more time talking with me that evening than he did with her. I made up for it in her eyes by inviting him to the barbecue we were holding at the weekend for all the girls in the office, their boyfriends or husbands and families to celebrate the business’s first birthday. When she heard me inviting Ramesh I didn’t get the glare I had expected. She seemed quite pleased at the prospect of seeing him again.
It was a very lively party that Sunday. The weather continued to be unusually fine and sunny and we had arranged plenty of things for the various children to do. Max had arranged for a swimming pool to be installed and there was plenty of food, which Monika had insisted was her responsibility even if I did have to show her how to cook on the barbecue. She seemed to enjoy it.
There had been many parties and gatherings of one sort or another at Sandhey over the years but that afternoon was unique in many ways. Perhaps the most important differences was that, for the first time, Susannah, Carl and her children appeared, and acted, as a family. Jack and Al almost looked like twins, although Jack was nearly a year older they were the same height and build and had their father’s blond hair and blue eyes.
Bill was dark and of slighter build than his brothers and he was as different from his brothers in temperament as he was in looks. Josie continued to act as her brothers’ surrogate mother but there were signs of her relaxing into a long overdue childhood. She held Carl’s hand and pulled him towards where her brothers were playing with the croquet mallets and balls and persuaded him to show them all how they should play properly. It was apparent that he had spent a lot of time with them in the past week as they were comfortable with him and he with them.
I exchanged glances with Susannah who was also watching her children with Carl and we smiled, the arguments of years set aside, if not forgotten.
Watching them, Pat and Jeff worried how their being together would affect Linda. “She’s always thought he would be hers one day, it caused so many problems with Holly.”
“It doesn’t seem to be worrying her one bit! Who is that gorgeous young man with our daughter?”
Linda and Ramesh were sitting close to each other on the wide wall, their feet dangling over the edge, their backs to the party in the garden as they looked out towards the sea.
“No idea. Charles? Holly? Who’s that with Linda? Anything we should know?” Jeff leant across to ask.
“Ramesh Kambli, our accountant. They’ve known each other all of a week and don’t seem to have stopped talking the whole time.”
“It can’t only be work they’re talking about.”
“He’s probably explaining the rules of cricket.”
“That’ll take a lifetime.”
“You never know!”
“Good grief! Have you got them married off already? How long did you say they’ve they known each other? She’s never spoken of him at home.”
“Three days or so, that we know about anyway.”
“Sometimes that’s enough.”
“I hope any relationship lasts at least until next July, July 7th 1977 that’s all I’m asking. He might invite us to Old Trafford for the Aussie Test, he was saying his firm always gets tickets. I want to see us regaining the Ashes.”
Jeff was always interested when there was cricket to talk about.
“You look pleased with yourself Max.” He turned to Max who had joined us, seeming more relaxed than he had for a long time.
“I like Ramesh,” he spoke without preamble “I have spoken with him many times and know his family. He is a strong minded, intelligent man who will keep Linda in check. That is if their friendship develops.” He had already decided that that would happen. “I hope they have less of a rocky road than theirs.” He nodded in the direction of Susannah and Carl. “I have never been totally comfortable with that relationship but I know better than to fight the inevitable.”
“What about Holly and Charles?” Pat asked Max in all seriousness, while she looked directly at me with mischief in her eyes.
Despite the lightness of her question Max answered as if Holly and I were not part of the group he was addressing. Perhaps it was the only way he could say the things he wanted to say. “I have no such qualms about Charles. I have watched him change and grow as a person over these past months. I know him well enough to know that he will only be happy when he knows he is needed, and it is clear Holly needs him.” I hugged Holly to me, Max’s continued approval, though in many ways irrelevant, was important to me.
I walked Holly back to her flat that night, we were the last to leave the garden and took the short cut across the golf course. Carefully keeping to the fairways we walked in the moonlight, tired after the effort of being sociable all afternoon. After a few minutes I stopped and pointed in the direction of a dark house with large windows standing out with no curtains drawn and light pouring out into the blackness.
“That’s Millcourt. Those rooms, on the first floor, that’s where the Nursery Floor was, the room to the right of the big one, that was my bedroom. When they divided it into flats Ted bought the one on the first floor.”
“What a strange thing to do when he must have known your family when it was their home.”
“He’s always been almost a part of the family. I’ve seen less of him since, well since you got back from Oxford, but he is still the one person you can always rely on to get things done. He was in love with my mother, he’s always looked after me and Susannah when he could.”
“When you’d let him.”
“I think it was so sad, he loved her for so long and I’m not sure she ever knew. If she did she never did anything about it.”
“You love me don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“Would you like to do something about it?” she asked provocatively, pulling me down towards the grass.
“I think sand might be a little less prickly and more private.” Though it was difficult to imagine why anyone would be on the golf course this late I led her to the protection of the nearby bunker.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
After they had finished their coffee, they had kissed goodnight and Charles had left to walk back to Sandhey.
It was Sunday and they tried not to sleep together on what they called ‘school nights’, They didn’t want to turn up to work together too often, everyone knew what was going on but they did try not to make it too obvious.
Holly lay in bed remembering the gentleness and joy of making love with Charles. She could still feel the dampness between her legs and the gentle throbbing within her reminded her of the satisfaction, both emotional and physical, she felt because of him. She was so lucky, she told herself, the future was looking good, work and life was falling into place for her. ‘For the first time in your life, you’re actually happy.’ She spoke out loud as she lay waiting for sleep to come, looking forward to tomorrow.
At first she wasn’t concerned when she heard the noise of a door opening, Charles must have decided he wanted to sleep with her that night after all. He had said how much he looked forward to bringing her a cup of coffee in bed in the morning, having breakfast and planning the day together. She put her hand between her legs to still the anticipation that was building within her.
But Charles hadn’t got a key.
Perhaps she had left the door ajar, she knew she was a bit too relaxed about that, especially when she knew the outside door was locked and the Lockwoods were in the flat upstairs.
But the Lockwoods were away.
Perhaps she had better check. But before she could get out of bed she saw a figure framed in the doorway.
It took only a moment for her to realise it was not Charles.
“Hi Holl Doll. Chummy left you alone tonight has he? Well it’s a good thing I’m here to keep you company. Wouldn’t want you to get lonely.”
She didn’t have time to move, she could barely pull the sheets around her before he had reached the bed. He didn’t bother to undress fully, simply unzipping his trousers
, pushing the sheet aside leaving his arm across her neck and forcing himself into her. He ejaculated fiercely within seconds.
“I love it when someone’s already loosened things up. No need to force through unwilling flesh. Chummy left you soft and sweet didn’t he. Shame you cut off all your hair I’d have liked to wipe myself clean on it like I used to. I’ll have to find something else.”
He held her down very firmly as he rubbed himself on the sheet, forcing her to see how powerful and unspent he was. She knew she could not fight him off, she had never been able to in the past. There was no point in screaming, there was no-one else in the building and besides, she had already decided. No one was ever going to know.
She neither said nor did anything to argue with him as he pushed himself into her again, this time taking several minutes before working himself up to his climax. As she lay as still as she could she remembered the patterns of his assaults. He would take longer each time until he was no longer urgent for gratification and then he would turn her over and try something different. ‘That’s not rape’, he used to tell her ‘it’s indecent assault, at least it might be if we weren’t married. But we are so you’ll have to put up with it like the pathetic little bitch you are.’
She was determined not to respond in any way, she couldn’t relax as she worried her body would begin to remember how much it had enjoyed the experience of such a short time before and instinctively respond. She concentrated on the grains of sand on her back, still sticking to her. She must not let her body think this was the same thing at all. If she didn’t respond perhaps he would leave her and go away. He would like her to get upset and angry. Not arguing may be the way to make him get bored and stop. She must give him nothing.
She didn’t try to scratch him with her nails. She didn’t squirm and resist. She didn’t touch him or try to fight him off at all as he entered her again.
He held his arm across her throat as he manoeuvred his clothes off and lay naked next to her, making sure the whole length of his body touched hers.
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