by Sadie Jones
He sat on the side of the bed and he wiped his face and thought of Alice, and how frail she was, and that he’d always assumed she’d be there in her strange, brittle tenacity. He put the light on to check his watch. It was three o’clock and the window was black. He put the light out again and got up. He could get a drink. He was trying not to do that. He thought of Alice again, and was frightened.
He went out onto the landing, and wasn’t sure if he was dreaming he was doing it, or if he really was doing it. Her door was ajar and he went to the gap. He didn’t want to open it, he just wanted to check she was there, but he couldn’t see her through the gap and he stood listening to his heart beating and trying not to make a sound. He wasn’t going to open the door. He told himself he was being stupid; of course she was there, of course she wasn’t dead, why would she do a thing like that? But then he thought of her helplessness, and that she was unloved. He pushed the door open with one finger and prayed she’d be sleeping.
She was lying on her back, across the bed, with her body nearly all uncovered by the sheet and wearing her nightdress. Her mouth was open a little and her breasts rose and fell in shallow time with her breathing. She opened her eyes. He stepped back onto the landing.
He didn’t think she’d seen. He waited, out of sight, not daring to go back to his room. There was silence and then he heard her move, her body move on the sheet, and a whisper.
‘Lewis?’
He waited long minutes before moving, he waited until he could be sure she slept. Then he went back to his bed.
They didn’t see each other in the morning and he left for work before she got up. He understood people’s previously mystifying attachment to the world of work – it got you out of all sorts of things.
‘ 1949,’ said Phillips, and dumped another box on his desk.
You are required to present yourself on Monday the 26th August … He picked up his pencil. Shooting a gun would be good, but he didn’t much fancy the prospect of killing anyone. He’d tell his father he was going at the end of the week. Gilbert wouldn’t be impressed; he had been a proper soldier with a just war to fight. Lewis pictured himself in a uniform, saluting, and being given a medal, and imagined Gilbert and Alice clapping and dressed up. Then he thought it more likely that, given a gun and a bad day, he’d find the urge to put a bullet through his own head irresistible, and get himself off their hands that way. He continued writing: ‘80 lbs aggregate, £5 6s 4d …’
Leaving the quarry office, and driving home, was at first actually joyful, with the road twisting down the hill in the sunny evening. There was relief and beauty in the country around him and in being away from his terrible desk. Then came the straighter part of the road, towards the village, and he would start to picture home, and Alice, and what she’d be doing, and he’d find himself driving slower and sometimes just stopping and waiting. He didn’t do that now; he made himself drive on and he hardly realised he was home already until he saw Tamsin waiting at the bottom of his drive. He slowed down and looked at her, absurdly pretty and pale against the dark leaves. He imagined her walking out to meet him, waiting for him there, and wondered why.
As he got nearer to her, standing there in her bright summer dress, he felt more a part of the dark behind her than the light she stood in. She raised her gloved hand and waved to him. He stopped the car.
‘I thought you hadn’t seen me!’
‘I saw you.’ He left the engine running.
‘It’s been ages. What have you been doing?’ ‘Working.’
‘Daddy said no, didn’t he?’ ‘Of course he did.’ ‘Will you come for a walk with me?’ ‘Now?’
‘Unless you don’t want to, of course.’
He glanced up the drive, to his home – and Alice – and he cut the engine.
‘All right then.’
They walked along the verge a little and stopped at the stile into the field that ran along the road to the station. It was a long, narrow field, with a path worn through the grass up to the woods. The sun caught the trunks of the trees sideways and made them glow against their shadows, but the field was all in light, and golden.
Tamsin gave him her hand and stepped onto the stile. She climbed over, and carried on holding his hand and looked into his eyes.
‘Let’s go into the woods.’
Lewis felt the look. He wasn’t sure he should go anywhere with her.
‘All right,’ he said, and they walked up the field towards the trees.
He lit a cigarette and looked down as he walked, and she seemed happy to walk in silence for a while. He was far away from her in his mind. They reached the wood, and it was cooler between the trees. She walked with her hands behind her back, glancing sideways at him. He knew she was looking, and he knew she wanted him to think she was attractive, but there was nowhere to go from there and he didn’t want to get involved with it.
‘Don’t you like me any more?’
‘You’re fine.’
There were trees all around them now. Tamsin stopped and leaned against the wide trunk of an oak tree. He stopped too, half turning to look back at her. She took off her shoes and her bare feet were neat and perfect like the rest of her. She undid the button on her glove and took it off, and then the other one, and she held them both and looked up at him, letting the wave of her hair fall forward. He dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his foot and looked at her standing there. He was beginning to feel angry.
‘I think you’ve gone off me,’ she said. ‘You used to think I was so pretty, I know you did.’
‘What do you want with me?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Why are you nice to me?’
‘I told you, I want to help you.’
‘Help me what?’
‘Lewis, you’re—’
He saw her falter. He enjoyed it.
‘When’s your birthday?’
‘What?’
‘When is it?’
‘May.’
‘Twenty-one in May. Did you have a party?’
‘Course, big one. Why?’
‘Lots of friends. At home?’
‘Lewis?’
‘Was it at home?’
‘Yes, it was at home! What are you asking me about it for?’
‘I’m talking to you like people talk to each other. I’m having a normal conversation like normal people—’
‘But you’re not normal people, are you?’
‘Aren’t I? Why aren’t I?’
‘Well, really! If you need me to tell you—’
No. He didn’t need her to tell him. She had her back to the tree. She seemed small against it and he took a step towards her.
‘Have you had a boyfriend?’
‘I’m twenty-one, don’t you think I’ve been out with men?’
‘You wouldn’t want a boy, you mean?’
‘You’re not a boy.’
‘Well, what am I?’
She – laughing, ‘I should think you’re a problem!’
‘I’m a problem. I don’t like normal things. I can’t do things like normal people. I could take you to the pictures. I could buy you dinner somewhere.’
‘Silly, I don’t want you to.’
‘So what do you want? What exactly do you want, Tamsin?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Talk to me about what?’
‘About things.’
‘Plays. Books. What?’
‘About, well – gosh, about your problems, I suppose. I want you to feel better.’
‘You want me to feel better?’
‘Your mother—’
‘My mother drowned. It was nearly ten years ago. I was pretty much a mess for a while, but I’m all right now. What else?’
‘Well—’
‘What else do you want me to feel better about?’
‘Can we stop this?’
‘You don’t want to talk?’
‘I do, but—’
‘Not ab
out that? About what, then?’
‘You know people say you killed her?’
She was smiling as she said it; she was leaning against the tree and looking up at him and smiling.
‘… What?’
‘People say you killed your mother. Didn’t you know? When you got so wild, running away and drinking, that’s what everybody said, that it was guilt for killing her. Didn’t you know?’
Lewis was quite still and lost.
‘I was ten years old. Sh – she drowned.’
He heard his own voice stupidly clumsy like a child’s and didn’t know if he was defending himself or making a confession.
‘She was swimming and she …’
Tamsin laid her hand on his arm and came up close to him.
‘Oh gosh, Lewis, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
She dropped her gloves and held his other arm, and her mouth was close to his cheek, and then he understood her. He understood her kindness.
‘… Lewis?’ she breathed, close to his ear.
He put his arm around her waist and kissed her and he was quite cool about making her want it. She kissed him back, gratefully, reaching up to him.
‘Oh, don’t do that,’ she whispered, an inch away from his mouth.
He kissed her and felt still and watchful, and she pressed herself against him as they kissed. Then she looked up and smiled at him, very warm and pleased.
‘Now I know,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘What you wanted.’
‘That’s a beastly thing to say.’
She was insulted and he was pleased to have insulted her, and he felt hard about it and liked it. He kissed her again.
‘You don’t want me to take you out, do you?’ he said.
He could feel her heart beating against him or maybe it was his heart, beating against her.
‘… This is what you want—’
He kissed her again, and lifted her hair from her neck, and kissed her there, and he kept to the rules and didn’t touch her below her neck, but he could feel how much she wanted him.
‘No – no—’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said, holding onto his arm with one hand as she reached up to him.
It wasn’t like one of those other women wanting him – this was delicate and her fingers on his arm were finding out what it would feel like, not knowing beforehand. He put his hand onto the top of her dress and held onto it and pulled her towards him, and she shook when he did it and made a little sound, a soft girlish sound that came out of her because she wanted him so badly. A button broke from the top of her dress and fell onto the ground, and he had to remember she wasn’t the sort of girl you could just have against a tree, even if she was behaving like it, even if he could have done if he wanted. Then—
‘All right. Stop now. That’s enough.’
She said it very briskly, and he let go of her. There was one still moment, not touching, and then she immediately got close again, as if she’d never said it, and kissed him and put her hand onto his belt buckle and held it. He wanted her badly too now, and she knew that he did, and she smiled up at him, looking into his eyes and holding onto his belt like that, with her fingers tucked inside and pressing into him.
They kissed and he felt her tongue and her parted lips, and then she opened her eyes and took her body away from him again, but left her hand, holding his belt.
She tightened her fingers.
‘We’d better get back,’ she said. ‘They’ll wonder where I am.’
Lewis looked down at Tamsin’s hand on his belt.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, and laughed, and gave the buckle a little tug, and then took her hand away, but kept looking into his eyes.
He bent down to her and she kissed him with no shyness at all and pressed herself against him and he was getting taken over. And then she pulled away.
‘I said No. Stop it,’ she said.
He knew how to behave. He hadn’t been going to touch her. She should leave it now, though. Didn’t she see that she should leave it now?
She looked into his eyes and she smiled.
‘There,’ she said, ‘kiss me on the cheek like a brother and we’ll forget all about it.’
Lewis didn’t move. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She laughed. Then she kissed his neck, stroked her girlish cheek against his neck, her lips against his ear, a tiny whisper, and he heard a rushing in his head and he lost everything …
‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’
He slammed his fist into the tree behind her and the pain was beautiful.
‘WHAT –? TAMSIN!’
The woods and the sky wheeled around him.
He was on his own again. There was faltering blackness in his head.
He couldn’t see her any more. He didn’t know how long she had been gone.
He fixed his eyes on her pale blue shoes lying in the dirt with the white gloves next to them and came back to himself, except that the roaring in his ears was still there, muffled and threatening. He turned away and left her things lying there.
Kit saw Tamsin running down from the woods towards the house. She saw that she was upset, and barefoot, and that her dress was open at the top. She had been sitting on the window seat in the drawing room and trying to draw the kitten that was sleeping there. The kitten wasn’t hers, and she wasn’t allowed it in the house, but it had come in and she had found it sleeping and passed the time with drawing it. She saw Tamsin come down to the terrace and stop. She saw that she had been crying. She felt dread, but she didn’t get up immediately. Dicky came out of the house and met Tamsin on the terrace, and Kit pushed the window open to hear.
‘Tamsin? What’s happened? Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere—’
‘Tell me!’
‘Daddy—’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Lewis—’
Dicky grabbed Tamsin’s arm and pulled her along with him, and inside, and Kit heard him say, ‘Tell me! What happened?’
She got up and went out into the hall. She saw Dicky pull Tamsin into the library with him and the door closed. Kit made herself run away from the door, and out of the house and around to the library window. She went against the wall and listened, controlling her breathing.
‘– No, he didn’t!’
‘Look at you!’
‘He didn’t!’
‘Why were you with him?’
‘We went for a walk—’
‘Why did you go with him?’
Dicky was very angry and he was shouting, and Kit didn’t think she’d ever heard him shout at Tamsin.
‘He wanted me to, and then—’
‘Then?’
‘Well, he—’
‘What? What?’
‘Well, we were – kissing—’
‘Look at you!’
‘He didn’t do anything.’
‘You!’
‘Stop it!’
‘You look like a slut—’
‘Don’t!’
‘What’s this then?’
‘Let go – stop it!’
‘What did he do to you? What did you let him do to you?’
‘Nothing, he was kissing me. He kissed me, that’s all.’
‘You’re lying to me—’
‘Don’t do that! Stop that! You’re horrible.’
She heard the punch and Tamsin’s cry, and then the sound of her falling.
She couldn’t not look. She saw Tamsin on her knees with her hands to her face and Dicky standing over her. Her sister kept her hands to her face, and then Dicky was on his knees and he was crying and apologising and trying to kiss her and stroke her hair. Kit put her hand over her mouth and was sickened by her jealousy. He had never apologised to her. He had never punched her face. Her face wasn’t worth punching. She was appalled at herself.
Dicky pulled Tamsin up and took her to the sofa and sat her down. Her fingers were fluttering over her cheek and
eye, where he had punched her. He went to the sideboard, near the window, and Kit went back against the wall and shut her eyes and listened as he poured a drink and tried to make Tamsin drink it, and kept on apologising and saying he couldn’t stand it. After a while Tamsin said, ‘It’s all right, Daddy’ in a clear voice, quite like herself again, and there was silence.
After a moment Dicky said, ‘Better?’
‘Better.’
‘Good girl. The boy – he took you to the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he attacked you there?’
‘Yes. He hit me, but I escaped before he could …?’
‘Yes.’
There was another silence.
‘Where is he now?’ said Dicky.
Chapter Seven
Lewis had decided to walk over to the Carmichaels’ and apologise to Tamsin. He didn’t feel very clear in his head, but it sickened him that he’d scared her and he thought she should know.
He’d started towards her house, but Kit had been there on the path and she had been looking for him. She was out of breath and determined, and holding the keys to Dicky’s Jaguar.
She was irresistible and stubborn. She dragged him along the path to the stables behind the house that were converted into garages and when she’d pulled the cover off the Jaguar – like she was pulling the rug off a racehorse before a race – he had looked at her, incredulous and admiring.
‘You want me to steal your father’s car?’
‘He won’t notice. It’s just for looking at.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘I’ll drive it myself then. I will. You can’t stop me.’
Lewis had looked at her hopeful, desperate little face and felt he had no choice about it.
‘Where are we going?’
‘It doesn’t matter, come on!’
The road was clear and light, and the car felt very good to drive and Lewis didn’t think about anything except the driving, and Kit played with the radio and tried to find songs she liked. They didn’t talk. Kit fiddled with the radio and Lewis felt the ease of being with her. It was the only thing he could be doing, and just right, and the feel of the car going fast and the noise of the engine and the snatches of music above it were perfect.