Slowly, my sense of wonder was eroded by anxiety. I did not want to risk her waking while we lay so close. My sex was stirring, but I was not ready for it. I slid from bed and I dressed quietly. When she eventually woke up, I was on the balcony, gazing out at an azure sea with white surf breaking gently along a vast, idyllic crescent of white sand.
She came sleepily to me then and laid her head against my shoulder. "Still love me this morning?"
"I will always love you, Rachel."
"I think it frightens me."
"There’s no need. If today is all we have, it's more than I ever dreamed of. And I'm grateful for it."
She kissed my cheek, her warm breath curling around my neck. "I’m sure we’ll have more than just today, Tom," she whispered. "The beach looks perfect. Lets go down now before anyone else is about. I want us to have it to ourselves."
She wore a wrap-around skirt over a bright red swimming costume. She held my hand as we walked and every other step revealed a long and lovely leg. We kicked off our shoes and stepped onto the cool sand, then slowly we made for the sea, almost counting every step. And when the water began to lap our toes, we struck out parallel to the shore, without much thought for how long we should keep going.
It was the rhythm I remember, the slow steps, the wash of the waves, our breathing, the sway of her hips, her leg dancing in and out of view - and above all the feeling that I never wanted it to end, that each step was like a grain of sand falling through an hour-glass. I wanted us to walk on for ever, into the shimmering air, until we fell free of the earth and had only each other to cling to through eternity.
But Rachel was more pragmatic. She turned to me suddenly. "Beyond those rocks," she said. "Let's do it."
I looked around in surprise. "Erm,.. do what?"
"Make love, silly! No one will see. Say you will!"
"Erm,… I don't think,… "
"Don't think,… just say 'yes'."
There was an urgency, and a hunger in her voice that made me fearful. But it was what she wanted more than anything at that moment and to have appeared reluctant might have ended the dream for her right there.
"We'll see then," I replied, hoping upon hope that beyond the rocks would be a line of burly fishermen, and so postpone her hunger. But instead we discovered an even more secluded bay, backed by cliffs and hidden from view. The air was cool and electric and there was a stunning energy in the rhythm of the waves crashing upon the beach.
It was perfect.
And it was terrifying.
She unfastened her skirt and laid it down upon the sand, then she motioned to my trousers. "Hurry, before someone comes."
I felt awkward, untangling what I suddenly discovered was a very hard, very urgent erection from my shorts, and then felt stupid with it standing in the open air. She knelt at once, took my hips, then pulled me to her and drew me into the depths of her throat.
I felt the rhythm of her mouth and her tongue, tracing out my shape, caressing me, devouring me. I felt the heat rising almost at once, then a sharpness ready to tear and I tensed in anticipation, but she sensed my coming and delivered me back into the open air, wet and cooling, while she smiled up at me with lips still moist and glistening. It was a look of the purest, deepest satisfaction and I felt myself ignite with desire.
With a furtive glance up and down the beach, she unfastened the poppers at the crotch of her costume to expose a shock of black hair through which protruded pink lips, already parting and slick with her preparedness. She spread her knees, drawing two perfect arcs in the soft sand and she leaned back, patting her thighs in gentle invitation. "Come to me," she said.
I felt the marshmallow softness of her flesh and the grit of the sand beneath us. I tasted salt and sex upon her lips and when she took me inside of her, I felt a fire burning over my hardness. But it was a stranger beneath me, a stranger's flesh reacting against my own - twisting, testing, rolling and swelling me up with a delicious agony.
"Tell me," she said, as she wrapped me tightly with her arms and her legs. "Tell me that you love me!"
So I told her that I loved her.
That I loved her.
That I loved her!
We sat upon the beach, the sun warming our bodies as the sea sparkled and the waves filled the air with their energy. I felt so light, I might have been floating six inches clear above the sand. We were tranquil now, spent in the aftermath of our delicious lovemaking. It had been brief, a first coupling, urgent and passionate, but she had not come,… had not needed to, she'd said, that it was enough to have taken me there like that, to have witnessed me lost to my emotions and my passions while in her arms, while inside of her body. Seeing the flicker of my stupid disappointment, she took my hand and pressed it.
"We have all weekend," she said.
For all my earlier reluctance, my pride had been dented that I had not been able to satisfy her before I was stunned into uselessness by my own rising. It surprised me, that feeling, but as I thought about it, I realised it went much deeper, that I had already begun to fear there was a part of Rachel I could not reach. Shortly, we made out way back and but for the sand on her skirt, it was as if nothing had happened. We walked with the same slow rhythm and as we cleared the rocks, we saw the bay opening out before us.
"Isn't this beautiful?" she said. "I'll never forget this, Tom. This place,… this day."
"Me neither."
I believe we both meant it, but as I spoke my eyes followed the curve of the bay, and I saw the long line of our footprints, the only evidence of our passing, and soon to be washed away by the incoming tide. We had walked hand in hand; we had made love with a sudden and remarkable urgency, but our footprints remained an arm's length apart. They were parallel tracks heading, for now, in the same direction, but never merging, never combining, except for one frenzied moment, back there.
"You were great," she said.
"You too."
"It's so long since I've been with a man, Tom."
"Can I ask you why? You look so good, you must get lots of attention."
"I'm not in bad nick for a woman in her forties, I suppose, and I do attract attention. It's flattering,… but I'm always wary. I have a life that I've built for myself over the years, a job I enjoy so much I don't see it as work at all. I don't really need a man for anything other than pleasure and company. Men like my looks, but not my independence, not for very long anyway. They always end up seeing their own lives, their own jobs as more important than mine."
"What makes you think I'm any different?"
"I don't know that you are," she said. "Not yet."
"Then why? Why say 'yes' to me when you've said 'no' to so many others."
"Lots of reasons. The way you are when you're around me - it makes me feel young. I suppose it was knowing you at school. It's been raking up all sorts of memories from way back, from a time beyond, a time of sweetness and innocence that I'd forgotten had ever existed in my life. There are memories I wasn't even aware of having kept."
"I know. Memories like that have been haunting me for months now, but all they do is make me feel old."
"They shouldn't. You're wearing well, Tom. But there is one compelling reason why I should go out with you."
"And that is?"
"Because you're in love with me, silly."
At the hotel, we showered and she changed into a tee-shirt. Then she shook the sand from her skirt and said it would do for the day. Before we left the room though, she stood by the door and parted the gossamer folds of her skirt so I could see she wasn't wearing any panties. Then she caught my hand and placed it upon the heat of her mound.
"Think of me all day, like this," she said. "And at the end of the day, this will be waiting for you."
With any other woman this would have been a dream come true, a fantasy so astonishing it would never be believed by anyone who in future years I might recount it to. Yet there it was. My mouth grew dry and I began to stiffen at once. She was quick to notic
e and slipped her hand deftly into my pocket in order to savour my reaction. But even through the sweet agony of those teasing fingers, I saw clearly the inevitable had happened. I had not burst into flames, but the goddess was becoming human. She was high on my love for her, aroused to passion and intent on giving herself to me, her body, a vessel of a certain shape into which I might sink myself.
Many thoughts came to me at that moment, layer upon layer of them superimposed and transparent like stained glass windows, so I had the impression of looking though them all at the same time. There were happy thoughts, some fearful, some of guilt and underpinning them all was suddenly a hope in the possibility that one day, as in the dream, she would lift her eyes to mine unhindered by the urgent and beguiling voice of sex to say simply that she wanted to be with me. If there was to be lasting happiness, that time would have to come, I thought, and thus ever so subtly I was seduced into abandoning my quest for deliverance from her, in exchange for the prospect of spending the rest of my life waiting to hear her say those words.
There was no other but Rachel and in searching for a way back to Her, I had been searching for the source of love. I had been reaching back to the time in my life when simply to be in love was reason enough to live. Now I had found Her; I had touched the source; I had confessed to it, made love to it; I had shed my shell of adulthood and felt once more the thorny side of love beneath my skin - and in doing so had learned the awful truth about my life: that for all of my life I had been incapable of loving anyone but her.
Chapter 29
If Eleanor was glad to see me when I returned to Middleton, late that Sunday evening, she hid it well. She opened the door a crack then lowered her eyes and turned away. I dropped my bags in the hall and followed her through to the front room, where I collapsed wearily into my father's armchair. It had been the trip of a lifetime, but now I was glad to be home, glad for the time and the space to think about what it all might mean.
Eleanor sat hugging her knees on the rug, and for a while we exchanged no words. She seemed dazed and introspective. She'd been that way for weeks, giving me the impression I was witnessing the slow sinking of her spirits. I missed my father, but with the passing of each day, things were becoming a little easier, a little clearer, the memories easier to dwell upon without feelings of despair. Eleanor however, seemed to have made no progress at all, and living under the same roof alone with her, I had begun to feel the weight of her mood. It had been like this for Phil, I thought and now I understood how helpless he'd felt. She was falling apart, and there seemed little I could do.
"Is everything okay?" I asked.
"Sure. You?"
"Oh, fine."
"How was your trip?"
"Paris? Paris went well."
"And Majorca?" she asked.
"Majorca,… " I paused, wondering how could I begin to describe two of the happiest days of my life to someone still in the grip of such a black and cloying depression. "It wasn't what I expected,"
"You mean Rachel?"
"Yes. It's strange. I just thought she might have been a bit more reserved, you know? I thought she would have held me at a distance for a while, until she was sure of me."
"Did you by any chance tell her that you loved her?"
"It was what I'd set out to do."
"So, you did tell her then?"
"Yes. But surely it takes time before something like that sinks in. If someone came up to me out of the blue and said they loved me, I might be flattered but I doubt I'd believe them, not right away. They'd have to prove it, over time. Rachel,… well, Rachel more or less threw herself at me."
"Then perhaps you're just cynical," said Eleanor. "I can't say for sure that if I was her I wouldn't have gone a little overboard myself - you popping into my life like that, telling me you've always carried a flame for me."
She looked down and her long hair closed over her eyes like curtains being drawn. I could not see what she was feeling, could not guess what she was thinking.
"Eleanor, what is it?"
"I'm leaving," she said.
"You can't. Where will you go?"
She didn't answer. It was then I looked up and saw the letter on the mantle-piece. It was recorded delivery, official looking - addressed to Eleanor.
"Has something happened?"
"It's a solicitor's letter," she said following my gaze. "Eric wants your dad's estate to go to probate or something. I don't even know what that means, except it doesn't sound good."
"Eric! Why can't he leave things alone? I'll have to speak to him."
"Just let it be, Tom."
"But he's after a court dividing it all up, most likely between you and me anyway. Then the first thing I'll do is give it all back to you - except by then a load of solicitors will have taken their cut. It's senseless!"
She was only half listening. "Your uncle only wants what's best for you."
"You mustn't go. This house is yours. Dad would have wanted that more than anything. He made me promise to make sure you were okay if anything happened to him. And I'm sorry but I'm bloody well going to do that,… for as long as we both live, okay?"
She allowed me a glimpse of a smile. "Did Jack really say you'd to take care of me?"
I felt embarrassed now. "It was during one of his rare, morbid moments."
"That was lovely. But I'll be fine, Tom. I have a little money of my own."
"But who would you be with?"
"Do I have to be with anyone? It would be good to be my own person for a while. I'd write to you. Anyway, you should go to bed now, or it'll seem a long day for you tomorrow."
"Okay. I suppose I should go. Rachel's picking me up after work."
"She is? She's coming here?" Eleanor seemed uneasy.
"If that's okay."
"Well of course it is. Why wouldn't it be? Are you going out somewhere?"
"She's taking me round to her place. She lives over on Highmoor."
"You're kidding, that's barely a few minutes drive from where you used to live."
"I know, ironic isn't it? After chasing her the length of the country she's been living within walking distance of Parbold for the best part of ten years."
"I'd better make myself scarce when she comes."
"I'd rather you met."
"I wouldn't want her thinking there's something funny going on between us. It would just spoil things."
"Listen, anyone I get involved with, now or in the future has to accept that you're a part of my life, or I can't be with them, okay? I've already told her about you. She didn't bat an eye - that has to be good hasn't it?"
I felt an overwhelming urge then to hold her, to put my arm around her, but I held back, not sure if it was proper and in the end, I merely squeezed her shoulder in passing. She seemed to jump at the sudden contact, but then as if not to alarm me, she placed her hand on top of mine and our fingers brushed as I moved slowly away.
"Goodnight, Tom."
"Goodnight, Eleanor."
I found my room tidier and cleaner than I remembered leaving it. The carpet was freshly vacuumed, my underwear and shirts, carelessly discarded, had been gathered up and spirited downstairs into the washing basket. I did not ask, nor expect Eleanor to do these things. I was not exactly feckless in my ways, more forgetful, and her domestic discipline filled me with guilt at the shambles my life seemed to have become.
The photograph of Rachel was gleaming in its frame. It smelled of Mr. sheen and looked so fresh it might have been a likeness captured only yesterday, not a quarter of a century ago. I could not imagine why Eleanor would want to humour me this way. She seemed to have a rare gift for caring, for nurturing, for warming the hearts of those around her with her eccentricity and her love. I found her presence comforting and I did not want her to leave.
I lay quiet in bed, weary beyond words, but my mind was still too full of travel for sleep. Then I heard Eleanor come, the delicate padding of her feet upon the stair. I heard the shower, and the chink of all t
he little bottles she kept upon the shelf and later I heard her padding down the hall to her room. Then I listened, waiting for the familiar swish of her door as it scraped the carpet, waited for a long time, eventually drifting off into a kind of shallow slumber in anticipation of it, only to open my eyes some time later to see her framed in the doorway, her long silhouette backed by the soft amber of the light on the landing. She seemed to stand there for a long while, as if thinking. Then, with a click, the landing light was extinguished and she entered soundlessly, the weight and the warmth of her sliding beneath the duvet and pressing me gently against the wall.
"Eleanor?"
She said nothing but curled into me and laid her head against my shoulder. Her face was wet. I felt it soaking through my tee-shirt but she was quiet, her body perfectly still, the emotion seeming to well up from silent depths.
"Let me stay a while," she said.
I turned and tried to put my arm around her to comfort her, but I felt myself becoming erect. It was an automatic and irksome thing, brought on by her closeness and the breathtaking smoothness of her legs against mine. It might have been all right, except my sex nudged against her thigh and I turned sharply away, mortified, only to feel her slide ever closer into my back, taking up every contour until there was nothing left between us that was not touching.
"Don't go," I said, at once aware of the ambiguity of my words. I'd meant don't leave this house, don't disappear from my life,… not my bed, but it would have spoiled the moment then, to stutter out an explanation, so I lay quiet, trapped against the wall with the firmness of her against my back. Slowly then, she wrapped her arms around my waist and clasped her cool hands upon my chest. I waited for her to speak but she said nothing.
Her presence was a strange anaesthetic, as if her stillness and her melancholy were an infectious thing. I ended up sweeping in and out of consciousness to find her always there, the warm press of her, the cool and gentle curling of her breath upon my shoulder, the scent of her shampoo and face-cream. Then it was dawn and I woke this time to the sound of her padding down the hall. Slowly then, we began our separate days, and we did not speak of it again.
The Road From Langholm Avenue Page 21