Bird Inside

by Wendy Perriam

  She shouted when it came, a shout which tore her throat, as his fingers clawed her lower down, and she was yelling, ‘Stop! Oh, stop. You’re hurting. No – don’t. Go on, go on.’ And there was a second rippling shudder, and her body seemed to shock up in the bed, as if sparked by an electric current.

  ‘Wild Rose,’ the artist whispered, taking back his fingers and linking them through hers, then kissing every part of her – her thighs, her stomach, nipples, throat and ears. Her ear-lobes tickled, and she laughed, which made him laugh, as well, and she thought back to the wan, tense, pacing artist of last night, amazed he could have changed so much. But then she had changed herself. She was still astonished by her body – the voracious famished feelings it had hidden and denied so long. She hugged the artist suddenly, grateful, overwhelmed. He had made her someone different, removed her from her parents’ restricting prudish world. She liked the feel of his bare body, the heat of it, solidity; the way his hair was tousled and untidy, the dark shadow on his chin. She had always seen him groomed before, freshly combed and shaved. He seemed more vulnerable this morning, his body smelling warm and stale, his jaw just slightly bristly as she pressed her face to his.

  ‘I think we’d better call that ‘‘his’’ and ‘‘hers’’,’ he laughed. ‘So after lunch perhaps we’ll manage ‘‘ours’’. If you can come as violently as that, I want to be there with you, come at the same time.’

  She kept her hand clasped tight in his. After lunch! She’d lived eighteen years with almost no experience of sex, and in just one day had been entered for a marathon.

  ‘Your nipples are still standing up.’ Christopher was touching them, running a soft finger in tiny teasing zigzags. ‘You’ve got fantastic nipples, Rose, you know. They’re a marvellous virgin-pink.’

  ‘Aren’t nipples all the same?’

  ‘Good God no! They’re just as different as noses are, or ears, or feet, or fingers. And they tend to darken in women who’ve had children. Some are really brownish, and a few go almost concave, tend to sink back into the breasts, as if they’re sulking. Yours are clearly extroverts who like to be admired.’ He continued with the admiration, then moved his finger just a fraction lower. ‘Your little studs are hard as well.’

  He traced the darker circle round her nipple, stroked the tiny nodules she hadn’t even realised were there, let alone erect. How strange he knew so much about her body – far more than she herself did. She had merely lived inside it, ignoring all its subtleties, its capacity for pleasure. And up till now, it had always been a private thing – a body which she hid in clothes, locked in bathrooms, kept concealed. It seemed extraordinary to share it, open it to someone else, rip down the ‘Keep Out’ sign. Again, she pressed up close to him, to relish that sensation of bare warm skin on skin. Although it was an adult thrill, there was also some strange element of childish play and pleasure, as if the grown-up world with all its rules and duties, its moral prohibitions, had suddenly rolled back, and she’d found herself in a sort of sexual Disneyland, with a whoosh of new sensations. And the artist’s body was one of the attractions, something to explore, something strange and even threatening, which might take her unawares again, on a roller-coaster ride. She reached her fingers out, moved them very slowly from the roughness of his chin to the bony hollow of his neck, then across to each small nipple. Odd that men had nipples. She’d have thought they might have lost them in the course of evolution, replaced them with little hooks for hanging up those notices men always seemed to wear: ‘TOP DOG’, ‘BIG SHOT’, ‘BEWARE!’

  ‘You’ve got little studs as well.’

  ‘Yes – more than you have, actually, but they’re crowded closer together, because we men don’t have your lovely big areolas.’ He fondled hers, to demonstrate, his fingers lightly grazing the darker ring which circled her pink nipple. ‘It’s a marvellous word that, isn’t it, like the name of a goddess, or a heroine in opera. Perhaps I should have married an Areola. Areola Harville-Shaw.’

  Jane tried the name herself – Rose-Areola Harville-Shaw – which was certainly more imposing than mere Anne.

  The artist used the tip of his tongue to christen her areolas, then cupped them with his palms. ‘They vary too, amazingly. Some are flat, some rounded, and I’ve even seen a cone-shaped pair, like two extra little breasts.’

  ‘You’ve obviously made a study of the subject.’ Jane fought a stab of jealousy, could see the artist’s studio full of women with areolas – rounded ones and flat ones, some standing up like mountain peaks.

  He shrugged. ‘I did two years of anatomy, as well as all that life-drawing. And, God Almighty, some of those damned models weren’t exactly Venuses. You get to see all sorts.’

  She tried to move from naked women back to his own nipples. ‘Do your studs get hard like women’s do?’

  ‘Feel.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, they do.’ She shut her eyes, so she could concentrate more closely on their lemon-peel nobbliness; the strange coolness of his nipple compared with his hot chest. ‘D’ you like your nipples being touched?’

  ‘Mm,’ he said, clamping his hand over hers, so as to make her touch them harder. ‘Though most men don’t, apparently. Perhaps I’m odd.’

  ‘I like you odd.’

  He kissed her, as reward. ‘I envy women, actually. Their power to create makes mine look pretty puny. My first wife used to say that all art’s a sort of substitute, and perhaps she had a point. D’you know, I was born two months prematurely, as if I wanted to complete myself, have some part in the whole astounding process, rather than lie around waiting for my mother to do it all herself. We’re crafty, though, we males. We hide our own inadequacy with terms like penis-envy, when we’re really all envying the womb. Did you ever crave a penis, Rose? I mean, maybe want your brother’s, or …?’

  She blushed, and dodged the question. ‘I didn’t have a brother.’

  ‘An only child, like me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, then added very casually. ‘An adopted only child.’

  ‘Adopted?’

  She sat up very suddenly, both hands clenched, nails digging in her palms. Now he’d seen her naked, she must open to him emotionally, as well as simply physically, let him penetrate beyond her body, to her family, her history, her real unvarnished self. However difficult it proved, she must tell him the whole story, let it all pour out in an uncensored tide of words before she had a chance to change her mind.

  He was silent when she’d finished, and she was aware of all the issues fermenting in the room – childlessness, sterility, concealment and betrayal. She tried to force a laugh. ‘So I’m not sure who I am, you see.’

  Still he didn’t speak. She was worried that she’d hurt him, stirred up his own wounds by discussing barrenness; or made him feel deceived and even slighted because she hadn’t told him sooner, had lived a lie herself. Or perhaps he was debating his own responsibilities – should he advise her to return, rejoin her parents, show them more concern?

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, in an attempt to break the silence.

  ‘Nothing. I … I’m sorry. I mean, I realise just how bloody the whole thing must have been for you, how … how …’

  He was seldom lost for words. Was he so genuinely upset for her that he couldn’t find an adjective, or merely troubled on his own account? Perhaps adoption was a subject which set up dangerous ripples. Maybe Anne had wanted to adopt, when she discovered he was barren, and he’d refused point-blank. Or was it even possible that he’d been adopted as a child himself? She groped a hand out, let it feather from his stomach, down, and slowly down, between his thighs. She must change the mood and subject, try to restore the former lighter atmosphere.

  ‘Maybe I feel penis-envy now,’ she joked, amazed at her own daring as she uncoiled the bashful object of her envy; surprised again by its baby-state, its modest shrinking coyness.

  Christopher made no response, but his penis compensated – seemed to swell from infancy to manhood almost inst
antaneously; the blue veins standing out, the tip inflamed and angry-looking, like the face of some old soak. It was ugly, yet astonishing – all that power and urgency throbbing through her fingers. She did feel envy, in a sense, longed to have some part of her which would expand in the same way, change from child to sexpot in a flash. Her breasts, for instance – why shouldn’t they lie flat all day, so they didn’t wobble when she ran, or hurt before her period, but simply burgeon out in bed to a startling forty inches; then, when she’d thrilled her lover with them, they’d fold down flat again? She was smiling as she thought of it, smiling as she used both hands on the distended red-faced drunk, exulting that she’d somehow got it right; that despite her inexperience and fears, she had managed to please Christopher. That wary look had left him, as the sensations from his penis seemed to reach his face, crease it in excitement; one hand clenched to match; even all his toes curled up. His voice had changed as well, become slower and more languid now; the lover, not the teacher.

  ‘We’re not meant to be doing this again till after lunch. I’m afraid my recovery rate isn’t quite as speedy as it was.’

  ‘How long?’ she asked him, teasingly.

  ‘Ten seconds! Quick, kneel up and we’ll try it from the …’

  They both jumped when the clock struck, nine rumbling chimes resounding from the courtyard.

  ‘Christ!’ said Christopher, clambering off. ‘It can’t be nine o’ clock! I’m due to meet the vicar in an hour, and the church is twenty miles away.’

  ‘You can’t meet him like that.’

  They laughed, watched his penis slowly wilt, contract from wild carouser to soft pink embryo.

  ‘That’s better,’ Jane pronounced. ‘Except you’d better put your loincloth on. The Reverend might not quite approve of a naked stained-glass artist.’

  Christopher was already hunting through the wardrobe, cursing as he dropped a belt and tie. ‘Can you ring down for some tea, Rose? I need a cup of something hot inside me before I face that winding country road, which won’t be any better for the snow.’

  ‘D’you want some toast as well?’

  ‘I haven’t time. You have breakfast when I’ve gone – work through the whole menu, enjoy it for the two of us.’

  ‘But can’t I come as well? I’d like to see the …’

  ‘Better not. There’s no point in us both rushing. You indulge yourself – loll in bed with Country Life, or ask Jonathan to rustle up oeufs Bénédict for breakfast. I won’t be long anyway. And when I’m back, we’ll continue where we left off.’ His eyes met hers, seemed to explain in greater detail; his sensual mouth half-open, as if already kissing hers. Then he dashed into the bathroom, pulling on his shirt.

  She stood at the window, watching him drive off. The snow had disappeared; a valiant winter sun sparkling on the river, two white swans gliding down towards her. Everything was busy – water rippling and reflecting, ducks plopping, diving, shaking wings and tails; coots’ heads bobbing back and forth, wind ruffling reeds and rushes, self-important clouds surging overhead. A baker was delivering bread, a milkman clanking bottles. Only she was idle, gloriously idle, with nothing to do but luxuriate in bed. She longed to heave the window open, stick her head out and shout to all the world: ‘I’ve come, I’ve come – and ‘‘violently’’, my lover said. I’m a woman and an adult, who can please an artist, thumb a penis stiff.’ She craved to tell the milkman and the baker, the swans and coots and ducks; yell it up to Shrepton, to her parents and her neighbours, to the woman in the paper-shop, the Pakistani grocer. ‘I’ve got these quite fantastic nipples – a marvellous virgin-pink, and little studs which tauten, and …’

  The phone shrilled beside the bed, as if in answer. She picked it up, clutched her housecoat round her, somehow fearing that the caller could see the fat pink nipples, the stiffening little studs.

  ‘Good morning, Rose,’ said Jonathan. ‘I was wondering what you’d like for breakfast. Christopher said you might prefer it in your room.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I would.’ No sneering waiters then, or bossy gawping waitresses; no one calling her ‘Madame’ – though actually she was Madame, had earned the title just this morning, from her husband of one night.

  ‘Kedgeree? Smoked haddock? Eggs any way you like. I could make you a soufflé-omelette with smoked salmon in, or chanterelles, or …’

  Bubble and squeak, she almost said. She could see it in her mother’s pan, burnt around the edges, buttery in the middle, with slices of black pudding, grilled black as their name. She didn’t fancy grand food, but something filling and plebeian, with a large bowl of child’s cereal to start with. Why be intimidated? Christopher had urged her to ask for what she wanted.

  ‘C … could I have Sugar-Puffs, and sausages?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Jonathan. ‘And what to drink?’

  She paused. Hotel coffee was always far too strong. And she’d already drunk a quart of tea – Christopher’s as well as hers, since he’d rushed off after just two sips, and even then had burnt his tongue. She could suddenly see her father sitting beside her in McDonald’s, both their mouths moustached with pink as they gulped down strawberry milk-shakes. Amy disapproved of milk-shakes – especially between meals – and also of McDonald’s, so they had remained a secret pleasure, a delicious guilty bond between her father and herself.

  ‘Do you do milk-shakes?’ she blurted out impulsively, still clinging to her father.

  ‘We can do anything you want.’

  ‘Okay, a strawberry milk-shake.’ She regretted it immediately. Jonathan would sneer at her, mock her childish tastes. And how could she eat breakfast with her father sitting in her head, glancing in disgust at the rumpled sheets and blankets, aware she’d been to bed with a man at least a decade older than himself? She knew he’d be appalled, yet he refused to leave the room; was eating chocolates now, picking out the strawberry creams. Strawberry was his favourite – strawberry ices, strawberry mousse. Her mother rarely ate sweets, and then only diabetic ones, which she claimed didn’t make you fat, or rot your teeth. She wondered if her mother preferred diabetic sex, which didn’t make you sweat, or muss your hair, didn’t swell your nipples up.

  Her parents seemed much closer now, not just in terms of distance – though certainly she had reduced the miles between them by driving all this way – but because she’d been describing them to Christopher, dragged them from concealment in the shadows, made them real and solid for him. Despite his wary silence, she was glad she had opened up, got it off her chest, at last, let him see the real her – or part of her, at least. She wished she could go further, force her parents to accept the truth, as well; understand the real Jane, meet the new Jane-Rose. It seemed wrong to turn back south again, having come so far towards them, rather than continue up the A1 to Newcastle, and then strike west for Shrepton. It would be easier in one way simply to turn up at their door, instead of trying to write that letter she’d abandoned twenty times, or struggling to communicate long-distance on the phone. She craved to see them, dreaded it; felt tugged between north and south, between the sham safety of her childhood and the danger of new starts. Perhaps she should take Christopher, pull up outside her dowdy house in his expensive snobby car; introduce him casually as her artist-friend, her lover. She could see her father’s shocked and ashen face, hear her mother’s fury; drowned it with the television, tuned to Tom and Jerry, who were fighting tooth and claw, then settled back determinedly to do what she’d been told – indulge herself in bed.

  She was still watching children’s television when Christopher returned, breakfast debris all around her, toast crumbs on the sheets. ‘Gosh! You’re back soon,’ she faltered, trying to hide her milk-shake glass, with its damning ring of froth.

  ‘Yes. The roads were almost empty, and it was much nearer than I thought. And both the vicar and the architect were very brisk and businesslike, so we didn’t waste time beating about the bush.’ He sat down on the bed, frowning at a congealing sausage st
ub. ‘I’m afraid my window’s had it, though. It’s in a far worse state than I realised from the letter. It’s as if my past is catching up with me, though it’s not actually my fault. That bloody stuff I used to stick the glass down has gradually deteriorated, and now the bond is failing and pieces of the glass are dropping off.’

  ‘Stick the glass down? What d’you mean?’

  He shrugged a shade impatiently. ‘Glass appliqué’s a completely different technique from traditional stained glass. It’s a sticking process, rather than a leading one, and there’s very little formal cutting. You stick the pieces of glass – most of which are offcuts or fragments from the cullet-box – to a sheet of clear plate glass, rather like a mosaic.’ He paused to rub disconsolately at a tea-stain on the counterpane. ‘You use an epoxy resin, which was the cause of the whole trouble. It’s gone brittle and discoloured, and begun to lose its grip, despite the manufacturer’s high-flown claims. Which only goes to show that you should keep to the old traditions. The glass at Chartres has lasted seven hundred and fifty years, and may last another seven hundred, so long as it’s looked after, whereas my ill-fated window is already headed for the scrapheap.’ He fumbled for his cigarettes, as if he needed consolation. ‘Yet, at the time, it seemed a good technique, which would release you from the leads, give you scope and freedom to be more painterly. In fact, several first-rate artists were seduced by it, as I was, and used it in good faith, but they’ve come unstuck – in all senses.’