A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  ‘I came to call you, Uncle Elijah, like I said.’ She endeavoured to sound indignant. ‘With that horrible little mouse running up my leg I didn’t get the chance.’

  ‘You’ve watched me before having a bath, haven’t you?’ His eyes crinkled with amusement now, at the realisation of what it meant. ‘Go on. Admit it. I don’t mind. As a matter of fact, I’m flattered.’

  She looked away, her face crimson in the fading light. ‘So what if I have?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t mind. As long as you enjoyed it…’

  ‘I suppose I’m no different to anybody else,’ she said, trying to justify her actions now she’d been discovered. ‘It’s natural to look if somebody’s got no clothes on.’

  ‘’Course it is. I’d look at you if you’d got no clothes on and was having a bath. I’d get a real eyeful.’

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anybody, Uncle Elijah…Not about the mouse…Nothing.’

  He laughed. ‘Let it be our secret.’

  She did not reply.

  ‘Did you like what you saw? You can tell me, you know.’

  ‘I’m ashamed of myself, if you want to know the truth. You’re my uncle.’

  His timing was perfect. He reached out and drew her to him so that her head was resting on his bare chest. He smelt all fresh and clean and she was moved to put her arms around his waist, to feel him in her arms as familiar as a lover.

  ‘Don’t be ashamed,’ he whispered. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Very often, I look at you and think, Jesus Christ, I don’t half fancy our Ramona. She’s me brother’s daughter, but I fancy her all the same, she’s so bloody beautiful. It’s the most natural thing in the world to fancy somebody of the opposite sex, you know. Cousins, uncles, nieces. It makes no odds.’

  ‘I fancied you from the moment I saw you in the bath the first time,’ she breathed, reluctant to let go of him. ‘You were all hard and sticking up…’ She uttered a little giggle of embarrassment. ‘I thought, God, that Dorcas has that all to herself.’

  ‘Well, there’s no reason why she should,’ he answered provocatively and she thought she sensed his breathing speed up. ‘You’ve been with a man before then, our Ramona? You’ve been with Sammy?’

  She nodded against his chest. ‘Plenty of times.’

  ‘I thought as much. I sensed it.’ His voice was still low, intimate. ‘How old are you now?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘Old enough. I’ve had girls younger than you.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Honest.’ He pulled her head up gently and planted a kiss fairly and squarely on her lips. ‘Go on. You’d better go, else sourpuss Mary Ann will be out here after you, wondering what’s become of you. We’d hate her to see us like this, wouldn’t we?’

  She nodded, squeezed his hand and left, more breathless than when she had entered.

  Ramona was preoccupied that teatime. She barely spoke and dared not look up at her Uncle Elijah lest anybody guess her guilty secret. Elijah, by contrast, led every conversation; he was sparkling with laughter and little quips that made everybody laugh. But Ramona was glad when the meal was finished and Elijah went to his room to put on his best suit to go a-courting Dorcas, for she was never sure that he would not relate the story about the mouse climbing her stocking.

  As they washed up the dirty crockery together, Ramona asked Clover where she was going that evening with Tom.

  ‘We’re going to the Empire to see a variety show.’

  ‘Well that’s across the road from his studio,’ Ramona said in a low voice.

  ‘I know but it’ll be late…What time are you going out?’

  Ramona looked at the scullery clock. ‘In about three-quarters of an hour.’

  ‘Then you’d better get ready. Go on, I can finish these things.’

  So Ramona left Clover to finish their task, and changed into a warm woollen dress. For the first time she went out with a lad of twenty-one called Harry Heppenstall, whose name everybody pronounced, in true Black Country fashion, by not sounding the aitches. Harry mooned over her like a lovesick buck but Ramona’s heart was not with him. He was good-looking and pleasant company. At any other time she would have been responsive to him, but she was too preoccupied with thoughts of Uncle Elijah. Nonetheless, they walked the town together and stopped in Lester’s, a ‘board’ pub without a name, known only by the name of the family that owned it. She told Harry she had to be back by eleven. So, by eleven he had dutifully walked her back to the Jolly Collier and went to have a last drink with his pals who were said to be in the Loving Lamb.

  Ramona lit a candle and went directly to bed. However, she could not sleep. She heard Clover tiptoe across the landing and go into her room. An hour or so later she heard Mary Ann and her father speaking quietly before they clicked their bedroom door shut. She got out of bed, opened her window and looked out. In the sky the slither of a waning moon hung withered and dry. A dog was barking in Earl Street or thereabouts and another answered it, more distant, somewhere near St John’s church. She got back into bed and snuggled down in its warmth, thinking only of Uncle Elijah. Uncle Elijah…Oh, Uncle Elijah…What was he doing right this minute? No doubt doing something totally unsavoury with Dorcas…Lucky Dorcas. Images of him towelling himself dry sprang to mind and she gulped at the enormity of what had occurred earlier that evening. Now he knew. Now he knew exactly the effect he’d had on her. But was it really all right to lust for her uncle, as he’d said it was?

  She tossed and turned. She relived the critical seconds when Elijah thrust his hand inside the top of her stocking and for the first time realised the eroticism of that moment. Did he feel pleasure in touching the warm smooth skin of her thigh with his clean, manly hands? Only now was she recalling the way he gently squeezed her thigh then; the horror of the vile little mouse was fading and no longer clouding the sensuality of his action. Sammy entered her thoughts and their youthful fumblings that had gone on in the same house that Elijah was sleeping in, this very night. They had learned their pleasures together, Sammy and her, querying whether she liked it when he did this, or whether he liked it when she did that. It was useful experience and pleasurable. It had come in handy since. It would stand her in good stead with Uncle Elijah.

  Ramona realised she was different from the rest. While many girls behaved in the way that was hoped and expected of them where men were concerned, Ramona did not. In the absence of a mother and a mother’s influence, her father had allowed her the freedom always to meet boys at night if she wanted to, never questioning her virtue, never advising, never condemning. Many girls were not allowed such freedom; Clover had not been allowed it till Jake’s influence had been established. Convention dictated that a girl did not sleep with her man until they were married and, even then, you did what was expected of you dutifully and Lord help you if you displayed any enthusiasm. Well, bugger that. Convention was all cock-eyed. The old women had got it all wrong. Intimacy with a man was the nicest, most exhilarating, most satisfying thing on earth. It made your toes curl, your lips tingle, your breathing come hot and fast. And that pulsing itch in the pit of your stomach that you wanted to last all night, that made you squeal with ecstasy…Oh, there was nothing like it. No wonder girls got into trouble. No wonder they could never say no again once they had tasted it. Why should they want to when it was so natural and felt so agonisingly beautiful?

  She thought about Tom Doubleday; handsome, well-dressed Tom. She smiled to herself at Clover’s admitting at last that she and Tom…that she was no longer a virgin. She tried to imagine them together…on the bearskin rug Clover had mentioned. She tried to visualise herself on the bearskin rug – with Tom…If ever she had to go to Tom’s studio she would smile if ever she saw that bearskin rug…Poor old Harry Heppenstall. Maybe some other time she would give him more encouragement; he was worthy of it.

  Slowly she drifted off into a fitful sleep. She dreamed about huge mice with huge phalluses taking baths in soapy water and drying them
selves on bearskin rugs. She dreamed about being shut in Lester’s pub with a regiment of naked soldiers led by Uncle Elijah, a bathtub in the middle of the saloon and she in it, but nobody looking at her. She dreamed she was in bed with Elijah, but Dorcas was on his other side and he was taking more notice of her…Little nibbling mice scratched about all over her and she woke up in a cold sweat.

  What time was it? She yawned and stretched. Elijah had not gone away. He was still there entrenched in her thoughts, him and his spellbinding virility. Softly, silently, she got out of bed, her bare feet padding on the cold linoleum. She peeped through the curtains. The moon and the stars had moved, turning, turning on their eternal carousel. Oh, Uncle Elijah…Damn you for becoming an obsession. Images of him in his bare, masculine magnificence were plaguing her mercilessly. She was a woman and she craved the taste of him – yearned to take him inside her. The blood was coursing through her veins like some hot river in full spate. Oh, Uncle Elijah…She felt that ache deep in her stomach again and knew there was only one way to ease it. There could be only one way.

  She opened the curtains and by the dim light that the night afforded, she dressed herself. Blindly, she ran a brush through her hair for a few strokes and dabbed a little scent behind her ears. She picked up her shoes and tiptoed downstairs, as quietly as the mouse that had been the instrument of her confession to him. Downstairs, she lit a taper from the embers of the fire and looked at the clock. Nearly half past five. She picked up her coat that was hanging at the back of the pantry door, collected her key to their old house that had been hanging on a nail in there, and went out. As she shut the door as quietly as she could, the pub’s two cats, Malcolm and Marmaduke, scurried inside unheard, escaping the chill of the early morning darkness.

  The streets of Kates Hill were still and silent. The air was cold with a dampness that prompted her to pull up her collar. She looked up at the stars; coruscations of tiny lights in a jet-black sky. As she walked down Cross Guns Street, she saw a skein of mist that lay motionless below the level of the foliage on Dixon’s Green’s trees. She wafted through it in her grey coat, like the ghost of some unfulfilled virgin, to get to Bean Road with only the stars to light her way. At the bottom of Bean Road she turned right into Blackacre Road which, in turn, became Constitution Hill with its rows of terraced houses and the gasworks that reeked of rotten eggs in the valley before her. Light from the gasworks spilled onto the steep hill. She stepped into the road where she could see the potholes and bumps better in its rough surface. Where the street began to rise again she passed the Blue Gates where her father used to drink sometimes before he discovered the Jolly Collier. Constitution Hill became Church Street with its grubby little factories, silent now, the underpaid men and girls who worked there asleep in bed at this time. At Vicar Street, she turned into Brooke Street.

  Almost there.

  A wave of doubt washed over her. What if Dorcas was there? What if everything Uncle Elijah had intimated was just a bluff? What if he politely turned her around and sent her back home with sage advice not to be such a silly girl? What if he thought …? But such thoughts were not enough to daunt her. If Dorcas was there she’d know straight away and make a discreet exit. Besides, she’d had either the courage or the foolishness to have come this far. Why turn back now? So she walked on in the twilight, unafraid of it, her breath coming in steam in the cold night air. She had not seen another soul the entire fifteen minutes she’d been walking.

  And then, she found herself outside the house; the house that used to be home. It was a terraced house, but not some two-up-two-down rented house. Her father had earned well as a market trader. No, this was a fine house, bought and paid for – a three-storey family house with a bay window and a tiny walled foregarden. And now Uncle Elijah was using it as a place where he and Dorcas could practise the more erotic aspects of their courting.

  She took the key from her pocket and inserted it in the front door lock, turned it. It clicked as the tumblers inside fell. She turned the handle, opened the door quietly, closed it behind her. Inside, she took off her coat and, out of habit that was not yet forgotten, hung it over the newel post in the hallway. Silently, she kicked off her shoes and, her breathing rapid, her heart thumping, she slowly, stealthily, apprehensively climbed the stairs.

  The door to the room he used was open. She could hear him breathing, slight snores as he lay sleeping, unaware of the intruder. Her eyes were accustomed to the dark and she could see he slept alone. Thank God for that.

  For a moment she stopped, reticent again, but forced herself to go on and take the ultimate test.

  Nerve.

  She had come this far. There was no turning back. She was alone with him in this house. In a minute or two she would be in his bed. He would be nobody’s uncle then, nobody’s brother, nobody’s fiancé.

  She shed her clothes and they slipped soundlessly to the floor. For a moment or two longer she stood in her pale nakedness as alert as a tigress stalking her prey, shivering, watching him sleep, listening to his irregular breathing. She took a deep breath and was surprised at her calmness at that moment, despite all; a calmness she’d not felt for ages. She lifted the sheets and slid into bed beside him, grateful for the warmth from his body, resisting the temptation to snuggle up to him to borrow some more, lest she wake him too rudely. So she lay a few moments, unmoving, and the depravity of what she had done and was intending to do with her own uncle struck her, but failed to move her.

  She was alone with him, in his bed now. Her yearning heart could soon be at peace. For the next hour or two nobody would disturb them. Nobody would know. He would open his eyes and smile at nobody but her.

  He turned over and his arm came across her, his hand lingered consciously over the cool smooth skin of her belly.

  He snuffled, disoriented.

  ‘Dorcas?’

  ‘No…Ramona.’

  ‘Oh, Ramona.’ He said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be there. ‘Christ, you’re cold. Come here, let me warm you up a bit.’ His strong arms drew her to him by the small of her back and she yielded to his warmth, to his easy welcome. His big, warm hand ran up and down her back, over her small bottom, down her thighs as he explored her. ‘By Christ you’ve got lovely smooth skin, our Ramona. But fancy you coming here in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Uncle Elijah,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t help it. Ever since…you know…I’ve wanted you more than anything else in the world. It’s been driving me mad. You’re not going to send me away, are you?’

  ‘As if I would. Come here.’

  He hugged her and his free hand went between her legs. She was ready for him, even so soon, but he teased her the more with skilful fingering before moving to ease himself onto her.

  ‘In a minute, Uncle Elijah…’ She leaned over on top of him and put her face close to his throat and pursed her lips. But she did not kiss him. Instead, she blew gently on an even course from his Adam’s apple to the trough of his belly button, her breasts skimming him tormentingly as she moved downwards over his stomach so taut. The promise in her cool blowing stirred the tight, curly hairs between his legs. She rubbed her cheek against them and softly ran her opened lips along the firm length of his erection, gratified that she was having the same wonderful, stimulating effect on him as he had on her.

  Elijah took her bushy hair in his hands and lifted her face towards him. She smiled with anticipation in the darkness as her body, warm now, snaked up over his and found his mouth searching hungrily for hers. He cupped the cheeks of her backside and thrust himself upward and inward and punctured her wetness with one expert lunge. She caught her breath. As she slid onto him, deliciously slowly, it seemed she fitted him like a glove and she groaned with the extreme pleasure of it.

  ‘There’s a turn-up for the books, you coming here to me in the middle of the night,’ he said as he rested afterwards, his arm around her as she snuggled up to his warm naked body. ‘Just
make certain nobody ever finds out, our Ramona. There’d be hell to pay.’

  They were contentedly watching the first light of day pervade that bedroom.

  She raised her head and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t tell a soul. It’s our secret – remember?’

  He chuckled at that and patted her firm backside. ‘You’d best be off afore Mary Ann spots that you’re missing.’

  So she forced herself out of bed and dressed self-consciously while he watched her. Then, when she’d tucked her mass of yellow hair under her hat she kissed him again and was gone downstairs.

  ‘I’ll see you later – at the dinner table,’ he called, and she detected the same satirical edge in his voice that she’d heard when he realised she’d been peeping on him.

  Sammy had never made love to her like Elijah. Nobody had. It was amazing the difference age and experience made. As she walked home, weak from a surfeit of unbelievable pleasure, she pondered these things. Her raging hunger for Elijah was gratified – for now at any rate. He had satisfied her utterly. She was pleased she had got it out of her system. Now she merely had a raging hunger for breakfast. She was not so stupid or so immature as to expect him to give up Dorcas just because of this one encounter. That was it. It was over now, something she’d had to do, something she’d had to get out of her system. She had enjoyed her Uncle Elijah and he had enjoyed her. It might never happen again.

  Ramona was astonished at how easy it was to have her way with him. She had merely presented herself to him, in his bed, and there had been no resistance. None whatever. Oh, she had let him know first that she fancied him, flattered him a bit, let him believe he was the only man in the world she was interested in and he had fallen for it good and proper, especially since it turned out that he’d fancied her in the first place. Well, she was finding out about men. And, it seemed, she could have any man she wanted. All it took was a little nerve, a little courage.

  Now she needed to get back home and into bed before Mary Ann or her father arose this Sunday morning. Otherwise, she would have to make up some plausible excuse as to where she had been. The trouble was, what could be plausible about returning home at nearly eight o’clock in a morning? As she walked towards the Jolly Collier in George Street she saw the answer. A man was emerging from the paper shop. Of course, she must buy a newspaper. She’d got up to buy a newspaper, if anybody asked. Else how would they explain the cats being inside?