She crept downstairs, pausing on each step, scared that Liz might shout again if she tried to make an overture. She remembered Mother Mistress saying that God had deliberately arranged that human friendship should be fickle, undependable and fragile, so that once His creatures had seen (and suffered) its obvious limitations, they’d fly back to Him alone, for an exclusive and reliable relationship. That was fine, if you had a God as Friend; lonely and unnerving if you hadn’t.
She knocked timidly at Liz’s door. No answer. She forced herself to enter, found Liz almost naked now herself, flinging off her clothes. ‘Now what d’ you want? I’m going to have a bath.’
‘I’m sorry, Liz, honestly. I must seem so ungrateful. I do realise all you do and I do appreciate it.’ That bit she’d prepared; the rest was much more tricky. Easy to apologise; far harder to confide. Yet she remembered from confession it was never enough simply to say sorry. You had to change your ways, make a firm purpose of amendment. Which meant opening up to Liz, revealing all the details of her life, even the most private ones; explaining the marks, explaining Simon and her loss of faith, defending Robert from detraction. She tried to calm her breathing, make her voice sound casual and low-key. ‘Mind if I come in?’
Liz didn’t answer, simply gestured to a chair, pulled on an old housecoat. Hilary sat down, wished Liz would sit as well, instead of prowling round the room, fiddling with odd ornaments and knick-knacks.
‘I don’t mean to keep things from you, Liz. It’s just my training. You’ve no idea how hard it is to break it.’ No, that wouldn’t do at all. You didn’t make excuses in confession, or try to show yourself in a favourable light. You simply stated the facts fully and precisely, not leaving anything out, nor glossing over things which were embarrassing or shameful.
She was sweating when she’d finished, hands clammy, hairline damp – finished where she’d started-in Simon’s bed. Now, at last, she allowed herself a laugh, a nervous shaky laugh. ‘And I was scared I was pregnant, Liz. Though I’m not, thank God.’
‘You just said you don’t believe in Him.’ Liz’s laugh was equally uncertain. She was stretched out on the carpet now, head against the bed. ‘Christ, love, you’ve been through it! I shouldn’t leave you for a second, should I? You need a permanent chaperone. Look, I’m really sorry I blew my top upstairs. No wonder you’ve been secretive. I can understand it now.’ She leant forward, rubbed her leg. ‘I suppose the only good thing is that at least you’ve taken the plunge – sexually, I mean. Oh, I know it wasn’t marvellous, but the first time’s often quite a cockup, if you’ll forgive the pun, and anyway, you had everything against you – wrong atmosphere, wrong guy – I mean, all those taboos about the priesthood and …’
Hilary pulled at a loose thread on her dress. Although she was embarrassed, it was a relief to share her fears with somebody experienced, unshockable. ‘I’ve been quite worried, actually, not just about the pregnancy, but…’ She paused. ‘Look, Liz, I know you’re blaming everything on Simon, but I’m sure most of it was my fault. I mean, I didn’t seem to … feel anything, or even like what we were doing or …’
‘Give yourself a chance. You need more experience, that’s all, and with normal healthy guys, not wimps in dog collars. It’s funny, really, isn’t it – Catholic priests seem to be insisting on their right to sex, just at a time when half us poor scared seculars are rushing into celibacy. I keep reading in the papers about Father This or That having it away, or marrying his housekeeper. I bet most of them are hopeless, though, after all those years of living like a eunuch. Try bouncy Bob next time.’
‘But you just warned me off him, told me he was weird and unpredictable.’
‘I owe him an apology – poor lad. In fact, I’m tremendously impressed with this new upstanding Robert Harrington. If it’s true what you say and he didn’t so much as touch you the entire weekend, I reckon he’s a saint, not a pervert. He’s wild about you, Hilary, and not just about your mind. He’s a pretty randy bugger, if you’ll forgive the phrase, so it must have taken considerable restraint on his part to keep his distance and his cool, especially if you were floating around in your nightclothes half the time, or sleepwalking more or less straight into his arms. God! You do have an exotic life. I feel quite envious sometimes.’
‘Oh, Liz, how can you? You don’t know how I envy you. I mean, all the things you do which I can’t begin to tackle, like cooking complicated meals, and running this huge house, and driving a car, and understanding tax and VAT and things, and the fact you’re – you know, normal – been married and had children, and know how to respond in bed, instead of …’ Hilary pummelled the chair arm, as if venting her frustration on it. ‘D’you realise, Liz, I even envy Delia. She’s able to enjoy sex because she had a mother who regarded it as something good and pleasurable, not the disgusting sort of duty my own mother made it out to be, or the whole sin-thing of the convent.’
Liz sat frowning, one bare foot twitching on the carpet. Hilary watched her, worried. Liz was hardly ever silent. Had she offended her in some way, said something wrong or stupid? She could hear the bedside clock ticking almost feverishly, as if to fill the gap. Liz explored the pocket of her housecoat, found a crumpled piece of paper in it, screwed it up, smoothed it out again; spoke at last, though softly.
‘It’s funny really, Hilary, but the one thing you can’t admit in my own particular circle, which is permissive and so-called liberal and sophisticated, is that you don’t like sex. In fact, I doubt if you can even admit it to yourself. But now you’ve set me wondering. I mean, sex with Ken was okay, I suppose, though I was very young and green then, took it all for granted, didn’t really question how I felt or what we did together. But once he’d upped and gone, I started plunging into bed with a whole stud-farm of odd men. I assumed I was frustrated, missing sex, craving it – but now I’m not so sure.’
Liz glanced across at Hilary, as if to check her face, get permission to continue. ‘You see, divorce is such a put-down, that you can easily go bed-hopping out of sort of fear, rather than plain lust – fear of being on your own, or feeling like a failure, or even to cock a snook at your ex-husband, show him other men do fancy you, even if he doesn’t. I suppose sometimes I enjoyed it. I always thought I did. But I had to think that, didn’t I, otherwise I’d lose that whole important self-esteem thing – you know, the sense of being normal and sexy and okay in the world’s eyes. You just can’t imagine how crucial it was made to seem– being good in bed, I mean – the sort of litmus test of human worth. If you weren’t sexy, you were dead, or at least a failure and a write-off, who needed therapists and couldn’t be accepted as a swinger or a super woman. Superwomen were always multi-orgasmic – that went without saying – so women were totting up their orgasms like gold stars or Green Shield stamps, and cashing them in for goodies: gold bracelets or red roses or cruises to the sun.’
Liz was still torturing her piece of paper, had reduced it now to tatters. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t a saint myself. I’ve traded sex for five-star dinners in my time, or paid back holidays or presents, but I wouldn’t really call myself a gold-digger. It’s much more complicated than that. You can agree to sex for such a mix of reasons, and sometimes I said yes because it just seemed easier, or I couldn’t face my own cold and empty house, or I wanted to be wanted, or I was feeling specially plain that week and needed reassurance that I could still turn someone on. And sometimes I was the one handing out the comfort. I remember once landing up in bed with a five-foot-nothing travel clerk with a stutter and damp hands, just because he seemed so shy and sad, and I knew he’d feel better for a cuddle and a kiss.’ Liz smiled, as if remembering. ‘I’m quite a good performer, if you know what I mean, so it’s pretty easy just to fake the thing – a few gymnastics, or groans and moans of passion, and most men are preening at the way they’ve turned you on. The problem is with faking, though, you can confuse yourself as well, end up wondering just which you is you – the sexy one who’s going through the motions
, or the cynical detached one instructing from the sidelines.’
Liz eased up from the floor, stretched her legs, still frowning. ‘D’you realise, love, I’ve never admitted this before, not to anyone? I hope I haven’t shocked you. I think I’ve shocked myself. I mean, I do like sex, I know I do, and yet …’ She walked slowly to the dressing table, sat down on the stool in front of the large mirror, as if trying to see herself, perhaps a new self.
‘I’m even confused now about Neville – you know, my second husband. I told you how cut up I was when that went wrong as well. And I especially missed the sex – at least I thought I did. Oh, he was a fantastic lover, no doubt about that, and everything was great at first. I felt desired and loved and settled, with my confidence restored, but after a few years, it …’ Liz reached out for her hairbrush, dragged it through her hair. ‘Gosh! It’s difficult to explain this, but sex was almost too good. It was always the same, you see – wonderful – but never any variation on that high-octane performance. I began to want it to be bad – or at least short and quick and basic – but Neville always went on hours, and I’d feel so tired, or pressured by all the chores I hadn’t done, and in the end, I came to see it as just another chore itself. And yet I conveniently forgot all that, as soon as Neville left, saw myself as wronged and wildly sexy, and him as losing interest. In fact, it wasn’t till just now, when you mentioned your own mother and used that word “duty”, that something sort of clicked and … Good God! Is that the time?’
Liz swung round as the clock on the landing chimed the hour, checked it with her watch. ‘Where’s Bob, for heaven’s sake? Is that his car?’ She loped to the window, peered out down the street. ‘No. False alarm. Even so, we ought to get our skates on. You can’t go and meet him in that dress, Hil. It’s really straining at the seams, and even his iron control will snap. You know, the more I think about it, the more I take my hat off to the guy. You say he didn’t even kiss you?’
Hilary shook her head, still dazed and overwhelmed by Liz’s outburst, hardly able to assess it, a hundred questions and reactions swarming in her mind.
‘That’s decent, isn’t it? I mean, a lot of men would have insisted on their pound of flesh. It’s the old payment thing again. He takes you in, looks after you, spoils you rotten, by the sounds of it, then claims his just reward – or rather doesn’t. He must be pretty sensitive to have known how you were feeling, know you wouldn’t want him, after what you’d been through. Most blokes are so big-headed, they’d have been offering themselves as instant sexual therapy, or couldn’t wait to prove how much better they could do in bed than any puny priest. It’d be a sort of challenge to their pride, you see, and male pride is bloody strong. It sounds to me as if Robert really cares.’
Hilary tried to stop her voice from sounding bitter. ‘So why is he so late?’
‘Oh, that’s nothing. You’ll get used to it in time. You can’t expect a guy to have no faults.’ Liz turned back from the window, started collecting up her clothes. ‘D’ you know, I’m worried about Harry now. If we do land up in bed, I’ll be all self-conscious, wondering if it’s going to work and what I’m really feeling; and if we never make it, I’ll assume I just don’t turn him on, and get twitchy and neurotic. It’s pathetic really, how much better he’s made me feel already – I mean, just to have a guy in tow, paying court, and boosting me, as if I’m no good in my own eyes, only in a man’s. Hey! Careful with that dress, love. You’ll rip it in a minute. Here, let me help. Stick your arms up and I’ll tug. God! It’s tight. I don’t know how the heck Di ever squeezed into it, except she was probably in her anorexic phase – you know, starving herself to please some man who only fancied Twiggys. Okay, relax, you’re free.’
Hilary edged to the mirror, tried to see her back. ‘Liz, do those … marks really show a lot?’
‘No, honestly, they don’t. In fact, I can hardly even see them now. It was just that particular light upstairs, coming from two windows, and with the sun streaming in as well.’ She stood beside Hilary, staring in the mirror. ‘It’s funny how we’re both marked by our men. Oh, I don’t mean directly, but the sort of way the history of our love-lives is stamped on our bodies.’ Liz untied her housecoat, looped it up. ‘That’s my Caesarian scar from Di, and that long sort of tramline on my thigh is a memento of my skiing trip with a ghastly chap called Tover, who dragged me from the nursery slopes to take part in a race. And see that lumpy patch of skin? Well, I fell off Neville’s motorbike and though the cuts and bruises faded, it never quite went smooth again. And if you could see through to my mind, it must be scarred all over with guilts and fears and jealousies – all the things which bug you once you get involved with men; all those ghastly dilemmas and decisions which almost kill you with the worry. Should I have slept with this guy, or given him the push? Should I have had that abortion or made the rotter marry me? Should I have married anyone?’
Hilary glanced at Liz’s scars, embarrassed by their two half-naked bodies, almost touching in the glass. She herself was marked by her love affair with God: the faint line on her forehead which would probably never fade now, after all those years of wearing a tight coif; her feet permanently calloused by going without shoes – and if Liz counted all the inner marks, there was no part of her which wasn’t stigmatised. Suddenly, she laughed.
‘What’s funny?’
‘I don’t know.’ She went on laughing, clutching at her sides.
‘Come on, love, do share the joke.’
She couldn’t share it. There wasn’t any joke. Yet she was doubled up with laughing, her muscles hurting with it, muscles out of practice, barely used before.
Liz began to laugh herself, watching her reflection in the mirror. ‘Isn’t laughing stupid? I mean, just look at our two faces.’
Hilary straightened up a moment, hooting still more wildly as she glimpsed her mirror-self. The laughter felt like pain, stabbing at her chest, hacking in her throat, stopping her from breathing. She fought and failed to gain control; her whole body racked, convulsed, tears streaming down her face now. Liz herself was choking as she laughed and coughed at once, making snorting noises which sounded like an animal – an animal in pain.
‘God, Hilary, you’re crazy! Do stop, for heaven’s sake. I hurt all over and my mascara’s streaking off. I’ll end up like a panda. Anyway, it isn’t even funny.’
‘No, it … it’s tragic’
That set them off again, rolling round hysterically, Liz collapsing on the bed; Hilary still helpless, and hunched across a chair, trying to use a cushion as a gag. They were making so much noise, they hardly heard the door-bell, only froze when it pealed a second time.
‘Bob!’
‘Robert!’
‘He can’t see us like this. Quick! Tear upstairs, Hilary, and get some decent clothes on, and I’ll go down and let him in.’ Liz grabbed her housecoat, rushed out to the landing, scrubbing at her black-ringed eyes, smoothing down her hair.
Hilary didn’t move. She was suddenly aware that this morning’s wild excitement over Robert – heady Robert – had come flooding, rushing back; seemed to paralyse her outwardly, while it burned her up inside. Her own face was a mess, smudgy tear-marks scoring through the make-up she’d applied with so much care.
‘Well,’ she said to no one, with a last sudden violent laugh. ‘He said I had to cry.’
SUMMER
Chapter Twenty Four
Hilary could already smell the sea, its strong salt tang softened by the scent of flowers, a mixed bouquet of clover, daisies, meadowsweet; the sweet-sour reek of cow parsley foaming in the hedges. Gulls were screeching overhead; sanderlings wikwik-ing from the marshes. She closed her eyes a moment, stumbled on, aware of sharp stones jabbing through her sandals, clumps of coarse and tufted grass trying to trip her up; tensing as grass changed to sand and she felt her feet sucked into it, felt the fractious sea-wind on her face.
‘What are you doing?’ Robert asked, linking his arm in hers to stop her falling. ‘You’
ll break your lovely neck.’
‘I just can’t bring myself to look,’ she said. ‘I mean, in case it’s changed, or spoilt, or …’ How could he understand? He was just a tourist here, a visitor. For her, this slice of countryside was home and roots and childhood; almost half her lifetime marked and branded into it like growth rings on a tree. She had longed to see this coast again, wander on its beaches and pick her childhood up from them like shells, yet she was also apprehensive, the longing smirched with fear. Supposing they’d built beach huts, ugly cafés, kiosks; ruined her child’s wilderness? Suppose the sea itself had changed?
She shook off Robert’s arm, took a last step forward, dared to open her eyes. No beach huts, litter, whelk stalls, no caravans or shops, no human trace at all – just an immensity of ocean, a vast and empty sky. It was as if the world had suddenly expanded, its roof pushed up, to give more space and light; the horizon rolled back further, so that the endless booming ocean could fill the wide-screen landscape, overwhelm the eye. She longed to have a hundred eyes, like Argus, so she could watch every wave at once as it rolled slowly in, swelling, rising, breaking on itself, then frothing, sucking back in white-foam shards. Yes, the sea had changed. Whenever she’d recalled it, it had been winter in her mind, or at least a dull and grey day, with all the colours muted. Now green and golds and turquoise glittered in the sun; the sand itself seemed gilded and alive, rather than the flat and fallow dun-beige she’d remembered. It was not a coast noted for its sunshine; a coast for stoics, rather, with brisk winds always blowing from a stark North Sea, and no more land till Norway.
Devils, for a change Page 42