Under a Pole Star: Richard & Judy Book Club 2017 - the most unforgettable love story of the year

by Stef Penney

  ‘If you want to know the truth . . . I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You’re the cleverest person I know! You have a great future—’

  ‘I’m not worthy of you.’

  ‘You are!’

  He smiles unhappily, shakes his head.

  ‘You don’t know . . . Seeing you, being close to you . . . It torments me. I want to give you everything, Flora, but I don’t even deserve to say that.’

  He stares at her so intently his look seems to scald her.

  ‘I don’t want to torment you.’ She takes his hand, and he reciprocates by pressing hers so hard that it hurts.

  ‘I’m ashamed . . . I can’t work for thinking of you. I can’t sleep. It’s driving me mad. I’m afraid that . . . Perhaps we should stop meeting.’

  ‘No! Don’t say that . . .’

  Flora steps towards him, and puts her arms round him. She is deeply moved to find that she can feel his skeleton – his shoulder blades, the ribs in his back. She smells him, sharp and slightly musty, as he presses her to his chest. His jacket is rough against her cheek. She twists her head round and pulls back to look into his face. The look in his eyes is oppressively tender. She is almost frightened – it is too much to be responsible for that – and because, in part, she cannot bear to go on looking, she moves her face towards his, and then feels the peculiar, soft warmth of his mouth against hers. His mouth moves, his tongue touches her lips. She opens them, with the sense that, in doing so, there is no going back. It is intriguing, like a key that has the effect of unlocking her whole body, and the sour-sweet ache that has taken up residence inside her writhes like a thing with its own will. She finds that she is pushing herself against him, as if her body acts independently of her mind, which is acutely aware of every sensation: his hands stroking her back, the soft, wet noises their kisses make. She can, through her skirts, feel a hardness in his groin, and what she thinks about that, she doesn’t begin to know . . . and then, fearful, she tears her mouth away from his, breathing hard, and he crushes her to his chest again, so that her chin pokes uncomfortably over his shoulder.

  ‘We can’t . . .’ she says, breathless.

  ‘I love you, darling girl. Say you will be mine, one day. Please . . .’

  A dark bird explodes upwards through the leaves above them, chucking disapprovingly. Mark looks round nervously. She looks at his handsome profile, and her chaotic feelings tip and shift – just – to the point where she says, ‘Yes. One day.’

  Their mouths meet again, and then Mark pulls away from her, making a space between them, breathing deeply. He has his hands on her upper arms, holding her still.

  ‘Darling Flora . . . I think we’d better go.’ He attempts to smile in a normal, light-hearted manner.

  ‘Yes.’ Flora takes a deep breath and looks around her. They are completely alone. The possibility of someone coming across them while they were embracing did not occur to her. Now it makes her cold to think of it.

  .

  Going back into London, they sit in silence, but a different silence, not awkward and heavy, but as if they are both so full there is no need to speak. At least, that is what Flora feels. On Albert Bridge, Mark suddenly bends forward and puts his head in his hands.

  ‘Mark!’ She is alarmed. She puts her hand on his arm. ‘Are you ill?’

  He says, in something between a groan and a whisper, ‘I’m sorry. It’s all wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She leans towards him; there are other people on the top deck.

  ‘I’ve made everything worse.’

  ‘You haven’t.’

  He groans. ‘You can’t love me.’

  ‘But I do. Mark . . .’

  ‘Forget everything I said. I’d no right to ask that of you.’

  ‘No! Don’t be sorry. I’m not.’ She puts her hand on his arm, shaking him until he lifts his head. She wants him to look at her in that way he did in the plantation. She bends towards him and whispers, ‘I’m glad.’

  The omnibus is approaching the point where they have to change routes. She says, ‘This is where we have to get off.’

  Mark doesn’t move.

  ‘Mark . . .’

  He shakes his head. ‘Just leave me.’

  Astonished, and a little frightened, Flora lets go.

  ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me, Flora. Go, please.’

  She has no idea what to do. The bus pulls in to the side of the road. She mutters again, ‘Don’t be sorry, darling,’ and presses a hand on his sleeve before she stands up and makes her way down the omnibus stairs.

  .

  After two days, in which she does not catch so much as a glimpse of Mark in a corridor and he cuts their usual chemistry lecture, Iris calls her into the drawing room when she comes home, and pours her a glass of sherry. Flora shakes her head.

  ‘Take it. How long have you been here?’

  Flora feels a chill. ‘Seven . . . eight months. I’m sure I can find somewhere else, if you—’

  ‘Flora, please. I simply mean I know you well enough to know when you’re unhappy. I haven’t pressed you, have I?’

  Flora shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t know how anyone manages to get a degree, at the age you are, when everything is so urgent. There’s a man, isn’t there? Dear, I won’t be angry, no matter what you’ve done.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything!’

  ‘Well, if you’re not engaged, married or having a baby, that makes things easier.’

  Despite herself, Flora emits a strangled laugh. ‘Ah . . . no.’

  ‘Good. Do you want to tell me what’s happened?’

  Flora tries, but somehow her account of her relationship with Mark, and the events of Sunday, makes little sense, even to her.

  ‘Perhaps he’s right in saying he doesn’t deserve you.’

  Flora shakes her head vehemently. ‘I can’t bear that he thinks so little of himself – when he’s so brilliant! He is cleverer than all of us.’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t talking about his background. How well do you really know him?’

  Flora stares at her. ‘What do you mean? I know that he is good.’

  ‘If he is good, then he will explain his behaviour. I know . . . It is not quite the same for me, as you may have realised . . .’ Iris pauses, making rather a meal of lighting her cigarette. ‘But I know that, if people behave strangely, there is always a reason.’

  .

  Flora writes to Mark after the second missed lecture. The next day, he reappears in the lecture theatre, and gives her a tentative look that pierces her to the core.

  That evening, he waits for her, and they walk through Fitzroy Square Garden, after classes, in the dappled shade of plane trees. He apologises, with his customary mix of sweetness and defiance.

  ‘Your letter was so good. You are wise.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What you said about the future: you are right; we are only at the beginning of it all. It’s just so hard to be with you and . . . I want to give you a future, but I’m afraid of losing you before I have anything to offer.’

  ‘You won’t lose me.’ She stops and looks into his eyes, and feels that sense of being impelled towards him, remembers the feel of his mouth on hers, his body responding. ‘I’m to blame as much as you. I understand how difficult it is.’

  ‘You’re not to blame, and I doubt you really understand, but . . . thank you.’

  ‘Why doubt it? Do you think it impossible that a woman feels . . . what a man feels?’

  ‘Well’ – he smiles – ‘it’s hardly the same.’

  ‘You know what I feel? How do you know it isn’t the same?’

  Mark looks at her in amusement. ‘All right. I don’t know what you feel, objectively. But there are certain un
deniable, ah, differences . . . it’s agreed – by doctors.’

  ‘By men, who also don’t know. I know what I feel, objectively. I long to touch you. I want to be with you. It is difficult, all the time we are together.’ She speaks in a fierce whisper.

  Mark looks startled, then closes his eyes. ‘You’re not making this any easier.’

  Flora doesn’t quite speak the truth; she desires him most strongly when she is alone, when a certain distance allows her to indulge her feelings in safety; in his presence, she is constantly confused by the things he says, or does. Either that, or her passion is for an ideal person who is like, but not identical with, the flesh-and-blood Mark. She is sufficiently aware of this conundrum to be sometimes alarmed by it.

  ‘Iris wants to meet you.’

  Mark’s expression changes in an instant; he smiles with touching gratitude. This is why she loves him, she thinks, because beneath the moods and defensiveness is this thirsty soul that responds to kindness with heart-breaking eagerness. He covers it in an instant.

  ‘Oh? What have you said that I can’t possibly live up to?’

  ‘I told her that you matter to me. And that you’re the cleverest person I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Ha. So will I have to perform?’

  His cheeks are touched with colour.

  ‘You’ll like her. She’s a socialist.’

  ‘The sort of socialist who lives in a grand house in Kensington and has a vast fortune.’

  ‘Doesn’t the cause need a few like that?’

  He smiles. Flora, relieved and glad, feels a wave of tenderness – his prickliness is only because his upbringing has been hard, and he has to struggle to pay his fees . . .

  ‘Shall we walk to the park?’ He looks at her sideways. ‘We could carry out some objective tests.’

  Flora pretends to think, but a warmth unfurls inside her, delicious and dangerous. The paper on atmospheric circulation she read earlier pops into her head: Any increase in heat leads to an increase in instability . . . although the atmosphere is only that of Regent’s Park, early on a Friday evening, so there is not much danger, just . . . enough.

  Chapter 8

  London, 51˚31’N, 0˚7’W

  Summer 1890

  Flora moved to London so that she could study under well-known scientists, but it is not enough for an explorer to be qualified and competent – not for her – so Iris gives dinners so that Flora can meet People Who Matter. Her circle contains artists, writers and the odd entrepreneur and minor politician. Iris admits that this is not high society, but it is society of a sort; these are people with money, and most of them are curious about Flora and her ambitions, and more polite in their incredulity than Dr Sullivan. One of Iris’s best friends is almost always present – a writer called Jessie Biddenden. She is of a similar, indeterminate age to Iris, but small and rounded, with a pretty, cat-like face and exotically slanted eyes. Sometimes Flora thinks that it is Jessie who should be the explorer; she radiates a power that Flora finds alarming – a restless, calculating energy that seems to brook no resistance. She has wondered if Jessie might be a sapphist too.

  Once, there is a real explorer, Gregory Bala, recently returned from Mesopotamia. He is impressive to look at, with huge blond whiskers, and even more to listen to; he has a slight accent (he is Hungarian by birth) and a measured, grating voice that cuts through a room. With heavy, rather forced courtesy, he asks Flora about Greenland and its culture. When she answers, she can tell he thinks Greenland a place so primitive it is hardly worthy of a visit. He himself has brought back wonderful treasures from central Asia – ancient scrolls, statues, paintings. Things made of gold. And extraordinary knowledge. During a lull in their conversation, his gaze fastens on Flora’s bosom and stays there for an uncomfortably long moment. Flora attempts to shrink into her chair. Then he stabs a finger towards her right breast.

  ‘I knew I had seen that before. Did you know, Miss Mackie, that the, ah, upper part of your dress displays a Babylonian fertility symbol?’

  ‘Um . . . no,’ says Flora faintly, looking down at the bodice with its pattern of interwoven loops, knowing she will never wear it again.

  In such company, Flora struggles to express what makes her long to go back to the north. Sometimes she feels utterly inadequate to the task of meeting these people, which seems to call for more wit and erudition than she can, or ever could, muster. At the end of the Bala evening, when everyone has gone, Flora bursts into tears.

  ‘Good heavens, child. Are you ill?’ Iris sounds irritated.

  ‘No. I . . . I’m sorry. I try . . . I want to do well for you. But I feel so stupid! I know so little, and these people are so clever. They speak French! I . . . I’m not up to it!’

  She is thinking of an elegant woman with a tiny waist, who made comments in a language Flora could not understand, at which the table dissolved into laughter.

  ‘Oh, really. Mrs Harding is a table decoration – it was Italian, by the way, dear – and she only speaks it because her mother is a trollop who ran off with some catchpenny princeling. You can speak Eskimo. No one else can do that.’

  ‘But no one knows if I’m speaking it or not! It’s no good if no one else understands.’

  Iris looks at her with fond exasperation. ‘You do very well, Flora. I can tell, even if you can’t. And pretty Mrs Harding is never going to fund an expedition, so don’t worry about her.’

  ‘Perhaps you could invite Mark to the next one?’ Flora smiles at her tentatively.

  ‘Do you really think he would enjoy an evening like that?’

  If she is honest, Flora cannot affirm that Mark would flourish in such an atmosphere. The likelihood is that he would feel inferior, and be resentful, sullen, or worse.

  ‘I’ll think about it. But not next Friday. There is someone I particularly want you to meet, and it wouldn’t do for you to look too . . . attached.’

  ‘Why? Who is it?’

  Iris smiles. ‘You’ll see. You look tired. Go to bed. Have you written to your father lately?’

  ‘He’s in the north,’ says Flora, meaning no.

  .

  Her last letter to her father, sent before the whaling season began in May, was a masterpiece of dullness. His letters to her are no better. He never has anything of interest to report – only the weather (poor, usually), the worsening pain in his knees (depressing) and remembrances from Moira Adam and his few acquaintances in the town. He displays no curiosity about her studies, or about her life generally. She tells him about her work – she wants to show him that she is doing well – and that she is meeting important people, except he has never heard of any of them. She has not written a word about Mark Levinson; has not told him she is in love.

  As spring turns to summer, she and Mark reach an accommodation. On alternate Saturdays, Mark travels to Kensington, and they walk in the park, or go to a museum, and then go back to Iris’s house for tea. But if Iris is not at home, they go to the house immediately, and Flora takes him upstairs to her own little sitting room. They can stand, or they can sit on the sofa, but, if sitting down, there is no touching below the waist. These rules – which Flora decided on after some confusing research in the library medical section – state that they will remain dressed, although the definition of ‘dressed’ is elastic enough to include a certain amount of unbuttoning. Flora shuts the door and listens for the sound of servants’ footsteps. When she is satisfied that no one is nearby, she walks up to Mark – he waits for her to approach him, looking very serious – and she takes off his glasses and puts them on a side table.

  ‘Now you have me at a disadvantage,’ he says the first time, with a nervous smile. She sees him differently from so close: the texture of his skin, which is fine and sallow, the shadows under his eyes, his black eyelashes, the dots of stubble on his jaw and neck, the downy softness beneath his ear. She breathes in the musky smel
l of him. She realises, with a revolution of the heart, that he is shaking. She kisses him softly, tenderly – his neck, his temple, his cheek, his lips – and as she reduces the distance between them to nothing, fitting her body against his; she thrills to feel his erection press into her belly, and her breasts push against his chest.

  ‘Is this allowed, on the Sabbath?’ she teases him. She knows that his father won’t light a fire or join two threads together from sunset on Friday till the third star appears on Saturday evening.

  ‘Actually, it’s encouraged,’ he says with a blissful sigh. ‘Well, it would be, if we were married.’

  He kisses her again and she opens her mouth to his. She can’t believe that, not very long ago, she wasn’t sure she wanted this. His arms hold her against him, caressing her, and then she unbuttons his shirt and put her hands on his pale skin, making him moan. She has dressed, this morning, so that it is easy for him to unfasten the front of her blouse and chemise, and fondle and kiss her breasts. It amazes and delights her that what she has always thought of as her bulky, inconvenient flesh is capable of inspiring such ecstasy, and she pushes her fingers hard into his hair and gasps with pleasure. It is becoming very difficult to stay on their feet, but at some point she presses her hand against the tight worsted of his groin and rubs it back and forth, pressing with the heel of her hand until he gasps and clutches her shoulder and eventually shudders, and then squeezes her to him with eyes shut, and says he loves her, loves her.

  Flora wants to do this, is happy to give him some measure of relief, but for her – for both of them – it is unsatisfactory. What she wants is to be naked with him, to feel him, to see all of him, for him to fill her up. She feels like an aching void that is curdling with frustration. And his hand over her skirt, rubbing blindly at the place between her legs, doesn’t help. Sometimes she feels that she almost reaches a crisis, but cannot fulfil it. It is possible that Mark doesn’t notice this lack, or he is too inexperienced to ask, and she is too embarrassed to tell him – does not know, in any case, what she would say.

  The only thing she can do is wait until much later, when she can reasonably retire, and conjure up the ache again in order to relieve it. She knows how to do this because she has always known. She cannot remember a time when she did not.