‘It’s not exactly hi-fi,’ he admitted, as if tuning in to her thoughts, ‘but I’m too busy to be bothered with all this new technology. And, whatever its deficiencies, I’d like you to sit here and enjoy it, while I make us a little supper.’
‘Can’t I help?’ she offered.
‘No. My kitchen’s barely bigger than a cupboard, so there isn’t room for two. Anyway, I want you to relax. When you first arrived, you looked absolutely terrified. I don’t know why, because I assure you I’m not an ogre!’
She flushed. Hardly surprising she’d been nervous, wondering what on earth to expect after his excesses at the party. She realized now, however, that, on such a glitzy occasion, all the wine and adulation must have gone to his head, so that he had acted out of character. This was the genuine Leon: the serious intellectual and erudite professor.
Once he’d refilled her glass and vanished into the kitchen, she took a long, appreciative swig of the wine. Being more accustomed to the cheapest offers at Oddbins, it was an unexpected luxury to savour a fine claret. Besides, a drink or two would help her to relax. She was still ridiculously anxious that she might reveal her ignorance by letting fall some naïve or artless remark.
While he was gone, she tried to focus on the music, so she could comment on it intelligently. However, the record lasted only minutes and then all she could hear was a scratchy noise from the needle as it continued to revolve. So she examined his expanse of books – there were shelves from floor to ceiling on three of the four walls – books not just on philosophy but on art, music, religion, history, politics… . If only she could imbibe that wealth of knowledge simply by looking at the volumes, so that, when he returned, she would be more worthy of his company.
In fact, he was back far sooner than she’d expected and not with anything resembling dinner.
‘I’ve made you my speciality,’ he announced, setting down a small plastic tray on the desk. ‘A cheese-and-marmalade sandwich. They’re the perfect partners, I find – the cheese smooth and bland and creamy, against the bitter, tangy, chunky marmalade.’
Her fantasies of lobster, quail or pheasant shrivelled into dust. But what stupidity, on her part, to imagine that such gourmet fare could emerge from a cupboard-sized kitchen, or from a bachelor who lived alone and had probably never learned to cook.
Having taken off the record and replaced it with another, he unloaded the tray and handed her a plate. ‘I hope you don’t mind eating on your lap. There just isn’t room for a table and, anyway, I’ve never found one necessary. To be honest, Poppy, I’m usually too busy to bother eating at all.’
Being greedy by nature, she envied his asceticism, although, once she had studied the contents of her plate, it was all she could do not to grimace in distaste. The plate itself was a treasure – fine porcelain patterned with twining leaves and flowers – but the sandwich looked, frankly, inedible. He had toasted the bread and burnt it, and the two charred and blackened slices enclosed a slab of bright orange processed cheese, and were oozing a sticky amber gel she assumed must be the marmalade, although ‘chunky’ it certainly wasn’t.
‘Bon appetit!’ he said, settling himself on the bed again and tucking in, with relish, to a similarly unappetizing sandwich. Indeed, he was eating with the avid concentration of a literally famished man, as if nothing had passed his lips since the dainty little canapés served at the launch party, six whole weeks ago.
She, too, was hungry, but not for this abortion of a snack. However, from courtesy alone, she took a reluctant bite. The cheese was hard and greasy but tasteless, while the peculiar runny marmalade began drooling down her chin and onto her best blouse. In the absence of serviettes, she couldn’t mop it up and, in any case, her attention was engaged in the onerous task of trying to force the mouthful down. All she could taste was burnt bread, dry and acrid. Perhaps his eyesight was failing, along with his sense of smell, and he didn’t even realize it was burnt.
Suddenly, embarrassingly, she actually started to choke and took refuge in her wine, gulping a good half of the glass, in an attempt to swallow the obstruction in her throat. Yet, the stubborn sludge of crumbs refused to dislodge and she was dismayingly aware that her rasping cough was obliterating the muted, mellifluous music.
Leon, all concern, quickly transferred his plate to the floor and rushed over to pat her gently on the back. Mortified, she continued to cough, which only made him more solicitous. ‘Hold on! I’ll fetch some water.’
Returning with a glass, he held it to her lips and encouraged her to sip. Although grateful for his ministrations, she knew she must look a sight, with her streaming eyes and smudged mascara. But, ever attentive, he put down the glass, whipped a hankie from his pocket and wiped her face with consummate tenderness. The handkerchief was mercifully clean, and cobweb-soft from repeated washings and, as it whispered against her face, she had a peculiar sense of being a tiny child, vulnerable and stricken but in safely nurturing hands.
‘Better?’ he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
She nodded. The coughing had stopped; the obstruction disappeared – although her heart was beating ridiculously fast, from shame as much as discomfort. ‘I…I’m terribly sorry, Leon,’ she stammered, aware of her crassness in spoiling this magical evening.
His only answer was to take both her hands in his. ‘You’re a highly sensitive woman, Poppy. I realized that the minute we met. And you’re still het up – which is wholly understandable. You see, I strongly suspect that my uncouth peasant food proved an affront to your delicate system. Forgive me, will you, please? To tell the truth, I’ve managed all these years without really needing to cook. Either, I dine out with my cronies, or get by on a bowl of cornflakes, or a spoonful or two of baked beans, so when it comes to entertaining a fastidious lady… .’
‘Look, the sandwich was fine… . Please don’t think… .’ Was ‘fastidious’ polite-speak for ‘fusspot’? Had she offended him, deep down? The second record had now come to an end and the irritable, scratchy noise, repeating and repeating, echoed the agitation in her mind. Leon, however, seemed oblivious of the noise and, far from looking offended, his eyes were fixed on her with something close to adoration. Without releasing her hands, he suddenly moved a little closer and kissed each of her eyelids in turn. Astonished, she was about to repel him, but the pressure of his lips was so innocently subtle, the gossamer caress seemed more nurturing and protective than intrusive and seductive. Or perhaps the wine had knocked her off-guard. She had to admit she did feel slightly woozy, having downed a morale-boosting vodka-and-Coke before setting out this evening, as well as Leon’s claret. However, far from taking advantage of her, he led her gently to the window and drew aside the tattered curtain.
‘I want to show you something, Poppy. See that bright star above the rooftops? That’s the planet Venus and it’s exceptionally bright at present.’
She gazed, enchanted at the small, glittering point of light – a star she would never have known or noticed had he not pointed it out.
‘It’s by far the brightest object in the sky, and that’s probably why it got its name.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, so she’s also a dazzling presence.’
She experienced a frisson of excitement, as the pair of them continued to gaze out beyond the jumble of chimneys, spires and roofs, at the mysterious night sky.
‘Amazing to think it’s only slightly smaller than our earth, when it looks as small as a diamond solitaire’ – he paused and turned towards her – ‘a diamond I’d like to give you, Poppy, because you’re a Venus, too: a goddess of love and beauty.’
However extravagant the compliment, she accepted it, this time, elated as she was by the whole tenor of the evening and by the sheer brilliance of the star itself. Why shouldn’t she be Venus, if only for an hour, rather than an earth-bound poppy doomed to fade in some drab field of corn? She didn’t even object when he slipped an arm around her wa
ist. It felt natural, somehow, fitting, as if they were being drawn together by this shared experience. Rarely, in her ordinary life, did she spare a thought for the stars, or look beyond the narrow focus of the books in the library, or the papers on her desk.
Slowly but persuasively, he moved his lips towards hers. Instantly, she made to pull away – too late. Already, he was kissing her and the kiss was so wildly passionate, so sensuously erotic, she had no choice but to respond. This was a young man’s kiss – ardent, fierce, emphatic – yet with subtleties she had never known before: his adventurous tongue exploring, seeking, flicking; forcing her own mouth to co-operate. All her misgivings melted in the wild fire of his embrace and, even when he coaxed her on to the bed and continued kissing her neck, her throat, her décolletage, she was powerless to resist. The sensations were exquisite, as if he were galvanizing new erogenous zones in her body, undiscovered till this moment. The kiss was going bone-deep, dissolving her previous rigidity into liquescent surrender.
He unbuttoned her blouse, skilfully and swiftly – no fumbling fingers or clumsy tuggings – then released her bra in a single adroit movement and began stroking her bare breasts. ‘Poppy,’ he breathed, ‘your flesh is just exquisite – a miracle of loveliness. If only Titian could have met you, he would have banished all his other models and painted only you and you and you.’
His praise was pure hyperbole, but now she accepted it as of right. None of her previous boyfriends had ever been so totally bewitched by her body. Edward might grunt ‘Nice boobs!’ when about to ‘shag’ her – his word and one she loathed. With Leon, there would be no ‘shagging’. He brought poetry to the art of love, and clearly cultivated passion as one of the highest arts. The bumbling men she’d met so far simply hadn’t possessed the skill to peel off a woman’s tights and pants in the easy and ingenious fashion he was now employing, as if the garments had simply dissolved beneath his hands.
‘Darling Poppy!’ he exclaimed, as he gazed at her naked belly and gently spread her thighs apart. ‘I want every artist in the world to record your gorgeous body on their canvases, so it will go down to posterity.’
His adulatory words were set to the subtle music of his fingers, so how could she object? In truth, his touch was so lingeringly provocative, she seemed to move into a different realm where nothing else existed save her own voluptuous pleasure. Beneath his hands, she was indeed a Venus, experiencing extremes of sensation no mortal could ever know.
‘I dared not hope,’ he whispered, ‘that your bush would be the same astounding auburn as your hair, but the two exactly match, I see.’
She shut her eyes to savour the electrifying feeling of his lips and tongue probing deep inside her: lapping, tingling, startling, in a whole symphony of impressions. This was a rite of passage, a vital initiation, as she morphed from girl to goddess.
But, all at once, he sat abruptly up and began tearing off his clothes. ‘I must have you, Poppy – now!’
His voice was fierce, emphatic, but, as she stared at his thin, white, spindly legs – so suddenly and fatally revealed – and at the long, pale, dangly penis, only semi-stiff, her passion collapsed at a stroke. Seconds ago, she’d been revelling in the attentions of a vigorous young stud, so who was this old fossil, with his skeletally thin thighs and pathetically hairless body, and a face ravaged and creviced with wrinkles? Appalled, she pushed him off, deep revulsion replacing wild desire. ‘I’m sorry, Leon. We have to stop.’
‘Stop?’ he repeated, astonished. ‘But we’ve only just begun, my darling.’
She wasn’t his darling – not now. The reality of his aged body, brought home to her so dramatically, had changed her mood entirely, and her overwhelming wish was simply to escape. Yet he was using every skill he had to overcome her resistance – fondling her buttocks, stroking her stomach, even exploring her anus – and actually holding her down with a physical force she could barely credit in someone of his age. How could the flame of lust burn so fiercely in a man of eighty-two, or his need to penetrate her be so all-consuming? Surely only a prostitute would be willing to couple with his pallid, stick-like body, or tolerate his drooping penis, as it struggled to maintain any sort of grip inside her.
Again she tried to heave him off, but he only redoubled his efforts to restrain her, apparently unconcerned whether he hurt or even bruised her in the process. But, with youth on her side, she managed to dislodge him, and then leapt off the bed and began struggling back into her clothes in a frenzy of impatience, determined to make her get-away.
But he, too, jumped up; his face contorted with rage. ‘So now you’re revealed in your true colours, Poppy, as just a selfish little prick-teaser – a taker, not a giver. You had no problem, did you, relishing every possible pleasure for yourself, but when it comes to my needs, that’s a different matter, clearly.’
‘Oh, you’re accusing me, are you?’ she retaliated, maddened by his bitter, vengeful tone. ‘A minute ago, I was Venus – now I’m crap.’
‘Yes,’ he sneered, ‘certainly you’re Venus, but what I omitted to tell you, my dear little ignoramus, is that Venus is one of the least hospitable places for life in the whole of the solar system. In fact, it’s the nearest thing we have to Hell – covered with lava flows and so blisteringly hot it could easily melt lead. Astronomers say that anyone who tried to visit would be roasted, crushed and corroded, all at once. And that’s exactly what I feel you’ve done to me. I worshipped your body, lavished it with praises and caresses, and then you suddenly turn on me, insult and reject me in the most humiliating manner and—’
‘Look, it wasn’t like that. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t. And nor do I want to, you silly little bitch. I don’t intend to waste my breath on someone so self-centred, so get out of my sight and don’t ever dare come back!’
‘I wouldn’t if you paid me!’ she yelled, forcing her feet back into her shoes, grabbing her coat and bag, and stampeding down the stairs, in a turmoil of emotion – humiliation, anger and, yes, guilt. She had been selfish. And rude. But… .
She tugged open the front door and stumbled out into the night and, there above her, glittering and mocking, was her namesake, Venus, the brightest – and most hellish – of the stars.
‘SORRY FOR INCONVENCE’
‘Get a move on!’ Anna muttered, willing the train to pick up speed – hardly likely when it was the slow, stopping-service to Chessington. Tom and Petra were just the latest of her contemporaries to move out to suburbia, once they’d started a family, claiming they needed a garden and more space. An abomination in her view to swap their trendy Camden flat for a hideous mock-Tudor semi in the sticks, and, of course, a hassle for their friends obliged to make the long trek out.
The train trundled into Clapham Junction, where a crush of people fought their way to the doors, pushing between the cluster of standing passengers. She collapsed gratefully into one of the now empty seats, her mind shifting to the meeting she’d just left and all its unsolved issues. It had dragged on, as always, way after half past five; her boss wilfully oblivious of people’s plans for the evening, or their pressing need to get home.
Anxiously, she checked her watch, wishing she could transform this sluggish, backwoods train into a hurtling, high-speed express. It was pardonable to be late for a casual visit to friends, but not for a formal dinner party, least of all tonight, which was something of a landmark, being not just Petra’s birthday, but her first foray into entertaining since she had given birth. It was as if she and Tom were announcing to the world, ‘We’ve survived. We’re back in harness. Normal service is resumed.’
Aware that her thoughts were all over the place, Anna opened her free Standard and tried to concentrate on the latest developments in Syria. The man beside her seemed to be overlapping his boundaries: his evening paper nudging hers, his elbows hogging the arm-rest, his aggressively spicy cologne assaulting the air-space. And opposite was a garrulous middle-aged couple, discussing last night’s episod
e of Celebrity Masterchef – the final, so she gathered, and focusing on home-made ice-cream. She was so ravenous she could gobble down whole gallons of ice-cream. Lunch had long ago been squeezed from her daily schedule, and she was lucky if she managed to grab a sandwich at her desk. Today, it had been a tepid coffee and a tube of Polo mints.
At Earlsfield, more people alighted and, a few minutes later, once the train had lumbered on again, a tall, sultry-looking man came lurching along the aisle, stopping by each passenger and handing them a mini-pack of Kleenex and a tiny slip of paper. Curiously, she read the message typed in big black capitals, smudged, misspelled, unsigned:
SORRY FOR INCONVENCE. ME NO JOB AND NO HELP. CHILD OF 6 YEARS IS SICK. CHILD OF 4 IS HELTHY, THANK GOD, BUT BABY NOT DOING GOOD. I ASK FOR A MONEY TO PAY RENT AND EATING. THANK YOU. I PRAY GOD BLESS YOU.
She glanced up at the man, who was still distributing the Kleenex. He looked young, strong and fit, so why couldn’t he find work? There was no shortage of jobs if one was willing to clean toilets or offices, or wash up in hotels – although, of course, many potential employees preferred to stay perversely idle rather than engage in such hard labour. Most of her fellow passengers seemed to share her own cynicism, since none had opened a purse or a wallet, and most had deposited the Kleenex on an adjoining empty seat, to signal that it was unwanted and unwelcome. Indeed, many looked uneasy or embarrassed at this blatant public begging.
Or was she being unfair? Perhaps it was downright callous to refuse to help a sick child and ailing baby. Admittedly, she’d been brought up to believe that having children without the means to support them was socially irresponsible, but for her the issue was more personal. Frankly, she’d had her bellyful of over-fecund mothers using their kids as a pretext for skiving off work. Neither of her so-called work-mates, Elizabeth and Ruth, ever stayed late, however great the pressures. Both had missed that last meeting today, one on the grounds of a parent-teacher function, the other because her toddler was unwell – apparently. Over the years, Anna had come to see that sick children were a wonderful excuse for not pulling one’s weight in the office – and an excuse that could rarely be proved. Was Ruth really rushing home to relieve the nanny and take her child to the doctor, or just to put her feet up and watch a video? And who could say if Elizabeth was dutifully attending that parent-teacher meeting, or had simply dashed off early to fit in a hair-appointment? Whatever the facts of the matter, the result was invariably the same: the childless, harassed colleagues of these sanctimonious mothers (‘doing the most important job in the world’, so Elizabeth claimed) were left to hold the fort, regardless of the burden of staying on all hours.
Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers Page 22