Whispering Corner

by Marc Alexander

  ‘Of course,’ I said lightly. ‘I live in the middle of a wood to escape them.’

  ‘You haven’t escaped me.’ Her hand tightened on mine almost painfully. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, and here I am giving myself away at the first opportunity.’ She suddenly sounded angry. ‘Mind if we go outside? I feel hemmed in.’

  I opened the windows and we stepped into the garden, walking across the lawn to where a swing was suspended from a branch of the hornbeam. The kiss Ashley had given me, and her words, had released long suppressed sensations which bubbled through me like the bubbles in champagne.

  Ashley sat on the swing seat. I stood in front of her and taking hold of the rusted chains pushed her away from me so that she swung back into my arms. I kissed her hair, her scented hair, and she said, ‘If I’m making a fool of myself, don’t do that. I’ll go quietly. You don’t have to be polite.’

  ‘Ash, the truth is that I’ve been wanting to do that.’

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you?’

  ‘Because I was afraid you’d think I was an ageing Romeo who’d invited you here under false pretences.’

  ‘Fool,’ she murmured.

  ‘Old fool,’ I said.

  ‘Hush. That’s the very last word you must ever use. I’m in love with you and that’s all that matters to me. I must say I was relieved when you told me about Pamela.’

  She stood up from the swing so that we could embrace properly. The feel of her body pressed close against mine brought a surge of excitement, and the inevitable result made her look up into my face with a mocking smile.

  ‘Say it. Just once.’

  ‘I love you, Ashley. I …’

  ‘That’s enough. We can talk tomorrow if you wish. Words might break the spell now.’

  One of my favourite words is ‘glamour’, not in the Hollywood sense but in its original meaning, and it really did seem as if a glamour had fallen upon us. Ashley shivered.

  With my arm round her shoulders we walked back across the lawn, pausing once to kiss. This time I was briefly aware of the touch of her tongue and I definitely knew that talking was for the next day.

  With a sense of deja vu I stepped into the living room and poured the last of the wine into two fresh glasses. I sank down on the sofa with mine, and there was a silken rustic as Ashley slid down beside me. The moonlight flooding through the oblong panes of the French windows illuminated her face so that it looked like a black and white portrait taken by a master photographer. And to me at that moment Ashley was truly beautiful.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ she said as I slipped my arm round her. ‘I used to smoke. And right now I need a bloody cigarette like never before.’

  ‘Sorry. I haven’t a packet in the house.’

  ‘I have. I was evil and bought a packet in Poole. Maybe subconsciously I knew I might need one for a moment like this. You don’t mind if I have one?’

  She got up gracefully and went to the kitchen. I lounged back, glass in hand, looking out at the silvered garden. We were almost strangers, but nature ignored that. The chemistry was there and that was all that mattered. It made me feel as though I had known her always.

  She returned and sat beside me. I took the matches from her and lit her cigarette. She inhaled with relief.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Everything seems funny inside. I’m not used to telling men that I love them.’ For some minutes we sat in silence. I had my arm round her, my hand cupping her warm, firm breast. Both of us were calm — the calm before the storm which I knew would whirl away all restraint. Sometimes she turned her head and in the glow of her cigarette I could see that she was smiling at me, but most of the time she looked out into the garden.

  ‘Tomorrow it’ll be just another garden with trees round it,’ she mused, ‘but tonight it’s like a stage set. I feel almost as though I’m taking part in a production, that tonight nothing’s quite real.’

  ‘What I feel is real enough,’ I said.

  ‘What I meant … you and I are real but the surroundings are not. Perhaps there’s something magical about Whispering Corner.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Oh, Jon, I do love you tonight.’

  Ashley kissed me, and strangely I found that the smoky taste of the cigarette on her breath added to the excitement. We lay back on the sofa side by side, my arm about her, and I began to unfasten the tiny, infuriating buttons down the back of her harlequin dress. When I had finished she sat up and gave a little shrug, and the soft material slid down to her waist. Now there was more than her face for me to admire in the moonlight. Her breasts were like full exquisite fruits. She stood up and allowed the dress to rustle about her feet, standing above me like a proud statue carved from old ivory as the moonlight drained her natural colouring.

  ‘You take over now,’ she whispered.

  I hooked my thumbs in the elastic of her briefs, and felt my breath catch as I slid them down and beheld her as naked as a sculptured Aphrodite. I laid my cheek against the satin of her belly, my arms enfolding her while she looked down upon me and twined her fingers in my hair.

  ‘You taste of the ocean.’

  ‘Then I must be a sea witch,’ she said.

  ‘More like Venus rising from the foam.’

  ‘I like that better, but this isn’t fair.’

  Parting my hold, she sat beside me and began to undo my shirt.

  A woman can unclothe herself gracefully — as Ashley had done — but with a man it is impossible since the advent of trousers. I tore off the bow tie I had worn to give the smoking jacket a more formal look and went through the absurd ritual of struggling out of my pants, kicking off my shoes and pulling off my underwear while Ashley watched with a slightly mocking expression.

  As I fumbled to get free I feared that this pantomime, this comic entr'acte, would kill the mood which had built up between us, but as I pulled her to me and felt the delicious heat of her breasts against my skin it returned. Ashley was all I wanted. As I embraced her it was as though I was holding the world, and she knew and responded.

  ‘Bed — please,’ she murmured.

  I laid her down on the carpet. The sight of her lying there, surrounded by our tangled garments and so defenceless in the silver radiance streaming through the windows, caught me by the throat. She looked up wide-eyed as I knelt above her.

  ‘I’ll never forget this moment,’ she murmured. ‘Whatever you want, my darling.’

  I should have been more gentle but I was swept along by the mysterious force which has ensured the continuity of life on this planet since time immemorial. I was only aware of the heat of her skin and my all-consuming need, and then her brief, bitten-back cry as she guided me home.

  We woke like two people coming out of a trance to find ourselves cold and uncomfortable. The room was black, the moon having vanished beyond the trees and only starshine illumining the glass panes of the French windows.

  ‘What did you say?’ Ashley murmured.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But I heard you talking. I don’t know what about but it woke me up.’ She yawned. ‘Let’s go to bed properly. I’m exhausted.’

  I felt the same way; exhausted in the true sense of the word by our intense love-making. She was shivering as I helped her to her feet and her nakedness had no effect on me. Desire had burnt itself out for the moment; the mood was now one of sleepy companionship.

  ‘Don’t put on the light,’ she said. ‘My eyes couldn’t take it, and I don’t want to know what time it is.’ Holding hands we went slowly up the dark stairs to my room. There was just enough starlight coming through the window to enable me to draw back the duvet for her.

  ‘Thank God for bed,’ she said. ‘I think the champagne and the Macon was just a bit too much.’

  ‘The champagne had nothing to do with it,’ I said as I slid in beside her.

  ‘You plied me with liquor and took advantage of me! That’s my story and I’ll always stick to it.’

  After the hard floor t
he bed was bliss. Ashley lay with her back to me, my arms encircling her — like millions of couples that night, no doubt — but as I felt her soft shampoo-scented hair against my face I was filled with a sense of wonder that this girl who had come so unexpectedly into my life should reciprocate my feelings. At the back of my mind I knew that there would be problems — there always are where the human heart is concerned — and I thought the fact that at least fifteen years separated us could be one of the foremost. But tonight was our night and as we plunged back into sleep, our bodies fitting against each other so naturally, I refused to harbour negative thoughts.

  When the false dawn was diluting the night we woke-or half woke — and made love again, but this time it was a gentle reflex in contrast to the urgency which had overwhelmed us earlier on. I can only say it was sweet and loving, symptomatic of the instant intimacy which had sprung up between us.

  After she had felt the spasm of my climax Ashley lay still in my arms, and so we lay and so we slept.

  *

  The sun was high and the room filled with warm summer light when I next opened my eyes. Ashley slept on, her cheek on her outflung arm, and despite a lustful stirring in my loins I resisted the temptation to waken her. Instead I put on my dressing gown and went downstairs to make coffee and perhaps a simple breakfast to carry up to her.

  The dining table which had been so carefully laid last night was now a confusion of dirty plates, the tall candles were burnt-out stumps, and on the living room carpet our garments lay like a reproach for our uninhibited night. I quickly gathered them up, filled with a ridiculous apprehension that the Reverend Gotobed might appear and be shocked by the evidence of our lovemaking.

  The events of the night were blurred, but Ashley’s soft dress mingled with my clothing over my arm was proof that my world had tilted, that nothing would ever be quite the same.

  A few minutes later I took coffee, toast and a boiled egg up to the bedroom where I sat on the bed while Ashley ate voraciously.

  ‘Jonathan, there’s no need to talk now, is there?’ she asked as she put a dab of butter into the overboiled egg. ‘What I want more than anything now is a shower and then a walk in the woods by myself to calm my soul. To realize that you’re suddenly and deeply in love can be a bit mind-blowing at first. You don’t mind, do you?’ she added anxiously.

  Soon afterwards I watched her walk into the trees in her familiar jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and then I went to my study. On opening the door I experienced that sickening sensation one gets with the realization that one has been burgled.

  Books were scattered across the floor as though hurled from their shelves by a violent hand. Certainly they were too far from the bookcase to have fallen out, or even to have been dropped by some intruder searching for small valuables or money hidden behind them.

  I looked round the room. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. In the top right drawer of my desk was my wallet intact despite the fact that it held a number of five pound notes and credit cards. My expensive shortwave radio had not been touched, nor had a valuable French carriage clock which had been in my family for several generations. I checked the window and found it bolted, then hurried round the house. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed and there were no signs of anyone having forced an entry.

  It was obvious that Whispering Corner had not been burgled, and I returned to the study to try and work out what had happened. I stooped to start gathering up the books and then decided to leave them to show Ashley on her return. I was so puzzled that childishly I wanted someone to share my bewilderment. In truth it was something more than bewilderment. Perhaps because books are so much a part of my life there was a touch of obscenity about it. I was uneasily reminded of the sensation I had felt when I ventured down into the cellar, something that was deeply worrying because I could not explain it.

  This feeling became so strong that I found I could not sit at my desk and work. Instead I carried the Olympia down to the kitchen and put it on the table there. I tried to get back to Falco and Lorna, and sought inspiration from the way my own feelings for Ashley had overtaken those of my characters, but I was making coffee when Ashley hurried in.

  ‘Milk, quick!’ she said.

  I took a bottle out of the refrigerator and she poured it into a bowl.

  ‘You’ve seen the cat again?’

  ‘I’ve made contact with Mrs Foch,’ she said as she hurried out into the garden.

  I followed and saw Ashley slowly approaching the cat, which stood warily in the centre of the lawn.

  ‘Mrs Foch, Mrs Foch,’ she said coaxingly. The cat watched suspiciously while Ashley put the dish down about a yard from her and then knelt to await developments. After a moment the animal could no longer resist the temptation. With a strange little cry she stalked forward and began lapping the lovely liquid.

  And she only flinched momentarily when Ashley gently stroked her back just long enough for her to be reminded of human contact without being scared by it.

  Ashley backed away and looked at me with a smile of triumph.

  ‘I saw her in the woods and kept calling her name. She must have recognized it because she followed me back here. I think that’s a good omen.’

  11

  ‘It must have been a polter-whatsit,’ exclaimed Ashley when I took her up to my study and showed her the books scattered over the floor.

  ‘Poltergeist — means “noisy ghost” in German,’ I said. ‘Psychic researchers think it’s a mischievous elemental force, usually triggered off by young children or teenagers with sexual problems.’

  ‘Well, there are no young children here and we’re certainly not teenagers with sexual problems. Are you sure no one broke in? I hate the idea of that more than a noisy ghost.’

  ‘It wasn’t an intruder.’ I showed her how the window had been fastened.

  ‘A ghost then? I’m sure Great-aunt Constance wouldn’t have done anything as stupid as this.’

  ‘Let’s forget about ghosts,’ I said more irritably than I intended.

  She regarded me with a quizzical smile. ‘Why? Aren’t they your bread and butter?’

  ‘Sure, but let’s keep them to the pages of my manuscript. In my story, Whispering Corner — the fictional Whispering Corner — is haunted. But in real life that’s impossible. There’s a logical explanation for everything.’

  I knelt beside her and helped to replace the books. When they were back in place Ashley straightened up and said, ‘So what did cause the books to fly into the middle of the room?’

  ‘I must admit I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a logical explanation.’

  ‘You don’t think I did it as — as a sort of practical joke?’

  I looked at her and burst out laughing. ‘That’s the very last thing I’d think. What on earth made you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just popped into my mind.’

  ‘That’s the craziest thing that ever popped into anyone’s mind. Listen, let’s make today a holiday. We’ll do whatever you like.’

  ‘Great. After last night it would have been a terrible anti-climax for this to be just another day. Let’s have a picnic.’

  While she went to prepare the food I took a piece of ham from the refrigerator and laid it on the step of the open French window as an offering to Mrs Foch, who was now sitting by the empty milk dish. Before long she tested it with her delicate pink nose and then set to work to devour it. When it had gone I placed another piece on the floor a few feet inside the room. Still hungry, Mrs Foch came inside. When she had eaten the ham she began to move about very slowly, sniffing the new carpet and furniture as though trying to reconcile the new scents with her old surroundings.

  ‘I think we can get her to settle in her old home,’ said Ashley, coming into the room. Mrs Foch bolted through the open French windows, but only as far as the bottom step.

  She was still sitting there, legs tucked beneath her, when we set off in the Peugeot for the huge Stone Age hi
ll-fort known as Badbury Rings a short distance to the north of Lychett Matravers. When we reached the vast mound rising above the flat countryside I parked the car and we began to climb up the slope. It was easy to see how effective the great defensive trenches that encircled the fort must have been in the days when log palisades were set above them. Ashley, bewailing the lack of a camera, was fascinated by the place and told me that in New Zealand Maori hill-forts, known as pas, were built on identical lines.

  When we reached the top I threw down the car rug on a stretch of grass and lay back while she unpacked our lunch. By turning my head I could see an expanse of Dorset landscape laid out like a green map: lush pastures, coppices of darker green, the occasional vivid square of rape and here and there roofs and spires of distant hamlets.

  Turning my head again I watched Ashley filling bread rolls with egg curry while the fingers of the warm breeze tugged at her curls. At that moment I could not remember when I had been so content. Anxieties over my novel and the Regent Bank had receded with last night’s revelation.

  During the picnic we chatted easily, laughing at each other’s jokes with the familiarity born out of our new intimacy. Then Ashley suddenly seized my wrist and said, ‘Jon, tell me it’s all right. It’s not likely your wife will want to come back, is it?’

  I shook my head, sincere in my belief. ‘No. The sad truth is that neither of us have anything to come back to now. Of course I hope we will always be friends simply because of shared history, but Pam has found herself a new life, and I’m about to do the same.’

  We stayed on our vantage point, where once perhaps a Celtic lookout strained his eyes for the caterpillar column of a Roman legion, until the distant dots of humanity moving along the great ditches and over the sheep-cropped slopes headed home to tea and telly, and we were alone in the evening world.

  With the departure of the Lilliputian visitors the character of the Rings underwent a subtle change. Birds fleeing the oncoming dusk swooped low with forlorn cries; there were rustlings in the bushes as night creatures stirred; and the character of the wind changed, no longer a playful daytime breeze like a jolly character in a children’s story who makes the washing on the line dance but something cooler and almost visible — a moving tide of shadow. It made us both shiver and I stood up to go.