by Ray Connolly
Ours was a strange and ambiguous relationship, in which she set the pace, and although often I felt an overwhelming desire to protect her as I would protect a younger sister she was never dependent upon me. I wanted her to need me, and sometimes I think I fooled myself into believing that she really did, but then she would climb up to her room at the top of the house. And I knew I hadn’t to follow. Mrs Pollock couldn’t imagine what was going on when she found that she had competition for the running of things, but mainly Clare kept well out of her way. Every night we would play together on my bed, but then when we were tired and still, I would feel her gathering her things and tiptoeing from my room and upstairs to her own little home. We didn’t sleep in the same bed. The landlord was made to know his place. By Friday I felt as though I’d known her forever, although it was only a week, and though her occasional reticences disturbed me slightly I took it all as timidity. Then on Saturday our relationship changed.
‘Benedict?’ Clare’s voice implying a question. The two of us sitting on the settee and watching the pigeons playing in the garden. ‘Benedict. I think you ought to go to the chemists and buy some of those things.’
I must have been drowsing in the afternoon hangover. ‘You what?’
‘Contraceptives. I think you should buy some.’
‘God’s teeth. What’s come over you?’
‘Well, you know that nice young virgin girls like me aren’t equipped for dealing with such matters as … as you men. I mean, you know I’m not on the pill, and I haven’t got any device or anything, and I certainly don’t want to risk getting pregnant. So I think you’d better be the one to do something about it. Well, at least for the time being.’
‘Well, blow me.’
‘I’m sorry if you think it’s a terribly old-fashioned method, and if all the other girls you’ve slept with have been fitted up to the eyeballs with things to prevent them getting pregnant. But I’m a … shall we say a maiden lady. And you’re going to be the first. So hadn’t you better go now before the shops shut.’
Again she was making all the decisions about our relationship. She’d picked me up: she was the one who had decided to give up nursing; and she’d asked to move in with me. Now she was virtually ordering me to make love to her. Everything about her was so practical, and I felt thrown and stunned by the suddenness of her decision. Trying to fit this new and unexpected development into the scheme of things, I gazed at a daubing of purple, blue and yellow hanging over the mantelpiece which had been sent from the orphanage by a three-year-old. I’d been resigned to a long wait, and it was difficult to readjust my timetable. Somehow I felt I was being rushed, and I didn’t know why.
‘Well, aren’t you going?’ Clare sounded almost imperious.
‘Are you sure that this is what you want, Clare? I thought you wanted to hang onto it for a bit longer.’ Inconceivably, now the time has come a strange reluctance is holding me back. She’s my waif and stray, and so innocent. And I love that innocence.
‘I never said that. You must have imagined it. I’m a growing girl. And a growing girl needs a man. Don’t you fancy me any more or something?’
‘I thought it was your period.’
‘Finished.’
‘Why the sudden decision?’
‘It’s not sudden. I’ve been considering it for several days. Listen, are you going to buy the bloody things, or do I have to go?’
‘It’s all a bit cold-blooded, isn’t it? The first time ought to be —well, the result of an overwhelming desire or something.’
‘Well, I’ve got an overwhelming desire right now to change my mind. For heaven’s sake are you going or not?’
‘Do you love me, Clare?’ The words fell heavily all around us, and we looked at each other for a moment. She’d been laughing, and mocking me, but my expression must have pricked her gaiety bubble.
‘Of course I do, you silly man,’ she said. And I smiled and said well that’s all right then, and went off down the road to get what she wanted. But inside I knew she’d lied, a small white lie that left me lonely. On this cold and dull November afternoon.
Out in Kensington High Street with my old sheepskin pulled up around my ears as protection from the wintry blasts, and dodging the thronged masses of the permissive society spilling out of Biba’s and onto the pavement, I was suddenly aware that it was some few years since I’d had occasion to go purchasing rubber goods. Presumably they still made them, but who would buy them in this day and age? And where would I get them from? I couldn’t go to Boots because they’re a Catholic firm and have never sold them, or at any rate they never used to, and the girls knew me too well at Barker’s. Same thing with that expensive little place on the other side of the street. I could never buy another bottle of valium there if they thought I was still at the rubber-goods stage.
It would appear, I considered, there was only one way. And taking a taxi down to Victoria Station I surreptitiously slipped into the men’s lavatories, searched through my pockets for the right combination of coins, and looking over my shoulder to make sure that no one I might know was watching me, shoved them into the slot of the contraceptive vending machine, and pulled the tray. It wouldn’t budge. The bloody thing was broken. There were to be no johnnies today. Blast it. Alongside the machine the graffiti pencilled onto the wall caught my eye: ‘Don’t buy—the worst chewing gum I ever tasted,’ someone had scrawled. And then next to it: ‘Who put the cunt in Scunthorpe?’ Giving the useless machine a sharp kick I turned to go up the steps, and almost bumped into a lavatory attendant, 89 if a day, who was coming down with his mop and bucket. Suddenly on an unkind impulse I put an arm on his shoulder and whispered in his ear: ‘I think you ought to know that your machine down there has been sabotaged by Vatican infiltrators. They’ve pierced holes in every one of the packets. The swine. Better use the other way tonight to be sure … you know? Better safe than sorry.’ And with a wink and a nod I was away up the stairs before the poor old man could comprehend what he’d been told. Out of the station and across the road, and my confidence came back as I began to imagine I was Alan Bates, or some other quick-witted clever talking actor, and then there in a back street was the perfect little surgical store, complete with trusses, manuals, vibrators and studded belts. Everything for the happy honeymoon night. And stacks and stacks of gossamer super.
In a couple of minutes, and with my neatly packed little parcel in my pocket—they really do pack these things under plain cover—I was back into the road again, and praying that I wouldn’t get run over on my way home with this little lot on me; my friends would have died laughing at my funeral.
A brash young man, smug with outer confidence riding home in the back of a taxi and beaming with achievement. I’ll show the stuck up little thing that she’s let herself in for more than she bargained for, I thought. But a voice inside said what do I have to do to make her love me.
Once we were back in Kensington High Street I asked the taxi driver to stop by the florists, and nipped in to buy a bunch of roses. Somehow it just seemed too clinical to go home with a safety-in-screwing kit. But outside my house I began to have second thoughts. Perhaps she’d laugh at me for being so romantic. Perhaps white would have been a more appropriate and less passionate colour of flower. But then perhaps she sensed my embarrassment because she took them, made all the right appreciative and affectionate noises, and went off to search for a jug to put them in, without even mentioning the other gift I’d brought her. Now the bright, skittish, cheeky and dominant girl was gone, and she was edgy and timid.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.
‘Yes, please. It’s freezing cold this afternoon. Winter’s already here.’ Rubbing my hands together and taking off my coat I slipped the packet onto the mantelpiece but then thinking it a bit too conspicuous, I took it down again and shoved it into a space on the bookshelf, before going down for tea.
‘Did you have to go very far?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘Oh. Good.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I put your sugar in?’
‘Thank you.’
For a second or two we sat quietly, before Clare said: ‘Did you bring the paper? I heard on the television that Liverpool lost.’
‘Oh no. Bloody hell. The paper’s upstairs in my pocket. Would you like me to get it for you?’
‘No. It doesn’t matter. I’ll read it later.’
‘Oh, okay,’ I said. Outside a few sleety raindrops splashed onto the window. ‘I think it’s snowing. Well … almost.’
‘That’s nice. You said it got very cold in winter round here. D’you remember?’
‘Yes. Blowing off the Hyde Park tundra it is already.’
‘That’s right.’
For a few minutes we sat quietly watching the weather. After a while Clare went upstairs to find the paper and, coming down again, began reading it.
‘Clare, would you like to go out tonight? I mean somewhere nice.’ I was half afraid that I’d be mocked, but pressed on. ‘Let’s go somewhere posh. The Ritz, or somewhere like that. You know, something grand, rather than trendy. Somewhere where we won’t be looking round to see who’s there … well, you know what I mean.’
Clare sat watching me, looking very tranquil. And, I think, affectionate.
‘You still want to make it a really special occasion for me, don’t you? A night to remember. Is that it?’
‘Well, no. Yes, if you like. Something like that. It’s up to you. We’ll stay in if you like and watch Match of the Day. But it says in the paper that Liverpool are on and I can’t bear to see them getting beaten. I’m a terrible performer when they lose. You are sure they lost, aren’t you? I can’t understand it. They should have murdered all those nancy boys at Chelsea. I don’t know…’
‘Do you want to go out?’ Clare was smiling and I noticed how all those perfect little teeth looked so neat and well cared for.
‘Don’t you?’
‘Yes, please?’
‘The Ritz?’
‘Is it nice? I’ve never been there.’
‘Oh, very posh. We’ll have to dress up. In fact you’ll have to wear a dress. You have got one, haven’t you?’
‘Cheek.’
‘The Ritz it is, then. I’ll go and book a table, and you go and put your best dress on. And your hat and coat. And I’ll find a tie, and take the mothballs out of my suit.’
‘You’re a very nice man, you know.’ Clare had caught hold of my arm, and was giving it a quick squeeze.
‘Yes. So everybody has always told me. Now go on, hurry up, or we’ll miss the bus.’
Such a performance it seemed for two little people like us as the Ritz servility squad went into top gear, swishing us through that virtually empty dining hall to seat us at a table overlooking the gardens, yet out of earshot of the ugly Americans huddled in their diamonds and tuxedos around the room. It’s a long way from the doorway to the window tables, I’d thought, as we walked across the carpet, and I hoped no one could see that I was wearing black socks with a navy blue suit.
Clare moved ahead of me, more the little lady than I’d ever seen her. I’d thought of her as a pretty young girl with nice eyes and a slightly turned-up nose, but tonight in a pale blue flowery evening dress, fitted under the bust, and with a delicate white ribbon tying up into a bow at the neck-line, I realised that she was more beautiful than pretty. She looked so graceful and composed, with her hair done up in some kind of top-knot that left straggly little curling ringlets falling down in front of her ears. She’d taken ages to get ready, and when she’d finally come downstairs with her navy blue nurse’s cape wrapped round her shoulders, she was hesitant and walking slowly.
‘Well, will I do?’ she said eventually, clasping a tiny white vanity bag in front of her, and turning her head on one side and the corners of her mouth down in an expression of comic expectation. And all I could think of to say was, ‘You look lovely, Clare. Really. We’ll be the best-looking couple in London tonight—even better than every other night.’ And had gone up the road to reverse the car right up to the steps by the front door, so that she might not catch cold traipsing through the icy winds.
While the waiters ducked and bobbed and weaved and beamed and smiled and went through their ingratiation ritual, neither of us spoke except to order. Tonight was a special night, after all, and a curious shyness was infecting the two of us. At last the hubbub of activity died away, and we looked at each other for a moment, each wondering who was going to start the conversation. I’m 29, I thought to myself, but I feel as though I were 17 and going on my first date.
‘Okay?’ I said at last.
Clare’s teeth gently tore the flesh from the artichoke leaves. And she nodded. ‘Benedict. When was your first time?’
‘First time here? Oh, I don’t know. Haven’t been very often.’ Deliberately taking evasive action, though I understood well enough her question.
‘No. I mean when did you first sleep with a girl?’
‘I thought you weren’t interested in my sexual case-history.’
‘I’m not. Just curious about the first one.’
‘I can’t remember. It was when I was about eight, I think.’
‘Fibber. Come on, own up. I want to know what kind of a man I’m surrendering my maidenhead to.’
‘Now there’s a pretty phrase. I didn’t really think of it quite like that when I first had it away. It was a case of a quick knock in a tent on the shores of Lake Windermere with a German hitch-hiker who wore very tight little leather shorts, was about ten feet tall, and carried a rucksack the size of Hamburg on her back. I remember it had been a very hot day and she’d walked over the mountain from Ullswater and got all the fronts of her legs burnt bright red. The day before she’d gone over Shap and got the backs of her thighs done, so she was as red as a lump of bacon by the time I got to her.’
‘How old were you?’ Clare was engrossed in going for the heart of the artichoke, but following intently at the same time.
‘Oh, well, let me see. It was the summer of my first year at university. That’s it—and some clot whose dad owned a speed-boat on the lake had talked me into going up with him for a couple of days so that I could drive it while he showed off with his water skiing and the tan he’d got in Amalfi. Anyway, it hadn’t been much of a day because his outboard engine had broken down, and while he’d been fiddling with it, I’d been loafing about on the side of the lake getting a bit of a tan, and by the time he’d fixed it we could only do a couple of runs up and down and then it was too dark. I met the bird on the side at about six o’clock. Her name was Hilda, and she said she was a student from Munich. And I remember she spoke English with an American accent.’
‘So how old did you say you were?’
‘Well, I’d be, let’s see, I’d be about twenty. Yes, twenty I was.’
‘A late starter—for a man.’
‘Well, I suppose so, considering today’s standards. But I didn’t think I was particularly late. Certainly no later than most of the other blokes I knew. It wasn’t the same in those days.’
‘Oh, no, grandad. Anyway, so what happened with Hilda?’
‘Right. So I got chatting to her about one thing and another, and Jim, he was the boy with the boat, was struggling away knee-deep in icy cold Windermere, and I asked her what she was studying. You know, all the international student chat-up stuff, like where was she going, and what were her courses like and what did she do for jobs in the summer. And when would she be getting her degree. And we got on all right. And I wasn’t thinking much about it, until Jim comes out of the water and whispers in my ear that he thinks she fancies me. Jim had been around a bit, and he knew about these things. Probably all the posh continental holidays he’d had with his family.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘Oh yes, so—here’s your beef.’ Sitting back while they do their minuets around us and serve us platefuls with smiles that light up like bulbs on a Chr
istmas tree whenever they come into view of our eyes. Now they’re gone.
‘Will you please get on with it? The suspense is killing me.’
‘That’s something you never hear these days. My suspenders are killing me. Sad loss to the English vocabulary when they brought out tights. Anyway, I say to her ‘d’you fancy a drink’, and then we all three of us went up the road for a couple of beers. Well I had a couple, but she must have had a bladder as big as a reservoir because she kept swigging back dirty great pints of draught lager for about three hours. By which time Jim had shone his tan at a couple of anoraks from Bolton and disappeared in his dad’s car up the mountain. He said he had both of them, but I didn’t believe him. He was always exaggerating.
‘Anyway, so we’ve had a few drinks, and it’s the beginning of September, and being a well-brought-up lad I say I think I should walk her home, as it’s now dark. And she laughs and says would I help her put her home up as it’s still in her rucksack. So we went off to the local camping site and I remember I tried at being a gentleman and insisted on carrying her rucksack, and I’m sure I got a twisted spine from it because she was a geology student and I think she was taking half Hell-velyn back with her in that bag. And when the tent was up, and we’d both been across to the public conveniences she suggested I come in and wait a bit, as there was no sign of Jim. So I went in. I remember I had the feeling that the fly must have when he goes into the spider’s web. There was big Hilda lacing up her orange tent, and then turning and shining her torch on me. And I didn’t know whether to talk about the terminal and lateral moraines of Lakeland, or to grab hold of her, which I must admit was beginning to be a bit appealing.’
‘So what did you do ?’
‘I asked her to show me some of the rock specimens she’d found.’
‘No. And what did she do?’