by Alec Waugh
‘Then let’s spread it out.’
First of all he explained that you have to enlarge the board. ‘You have to add an extra set of squares on each flank, so that you can set out four chess sets. Then you have one extra set of squares, to divide opponents, so that the pawns of one side aren’t at direct angles to the opponents’ pawns, so that there’s not a direct attack. See what I mean?’
He spread out the board over a newspaper, then drew on it the extra squares. He arranged the two sets at angles to each other, so that she could see what he meant about there being no direct angle of attack.
‘And what’s the point of the game?’ she asked.
‘That’s what I’m going to explain. You play with partners and the object is to checkmate both your opponents. When one player is checkmated, he cannot move and his partner tries to break the mate. Till he can do that, his opponents have two moves to his one. You get that, don’t you?’
‘I get that.’
‘The most important rule is that partners don’t collaborate. They mustn’t give each other hints. For instance, if you and I were partners, I would be cheating if I were to say after I’d made a move, “Now I wonder if Anna will get the point of that.” There are so many ways in which one can give hints. For instance, just before you made a move, I would stare at one of your pieces, and then look at one of our opponents’ to suggest to you that you should attack that particular piece with one of yours.’
‘Is there any penalty for cheating?’
‘Not really. One has to rely on the honour system. And there’s no money at stake after all. Unless the players have private bets.’
‘Is it a difficult game?’
‘Not too difficult: the great thing to remember is to attack to the right.’
‘Explain that, please.’
‘I’ll show you. You’re sitting on my right hand now. It’s my move. I check your king. Now with your next move you have to move out of check. That means that my partner when his turn comes can threaten your queen, or some important piece. You can’t do anything to save or protect that piece. You have to move out of check: so that my partner when his turn comes can take your queen or bishop: you see the point?’
‘I get it.’
‘Your only chance is for your partner to recognize your position and take some defensive action, counter attack in some way.’
‘I get it, yes, I can see its fascination. I must find three other people to play it with.’
‘Graham and your two boys, why not?’
‘Why not. But that means getting another set.’
‘Why not. And in the meantime, isn’t that tankard of yours nearly empty?’
‘I could do with a half this time.’
‘You’ve got used to English beer.’
‘It took me a little time, but cold beer doesn’t go with English weather.’
‘What about America?’
‘I don’t know anything about America, but don’t they have centrally heated rooms. Wouldn’t that make the difference?’
She gathered up the chess set. It would probably be about the house for years. It would be nice to remember that her doctor’s were the first hands that had touched it.
‘What would you say analytical meant?’ she asked.
‘Someone or something that has to decide on the separate elements of something.’
‘That sounds as though it had several meanings.’
‘I’d say so, yes.’
‘Would cold be one of them?’
‘I’d not have thought so, why?’
‘Graham said that Alistair and I were analytical.’
‘He can’t have meant it to mean cold.’
‘You wouldn’t have thought of me as cold?’
‘Good heavens, no. I can’t believe that he did either.’
‘But haven’t you heard characters described as being cold and analytical?’
‘That’s using two adjectives that have separate meanings.’
‘I see. I get things little that wrong in English, sometimes. It’s a nuisance. I sometimes think that people have said something that they haven’t said.’
‘Were you worried at Graham’s saying you were analytical?’
‘I did, when I thought that he was saying I was cold. Would you have said that I was analytical, giving the words your meaning?’
‘I don’t think that I would, but then I don’t know you very well.’
‘If you don’t know me very well, who does?’
‘And this is only our fifth meeting.’
She laughed. ‘You’re a doctor. You know things like that at sight. At least your patients think you do.’
‘They can make mistakes.’
‘Not often: not in your case. I think I’d like another slice of bread and cheese.’
The sun was warm upon her face. The breeze was cool upon her cheeks. The air was full of scent and colour.
‘Do you know George Herbert’s poetry?’ she asked.
‘Some of it.’
‘Can you remember any special poems of his?’
He pondered. ‘Now that you mention it. I don’t know that I can. Why do you ask?’
‘It came in last Sunday’s crossword puzzle. I’d never heard of Herbert, but I got the clue.’
‘What was the clue?’
‘It was a line that went: “Love made me welcome but my soul drew back.”’
‘I remember that line.’
‘So did Graham, but he couldn’t get the word. I didn’t know the poem, but a four-letter word beginning with “s” in a line that went “Love made me welcome, but my dash drew back.” What could it be but “soul”?’
‘It was bright of you to have got it.’
‘What else could it have been?’
‘Indeed what else, but a lot of people, I guess, didn’t tumble. Are crosswords a part of your family life?’
‘Only on Sundays. I don’t think Graham’s very good at them, he won’t waste his time at the office on them, but last Sunday, he went to early service so that he could have the whole morning to his crossword puzzle.’
‘Do you go to the early service with him?’
‘How could I? I’m a Catholic.’
‘Of course, of course. Does it mean much to you?’
‘It’s something that’s waiting in the wings.’
How easy it was to talk to him. One subject led to the next, without seeming to lead to it. Everything was inconsequential; yet everything had had a purpose. Had their conversation been taken down in shorthand, it would have had no message. Just two rather ordinary people chattering about nothing in particular. But that was not what it was to her. She was conscious of being more alive, more herself than she had ever been before. I’m really one, at last, she thought. She did not ask herself how it had happened. She did not ask herself what had happened. How it had come about that this simple, straightforward doctor, not particularly young, not particularly good looking, a man with no particular presence—a man to whom the majority of women would pay no attention at a first meeting, Dolly Messitor had not even noticed that she was with a man, a man who made no marked first impression, who was indeed trained in the English manner to look like everybody else, the kind of man of whom she had heard women say in self excuse, ‘Well, you know how it is, he’s one of those men who grows on you’, how had it happened that such a one should have made so powerful, so instantaneous effect on her?
‘One enchanted evening you will meet a stranger, you will meet a stranger across a crowded room.’ That was what had happened. It was inexplicable. There was no explaining it: there was no use trying to explain it. That was what that song had said.
There had been that enchanted afternoon and here she was now, feeling at 37 she had discovered herself at last.
The afternoon wore on. Their tankards were empty. The last crust of bread consumed. The publican’s man came out to clear the table. ‘These backless benches aren’t too comfortable,’ he said.
‘Not when
you’re not leaning across a table with a plate and tankard.’
‘Why don’t we take a stroll?’
‘That’s an idea.’
‘The next field but one has a comfortable hedge that we could lean back against.’
‘Why not?’
It was a small, empty field; with a coppice at the back. The hay was high. There was nothing for the farmer to do but let it grow. Harvest time was not far off. For the next three weeks there would be no workmen coming here.
A narrow pathway ran beside the hedge. It was one of those pathways that hardly anyone else goes along. Had he had the pathway in mind when he suggested driving out to the Fox and Hounds. He might have. It did not matter. She was in his hands.
A little way along the path, he stopped. ‘This does not look bad.’
‘This looks very good,’ she said.
There was a gentle rise, a 30-degree rise. She lay out and stretched her legs. There were no stones under her. It was soft and grassy. She raised her arms and crossed her hands behind her head. He went down beside her, resting on his hip and on one elbow. He lifted his hand, he laid it against her cheek. His touch was very soft, but firm, a doctor’s touch. He stroked her cheek gently with his fingertips. She did not close her eyes. She must keep this moment in her memory, forever. He leant across her, his head bent down to hers. Now, she thought, Now, It’s now.
She lifted her face. His lips were soft and firm. They rested against hers, increasing their pressure, slowly. They parted slowly. His tongue played across her mouth: the tip of it very gently, very gently, but with a firm insistent pressure; she let her lips part to meet it: her tongue touched his. Every nerve cell in her body began to quiver. Such sweetness, she thought, such sweetness. His lips moved from hers; his tongue slid along her cheekbone. She turned her face as it lowered, as it reached along her neck, playing with the lobe of her ear, taking it between his teeth, biting at it; then with the tongue moving into the hollow below her ear, lingering there, then lifting, slipping into the ear itself, loitering there, playing with its crevices, then moving back across her cheek, towards her mouth; her mouth that was wide open now, welcoming his tongue, letting her own play over it.
She sighed, a deep shuddering sigh. She unclasped her hands from behind her head. She wrapped them round his neck. The fingers of her right hand had closed on his hair: half tugging at it. He stretched himself beside her. The arm on whose elbow he had been leaning went round her head. Its fingers toyed with her ear and stroked her cheek. His other hand lowered over her blouse. He smoothed the silk over her breasts, cupping them each in turn. He undid the top two buttons of her blouse. He unhooked her brassiere. The palm of his hand moved over her breasts, first one and then the other. How soft and firm his hands were—a doctor’s hands.
He lowered his head. He took one of her nipples between his lips, rolling his tongue over it. She was conscious of her nipple hardening. His hand slid downwards over her stomach, over her upper thighs, went lower, lower, lower. She opened her legs to welcome it. As it reached between them, she closed her legs to imprison it. She pressed herself against his fingers. He lifted his head from her breasts. Once again his mouth fastened upon hers; his tongue playing over hers, drawing her tongue into his mouth. She sobbed, she writhed within his arms.
She longed for the moment of release, yet prayed that it might be delayed; oh that this minute could endure forever. His fingers pressed against her; faster she prayed, faster, faster; and then, no slower, slower. As though in answer to her prayer he relaxed the pressure of his hand. He was barely touching her; toying with her, playing with her: no, no, she thought, faster again. Faster. She pressed herself, forced herself against him. The fingers of her right hand tightened in his hair. The nails of her left hand cut into his neck. He’s killing me, she thought, I can’t stand any more. It must be now, it must, it must be now. Then in a spasm, in a shuddering succession of spasms, it was there. She tugged even harder in his hair. Her nails cut closer on his neck. She beat her heels across the ground. She closed her eyes. Never, never before, no never, never, never: never like this. Like this.
She let her arms drop beside her. The grass was cool against her knuckles. The peace of it, the peace, the peace!
And all around them was the hum and stir of a summer’s afternoon. The birds in the trees and all the scents of summer; and the corn ripening in the fields. After a long, long pause, he said, ‘There isn’t any doubt about it, is there?’
She shook her head. ‘No, there isn’t any doubt about it.’
‘But I don’t want to talk about it now.’
‘No, no, not talk about it now.’
‘There’ll be plenty of time for that.’
‘All the time in the world for that.’ The future stretched before them boundlessly. She did not want to plan ahead. She wanted to live forever, in this blessed moment, in this island of peace and beauty. Why make plans? They were living in eternity. Why return to time?’
So once again they began to talk of customary things, like any couple, making small talk at a dinner party.
‘I’ve been to Naples: but only on my way through to Capri. I suppose you’ve been there often.’
‘It’s funny, but I never went to Capri. I always promised myself that I would go one day. I promised it to myself that when I fell in love, I’d go to Capri on my honeymoon.’
‘And you never did fall in love?’
‘Nothing that it was worth going to Capri for.’
‘Not even on an unofficial honeymoon?’
‘Italian girls are very strictly chaperoned. Or were in my day.’
‘So Graham was your first romance?’
‘My first real romance. There were flirtations but …’
‘What do you mean, by but?’
‘Petting parties in groups is very different.’
She paused. She looked at him, thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you had a lot of love affairs before you married?’
‘One or two.’
‘Tell me about them.’
‘There’s not much to tell.’
‘They must have been exciting. They must have been glamorous, some of them, at least.’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Yes, one or two, at least. But …’ he paused. ‘I’m rather a one-track person. I was very ambitious. My work came first. I didn’t let anything interfere with my work. I fancy that the girls suspected that. That it put them off me.’
‘Did they make scenes?’
‘I’m not the kind of person who makes scenes. I’m a hard person to quarrel with. They’d test me out. They’d want to make me do something that I didn’t want.’
‘Such as.’
‘Going off on a trip when I was studying for an exam.’
‘And you didn’t go.’
‘I didn’t go.’
‘There was a showdown?’
‘Not really a showdown—I’d say, “I’m sorry but I can’t give up the time in May.” Then they’d say, “But May’s the only time that I can manage.” I’d say that that’s just too bad. Then she’d say, “I’m pretty sure that Frank could get away in May.” And I’d say, “That’ll be fine for both of you.”’
‘And that would be the end of that?’
‘Exactly. That would be the end of that.’ She looked at him, asking herself a question. How would she have felt had she been in the position of one of those girls of his? Would she have liked to play second fiddle to a career? ‘Girls like to come first,’ she said.
‘That’s why I didn’t go down so well with them. They knew I put medicine first.’
‘How about Melanie?’
‘Melanie was rather different. Most of my girls were 22 years old. Melanie was 35.’
‘She didn’t expect so much, you mean?’
‘I wouldn’t say that: but she’d been around. She had a career of her own. I don’t say it’s a spectacular career. But she sets store by it. She’s a person in her own right. She likes being introduced as Melanie
Hurst. She may write a book one day. She knows that I appreciate her work. That means a lot to her. She makes allowances for me, because I make allowances for her. It’s a fair exchange.’
‘But you were in love with one another when you married?’
‘Oh yes, I suppose so, yes, oh yes, of course we were.’
‘And what happened to all of that?’
‘The being in love you mean?’
‘Yes.’
He shruggged. ‘Golden lads and girls all must, like chimney sweepers, come to dust.’
‘Shall I tell you what I think.’
‘You tell me what you think.’
‘That you’re too in love with your career to be in love with any woman.’
‘That’s possible.’
‘If you’d had children I won’t say that you might have fallen in love with them, but you might have fallen in love with being a father.’
‘And you think that Graham is wrong in thinking you analytical?’
Again they laughed together. She had never felt so at ease with anyone in her life before. She was herself at last.
The afternoon wore on.
‘I suppose we’ve got to be thinking about our trains,’ he said.
‘I suppose we had.’
She moved to her feet. ‘You’ve got to get back to the clinic, haven’t you, to hand in that car.’
‘Yes, I suppose I have.’
‘In that case, do you mind if we break our routine. I’d like today to be different from any other day. I’d like to go to the station waiting room myself, and have my solitary cup of tea there. I’d like you to drop me at the station, then drive back to the clinic, on your own. Then when you get back to the station, go straight to your Platform 2 and take your train there. I’ll stay in the station waiting room. I’ll see your train come in. I won’t see you get into your compartment. Do you mind doing that?’
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘I want today to be different from any other day. You see that, don’t you?’
‘I see that.’
She stretched out her hand to his, she raised him to his feet. She stood close to him, facing him; she folded her arms around his neck. She raised her mouth to his.
‘It’s going to be all right. I promise you, it’s going to be all right,’ she said.