The very phrase seemed blasphemous. A strict Catholic upbringing did little to inculcate feelings of self-esteem. ‘Lord, I am not worthy,’ she had repeated at every Sunday Mass, and the nuns had taken a relish in pointing out that it was the sins of their small charges that had nailed Christ to the cross. She had always felt personally responsible for the Passion and the Crucifixion, despite the fact that her childhood sins were mostly peccadillos.
She took the glass uncertainly, but the warm kick of the brandy felt restorative and comforting as it trickled down her throat. Perhaps it was time she broke with all that early conditioning. Apart from anything else, it was totally out of kilter with contemporary society. During the student protests last year, she had particularly noted the stress on rights, not duties, and the contrast with herself as a student, when powerlessness and privation seemed just a normal state. On the other hand, too much sense of entitlement could make one irresponsible and lawless, as she had seen three days ago, when the TUC anti-cuts march had erupted into mindless, thuggish violence. Torn, as usual, between two opposing viewpoints, she took refuge in her brandy. ‘Where’s your drink, Kate?’ she asked.
‘I don’t need one. My life’s been a bed of roses compared with yours. I was spoiled rotten from the start, indulged by two doting parents who saw me as a super-child – a future Einstein, Florence Nightingale and Margot Fonteyn all rolled into one! Whereas you had endless years of being dragooned and criticized by a strict religious mother.’
‘It was nothing like that, Kate! My mother saved my life. I was really ill for months and couldn’t do a thing, but she was there for me a hundred per cent. She had to give up her secretarial job and do boring work at home – addressing thousands of envelopes for soulless mail-order companies – but she never once complained. Then, after Amy was born, I more or less fell to pieces – mentally, this time – but she still continued to support me, financially and every way, and looked after the baby. She even took my side against the gossips. She’d look them straight in the eye and say, “The father isn’t with my daughter because he had to go abroad.”’ The words stumbled to a halt as she struggled with more guilt. That semi-truth she had relayed to Hanna and embroidered over the years was now set in stone back home; everybody speculating where the mysterious man had gone and why he’d disappeared.
‘You mean he doesn’t live in England anymore?’ Kate was obviously surprised.
‘I’m not sure,’ she mumbled, settling for a fudge. ‘But, look, returning to my mother, you probably don’t quite realize what a lifeline her religion was. In fact, I doubt she could have managed without it. The Church rallied round to help, you see, when she was widowed and pregnant with me, and then, when I came home in disgrace, they were incredibly supportive again.’
Kate gave a cynical grin. ‘Relieved you hadn’t had an abortion, I suppose?’
‘Well, yes, of course, but it went much further than that.’ Maria raised her voice above the stutter of a police helicopter circling overhead. ‘We were part of a real community, with the priest on hand to help, and a definite sense of belonging. That’s important for rootless people, Kate. OK, you may find it hard to imagine, coming from your large and stable family, who’ve all lived here for generations, with not an outcast or a foreigner amongst them.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken. It’s just that I worry about you, Maria. I mean, forgive me for asking, but how are you coping financially?’
‘Fine. I’m living rent-free, in luxury, and Amy pays all the bills, even my food bill and phone bill. And of course she’ll give me a proper salary once I’m working as a nanny. In fact, she keeps trying to insist that I take it right away – and backdated to the day I first arrived – but I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.’
‘Why not? She was the one who asked you to come so early, so I reckon it’s your due.’
‘It isn’t, Kate – you’re wrong. I’m not doing a thing at the moment – well, a bit of ironing, maybe, and cooking the occasional meal. You see, they already have a cleaner and, in any case, they’re out so much the house stays clean and tidy.’ She took another sip of brandy, enjoying the sensation as it tingled through her empty stomach. ‘Besides, I have my pension, don’t forget, and some savings stashed away – not a lot, I admit but—’
‘And what about your expenses back home – council tax and car insurance and train fares when you return for visits?’
‘I can manage, honestly. I’m used to things being a bit of a struggle.’
‘But you shouldn’t be – that’s my whole point. In fact, it makes me feel ashamed. Paul earns a good whack and my parents left me money and I’ve never wanted for anything. For instance, just last week, I blew two hundred pounds on a haircut and barely gave it a thought.’
Maria all but gasped: £200 had been more than enough to keep her and Hanna in food for a month. And they had always cut each other’s hair – well, until her mother’s dementia. Even here in London, she had discovered a local salon with a special rate for pensioners on Mondays: a trim for just a fiver.
‘But, listen, talking of money, did Silas ever give you any – at least for the abortion he seemed so mad keen you should have?’
Maria shrugged. ‘I told you, he was penniless. He did ask his friends for the cash, but, despite his famous charm, they all declined on that occasion. Maybe they didn’t like the thought of being mixed up with such sordid stuff.’
‘I still don’t see why he couldn’t have got a proper job.’
‘Oh, he claimed that would be selling out, or compromising his art. Anyway, let’s change the subject. I must have bored you rigid by now.’
‘Of course you haven’t. A man like Silas is hardly boring. But,’ she added, with a glance at the clock, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to get my skates on. I need to leave soon to collect the girls from school. I’d invite you to come with me and join us all for tea back here, but I’m taking them on to a ballet class, and then to—’
‘Oh my God!’ Maria exclaimed.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’ve been so fixated on Amy, I’ve clean forgotten Felix.’
‘Felix?’
‘The guy who runs my life class.’
‘But I thought the class was on Friday.’
‘It is, but he’s asked me to… Look, forget it, Kate – you’re in a rush.’
‘No, tell me what he asked. I still have ten minutes before I have to go.’
Suddenly, and against her better judgement, Maria began relaying the whole Felix saga, too, as if, having started in confessional mode, she couldn’t stop. Yet there was a huge relief in sharing the story with someone unshockable and non-judgemental. ‘I can’t possibly see him tonight,’ she concluded, ‘not in this awful state and, anyway, I ought to stay home, so as to be there when Amy gets back.’
‘No, I don’t agree. She’ll need time to simmer down. Once you’ve delivered the note and the shawl, she’s bound to feel heaps better, but I wouldn’t push things, if I were you. Leave it till tomorrow. In any case, it’ll do you good to have a bit of male company.’
‘But that’s what scares me, Kate. If Felix does take things further, I’m so out of practice, I’ll be like a virgin again.’
‘Well, as far as I can gather, most men find virgins the most fantastic turn-on, so Felix will be in clover!’
‘I doubt if virgins in their sixties have quite the same appeal.’
‘Do stop going on about age. My Aunt Agnes embarked on a wild affair when she was only a year off eighty and she swore it kept her young. You’re never too old for a lover – that’s what I say. Of course, it used to be tricky for men – you know, losing their erections, once they’d passed a certain birthday, but now we have Viagra the whole thing’s so much easier.’
Viagra? She was so naïve, it hadn’t crossed her mind. And the thought of Felix needing a little blue pill to perform didn’t fit her ardent fantasies. Shouldn’t passion be the spur?
‘And, whate
ver else, Maria, make sure he uses a condom – or you risk landing up in the STD clinic!’
She willed Kate to change the subject; couldn’t bear to think of Felix struggling with a condom, or infecting her with some ghastly disease. In fact, if sex was so unromantic, she wasn’t sure she wanted it at all – or only in her head, at home.
Fortunately, her friend began darting round the kitchen, collecting up her keys and bag, now clearly pressed for time. ‘Look, go for it tonight,’ she called, as she went to fetch her jacket from the hall. ‘And finish up your brandy – that’ll give you courage!’
Maria rationed herself to one more consoling sip. She needed a clear head to deal with the two tricky situations – her daughter and her tutor – and ensure that neither went from bad to worse. First and most important, she must try to make her peace with Amy, write her the most loving note conceivable and emphasize the fact that she felt no shred of resentment – never had and never would. But once note and shawl were delivered, she would keep the date with Felix, insisting, however, that they returned the relationship to strictly friendship only. The kiss, she would explain, had been an aberration – one she now regretted and which mustn’t be repeated. Perhaps they could have supper together instead. It would certainly help her to recover from the highly stressful last few hours, if they could enjoy a leisurely meal and discuss non-threatening subjects such as their favourite painters and writers. And, if he couldn’t cook, well, she would. At least her culinary skills were in good working order – more than could be said about her bedroom ones.
Chapter 12
‘MORE, MORE – YES, more!’
Not her voice – couldn’t be; not that insatiable, primeval cry of need. Normal self left far behind, abandoned by the bed, with the pile of crumpled clothes. All the emotion, passion, wild desire, suppressed and denied for decades, pouring out in a white heat of lust; all those terrifying sins, denounced by the Church – intemperance, licentiousness, concupiscence – now changing to intoxicating pleasure. Anger, too; a reckless energy possessing her, as she raged against her past: the closing down of prospects; the loss of independence; her timid, craven celibacy in those long years of stagnation. Anger not another sin, but simply part of lust; a ferocious and ecstatic part, as Felix thrust against her, in tune with her, in time with her, fused with her and one with her; no boundaries, no his-and-hers.
‘Go on!’ she shouted, glorying in the rhythm; the sudden, savage impetus as they pounded to a close – one body, inextricable.
‘My God!’ he gasped, slumping down, exhausted, breathless, spent.
His weight hunkered on her body, his heat and sweat flowing into hers. Couldn’t speak; wouldn’t even look at him; refused to leave this new, unchartered world. The only thing that mattered was the moment, these rapturous sensations of skin against bare skin; warm hands on startled breasts; semen leaking out of her; no condom; no restraints.
‘Maria …’ He twined his fingers through her tangled mane of hair, long since fallen from its neat, obedient chignon. ‘That was just …’
She closed her ears. Words would only bring her back to guilt or shame or worry, and it was essential to stay longer with this new, outrageous self. Neither must he move, or she would lose that sense of fusion: belly pressing belly; limbs interlocked, conjoined.
‘I hope you realize, woman, you’re the most amazing fuck.’
Those words she did allow: the crude thrill of ‘fuck’, and that unceremonious ‘woman’, which made her fiercely female; rebellious Eve, not virginal Maria.
‘I adore the noise you make. It’s so utterly abandoned, like you couldn’t give a toss if the whole of London heard! You seem to be two people – one dutiful and prudish, and the other a tornado.’ He broke off, suddenly, levered himself up on his elbows, so he could look at her more closely. ‘What’s wrong, Maria? You haven’t said a word.’
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, feeling a flicker of surprise to see grey hair and jowly face. Where was her impetuous young lover? She had been no age at all during the last tempestuous hour; every stage and segment of her life – infant, child, student, sinner, mother, adult, carer – streaming out in one curdled tide of remorse, relief, release.
‘I hope your back’s not hurting. It actually suits me to sleep in the studio, but these pull-out beds are fiendishly uncomfortable. Or maybe the smells are getting to you? Jesso and white spirit are hardly the most seductive scents!’
‘Felix,’ she said, still unwilling to speak, but clasping him tightly, so he wouldn’t feel rejected, ‘nothing’s wrong in the slightest.’
‘But you seem so quiet – I mean, compared with how you were before. I’m worried you might be having second thoughts. After all, when you first arrived, you told me even a kiss was forbidden.’
‘And I meant it,’ she whispered, ‘honestly.’
He couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Well, it didn’t take much to change your mind.’
‘Don’t say that, or I will have second thoughts.’
‘No, they’re strictly banned. But I’m dying for a drink, aren’t you? How about some orange juice? Or another glass of wine?’
‘Orange juice would be lovely.’ How banal it sounded but, if he left the room a moment, she could savour, in silence, this extraordinary sense of liberation; the fact that all her onerous past, even her current problems, had wafted away like thistledown. She lay, eyes open, the unfamiliar surroundings gradually coming into focus: the two half-finished paintings on the two adjacent easels; other pictures stacked against the walls; the three mismatched wooden chairs; the four rows of shelves, holding brushes, paints and varnishes, all tidily arranged; the contrasting savage chaos of his latest composition, a huge canvas hanging opposite the bed. Its plunging verticals and violent brushstrokes seemed to capture her own mood, as did the jolting colours – not docile Virgin-Mary blue but seditious scarlet, heinous black.
Felix strode back in, still naked, a glass in either hand. ‘I’m still worrying about that bloody bed. The mattress has seen better days and—’
‘Felix, the last thing on my mind was the comfort or discomfort of the bed!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, d’you imagine I was faking all that noise?’
He laughed. ‘Hardly. But you are two people, you know, and I suppose that rather threw me. Although I reckon, this is the real you – I mean, lying here, with your legs apart and your voluptuous body on show.’
‘Fat body, don’t you mean?’
‘Not at all. I loathe skinny women – the sort who go straight up and down, and are always dieting. As far as I’m concerned, proper women are curvaceous and celebrate their appetites.’
More words to relish: voluptuous, curvaceous. All her life, she’d been plump: a chubby baby, a podgy child, a teen eiderdowned in puppy-fat, a bosomy adult and, now, an overweight grandmother-to-be. Yet Felix had changed the categories.
‘And I love your bush. It’s so wonderfully dark. Where do you get your sultry looks?’
‘From my Hungarian grandfather, so I’m told. Apparently, my father was blue-eyed and fair, so I’m nothing like him in appearance.’ Her pubic hair had kindly maintained its colour, rather than gone the way of her head-hair; its once-dramatic black now stippled grey.
‘Have you always slept in your studio?’ she asked, embarrassed by his scrutiny. He was still gazing at her body, as if they were back at the life class and he had selected her as model.
‘No, only since I moved here and had less space than before. Frankly, it’s a waste of a room to keep it just for sleeping and, in any case, a bed destroys a room.’
The thought jolted her, yet maybe it was right. Amy and Hugo’s bed – a ruffled, white, giant meringue – was a shade absurd.
‘Besides, sleeping in my studio seems to give me useful dreams. Sometimes, if I’m stuck on a painting, I’ll dream the solution on an imaginary canvas and, however hard I might have been struggling during the waking hours, everything falls into
place in the dream. So, the minute I wake up from it, I jot down the shapes and colours I’ve seen and, when I start work the next day, I use it as a memory jog, which means I can focus on the dream again and make it a reality.’ He leaned across and placed the glass of juice in her hand. ‘But that’s enough about work – we’re meant to be off duty. Drink this up and I’ll fetch us something to eat.’
‘Can I help?’ she asked, surprised by her avid thirst as she drained the glass.
‘No, it’s hardly haute cuisine, just croissants and cheese and stuff – oh, and those strawberries you kindly brought.’
‘I’ll get dressed, then,’ she said, swinging her legs off the bed.
‘What for? I presume you’re staying the night.’
‘Felix, I can’t possibly! My daughter will be worried sick if I don’t come home tonight.’
‘Well, give her a ring and explain.’
‘I, er, can’t. Things are a bit tricky at the moment.’ Amy might still be furious and, in any case, what could she ‘explain’ – that she was staying the night with a lover, so they could continue their blatant antics till dawn?
‘Surely you don’t let her dictate your movements?’
‘No, of course not. But please don’t press me, Felix. I have to be back tonight – no argument.’
‘OK, but it’s only five to nine, so no need to rush off now. Let’s have our food, then I’ll walk you to the tube. But don’t you dare get dressed! I want to enjoy your body as long as I possibly can.’
Basking in his approbation, she made a supreme effort to stop obsessing about her daughter again. Not easy, now the subject had come up.
However, Felix’s presence helped. He returned with a loaded tray, which he placed on the upturned wooden box that served as a bedside table. Then, having coaxed her to loll back against the pillows, he began feeding her mouthfuls of croissant, along with cubes of cheese.
An Enormous Yes Page 12