Sail Upon the Land

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Sail Upon the Land Page 9

by Josa Young


  ‘I can put together a hamper at P&Q and we can have a picnic.’

  Then he laughed and pulled her hand towards him, kissing her gloved fingers again. It was very late, and the dance floor below was punctuated with a last few couples leaning against each other and circling like hair in a drain.

  When Lanin announced the last waltz, Munty raised his eyebrow at her, but she declined. Her foot had had enough. They went to the cloakroom to collect Melissa’s long velvet cloak, clasped at the neck with the silver buckle from her mother’s wartime VAD uniform.

  Outside in Park Lane, the doorman hailed a taxi for them.

  ‘Where to, sir?’

  ‘Cheyne Place. Thank you.’

  She expected to climb in alone, but Munty followed her. She had pulled the silk-lined hood up over her hair as there was a faint misty drizzle in the air. As he settled beside her, she peeped up at him from within her hood’s creamy depths, registering as she did so a look of surprise. He leaned forward as if he couldn’t help himself, his nose bumped hers and he muttered an apology. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and this time found her lips. She felt the softness of his mouth against hers and was uncertain what to do next. They sat for a moment lip to lip, looking into each other’s eyes, then his lips parted and a sense of warm delight moved through her. After that, there didn’t seem to be any need for deciding what to do.

  She awoke the next day with her mother’s lips on her uppermost cheek. Foggy threads of a dream evaporated as she swam up reluctantly from the bottom of sleep.

  ‘Daddy and I are just going home. Wanted to leave you sleeping until the last possible minute. You were up very late. How’s your foot after all that dancing?’

  ‘Fine. Lovely,’ she murmured, irritated as she always was by any mention of her foot, turning her head on the pillow away from her mother’s warm, tea-scented breath.

  ‘Was that young man nice?’ Melissa could hear an interested note in her mother’s voice. ‘Munty? Was that his name? I suppose it comes from his title, Mount-Hey. I looked him up in your aunt’s Burke’s Peerage. Old title, rather fascinating. His ancestor helped to rescue Charles II.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ The irritation persisted. She wished her mother would go away.

  ‘Most post-Restoration titles are descended from one of Old Rowley’s by-blows, so it’s interesting that this one is different.’

  This was an annoying hobby of her mother’s, perusing what she called ‘the herd book’ to see who was related to whom, and how they got their titles in the first place.

  Melissa’s returning consciousness brought the memory of Munty’s invitation with it. She glowed and rolled her head back, consciously letting her hair flop across her face, all too aware that her lips were sore.

  Pretending to be sleepier than she was, she stretched up her naked white arms to her mother and pulled her close for disarming kisses and farewells. She wanted to be alone to think. Sarah laughed and kissed her again, saying that they must be off for Daddy’s afternoon surgery.

  ‘Aunt Melinda’s going to take us to the train. Do telephone to let us know what you’re up to. Get plenty of sleep and take care of that foot of yours. Don’t overdo it.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’

  Melissa was glad when her mother shut the attic bedroom door behind her. Hearing her tread recede down the uncarpeted stairs, Melissa let out a breath, opened her eyes properly and stared at the ceiling. When could she see him again? He knew where she was staying having brought her home, and she had responded to his request for her phone number by whispering it against his lips, ‘Mogador 3715,’ over and over again. She was so close, so entwined and trusting, taking liberties with his mouth and breath as he did with hers.

  He was smiling, and the tip of his tongue touched the inside of her upper lip, shutting her up. It was shockingly intimate, and she considered pulling away just for a second. That soft intrusion, sliding up over her teeth. She breathed into his mouth, ‘Will you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s only four numbers,’ he replied, before holding her all the closer until her insides were quite liquid with longing. Perhaps this is what the debs meant by Not Safe in Taxis, but at least he didn’t try anything else, just this glorious kissing that went on and on as the taxi grumbled towards Chelsea. After a while, she noticed they had stopped and the driver was clearing his throat. She pulled back, embarrassed at having forgotten the third party behind the glass partition.

  Munty had seen her to the door, after paying for and dismissing the taxi. The house was dark, the street quiet. He insisted on kissing her on the doorstep. He seemed already to be attached to her by invisible shining ropes which she was afraid to break in case they melted with the morning like goblin gold.

  She knew she must remove herself, so she pushed her latchkey into the lock with one hand, and with the other gently eased him away down the steps. He clutched at her hand against his wilting shirt front, and she wriggled her fingers to release herself. Opening the door and holding her cloak around her, she gazed back at him, now standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at her. She waved one gloved hand, mocking and imperious, and slipped inside.

  ‘Keep something back,’ she had told herself. ‘Leave them wanting more.’

  Thirsty now, she hopped out of bed to run across the passage to the lavatory, bending over the tap to drink from her cupped hand. While she drank she decided not to tell Mummy and Daddy what she was planning. She was quite old enough at eighteen to make up her own mind where she went and what she did – and with whom. No one need know, at least not until those gossamer ropes had woven her and Munty so firmly together that she could trust them with her weight. It was easy to be free these days and evade her parents’ notice, as there were so many parties and weekend invitations, and they trusted her.

  When she had had the curse for the first time at fourteen, her mother had sat her down for an excruciating chat about men and what they wanted from a girl, and how it was important not to give it to them until she was married. Her father had given her a book called A Doctor Answers Young Girls’ Questions, asking her to read it all and come to him if she didn’t understand anything. She would rather have died than ask him any questions. She was deeply grateful for the paper substitute, where she learned that she was in possession of a whole lot of things that sounded like Latin girls’ names, Labia, Vulva, Vagina.

  She giggled. There were deadly warnings about disgusting sounding venereal diseases. And a protracted and boring description of sexual intercourse that made you wonder why anyone bothered to overcome their embarrassment for long enough. This was followed by a detailed account of the journey that millions of battling sperm must make to meet the egg waiting, huge and passive like a sad planet invaded by tadpoles, somewhere up inside her.

  She couldn’t imagine herself doing anything of the kind, and contraception sounded so difficult and messy she would prefer to remain a virgin until her dying day. But there must be something more to sex. Everyone seemed so excited by it these days. It was all about youthquake, she read in the Daily Express, and the dolly birds were on the Pill – a great improvement on all those gels and pessaries and rubber devices.

  Melissa couldn’t wait for Saturday morning to come, and the rest of the week’s social life had lost its hopeful savour. On Friday she went to a drinks party and, spotting with the relief of the shy a girl she knew vaguely from debs’ teas, she hurried over to catch up. She quickly noticed that the attention of the ‘friend’ was fixed on a search for the nearest man rather than on what she was saying.

  ‘Nancy,’ she said with uncharacteristic confidence, ‘do stop looking over my shoulder, it makes you look as if you’ve got a squint.’

  Nancy’s eyes swivelled and locked on to Melissa’s face. ‘Darling,’ she drawled, ‘you must know by now, it isn’t done to talk to other girls at parties. Not the point. Everyone will think you’re a lesbian. Not a good look for you. These days it’s men or nothing.’

  ‘What if yo
u can’t get a man?’

  ‘Well, then you have to hire one. You up your value considerably if you arrive at a party with someone looking adoring on your arm. You can get models and actors for eight pounds an evening. Good-looking hip ones, too.’

  ‘Hire one? How?’

  ‘There are agencies that hire them out. Bertie Shaw-Wiggins told me all about it. Bit short after dropping this year’s allowance at roulette, he rang up something called Cockburn’s Agency – he kept laughing at the name, couldn’t work out why, isn’t it some kind of port? Anyway, he said they measured him and photographed him and said he could go on their books for fifty per cent of the fee, and all the expenses he could keep for himself.’

  Melissa had heard of men hiring women for unmentionable things, but not the other way around. Blushing wildly, she said, ‘Do they have to do it?’

  ‘Oh god, Melissa, you are such an innocent. Get with it, darling. Everyone’s doing it. Bertie figured he might as well get paid for it, though with his gambling habit he’d have to do it an awful lot.’

  Melissa knew she wasn’t doing it, but that for the first time in her life she would like to and then blushed more. What would Mummy think?

  Nancy was going on, and a little group had formed around them to listen: ‘I think Bertie imagined he’d just be taken out to dinner by rich old bags. I believe he was rapidly disabused. Anyway, the idea of bumping into someone he knew and trying to explain – or even being hired by a friend of his mother’s. Can you imagine? And they weren’t all women if you know what I mean.’

  Melissa didn’t know what she meant, but everyone else was laughing, so she joined in and drank the champagne to help her keep up.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’

  Warm breath on her neck alerted her to a man she didn’t know smiling down at her. She accepted, and drifted with him through the cigarette smoke to the bar at the back of the large Belgravia drawing room. Ceiling-high windows draped in gold damask looked out over a still-sunlit garden square, and the waiter with a napkin-wrapped bottle took her glass out of her hand. He picked up a clean coupe, filling it with champagne that never had a chance to foam up and waste itself.

  ‘Would you like to have dinner afterwards?’ her companion asked. Melissa, who would have been delighted just a few days beforehand, turned him down, and circled the room, nibbling canapés and unable to settle to anything or anyone.

  She chattered and swigged champagne, noticing her hands were shaking with nerves. More men than usual invited her out to dinner that evening – as only one had done so previously this was miraculous. She was all lit up inside, and she couldn’t wait for the days to peel away, exposing Saturday morning, raw with temptation.

  Then there it was, Saturday, clothing her in hot light that streamed in through the curtainless window. She heard Aunt Melinda calling her from below, and trotted down the steep stairs into her aunt’s chintzy bedroom, where she was holding up the telephone receiver.

  ‘Melissa, it’s Mummy,’ she said, handing it over.

  Melissa’s stomach lurched with guilt. She glanced at her aunt’s alarm clock and saw it was nine already. Panic joined the guilt in a nauseous cocktail of nerves.

  ‘Hello Mummy,’ she said, trying to conceal her quick breaths.

  ‘Hello, just ringing up to find out where you’re off to this weekend.’

  Lies tripped across Melissa’s lips like deceitful elves leaving smutty footprints.

  ‘I’m going to some dance in Sussex, Mummy. Taking the train later. Having my hair done this morning first.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Some commuter-belt nooves. But all my friends are going.’

  Melissa knew this would turn her mother right off the scent, no possibility of looking them up in the herd book.

  ‘Who are you staying with?’

  ‘Can’t remember, but they sound perfectly nice. Some big house full of dog hair probably, where they’ll give us a disgusting dinner. Why does no one cook like you, Mummy?’

  Baby voice. She played on the knowledge that her mother was trying hard to adapt to this modern style of not having a clue where your daughter was from one day to the next.

  To her relief, Munty had phoned to make plans the day after the ball, luckily when her aunt was out playing Bridge. The conversation had been delicious and ridiculous, and she couldn’t remember much of it, just that by the end of it she knew he fancied her. They were going to meet in the Chelsea Potter on the King’s Road at lunchtime and drive down to Sussex. They had not discussed what would happen next and Melissa decided not to think about it.

  Now she needed to get a move on if she was going to fit in her radical new haircut. She had to dress and pack for her supposed dance and weekend away, find the clipping she had cut out of Modern Woman showing the desired pixie cut, and get out of the house without arousing suspicion. Her aunt and uncle were going to the country too, and would not be back until Sunday night, so the weekend opened up in front of her, a vista of unaccustomed freedom – and temptation. But Aunt Melinda was ten years younger than Sarah, and not so easily bamboozled.

  ‘What are you up to, Melissa?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing at all. Just off to the country.’

  ‘Sussex?’

  ‘Yes, Sussex. But first I must get my hair done, and then I must catch the train from Victoria. I’m meeting the girls there and we’re having lunch first. Carinda Seymour is wearing the York emeralds, and we’ve promised to sit close to her to protect her from thieves. She always wears them for the journey, with her neck wrapped in a silk scarf to cover them up. These nooves are frightfully well off, so well worth parading the family jewels for, if you’ve got them.’ She chattered on, hoping to distract her aunt who was looking at her beadily, romance detectors on full alert.

  ‘Well, just be careful, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I can detect a jewel thief a mile off.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ murmured Aunt Melinda.

  Melissa clattered off back up the attic stairs to her little room, reached her overnight bag down from the top of the wardrobe – not that she would need it, she told herself. She had better take a party dress so she picked one at random and folded it round some sandals wrapped in a school shoe bag. It was so hot there might be sun-bathing opportunities, and she decided to see if she could find a two-piece bathing suit in the King’s Road.

  Her scent, make-up in a mini vanity case, toothbrush (wouldn’t do to leave it in the bathroom), a cardigan for if it got chilly, and then – what the hell – a big jumper, pedal-pushers, socks and sneakers for a proper country weekend. She hesitated over nightie and clean pants. Would Aunt Melinda look under her pillow? She stuffed them in just in case.

  She dressed herself in a sleeveless sky blue shift, and slipped flat pumps on to her feet. She put her confirmation string of pearls around her neck and looked in the mirror. Did she dare cut all her hair off? She flicked it around her shoulders, as if to say goodbye. It wasn’t a very interesting colour, light brown, but in the sun it shone with fair highlights. She was tired of sitting under the dryer, curling and back combing. The pixie cut looked effortless in comparison.

  Was Munty the kind of man who liked a girl to wear make-up? He didn’t seem to object to Lydia, and she was caked in pan-stick, with false eyelashes, eyeliner and pale lips. Melissa fished in her vanity case and found her mascara. She licked the brush and scrubbed it on the black pigment, opening her eyes wide and pulling down her mouth. As she brushed the colour on to her pale lashes, it developed her eyes like a photograph in a chemical bath, gradually framing the grey irises. She stopped and chucked the little black box back into the case. A quick dab of her new scent Fidji and she was ready to leave.

  Slinging her bags over her shoulder, she let herself out and walked away from the world she knew. A gulf had opened up, leaving the parents stranded on the other side, with their stuffy ideas about sex, clothes, hair and things being ‘done
’ or ‘not done’ or just ‘common’. ‘Common’ often looked like the best fun of all.

  She trotted up Park Walk towards the King’s Road. Chelsea mummies in Hermès headscarves, and Saturday morning husbands with regulation haircuts, were replaced by mini-skirted dolly birds and their long-haired guys in tight trousers and trendy boots. The very smell of the air changed, from Miss Dior and Virginia tobacco to sweet and strange exotic smells she didn’t recognise. Her contemporaries seemed like the larvae of a different species. How could they possibly grow up to wear scarves and have children, Rovers, wisteria and Agas?

  She nipped into a boutique called By Appointment and picked up a two-piece bathing suit, skimpy enough to be called a bikini, in navy blue with big white spots. Then it was time to lose her schoolgirl hair.

  An hour later, washed and glossy with fashionably cut feathers all around her face, she dashed across the road to the Chelsea Potter. Her heart thumped. She didn’t like going into pubs because men looked. Even a young pub like the Chelsea Potter, which was full of groovy chicks, could be daunting. She took a deep breath and plunged through the swing door, hoping desperately that Munty was already there.

  ‘Melissa!’

  It was him, thank goodness. Propelled on a wave of bravado, she had not quite taken into consideration the cost of deceiving her parents on her own nerves, and trembled.

  ‘Hello, Munty,’ she cried. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine. Like a drink before we set off?’

  He already had a pint.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll have a Campari and soda,’ she replied, thinking this would make her look sophisticated. She didn’t know what to ask for in pubs, and had never tasted it, but it was a reassuring bright red in the advertisements, so was probably sweet and innocuous.

 

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