by Susan Lewis
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said quietly.
My voice seemed to come from somewhere far away inside me. It shook as I said, ‘How did you know . . .? What are you doing . . .?’ He put his hand on my face and I moved into the circle of his arms, and his mouth, still cold from the wind, was against mine, and his arms were holding me tight. He let me go and my eyes flew open.
‘Alexander . . .’
‘Just tell me you love me, Elizabeth. Please.’
Cupping my face with his hands, he kissed my eyes and my nose and my cheeks, and then my mouth again. ‘I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I had to come. Tell me it’s been the same for you too. Tell me you love me as much as I love you.’
‘I love you,’ I whispered, my voice breaking as I tried not to cry.
He took off his coat and put it on the chair. I looked away, but he put his fingers under my chin and turned me back again.
I tried to smile. ‘I don’t want to wait any longer,’ I whispered.
He kissed me slowly, and his fingers were shaking as he started to unbutton my dress. After a while he lifted my hands and nodded for me to undress myself while he took off his own clothes. Most of the time I kept my eyes on the wall opposite because I was afraid to look at him, and afraid he might be disappointed in me. And then he was standing next to me, running his hands over my arms and I buried my face in his neck.
He undid the catch at the back of my bra, then gently pushed me away from him. As he pulled the straps down over my arms and my breasts fell free, I heard the breath catch in his throat. I tried to cover myself, embarrassed by the way my nipples were standing out. He took my hands away and drew them to him. ‘Look at me, Elizabeth,’ he whispered. ‘Look at me here.
I looked down, mesmerised by the way my hands were moving over him, and then as he took my nipples between his fingers, my hand tightened around him. I looked up as the sound came from the back of his throat, as if he were choking. And then my hand and my arm were suddenly wet.
‘Oh my God!’ His voice was thick with fury and disgust. He turned away, burying his face in his hands.
I stood there, not knowing what to do, and then he pushed past me and escaped into the bathroom.
He was standing in front of the washbasin when I went in, one hand on each side, staring down into the sink. ‘Alexander,’ I whispered.
‘Don’t,’ he growled. ‘I don’t want your pity.’
I walked over and leaned my head on his shoulder. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘Don’t be angry. Sometimes these things happen the first time.’
‘How do you know?’ he snapped.
I slipped my arms around him and started to kiss his shoulder. He turned round and crushed me hard in his arms. ‘I just couldn’t stop it,’ he whispered.
‘I understand,’ I said.
Picking up a towel he wrapped it round his waist, then sat down on the edge of the bath. I cradled his head in my arms, running my fingers through his hair. He had tried to be so brave for both of us, and now I knew that it was my turn.
‘Will you come back in now?’ I said, eventually. He nodded, so I took his hand and led him to the bed, where we lay down together.
‘Elizabeth,’ he whispered into the silence. ‘What you said just now, that these things sometimes happen the first time . . .’ He lifted himself on to one elbow and looked down into my face. ‘I wish I could find the words to tell you how much you mean to me.’ I closed my eyes and pulled him down to kiss me. After a while I pushed my tongue into his mouth, and it wasn’t long before I could feel the passion rising in him.
His voice was gruff as he spoke. ‘Do you think we could try again?’
I nodded, then found I had to swallow hard as he lowered his mouth to my breasts. When he lifted his head again, he pulled me against the length of his body, and I could feel him hard against my belly. I was afraid, and closed my eyes as he slipped my pants down over my legs. And then he began to tease me with his fingers. I had never felt anything like it before. I stiffened, clamping my thighs against his hand, and then I looked up into his face and tried to say his name.
He took his hand away, and easing my legs apart, he lay down on top of me. Then very slowly I felt myself opening to him, pulling him towards me, until with one gentle push we were together. He touched his lips against mine, then pushed again. I gasped at the pain, and he stopped.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispered, looking down into my face.
I nodded, and my whole body swelled with love as we started to move together. He pushed his hands underneath me and lifted me closer to him. And as I wound my legs around his, he started to move faster until his breathing became laboured and heavy, and then he called out my name as with one final push he fell against me.
I wrapped my arms around him, holding him still. Our bodies were sticky and damp, and his heart was thudding against mine, but I didn’t want him to pull away yet. He lifted his head to kiss me, and I felt his tears against my cheeks.
Finally he moved away. I knew immediately that something was wrong, and I was terrified that he regretted what we had done. I had given myself to him so easily, what if he despised me for it now? I wanted to speak as I watched him sitting there on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, but my tongue was paralysed with fear.
‘Tell me what I have to do,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me what it is you want.’
When I didn’t answer, he turned to look at me. ‘You’re so beautiful, Elizabeth, and what you have just given me . . . But it must be the same for you.’
I closed my eyes against the surge of relief, and reached out my arms to him. ‘Just be here,’ I. whispered, ‘all you have to do is be here.’
‘But I can give you more,’ he insisted. ‘I know I can. Tell me, show me how to do it.’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered.
He looked into my eyes and I saw the doubt in his. ‘Can I try?’ he said.
I nodded, and as he started to stroke my body and then push his fingers between my legs, I suddenly knew what it was he had to do. So taking his hand, shyly, I held it where it was. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Just there.’ And as he touched me, and began to stroke me again, I experienced something so beautiful I could never even begin to describe it.
We slept for a while and when I woke up his fingers were tracing tiny circles around my nipples. He was frowning, as if he couldn’t really believe what was happening to my body, then he smiled when he realised I was watching him.
‘Can I make love to you again?’ he whispered.
Later, after I’d been downstairs to fetch tea and sandwiches, we talked, and I tried to pretend I was angry when he told me he’d looked in my diary before leaving school, and that was how he’d known where to find me.
‘It’s no use you frowning at me like that, Elizabeth,’ he said, sitting naked on the end of the bed and ripping apart a turkey sandwich with his teeth. ‘I know you were glad to see me. You were, weren’t you?’ he added when I didn’t answer.
I shrugged. ‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’ he choked. ‘Then I’d hate to think what physical state I’d be in now if you’d been really glad to see me. And stop looking at me down there, you know what it does to me.’
‘I’m not looking at you anywhere,’ I objected. ‘Now tell me, what about your parents, where do they think you are?’
He shrugged. ‘In London.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Well, not sleeping with the junior matron of Foxton’s, that’s for sure.’
I stopped smiling. ‘Don’t, Alexander, please don’t say that.’
‘I’m sorry. They think I’ve come down to see a show with some of the other boys.’
‘Are you only staying one night?’ I tried to keep the desperation from my voice, but already my heart was beating so hard that I tried to cover it with my hands.
He must have sensed how I was feeling because he came across to my chair and knelt down in front of me. ‘I’m
not leaving you now, Elizabeth, I can’t.’
He looked so young, so brave. What was to become of us?
It was two days later when we finally ventured out to the theatre. We went to see a matinée of Happy Days, the Beckett play that, despite a really morbid theme, had us gripping our sides with laughter, as Winnie, buried to her waist in earth, tried to fill her days by filing her nails and rummaging around in her handbag.
All through the play Alexander held my hand, and every now and again he leaned over to kiss me, just as he did when he thought I was asleep. I kissed him when he was asleep too, because he looked so young then, and vulnerable, and I knew that despite his outward confidence he was as afraid as I was that something might destroy our happiness. There were times, too, when he couldn’t hide his bewilderment at what was happening to him, and he would gaze at me for minutes at a time, then beg me to tell him how much I loved him – and I’d laugh and say silly, romantic things until he laughed too.
When the show was over we decided that as we were having such a good time, we would splash out and find a noisy restaurant somewhere in Covent Garden. And we were just heading for The Bistro, tucked behind the market, when the unthinkable happened and Alexander spotted Mrs Jenkins walking down the street on the arm of her husband. Quickly Alexander pulled me into a shop doorway, took me in his arms and buried my face in his neck.
Mrs Jenkins sailed by and didn’t even look in our direction, but we stayed in the doorway for several minutes after she had gone, numbed by how close we had come to discovery. We looked at each other. This, we knew, was only the beginning. In the privacy of our little room in Bayswater, it had been easy for us to tell each other how bravely we would face the world. The reality was different.
The evening ruined, we walked back to the hotel in silencè. By the time we arrived I had made up my mind what I was going to do. Seeing Mrs Jenkins had made me almost sick with shame: I, like her was supposed to be a responsible member of the school staff. Suddenly I could imagine the accusing eyes of Alexander’s parents, Miss Angrid, Mr Lorimer, Mr Ellery, and the rest of the boys who had placed their trust in me. I had been crazy to allow things to go this far. Had I ever really, in the past few days, thought about what I was doing to Alexander, stopped to consider what effect all this might have on him? He was too young to know his own mind, he was headstrong, determined and spoiled. He might look and behave older than he was, but that didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t yet seventeen. Our relationship had to stop now, no matter what pain it might cause me, because that was nothing compared to the damage I would cause him if I let it go on.
Before he could push open the door of the hotel, I stopped him and made him turn round to face me. ‘Alexander,’ I said, softly, ‘I want you to go inside now and collect your things. No. No. Please don’t say anything, don’t let’s argue, I couldn’t bear it. We’ve got to say good-bye, my darling, so let it be now, before the outside world can spoil what we have had together. I’ve decided that it would be for the best if I don’t come back to Foxton’s in the New Year . . . .’
‘Elizabeth.’ He put his hand over my mouth. ‘I’m staying here with you. Come inside, please. We have to talk, I know we do, but don’t try to push me away like this.’
My voice was constricted by the loss I was already feeling. ‘It’s easier this way, Alexander. If we talk it’ll only make it more difficult. I’m going for a walk. Please, take your things . . .’
‘You said you loved me, Elizabeth.’
Almost choking on my tears, I shook my head. ‘I do, Alexander, but I can’t. I can’t . . . .’ And tearing my hand away from his, I ran off down the street.
I expected him to follow, and when he didn’t I had to bite my lips hard to stop myself from screaming out in an effort to fill the emptiness. I walked about for over an hour, hardly knowing what I was thinking or where I was going. I was terrified of going back, but knew I had to. It was the first step I had to take in facing my life without him. I steeled myself as I walked in the door of my room – and he was there, sitting on the bed, waiting for me.
I closed the door, quietly watching him through sore and swollen eyes. He stood up, reaching out for my hand, and led me across to the bed.
‘Sit down,’ he said, ‘I want you to listen. I don’t want you to interrupt, will you promise me?’
I nodded dumbly.
He went to sit in the old tapestry chair, and with his dark head on one side, he looked across the room at me, in the half-light, holding on to me with his eyes. ‘I know everyone will think that I can’t know my mind at my age, that I’m ruining my life – and all the other things they’ll say. But it doesn’t matter what other people think, Elizabeth, because none of it will change the way I feel about you. Of course it isn’t going to be easy, especially when I know that even you think I’m too young for what we have between us. All I can say is that in all the books and films I care about and, in all the life I’ve witnessed – even though I’ve only seen such a little of it – love has never recognised age. I love you, and I want you to go on being the most important part of my life. I don’t care about anything else. I know there will be times in the future when other things will be important to me, too – but always, no matter what, it will be you that I love. Nothing will change that, Elizabeth. I can’t put into words what it is that you’ve done to my life; all I know is that it won’t mean anything without you. And if you leave me now, you’ll be hurting us both, more perhaps than either of us can understand.
‘What I’m trying to say is very simple really. Not only do I love you now, I know already that I’m going to love you forever. And if you don’t believe me, then maybe we’ll have to wait forever for you to find out. Either way, it won’t change the way I feel. So please, don’t shut me out of your life.’
It was now almost completely dark, and I could hardly see him across the room. It was a long time before I stood up and walked over to him. He held out his arms, and sitting down on his lap, I held him, rocking him back and forth and wiping the tears from his cheeks.
‘Like you I don’t know what the future will hold, but let’s hope our love is strong enough to face it.’
– 8 –
I would never have thought it possible, but as time went on I grew to love Alexander more and more. Once we were back at Foxton’s the agony of being so close, yet not able to touch, was so intense that the only way to control it was to try and laugh about it. The way Alexander deliberately went around looking as if he was in the worst kind of physical torment made me laugh till I cried. ‘But this is the way I really feel,’ he said, when I told him he was overdoing it.
In between lessons he’d dash up to the surgery, close the door behind him and kiss me so hard and so quickly that I hardly knew he was there before he was gone. And at the end of each day we’d always manage to go for a walk, or if it was raining I’d slip down to the common room for a cup of coffee, just as I had with last year’s sixth form. Even though there weren’t many times when we could be on our own, we still managed to make love twice during the first weeks of term.
The first time was in. a barn that was a two-mile hike from the school. But I didn’t mind about my muddy shoes and wind-torn hair when I got there – still holding the note he’d left inside his pillow-case that morning, asking me to meet him at four, when the sixth form were normally in their rooms studying, or playing records in the common room. Afterwards, when our bodies were bruised and tender, I giggled at the way I’d thrown off my matron’s uniform and tumbled into the hay with him – at the way we’d laughed and frolicked together like two lambs in a field.
As several of the boys regularly visited both Miss Angrid and me in the cottage, no suspicions were aroused by Henry and Alexander coming too – though it caused some heated arguments between us when I wouldn’t let Alexander come more often, and alone. But there was one occasion, early in the evening, when he did come, just as I was about to get in the bath. The inevitable happened, and
it was only a matter of seconds after we’d finished dressing that Miss Angrid knocked on my door and walked straight in.
She eyed us suspiciously, and afterwards I was so shaken by the narrowness of our escape that it caused the first serious rift between us. I was stunned by the fact that Alexander didn’t seem to care, and yelled at him for being immature enough to think that Miss Angrid would be on our side. He hated being reminded that he was younger than me, so he hit back by saying that I was using my position to hide the fact that I was ashamed of him.
‘Well, I’m not exactly proud of what we’re doing,’ I said.
His face turned white. ‘So, you are ashamed. I’m nothing more than a randy little schoolboy who suits your . . .’
‘Don’t speak to me like that! I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love you, but this kind of stupid irresponsible behaviour of yours sometimes makes me wonder how much longer we can go on. You’re not to come here again, do you hear me?’
‘Agreed! And don’t even think about slipping notes inside my pillow-case, I’ll burn them before I even read them.’
We smouldered in silence for two days, until his resolve weakened and I found a note pushed under my surgery door. He wanted me to know that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said, that he didn’t mean to be cavalier, it was only that he loved me so much that he wanted the whole world to know. He could see now how childish that was, so would I forgive him and meet him later in the woods? I ignored it. There was another note the following day, and two more the day after that. Still I ignored them. The last note was delivered to the cottage, and told me to go to hell.
Which is where I stayed, until he caught my eye at dinner and made me laugh. But that still didn’t stop me from getting into a state. I was so worried about what we were doing, so afraid of it all and how it would end that I just didn’t know what to do. That was how he found me one afternoon, alone in my surgery, sobbing my heart out.