by Susan Lewis
He looked at me, his face saying nothing as he reached out his hand and pulled me up into his arms. I tried to turn away.
‘No! Don’t!’ he said, angrily. ‘For God’s sake, why are you making us suffer like this?’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. ‘I love you, I do, but Alexander . . .’
‘Look, we both knew this wasn’t going to be easy, so don’t let’s make it any worse. Now come on, just let me hold you.’
And I let him hold me, because just at that moment I didn’t care who might walk in and find us. I loved him, and that was all that mattered.
‘They’re back!’ Alexander cried. ‘The bloody gypsies are back!’
Henry looked up from his newspaper and Alexander winked as he saw me coming towards them. It was late in the afternoon, and they were sitting next to the tennis courts, reading that morning’s papers and calling out the odd rude remark to the boys who were playing tennis.
‘Thank God I’m not at home,’ Alexander said. ‘I can see my father now, his face will be an ugly shade of purple and that snakey vein in his neck will be throbbing away. Nobody’s life will be worth living.’
Grinning, Henry took the paper from Alexander and handed it to me.
‘Did you read that bit about them being vermin?’ Alexander said, looking up at me. ‘As my mother says, we’re never going to get rid of them if father doesn’t cut out the vitriol. Still, it’s true what he’s saying. I saw them when I was there at Christmas, filthy beggars. I wonder if it’s true that they’re running a child prostitution ring. The local rag said it was.’
‘Not only the local one,’ said Henry. ‘There’s something about it here.’
‘Henry, dear boy, what on earth are you doing reading that?’
I laughed. ‘You’re such a snob, Alexander Belmayne.’
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ said Miss Angrid, coming up behind us.
Alexander pulled a face, then turned back to Henry. ‘What does it say?’ he asked.
‘Headline stuff. As you say, all about the child prostitution thing. Your father is quoted as saying something about calling in Rentokil to deal with it.’
Alexander gave a yell of laughter. ‘Renta who?’ I said.
‘Rentokil. The pest control people,’ Miss Angrid enlightened me.
‘Sounds like my father,’ said Alexander. ‘No doubt he’s pissing himself with excitement at the forthcoming battle.’
‘Alexander!’
‘Sorry, Matron, momentarily forgot myself.’ And as he threw her a kiss, I had to turn away before she saw me laughing.
‘Anyway,’ I continued, as Miss Angrid strolled off, ‘what are you two doing here? I thought you were going to the theatre this afternoon.’
‘Mr Lear’s gone sick,’ Henry answered, draining a can of shandy. ‘Titus Andronicus leftus in the lurchus.’
Alexander held his can out for me to drink. ‘All I can say is, I’m glad I’m not at home now. Just having those people in the vicinity makes a chap itch in his bed at night.’ He stood up and came to put his arms around me, kissing the back of my neck.
‘Alexander!’ I cried, jumping away from him. ‘For God’s sake, someone might see!’ He laughed and I glared at him, but at the same time heard myself telling him to come to my surgery after supper.
Henry stretched and yawned. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘We ought to try and find a way to take you up to Oxford with us, Elizabeth.’
A smile stretched painfully across my face as I watched Alexander sit down again and pick up a paper. It was something I didn’t allow myself to think about – the time when they would have to leave.
‘Hope the females at Oxford are a bit more desirable than the ones at St Winifred’s,’ Henry mused. ‘I can just see it now. Orgies and more orgies. Maybe I ought to be getting in a bit of practice. Can’t have you running off with every available female in the place, Alexander.’
As I started to walk away I heard Alexander say, ‘Henry, old chap, what’s happened to your brain?’
There was a pause, then Henry said, ‘I didn’t mean anything. Just wasn’t thinking. Tell her I’m sorry, will you?’
A few minutes later, hearing my surgery door close, I walked out from behind the screen. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I said, before he could speak. ‘But we’re going to have to face it, you know. When you leave here, well . . .’
‘It’s a long time away yet, Elizabeth. Besides, me being at Oxford won’t change anything. We’ll still see each other, all the time.’
He kissed me, and not for the first time I felt myself beginning to fall apart. I would lose him, I knew I would.
He was grinning as he let me go. ‘And what’s so funny?’ I said.
‘You.’
‘Me! Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, you just are. I love your hair,’ he said, taking off my cap and pulling out the hairpins. ‘Ebony hair and ebony eyes. Lift up your skirt, I want to look at your legs.’
‘Can you come to the cottage later tonight, after ten?’ I said, as he ran his fingers under my suspenders. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
His face was suddenly serious. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.
I’d bought us some wine, and put out some crisps and peanuts, but when he arrived all that was forgotten. Later, when we were sitting in front of the fire with our clothes all over the room, he started to talk about what we had done. It had been the first time we’d had oral sex. I don’t know why – probably because I’d been feeling insecure all day – but suddenly I burst into tears.
He stopped what he was saying straightaway, and moved round to sit next to me. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like it. I’m sorry, we won’t do it again.’
I laughed then. ‘Of course I liked it,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m crying.’
He gave me one of his lop-sided looks. ‘And I suppose I’ve got to work that one out for myself.’
I sighed and leaned my head back on his shoulder. He picked up his wine and held it to my mouth, then, taking a sip himself, he pulled the chair round so he could rest against it.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘I’m thinking that one day I hope you’ll look back on all this and remember it the way it was. You know, how much we loved each other, how much we taught each other . . . .’
‘I don’t like the sound of what you’re saying. We’ll be looking back together, won’t we?’
‘All I’m trying to say is that, if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I hope we’ll always be a very special memory for each other.’
‘Stop it, Elizabeth. Stop saying things like that. It’s what Henry said this afternoon, isn’t it? Well, I might as well tell you now, I won’t be going up to Oxford. I’ve decided it will be easier for us if I don’t.’
I smiled at that. ‘You will go to Oxford. If you don’t, then I really will leave you. Anyway, I’m just being morbid, Alexander – ignore me. Where’s the wine?’
He got up to get the bottle, and when he came back I watched him as he poured. ‘Smile, Alexander. I want to see your crooked tooth.’
He laughed and then sat forward, bringing his mouth to mine. And all my insecurities went away, because every time we were together we became more a part of one another.
A few mornings later I was sitting with Miss Angrid, packing up first-aid boxes for the Easter Outward Bound course, and idly chatting about the current experiment of introducing St Winifred’s girls into the sixth form lectures at Foxton’s. Deciding that the girls were, without a doubt, an unnecessary distraction for boys who were trying to achieve a’ decent grade in A levels, she went off to make a cup of tea – but when she came back and settled herself in her chair, instead of picking up her cup she took a long, hard look at me.
I felt uncomfortable, and tried to laugh. ‘It’s me, Elizabeth,’ I said. ‘You look as though you’re seeing me for the first time.’
She shook her head. ‘Oh no,
’ she said, ‘not the first time. I’ve seen you plenty of times, my dear.’
‘What a strange thing to say.’
She sighed heavily, and reached out for her tea. I waited for her to go on, trying to ignore the alarm bells that were already ringing inside my head.
It was a while before she spoke again. ‘All that chit-chat just now about the girls . . .’ she began. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no point in beating about the bush. You know what I was leading up to.’ She stared at me, waiting for me to answer. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ she asked, bluntly.
‘Packing the first-aid boxes,’ I quipped.
‘Elizabeth.’
I felt myself colour, and looked away.
‘I saw him leaving the cottage the other night,’ she said.
When I looked into her face I understood the silent request for no lies, and though I wanted to deny it, tell her she was imagining things, I found I couldn’t. I got up from my chair and went to stand by the window. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘There’s nothing to say. It’s what you have to do that matters.’
I swallowed hard. I wanted to shout at her, call her a nosy, interfering old woman who should mind her own business. But in my heart I knew she was right.
‘His work is falling behind,’ Miss Angrid went on. ‘He’s failed his end of term Latin. Did you know that? No, I thought not. He’s taking English today, yes?’ I nodded. ‘Mr Lear thinks he’s going to flunk that too.’
‘Does Mr Lear know?’ I gasped.
‘No. But questions are being asked. He’s always been ahead of the others, way ahead. He’s been called in by Mr Lorimer, did you know? The boy is besotted with you, Elizabeth. He can’t see straight or think straight. If he fails his A levels next year, well, you don’t need me to spell out what that will mean.’
I shook my head. She was telling me, in as kind a way as she knew how, something I already knew. I was ruining his life.
‘Do you think I should leave?’ I said, after a while.
‘No.’ She was emphatic: if I left he would be even more distracted than he was now. What I had to do was to speak to him myself, try and make him see sense.
‘Are you going to tell anyone what you know?’ I asked her.
She smiled, and it was the first time I had seen that strange, whiskery old face, close to tears. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think I know the way you feel about him, Elizabeth. Others will think you have led him on, that you’re playing with him. But I know. I’ve seen it from the very beginning.’
My heart turned over. ‘I tried not to,’ I said.
‘I daresay you did. But it’s too late now, it’s done. Just get him through his A levels, that’s all I ask. Once he’s at Oxford then the whole thing will fizzle out. He’s too young for all this, and the same goes for you. You should be out with people your own age.’
‘They say the truth always hurts,’ I smiled.
She took my hand. ‘I’m very fond of you, Elizabeth. The last thing I want is to see you hurt. But I think you know in your heart what it is you have to do.’
That night I asked Henry if he would come for a walk with us. We’d stay in sight of the school, then no one need have any cause for suspicion.
Alexander shouted and raved when I told him what Miss Angrid had said. At first he was intent on storming back to the school and telling her just what he thought of her, but between us Henry and I managed to stop him. Finally, after he had calmed down and we’d talked it over between the three of us, Alexander and I struck a bargain. If I would agree to go away with him, just the two of us, at Easter, then he would knuckle down to some serious studying the following term.
As Alexander’s parents were travelling to France to see his sister and her husband, they weren’t too put out when he told them he was going to help supervise one of the junior Outward Bound courses. We took separate trains to Penzance station, where I hired a car, and then we went off to a cottage we’d rented just outside Zennor.
During that two and a half weeks I tried a thousand times to tell him it was over but I couldn’t do it. It was as if everything he did had the sole purpose of making me happy, and he was so happy himself that the idea of spoiling things was too painful even to contemplate. I knew he was pretending we were married from the way he tried to help in the kitchen, or fought with the carpet sweeper, or walked up to the bar in the local pub to order my drink without asking what I wanted. It was the first time we had been free just to be ourselves, the first time we hadn’t had to look over our shoulders and worry that someone might see us. He was a different person, even more confident, so grown up, so protective – though of course we had our share of rows. It was a wonderful taste of what our life together could be like – and that made it all the harder for me to tell him that at the end of the holiday I didn’t want to see him again . . . . For I’d decided that was the only way to do it. If he thought I was ending it because someone else had told me it was the right thing to do, he wouldn’t accept it; but if I could somehow persuade him I didn’t love him any more, then he would have to let me go.
I waited until our last day. We’d run out of milk so I walked down to the village to get some while he stayed at the cottage. I was surprised when he said he wasn’t coming with me, because we’d hardly been apart for a moment the whole holiday. At least it gave me time to prepare what I was going to say. I was gone a long time, walking round the churchyard, staring out over the bleak moors, telling myself that I was doing this because I loved him, because it was the best thing for him – and trying not to think about how much I was going to hurt him.
He was looking out of the window when I opened the garden gate, and I could see he’d been worried by my long absence. My heart went out to him, and I had to fight to stop myself from smiling and waving.
I took a deep breath as I went in through the door. He was still standing by the window, watching me come in, and I could tell straightaway that he was up to something. Then I saw what it was. Hanging from one of the oak beams was a banner, and on it was written: Please will you be my wife?
He was obviously nervous – and yet I’d never seen so much love in his eyes. ‘I didn’t know whether to put, “Please will you marry me”, or whether you would like the word wife,’ he explained. ‘I can do another saying whatever you like, only the . . .’
I broke down and cried then, and immediately he was holding me, and I was clinging to him, begging him always to love me, never to leave me . . . . In the end he managed to calm me down and went to make some tea. I started to laugh when he brought it back, and then I couldn’t stop laughing. It was as if I had lost him, and now he’d come back to me. He laughed too, but I knew he was confused.
‘I’m laughing because you’re an idiot, and because I love the word wife, and because I love you so much I think I’m going to burst with it,’ I said.
‘Does that mean you will marry me, then?’ he asked, searching my face.
‘It means I’d marry you now, this minute, if we could. . . .’
‘Please don’t give me a list of reasons why we can’t. I only want to hear you say yes, then we’ll talk about when.’
‘Ask me again.’
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes.’
It wasn’t until later in the day that we were able to discuss it sensibly. By then, even though I couldn’t let him go, I had made him agree that we wouldn’t talk about marriage again until he came down from Oxford.
‘I’ll still want to, you know,’ he whispered.
‘I’ll pray to God every night that you will.’
– 9 –
Because we realised now what would happen if anyone found out about us, we both behaved more responsibly when we got back to Foxton’s for the summer term. All the same, Alexander obviously found it very hard to be discreet, so on my free evenings I went to the pub so that he wouldn’t be tempted to come to me at the cottage or the surgery. The rest of the time wasn’t so bad, exce
pt that there were always other people around; but at least we did see each other, and we left notes for one another inside his pillow-case every day.
Then – predictably, perhaps – Alexander found a way round our difficulties: he discovered an abandoned railwaymen’s hut a mile or so from the school . . . . We met there at least once a week, and were so careful that we didn’t even tell Henry about it. Alexander approached it from the railway tunnel, a hundred yards along the track, while I, after a quick lunch-time drink, wandered behind the pub, climbed a stile, made a mad dash across a field full of cows, then picked a path through the remains of the station, to find him waiting – once with a railwayman’s hat on, a flag, a whistle, and a toy train on the track.
I never told him, perhaps because I thought he might be unhappy about it, that I’d made a friend at the pub. Her name was Ruth. Her family lived in the village, she told me. She talked a lot about herself and made me laugh when she told me about all the boyfriends she had and the way she kept them dangling.
‘You’ll have to meet Peter,’ she said one day, after she’d told me in detail what the two of them had been up to the night before. And the next time I went to the pub, Peter was there too.
One day, very casually, I mentioned Ruth and Peter to Alexander. He was jealous, just as I’d thought he might be, so I didn’t refer to them again.
Towards the end of term Alexander’s parents came to the school to find out from Mr Lorimer how he was doing. The report they received wasn’t brilliant, but it was better than either of us had expected. Of course, Alexander’s father wasn’t too happy about it, and he let Alexander know it. He grilled him all day, then took him and Henry down to the village for dinner.
I had arranged to meet Ruth in the pub at seven-thirty. Peter had been in London on business for the past couple of weeks, so I was rather surprised to find him there too. We settled down in the corner of the bar with our drinks, and while Ruth and Peter talked about London I wondered what Alexander was doing at that moment.
‘You seem a bit quiet this evening, Elizabeth,’ Ruth said. ‘Nothing the matter, is there?’