I jump up nervously. ‘No. Really, it’s OK. See you here tomorrow?’ And then I disappear. I wonder if he feels as abandoned as I do. As if the sun’s blood in the Serpentine comes from my own arteries.
The next day he kisses me again. We become one of those couples who lie on the grass panting and groping, couples I found absolutely gross until this summer. His body feels so strange at first, firm and leathery, prickly where he hasn’t shaved. When we touch each other I realize there really is this huge exciting difference between men and women; blokes aren’t just girls with knobs on, as Rosa used to say. Then I find it’s cold, even in the sun, if his arms aren’t around me. When I come back here alone each night to lie in my bunk, my nerves scream with need. Withdrawal symptoms. I thought I was tough but it hasn’t taken long to hook me completely. I still don’t know much about him; we’re still calling each other Steve and Charlotte. We don’t actually make love. We’re too shy or something. Both virgins as it turns out. For a week it’s as if London, the whole world, shrinks to that patch of grass under a tree. Just us two, our bodies and voices.
‘I want to go to bed with you and stay there for ever. Come home with me.’
‘So you do have a home?’
‘OK, I admit it. But my family are away for another two weeks. We could go there together.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Kew. It’s a very boring house.’
Boring means central heating, a bathroom, a fridge stashed with food in a kitchen you can cook in, comfortable beds, television, video, his own room. ‘Are your parents rich? What does your dad do?’
But he won’t answer. In the end we don’t go back to his house that night but stay under our tree, falling into each other’s arms as darkness falls. The hot summer night in the park, full of lovers’ groans and grunts, a sort of invisible orgy: couples climbing in and out over the fence, black and white and brown, gay and straight, picking each other up. Every night we stay longer it’s harder to let go of each other, and I have to run away, he’s so determined to see me home. I don’t think it occurs to him that I don’t have one, that what was for him a romantic fantasy is my whole existence. He thinks I’m middle class like him because of the way I talk and the books I’ve read, doesn’t realize homeless doesn’t mean mindless, doesn’t realize I read those books in public libraries and haven’t been to school since I was nine.
That tree. We never should have left it. We were safe and happy there. Even that one afternoon it rained we just sat there. We should have stayed there until the September winds came. It was my fault. I kept thinking how amazing it would be to spend the whole night together, doing all the things other people do: eating proper food, sitting on a sofa, watching a movie, having a bath, sleeping in a bed. His boring house was my idea of heaven, and I went on and on about it until late one afternoon he says, ‘Let’s go then.’
‘Where?’
‘Back to my house. I can’t stand watching you disappear into the trees again. I hate waking up from dreams of you and finding you’re not there, as if you were a nymph and lived in this tree and couldn’t leave it.’
We stand up, and he brushes the grass out of my hair very gently. The park gates are still open, so we don’t have to climb out. He buys us hot dogs and Diet Cokes – he always has money. I watch him take the pound coins and five-pound notes out of his pocket, so casually. He has no idea what some kids have to do for a pound, let alone five. After we’ve eaten we run, holding hands and laughing, dancing across the traffic at Hyde Park Corner, on a crazy high because we’re together and we’ve finally left the park.
We sit upstairs at the front of the bus, wound around each other, laughing and talking, drunk on each other. After a bit I realize he’s talking non-stop because he’s nervous. When we get to his house I don’t ask any questions, mainly because I don’t want to answer any. I treat his house like a hotel, just glance at the kitchen and living-room, which are quite scruffy, not half as stylish as the house I lived in when I was little.
‘Shouldn’t you phone your dad?’
I gawp, suddenly realizing he believes my story – or at least some of it.
‘Oh no, it’s OK. He doesn’t worry about me.’
‘Do you mean you usually stay out all night?’
‘No!’ I see the word ‘slapper’ flashing behind his eyes and realize I have to phone my non-existent father just to reassure Steve I’m not going to give him AIDS or a dose of crabs. So I go to the phone, which is on the other side of the room, luckily, and punch the first eleven numbers that come into my head. It rings and a bad-tempered old lady squawks, ‘Who is it?’
‘Hi, Daddy, it’s me, Charlotte. Just to let you know I’m spending the night at Julie’s. I’ll be back in the morning. Lots of love. It was his answerphone.’ I slam the phone down on the querulous old lady.
‘Are you hungry?’ He opens the kind of fridge I knew they’d have, big enough to live in, enough food to feed an army. We sit at the kitchen table and stuff ourselves with bread and cheese and salami and beer and chocolate ice cream. It’s cosy, and I’m looking at him all the time, so I don’t even notice the family photographs all around.
Then we go upstairs and he says, ‘We might be more comfortable in my parents’ bedroom.’
It isn’t comfortable at all, dingy and a bit grubby, but at least there’s a huge bed and we fall into it. We’ve never really been alone together before. In the park I was always worried we’d be arrested or get our bare bums bitten by police dogs or be gang-banged by one of the groups of crack freaks that roam the parks at night or get kidnapped by body terrorists. So I never really let go.
But here, alone with him in the dark room in the silent house, we discover each other for the first time. All of each other, without having to excavate through jeans or stop at the last minute because we don’t have a condom. One night in the park we wasted a whole packet because neither of us knew how to use one. Ten of them lying on the grass like moth-eaten pink balloons.
I never really noticed I had a body before. I’d masturbated, of course, but not much because it makes my bunk creak and Mum sleeps in the one below. I thought sex was something furtive and nasty that happened in locked rooms and public loos. It was forced on you or you did it for money.
He’s just as nervous as me. He’s shaking as he finishes undressing and rolls towards me, his eyes shut. The body he presses into my arms is soft and clumsy and thin, like mine, not the heavy hairy thing I’d always imagined a man’s body to be. We’re like two children clinging together all night. That first night we hardly sleep. We talk, whispering at first because it all feels so mysterious. Then, as we realize we really are alone in the house, we talk and laugh aloud. We begin to get the hang of being naked and dance around the room. When I was little, friends used to come and play in my garden on hot summer afternoons and Mum used to spray us with the garden hose. That’s the sort of mood he and I are in, wild and exultant.
At about three in the morning we go down to the kitchen to get some cans of beer and make some toast and peanut butter, and at five we have a shower together, our wet soapy bodies and greedy mouths sliding all over each other. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you in the water,’ he says. ‘You looked so sexy.’
‘What, in my swimming costume three sizes too small?’
‘That’s what was so erotic. You were bursting out of it, the elastic cut into your buttocks and squashed your tits and when you did handstands these long brown legs came shooting up, and then you stood up and all this thick dark blonde hair fell down over the fragile curve of your neck and your shoulder blades …’ And he kisses the bits of me he’s talking about and I feel completely loved. I catch sight of us in the steamed-up bathroom mirror, our bodies the same height and colour; don’t know where I begin and he ends, like that story Mum told me about the creatures who lost their other halves and wandered around the world searching for them.
Then we borrow his parents’ bathrobes an
d go down to the garden to see the dawn. We sip mugs of coffee and stare at each other, faces again now, not just bodies. Steam from his coffee winds around him in a kind of mist. I can see his beautiful throat, strong and vulnerable, and the triangle of his chest where his father’s white bathrobe begins. I’ll never forget him, standing there in the early morning garden. His house, like all the houses overlooking the garden, is so solid and sure of itself. It’s easy to get out of bed in a house like that. Last winter there were mornings in our bunker when it was so damp and cold that our sleeping-bags and all our clothes felt like they’d just been washed and put away in a fridge.
‘Are we shocking your neighbours, do you think?’
‘Hope so. They’re so fucking smug. I suppose you’d better phone your father. He’ll be worried about you.’
Caught in my own tangled bloody web again. I stare at him, only wanting to get back into bed with him to sleep and make love and talk until some time in the next century. ‘It’s a bit early to phone. I’ll go back soon. But – I wish I could stay here. When do your parents get back?’
‘Next Wednesday. Won’t your father be furious if you stay here?’
‘Would you like me to?’
‘Of course. It’s amazing to see you here. As if two worlds had merged, my dreary old family and that magic, poetical dream world we made under our tree. Will you come back tonight, then?’
I nod and come up with the old chestnut about leaving my purse at home to get two quid out of him. I don’t like scrounging money off him but don’t fancy walking all the way to Marble Arch. He comes to the bus stop with me, and we kiss, and the minute I step on to the bus I start to miss him. I arrive back at the bunker at about eight, crawl into my sleeping-bag and don’t wake up until five.
When I tell Mum I’ll be out for the next few nights she just strokes my face with those weirdly sensitive fingers, like insect wings. Do insects think with their wings? She does, or at least it feels like it as her dry, cool fingers brush over my eyes, sucking out my feelings. As far as I can gather she was the toast of London by the time she was my age, so she probably thinks I’m a bit retarded. She doesn’t say any of the obvious things, like be careful or use a condom, so I wind up saying them myself. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. He’s really nice. Definitely not a psychopath. Be back Wednesday at the latest.’
I get on the bus and fly across London. Don’t think I’ve ever been so happy. Never will be again. I’m even pleased he isn’t on the bus with me because I can concentrate on thinking about him, enjoy my trance as I remember every moment. I don’t even worry about what’s going to happen when his parents come back from holiday and find us installed in their bed. It all seems so clear. We’ve found each other. We’ll always be together now.
From the bus stop it’s a long, gloomy walk to his house. Those suburban streets with their sinister peace and insulting prosperity. When you haven’t got a home yourself you hate people like that, with their two cars and matching china and spoilt brats who’ll never have to beg. But I’m in such a good mood I don’t even want to throw bricks through their twee windows or set fire to their naff Neff kitchens.
There’s a glass panel in his front door, and we stare at each other through it, making faces. Suddenly I’m in that mood he puts me in, light and funny and happy. We kiss, pretend to fight for the only deck-chair in the garden, drink a few beers on the lawn. When it’s nearly dark we move inside his house. Doors and windows are open, filling the rooms with the smell of grass and soil and flowers that have been baked in the sun all day. At sunset his kitchen and living-room blaze, and I feel triumphant, because this is the point at which I used to up and run. Now I don’t have to, we’re settling in together for the night and we’ll wake up together in the morning. By the time it’s dark we’re heaving around on the sofa, unbuttoning and unzipping each other. ‘You don’t even know my real name,’ he mutters into my ear as he kisses it.
‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’
‘It’s Ben. What’s yours?’ I open my eyes and pull away from him. Ben and Kew are too much of a coincidence. I need time to think. Then, somehow, thinking is the last thing I want to do and I slide back on to the sofa with him. ‘Well? What is your real name?’
‘You’ll have to guess it. Like Rumpelstiltskin.’
‘Yeah? And what do I get when I guess right?’
‘The miller’s daughter.’
‘Don’t fancy her. I’ll have you instead.’
So we leave the lights out and play these very sexy games. I think we make love in every room in the house that night – on the living-room floor, on the stairs, in the shower, in his room when he’s showing me his poetry. Before I can read even one poem he has his hands down my knickers again. ‘At it like rabbits,’ I say dreamily. ‘I don’t want a litter of baby rabbits. Where are the condoms?’
He stops for just long enough to say, ‘We’ve run out. Sorry. But if you do get pregnant I’ll look after you.’ Every so often he comes up with a list of girls’ names: ‘Jane? Jemima? Jessica? Jezebel? Jeannie? Janet? Juliet? Jade? Jamila? Jill? Jewel? Jacqueline? Jocasta? You’ve got to tell me if I guess the right one.’
‘You’re miles out.’ I can’t call him Ben. I want his identity, like the house, shrouded in darkness. Later that night we end up in his parents’ bed again, my head resting on his shoulder as we talk. He’s relaxed, happy, absolutely sure of me. I pretend to float away with him on this cloud of ecstasy, but really I just don’t want to talk, don’t want to see the pieces he keeps sneaking into the jigsaw.
‘So you’re determined to go on being a mystery woman?’
‘I’m just sleepy.’ My head is between his legs, an incredibly comfortable place to lie.
‘Have a sleep then. Do you ever wake up in the night? I often do, at about four in the morning.’
‘Next time that happens it’ll be me waking you up, lying between your legs. I like it here.’
I nearly drift off to sleep, but his voice is relentless. ‘I thought you might like to meet my sister, when they all get back from Italy. She must be about your age. How old are you? Oh, so you’re not going to tell me anything. Fine.’ There’s an edge to his voice now; he knows he’s doing all the talking. Mystery was great under the tree, but now he wants a real person. Not me. All I can think is, please don’t tell me your sister’s name is Alice. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I? I got a bit carried away, you see. You’re so beautiful, I think I’m a bit in love with you. A lot in love with you. Only I think you’re overdoing the enigma thing. Is it a really embarrassing name, like Hepzibah or Maud?’
‘Nope.’
‘Will you stay tomorrow night, too? Please. We can just laze around in the garden – I’ll try and keep my hands off you. I’ve worn you out, haven’t I? Go to sleep now. Darling. I’ve always hated that word when my parents use it. It sounds so phoney. But I’ve got to call you something. Let’s go to sleep like this, in each other’s arms.’
He does, and I pretend to. We’re both lying on our sides, and he’s behind me, curved to fit my spine and bum, his arms wrapped around me, his hands on my tits. Comforting, heavenly, perfect, as if my body is finally in the right place. I lie awake remembering all the stuff I want to forget, the bitchy thoughts that crash into your head at four in the morning. Last winter I was moaning on about never seeing Dad again when Mum suddenly said, ‘He probably isn’t your real father anyway.’
‘Now she tells me! So who is?’
‘Well, possibly, probably, your Uncle David. Sorry. I always meant to tell you.’
‘But you’re not supposed to sleep with relations.’
‘He and I aren’t related. But we did fall in love with each other – twice – the second time was the summer before you were born. So …’
‘But he was married. He had kids. Mum, you old slag!’
‘Old, certainly. Too old to worry about what people think. Only as you grow up you do look more and more like David an
d not a bit like Leo – his genes are an unknown quantity. I’d rather not think of you as half Leo. I think David would help you if anything happens to me.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me all this sooner?’
‘Because it’s all so vague, we’ll never really know. Because today I realized I can’t last much longer. Perhaps it doesn’t matter – neither of your possible fathers is around anyway – but I just wanted to clarify things.’
‘Well, you didn’t. I’m totally confused.’
So here I lie beside my – brother, cousin? If I get pregnant the baby would be my niece or nephew – Mum’s double grandchild. Oh God, I can’t handle this, it’s doing my head in. His breath on my back, his sperm inside me, his voice in my ears for ever. Nobody else’s hands will ever do. We fit together like the branches of a candlestick, like two puppies curled together in a basket.
Morning sneaks between the curtains and we haven’t stirred, although in my head I’ve given birth to his baby and spent the rest of my life with him. I turn towards him inside his arms, and stare at his face, sleeping so innocently and peacefully. Impossible to believe that anything we’ve done could have been wrong. But I remember there’s a legal side to it – his dad who might be my dad is a solicitor after all – the authorities who wanted to put me into care and Mum into a home, who say, Thou must not sleep with a girl under sixteen, specially not if she’s your sister. And if thou doesn’t know if she’s thy sister? Thou shouldst find out, plonker.
I slide out of his arms, back into the cold, lonely, Benless morning. He doesn’t wake up, and I’m not sure I want him to. Don’t want him to see me crying. I go downstairs and force myself to look at the photographs on the walls and the shelves I’ve worked so hard at not seeing. There’s Uncle David, of course, collecting his degree; and Grandma Molly before she went bonkers, sitting in that room where I used to read and cut up pictures from magazines; and that little bitch Alice, looking shifty in a party dress; none of me and Mum – not surprising, I bet Muriel hates our guts; and Auntie Annette, looking all Great Dictatorish. I’d been in that house a couple of times before, last time when I spent Christmas there, but now I allow myself to see it I remember it perfectly well. So, of course, I have to get out.
Loving Mephistopeles Page 32