“No. You win your 20p.”
“Living with someone?”
“No.”
“Not even that?”
“Not even that.”
“Which just demonstrates, doesn’t it, the truthfulness of first impressions? One shouldn’t lose one’s confidence.”
“Well, what about my first impressions?” asked Mrs Dawlish, reasonably.
She didn’t get an answer.
“But Mr Groves. How in heaven’s name have you escaped so long?”
“More cynicism, Miss Sheffield?”
“Oh, but possibly it’s justified. I mean—having once been married myself.”
I lost my levity; gave a shrug; said nothing.
“So where does that leave me?” asked Mrs Dawlish. “I still am. Married.”
“Plainly it was Mrs Sheffield,” I answered, now smiling again, “who was handing out those burdens which make a person bowed! Plainly it’s Mrs Sheffield who represents the kind of woman a potential husband must escape from!” Then I recognized how tactless I was being: an actual husband had already done so. I almost apologized but was frightened to compound my gaffe.
“Wrong,” said the butt of all that mild disappointment. (Yet why should I feel disappointed?)
“Wrong?”
“Yes. I was the one who needed to escape. And, besides, you had it right before—Miss Sheffield; I took back my own name.” She paused. “But as a way of breaking free from all such confusion—how about Moira?”
“Sam,” I said, automatically.
“Yes, I know.”
“And Liz,” said Mrs Dawlish, “if the fact of my being not merely married, but even fairly contentedly so, doesn’t altogether rule me out. At the moment I am a grass widow, which ought to count a little in my favour.”
“Actually, I—”
“We were just filling our lungs with sea air,” said Moira, “before tripping along to The Lord Nelson for a quick one. You wouldn’t care to join us?” Even in only the moonlight—especially, perhaps, in only the moonlight—her smile was surely as entrancing as any smile of Lady Hamilton’s. Her complexion looked flawless. I felt a longing to touch her skin; to brush the back of my fingers slowly up one cheek.
“Well, thank you, yes, I’d enjoy that. I—oh, hell—I haven’t any money on me!” I’d given the last of my small change to Matt; had left my wallet in my jacket pocket when I’d swopped the jacket for a jumper.
“I shall treat you,” she said. “Out of my winnings.”
“And if we have time for any second round,” said Liz Dawlish, “I shall treat you, too. But I shall have to do it, unhappily, out of nothing but the simple goodness of my heart.”
“And how about you, Susie? What’s yours going to be? A refreshing pint of five-star water?”
Susie had been sitting on the pebbles throughout all this. Now, as Moira spoke to her, she cocked her head inquiringly as if desperately anxious to understand, and her long white tail swept rhythmically across the stones. She was being a model dog, perfectly behaved. Moira bent a second time to stroke her.
“Good old Susie,” she said, as she straightened up. “I expected you to testify for Liz!” We began to mount towards the promenade, the shingle slipping noisily away beneath our feet.
Here was my opportunity. For the retraction of a lighthearted act of derring-do which I’d performed because I’d wanted to see if I could get away with it—yes, and how it would have felt. My opportunity, after that spontaneous foray into a forbidden world (O brave new world: already having drinks bought for me, unilaterally, by two nice-looking and sophisticated women!) and into that heady kingdom of what might have been. A brief, ten-minute trespass.
But far too brief. Impossible to leave so soon.
So why not make it an hour? Playful rascal back to solid citizen by midnight. Contrite but forgiven. And understood. Reassured he hasn’t lost his dormant—maybe atrophied—attraction.
“What’s this?” I said. “Susie, star witness for the Dawlish camp! Then can’t a single man who’s lonely be permitted to possess a dog?”
“It truly didn’t occur to me he couldn’t—not at first. But subconsciously, perhaps, I still think of dogs as belonging to families. Stupid of me. I’m sorry.”
“Actually she belongs to our neighbours,” I told her. “They’re rather elderly and sometimes I walk her for them.” Gilding both the lily and the golden boy. It all came to me so easily. No trace of guilt; not yet, in any case. Before, it had been fun. Now, it seemed addictive.
“Our?” she repeated. “Our neighbours?”
That gave me pause. But she misread my hesitation, thought I hadn’t understood the question.
“Do you still live at home, then? With your parents?”
“Oh, no, my parents are dead.” Gilding be blowed: when hoping to deceive you stick closely to the truth. “My mother died when I was a boy and my father…” I hadn’t realized I would mention this but suddenly discovered that I could. “Well, my father died just two days afterwards. From then on I was brought up by my gran.”
But now I was faced with a choice: should I resurrect Granny and give my life a flavour of nobility and sacrifice—the grateful grandson honouring his debt—or should I tear away completely from the thought of apron strings (implicit, however uncritically, in the surprised tone of the question) and perhaps invent a commune: a way of living which, ideally, had always quite appealed to me…especially if located on some sundrenched, far-off island? And of course lodgers were another possibility—although slightly more mundane.
“Your father died just two days afterwards?” The cynical Miss Sheffield was very clearly shaken.
I kept my tone casual. “Well, they talk about people dying of a broken heart. And you never saw a husband who…” In fact I couldn’t keep it all that casual.
“And people really do die, then, of broken hearts?” she asked after a moment, quietly.
I nodded. “Especially when assisted by the right number of aspirin.”
“Oh, dear God!”
Mrs Dawlish also drew in breath.
But in the space of scarcely a minute all this had got too heavy. “Maybe,” I suggested, “it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds.” Which was unquestionably the biggest lie I had yet told them. “I managed to cope with it. At school. Threw myself into my studies. Into sport, as well. Became a bit of an all-rounder.” Well, that was certainly true, although now I’d made it sound, practically, as if I’d benefitted from being an orphan.
“And then it was your grandmother who looked after you?”
“Yes. So now I look after my grandmother.” There was a pause. Possibly liars, too, abhor a vacuum. “She’s eighty-six years old.”
She would have been, anyway. And if this were so, I’d still have been looking after her. Well, naturally. As I’d been doing—that is, as Junie and I had been doing—until about seven years earlier.
“Though may I suggest we change the subject?”
“Of course. Forgive me. I didn’t mean to stir up painful memories.”
Then, for a while, there wasn’t much conversation at all; merely the clatter of cascading stones. But we were almost on the front. I re-attached Susie’s lead. We were opposite an ice-cream parlour, in which, despite the hour’s lateness, business appeared fairly brisk. Liz spoke of the holiday atmosphere. At first all our comments sounded forced but soon the easiness returned. Moira was looking out to sea. “Have we been pardoned for dragging you down from the stars? I still feel it was mean.”
“Nonsense. The stars will be there anytime. But you, madam, go back to town tomorrow night.”
“That was extremely gallant.”
“A bit creepy, actually.” I nearly said—so very nearly said—As my son would undoubtedly be the first to point out. “But sincere,” I added, with a flush.
She smiled. “Oh, by the way, I’ve definitely decided to go ahead with that cottage in Silver Street.”
“I thought you alr
eady had decided.”
“Not completely. I finally made up my mind over lunch.”
In the lamplight her red hair, in conjunction with the green scarf that matched her eyes, was one of the loveliest things I’d seen.
The red hair—the pale skin—even the dusting of freckles which I hitherto hadn’t noticed.
“So when do you move in?”
My inner voice said: Are you ready for such complications? My inner voice answered itself immediately. You bet I am!
“It could be quite soon,” she said, “the house being empty.” Yet then it seemed she’d thought of something. “Perhaps, Sam, you’d like to take a look at it? I could do with your advice.”
“Yes, I’d be pleased to.”
“Do you mean that? In which case…well, how about a week from tomorrow?”
I had to think quickly; but though my brain often seemed to function only in slow motion, tonight it slid smoothly on castors. “A week from tomorrow would be fine.”
“Or on second thoughts—how about tomorrow itself?”
I’d have given almost anything to be able to say yes.
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Next Sunday, then.”
“Right.” I forced myself to play it cool but I suppose I was in the grip of a kind of fever. Practically a madness.
This wasn’t the time for a reversion to solid citizenship.
This was my time for living dangerously.
6
When I got home Junie was in bed. “You two must have had a long walk!”
“No, I cheated. We went to the beach and then I felt like a beer. Spent half an hour in The Lord Nelson.”
“Oh, nice! I’m glad you did that.”
“Yes, it was good.”
Almost perfect, indeed. The only thing that could have made it any better was my not having to watch Moira first—and then Liz—paying for my drinks. In prospect this had sounded quite appealing but in reality it hadn’t seemed right.
No, there was a second thing which I’d initially regretted: Liz reminding Moira that life began at forty and the inference which I had naturally drawn from this. But so what I had managed to say to myself, after a while. Four years was nothing. I wasn’t a child.
Now I ran downstairs to make our bedtime cup of tea; and sang as I waited for the kettle.
“You sounded very jolly! At first I thought it was the radio.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for? It’s good to hear you sing. I suppose you couldn’t, by any chance, fancy a biscuit?”
“I’ll get the tin.” But back in the kitchen I realized that the beer had made me hungry. I cut us both a sandwich.
“Oh, what treats! How wicked!”
This was the kind of midnight feast Matt would have approved of. It was fun eating our sandwich and our slice of cake—I’d decided to go the whole hog—sipping our tea and reading our library books. In my case it was The Shape Of Things To Come. But I should think I read barely a dozen lines and took in the meaning of about three. I wasn’t even aware that Junie had looked up from her own book and was studying me.
“Penny for them!”
“What?”
“You were miles away. I’d love to know what you were thinking.”
I held up my novel. From now on I should have to be more careful. “Merely indulging in a spot of time travel.”
“And plainly enjoying yourself. It was mean of me to pull you back.”
Oh, the irony! In this case so glaringly obvious but, even if it hadn’t been, I had always prided myself on being alive to irony.
“Poor darling,” she said. “So pathetic.”
“What is?”
“You wandering off into your own little world and me pulling you back with such a bump.”
“Simply to remind me of the time, what’s more! Then offering me only a penny in recompense!”
But it was late. I went to clean my teeth. Whilst doing so I gazed critically at my reflection. I should never have eaten that sandwich, nor that piece of cake, nor those earlier crisps and chocolate. (The pints of beer had been permissible.) Starting tomorrow I must cut down on fats and sugar, say no to any snacking. I could probably lose four or five pounds in a week and four or five pounds would be sufficient.
But then I squared my shoulders and held myself erect. Oh, what the hell. Eating was one of the pleasures of life (except at those periods when I grew compulsive) and anyway I looked all right. To become obsessive over a few odd pounds—and in truth I swiftly grew obsessive over anything, health regimes, language-learning, economy drives—this could be seen as wholly life-denying, childish, negative. Entirely out of tune with the way I was feeling at the present. And intended to feel for ever.
Carpe momentum!
For even the cleaning of one’s teeth could offer you an experience to savour! I thought about toothpaste. I had never given a lot of thought to toothpaste. What was it made of, how was it coaxed inside the tube, when had it been invented? I thought about the rest of mankind cleaning its teeth, in times of peace and in times of war, sharing with me this unhymned facet of being a member of the human race. I felt warm towards the human race. How many thousands, I wondered, were spitting out into the basin at this precise moment, declaring themselves to be my brothers, uniting in the great adventure. It occurred to me I might have garnered some rare new insight, even if I couldn’t at once put a name to it.
I felt warm towards the human race; warm towards my wife. When she too had been to the bathroom and switched off her lamp and murmured a drowsy, “Good night, sleep tight,” turning her back towards me, I slid across and put my arm about her and nestled up close. Compliant as ever, she turned again and I levered my other arm beneath her.
“Aren’t you feeling sleepy?” she asked.
“Not a bit.”
“Me, I’m feeling sleepy.”
“You won’t do in a moment. I’m in a mood to make you sing!
Every inch of you.”
“That’s good,” she said. “And I think I know what every inch of me is going to sing.”
“What?”
She gave a yawn. “Let’s Put Out The Lights And Go To Sleep.”
Junie had a sense of humour but she wasn’t generally witty. Her sally was so spontaneous and surprising, possibly as much so to herself as to me, that we got the giggles. We rolled about in utter helplessness until it really did begin to hurt, and even after that our laughter kept resurfacing. I was reminded of the lyric from another song: ‘You’ve got a sense of humour…and humour is death to romance!’ But Mr Berlin had it wrong; or at least in this case he had. Junie was so aroused by our merriment and by the pleasure of her own success, aroused in both its senses, that she sat up and took off her nightdress while I was still wiping away my tears. She slipped down again and I felt her rounded breasts and radiant warmth, both especially glorious on first contact, move in and settle against my chest. I let out a long and well-contented sigh.
“I wish you’d learn to sleep nude.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Not tonight. I think summer’s on the way.”
“Besides. You know I don’t like to be looked at.”
“But that’s silly. You’ve got a nice body.”
“Podgy.”
“No. It feels wonderful.”
“I’m glad you think so. You feel good, as well.”
In essence, we’d had this conversation often.
“In what way do I feel good?” This was, ostensibly, a new inquiry. “Explain why I feel good.”
“You just do.”
“But why? I know why you feel good. You’re all powdery and soft and comfortable.”
“Comfortable!”
“Like a peach, with its warm and fragrant bloom. Ripe deliciousness, juicy perfection. I wanna be a wasp!”
Yet the buzz I made was more like that of a bee; and the lip-smacking little nips were probably like those of no insect or animal on earth.
Junie giggled again and feigned alarm at falling prey to so resolute a sucker. Feigned anxiety, too. “But won’t fruit that’s ripe and juicy be getting near its sell-by date?”
“Nonsense! Never!”
“That’s not the way I look at things when I’m walking round Sainsbury’s.”
“And not just any fruit!” I insisted. “Weren’t you paying attention? I was being specific.”
“Yes. I was a lovely, dusted, hothouse peach! I don’t mind you being specific.”
“Well, then. Specifically…” I began to itemize; the lyric poet might here have slipped away a little but every part I singled out received a fondle and a kiss, and Junie murmured happily with each enjoyable stopover. “Was that specific enough? Well, now it’s your turn,” I said.
“Oh, it’s just the overall effect,” she replied. “I’m like the person who says I know what I like but can’t really give you all the reasons.”
I didn’t need to say that, again, this fell some way short. Miss Martin would not have marked it highly.
“All right, let me think now… Specific reasons?… Because you’re exactly like Samson,” she began, “all hard and lean and strong, with lovely broad shoulders and a lovely broad chest and large biceps…and just the right amount of body hair…and a beautiful thick cock…and, oh Lord, I am sorry!” She had struggled, unsuccessfully, to suppress another yawn.
At one time I’d have thought that ‘cock’ fell into the same category as ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’ but I myself, in the context of bed, talked about ‘tits’ and ‘arse’ and ‘cunt’, and in this regard Junie had insensibly followed my lead—as she had, indeed, in most others—so that these days there was no longer the least surprise on my part…nor, naturally, the slightest objection. But, even so, her yawn had warned me that I ought to cut back on the talk and proceed with the action. “Any particular requests?” I asked.
“No. You choose. Anything.”
“Like your back massaged?”
“Lovely. But you’re doing all the work.”
As usual! The thought was involuntary. I felt ashamed.
“I don’t mind that. Your turn the next time.”
“I can’t think where you get the energy.”
New World in the Morning Page 3