“Don’t care.” I could afford to be extravagant. I rested my chin on her head. My hands moved upwards to her breasts.
“And besides. Right now there aren’t even that many stars.”
I said: “Then we’ll just have to provide a few of our own. In any case, Miss Scrumpenhouser, this is surely not a time to be pedantic.”
“You’re right. But remember the view of them we had last Saturday? I think you rarely see anything like that in London…” But she was talking only out of nervousness—which made me feel yet more loving—and I realized that what would soon be happening between us was going to match the splendour seen in any sky; excel the sunset floating on a golden sea, the moonglow falling through the Apennines, the rainbow basketing some lovely bay. In short, it was going to be beyond description. Beyond compare. Beyond anything. She turned in my arms and pressed her body against mine and lifted her face up for a lingering kiss.
And…oh, my God.
I came.
The man who could ram his wife more than two thousand times.
A marathon entrant who couldn’t even make it to the starting post.
It could have been a catastrophe. I thought at first it was. But I was seeing it through my own eyes, not through hers. Moira was marvellous. “It’s no big deal, my love. It only means you haven’t been in practice. That’s something we can easily put to rights.”
We stood together in the bath and used the shower. I’d never embraced any woman’s naked body except for Junie’s—and even from seventeen years ago, when we’d been newlyweds, I could remember nothing like this. Nothing remotely like this. While I only kissed and soaped her, Moira had two orgasms. The readiness of her responses was intoxicating. By the time we’d turned off the good clean water—warm and soft and full of absolution—and gently dried each other down, my penis was again, thank God, tumescent.
When we presently got to bed (crisp white linen and a dark red duvet which had soon slipped to the floor) she asked if there were anything I fancied. I said I’d love to have her ride me; to use me as her strong-winged horse. “All the way to Banbury Cross?” she queried, and I replied, “Great Scott, no, who wants to go to Banbury Cross? I mean halfway round the world and back: over valleys and forests and above the Barrier Reef…”
“Good heavens! A poetical Pegasus!”
“And one who’s stamping at his stable door. All ready to bear you off to Samarkand or far Cathay; to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; or along the route that Sinbad took.”
“And to think I was about to settle for a sleepy little market town near Oxford—with only a one-way ticket at that!”
Then she descended lightly onto my outstretched legs and bore down to the roots of my erection. I cupped my hands around her breasts and she glistened as she rose and fell, gasping with every downward lunge and looking more rapt and disbelieving by the instant. We came together, after possibly less than three minutes, but it felt like the first orgasm in the whole of recorded history—I mean, the one which finally broke the pleasure barrier. At last she opened her eyes and smiled at me, loving and unguarded, then sank with her breasts against my chest and I held her tightly while we lay in silence and I still felt large within her.
It was I who ended the silence. “Well, we embarked upon a voyage to Australia but hardly left the docks at Tilbury.” Then—scared that she might have misconstrued my meaning—“Yet I never realized Tilbury had so very much to offer! Like, let me see now, the pyramids and the Pantheon and Durham Cathedral and…and we really oughtn’t to leave out a palace or two and the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“No,” she said, “I could willingly spend the rest of my life in Tilbury.” She lifted her head a short way and planted lazy kisses on the tip of my chin and at the base of my throat, teeth gently pulling at the clusters of coiled tendrils she discovered there. Then breaking my embrace she raised herself on both arms and with her red-and-gold hair draping her as if she were a mermaid from some movie, gazed down and said: “And shall I tell you how it felt? Like a thousand shooting stars splattering against a backcloth of black velvet. That’s how it felt.” And if her choice of simile was maybe unwittingly influenced by my prophecy in front of the window—well, so what? It was a compliment to be treasured and kept fresh forever. Not even a compliment; better than that. A remark.
Yet next time, I joyously reflected, we should get a long way past Tilbury. She’d have a thousand shooting stars exploding inside her at every second; but still we’d sail on, fly on—roll and pitch and swoop and soar. Tilbury was great but only a beginning. I dreamt of ecstasy drawn out an hour, mind-blowing, toe-curling—ecstasy verging on torment.
An hour? Well, an hour wasn’t perhaps totally guaranteed, not yet…“But anyway,” I said, “I think we’re getting there.”
“Sammy, you ask too much of yourself. Or you ask too much of life. I happen to think we well and truly arrived.”
Well and truly. The second time I’d come across that phrase this evening.
She smiled.
“Or is it God that you expect too much of?”
We arrived again—this time far across the North Sea, even a good way into Eastern Europe—before we finally turned out the lamp and fell into exhausted sleep.
And actually I’d been chanting silently throughout: as good a way as any of trying to distract myself. Okay then…okay then …get in on this act if you’d like to, get in on this act if you’d like to! Get in on this act, get in on this act! Get in on this act if you’d like to!
What’s more, it appeared to work—it really did. For, as I say, he took us into Yugoslavia. The former Yugoslavia. And I felt grateful.
But mine was the power. Definitely. And mine was the glory.
I didn’t care so much about the kingdom. The kingdom seemed a bit abstract. I told him he could keep the kingdom.
18
I awoke to find the sun streaming in and to be given a tray containing coffee and fruit juice, boiled eggs, hot rolls, butter and honey. Moira herself looked remarkably fresh in an emerald green housecoat. She sat on the edge of the bed.
“But I can’t possibly eat all this.”
“You’ve got to,” she said. “Got to maintain your strength.”
“And what about you?”
“But I’ve already had mine…although perhaps I’ll drink a little more coffee. I’ve been up since ten; now it’s nearly twelve. Happy anniversary!” She stroked the hair on my arm, brushing it towards my wrist.
The instant effect of this was to strengthen the erection with which I’d woken.
“I love you, don’t you know?”
I said it huskily.
“Thank you, Sammy. Eat your breakfast.”
“But that’s the real truth.” It was on the tip of my tongue to start the day with my confession; this struck me as completely the right moment and gut instinct drove me on, informed me that I should never feel more calm. “Moira, there’s something I must tell you.”
“Yes, darling?”
But I hadn’t worked it out and knew that at all costs I had to avoid hurting anyone. I couldn’t bear the thought of that gentle smile being caused to disappear.
“I thought we’d be having croissants,” I said. “That’s what I must tell you.”
“What a fibber you are! But never mind. We’ll be having the croissants tomorrow.”
“Also, I’d like to make love to you before I eat my breakfast.”
“Well, you can’t,” she said. “Your eggs will spoil and your rolls and coffee will get cold. Besides, I might have other plans.”
“Like what?”
“Like letting you make love to me after you’ve eaten your breakfast.”
“So…? Couldn’t we find some way of reconciling those options?”
“And you hadn’t forgotten, either, my mentioning a few further ideas for your delectation?”
“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” I answered, sadly. I’d become aware it was deflation, rather than delectat
ion, currently taking place beneath the duvet. “But I might’ve hoped you had.”
“Well, anyway,” she consoled me, “maybe it’s a bit late for catching a boat down to Greenwich. Or for lunching at the Zoo. Or for driving out to Richmond.” However, she ignored all my punctuating nods of vigorous agreement. “But I’d also wondered if you’d like to wander around Portobello or the National Gallery or Harrods. Whether you’d like to row on the Serpentine or gaze at the crown jewels. Visit some bookshops. Be taken on a guided tour of some of the lesser-known landmarks.” She sipped reproachfully at her coffee. (A car backfired. “See,” I exclaimed, “there go the cannon!”) “I really can’t believe that in place of so many varied and interesting alternatives you only want to get laid.”
“How can I convince you?”
But—for the present giving up any attempt to do this—I then ran to have a pee. I washed my hands, returned to bed and decapitated the first of my two eggs.
“What I can’t believe is that you never…no, not once… mentioned the British Museum!” It was my turn to sound reproachful.
“Really? Would you like to go to the British Museum?”
“Not in the slightest. But I still can’t believe you didn’t offer me the choice.” I sprinkled a modicum of salt. “And, in any case, why does it all need to be shoehorned into one weekend? You’re so neurotic, Moira. What have you got against weekdays?”
Then I told her of my scheme to look for work in London.
But I soon wished I hadn’t. It led to unforeseen questioning. (Which shouldn’t have been unforeseen: so cotton-picking obvious.) What was going to happen to my grandmother? Was it kind—or even safe—to leave her alone in a large house for five whole days a week? And what would happen to the shop? Did I mean to sell up?
“I thought it might actually please you, the notion of our being able to spend more time together.”
I didn’t say: of my being able to move in here, cramped though it is, on a semi-permanent basis. This one did not strike me—either me or my gut instinct—as being completely the right moment.
“Of course it would please me. But mightn’t it be better just to leave it for the time being? We don’t really know one another yet, do we?” She said: “And Sammy. Don’t you dare turn all pathetic on me!”
There was justice in this: I was aware that I’d probably been sounding aggrieved.
“Wot! Me? Pathetic?”
I drained my second cup of coffee. “Anyway. My assistant would have taken care of the shop. And as for Gran…well, naturally I wouldn’t have left her unattended. Naturally I’d have looked for someone who…”
“It would have needed to be someone exceptionally congenial.”
It wasn’t worth discussing. (Another reason why I ought to have spoken earlier. Practically my every sentence was adding to the pile of debris that would later need to be removed. Practically my every sentence, in retrospect, might smack of a desire to deceive, a desire which simply wasn’t there. I was a dolt but never mind. I wouldn’t let it spoil our day.)
In any case that second cup of coffee had produced some welcome intimations.
I again handed Moira the tray. “Call of nature,” I said. “That was a smashing breakfast.”
“I’ll go to do the washing up.”
“Quite right. A woman’s role.”
“Do you think so? Well, I’d advise you to watch it, young man, if you have any idea what’s good for you!”
In the bathroom I began to sing. Despite that brief moment of disharmony I thought even the few things which hadn’t gone right yesterday were now busily correcting themselves. On Thursday night I’d slept badly but last night I’d slept so well I couldn’t remember either dreaming or even turning over. Yesterday I’d been constipated; today’s evacuation left me purified and clean. All was absolutely for the best, in the best of all possible worlds. And the best of all possible worlds was in Solent Road, West Hampstead.
I brushed and flossed my teeth and spent hardly five minutes under the shower. I took longer than that over shaving and splashing myself in cologne.
Moira was still in the kitchen, watering some plants on the sill. There were nets at the window. I switched off the jabber on Radio 4; got rid of the milk bottle; then drew her in close. After ten seconds or so I started to unbutton her housecoat.
“Mmm. You smell nice,” she said.
“It’s called My Scintillating Future.”
“As distinct from Your Guilt-Ridden Past?”
I laughed. I pressed her buttocks to me and she leant back from the waist and ran her hands across my chest. “Here! What was that song I heard you singing a short time ago?” She tweaked at one of my nipples.
“Which song?”
“‘If I am fancy-free and love to wander…’”
“Was I really singing that?”
“You were. I turned on the radio to drown you out.”
“No, I think you must’ve misheard. I was singing, ‘If I had a talking picture of you…’ ‘If’ was right. Even ‘If I’. It was a fairly understandable mistake. Please don’t blame yourself.”
Remorsefully, she licked and soothed the red mark she had made—and which I had taken like a man, without wincing.
But not all that remorsefully. “Nobody could ever accuse you of being stuck in the sixties, could they? Or do I mean the fifties?”
“Or the twenties?” I supplied, accommodatingly.
“Yes. What on earth can one do? I suppose it must be Granny’s influence. Or Kipling’s.”
“I don’t know. Granny never instructed me to do this.”
For, as soon as I’d spoken, I lifted her off the floor. She threw her arms about my neck and twined her legs around my bottom. She kissed me long and hard—inhaling sharply upon penetration. Between us we moved her back and forth, gently at first, then with mounting acceleration. It was murder on the biceps but nowhere else was the sensation remotely one of pain.
I needed another shower.
Moira took hers separately. “I warn you: we shan’t be in any fit state to go to the theatre!”
“You wanna bet? That’s another five or six hours away.”
We compromised. We made love only once more before then, and that was after five o’clock, before we started getting ready. And even then it was nothing too adventurous or demanding: just the plain old missionary. To a count of under four hundred. Not good. Not bad. Incredible.
We would save the goldfingering till later.
Meanwhile we followed one of Moira’s earlier suggestions. “I get the feeling that I ought to humour you,” I said. So we went rowing on the lake: not the Serpentine: the one in Regent’s Park. This was nearer and in addition there was somewhere nice, in Queen Mary’s Garden, to have tea. (Obviously, we hadn’t wanted any lunch.) The weather wasn’t perfect for boating—perfect boating weather meant shirtless and a suntan rather than T-shirt and a jumper—and in some ways I’d have preferred to hire a skiff and feel that I was really showing off my paces, working hard and skimming across the surface like a skier or a bird; but all the same it was pleasant just to idle round the contours of the lake and around a central, wooded island; even—especially at those times when a watery sun tried to reproduce the brilliance I had awoken to—resting on my oars and allowing us to drift.
I said, “I enjoy rowing. I enjoy any form of physical exercise—the harder the better, really—anything that makes you feel your muscles are working. At Oxford or at Cambridge I’d have been a rowing blue.”
“Do they have rowing blues at London?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“I was only thinking,” she replied, “that if you’re serious about coming to live up here why not apply to London University?” I had told her last night over dinner that I’d never been to university and how much I regretted it. “I’m sure you’d be able to get a loan and that somehow or other we could manage—one could manage—to pay it back.”
Before she’d changed it,
she had definitely said ‘we’.
I stopped rowing. I wouldn’t comment on that—I couldn’t, of course—but God! The glory of the woman!
“That’s an inspirational and magnificent idea,” I answered instead.
“Better than taking on some mediocre job…because these days, without a degree, you’re not going to find anything else. And it would certainly be a good way of fulfilling yourself.”
“You know,” I said, “it’s extraordinary how in just one week my world has opened up. Suddenly there seem limitless ways of fulfilling myself.”
“I’m glad.” She was leaning over and trailing her hand in the water. “In fact,” she said, “I feel it could truly be the making of you. I hope that doesn’t sound patronizing.”
I paused. “There’s something very solid about that phrase: ‘The Making of Sam Groves.’ It has a ring to it. And even if it were patronizing (which it most emphatically is—how could you doubt it for one single instant?) let me tell you this. I know of no one I’d prefer to patronize me.”
It was time to return to the boathouse; we’d had more than our full hour. As I prepared to hand Moira onto the landing stage, a father and his three children were waiting to take our places. They had with them a large shaggy-haired white dog which jumped into the boat even before the two of us had properly left it and made everybody laugh. “Jimmy can sometimes be a little overeager!” the man apologized.
“Jimmy reminded me of Susie,” Moira said, as we walked away. “How is she—your little black-eyed Susan?”
As yet Moira knew nothing of the accident. I now told her what had happened; but may have kept talking of Susie as though she were my own dog, not that of our neighbours. “I still can’t really forgive myself.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly your fault!” She’d been holding my arm and now hugged it to her sympathetically.
“Wasn’t it? I should’ve had her on the lead. Some people are such garbage!” Indeed, even now I couldn’t credit there were those who were capable of running down a dog—rat, pigeon, hedgehog, anything—and not stopping to ascertain the state the animal was in: if only with a view to killing it if necessary. “Scum!” I added. “Bastards!”
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