Literary Remains

by R. B. Russell

  ‘Even if several people are made unhappy as a consequence?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, lifting his hands in tired exasperation. ‘If you have children, and we all do, then those feeling should definitely be resisted.’

  There was another silence, then Robert then simply said ‘James Thurber’. When questioned, he explained that Thurber’s first book was called Is Sex Necessary? A further silence followed and then Georgina asked Wendy how her two children were, and the discussion wandered aimlessly over the academic achievements of their various offspring. When Brendan filled in the last answer of his crossword he smiled at them with quiet triumph, drained his glass, stood up and said goodnight as well. He and Donna were always the first to retire; she always said that the change of air and the different surroundings made her and Brendan especially tired.

  All six of them, the three couples, met up for a week each year in a holiday cottage that Donna had booked, and they had been doing so for nearly a decade. The routine had been established; in February she would go through the brochures, make some enquiries and phone to make sure they were all happy with her proposed date and location. In their separate homes one hundred miles apart Terrance and Georgina, and Robert and Wendy would debate whether they really wanted to go on a shared holiday with the same people again, but would always somehow agree that they would.

  ‘I don’t think Brendan’s followed her upstairs with too much optimism,’ Terrance noted. ‘Is she really as disinterested in sex as she says?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Wendy answered. ‘When she was at school she wasn’t really concerned about boys. When Brendan came along I think he offered her stability and reliability. He’d never cheat on her, no matter how frustrated he became.’

  ‘I feel like they’re another generation older than us,’ Georgina said.

  ‘That’s only because they’re like your parents,’ Terrance replied. ‘You can’t ever imagine them having sex.’

  ‘Well, like my mother and father, they have done so once, obviously,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, where did their daughter, Selina, come from?’

  ‘Well, no matter what we think about their relationship,’ Wendy said. ‘They would do anything for Selina.’

  ‘I’ll be brutally honest,’ announced Terrance. ‘We come away to Donna’s holiday cottage for a week each year so as to get away from our kids…’

  ‘Terrance!’ Georgina punched him.

  ‘… And to see you two,’ he added. ‘We haven’t really got anything in common with Donna and Brendan, other than the fact that I went to school with him.’

  ‘Well,’ Robert admitted. ‘I don’t know about Wendy, because Donna was her school-friend, but I don’t feel we’ve anything in common with them either. We like meeting up with you two. And you have to admit that Donna does choose some splendid holiday cottages. And yes, it’s nice not to worry about the children.’

  ‘Not that we need to worry about them anyway,’ Wendy said. ‘They’re fourteen and fifteen now, and quite happy to stay with their grandparents.’

  ‘The same with ours,’ Georgina smiled conspiratorially. ‘Jennifer and Adrian are thirteen and sixteen. At Terrance’s parents they’ll be staying up late, eating unhealthy food…’

  And so the conversation continued. On the first night of their holidays they invariably caught up with the news, knowing that much of it would have to be repeated the following day for the benefit of Donna and Brendan. After another glass of wine Terrance admitted that he and Georgina had considered the possibility of going on holiday with just Robert and Wendy, but decided they couldn’t; Donna in particular would be devastated if she found out.

  ‘And besides,’ said Robert, ‘she does take on all the organising. All we have to do is keep the date free in our calendar and she tells us where and when we’re all meeting up. And she does find some great holiday cottages, and she brings everything along for the first evening meal.’

  ‘They always get the benefit of the master bedroom, though,’ said Terrance. ‘Which, as we all know, is wasted on them. Our room’s got two single beds.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a double,’ Wendy pointed out. ‘But we don’t have the en suite bathroom that you’ve got. We have to go down to the end of the hall.’

  When they finally broke up and went to bed that evening Wendy took her turn in the bathroom first while Robert waited in their bedroom and read. After she had returned he went and washed and cleaned his teeth, and coming back met Georgina in the hallway, wearing a voluminous cotton nightie. She said she was going down to the kitchen for a glass of water and he said that he would follow her example; after all the wine they had drunk he agreed that it was a good idea.

  ‘I’m taking this up with me,’ she said after she had drunk a glass and refilled it from the tap in the kitchen.

  ‘Well, goodnight,’ he replied. Standing alongside her at the sink he kissed her on the cheek, but did not then move his head away. They both held the position; they had an understanding that neither of them would actually take their feelings for one another any further than this but, with his lips to her cheek he could not pull away. He breathed in a perfume that was a mixture of her own scent, moisturiser and cleanser. She felt his stubble against her skin and his body touching hers, and she shivered. He smelt of soap.

  Robert put his hand against her waist and felt her warmth through the material of her nightdress and she did not pull away. She trusted him to take it no further than this, but she let out an involuntary groan.

  ‘Oh Georgina,’ he said quietly and she drew slightly away, but with her free hand she held his hand to her waist.

  ‘Have I got to sleep tonight with you just a few feet away again? With a wall between us?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll be sleeping right against the wall,’ he said quietly.

  ‘My bed’s just the other side. We’ll be so close to each other…’ She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she said and kissed him on the lips. There was nothing wrong with the kiss, nothing that a husband or wife observing them could have objected to, but a second later she leant forward once more and now kissed him again, deeply, lovingly. It was the first time in ten years of knowing him that she had allowed herself to do this. They kissed slowly and with tenderness, and then she pulled away and left him in the dark kitchen.

  That night, as he lay in bed, Robert could not sleep for the thought of Georgina in the room next to him, barely inches away through the wall. He considered how laughable it might appear to anybody else that in this modern day two people could be so in love and yet do nothing about it. Once, in the early days, when they had found themselves alone in the garden of some holiday cottage or other with their spouses elsewhere, she had said that their love was probably just a spiritual one. He had looked at her over the top of his sunglasses and told her that she could talk for herself; it was taking a great effort for him not to kiss her right then and there. And she had been forced to agree that she felt the same.

  Robert could hear his Wendy breathing gently beside him and knew in his heart that he did not love his wife any less than when he had married her fifteen years previously. The last person he would ever want to hurt was her. And as for the children… He and Georgina had always asked what it would do to their children if they acted on their feelings for each other? But were these just excuses? Were they simply playing some game, creating a fantasy, building their love for each other up into something which they never expected to be consummated? He didn’t think so, but after all these years of not acting on their feelings…

  An hour ticked by, and then another, and he got carefully out of bed and stood up, deciding to go downstairs and read a book or watch a little television in an effort to make himself properly tired. As he stood he felt a little disorientated, and was then annoyed with himself that perhaps he had managed to fall asleep after all, for he couldn’t quite remember where the bedroom door was. He felt about in the darkness and was surprised to find it t
o his left. He opened it quietly and went through, expecting the empty hall and was surprised to make out the form of Georgina standing before him in her white nightdress.

  ‘I heard you get out of bed,’ she whispered, and reached out for him.

  He came close and held her, asking quietly, ‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’

  ‘After all of this time? I am sure, yes, but I also know we shouldn’t be.’ They held each other.

  ‘You’re as hopeless as me,’ he said into her ear, and then pulled away slightly, feeling that something was wrong. His eyes had become accustomed to the light and he now realised that they were not standing in the long hallway as he had expected. He looked around. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Outside our bedroom doors, silly.’

  ‘No we’re not.’

  He let her go as she too looked around.

  ‘There’s a light switch here,’ he said, his hand to the wall.

  ‘Don’t turn it on,’ she said. And then, even more quietly, ‘What if we’ve wandered into Brendan and Donna’s bedroom!’

  He stifled a nervous laugh: ‘No, I came straight from my room. I’m not in yours am I?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said slowly, and turning around she bumped into something. She felt down and discovered it to be a small table with a lamp.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll turn this light on?’ she asked, finding the switch under her fingers.

  ‘Okay,’ he agreed.

  They were not in the hallway. In fact, they were not anywhere they had seen before. The room was long and thin and furnished simply with two nice old wooden chairs either side of an antique chest that sat before a shuttered window.

  ‘I came through that door,’ Robert pointed behind him.

  ‘And I’m sure I came in this one,’ she frowned at the second door. There was a third door opposite them.

  ‘How did we miss a whole room before?’

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense…’

  He turned back to her.

  ‘Let’s not question it?’

  She smiled and moved close to him again.

  ‘I don’t know how much longer I can go on loving you, and not having you.’

  He held her one again and then, looking down into her face he smiled and they kissed. When she pulled away it was to turn off the light.

  ‘In case somebody comes in,’ she said.

  ‘But it’ll look even more suspicious if we’re found together in the dark! We’ll hear anybody walking around at this time of night.’

  But she did not turn the light back on. There was a soft carpet on the floor and in absolute silence they lay down together and kissed and talked quietly.

  ‘Do you remember what Wendy said earlier,’ asked Georgina. ‘You know, about how some people couldn’t help the attraction they felt for another person.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think she was referring to us.’

  ‘I just wondered if she’d guessed? She said it would be more trouble to try and repress feelings than act on them…’

  They went no further than kissing, though their hands on one another excited them both to a degree that they found almost impossible to resist. Many years of restraint made them appreciate the closeness that they had managed to achieve, but they held their desire in check. They lay together, exploring each other, until the carpet no longer seemed as soft as before, and the cold started to creep over them. They parted reluctantly with no idea of how much time had passed. Each went back through their own door into their own bedrooms, to their own partners.

  The following morning dawned dull and raining. Their cottage was in a clearing some distance from the road that cut through the Forest of Dean from Cinderford to Coleford and the trees seemed to press in and cast a sodden pall over the modern brick house. Donna normally found them period cottages to stay in, and the previous year they had rented an eccentrically furnished half-timbered house in Hereford with low ceilings and sloping floors. This house, though, was rather characterless, although furnished tastefully and offering three double bedrooms at a very reasonable rent considering that it was the high-season. It was hard to fault it for location, even if the trees seemed to cut out the light.

  Inside the cottage, however, the mood that morning was bright. Georgina had already cleaned out the fire from the previous night, laid and lit a new one, and was teasing Donna about the summer clothes she had brought with her when the weather was so unseasonable. In the kitchen Robert was preparing an ambitious cooked breakfast on an Aga that did not seem to be able to reach a temperature he would have liked. He was, nonetheless, very cheerful, and he and Georgina lifted the spirits of the others. Georgina wandered in and out of the kitchen teasing him about his cooking, which he took good-naturedly. Their happy industry infected the others who were trying to put up a rickety table tennis table in the large dining room. They had planned to walk through the woods to a local hotel for lunch and were debating whether or not breakfast would be ready before it was time to set off.

  Like a carefully scripted farce it seemed impossible for Robert or Georgina to find themselves alone in any part of the house so as to be able to talk about the previous night. Even after they had eaten breakfast and the washing up had been done, while they were all preparing to leave to walk to the hotel, they were not able to talk. They had exchanged private glances on many occasions, and had been seen doing so by a bemused Donna at least twice. Her suspicions made them extra vigilant and during the walk to the hotel they made sure that they were not obviously seen together. At the bar they were unable to say anything, and although they ended up sitting next to each other for lunch they could discuss nothing of importance.

  The six of them walked back to their holiday cottage in a leisurely fashion, in couples, enjoying the sunshine which had deigned to come through the clouds at last and offered some warmth for the first time. Georgina said that she would make the afternoon tea while the others started to play table tennis, and she contrived to find Robert alone outside when he went out to see if there were any spare bats in the shed at the end of the garden.

  They met in the middle of the lawn as he returned. In full view of the dining room window, but knowing that they couldn’t be heard, Georgina asked;

  ‘Did I have a very wonderful dream last night?’

  She had her back to the house and he tried not to grin too widely.

  ‘If it was the same one that I had,’ he replied, noting that Brendan was at the window and looking towards them, ‘then it certainly was wonderful. But there is one unanswered question.’

  ‘I know. Where the hell were we?’

  ‘I have no idea. There isn’t another room upstairs. It simply doesn’t exist.’

  ‘I even tapped on the walls this morning, looking for secret passages!’

  ‘So did I. But the rooms fit neatly into the outside shell of the house without any gaps. We must have gone downstairs.’

  She laughed. ‘You might have done, but I stayed upstairs, in a room adjoining my bedroom.’

  ‘And did you find a second door in the bedroom when you looked for it this morning?’

  ‘No, and nor did you, because I checked your room just as thoroughly as I checked mine.’

  ‘But we were together last night, weren’t we?’

  ‘We were, and we shouldn’t have been, but quite where we were is beyond me.’

  ‘Can I suggest that we try and find that room again tonight?’

  Robert had seen Brendan opening the window and at that moment he called out to Georgina that the kettle had boiled.

  ‘Then put the water in the pot!’ she called back over her shoulder and sighed. ‘If I can find it again I’ll be there,’ she agreed. ‘Where ever there may be.’

  After several games of table tennis followed by a large meal they all watched a film together on the television and, as usual, Donna was the first to go up to bed. Brendan dutifully followed her a quarter of an hour later, and the remaining four quietly indulged in th
e usual character assassination of their friends. Terrance insisted that he was going to stay up and watch a concert on the television while the others decided to go to bed, and Robert and Georgina did not look at each other to express their frustration at this development. Upstairs Georgina said goodnight to Robert and Wendy on the landing and going into her room she closed the door behind her.

  Robert lay awake for a while, listening to the distant, muffled sound of the television downstairs, waiting to hear Terrance come up to bed. His lack of sleep the previous night, however, the table tennis tournament of the afternoon and the large meal all conspired to make him fall asleep. He did not remember dreaming, but awoke at the sound of a door gently opening. He knew immediately who it was, although she said nothing, and satisfied that his wife was still breathing slowly and gently and must be asleep, he slipped out of bed.

  He closed the door after him as quietly as he could and immediately yielded to Georgina’s insistent kisses.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked after her initial frustration had been assuaged. ‘I’ve been waiting here for ages, getting cold, wondering if you were coming at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I must have nodded off.’

  ‘Well, I had to wait for Terrance to come to bed and it was only after he was finally snoring that I came through here.’

  ‘And where is here?’

  ‘I don’t know. While I was waiting I looked through the other door.’

  ‘Where does it go? Into Donna and Brendan’s room?’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. Although it was very dark and he could only just make out her shape in front of him he knew she was smiling. ‘Follow me,’ she said, taking his hand.

  They crossed the length of the room and she opened the third door. They entered a large room which was lit by two small lamps, one on either side of a large bed.

  ‘Where’s this?’ he asked, incredulous.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But what rooms are below us? I can’t work it out in relation to the rest of the house.’