by Annie Murray
He had so few clothes on that within seconds of her touching him, her hand sliding down his chest, lowering to his belly, his own arousal had become mortifyingly obvious. He made a sound of protest.
‘Paul will not be home for hours,’ she soothed him. ‘Come . . .’ She drew him into her arms with an almost motherly gesture, pressing him close to her. Her caresses progressed downwards until he was hopelessly lost to her. Aged twenty, he had never made love to a woman. She overwhelmed him in seconds.
‘Let me undress you, my dear.’
She was bending, looking up at him with those dark eyes, the wheaten hair loose over her shoulders and the robe now falling open. He felt more and more like a child being put forcibly to bed as she peeled off his underpants, his vest, and taking his hand, led him to the waiting sheets.
For a few moments they sat side by side, she still half covered and he defencelessly on view.
‘She even held my hand; she sounded sorry, almost. She said, “My husband is very preoccupied with business. We have no children – it is my lack, my curse. It is a great grief to my husband – it makes me less attractive to him.” I thought she was going to cry. She seemed vulnerable, lonely. She said, “Sometimes every woman wants a little more. A little company. Let me lie with you.’
Confessing – it felt like a confession – the bare bones of it now, to Elizabeth, the memories flooded him: Inés Lester’s face below his as he lay over her, his own helpless impulses steered by her and she, her legs around him, holding him deep inside her.
‘I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d tried,’ he told Elizabeth. This felt like the worst confession. ‘I feel – have always felt – such a fool. When she’d gone, I was covered in her, in us – the sticky mess of it. All I wanted to do was wash. I felt dirty, to the core. Twenty years old, a beautiful woman – not my type, but lovely in her way – comes and gives you the thing you’ve spent all this time wondering about. Making a man of you. Of course, it had given me pleasure – but it was all wrong. Something about that place, about her . . . All I could feel was ashamed, as if I’d been . . .’ He turned his head away. ‘Disgraced.’
The sense of passivity, the paralysis he had felt, washed over him now. How his dark jacket had shifted on the door as she closed it behind her.
‘I feel so ridiculous.’ He was close to weeping, but he contained himself. Elizabeth turned to look at him. She lay down gently beside him. He felt himself laid bare in front of her, all the corners of him that had lain in dark reserve.
She did not touch him, but looked intently at him, her eyes full of understanding.
‘Strictly speaking, she assaulted you. It’s not only women who can be assaulted. She took what she wanted with no thought of you. She was like a rapist.’
He looked at her, astonished. ‘I’ve never thought of it like that.’ It went through him, an electric pulse of rage. He shot up in bed. ‘And the worst of it was, it was all a scheme. They planned it. Like a bloody baby farm!’
‘They were horse breeders,’ Elizabeth pointed out. He was grateful for her professionalism. She was not cold or unconcerned, but calm and objective. ‘They were materialists. And in her case desperate as well, I should imagine. Paula did say her mother was afraid her father would leave her. But yes, they just took what they wanted.’
‘They used me – like a stud horse!’ He was so incensed, he got up and paced back and forth across the bedroom. ‘How can anyone behave like that – it’s . . . it’s . . .’
‘Why don’t you come back and lie down?’ Elizabeth leaned up on one elbow. He thought he detected a repressed amusement in her eyes and only then it occurred to him that enraged pacing when you’re stark naked lacks a certain gravitas. He climbed obediently back into bed.
‘You think they planned it together?’ she asked.
‘From what the girl says, yes,’ George said. ‘She certainly played her part. He brought the man home, she did the business. But they somehow pretended the children were his blood children. No wonder there was a strange feel to the place.’
‘Look, my darling . . .’ Elizabeth’s arms took him in and he lay, held as if he would never fall again. ‘They sound like a completely ghastly pair. Hideous. Him especially. And they took advantage of you.’
He watched her face, her lovely, miraculous face, needing her comfort, her insight.
‘It’s not this young woman Paula’s fault though, is it?’ she said gently. ‘Nor her sisters’.’
His former impression of Paula’s sweetness had been replaced by mistrust after reviving his memories of the Lesters. ‘But what does she want? She might be just like him.’
Elizabeth looked at him with a certain severity. ‘George, if you remember, it was you that wrote to her in the first place. Look, she’s a – let’s see – thirty-five-year-old woman. She says she has two children and not long ago she discovered that the already difficult man she thought was her father had been lying to her all her life. It seems to me she might want someone who is truthful, kind? A father she can respect – love, even? Children aren’t their parents, you know. Heaven knows – if I thought I was just a reproduction of my mother . . . She sounds a nice young woman. Nicer than her parents. George, my lovely, you now apparently have a daughter and two grandchildren who are showing signs of wanting to get to know you. If the worst comes to the worst, they are in fact several thousand miles away. But it’s not all bad, is it?’
Even with the seismic disturbances currently going on in his head, even though he was a long way from taking all this in, George had a glimmering sense that she was right. He looked back into her smiling grey eyes.
‘No, I suppose—’
‘You can expect good things, you know,’ she interrupted.
He felt a warmth spreading through him. He pulled her close, so close. ‘Can I?’
‘You can,’ she said.
November
Eighteen
1.
‘I can’t come over tonight.’ Elizabeth’s voice had come along the line last night, filling him with a throb of longing. ‘I’ve got a very poorly old chap here I’ve got to get into hospital. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right, darling?’
He really was going to have to get used to this, he lectured himself as he drove to Wallingford the next morning, trying to free himself of the resentment that intermittently stole through him in these situations.
He parked the car in the field next to the bridge and waited for Monty to emerge from the back with his usual combination of scramble and flop. Monty stumbled off across the grass for a lengthy pee against one of the bridge arches, nose raised simultaneously to sniff the air, which was crisply cold and edged with the smoke of leaf fires.
‘Come on, you old fart. I’ve got a little treat for you today, as well.’ In his pocket was a little box of liquorice allsorts. After the glut Monty had experienced with Sylvia, he had been keeping the dog off sweet things for a bit. But what was the harm in him having one or two now and then?
He clipped the lead on and led him up the steps and over Wallingford Bridge, his other arm laden with rug and picnic basket, round to where Barchetta was moored. He had chanced not taking her out of the water yet, though it was so late in the year, for days like this – for the odd trip on the river before the winter wet and river fogs closed in.
Folding the rug he laid it on the steps and sat waiting for Elizabeth, Monty beside him. He marvelled at the dog’s capacity to wait for indefinite periods when he had no idea what he was waiting for, something intolerable to the human mind.
It was one of the most beautiful days George could ever remember: the nose-nipping cold and low-angled sun poured onto the yellow and rust of remaining leaves. The water was still as glass, giving back the inverted double of all the beauty along the river: the bridge arches and gnarled trunks of willows, the flat, cloudless sky. He sat, thinking about Elizabeth.
Since she’d telephoned last night, and on other occasions, he had had to cope with himself,
with her having a demanding job and a life of her own, with the fact that he could not expect her just to give up everything for him, as if he was the only one who needed anything.
‘I’m yours, darling,’ she kept telling him. ‘I want you and no one else. I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel the way you do, George – truly. We must be together as often as we possibly can. But it’s not as if we’re going to have a family’ – though I do have a family, apparently, he wanted to say, still trying to get used to the idea – ‘and I can’t just stop doing everything I do – everything I am – to be a conventional wife in the way you’re used to. For one thing, if I did, I’d bore you senseless – and I’d certainly bore myself.’
It was true. It was not what he was used to. It took adaptation that he had not expected. At moments he felt sore and rather sorry for himself. But it was one of the roads he was learning to walk in this new country of love.
Everyone had been learning to adapt over these months. Vera had, to his surprise, been Elizabeth’s staunchest advocate from the beginning.
‘Oh, I think she’s marvellous,’ she kept saying. He remembered clearly a conversation in the kitchen, not long ago, when Elizabeth’s visits had become established enough for everyone to regard their relationship as something enduring. Vera was sorting out cleaning things in preparation for the arrival of Sharon. ‘A lady doctor! So clever. Marvellous. And Alan thinks so too.’
‘Does he?’ This seemed, to George, rather to contradict the impression that Alan had always given of disapproving of women who exhibited any sign of brain activity.
‘Oh yes,’ Vera said. Her hand reached into her basket and emerged with a packet of Brillo pads, which she placed on the table like a chess piece. ‘A doctor. My goodness. But then I suppose . . .’ She gave George a coy look, going pink. ‘If you both – I mean, it’s obvious you’re mad about each other, Mr B! If you were to – I mean when you get married I suppose she’ll have more free time then.’
In those seconds George was surprised not just to hear, but to experience what Elizabeth meant. There it was again, the immediate assumption that she, everything she stood for or had achieved would be at his disposal – would in fact be disposed of – for the sake of a marriage.
‘Oh I don’t think we’ll get married,’ he said, making busy with running a mug under the tap. ‘We’re quite all right as we are. Elizabeth has her practice and so on. She’ll keep her place and come over here to visit . . .’
He became conscious that Vera was standing very still, one hand in the basket, interrupted in the act of taking something out. She was staring at him as if listening to some sound in her head that was inaudible to him.
‘Not . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Not get married? You mean . . . ?’
‘I mean . . .’ What did he mean? He came over to the table. ‘At our time of life . . . Look, we’re not going to have any children . . .’ He had not even begun on Paula with Vera yet. Had hardly begun on it himself, except to write her a kind reply. One hurdle at a time. ‘Surely we can work something out for ourselves?’
Vera gazed at him, seemingly awestruck. ‘But – what will people say?’
He shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’ This was quite untrue. He had a pretty shrewd idea what tittle-tattle would go on. Rosemary Abbott for a start. ‘I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?’
‘Well.’ Vera tugged a skein of new dusters out of the basket. He thought she seemed huffy but was not quite sure. Perhaps not huffy, he corrected. Just trying to get used to newness, as they all were. ‘You never know with people, do you?’
‘No.’ He relaxed, propped against a chair. ‘I mean – who would have thought gloomy old Sharon would have the patience to listen to Kevin hour after hour, droning on about pots?’
Vera looked up at him then and they both laughed.
‘Darling?’
He turned, heart a-leap at her voice. ‘Lizzie!’ His world was complete.
Elizabeth was on the steps, clad in her dung-coloured trousers, a lumpish tweed jacket and leather boots and holding a cloth bag in her hand. George struggled to his feet as Monty lurched into squeaking, tail-wagging greetings.
‘Hello, you daft old thing!’ she said, stooping over Monty. She straightened and kissed George. ‘Hello – other daft old thing.’
She held the bag out. ‘Just a few bits and pieces. Haven’t had much spare time.’ He saw she was pale, dark shadows under her eyes. ‘I was up nearly all night in the end. Emphysema – dreadful.’
‘Oh darling,’ he said, contrite, laying an arm across her shoulders as they went down the steps. ‘You should have stayed in bed.’
‘Not at all – I wouldn’t miss this for anything. I’m pretty used to it.’
‘Anyway – plenty of food. Vera’s made us a pie.’
Elizabeth dimpled. ‘Good old Vera. Not rhubarb?’
‘No, thank heaven – apple and blackberry.’
‘Oh, yum. Peace offering, d’you think?’
‘Oh, I don’t think there was any war. Just some adjustments. It’s more of a . . . let’s call it a blessing. Yes?’
Elizabeth was smiling at him. ‘She’s a one, that Vera. Yes – a blessing.’
A fact that he kept to himself was that it was also a celebration, of a kind. Vera had passed him in the hall yesterday with what he could only describe as a wicked grin breaking across her face.
‘I’ll just say one thing, Mr Baxter,’ she said cryptically, not even stopping. ‘There’s been a sighting.’
George looked at her, disquieted. What the hell was she going on about? Was he supposed to know?
Vera turned, the grin fully on show. ‘A little bird told me that a certain dealer from Twyford has been spotted walking out in Reading – with a certain not-so-young lady from Wallingford!’
Good Lord – could this be true? ‘What – Sylvia? With him – Lewis Barker?’
Vera winked and carried on walking. ‘That’s all I know, Mr B.’
‘Well, well – good luck to them both.’ George stood outside his office and chuckled for quite some time.
It was a serene, beautiful day. The light was rich and elegiac, the grass a farewell green, leaves ablaze to create burning bushes in yellow and burnt umber, the sky a screen of duck-egg blue. All this, the placid river gave back, reflected. Coots and grebes scooted away from the gentle advance of Barchetta’s prow. The larger pleasure boats had been taken off the water for the winter and all was serene. They had the stretch along towards Goring to themselves.
Mostly they sat quiet, smiled at each other and at Monty’s ambivalent gruntings, linked hands now and then, taking it all in in a spirit of contemplation.
With each mile, passing the backs of houses, the elegant railway arches spanning the river, the serene loveliness, George was filled with a merry, miraculous bubbling of happiness at the promises of life.
Despite the irregularity of his relationship with Elizabeth, the sky had not fallen in. He wondered if it was partly because she was a doctor. It seemed to wrap her in a protection of sacred awe that no one was inclined to trespass upon.
Last night, a little hang-dog because Elizabeth was unable to come, he had wandered over to the Barley Mow. At first he was startled to see, among some of his other pals, Maggie and John Wylde.
‘Hey there, George!’ Roy called out to him, raising a brimming pint in his direction. ‘I gather there’s a rather special lady knocking about at Chalk Hill Antiques these days?’
George wasn’t too sure about ‘knocking about’ as a description, but amid all the laughter and ribald back-slapping he took no offence. He was rather amazed by how pleased they all seemed to be.
‘Come on, Brenda – pull him a pint. Got to keep his strength up!’
Brenda complied, with her usual thunderous expression.
‘All change round here,’ someone else said as they stood round the bar, raising their tankards. ‘Our young Maggie here – off to Australia.’
George had been
trying not to look at Maggie, but hearing this he could hardly not do so and their eyes met. Maggie’s face held a look of swelling excitement, a grin barely contained.
‘It’s my Linda,’ she explained as if this was news to him. ‘Just about to go off and live there, see.’
‘My word,’ George said. ‘That’s a big step!’
‘And I’m going over there to visit – for a whole month!’ She looked radiant, proud of herself and younger again. More the Maggie he remembered. He made the expected noises and they all talked of other things.
Later, after all the chat and a couple of pints, he passed her on his way out. Maggie turned, seeing him. For a second she grasped his upper arm and squeezed it.
‘Good for you, Maggie,’ he said. ‘Off on your travels.’
‘I know.’ She squeezed again. ‘And you – you be happy, George, all right?’
As they both smiled goodbye, she gave him a wink.
They tied up for a time against a sunlit bank and drank steaming beakers of coffee from the Thermos he had prepared, the rug over their knees. Elizabeth’s cheeks were pinker now. She looked revived. The sun was still warm on their faces. A goose honked, further down somewhere. The water stretched out each side of them, moving inexorably on its mission to the sea.
For a satisfying moment, George thought of Lady Byngh’s bureau bookcase bobbing along in the hold of some cargo ship across the Atlantic.
‘Show me, then,’ Elizabeth said. A letter had arrived, he had told her. Paula’s eager reply – and photographs. He had been reassured by her letter, the polite, sweet tone of it. And the pictures – oh, those pictures.
‘I have had these photographs taken especially,’ she said. ‘To show you the little statue. But I also wanted to show you my children, my Esteban and Alessandra. They are so interested, so excited to hear of you.’
Elizabeth took the two pictures from him. One showed a family group – Paula, a lovely-looking woman with pale hair like her mother’s, her serious, slender husband Carlos, who, she wrote, was an anaesthetist in Buenos Aires – and the two children, ten and eight years old. Alessandra, the younger, looked like a mini-version of her mother.