by Mavis Cheek
David turns out his light, rolls on to his side with his back comfortably pushed up against her, reaches round to squeeze her thigh once, and instantly begins the breathing that indicates he is close to untrammelled oblivion.
She nudges him. Hard. 'David,' she says, 'what do you think of him?'
'Who?' says David grudgingly. He knows perfectly well what Jill means but sleep is such a seductive option. 'Her man.'
'He's all right. Very nice chap.' He lets out a deep sigh, full of relish for what is to come. The grass-cutting in the cold, breezy air, the roast duck, the unremitting conversation and an extra glass of port have all had their effect. His eyes have the weight of good conscience upon them. They close in delicious abandonment.
Jill lets him go. She puts her elbows on her knees and her hands under her chin and she says to the lamplit room, 'Well, I think he's very suitable and very nice and they've clearly hit it off. First flush, I suppose. Did you see the way they kept touching - toes and later his hand on her back -like they couldn't wait to get to bed? And I've never seen Margaret so smiley and soppy. Disgusting, really - she'd have been disgusted by it in someone else. And her eyes looked luminous - she was sparkling, the way they say you should in books. And already - already - they had that secret shorthand between them. What on earth was all that about Willibalds and coffins? I think it was rude to be so obscure. And he was so damn well interested in everything. And when I asked how they had met, they exploded with laughter - laughter. And Margaret put her arm round me - patronizing cow -and said, "In Oxford." And she calls him Oxford. What's wrong with Simon? It's a good enough name. There's something so childish and possessive about nicknames - not like her at all.'
David continues to make the noises of peaceful limbo. Jill automatically reaches out and nudges his ribs - he grunts and moves slightly. The little snores turn into a deep and gentle breathing.
Jill holds her breath. She feels wound up, restless, disturbed. She hears the wind in the trees outside. Or does she? She listens harder. It is a rustling, certainly, but is it the soughing of ash and oak, or the shifting of silk on a bed made for lovers? She turns off the light, closes her eyes and her ears, does not want to hear. But it fills the room, taking over the darkness. There are moans and sighs and the smoothing of limb against limb. It pursues her under the duvet, this noise, and soon it creates images, though she tries to resist them. She does not want such images. She wants to go peacefully off to sleep. Like her husband who is lying there beside her. But still she sees . . .
The faces are disjointed, hard to recognize, though she knows who they are. The faces smile at each other, eyes large and wondering and amused, closing the space between them, kissing so close that lips, eyes, noses become one indistinguishable line. She hears the intake of breath, the throats pulse and make noises of despair, desire, delight. The pool of deep red silk shows the whiteness of their skin to perfection, gives the darkness of their sex an added depth, as they move and slide on its crimson softness. Rustle, rusde, rustle. Their bodies seem impossibly close, impossibly entwined, and the silk has twisted its own seduction between them. A swathe of it rests between the woman's thighs, where the man caresses her, pulling at the silk, touching her dark springing nakedness so that she can no longer resist and her legs move apart from him, slack and willing, yielding and hopeful, so that nothing is hidden.
Jill closes her eyes even tighter but the image grows larger, the sighs and exhalations of intense experience magnify. She watches them, eagerly now, the shame of the watching being part of the pleasure. The woman moves herself languorously, coaxes at his cock, teases it, touches it with light fingertips that dart away as it begins to respond too urgently. Sliding her body down the silk she buries her head in his sex while her hands stroke and caress his belly. What she does with her mouth is hidden by the dark twists of hair that sprawl from her, tendrilling upon his thighs. It is not Margaret's new red mop that she sees, but her own. And it is neither the face of the lover she has brought with her, nor David's, that she
sees, but a new face - infinitely tender as it looks down at her and smiles in delighted wonder at it all. She pulls the silk around them, letting it fall and slide at will, so that it becomes as intimate and involved as a third lover, moving sinuously, pulling at them, like another pair of hands. She smells the roses, hears the shush of the silk, and chooses not to resist.
The soughing and the sighing are louder. Jill wonders why the sound does not wake David, who still sleeps peaceful as a child, comfortably pushed up next to her. She moves away a little. She does not want to touch him, he is too real. She can smell the roses that she put in their room, the musky scent of old petals, and mingling with it the unmistakable underscent of sex. Now they kneel and the man runs his fingers down his lover's face, touching her neck, kissing it, moving downwards to trace his fingertips across her breasts so that her voice shudders from deep in her throat and she arches towards him. Very gently he disentangles the red silk from their legs and throws it free of the bed, then, guiding his lover, he moves closer so that she can sit on him as he rocks her softly to and fro, to and fro ...
Jill turns away, afraid to look, burying her head in her pillow, giving a little sob. To the darkness she says, 'I wish she had never come here.' The silk still rustles, the sighs still hover in the air and the caress of skin on skin still lingers, she can hear it, she can hear it, and David, David lies unmoving beside her. 'I want a lover,' she whispers to the darkness. 'David, I want a lover.'
From the bed comes a soft and comfortable snore.
Chapter 27
I was worried about Jill after our visit. She seemed distant -not just from me but from everything - and was falsely jolly all the time. I was surprised that she asked very little about Oxford and made no effort to get time alone with me. It was, of course, not as easy as it had been in the old days. You cannot tell a new lover to piss off while you discuss him with your girlfriend, and our usual jaunt into town for the Saturday morning market had to include Oxford too. But I was surprised to find that I wanted to include him, that it mattered more to me than getting some time alone with her. Besides, I felt protective of him. David was on the war path about his grass-cutting and some building work he was planning, and it would have been unkind, as well as impolite, to leave Oxford behind to suffer such a fate.
I had thought that Jill and I would be together on our own at some point, that it would just happen as it always had in the past. But of course, the opportunities were not the same. She could hardly do her usual and pop in beside me under the duvet for early-morning tea and the marriage of true minds with Oxford nestled there so firmly beside me.
I found our first night especially erotic because it felt so wicked to be having sex in a double bed at Jill's after the years spent sleeping alone in my pretty little virginal room down the corridor. The morning after I peeped into this familiar haunt. It felt like I was thumbing my nose at it. I walked over to the window and looked out: apple trees in blossom, the sheep like dandruff on the unkempt landscape, a scarecrow or two. All was as it had ever been - only now the focus seemed sharper. It was as if I was only able to see it for the first time having left it. I smiled, twitched the flounced curtain, touched the frilled pillow. I went over to the shelves on the wall opposite the familiar little bed and poked around in a miniature doll's house. It had once been Jill's. Sassy and Amanda used to play with it. Now I moved the figures around, changed the settings of the furniture - and remembered Mrs Mortimer. Kicking up my heels was exciting. Yes, yes. I was right. It was about time I gave all this up for the sensuous pleasures of red silk and roses two doors down.
And then Oxford, who had come looking for me, put his head round the door, and his smile quite made my heart lift.
'Whose room is this?' he asked.
'No one's,' I said, and closed the door on it.
David met us on the landing and looked both embarrassed and pleased. 'Sleep all right?' he said. And then went slightly red.
'Yes,' said David as we all descended the stairs. 'It was ours before we got the new one. I always liked it. Come and have a look at the outbuildings after breakfast. We need some ideas. Jill's expanding.' He chuckled, half proud, half deprecating. 'Quite the businesswoman now the birds have flown the coop.'
'That doesn't sound like Jill,' I said.
He pushed open the door to the dining-room. The table was laid with care - flowers in a jug, napkins with rings, thin white china instead of the usual mugs. Coffee mingled with the smell of bacon, and the bread rolls were warm. Jill had certainly done us proud. I smiled at her, the smile of a contented cat and just the sort of thing she would hope to sec.
When I was helping with Sunday lunch and the men were in the sitting-room looking at the papers - a curious ritual, untouched by the flow of liberated waters - I asked Jill what
she thought of this new man of mine. She looked up from the carrots she was slicing and, with her eyes full of tears, said he was lovely.
'Do you love him?' she went on.
'Bit soon for that,' I hedged. 'But I am very happy.'
'It shows,' she said, back to being brisk with the vegetable knife.
'It's all right, you know,' I said, going back to the spuds. 'I know what I'm doing. So does he.' It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that our affair was irredeemably finite, when I stopped myself. She would not like that. Let her have her romancing. I thought of David, who seemed even more pudding-like than her description. She could do with something to tickle up her sense of romance.
'David seems ... um ... busy,' I ventured.
'David's all right,' she said shordy, and changed the subject to Saskia, Giles and the perils of her daughter's camper van. 'Do you ever envy me this life?' she asked. 'I mean children, husband. All that?'
But David came in and opened a bottle of wine, part of the next stage of the ritual, and the conversation changed to more general things.
Chapter 28
If Jill had felt a little distant and restrained, Verity was exactly the opposite. The day after we got back, while I was still lying in my bed sipping tea, alone again and therefore able to assimilate the last seventy-two hours, she came knocking on my door, ringing my bell, rapping on the window with a persistence and firmness that no amount of ignoring her would allay. I picked up my tray reluctantly and tottered off downstairs with it, letting in my visitor on the way. My commitment to Tintoretto's tendresse for Elisabeth and Mary was wearing a little thin and I began to feel it was more like picking over the bones of a dead still-life.
'Well?' she said dramatically, pushing the front door closed with her bottom. 'Well?'
I marched off towards the kitchen with the tray held like a libation.
'Well? Well? She came scampering along behind.
Over my shoulder I said, as if it were a little nursery rhyme, 'By the simpering of my gums, Someone well fucked this way comes . ..'
'Ooh,' said Verity. 'Oooh. It was good, then?'
Elisabeth and Mary reasserted themselves.
'Brilliant,' I said.
'The great love of your life, then?'
'Early days.' I shrugged.
'But you are going to see each other again?'
'You bet.'
She sighed and flopped down. Relieved, I thought.
'Next week.'
She gave a little rubbery exhalation through her lips. 'That's a long time,' she said, half to herself. 'When I met Mark, we couldn't bear to be apart for a second - we were on the phone, sending notes, turning up on each other's doorstep, having sex like rabbits . . .'
'Yes, well,' I said, forbearing to add, 'And then look what happened ...'
She put up her hand and said, 'I really don't want to know the details.' But of course, she did. So I told her all about it while I made the coffee.
'So,' she said over her mug, 'what about commitment?'
'No other partners.'
Silence.
'And?'
'Nothing. That's it. Then we don't have to worry about condoms.'
'Is that all you can say? What about the future?'
'Oh, Verity! The future will simply take care of itself.'
Verity did not look convinced. Nor very happy. I decided to cheer her up.
'Verity, let me tell you about the crazy hotel we stayed in. It was an absolute hoot.'
Her wet sunken eyes were not those of a woman much concerned with hoots, but I persisted.
She looked at her watch, it was nearly eleven. 'Do you think I could have a brandy?' she asked, interrupting my flow. 'I don't feel very well.'
I gave her the brandy. Even had one with her, though the shock to the morning system was acute. And when she had gone, with that glow of goodness that comes from truly being selfless once in a while, and therefore comes not often, I proceeded to run a bath.
Verity sits there thinking that this is where she went wrong. Here is a shining example of how to get a relationship right from the beginning. She failed miserably at that. He wasn't really so bad, was he? All right, he did flirt with other women, all right he did forget to call her sometimes, and stayed away longer than she wanted when she needed him, but it was all her fault. She sees that now. All and entirely her fault. Margaret is so relaxed about everything, so confident. Verity feels humbled. She could beat herself over the head with a brick. Margaret observes that she needs cheering up. And begins.
The shop was transformed. In the couple of weeks since my previous visit the layout had been much improved. At last all the framing samples were properly displayed, hanging on the wall behind the counter, with price ranges labelled above them. The counter was at least a foot wider in both directions, something I had always promised to deal with but never did, and a full-size poster could now lie on it lengthwise without draping over the edge. It looked much more professional. Behind the counter, where Joan and I used to perch with our coffee like a pair of broody hens, the slotted open cupboards were now finished. I had begun them three years ago in a burst of modernization fever. I felt both pleased and piqued. Joan's available eye shone with pride.
'You've transformed the place,' I said.
'Well, Reg and I have been working after hours. He did most of the carpentry and stuff. I worked it out. Looks good, doesn't it? It's been more fun than trying to keep a boyfriend happy.' She embraced le flick and looked around, now with two proud eyes. 'At least this was successful. Spiteri Junior has definitely gone,' she said, pleased. 'So now we really are on our own.'
Reg popped out. Took one look at my hair colour, and popped back into his den again. 'Bless him,' said Joan comfortably.
Was this the girl who had once whispered from behind her grubby hand her suspicion that he was a nocturnal flasher? 'Busy, are you?' she asked. 'Enjoying the freedom?'
Was there an edge to the question? I struggled with my conscience. On the one hand Oxford and I had planned all kind of trips and treats for the next few months. On the other - well, I still had responsibilities here. Conscience pricked, and won. 'Would you like me to come back sometimes? Just to help out?'
If I had expected gratitude, I was disappointed.
'Oh no. We're fine. Really we are.'
I should like to think she was being brave.
So I took my redundant self home and gave her a grape-peeling lesson. That's to say I watched daytime television. Than which, arguably, there is no more decadent nor opulent waste of time in the world. Especially when you awake some hours later to the firm conviction that you have arrived in hell because two brightly clad young humans with smiling sickness are leaping about in that little square screen exhorting you to sing, 'If you're happy and you know it clap your hands ..
Part Two
Chapter One
After Margaret went home with what Jill found herself describing in her head as Lover Boy, Jill found herself suffering from what she - also in her head - referr
ed to as PMT: Post Margaret Trauma. God, they had been so drippy. It took several days to overcome and several more days before she could bring herself to enter the spare room and remove the offending sheets. Margaret had left the room in a state befitting an exiting guest. The offending sheets and pillow cases were properly folded at the end of the bed, the four naked pillows were neatly arranged on the mattress, no more than barren contours beneath the spread-out blankets and immaculately smoothed crimson silk bedcover. The air in the room was musky with dried petals, and the fresh roses set there had become full blown. As Jill opened the door, sending in a draught, they finally released their blooms to fall in a soft scattering of faded colour on the dressing chest. It was a tableau to love, Jill thought, and she crossed to the window and threw it wide open to release the pungency of what she knew, heart and head, had taken place there. The wisteria tap-tapped away in the late afternoon light and Jill lay down on the bed and wept and wept and wept.