The Girl Now Leaving

by The Girl Now Leaving (retail) (epub)

  Several times over the past weeks she had wondered what she would do if she turned up and he didn’t. But he had come. As the porter ushered her, with her heart in her mouth, into the revolving doors, David, dashing and romantic in dinner-jacket, perfect shirt and bow-tie, stood up and came towards her.

  Holding her by the shoulders, he kissed her lightly on both cheeks. ‘You came! I wondered whether you would, or whether you were one of those women who keep a fellow waiting half the evening.’

  She smiled happily. ‘Is that what they do? It never occurred to me to be late.’

  The interior of the hotel was even more splendid than she had imagined. She had glimpsed a mural, and a glass dome, and longed to look round and be overawed, but she sat – as she hoped elegantly – on a comfortable, upright padded chair with her legs drawn to one side as she had learned from years of watching how the stars did it in Hollywood films. She accepted a tipped cigarette from the slim gold case David held out. A waiter placed an ice-bucket at the side of the table and deep glasses alongside. ‘I took a chance on you liking dry: is that OK?’

  Hoping that it was… It would be, whatever dry was like, she said, ‘Lovely.’ She had thought champagne glasses had to be flat, but these were deeper and held the fizz longer. David chinked her glass. ‘Here’s to it, whatever it is.’ He seemed to be enjoying himself and totally at ease, which he would be, of course. He must have been here before because he had said, ‘It’s not a bad place.’ She sipped the drink: dry must mean very fizzy or very sharp. It was certainly nice… most likely dry meant it dried your mouth. Tomorrow she would have to go down to the library and look up ‘champagne’.

  ‘I’ve quite taken a liking to this place.’ He looked around, giving Lu a chance to do likewise. There were archways, beyond which were glazed doors, through which lighted chandeliers shone. She knew that that was the dining room. It faced the sea; she had seen it from a distance scores of times; sometimes when the evenings were hot, the sea-facing French doors were opened and people could be seen sitting on the veranda; strains of music could be heard as far as the promenade. Until this minute, nothing except those strains of music had connected the people who inhabited that world to the one normally inhabited by Lu and people like her. Suddenly, like Paris, like the Lascelles store, it became part of the world she needed to inhabit. First she needed to get away – she had told herself that before; but it was time for her to begin to think seriously about how. ‘You said you knew it, have you stayed here?’

  ‘No, I’ve never stayed in Southsea at all.’

  He refreshed their glasses. ‘Louise?’ She looked over her glass at the query attached to her name. ‘My name’s David Hatton, and I live in Kensington. Are you going to tell me anything, or will you continue being mysterious? I can only think that you are married or something. I don’t know what to make of you, except that you are extremely beautiful, tantalizingly enigmatic, and you obviously have a taste for Paris dresses. I had ordered a gardenia for you, but it would be sacrilegious to do anything to that line.’ He looked for a second at the pleated cups that supported her breasts.

  ‘I’d love a gardenia, I could pin it on my bag.’

  He beckoned the bellboy, who brought the flower in a small shiny tray. It was Hollywood; real, romantic musical Hollywood. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Will I go home tomorrow still not knowing who you are, or how to find you? It wouldn’t hurt you to tell me your name.’

  It would. She would have this one evening, and let it end there. She wouldn’t be devastated, nor would her life be in ruins. She liked him, though, for similar reasons to why she liked Duke: neither of them appeared to take themselves particularly seriously. Both were totally different from all the other young men she went out with. Both inhabited worlds that were totally removed from her own. She laughed, making a joke of it: ‘I would tell you my second name if it wasn’t such a dull one.’

  ‘All right, at least that.’

  ‘Vera.’

  ‘Louise Vera. I have an Aunt Vera… You see, I’m more generous with my family secrets than you.’

  ‘David Hatton has a brother who is a tyke and an Aunt Vera. I could write a biography knowing that. I have your telephone number, I know your name. Trust me, I will keep in touch with you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled at him and drank some more of the champagne, not knowing what else to do or say. ‘I love this.’

  He leaned forward. ‘Fine and simple and expensive and understated, just like that piece of crumpled stuff you’re wrapped in to such effect. I can hardly wait to see how it moves when you’re dancing. Shall we go? I was going to order a car and driver because my car’s such a low one it doesn’t usually allow for ladies’ long skirts, but I’d like to drive there if it’s OK with you.’

  ‘I fold up as easily as a card-table.’

  Had it really been Hollywood, then the car would probably have been white and long or black and shiny, but his wasn’t. It was what she might have guessed: a new, low, sporty two-seater with the roof folded back. ‘I’ll leave it down, there’s no wind… it’s not far.’

  That was true; within five minutes of leaving the hotel they were getting out. She had been to wave her father’s ship off from the dockside, but not to this part, which was guarded by a naval patrol.

  After the splendid hotel, the officers’ mess was a bit of a disappointment, but it was full of men in naval officers’ uniform and women wearing pretty summer dance dresses, and it was the best band Lu had heard in a long time. Almost as soon as they were in the door, David caught her round the waist and guided her on to the floor. After the dance, they stopped for drinks of fresh orange juice, soda and wine, which Lu thought a great improvement on the champagne, then danced again. When the dances were slow he held her close, his cheek against hers; when the band played jazz and ragtime they were self-satisfied at the pleasure they were getting from playing up to one another: they constantly caught one another’s eyes and smiled.

  When the interval was announced, they followed the line of guests drifting into the room where a buffet was laid. It really was sumptuous, with every dish a decorated exhibition of the catering art. A few men with their partners came up and said, ‘David, a stranger… glad to see you’, or, ‘I say Hatton, old chap, where have you been lately? Nice to see you around. Must get together again.’ They were all young, informal and on first-name terms. He introduced Lu as ‘Louise Vear’.

  It was easy-going and informal refreshment, and Lu loved it. People drifted in and out, to and fro; she and David took their plates and glasses to a small corner table. ‘OK, Miss Vear?’

  ‘Absolutely. The Navy does itself very well, doesn’t it?’

  ‘That’s a clue. Your people are obviously not Navy or you wouldn’t be surprised.’

  Her people not Navy? An illegitimate daughter of an able seaman who had fallen in the drink not a hundred miles from here? Absolutely not from a naval family. Unperturbed by what she was thinking, she smiled and said jokingly, ‘Keep going, Holmes, you’re hot on the trail.’

  There was only one incident in the entire, perfect evening that caused her a moment of panic, but she carried it off quite to her satisfaction. David had gone to the men’s room and came back with a grey-haired man showing the insignia of ship’s captain. ‘Louise, this is Arnold Gore, a distant cousin, wouldn’t you say that, Arnold? Something, something removed? Arnold, this is Louise Vear.’

  ‘I can see a family likeness,’ Lu said.

  When the captain smiled it was with great charm. He took her hand and held on to it, caressing it slightly, as ladies’ men did. ‘We Gores are the respectable arm of the family. You’d do well to ditch David and tie up alongside me.’ He had a deep-throated, pleasant chuckle. ‘I watched you dancing. You do it beautifully.’ As she withdrew her hand he said, ‘I say, that’s nasty,’ and rubbed the ball of his thumb over the hard scar left by the machine needle. ‘Does it hurt?’

  �
��No. I don’t even notice.’

  ‘Accident?’

  She withdrew her hand, holding the thumb in the palm of her other hand and saying lightly, ‘Yes, glass. I impaled myself on a long sliver of glass. Scarred for life, I expect.’ She wished he would go, but he was the type who would do his courteous duty by chatting to all the ladies. He was good at it. If he hadn’t alighted on this one topic, Lu could have enjoyed herself enormously watching him operate.

  ‘I’ll tell you something interesting about just such a thing. You know we have these same shore-base evenings for ratings ashore for a short turn-round? Young women of the town are invited – sorry, no, don’t mean “women of the town” – these are nice young girls from local families, they are chaperoned in, we give them a good evening, they dance with the ratings…’

  She had been on such outings, had danced with the ratings and enjoyed the good food. Lu’s mouth dried. She sipped the fizzing orange and wine, appearing, as she hoped, unperturbed, perhaps a little bored.

  ‘I was doing my bit, saying my piece, you know… Anyhow, these young ladies were all from the same factory. They make shirts and shrouds or some such… and they had scars. Almost proud of them, one might say.’

  ‘They all had scars? What caused them?’

  ‘They sewed their hands with sewing machines. It appears they go so fast that they occasionally can’t stop, and zzzt! Pierced right through the finger. Quite often they have to take the machine apart to release them.’

  ‘Please, Arnold,’ David said, ‘do you mind? I shall pass out cold if you go on.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I suppose it is a bit… you know. I find these bits and pieces of information so very interesting… all these girls the same injury. It was a kind of sign that they had made it, like skiers – can’t be a real skier until you’ve broken a leg.’ He took Lu’s hand again. ‘Hope you’re not weak-kneed, like these young Hattons. Glad to see David enjoying himself for a change. Ah well, duty calls. Hope you’re enjoying it.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Gore. It’s lovely.’

  ‘Arnold. Please.’

  ‘Sorry about that, Louise,’ David said when he had gone. ‘Nothing one can do about one’s family. I should have warned you, I suppose. Actually, the invitation came from him. He likes the family to see him in his glory. He’s OK, bit of a snob, terrible womanizer, too. I think I’ll get you safely away before he returns.’

  She laughed, relieved that the captain had been more interested in the sound of his own voice than asking how a sliver of glass could penetrate a thumb. Glass sliced, it didn’t penetrate. ‘No need to worry, he’s really not my type. Maybe we should go, it must be late.’

  ‘Not yet. What time must you go? Where are you going? How will you get there? May I take you? Or is it pumpkins at midnight and once again I shall be left holding the crystal cigarette lighter?’

  ‘I like to use taxicabs when I can. If you would like to take me back to your hotel, I will get you to order me one from there.’

  ‘Shall we go now? Maybe we could have coffee or something.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  He drove the short way back to the promenade, but instead of turning into the hotel gateway, he pulled up on the sea-front. ‘What’s up with the moon, it’s lurking behind that cloud, the only cloud by the look of it? I think we deserve one of those twinkling pathways across the sea. From here I should think one ought to be able to walk over to the Isle of Wight on it. Do you really want coffee now, or would you like a bit of a spin? Not far, just to get the wind in our hair.’

  ‘Let’s do that.’

  ‘I don’t know whether you know the road that goes over the Portsdown Hills from here…’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Have you ever seen it at night?’

  ‘No.’ That was absolutely true. Although she had been that way with Uncle Hec on more than one occasion, she had never been at night.

  ‘It’s a fantastic sight.’

  He pulled the car off the road not far from the spot Uncle Hec had chosen six years before. ‘There! Isn’t that wonderful?’

  Seen at night, the two sides of the dividing hill were perhaps as awesome as when she had first seen them on that spring morning. Far below on the seaward side, the plan of the town and its harbour was outlined by lights, on the land side there seemed to be endless dark.

  ‘There’s a rug back there if you’re chilly. Or…’ He put his arm about her and pulled her towards him, then laughed. ‘Damned bucket-seats. My brother won’t have sports cars, he says they’re more inhibiting than knicker elastic… I’m sorry, I don’t usually quote my brother, especially on his ways with women. Arnold Gore was right, you can’t take us Hattons anywhere. I only wanted to kiss you, nothing else.’

  Lu held his face and did it for him. He obviously knew how to manage bucket-seats, for he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her firmly, with lips as warm as the hands that were caressing the bare skin of her back.

  ‘We could sit on the grass, there are binoculars in the glove box… probably not much use until the moon comes out, but we might see something.’ There were two large, soft tartan rugs which he dropped on to the grass a little way down the slope, away from the car. Then he pulled off his black tie, unfastened the neck stud and handed her the binoculars.

  ‘I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘That wheel adjusts the eye width, and this… brings it into focus.’ He had to sit very close to show her.

  ‘I see something. I think it – oh yes, there’s a boat moving. That’s marvellous.’

  ‘Now if I was my twin, I’d have thought to have a bottle and two glasses in the box. All I’ve got is chocolate and bananas.’

  ‘I love chocolate. Look, look, the moon’s coming out.’

  The chocolate was like nothing Lu had ever tasted before: smooth, thin, crisp and bitter. ‘Mmm, I love it.’

  ‘Floris. My grandmother spoils me. Doesn’t let me go out unless I am provided for – iron rations for if I get shipwrecked.’

  ‘Is she a Gore or a Hatton?’

  ‘Both. And now I shall clam up until I know something sweet about your grandmother.’

  ‘There’s nothing…’

  He stopped her with a long kiss, during which they somehow ended up prone and closely entangled, with him looking down at her now clearly lit by the moon. ‘My God you’re beautiful… so beautiful. Seriously, now, are you engaged to be married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or… ah… are you in the process of divorce?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘OK, I didn’t suppose that you were, but it would answer why you won’t let me into your life just a little bit.’

  ‘I should have thought that this was being in my life.’

  ‘Not enough. Not enough by half.’ He picked up her left hand, the one with the two scars, and without looking at it took the thumb between his lips and held it there for a few seconds, perhaps apologizing for his cousin. ‘My grandmother believes in kissing things better. You’d make a good criminal, you wouldn’t give yourself away given the third degree.’

  ‘I won’t steal your cigarette case and cufflinks.’

  ‘You have no intention of being serious for two minutes together. I have it! You’re a nun. You lead this double life: a life of silent prayer by day, a Paris gown by night. You keep your habit and wimple in a woodsman’s hut and creep back into your cell in time for matins or whatever it is.’

  ‘What about the hair? Aren’t nuns shaven?’

  ‘Oh yes… the hair.’ He pushed his fingers into her hairline, parted his lips and hers, and kissed her again, making a shiver rise up and spill over her whole body like a fountain of the most delectable pleasure. ‘I really do want to meet you again. Please.’

  She felt his weight beginning to press more heavily, the sensation of his masculine warmth raising her pores and hardening her nipples. The light scent of shaving cream, the slight su
ggestion of bristle when his face touched hers, the sound of his breath. She even imagined she could hear his heart, but perhaps it was her own.

  She wanted to keep it like this, romantic and almost mystical, yet at the same time she longed to move on into reality where she would tell him the truth about herself. No, I’m not a nun by day, I’m a factory hand and I got this dress as a present from my boss for going to France and standing about in my underwear. Oh yes, the truth about herself.

  The thought of him ever seeing her coming out of Ezzard’s was appalling. It would be better if they parted tonight, leaving her with a dried gardenia as a memento, as her mother had kept her father’s colourful postcards. Except that this was something entirely more glamorous than that. This was a romance, a romantic interlude. It was thrilling and wonderful.

  When he slipped his hand into the pleated cup, she did not stop him, did not want to. The sensation, which started up within her pelvis, then coursed downwards and into her loins, and then back up inside her, quite taking her breath away, was overpowering. As they swallowed one another’s kisses, he moved one leg over her and she was pinned by its weight. She knew what she wanted, which was to feel the bare skin of her own thighs against his own, her naked hips touching his, her breasts pressed by his chest. She had never done this before, but she knew how to do it, all the other sexual arousals, sensations and climactic dreams were feeble substitutes. She wanted nothing now except that he penetrate her until she lost her virginity. She wanted to know the extreme sensation of going all the way.

  Yet, even as she made the first movement of her legs, she panicked and pushed him away. Her whole body felt moist and slick, her dress and knickers clung to her body, her hair felt in disarray. She could scarcely breathe, and a voluptuous feeling of desire hung about tempting her.