Her Victory (49 page)

She pushed a curtain aside. A gleaming estate car with its lights on moved around the square. Neither of the two pedestrians resembled George or his brothers. The bleak sea was ruffled with feather-tops. She came back to the couch. Yesterday had been like ten years, but as time going in reverse, so that she felt a decade younger. It was as if she had already spent a honeymoon which had been perfect and glorious: she had come out of a long tunnel, exhausted but unhurt, and with a strange feeling of happiness. She looked out of the window again. The car had found a space and parked.

She emptied her bag to get clean pants and a blouse. Having expected him to sleep most of the day, she scooped up her clothes and went to the bathroom. The door was locked. He called that he wouldn't be long. Using her coat for a dressing-gown she went to the lavatory, then into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Not being used to alcohol, her head ached, and her mouth was dry from thirst. She thought of what she knew about him. He was a man, as they said, with a past. So was she, and it was called prison, a long slumber of the unknowing until the bars were suddenly behind instead of in front, and never to be stepped back into by returning to someone of George's sort. They had to cut free.

She resisted singing in her freedom. She was with another man. She liked being with him. She was sparing with words, even with herself, yet didn't want to care. She swung open the huge curtains. An enormous patch of sun from the sea warmed her face. There was no movement in the square. They hadn't traced her, after all. She would stay for as long as it wasn't the beginning or the end of anything, but knew she mustn't hope for too much.

The kettle whistled. Before it reached full shriek he had taken it off and was opening the tea caddy. He was dressed, with tie on, face shaved, shoes polished, fresh-looking as if he had slept deeply, looking different to last night when his agonized face in the shadowy light had given age no chance to mark his features. He seemed free of whatever weight the long search through his aunt's leavings had heaped on him, though on a further glance she noticed that more than a trace remained in his eyes. She wondered what he saw in her face. She was uncertain as to what was there herself now that she speculated on him, wishing she had merely said good morning and then gone in to have her bath.

‘Did you sleep well?'

‘I'm still coming up for air,' she said.

‘Sorry it had to be in the living-room, but I did offer you my bed – I mean, on condition that I took the sofa.' They drank in silence, as if a treaty had been signed not to bother each other unnecessarily. She laughed at the thought. He didn't, and looked up from his cup. ‘Someone once said that a person who laughed soon after getting out of bed was hungry. Shall I boil some eggs now, or do you want to dress first?'

‘I don't know.' And she didn't. She wanted something, but didn't know what, except that it had to be everything. She couldn't be still, left her tea and walked into the living-room. The light of day made it hard to breathe, but she didn't try, kept her lungs shallow, as if a good breath would fill her with something she did not want, and cause her to lose the feeling of desire. She felt restless and ashamed, not entirely under her own control, yet uncaring. On no other morning of her life had she been so fragmented in her sensations.

She went back into the kitchen and said to him: ‘I can't answer questions first thing in the morning.'

He frowned, so she didn't doubt that he was wide enough awake to answer any question put to him. But she had none to ask. Questions were finished, for the moment. His intense gaze suggested he hardly knew what to say for fear of uttering useless and puzzling words that would push them apart.

There seemed an absolute end of talking. She took off her coat and folded it over a chairback. He looked, but did not move. She had no wish but to be as close as it was possible to get, as a way through what complications might needlessly build up between them. Any less action seemed destructive. She gave reason no chance, but pulled her nightdress over her head and went to him, thinking as the cool air rushed at her body that since she wanted him so much it didn't matter what was in either of their minds.

3

Her body had decided, so her will was free. Yet the course her body would take had been decided long ago, though she was not aware when the agreement had been reached. It had grown in her, but she had so far ignored it, a half deliberate neglect that had given the fragile plant a possibility of survival.

The inevitability of their becoming closer began during the total preoccupation with his aunt's documentary belongings, a task which had taken him too far into the area of a peculiar past for her to follow. She had been left alone long enough and in sufficient ease to reflect on her feelings, though she was careful to deny any force which they threatened to assume.

Knowing what she wanted to do, she had been afraid on waking that she would feel some old-fashioned twinge of shame should the event take place at his convenience. If anyone knew that they had been together she wanted to be able to say that she had not allowed anything to be done to
her
, but that she had started whatever they liked to call it herself, out of the need of her own pride and unsurfaced dreams.

Guided by her own will, all sense of the tawdry had been sidestepped. Having nothing to lose by beginning, neither had she any of the shame which she would have dreaded had it been he who had taken the first step. No one could reproach her. Feeling love, a move had been made, and what came afterwards would be his reaction to the thing she had started, and so could never be a matter of regret to her. She would not be in any way demeaned if he couldn't bear the sight of her and they parted never to meet again, though because her initiative had grown out of the ease she had known since their first meeting, such action on his part seemed unlikely.

His instinct, to wait until what he most wanted happened so that neither would appear to think about how to begin what seemed impossible, had indeed been right. He reflected while holding her warm body that they had mindlessly given in to their need for each other. But all in their lives that had led to it had been by no means mindless. The transition was impossible to detect, a fusing spark that was never to be defined and isolated but which had brought them together.

His regard for her had bred the necessary patience, and had been the true guide of his action. The only value received from his orphanage schooling, and throughout a long age at sea, was to know when to wait and how to bide his time, and he considered that the power of this virtue had not disappointed him now that the first real call on it had been made. Thus every move was a combination of calculated choice and inherited need.

His shirt was wet with her tears, and she smiled at the thought that at least they were old enough to know what they were doing. He held her tight but his kisses were tender. He moved away. His cultivated indifference had succeeded, like everything else, at a cost. But his arms relaxed as he kissed the tips of her breasts. ‘It's only a few days, but it seems that we've waited years.'

Her eyes opened. ‘There's plenty of time now.' She felt like a child, not yet a woman, an unexpected innocence which had nevertheless been hoped for. Was it only an infatuation which people often said such feelings were? She did not admit the word. There was too much cruelty in it, and for herself it was impossible to use. She smiled that she had only ever held her son with the same affection – when he had been a child.

He watched her bend at the bed in Clara's room to pull down the covers. She was thin, flesh firm at her stomach. It was fitting that they should make love here. There was a small mole on her left shoulder. He held her from behind, and kissed the nape of her neck. She fought off the thrill, and turned. ‘I must go to the bathroom.'

She closed the door and sat down. She felt relaxed, yet the body was tense. Had she ever been in love, even when George had fixed her bicycle chain by Wollaton Church all those years ago? He had played the gentleman, and ever after called his bike ‘The Courtship Special'. Yet who could say what words had passed, or how much the atmosphere had been in control?

Later, when he had asked her to ‘be his wife', they called it love. She couldn't remember, but they must have done. The memory was a torment throughout her marriage. All was distortion. Their difficulties had been fixed and pervasive, nonetheless. There was nothing worthwhile to remember, and little to regret. When considering events from another life, memory was fickle and dubious, and hardly the word to use – or blame. The sensation that remained was one of damage. Being held by Tom could easily be called love, for it eradicated whatever might have been thought of as love yet could in no way have been. Love only came once in life, she had told herself while stroking his chest and shoulders under the shirt which tears had dampened. In those far-off days she had been taken up by the slavery of expectation and mistaken it for love.

A pull at the cord set a two-bar heater on the wall glowing at her back. She turned to the mirror, and though she looked pale, a smile held weariness at bay. Her breasts were small but shapely, reflecting the likeness of a skimpy model, she thought, in the long mirror.

He stood at the window looking towards the sea. The coppery midwinter glow drew back as a cloud closed off the sun. He didn't doubt that it would show again. The sea looked after itself, he thought, as softened footsteps sounded on the carpet.

She came to him, her breasts flattening against the coarse hair on his chest. His expression seemed solemn. Did he already regret what had not yet happened? She hoped not. She was no longer that sort herself, and doubted that she ever had been. ‘We've landed ourselves in an unexpected honeymoon.'

He kissed her lips, and answered that they were in the perfect place. She wanted no tomorrow and, passionately kissing him, closed her eyes, legs weakening as if about to fall.

His gentle support moved her towards the bed. He kissed the delicate skin that closed over her eyes. The words that said he loved her were torn from him by forces beyond his understanding.

No loving had ever been so slow and harmonious, yet she still did not finally want it to happen. While knowing that she had committed herself, and that any further struggle was useless, and unjust to them both, she could not let go. It was like the objections to being born. Not to contest the change would have denied its value. She pleaded, and then fought, and closed her eyes to the lack of understanding in his expression.

But as if in her thoughts, he held her, giving in to what she didn't dare ask for. Her silence drew him on, conferring a passion without hurry, going against both her will and his as he touched. She seemed to be at the edge of life, about to fall into a trance before death. Is this what fainting was like? She had never lost her consciousness. She was trapped in a private world of love, and didn't care. They seemed as familiar with each other's interchange of pleasures as if they had been together for years. But he was a stranger, no matter what she knew of his past. His fingers played at her and, keeping her lips on his, she held his hand firmly so that she gave in, and went on until she heard herself.

The shock diminished and spread, and he knew sufficient to stroke her for as long as the pleasure lasted. She felt her tears loosen. His free hand flattened her breasts. He sucked and soothed the nipples. She lifted him and looked at his face. He looked at her, but she didn't care whether or not he saw an intensity that had never taken her so completely – whether or not it made her ugly. She opened her legs, and putting out her hands she drew him in.

4

After ripples of sunlight, rain beat from the sea and the air grew dark. Hail flashed and pattered the glass. She turned to press against him but, feeling weightless, hardly knew where she was. He kissed her down the stomach till he brought her back to consciousness. His tongue would not let go. She tried to get free. No one had done this before. She protested, then gave in to her shame, and in a few moments felt no shame at all. He held her to the pleasure that seemed drawn from outside, and as it began he moved into her with an ease that allowed her orgasm to run its course before she felt his own explosion deep inside.

The dreams floated, and she drifted in sleep. He got out of bed, and drew the clothes over her shoulders. A match scraped, and there was a smell of tobacco smoke. She couldn't move, curled in hiding from the rain which fell against the window. She hadn't slept for years. Yet she wasn't sleeping. His weird battering left her sore. She didn't know him, yet wanted to. His intense and purposeful love made him unknowable. He was a stranger home from the sea and she was a woman in from the storm. He touched her shoulder. ‘Here's something to eat and drink.'

‘I can't move.' She leaned on her elbow. ‘What time is it?'

‘It's hard to say.'

The light was on. ‘I want to know.'

He held a cup for her to drink. ‘My watch has stopped. And I didn't look at the kitchen clock.'

‘I feel like a baby.' She sat up, and took the cup. He put the tray down and sat by her. ‘You must have been dreaming.'

‘What did I say?'

‘Couldn't make it out.'

She ate a biscuit. ‘I haven't slept at this time of day before.'

‘Sometimes at sea you catnap at all hours. Never in a bed like this, though.'

‘Did you have hammocks?'

He wore trousers and shirt, but had no shoes on. ‘Once or twice. I slept in one four weeks on my first trip to Singapore, and then four weeks back. They were comfortable.'

She brushed crumbs from the sheets. He kissed her breasts. In friendship she felt accessible, and liked it. ‘I must get dressed.'

‘I'm getting used to you with no clothes on.'

She was not embarrassed, and wondered why. Such freedom had been impossible with George. She felt a remote but friendly pity for him. They had existed, but had not been made for each other. Familiarity and time had failed to bring it about. Yet with someone so new she didn't mind how he saw her, or what they did. She kissed his hand, and placed it between her legs.