Sail Upon the Land (12 page)

‘Would you like to have dinner afterwards?’ her companion asked. Melissa, who would have been delighted just a few days beforehand, turned him down, and circled the room, nibbling canapés and unable to settle to anything or anyone.

She chattered and swigged champagne, noticing her hands were shaking with nerves. More men than usual invited her out to dinner that evening – as only one had done so previously this was miraculous. She was all lit up inside, and she couldn’t wait for the days to peel away, exposing Saturday morning, raw with temptation.

Then there it was, Saturday, clothing her in hot light that streamed in through the curtainless window. She heard Aunt Melinda calling her from below, and trotted down the steep stairs into her aunt’s chintzy bedroom, where she was holding up the telephone receiver.

‘Melissa, it’s Mummy,’ she said, handing it over.

Melissa’s stomach lurched with guilt. She glanced at her aunt’s alarm clock and saw it was nine already. Panic joined the guilt in a nauseous cocktail of nerves.

‘Hello Mummy,’ she said, trying to conceal her quick breaths.

‘Hello, just ringing up to find out where you’re off to this weekend.’

Lies tripped across Melissa’s lips like deceitful elves leaving smutty footprints.

‘I’m going to some dance in Sussex, Mummy. Taking the train later. Having my hair done this morning first.’

‘Anyone I know?’

‘Don’t think so. Some commuter-belt nooves. But all my friends are going.’

Melissa knew this would turn her mother right off the scent, no possibility of looking them up in the herd book.

‘Who are you staying with?’

‘Can’t remember, but they sound perfectly nice. Some big house full of dog hair probably, where they’ll give us a disgusting dinner. Why does no one cook like you, Mummy?’

Baby voice. She played on the knowledge that her mother was trying hard to adapt to this modern style of not having a clue where your daughter was from one day to the next.

To her relief, Munty had phoned to make plans the day after the ball, luckily when her aunt was out playing Bridge. The conversation had been delicious and ridiculous, and she couldn’t remember much of it, just that by the end of it she knew he fancied her. They were going to meet in the Chelsea Potter on the King’s Road at lunchtime and drive down to Sussex. They had not discussed what would happen next and Melissa decided not to think about it.

Now she needed to get a move on if she was going to fit in her radical new haircut. She had to dress and pack for her supposed dance and weekend away, find the clipping she had cut out of
Modern Woman
showing the desired pixie cut, and get out of the house without arousing suspicion. Her aunt and uncle were going to the country too, and would not be back until Sunday night, so the weekend opened up in front of her, a vista of unaccustomed freedom – and temptation. But Aunt Melinda was ten years younger than Sarah, and not so easily bamboozled.

‘What are you up to, Melissa?’ she asked.

‘Nothing at all. Just off to the country.’

‘Sussex?’

‘Yes, Sussex. But first I must get my hair done, and then I must catch the train from Victoria. I’m meeting the girls there and we’re having lunch first. Carinda Seymour is wearing the York emeralds, and we’ve promised to sit close to her to protect her from thieves. She always wears them for the journey, with her neck wrapped in a silk scarf to cover them up. These nooves are frightfully well off, so well worth parading the family jewels for, if you’ve got them.’ She chattered on, hoping to distract her aunt who was looking at her beadily, romance detectors on full alert.

‘Well, just be careful, that’s all.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I can detect a jewel thief a mile off.’

‘Hmmm,’ murmured Aunt Melinda.

Melissa clattered off back up the attic stairs to her little room, reached her overnight bag down from the top of the wardrobe – not that she would need it, she told herself. She had better take a party dress so she picked one at random and folded it round some sandals wrapped in a school shoe bag. It was so hot there might be sun-bathing opportunities, and she decided to see if she could find a two-piece bathing suit in the King’s Road.

Her scent, make-up in a mini vanity case, toothbrush (wouldn’t do to leave it in the bathroom), a cardigan for if it got chilly, and then – what the hell – a big jumper, pedal-pushers, socks and sneakers for a proper country weekend. She hesitated over nightie and clean pants. Would Aunt Melinda look under her pillow? She stuffed them in just in case.

She dressed herself in a sleeveless sky blue shift, and slipped flat pumps on to her feet. She put her confirmation string of pearls around her neck and looked in the mirror. Did she dare cut all her hair off? She flicked it around her shoulders, as if to say goodbye. It wasn’t a very interesting colour, light brown, but in the sun it shone with fair highlights. She was tired of sitting under the dryer, curling and back combing. The pixie cut looked effortless in comparison.

Was Munty the kind of man who liked a girl to wear make-up? He didn’t seem to object to Lydia, and she was caked in pan-stick, with false eyelashes, eyeliner and pale lips. Melissa fished in her vanity case and found her mascara. She licked the brush and scrubbed it on the black pigment, opening her eyes wide and pulling down her mouth. As she brushed the colour on to her pale lashes, it developed her eyes like a photograph in a chemical bath, gradually framing the grey irises. She stopped and chucked the little black box back into the case. A quick dab of her new scent Fidji and she was ready to leave.

Slinging her bags over her shoulder, she let herself out and walked away from the world she knew. A gulf had opened up, leaving the parents stranded on the other side, with their stuffy ideas about sex, clothes, hair and things being ‘done’ or ‘not done’ or just ‘common’. ‘Common’ often looked like the best fun of all.

She trotted up Park Walk towards the King’s Road. Chelsea mummies in Hermès headscarves, and Saturday morning husbands with regulation haircuts, were replaced by mini-skirted dolly birds and their long-haired guys in tight trousers and trendy boots. The very smell of the air changed, from Miss Dior and Virginia tobacco to sweet and strange exotic smells she didn’t recognise. Her contemporaries seemed like the larvae of a different species. How could they possibly grow up to wear scarves and have children, Rovers, wisteria and Agas?

She nipped into a boutique called By Appointment and picked up a two-piece bathing suit, skimpy enough to be called a bikini, in navy blue with big white spots. Then it was time to lose her schoolgirl hair.

An hour later, washed and glossy with fashionably cut feathers all around her face, she dashed across the road to the Chelsea Potter. Her heart thumped. She didn’t like going into pubs because men looked. Even a young pub like the Chelsea Potter, which was full of groovy chicks, could be daunting. She took a deep breath and plunged through the swing door, hoping desperately that Munty was already there.

‘Melissa!’

It was him, thank goodness. Propelled on a wave of bravado, she had not quite taken into consideration the cost of deceiving her parents on her own nerves, and trembled.

‘Hello, Munty,’ she cried. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine. Like a drink before we set off?’

He already had a pint.

‘Thanks, I’ll have a Campari and soda,’ she replied, thinking this would make her look sophisticated. She didn’t know what to ask for in pubs, and had never tasted it, but it was a reassuring bright red in the advertisements, so was probably sweet and innocuous.

The drink arrived in a tall glass with a couple of cubes of ice and a slice of orange, looking delicious and refreshing. She took a good gulp as she was hot from rushing.

‘Ugh,’ she said, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘It’s so bitter.’

As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t, and she looked in dismay up into Munty’s face. He was smiling and then his lips were on hers and she melted.

‘Disgusting stuff, I hate it,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you something else. Would you like a Coke?’

It was all getting too much for her.

‘Can we go?’

‘Good idea, I’ll just swallow this,’ and Munty tipped his pint into his throat, snatched up her overnight bag and swung her out of the pub door into the sunshine.

‘The car’s parked in Flood Street. Come on.’ He seized her hand in his and set off. The bright summer air warmed her bare legs, and her heart went hippety hop as she rushed along with him as if in a madcap film chase. Perhaps the Beatles would appear around the corner like in
Help!

The car was an MG. She was popping with excitement, remembering in theory how to get into a low car in a short skirt without exposing her knickers, but not sure of the practice. Munty held the door open, having flung her bag in the back. Trusting to the strength of her thighs, she pressed her knees together and lowered her bottom into the leather bucket seat, arriving with only a very slight bump.

Then she swung her legs in sideways, still keeping her knees pressed together. Munty closed the door, and undid the catches on the canvas roof, folding it and strapping it down behind the vestigial back seat. He got in beside her and reached over, opening the glove compartment and pulling out a mauve chiffon square like a magician.

‘You might need this,’ he said. ‘Your hair looks terrific, by the way.’

He folded the scarf into a triangle and tied it over her head, crossing the ends under her chin and taking them around the back of her neck. Then he pulled on the two ends to bring her face closer to his. The scarf tightened. Her eyes widened, but then he was kissing her again before pulling away and tying the scarf under her chin. She must have imagined the pressure as it loosened immediately.

The kiss made her bloom and blossom under his touch. Excited and pleased with where she was and what she was doing, she sat back. He started the engine and they were off, turning right on to the King’s Road and roaring up towards Sloane Square.

‘There are some dark glasses in there as well,’ he said, and she reached into the glove compartment. She’d been worried that her eyes would start to stream and she’d end up looking like Chi-Chi the panda at the Zoo.

With a great gasp of pleasure, she felt she had arrived in the real London at last, spinning up the King’s Road in a smart sports car, her hair short and chic, being admired and envied by the young crowd on the pavement. Not the stuffy old London of debs and their mums, ghastly Guards officers and frightful girls who looked over your shoulder for a rich husband. Munty took his hand off the wheel to hold hers, dotting the i in her happiness.

Wondering what he had let himself in for, never having invited a girl anywhere further than a London restaurant, Munty had gone to Freddie for a briefing on how to deal with a day – or weekend should it develop into that – away with Melissa. Freddie had been quite specific, although he had snorted when Munty had said with a pained expression that he was looking for a wife not an easy lay.

‘First of all, Munty, do her parents know where she’s going?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’d better find out. These over-protected girls can be the wildest. For goodness sake, Munty, you old stick. No need to get married to get into her knickers.’

‘That’s not what I want, Freddie. I know I can have that, but Melissa’s not that kind of girl.’

‘You’d be surprised. They’re all that kind of girl these days.’ Freddie rolled his eyes, a remembering smile spreading across his thin face as he seemed to lose focus. Munty let him have his moment.

‘OK, Freddie. Listen.’

Munty hesitated. It was difficult to reveal the depths of his inexperience to the worldly Freddie Duggan. Freddie had the same skinny, ferrety quality as the young Frank Sinatra, and Munty was never sure if he liked him or not. They had been at school together, but Freddie was in the form below. Living off his P&Q earnings now and always in debt, Freddie was after a rich wife, but with no house to offer her, only the peculiar title of Lady Frederick Duggan. Munty shrugged, he knew more about all this titled stuff now, but it still surprised him that a woman might want to be called Lady Fred for the rest of her life and live with naughty Freddie, whose idea of a long-term relationship was about a week.

Munty remembered that at school Freddie wasn’t averse to working off his sex drive on willing boys as well. It had offended him, this easy sex some of the fellows went in for. Surreptitious embraces in the woods, down by the lake. If you were caught, you were sacked, but the masters never went down there.

Boys did nothing for Munty. He had no interest in the groping and kissing that went on. The skinny white bodies in the communal showers aroused no physical response in him whatsoever. He once plucked up the courage to ask Freddie about this habit that had seemed so normal at school, but in the outside world was illegal and disgusting.

‘Oh God, Munty, you’re
so
middle class,’ drawled Freddie.

What he heard made him heartily glad he had never been to prep school. Some of the prep schools sounded to him like vile dens of vice, where masters with an unsavoury interest in children introduced the boys to things they should have known nothing about. At one prep school, a feeder for Armishaw’s, even the former headmaster was known to be a pederast. He was notorious for inviting his chosen victims to his study after lights out for ‘strawberries and cream’.

The older boys did what they could to protect the younger ones of the type that he liked, white skinned and blond, but it was so bad that the governors believed the evidence and Mr Edgeburton was quietly retired. This seemed to be the origin of a lot of what went on at Armishaw’s. Only a tiny minority stayed ‘that way’ once in the outside world. And they all said they hated ‘queers’, which they didn’t seem to associate with the stuff they got up to at school. The floorwalkers he knew at P&Q who were ‘that way’ appeared to him to be brave, risking prison and public shame. It was well known that pretty policemen hung around in men’s lavatories to trap the unwary, and even a fellow peer had gone to prison in the Fifties. If it was illegal and they still were uninterested in women, surely it was natural to them? Tough though. He felt sorry for them.