This Is All (13 page)

All Doris said was, ‘Thank you.’ But her smile was enough. She knew better – how I loved her for her judgement, her sensibility – than to crit us right then. Instead, she said, ‘Let’s have a celebration. Could you stay to supper, Will?’

He looked as surprised as I was, thought a moment and said, ‘Yes, sure, thanks. I mean, if Cordelia would like it.’

‘Why not,’ said I.

‘Good,’ said Doris. ‘What’s your favouritest food?’

He smiled at her silliness. ‘My
very
favouritest – if I’m to be absolutely honest—’

‘Always best.’

‘Fresh lobster. On its own. With a salad maybe.’

‘My lordy,’ said Doris.

‘So you’re the one Cordelia gets it from.’

‘What?’

‘Lordy. She’s always saying it.’

‘Family fingerprint. My mother used to say it too. You do have expensive tastes.’

‘You did ask,’ said Will.

‘I did indeed.’

‘But a hamburger will do,’ said Will, not meaning it for one moment.

‘It might have to,’ said Doris. ‘Finding fresh lobster on a Sunday in these parts won’t be easy. But nil desperandum, I’ll have a go. You two go on playing – or whatever it is you have in mind. I’ve a friend to visit in hospital. I’ll buy supper on the way. Waitrose will be open. See you in a couple of hours.’

And she was gone.

Will packed his oboe away.

‘Quite someone,’ he said.

‘She’s all right.’

‘More than all right. Look, Leah—’

‘Yes, Liam, I’m looking.’ And I was, being still at the stage of finding it almost impossible not to look at him, and adding, to cover myself, ‘Why do people say look when they mean listen?’

‘Listen – look – about by the river last week—’

‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘It was pretty naff.’

‘Yes. Vulgar. Sorry sorry! Don’t know what came over me.’

‘Nor me. I mean, apart from being naff, which doesn’t matter. I mean I don’t know what came over
me
. Well, I do.’

‘What?’

‘You.’

‘Eh?’

‘You came over me.’

‘Ah!’

Pause.

Then we kissed, what else? A rather firmly played but pianissimo chord, four-four time, in straight C major to begin with. Then when that turned out well, another, this time a very hungry fortissimo in G major lasting at least six bars. Followed instantly with only a snatched breath by a sustained ten-bar fortissimo vigoroso chord in F minor moving legato into an equally sostenuto cadenza, E minor modulating into a spiritoso C via B flat major, lasting for so many bars that I simply had to come up for breath before either of us wanted the passage to end. By which time I was pinned in the bend of the Bösendorfer, which was emitting an occasional sympathetic vibrato as it echoed the slancio appassionato of our amoroso. I even thought he might take me on top of it, and feared for the health of Doris’s treasured instrument if he did, given that he still had his boots on. Nor could I remain upright any longer, my legs being reduced to tremolando by this time.

‘Not here,’ said I, taking his hand and pulling him after me, adding, ‘My room, my room,
presto presto
.’

It was onto the bed at once, the stage for a no-holds-barred passion play, mouths hands arms legs feet torsos rampant, our clothes soon dishevelled as by a tornado, kissing kissing kissing, panting rolling desperate as if the world would end in one minute flat.

And hot, naturally, and longing, wanting my clothes off, his clothes off, and began tugging and pulling at mine and his. I wanted to eat him and be enclosed by him, have him wrap me in him and him to be embedded in me and all at once
now
.

I’d never before felt the surge, the force, the power, the animal
need
of such desire. The imperative of it is violent.

‘Off
off OFF!
’ I guzzled.

And he did begin to unbuckle, unbutton, twitch off his boots, had even yanked off his T-shirt, before, like a swimmer surfacing from too deep a dive with only a last trace of breath left in his lungs, he suddenly pushed himself from me and lurched off the bed, tripping over my entangled legs, falling onto his backside on the floor in a manner that would have been too comic for words had we been observers and not participants in this furious drama (how farcical sex can be), and gulping at the air like a dying fish, he managed to say,

‘
Not ready – not ready!
’

‘
All right, all right!
’ I cried, as breathless as he and frustrated into the bargain, and lunged for the drawer in my bedside table, scattering my dear little alarm clock in the process, which, hitting the wall, broke into two and stopped (5:13 p.m.), and grabbed the carton of condoms Doris had so percipiently placed there.

‘It’s okay! – Look, look!’ said I, waving the prophylactics. But:

‘No,’ said Will, ‘no. Not that!’

‘What!’ said I. ‘I’m not on the pill.’

‘No. Don’t mean – Calm! – Get some air.’

He stumbled to the window, opened it, leaned his hands on the sill, gulping.

‘
Matter?
’ I said. ‘What’s matter?’ Full of worry now. ‘What did I do wrong?’

No reply, just panting gasps.

‘…
Will!
’

‘Not you,’ said he. ‘Wait.’

‘Wait!’ said I. ‘WHAT FOR?
Come back! GET ON!
’

But he merely flapped a hand at me as he drank the air.

I gave the bed a solid thump and yelled, ‘But
Will!
’ And wanted to burst into tears.

A hiatus. A colorado of disappointment. Him breathing. Me fuming. Then another thought.

‘It’s my period! Is that it? But it’s over.’

I was pleading, and hated myself for it.

He turned, looking at me. His face was the colour of cooked lobster and glazed in sweat (his sweat, his sweat!) as if just out of the pan, with the pained look on his face of same if still alive. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him he was so clearly suffering.

He came back to the bed, stumbling a little – I’d seen him wobble in just this way after running a race. Sat on the bed. First side-saddle. Then, as if suddenly clear about his thoughts, swivelling and sitting cross-legged, facing me. Calmer now, both of us. Breathing almost normally. Almost.

‘Not that,’ said Will.

‘What, then?’

‘I do want you.’

‘And I want you.’

‘But,’ said he, looking at his feet, ‘not like this.’

‘Not like what?’

‘You know. Quick. A quick bang. Like we just wanted to get it over.’

A pause for thought.

‘But to be honest, Will,’ I said, ‘I suppose, that’s what I do want. To get it over.’

‘Why?’

‘Everybody says the first time – Well – You know – It kind of doesn’t usually. Go well.’

‘Who’s everybody?’

‘Will, you are impossible!’ I couldn’t help laughing.

‘But who?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Doris. The girls.’

‘Don’t care what they say.’

Pause.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But.’

‘Look. – Listen!’

‘I’m looking and I’m listening.’

‘The thing is. Whether it goes well or not. That’s not the point.’

‘Which is?’

‘We can only do it once.’

‘You mean, there’s only ever one first time?’

‘Exactly. We can’t say we didn’t like the way we did it, so let’s try again. It has to be. It will be. What it is.’

‘So—?’

‘Don’t you feel – when we do it – you want it to be – I dunno. As good as we can make it?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘So—’

‘Let’s do it—’

‘The way we want it to be. Ergo?’

‘When?’

‘Where?’

‘How?’

‘The way—’

‘We want. O, Will,’ said I. ‘I do want you.’

‘And I want you, Cordelia. A lot. Very much. Maybe too much.’

‘Can you want someone too much?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why?’

‘Dunno. Just what I feel.’

‘Because they might eat you up they love you so?’

He laughed.

‘Listen!’ I said. ‘Listen to me.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You’re right. I see that now. I did want to get it over. Over and done with. Out of the way. People talk about it so much. The girls, I mean. But you’re right.’

‘So?’

‘So?’

‘What?’

‘Let’s think for a while. A day or two.’

‘Right.’

‘No longer though! Can’t bear it much longer.’

He laughed again. ‘Agreed.’

I took his head between my hands, pulled his face to mine, and kissed him delicato, dolce, lento, on his adorable lips.

And then we lay down on our sides, facing each other, his head on my pillow (I didn’t change the pillow case for two weeks), and gazed at each other till we were calm and peaceful enough and content enough to get up and use the bathroom (separately) and rearrange our clothes and ready ourselves to be sociable with Doris and go downstairs and watch television, hand-in-hand on the sofa, till Doris returned, and yes, she was bearing three fresh – well: refrigerator fresh – lobsters.

In lieu of washing up, which he offered to do, Doris made Will play an oboe solo for her after dinner. And to round things off she played the piano for us.

When Will had gone, I said to Doris, ‘Well? What do you think?’

‘He plays well.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You can tell everything about someone from the way they play.’

‘And? …
And?
’

‘I invited him to dinner, didn’t I? I fed him fresh lobster –
lobster
, for heaven’s sake! You know I dislike the wretched things. What more need I say? And you? How did you get on?’

There are times when Doris won’t discuss matters. Only when she thinks the time is right. But, thought I, two can play that game.

‘He was still here when you came back, wasn’t he?’ said I. ‘What more need I say?’

Dreaming

Last night I dreamt that I was giving birth to a cat. A black cat with long fur and red eyes. In the dream this seemed entirely normal. When I woke I thought I must be going mad. And felt for a while uneasy. What do I have inside me, a cat? I’m not a cat person. Not a dog person either, though the world seems to be divided between those who are one or the other. I’m not an animal-in-the-house person at all. Not a pet-animal person. Not a zoo person either. I’m a wild-animals-in-the-wild person. I did once, when I was about eight, want to have a tortoise (which Dad refused). Can’t think why. Perhaps because I liked the story of the tortoise and the hare, in which the tortoise won a race against the hare by plodding steadily along, while the hare was so arrogantly confident that he sat down and took a nap, sure that he could easily win. I suppose I’m a bit of a tortoise, I just keep plodding whatever anyone else does, and whether they think I can succeed or not.

At my antenatal group this afternoon, where they teach us how to give birth properly and the kind of therapy stuff that mildly irritates me but which we are made to feel duty-bound to attend to, I reported my dream, thinking everyone would find it as weird as I did. But not at all. Just about everyone in the group had dreamt of giving birth to something strange. One had dreamt she was giving birth to a monkey, another to a fish (yuk!), one even to a snake, which she could describe so precisely someone identified it as a sidewinder, which is not a serpent you would want to get in the way of at the best of times, never mind when it’s coming out of your insides.

Once again it seems that where human beings are concerned,
nothing is beyond imagination. If you can think of it, you can be sure someone has already done it. Fancy, therefore, dreaming you’re giving birth to an elephant, or a blue whale (biggest animal in the whole world, bigger than a jumbo jet). Birthing a butterfly, say a swallow tail or a meadow blue, might be quite nice (all that lovely fluttering of the wings as it left the uteral passage). But an ant or a flea or, grief!, a centipede, or an octopus (all those arms!), or a porcupine (the spines!). I shall be quite relieved, I can tell you, when I see you enter the world an ordinary, everyday, common-or-garden real live human baby girl, thank you. If you happen to give any thought, my little one, to becoming something else, forget it.

Also while I am on the subject of you and the effects you’re having on me now, when there are three months left, I can report that from about three months till about six months of being pregnant, I felt sexually turned on all day and especially at night. Not, however, in the way that makes you want to jump on someone, but in a private way, a feeling all for myself. And my dreams were not about popping cats, but were very sexy, very explicit. My sweet doc told me she’d felt just the same during the same months of her pregnancy and that this too is quite normal. The sexy dreams are caused by high blood pressure. How banal! But then during the last three months on which I am now started, she warned me that the sexiness disappears, and instead you have to pee all the time, which of course considerably reduces any thought of sexual romance. Though I do enjoy, I must admit, giving your father the pleasure he deserves and enjoys, and employing entertaining and suitable ways to satisfy him. He’s deliciously tender and delicate with me these days (not that he wasn’t before, but even more so at the moment), which I like too. But perhaps it’s best to remain silent about these matters till the day comes when we can talk about them woman to woman. I look forward to that day very much.
Perhaps I’m like this because my mother isn’t around. I think I miss her more now that I’m about to become a mother than I did when I was a girl.

Routine pleasures

After our Sunday of running and kissing and upset and our meeting for musical reconciliation, Will and I slipped into a kind of routine. I’ll describe it as coolly as I can, though it was anything but cool at the time.

At seven in the morning (he could be infuriatingly punctual), Will would call me on my mobile to say hello, wake up, get up, sleep slob (getting up, and hellest of all, getting up early, was never my strong point). Sometimes we’d talk for a few minutes, that nice kind of half-asleep talk, or tease and joke, and sometimes, depending on our mood or the day ahead, we’d say hello and nothing more.