A Family Affair (27 page)

Laughing over her shoulder at him, she went down to where Alec Hall was taking the money and marking top scores on a blackboard with a knub of chalk.

‘Fancy your chances, young Jenny?' he asked.

‘No – but I'll have a go.'

‘Top score for the ladies is only seven.'

‘I've never got seven in my life! Anyway, I don't suppose the best players have been on yet.'

The pubs and clubs ran ladies'teams, too, and competition was as fierce as it was amongst the men.

‘I'll have one go. Just one. That's all I can afford.'

She paid her sixpence and, as the stickers-up shied the balls back down the boarding, Alec caught them and stacked them ready for her.

‘You can go up to that line if you like,' he said, indicating a white stripe beyond which, in competition, balls were not supposed to bounce.

‘That's not fair!' a blowsy woman, smoking a cigarette, protested.

‘Give the kid a break, Reenie,' Alec said.

‘We're skittling for a prize here.' Reenie, at present in the lead, according to the blackboard, spoke with loud aggression. ‘Rules is rules, Alec.'

‘It's all right,' Jenny said to Alec. ‘It's only a bit of fun. I wouldn't be able to hit those skittles if you let me go halfway down the alley!'

She picked up the first ball and threw it. It trickled to the left-hand side of the alley and ran off into the grass.

‘See what I mean?'

She threw the second, overcorrecting on her first aim. The ball rolled off the right-hand side of the alley.

She laughed at herself, but knowing others were laughing at her too made her remember with a stab of discomfort the way she had used to feel in the gym and on the games field at school. Alec, always a kindly soul, sensed her discomfort.

‘Come on, m'dear,' he encouraged her. ‘That's one down each side. Go for middle for diddle now!'

Jenny bent into what her mother called a croupy position, keeping her eye on the middle pin. This time when she threw the ball her aim was firm and true. The ball ran an arrow-straight course down the centre of the alley, caught the middle pin and demolished five of the nine skittles.

‘There you are, m'dear!' Alec praised her. ‘That's the way to do it!'

Success made Jenny feel light-headed.

‘Can I have another go?'

‘If you've got another sixpence.'

Jenny fished one out of her purse. At the other end of the alley, Jimmy reset the skittles.

Her first ball took the front pin again and three of the four to its left, her second took all but one of the remaining skittles.

‘Think what you'm doing now,' Alec advised.

Jenny looked down the alley, at the single pin that remained standing. Hitting it seemed an almost impossible goal, yet as she swung the heavy ball back she somehow knew she could do it. Some sixth sense was telling her how. She released the ball and watched it fly down the alley towards the skittle. It hit and thudded into the pile of sandbags, taking the skittle with it.

‘You've cleared the board! Nine!' Alec sounded delighted for her. ‘Looks as if we've got a new leader!'

‘What's the ladies'prize?' Jenny asked, brimming with excited pleasure. ‘What will I win?'

‘A five-pound note. But there's a long way to go yet. We shall be skittling'til it gets dark. You'll have to come back to see if you've won,' Alec said.

The blowsy woman named Reenie said nothing, just grunted, and lit another cigarette.

Jenny practically danced back to Jimmy and the other boys.

‘I'm in the lead! I might win!'

Jimmy put his arm round her, grinning with pride, and the other boys made heaving noises. But for all that, Jenny sensed that beneath their loud ragging they were actually envious; she couldn't help noticing the way they looked at her, and suddenly she felt as strong and as sure of her sexual power as she had of her ability to hit that lone skittle.

‘Do you want to go for a walk?' Jimmy asked.

‘If you like.'

With the whistles and coarse comments of the other boys following them, they set off across the field.

The evening sun was still slanting through the branches of the trees along the river, making sparkling patterns on the water, but when they crossed a stone bridge where the river broadened out into a deep pool beneath a small weir the foliage was so thick that it was almost twilight.

‘Did you know this used to be the town swimming pool?' Jenny said. ‘See?' She pointed to a concreted area at one corner. ‘That used to be the diving stage.'

‘Fancy a skinny-dip?' Jimmy grinned at her.

‘No! No
thanks
! My gran says it had to be closed because of the churchyard.'

‘What d'you mean?' Jimmy looked puzzled.

‘The churchyard. It's just up above here. Things … drain down … you know – nasty things. From the graves.'

‘Oh!' Jimmy, about to dangle his hand into the water, withdrew it quickly. ‘You mean … ?'

‘Yes,' Jenny said. ‘When we were little we were told not to paddle here in case we had a sore on our feet or legs and got germs in it.'

‘Ugh!' Jimmy turned away. The pool had lost its charm for him now; he wanted nothing to do with a place that might be contaminated by death. ‘Shall we go on a bit further?'

They went back into the sunlight, following a track through the scratchy grass that ran parallel with the river for the length of the valley, Jimmy holding her hand. After a while they came to a place where the river looped, bare of trees and shallow, little more than a trickle over clean-washed stones. It was very quiet here, very secluded, no sound but the gentle gurgle of the water and the distant drone of a harvester.

‘Let's sit down for a bit,' Jimmy said.

‘I don't know if I should. My dress …'

‘It's all right. The grass is dry as a bone.'

‘I daren't get it dirty. It's new.'

‘All right. You've heard of Sir Walter Raleigh …' Jimmy was unbuttoning his shirt, spreading it out on the ground. ‘There you are! Sit on that.'

‘Jim-my!' She was embarrassed by the sight of his bare chest; the sudden feeling of intimacy made her claustrophobic. But she sat down anyway. Not to do so in the face of such chivalry seemed churlish.

He sat down beside her and began to kiss her, and her feeling of claustrophobia increased. She didn't want him this close, especially when he wasn't wearing his shirt. His back felt hot and slightly moist beneath her fingers, his mouth, covering hers, made her feel as if she were being suffocated. But she kissed him back because it somehow seemed mean not to do so. When she felt his hand on her breast, though, her stomach tightened a notch with something close to panic.

She tried to push his hand away, but he replaced it.

‘Just a little feel, Jen. I won't hurt you.'

‘No!'

But even to her own ears she did not sound very convincing and in spite of her misgivings there was something not unpleasant about the sensation that spread across her skin from his kneading fingers.

He was kissing her harder, his breath coming faster. She could feel the rapid rise and fall of it in his bare chest and when his hand crept up her skirt, touching the soft flesh of her thigh, any pleasure dissipated abruptly. She grabbed his wandering hand with her own.

‘Stop it, Jimmy!'

But as fast as she removed it the hand was back and his mouth was stopping her protests.

She pushed him away, wriggled free.

‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘Only what everyone else does!' He sounded hurt as well as frustrated.

‘Well, I don't! And you don't. Not with me.'

‘Jen …'

She scrambled to her feet, brushing bits of grass from her skirt.

‘Jimmy, I don't want to. Actually … I think we've been seeing too much of one another. I think we ought to give it a break.'

Still sitting there on the grassy slope he looked up at her, good-natured face furrowed suddenly with shock and disbelief.

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Us,' she rushed on, knowing now that this had been the catalyst and she couldn't face the thought of being in this position again, trapped, not wanting even to kiss him any more, let alone allow him intimate liberties, yet feeling oddly obliged to, as if it was all part of the deal. ‘I don't want to go out with you any more.'

‘Jen!' The furrows went slack, colour rushed to his cheeks and drained again; his lip wobbled. ‘Jen … I didn't mean … I won't… If you don't want to …'

‘You will. Boys always do. And anyway, it's not just that. I just don't want to go out with you. I'm sorry.'

He was on his feet. ‘You don't mean that!'

‘I do. I was going to tell you anyway. I was trying to think of a way.'

‘Jenny, please!' To her horror she realised he was on the verge of tears. ‘You can't do this to me!'

‘I'm sorry,' she said again, feeling guilty, anguished, but more certain than ever that she was doing the right thing.

‘But why? Why?'

‘No reason, really. I like you, honestly I do. But …'

‘Then why won't you go out with me?'

‘Because.'

‘I promise you faithfully I won't try anything again. Not ever. Say we can still go out sometimes. Please!'

This was worse, much worse than she'd dreamed it would be.

‘Well … maybe sometimes.'

‘Honestly?' He looked so relieved but still on the verge of tears – perhaps even more so – and Jenny knew in that moment that whatever he said, whatever she said, she wouldn't – couldn't – go out with him ever again. For the first time in her life she was the one with the power, the one with the ability to break hearts, and she didn't like it one bit. In its own way it was every bit as bad as being the outcast, the victim. Perhaps because she had been there too often she felt his pain as acutely as if it had been her own. But at the same time it diminished him in her eyes. Jimmy the tough guy, the hard nut with the soft centre that she alone had been able to touch, had become Jimmy the marshmallow, and with the revelation the last vestiges of his appeal for her melted away.

‘Can I kiss you – just once more?' he asked, and though she felt she owed it to him to agree, she shrank from his touch, shuddered inwardly at the taste of his tear-wet lips.

As they walked back along the river Jenny felt not only awkward and villainously cruel but distinctly edgy – a sense of urgency she could not understand but was compelled by. In the gateway dividing the fields from the lane, Jimmy caught her arm.

‘You
will
come out with me again, won't you?'

‘I said so, didn't I?' She squeezed through the iron V-gate and started along the grass verge, Jimmy beside her.

The field was even more crowded than it had been when they had left it. People who had eaten a leisurely tea before heading for the fête clustered around stalls and ambled almost aimlessly between them. Then a figure she recognised seemed to leap out of the crowd and Jenny felt herself go cold and weak as the blood seemed to drain from her face and body.

There was no mistaking that matronly woman in the home-made cotton dress with pique collar and cuffs carrying a raffia shopping bag, with Sally, the puppy, pulling on her lead as she frisked along beside her.

Carrie.

Jenny, trembling now, understood that inexplicable feeling of urgency. Some sixth sense had told her to get back to the fête fast. But already it was too late. Carrie had seen her.

She came towards Jenny purposefully, face set in the expression of disapproval – anger! – that Jenny knew only too well.

‘Mum!' she said helplessly.

‘Where do you think you've been?'

‘Nowhere … Here.'

‘Don't you lie to me!' Carrie said furiously. ‘I'm not stupid. You've been with this
boy.
' She invested the word with all the venom to make it an insult, jerking her head to indicate Jimmy whilst glaring from beneath beetling brows at Jenny.

‘We've only been for a walk. We've only been gone a minute …'

‘I've been here half an hour and more and there was no sign of you,' Carrie said furiously. ‘I've been round and round looking for you.'

‘I didn't know you were coming,' Jenny said miserably.

‘I'm sure you didn't!' Carrie glowered at Jimmy, who looked as if he wished the ground would open and swallow him. ‘It's a good job I
did
come, if you ask me! Well, now you can just come home with me.'

‘Mum … I'm supposed to be helping on the Roll a Penny.'

‘They seem to have managed so far without you. Come on, my lady. Home!'

Carrie, furious, was a force to be reckoned with. She marched up the hill in stony silence, pulling on Sally's lead impatiently whenever she stopped to sniff at a lamp-post. Jenny trailed miserably behind, knowing she had far from heard the end of it and also that she would have to pay for her misdemeanour for days to come, if not for weeks.

It was so unfair! She'd done nothing wrong; she hadn't even enjoyed herself. But she had been seeing Jimmy behind Carrie's back, and Carrie, with that uncanny intuition of hers, had somehow suspected and set out to catch her out.

‘I had a feeling there was something going on,' she said when the front door closed behind them. ‘I knew there was something not right.'

‘How?' Jenny asked.

‘I'm your mother, aren't I? You can't pull the wool over my eyes and get away with it for long, my lady. All I hope is you haven't done anything stupid.'

For a moment Jenny didn't know what she meant, then it dawned on her, and her face flamed.

‘Mum!'

‘Well, you wouldn't be the first, and you won't be the last. Not that you'll be getting the chance for a very long time. If you can't be trusted to behave yourself, you'll have to stay where I can keep an eye on you.'