Breaking and Entering (25 page)

‘Juliet,' said Penny.

He looked at her in horror. No, he was imagining things. His guilt was still so sharp that he was turning vague grunts into accusing names, to lacerate himself. He sometimes suspected that the reason he was a poor sleeper was his fear of going down too deep into that mysterious and dangerous world where all control was lost. If he slept too long and soundly, the padlock on his tongue might be released, so that he too might start babbling in the night, revealing intimate secrets. His wife had no such qualms. She was breathing deeply, rhythmically, muttering odd phrases – no more Juliets, thank God, but vague, nonsensical words.

‘I'm sorry, Penny,' he whispered, saying things he could only say when there was no chance of her hearing. ‘I can't think how it happened. It was like a sort of madness.'

‘Belloc,' she replied.

He lay musing on the word. Gobbledegook most probably, though it could be an allusion to Hilaire Belloc, or even the name of a new French wine. Language had always fascinated him, especially the myriad African languages of his boyhood, which had baffled him and challenged him, since he had mastered only two. Yet languages were dying, becoming threatened species like white rhinos or giant pandas. Every year some thirty or forty died out. He deplored their loss, the impoverishment it caused. Each one was a freedom, another individual way of looking at the world, even a kind of luxury.

There was a light tap on the door – Mrs Gwynfryn Evans with their early morning tea. She had arranged to bring it at eight o'clock, though actually it was only twenty to.

‘Just a minute!' He reached out for his pyjama top, scrambled swiftly into it. ‘Yes, come in,' he called, fastening the last button. He didn't want to shock her by his nakedness.

‘Daddy!' Pippa burst in, fully dressed. ‘Can I have my breakfast early? Then I can help milk the goats. And after that I'm allowed to groom the ponies. And the puppies have to be fed again and …'

She was hopping from one leg to the other, unable to keep still, reminding him of long-past Christmas mornings when she was forced to endure the torture of a protracted breakfast before they opened their presents.

‘Yes, that's fine,' he said, again concealing his elation by adopting a casual tone. ‘We'll see you later, darling. Your mother's still asleep.'

‘No, I'm not.' Penny opened her eyes and peered uncertainly around, finally focusing on Pippa's yellow tee-shirt.

‘Mum, I've got to go – okay? I'm late already.' The door slammed shut; eager footsteps clattering down the uncarpeted wooden stairs.

Penny sat up slowly, one hand groping out to Daniel. ‘What's she late for, darling?'

‘Goats, ponies, puppies, hens.' He cocked an ear, heard the whinny of a pony in the yard. Mrs Gwynfryn Evans must be thrilled with her new unpaid but willing farmhand. What were routine chores for her would be supreme delights for Pippa. He was beginning to see how unreasonable he'd been in vetoing all pets except a hamster. If his daughter had an inborn knack with animals, as Mrs Gwynfryn Evans had insisted, then he ought really to encourage it. He must take a leaf out of Fergus's book and invest more time and faith in simple pleasures, rather than concentrating solely on Pippa's academic progress, and her skills in art and music. Maybe they should stay here a few days. In fact, there was no real need to press on to that outlandish camp at all. She was so much better already, thanks to nothing more miraculous than a change of scene and a few assorted quadrupeds. They could still camp if she wanted, but find somewhere more accessible. Or, alternatively, they could stay at other farms, where she could enjoy a range of animals from pigs to Jacob sheep. And he must resist the temptation to start teaching himself Welsh, or wading through the entire Mabinogion so that he could brush up on his folklore. For once, they'd vegetate.

‘Any tea?' asked Penny, though her voice was indistinct, and she looked as if she were drifting back to sleep.

‘I'll go and fetch it,' he said. ‘Make sure we get the sugar this time!' Tea would keep his wife awake, and he wanted her awake; wanted to lie beside her and enjoy her full attentions, the way he'd done last night. Pippa would be busy for the best part of two hours, so he could have a relaxed and naked Penny to himself.

He collided with Mrs Gwynfryn Evans in the passage, relieved her of the tea-tray and asked if it would be all right if they had their breakfast late.

‘It would suit me very well – give me a chance to feed the animals first.'

‘Right, we'll see you about ten.'

He was not to get away so easily. She had already embarked on an epic about the boiler and the boiler-man, with a long involved digression on the new European regulations governing the sale of eggs.

The tea was cold by the time he returned to Penny, who lay dozing on her back. He roused her with a kiss, in the fashion of a fairy-tale prince who had swum a moat and felled a briar hedge to claim his spell-entranced princess. He did feel as if he had strayed into a fairy tale – the house in the middle of nowhere, the dark forest on the hill.

He leaned over Penny's shuttered face, chanting in a singsong tone:

‘
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
Who had so many puppies she didn't know what to do …'

Penny laughed, drew him down towards her.

‘Don't you want your tea?' he asked.

‘In a minute. I'll have you first. Ouch! Your bristles hurt.'

‘I'm afraid I haven't shaved yet.'

‘Well, you'd better go and do it – I'm still sore from last night. I'll sit here drinking tea like Lady Muck, and keep the bed warm for when you get back all nice and smooth.'

He dragged himself away, wondering how many hours he had devoted in the course of his whole adult life to that tedious daily ritual with the razor. He collected up his shaving gear and slipped along the passage to the bathroom. The drab walls and cracking lino contrasted with the majestic view enticing through the window. The sun had painted its own decor on the sky – glints of gold, swathes of rose and amethyst against hazy preening blue; the colours on the fields below brilliant and new-washed. How could he have imagined that Wales was such a hostile country? He had simply built up all the horrors through years and years of prejudice; blanked out its unspoilt beauty, its air of sequestered peace. He shifted his gaze from the horizon and the distant hills to the cluttered yard below. Mrs Gwynfryn Evans was waddling to the hen-house with a bucket in each hand, accompanied by an enthusiastic Pippa.

He returned happy to the basin, surprised to find the water hot after the mishaps with the boiler. He lathered his face, deciding to enjoy his shave for once; derive real satisfaction from making his chin so sensuously smooth that wherever he kissed Penny it couldn't hurt or chafe again.

Suddenly he heard her voice, peremptory outside the bathroom door.

‘Quick, let me in! I've just got to have a pee!'

She dashed over to the toilet and sat down. He looked away tactfully, even ran both taps to camouflage the noise. She was far more free and easy than he could ever be. Nothing would induce him to use the lavatory in front of her. She wiped herself and pulled the chain, which was actually a piece of string dangling from an ancient rusting cistern. The bath looked equally venerable – a huge metal tub on four claw feet, with a dark stain beneath each tap and an old-fashioned wooden bath-tray to hold the soap and sponges.

‘I think I'll have a bath,' she yawned, ‘now I've made the effort to haul myself out of bed.' She peeled off the sundress she was using as a dressing-gown. They had unpacked the barest minimum – just toilet things and clean underwear.

He leaned towards her, daubed her wiry ginger thatch with a blob of shaving soap. ‘You were wonderful last night, you know.'

‘No,
you
were. I always think it's a bit like ballroom dancing. Despite all the spiel about equal rights, it's still the man who leads.'

He retreated to the basin. Wasn't that a criticism – veiled perhaps, but still an indictment of his recent dire performance? Until his recovery last night, his wife had been unable to indulge in fancy footwork because he had failed her as a dancing partner.

‘Blast!' he muttered, wiping off a drop of blood beading on his upper lip. He started to make some comment about his clumsiness, but his voice was lost in the fury of the taps. Penny was running her bath – the water spurting out in short spasmodic bursts, like a peevish sergeant-major barking orders.

‘It's a jolly peculiar colour,' she said, raising her voice above the roar. ‘All brown, as if it's rusted. I'll go and fetch my sponge-bag. I think I brought some bubble bath and it might cheer it up a bit.'

She bounded out, still naked, returning with the towels and a shiny plastic udder of some virulent-looking bath-stuff which frothed beneath the spluttering taps into a cloud of candyfloss.

‘Penny, you really ought to put something on. What if you bump into someone?'

‘What d'you mean, “someone”? There isn't anyone around. Except perhaps the ghost of Mr Gwynfryn Evans. I wouldn't be surprised to stumble on a few ghosts here – nice-natured friendly ones.'

She stepped into the bath, looking anything but ghostly herself; her flesh solidly voluptuous; her hair a bright reproof to any spectre. She lay back beneath the bubbles, only her nipples showing, pink against the deeper pink.

He finished shaving, watching her in the mirror, the expression on her face sensuous and languid, as it was when they made love – eyes closed, lips parted, head tipped languorously back. He had always envied her lack of inhibition; the way she didn't care how abandoned or even grotesque she looked in bed. When she was about to come, her face would contort into an almost-snarl of pleasure, and her enthusiastic cries were enough to wake half Wandsworth. He, in contrast, maintained a strenuous silence; seemed to need to concentrate, conserve his energies. Or perhaps, if he were honest, he was simply scared of showing his feelings, or making a fool of himself. It was the same thing as with sleep – he could never quite let go. Even last night, in the throes of his euphoria, some part of him still held aloof, alarmed and slightly shocked by the other, rampant Daniel.

Yet just recalling it excited him again; his erection pushing up through his thin pyjama bottoms. Maybe they could make love on the duvet on the floor, imagine they were camping already – not in Wales, but in the bush; the hot sun beating down, and various exotic beasts copulating around them with full-throated yowls of ecstasy.

He mopped the perspiration off his chest. He was sweating in the Zambian sun. ‘I think I'll have a bath as well, but no rush – when you've finished.' His eyes were drawn to her nipples again. Were they stiff already, or was he just imagining it?

She scooped up a handful of pink foam, began sculpting it in shapes. ‘Why don't you get in with me, then you can share these lovely bubbles. There's miles of room. My feet don't even reach the end!'

He rinsed his razor, dried it carefully. They never had baths together. Usually he insisted on his privacy, locked the bathroom door, to keep wife and daughter out. It was a reaction to his schooldays, he supposed. He had dreaded the morning ablutions at Greystone Court, performed in public in a spartan white-tiled washroom, where any moment some pint-sized tyrant might douse him with cold water, nick his toothpaste, or jeer at his anatomy. But here on holiday, he was determined to break the rules; leave the grim past behind.

He removed his pyjama bottoms, put a foot into the water. ‘Ouch! It's fearfully hot.'

‘No, it's not – it's perfect! You always have your baths too cold, then you can't relax.'

He wondered how she knew, though it was all too true, in fact – part of his eternal rush and hurry. He preferred showers to baths, in any case, on the grounds that they were quicker and more efficient. But today he planned to wallow.

Penny pulled up her knees to make more room for him; jabbed him with a teasing foot as he lowered himself in. He sat facing her, trying to get comfortable with two knobbly taps sticking into his back; one dripping icy water, the other scalding hot. He was sitting over the plug – another source of discomfort – but, bit by bit, the benison of the hot water worked its minor miracle and he let himself relax. He liked the feel of her body lapping his, one plump foot lodged gently in his groin, the blurred red of her pubic hair barely showing through the foam. Perhaps he'd initiate a fantasy himself, not keep it a dark secret (like his couplings in the bush), but actually suggest a scenario to Penny, instead of her invariably allotting them their roles. No way would it be jet-setters in Hollywood – more likely him a stripling of fifteen, with Penny as the Older Woman, dominant, alluring, maybe even cruel.

He felt instantly ashamed, without understanding why; busied himself with washing. He picked up the bath-brush – another Victorian relic, with a long pitted wooden handle and half its bristles missing. ‘Look at this weird object! It's almost a museum piece.' He tried it on his leg, rasping it from thigh to knee. ‘Actually, the bristles are still quite hard – those that haven't fallen out. Would you like me to scrub your back?'

‘Mm.'

‘Turn round, then.'

‘I can't. I'm too comfortable like this.'

He knelt over her instead, rubbed the brush lightly across her breasts. ‘Does that feel nice?'

She nodded.

‘Shall I do it a bit harder?'

‘Mm.'

‘Harder still?'

‘Okay.'

‘Doesn't it hurt?'

‘Yes, it does a bit, but I like it.'

He laughed. ‘You'd complain if it was
my
bristles.'

‘I wouldn't.'

Encouraged, he used his chin, chafing it back and forth across her nipples, then traced a wider circle, keeping it lingeringly slow. But he was perilously close to swallowing a mouthful of water, so he shifted his position and used his thumbs instead, gliding them from the underside up along her cleavage. Then he fished out the bar of soap (which had fallen into the bath and was melting into slime), and began to soap her breasts.