Deep Water (16 page)

He brought some water for her and watched as she drank. Then he took the glass away and sat beside her. She said quietly, ‘You haven’t kissed me.’

‘It’s nice to have everything still ahead of one.’

‘Not forever,’ she whispered, lifting his hand and drawing his fingers lightly across her lips.

‘My darling, God knows how I’ve left you alone till now.’ Slipping an arm round her shoulders, he kissed her neck. As his lips touched her skin, a marvellous feeling of warmth and wellbeing flowed through her. He was stroking her knee through her funereal skirt which was slipping back and forth over her silk stockings. How beautiful his hands were.

She inclined her neck so he would kiss her there again and murmured, ‘Oh Mike, I want you so very much.’

‘I want you, too,’ he said, tilting his head so that their mouths met easily.

‘When did it start for you?’ she asked after a long kiss.

‘When you and Justin came that day.’

‘You didn’t show it.’

‘I couldn’t. It was a nightmare for me. And you were so shamingly dignified. I felt a monster.’

‘Darling, you weren’t at all. Well, maybe a little.’

He grinned ruefully. ‘A little monster.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, refusing to smile and break
her mood. Instead she began to kiss him with slow sideways movements, longing all the time to press her body against his. As he touched her breasts, all her senses seemed to be waiting there. ‘Does this house run to a bed?’ she sighed.

‘To ten at least.’

‘Choose for the both of us.’

‘I’m afraid they’re all single. Like I wish you were.’

They clung together on the stairs, breathless, bumping against one another, stopping to kiss on the landing. She could feel him trembling as his cheek touched hers. There were dead flies on the window ledges and the wallpaper was peeling with the damp, but everything felt right for her, except that she was crying.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, kissing away her tears.

‘Can’t you tell I’m happy?’

‘I’ll know in future,’ he said, smiling.

After they had made love, she lay with her head on his chest, breathing hard, her skin looking very pale against his. He had come too soon, and had tried to go on for her sake, until she had helped him out by pretending. Another few seconds and she would have reached her own climax. Unlike the calculated physicality of her sexual relations with Peter, Mike had hardly needed to touch her.

After a while, he said softly, ‘let’s hope I do better next time.’

‘You did fine.’

And later he really did; and they slept in one another’s arms in their narrow bed.

Andrea woke with a start and looked at her watch.
Almost two hours had passed. Soon the boys would be wondering where she was. She lay back and closed her eyes against the world.

He said sleepily, ‘Isn’t it marvellous to laze
afterwards
?’

‘It’s heaven,’ she agreed, knowing she would have to get up soon but not wanting to end his peace and happiness.

He propped his head on a hand and gazed at her. ‘I could look at you for ever and still keep saying soft things like that.’

Feeling the same way herself, she stared back, thinking him perfect, from the slight scar above his right eye to the soles of his feet. She hugged him to her, loving his body’s firmness. ‘I have to go soon,’ she sighed.

They both got up. As he dressed, even his slight self-consciousness at being watched delighted her. Every damned thing he did seemed beautiful:
running
a hand through his hair, turning his head, stepping into his pants. As Mike put on his jacket she pointed to a medal ribbon. ‘I thought you couldn’t wear those.’

‘That one’s different.’

‘How come?’

‘I got it before I came here.’

‘What did you do?’

‘We killed some Germans who weren’t expecting us. I promise you don’t want to know more.’ He buttoned his shirt in silence.

Andrea stepped into her skirt. ‘You’re not mad at me for asking?’

‘Not at all. If anyone had tipped off the Krauts ahead of our visit,
we’d
have been dead meat, not them.’ He put on his jacket, leaving it undone. ‘Luckily, my present orders are to avoid the Boche like the plague.’

She felt her eyes smarting. ‘Please be
very,
very
obedient.’

‘I will. Don’t worry.’

He walked across to the window and looked down at the beach and the estuary beyond. It was still sunny, with high clouds casting ragged shadows on the sea. ‘This may surprise you,’ he said, turning to her, ‘but I really don’t expect to be killed. Whenever we’ve been attacked by aircraft, it’s always been down to some decision I took earlier.’

‘Like what?’

‘Not to delay our return till after dark. Or to go back twice to the same rendezvous. I only take risks in exceptional circumstances.’

It touched her that he should be trying to give her peace of mind by pretending to control his destiny. ‘When do you go over there again?’ she murmured.

‘Too soon.’ He took her by the arm. ‘Let’s eat something.’

As he cut bread and cheese for her and pulled the cork from the wine bottle, she was surprised to think that they had made love only an hour ago. Mike looked so elegantly composed, she could hardly credit he had just been in her body, though the evidence was still wet between her thighs. Time was gliding along in such a pleasant, almost
somnambulistic
way, that its true speed was impossible
to judge. Feeling so close to Mike, it was odd to think how little she knew of his past – not even how he’d become interested in the subject he taught. So how had his interest in Classics started?

‘The usual sort of thing … homosexual master takes a few boys to Greece, and though they don’t play ball with him his passion for Socrates and company seduces them anyway.’

‘How come you like talking to my philistine husband?’ She looked at him through sceptically narrowed eyes.

‘Admiration. You forget my dad wanted me to be an engineer.’

She smiled knowingly. ‘Guilt plays no part?’

‘A small one.’ She kept smiling. ‘All right, quite a big one. Another drink?’

She let him pour more wine into her glass. ‘Maybe I’m naïve, but I feel kind of rotten when I see you being all friendly to him.’

Mike had just taken a mouthful of cheese, so his words came out indistinctly, ‘But darling, you can’t want to rouse the poor chap’s suspicions. Why upset him? Nicer for everyone if he’s happy to see me around.’

‘I guess.’

After they had eaten, Mike told Andrea that they would not be able to use the house in future. A full-time caretaker would be taking up residence over the weekend. Andrea mentioned her possession of a key to the village school.

He laughed delightedly. ‘I’m still eager to learn.’

Because it would be hard to explain daytime
absences to her boys, they agreed to meet at the school after midnight two days hence. Mike
suggested
arriving on bicycles, since they would be quieter and easier to hide than cars or motorbikes when left outside.

‘Have you done all this before?’ she asked
neutrally
, feeling anxious inside.

‘I had a couple of brief walk-outs after Venetia shoved off. Neither lasted long.’

‘Why did Venetia leave you? Oh Mike, I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘It’s all right. She found Cambridge too provincial, and me too poor. I was paid more in London but it wasn’t enough. Luckily, my successor’s loaded. He’s also on the fringes of national politics; just what she wanted.’

‘Is he in the services, her new guy?’

‘He’s something nice and safe in Beaverbrook’s ministry. Venetia would never fall for anyone who might be killed. I don’t blame her really.’

‘I do.’

Mike considered for a moment. ‘You’ve persuaded me.’

Because Andrea could see how moved he was by her loyalty, her eyes began to fill. Disapproving of adultery in principle, in practice she found her feelings extraordinarily pure and righteous. Because Mike might die at any time, how could she be blamed for wanting to repair the injury inflicted by his wife?

When he kissed her again, it was different from earlier kisses – intimate, possessive, grateful – a kiss
between acknowledged lovers. She thought of the bombs hurtling down on the freighter and could hardly bear to look at Mike. This must be what living with danger did to people – allowed them fragments of forgetfulness before returning them to terror. What use could wit or courage be when bombs rained down? Mike’s mind, his elegance, his smile would not even be ashes after such an inferno. Oh God, let nothing happen to him. His thoughts had also darkened. Without her noticing, his expression had become sad and self-absorbed.

‘Darling,’ she cried, folding him in her arms. ‘You make me so happy.’ And as she said this, the haunted look left his face, and, for that moment, he seemed carefree again.

Having feared a grilling, Andrea was thankful when Leo showed little interest in where she had been. Predictably, he asked why she had not come back for lunch but then he accepted, without question, her banal explanation: that she had needed to be alone after the funeral. Andrea had never before lied to him about anything of consequence.

On her return, the two friends had been playing L’Attaque with the grim hostility that enslaved them whenever they embarked on this archaic game. In his head, Leo was probably commanding a real army, not several rows of crinkled cardboard. Wanting so much to understand her son better, it consoled Andrea to believe that the failure wasn’t hers alone. Leo could never tell when he hurt her, failing, as most children did, to appreciate the reality of a parent’s private thoughts and feelings.

She herself had been no better as a girl, thinking her father a model of maturity – the hospital chief, devoted to family and patients. Yet within months
of his wife’s death, Andrea’s faultless daddy had married a much younger woman, one who wore Indian bangles and thought herself an artist. For years her father had been bored to death by his bridge-playing wife with her three-cornered hats and love of Republican meetings. And for years Andrea had failed to notice.

Before coming to Cornwall, Andrea’s fondest hope had been to win back Leo’s trust, in the relaxed atmosphere of the countryside. Now, her need to conceal her most important thoughts had made success unlikely. Ironically, the boy she was starting to understand was the one she’d blamed for alienating Leo. But Justin, unlike her own son, had revealed his need to be loved.

*

That afternoon, Sally called up to suggest getting together. Andrea could not tell from her
disembodied
voice whether she would be distraught or stoical when they met. And even when Andrea found her sitting stiffly on a horsehair settee in the private bar of the Anchor Hotel, she could not guess at her mood.

‘Sorry I couldn’t invite you
chez
moi,
darling, but I’m turning over a new leaf.’

Andrea looked at her open-mouthed. ‘I’ve become an unsuitable friend?’

‘A scarlet woman, no less. Not that anyone knows except me.’

‘I never told you a single thing, Sally.’

Sally inclined her head. ‘Remember that time when you rang to ask if I knew when Mike Harrington
was back from France? Don’t fuss, dear heart. Your secret’s safe with me.’

‘My secret?’

‘We’re big girls, Andrea. Don’t be a silly prune.’

Andrea couldn’t help smiling. ‘No prunes, I
promise
.’

‘I’ll buy you a gin.’

When Sally returned with two glasses, her
sprightliness
had vanished and she looked depressed.

‘I love him, Sally. You’re right.’

‘As always,’ she growled, taking a large gulp of gin. ‘I’m afraid I was being serious about not seeing you. I’m out on my ear next time. So I’ve got to be good.’

‘Will that be easy?’

‘With James dead and buried? Jesus Christ!’

‘I wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry, Sally.’

‘Don’t go on. Things could be worse. John’s a good man. Frankly, love’s a luxury at my age.’ Sally raised her glass. ‘Well, bottoms up!’ She downed the rest of her gin in one swallow. ‘If I were you, Andrea, I’d make the most of Mike while he’s still around. The only thing I regret is not making love to James more often.’ She made no sound as tears flowed down her cheeks, cutting channels through her make-up.

‘Will I see you at Elspeth’s?’ asked Andrea.

Sally shook her head. ‘I can’t risk going there. John’s only agreed not to tell our son about my goings-on if I stay away. I couldn’t bear to be hated by him.’

‘He might not react like that at all.’

‘Darling, he thinks the sun shines out of his father’s bottom.’ Sally stood up and managed a stiff little smile. ‘Maybe Leo wouldn’t mind, but my Mark jolly well would.’

Shaken by her friend’s words, Andrea tried not to imagine Leo’s righteous anger on his father’s behalf. Sally said sadly, ‘It’s been fun knowing you.’

Andrea found a pencil in her bag, and, tearing a page from her diary, scribbled down some figures. ‘This is my Oxford number. Come see me.’ Sally took the paper without comment.

They said goodbye in the village street outside the Methodist Chapel with the words EBENEZER, BETHEL written across the cracked yellow stucco over its door. In a God-fearing community no doctor would be able to afford to keep a wife who became a scandalous figure, and so many eyes and ears would be eager to detect the signs of transgression.

On parting from Sally, Andrea drove to the school on the pretext of practising on the piano, the real
reason
for her visit being to take sheets and blankets. On an earlier occasion, she had noticed numerous small cushions in the younger children’s reading corner. Piled together, these would make a mattress of sorts. In broad daylight, with the children’s paintings on the walls, and with shells and fossils on every surface, she found it hard to imagine lying on the floor with Mike. But at night these incongruous details would fade away, leaving their improvised bed as the undisputed hub of their universe. ‘This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.’ For days, Andrea had been attributing her own tastes and likings to
Mike, and not just John Donne’s poetry. Years ago, when discussing romantic love with Peter, he had quoted Freud on narcissism, claiming that lovers invariably overestimated their beloveds, since their own personalities benefited by the association. But what was wrong with overestimating, when it was so magical to value another human being highly? Nothing at all, she told herself, as she took her contraceptive cap from its box and went to the bathroom.

By the time she left the house, having satisfied herself that the boys were asleep, it had started to rain. This bothered Andrea, not because she minded getting wet but because she had decided to say, if Leo found her bed empty, that she had been unable to sleep and had gone for a walk to relax herself. This would hardly sound convincing with rain teeming down, but she had already decided not to take the car, since it might have wakened the boys.

When she was almost ready to leave, Andrea found that the saddle of the bicycle which Justin used was several inches too low for her. So for ten minutes at least she crept about with a torch until at last she found a spanner. On the road she was filled with a wonderful sense of freedom. Everything seemed remarkable: the rain, the velvet blackness of the sky, the wind in the telephone wires, a badger lolloping across the road.

As she reached the school and dismounted, Mike stepped out from a wedge of darkness under the playground wall. They moved together like
swimmers
through the rain. He was wearing a black
oilskin that made him feel bulky as they kissed. His hair was plastered down, like hers.

‘I’m so wet,’ she laughed. ‘Let’s hope I haven’t lost the key.’

As she held it up for his inspection, there was a break in the clouds and the yard was bathed in moonlight. Inside the deserted classroom, the face of the clock gleamed white and the narrow
ecclesiastical
windows cast pale fingers across the floor.

With the aid of a torch, Andrea fetched the sheets and blankets from the raffia cupboard where she had hidden them. Then they heaped up the cushions.

Though Andrea most certainly did not want to think about Peter at this moment, she could not help but notice the difference between her husband’s and her lover’s bodies. When Mike had undressed and was walking towards her through shafts of
moonlight
, the sight of his narrow hips and waist and his long legs was so strikingly unlike Peter’s shape that she could only stare. Hastening to undress as well, she quickly unbuttoned her dress and unhooked her brassiere.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmured, kissing her breasts.

‘I’m so cold, too,’ she whispered, slipping her underskirt and step-ins over her hips in a single movement. He held her tightly and she could feel his penis against her stomach, growing in little pulses.

‘Should I wear something?’ he asked.

‘I’ve seen to it.’

She kissed him on the lips, a long, open-mouthed kiss. The tension was building so rapidly for her that
she felt faint. Mike dropped to his knees, and she to hers, their lips briefly separating before joining again; his hands were moving over her, searching, stroking. Tension gripped her more tightly. As she felt the length of his body pressing down on hers, she was amazed to find herself ready. And as he moved on her, the little cushions slid from under her hips. Yet she was scarcely aware of the floor beneath the sheet. All she knew was how easily they moved together, and how right it felt. She cried out as he entered her, and heard him gasp her name.

‘Don’t leave me yet,’ she sighed afterwards,
holding
him back.

When she let him move, relief and triumph shone from his face. Supporting himself on his elbows, he gazed down at her adoringly. Later, he asked how old she’d been when she’d had her first lover? Sixteen, she told him. Not that she’d chosen to be seduced early. Her father had forbidden her twenty-one-year-old boyfriend from coming to the house, or taking her tea dancing, to the movies, or even for a sundae. So they’d spent hours together in his blue Jordan roadster, as far away as Westchester and Long Island – any place, outside of Baltimore, where they wouldn’t be seen by friends of her parents – and the rest had followed, more or less
naturally
.

Mike chuckled to himself. ‘So you had your first affair in a car, thanks to dad.’

‘You could say that.’

‘I wish we had more light,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t see the colour of your hair.’

‘I guess we could risk candlelight next time.’ At the very moment of saying ‘next time’ she suffered a deep stab of panic about the future.

Until then, the moonlight had seemed kindly. Now it seemed to fall with cold impartiality on mathematical tables, on children’s paintings, and on her lover’s naked body. Andrea heard the clock ticking, quite loudly, amazed she’d not been aware of it when they first came in.

Since any loss of consciousness would be a loss of her time with him, she resolved to remain awake, even after Mike fell asleep. Soon afterwards, he flung his head to one side as if to escape a blow and shouted indistinct words. Andrea kissed him on the shoulder and watched his face relax again. When the same thing happened half an hour later, and his body tensed, as if he would run somewhere if he could, she woke him.

‘It’s all right. You’re here with me.’ And she held him.

‘Bad dreams,’ he muttered. ‘We all have them.’

‘What happened in yours?’

‘Our engines failed when we needed them most.’ He covered his face. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Will your next trip be difficult?’

‘No worse than usual.’

She kissed his frowning forehead. ‘Would it help to talk?’

‘It’s part of my life that has to stay separate. I couldn’t bear you to regret our time together.’

‘How could I regret doing this?’

He stroked her hair and murmured, ‘We none of
us happen again. This is it,
now.
Even in peacetime, life’s a gift that can be taken back.’

‘I can’t bear you to say that.’

‘You
can
bear it. I know you can.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s simple.’ He smiled mysteriously. ‘Together we’re invincible. Sorry; that sounds too naval: Indomitable, Invincible, Implacable.’

‘I’ll try and be all those.’

‘You’re crying.’ Deep dismay in his voice.

‘I shouldn’t be, since I’m sure you’ll be around till the war ends.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘Darling, I want to make some kind of promise for the future.’

He placed his cheek against hers. ‘You’re so sweet, Andrea. But you mustn’t wreck your marriage for a bad risk like me.’

She said urgently, ‘Mike, I won’t do anything right away. But if we’re still lovers in the summer, I’d like to tell Peter and Leo about us then. I would hate to go on hiding things forever.’

‘Just for now we’re fine,’ he said gently. ‘Friday’s as far ahead as I can think.’ Although he said this gently, he had ignored her pledge, and Andrea was hurt. Was he scared of commitment? Or had losses at sea made him dread feeling too much?

Towards three o’clock they made love again. Then, as the dawn chorus was starting, they dressed and prepared to leave. After Andrea had concealed their sheets and blankets, they followed the beam of her torch. In the yard, a smudge of yellow light glowed behind the trees. Mike stood close to Andrea as she locked the door behind them.

She turned to him, distressed to realise she’d
forgotten
to ask a favour she’d meant to mention earlier. She frowned. ‘I know Leo can be kind of grouchy; but if you could be specially nice to him when you come over, I’d really appreciate it, Mike.’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Can we meet Tuesday, before you go?’

‘I’d love to, but I’ll be awake most of the next night, so I ought to sleep the one before.’

‘Of course you must.’

They embraced for several minutes under the carved ‘Infants’ sign before he walked her to her bike. As Andrea pedalled away, the moon was a pale disc and birds were singing everywhere.