Sleeping Beauty (30 page)

“And an agent in London responded to a wire I sent,” she said. “If it’s not one of your two, I have a third.”

Laughing, he half-carried her to the carriage, lifting her, turning, kissing her. It made her dizzy. “Dear God, woman,” he said between attacks, “it’s been the two longest days of my life. I’ve missed you.”

He lifted her up into the carriage. Strong, clever James. A remarkable fellow, she thought. He was fully capable of handling his own affairs. He had for years without her. Moreover, Phillip was a grandiose, transparent lunatic beside him. James could see what Phillip was about a mile off. She needn’t worry for him. She leaned across as from the other side of the carriage he mounted the seat beside her. Before he could sit all the way down, she’d cupped the back of his hatless head, pulled his face to her, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

He was caught off guard for only a moment, then accepted it, relished her forwardness. After which, he asked, “What was that for?”

“Because I wanted to. And for being so handsome and smart and just plain good, Dr. Stoker, Sir James, Knight of the Order of the Bath.”

He picked up the reins, glancing sideways at her. As he clicked to the horse, his smile held both an
ease and candor that were just right, just so; they matched a feeling inside her. He and she so easily fell in step, it seemed, as if they had always been lovers.

Always. What a concept! Coco felt daring even letting her mind form the word.

Chapter 20

In the
Volsunga Saga
version, the beauty is a strong and powerful daughter of Odin who is put to sleep—made alone and vulnerable because she helps a warrior who had been destined to die on the battlefield
.

From the Preface to
The Sleeping Beauty
DuJauc translation
Pease Press, London, 1877

T
he white, steep-roofed cottage had two gray stone chimneys, one sprouting right in the middle of the roof where two portions of it came together, the other originating at the ground and funneling up the center of an outside wall to become a narrow cubic stack above the gable. Behind the house was a weedy patch of dirt that had been a vegetable garden, or so a scarecrow in the middle
of it attested, a whimsical figure at the end of whose one remaining arm was a glass mug, precariously full of rainwater, Her Majesty’s seal on it assuring that it was exactly one imperial pint.

Coco stood at a split-rail fence, looking at this dollhouse of a cottage six miles from the nearest village and ten miles from Cambridge. The house was in need of only slight repair that James kept insisting he could do. “Nothing to it.” The Renaissance man. He could mend roofs, replace glass panes in windows, and set in a new front step. He remarked three times in praise of the house’s situation. It sat in the middle of its own twenty acres, English countryside spreading out in every direction without a hedgerow in sight, the land green, verdant, rolling, nothing but the occasional tree and a distant line of willows that marked the Granta River a mile off. James loved the house.

Coco hated it.

“Come inside,” he said. “Inside it’s lovely and in quite good shape.”

It was, in fact, most suitable. The agent had given James the key. They were allowed to browse at their leisure. The front parlor was small but would be sunny in the morning. James suggested she do her sketching here. She could set her easel so it faced the window, put her drawers of papers, pencils, pens, and inks to the right. They could set up a little tea table to the side; he would bring her minted tea the way they made it in Morocco. He himself, if he brought work home, would do it with a cup coffee (the way the Dutch made it in South Africa) while reading in the chair beside her, or, if he needed to, take to the kitchen table. The kitchen was large and
accommodating. There was only one bedroom, but it was spacious and it came with a large bed and wardrobe in place.

“It’s perfect,” James said.

“It’s drafty in back. We would freeze in the winter.”

James looked at her with an expression of mild concern, as if to say he had not known she could be so difficult. Well, now was a good time for him to find out, she thought. Difficult, snide, hard to please. And tense for no reason.

“Well, it is,” Coco asserted.

As fine a distraction as James was, she couldn’t quite let go of her conversation with Phillip. It left her edgy. Phillip, Phillip, Phillip. The stupid cottage reminded her of him. Of him and others. Other houses, other promises, other clandestine unions, the disrespectful intentions of men that these secret places had always implied. Little castles with a hundred years of thorns, places to lock her away, to put her to sleep until, princes that they were (and one or two had been, literally), they arrived and bestowed their kisses. Ha, she thought. Not anymore. Not for me.

Yet here she was. And she couldn’t rise up on her own and walk away, because it was a simple fact: if James Stoker could be in her life, no matter how she had to arrange it, her life was better, warmer, more blessed for his presence in it. So stop this carping, she told herself. Stop resenting what cannot be changed or improved upon. And stop, above all else, wishing Sir Knight here would stand up and tell the world he loves you. Drawing fairy tales could be fun; believing in them, letting them
define one’s expectation, was purely dangerous.

She made herself enumerate the real and significant losses James could sustain, if he declared himself for her. If he damaged his place in the hierarchy at Cambridge, he would lose access to the best endowments and grants, the best equipment, and the immediate worldwide comradery of the best minds in his field. Moreover, the title he was about to acquire would not only add to his stature, it should add to his income, allowing him to pursue his vocation without worry for his needs and comforts for the rest of his life.

Coco watched her privileged, rising young star of a lover walk around the little house. He opened every window to look out from it, swinging sashes, sticking his head out, muttering things like, “Well, how quaint,” or “How lovely.”

Phillip, too, had loved the view from their hideaway, a field of cows, as she recalled. Phillip, who intended to “take care” of James, “keep him occupied.” Which was none of her business. There was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t say; she never said. She dare not even mention it to James, for what was there to mention?

That Phillip was no longer his friend? James knew this. That Phillip believed he could cause James trouble with James’s own journal? James could simply explain, couldn’t he? Say it had been turned around? Sir James Stoker was believable. He would always write down the truth, kindly, compassionately, and the truth about what James Stoker thought would never condemn anyone, let alone the good Dr. Stoker himself. So what was there to report? Nothing. She would say nothing.

“Honestly,” James said, as if she had only been joking so far, “what do you think of the place?” He turned toward her, his face asking her to please him, to let him have this little house because he liked it so well.

“I truly despise it. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“It’s paltry. It’s thorny and closed off. I can’t breathe here.”

He looked amazed by her definite opinion. It was amazing of course, since it was based less on the house and more on the fact that Phillip would have liked it and that she didn’t know what to do about Phillip.

“You can’t breathe?” James laughed at her. “Well, that doesn’t sound very good.” He reached, tried to take her hand. She turned away. He ended up catching her by the waist, drawing her backward into his arms. “I suppose that means you don’t want it then, right?”

“Right.” She couldn’t keep herself from going on a bit. She felt so discontent. “It’s small and ugly. Limited. A narrow place. I want a larger house for us.” I want the whole of the world.

Above her head, James sighed. “All right.” His tone once more though was worried and puzzled. Then he took her hand, lifting her fingers over her shoulder, and kissed her knuckles, one by one. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She tried to pull her hand away.

He kissed the crook of her neck as she squirmed. “What?” he said. “What? Tell me.”

She shook her head, trying to push away.

“Then I’ll tell
you
,” he said. “Everything’s
right. We’re together. We’ll be together forever. And it makes me so happy to think so. I’ll live anywhere with you. I’ll sleep under the same roof as often as I can. And my work is going so very well.”

When she had nothing further to say, he filled up the silence. “I began day before yesterday with the samples and resource maps. It’s exciting. I’m beginning to lay out the geology of an area of Africa never before charted. Meanwhile, Phillip and I have reached a truce of sorts. I glanced through a star atlas today, and I’m going to be able to keep him off my back. Oh, Coco.” He tucked her up against him, resting his chin lightly on the crown of her head. “I’ve been drawing the night sky as I remember it from the time when I was lost—and I wasn’t so lost! When I opened the atlas today, almost all the patterns in the southern skies that I remember were there. And they have names.” He began to recite these softly, as if murmuring poetry into her hair: “Hydra, the sea serpent, Centaurus, Orion, Eridanus with its bright star, Archernar. These dovetail into familiar constellations low in the sky, Gemini, Taurus, Virgo….”

He went on, so pleased with himself and these names, his spirits high while Coco’s sank to a nadir. The Phillip she had spoken to an hour ago was not a man pacified by a truce, not of any sort. She asked, “You don’t trust him, do you?”

“Who?”

“Phillip.”

“No.”

“Good.” Then don’t take him at face value, she thought. Don’t imagine everything is going “so
very well” or that you can “keep him off your back.”

Coco clenched and unclenched her fists as James’s recitation continued—more star names from his memory that ultimately degenerated into hums and mumbling kisses down the vertebra of her neck. She felt a shiver pass down her spine, part arousal, part horrible presentiment slithering over her. Phillip meant to destroy James somehow. He couldn’t, of course. Not her James. Clever James.

So clever. Golden, shining. She wished she could show him off. Childish, but true. Silly. Jejune. Yet he was the finest man, and he was hers. She wished the world could know. He turned her around in his arms and went to kiss her mouth, and somehow it felt…harrowing. She struggled free.

“Coco, what? What for godssake is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“No, something is bothering you. Is it me?”

“No. Of course not.”

She went to move away from him, but he took hold of her skirt. She gave up. She let him pull her to the bed, lay her down on it. The covers smelled musty. She let him lift clothes, move her around to where he seemed to want her. At one point, he stopped and said, “Could you be just a little less accommodating? You’re making me feel as if I need to leave a ten pound note on the dresser when I’m finished.”

She let out a small, insulted sound—“
Aahchh
”—and pounded her fists on his chest, a dual thump that reverberated into her arms. His chest was as solid as a brick wall.

She meant to hit him again, but he caught her
wrists, laughing. “There you go. You are alive, after all.” He pinned her arms out, her legs open.

“Ah!” she called. “You have no respect for your elders.”

“None at all.” He reached between their bodies and cupped her through her skirts, then lifted fabric, pushing it out of the way. Till his hand touched silk knickers, nothing but thin silk between his hand and her body. He ran his nail lightly over the fabric, at the tenderest spot.

Her mind swam down into the sensation. Ho, Lord. She wet her lips, closed her eyes.
Ooh la la
.

He groaned softly in her ear and murmured, “Tell me, tell me. I’m going to do this forever until you do.” He added, “Or as long as I can stand it. Ooh, Coco, you are so-o-o-o sweet here.” He let out a rueful laugh. “I want you. Again. Some more.”

Doing what he was doing forever might not have be so bad. It was fairly high on her list of divine pleasures. He was gentle, warm, sure. And so delicate, so precise. He knew exactly where to put his attention, not too hard, maddeningly right.

“Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me tell me tell me,” chanting in a whisper. “Why are you—so—oh, God, you’re going to kill me. You are so warm here and, well”—he made a kind of choking sound—“and, well, you’re rather, um, wet. Ooh, just right.”

Ready was the word. She was ready for him. “Now,” she told him. “Now.” Coco found herself trying to climb upward, wrap herself around him.

“Not now. Tell me first—”

“No. Now.”

“What a demanding shrew—”

“An ogress,” she said with a faint laugh. “
Now
.”

James opened his trousers, while she fumbled at her drawers. A second later, he eased himself into her. Then the damn man held back. He held to a slow, irregular rhythm, pausing, torturing both of them, marking time while letting out grunts from effort. But waiting. He was going to try to maintain his game.

She thrust herself upward, hard against him, taking him by surprise. He caught his breath, exclaimed softly, convulsed. It was over moments later.

After which—perfectly absurd—Coco burst into tears. She could neither understand them nor stop them, and the more she fought them, the stronger they came.

She hadn’t broken down like this since she was seventeen, since she had packed her bags, grabbed up her infant son, and left Phillip and London, the last place he’d tucked her away. She prided herself on the fact: she rarely cried. And when she did, it was a sniffle, a little weep, nothing more.