“You're sure you've enough money? I mean, can you
really
afford it?” asked Janet.
“Sure,” I said. “The money I get for playing would almost do to keep me in spite of my grant.” It wasn't true but I was feeling magnanimous.
There was a light ground mist. A brilliant white moon travelled with us across the sky so clear that it gave an impression of the receding distance from star to star. The rooftops imitated the moon inversely and fled past us.
She was settled comfortably against me. I wanted to kiss her. I felt like an over-sensitive schoolboy at his first Christmas party. I curbed my desire in the light of the conversation in the café. The memory of the conversation brought stabs of frustration, but I was exhilarated by her being with me anyway.
We were now in the countryside which surrounded the suburb where she lived. Houses became less frequent. Woods and fields shone darkly in the moonlight.
We were on a high stretch of road which overlooked the wide river. I looked at the other side. It lay quiet and rural, unconscious of my sublime affection for it. Then I spotted my town, sitting by the river's edge. I imagined my mother and father at home on this Saturday night. My father would be about ready to go out. My mother and grandmother would be temporarily contenting themselves in front of the television set. The boys, that heroic group of seniors whose unbreakable friendship I had made at school, would already be in the Plough, already set in the pattern of their lives.
The journey was over too quickly.
“Stop here,” Janet told the driver. We got out. I paid the driver. He drove off.
We were at a T junction of two quiet tree-lined roads on the brow of a small hill. Foliage abounded everywhere. Leaves sparkled in the slight mist. Quiet, expensive houses rested privately behind full hedges. The moonlight caught the tips of the tall conifers masterfully surrounding the isolated houses.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Just down there.” She pointed. “You can't see the house from here. It's set well back.”
“Shall I walk you to the gate?”
“No, it's all right. Thank you for bringing me this far. I would never have got here in time.”
How beautiful you are, I thought, standing there with your feet together, your hands in your high coat pockets and smiling like that.
“Okay then. Well, I'll let you get in. By the way, where can I get a bus back?”
“Just down there.” She gave me instructions.
“Thank you for taking me out,” she said.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I'll have to go.”
“I really enjoyed it,” I said.
“I did, too.”
“You'll be late.”
“Yes.”
“Janet.”
“Yes?”
“I'll see you on Monday.”
“Yes, all right.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“I hope you enjoy your dinner.”
“I hate them.”
“I'll look forward to Monday.”
“I'll have to go, Goodnight.”
She backed away, then turned and walked hurriedly down the road. She broke into a run. She half turned, still running, and waved in an energetic parody. I waved back. Then she stopped and opened a gate which was invisible to me. She disappeared out of sight. After a few seconds, I walked off in the direction of the bus stop.
The next weekend followed the same procedure: Pictures on Saturday afternoon. By now things were unthinkable without her. Living was a continuous strain with having to keep up a worldly, cynical exterior when all I waited was to let her into my life.
She was going to tea with Joan that evening. Joan was the girl from the dance, apparently her best friend. So, of course, it was pictures on Saturday afternoon. It was a dog's life, I thought. But that was only until she approached me outside the cinema.
All week I had looked forward to Saturday. We seemed to harbour a different atmosphere when we were away from college, one slightly more intimate.
I had manoeuvred us into the back row. Nonchalantly, I hoped. Immediately after we had taken our coats off and got settled, I took her hand. She held mine tighter than she usually did. We moved closer together so that I could slip my free arm across the front of her waist. She was wearing a white silk blouse with a not-too-large half bow hanging down from the neck. I could feel her slender body breathing softly against my arm. I disentangled my hand-holding arm and tentatively slipped it round her shoulders. She didn't change one way or the other. No response, no drawing away. The film droned on. Those unruly strands of hair gently graced her forehead. I pulled her a little closer, ever so discreetly, so that the sides of our heads were touching. I turned slightly. So did she. I moved her face closer. I looked into her deep eyes. She quietly explored my expression. I kissed her for a long time. Our bodies were rigid from the exquisite painful pleasure of holding ourselves back. I stopped kissing her. She didn't move her head so I kissed her again. Usually, the second kiss would have been a time of great relaxation, but not so with her. We remained as before, exercising poignant control. I stroked the back of her neck. I felt the tresses of her pony tail on the skin on the back of my hand. She made no incidental overtures herself. She just allowed me to kiss her.
“Janetâ” I said, as we drew away from the kiss.
I hadn't the courage to go on.
“It doesn't matter,” I said.
I put my other arm round her and drew her toward me more definitely. I began to kiss her harder than before. She drew back in annoyance.
“Don't do that,” she said.
“What's the matter,” I asked, frowning to cover my embarrassment.
“You're not with Karen. I don't like being pawed in cinemas.”
“Pawed? What do you mean?”
“You know very well. I don't go in for that. You must think I'm as eager as the others.”
“No, I don't.”
“I just don't like cheap necking in the back rows of cinemas, that's all,” she said in cold irritation. She pulled the shoulder of her blouse into position.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Now just a minute.”
I was angry because of the rebuff and the embarrassment it had caused me. All the more angry because I was hurt and I couldn't let her see that.
“Just listen a minute, will you. If you think that's âpawing' you'd better catch up on your education. By Christ, the girls I know would think something was up if that's
all
I did.”
“I'm not one of the girls you know.”
“You certainly aren't. My God, you're not.”
I furiously regretted each word I was saying the instant I said it.
“Nor will be,” she said.
“I don't remember anybody ever asking you,” I said, trying to affect biting irony but bitterly despondent at the realization that, in fact, I couldn't even begin to get her any closer to me.
For a long time after that we sat in as stony a silence as we could muster. I could have personally cut a blood-eager on my chest for the whole misjudgment of the incident. And damn her, too, I thought.
We came out of the cinema. We walked about two feet apart.
“What time do you get your bus?” I asked, as though it was the least important factor in the world.
“Six thirty. I'm to be at Joan's at seven fifteen.”
“It's only just coming up to five o'clock,” I said. “Do you want to get an earlier bus, or what?”
“Wellâ”
I stepped in front of her. I took both her hands in mine.
“Look, don't let's spoil things. I know I did my best to do just that in there, but things are so pleasant the way they are that it seems foolish to spoil them, don't you think so?”
“I just don't want you to get the wrong idea.”
“I know. Look, I keep
giving
the wrong idea. It's just that I'm with you at a distance during the week, and I got carried away in there. Honestly, it won't happen again.”
I crossed my heart. Eventually she smiled.
“Let's go for a walk,” she said.
We joined hands again.
We ended up down at the pier. The night was dark and overcast. A strong wind blew down the river from the sea. We wandered onto the pier itself, onto the lower level. The wind blew our voices into the water. There wasn't anyone else to be seen, and if there had been I wouldn't have seen them.
We sat down on one of the benches. The tide was running high. The river lapped energetically a few feet away from us. The curve of the river away to our left revealed the main docks, their cranes zooming away into perspective, and farther down about three miles away, black pennant-like clouds sped over the low buildings of the distilleries, their lights whipping to and fro in the wind. The river boomed out to sea. The quality of the night seemed to rub off on her. She seemed exhilarated, teasing, a little breathless. Her hair occasionally flashed across her face in the wind. I caught her mood. There was nobody else round to enjoy the night, so the night existed to entertain only the two of us. The wind composed wild tunes in my head. The river raced and whirled back on itself, like a hysterical dog after its own tail. Clouds did straggling arabesques in court to the river. The opposite bank watched and waited, secure in its quilted darkness.
Suddenly a heavy rain swept in on us. It pitched down dramatically on the boards of the pier. We didn't attempt to move. Janet stood up and walked to the very end of the pier. I followed her. She turned toward me, her face serious and vulnerable.
“It's just that I'm not someone who easily takes to things like that,” she said unexpectedly.
“Like what?”
“In the cinema. It's hard for me.”
I moved closer to her.
“Look, we're enjoying going out together too much to spoil it by getting all turmoiled about things, aren't we?”
“I'm glad you agree. It's no good when a thing's serious.”
“Of course. I agree and I've no ulterior motives for agreeing either. This is the new reformed Graves.”
She laughed.
“I don't think I could ever believe that.”
“I don't blame you. But seriously folks, as sure as I'm standing her in Saltfleet Marshes it's true.” I was sick with desperation because of the “just friends” basis she kept introducing.
“We're getting wet,” I said.
“I don't care. The rain's nice.”
“I wishâ”
“What do you wish?”
“I wish I was Rock Hudson.”
“Why?”
“Well, wouldn't anyone?”
“Except girls. Why do you wish that especially?”
“Then you'd fall into my arms and profess unrequited love and I'd requite it and this rain wouldn't be rain at all but something the technicians had superimposed afterward.”
“That wouldn't be a lot of fun. Once requited, things are often boring and rain is nice anyway.”
“I haven't met a girl yet who doesn't profess to like rain. It's another feminine conspiracy lie.”
“Like women not swearing.”
“That's it exactly.”
I looked at the dark bank of the other side of the river.
“I live over there,” I said.
“I know.”
“There's no better place.”
“Isn't there?”
She had become serious again.
“You don't believe me?”
“Why shouldn't I?”
“It's true. For me, anyway, and a lot of others, too. Have you ever been across?”
“No, never.”
“It's worth a visit. Especially at this time of year.”
“Why, especially?”
“It's good wrapping-up weather. For walks. Long walks down by the river on winter mornings. I used to love getting up at four o'clock on a Sunday morning to go shooting.”
“Four o'clock!”
“I agree, the hour's not so good, but once you're up and had a cup of tea and got yourself wrapped up, it's a great feeling to be walking along a track with some of your closest friends with the dawn behind you and the river and fields different shades of blue. It seems very clean. You feel fresh, vital.”
“It sounds wonderful. But four o'clock though.”
“It's a pretty drastic time of day, I know.”
The rain began to come down even harder.
“I think we ought to shelter. It's getting past the charming stage,” I said.
“I think you're probably right.”
We moved to shelter under the upper tier.
“We'll have to get back, I think,” she said.
“If you say so.”
We started back along the dock side. The rain stopped suddenly.
“Have you been out with many boys?” I asked.
“I don't know what you mean by âMany'. Have you been out with many girls?”
“What do you think?”
“I don't think. I know.”
“Then why ask?”
“I expect you sleep with them all.”
“What do you think?”
“I expect you do.”
“I expect I do.”
“Don't you get tired of going out with so many girls? I would have thought it would have become boring after a while.”
“I didn't used to get tired. Now I do.”
“Why now?”
I declined to answer that one.
“Have you ever slept with anyone?” I said.
“No”.
“You know what I mean. Not necessarily slept. In a bed, I mean.”
My daring amazed me. It must have been the fact that there seemed nothing more to lose.
She reflected.
“I've been in bed with someone.”
Twelve tons of bricks fell on me. I didn't know which emotion was strongerâsurprise or sadness.
“Nothing... happened, though.”
“When was it? Recently?”
“In Majorca. Last summer.”
She was almost matter-of-fact about it. Except for a slight withdrawal in her presence when she told me.