Forbidden Liaison: They lived and loved for the here and now (6 page)

Izzy now took a ball from her pocket and threw it up the beach for her dog to chase. They both stood watching, wanting the chance meeting to reach another level, but not knowing how, so an awkwardness prevailed until Izzy demanded, ‘Drop it,’ as the dog brought the ball back to instantly release it from its clenched jaws.

‘He is well trained?’ Heinrich commented as he watched the dog place the ball at her feet.

‘He always does as I say,’ Izzy remarked again as she picked up the ball. ‘I have to go,’ she said, taking one last draw on the cigarette to drop in onto the sand.

Heinrich caught a glimpse of her legs as a gust of wind billowed her skirt. They were slim, bare, and milky white. An urge to protect her now filled his belly, her legs reminding him of his own daughter’s legs, their whiteness showing an innocence, a naiveté. And although she was a married woman she seemed to Heinrich to lack a woman’s experience: appearing almost girlish: virgin-like. As he looked into her eyes again he wanted to take her and show her the things Irme had taught him.

The dog whined.

‘May I?’ Heinrich asked, holding out his hand for the ball.

As Izzy gave him the ball their fingers lightly touched. He quickly threw the ball. It went twice as far up the beach than it had done before, which seemed to please Izzy as she smiled.  

Heinrich wanted to touch her: feel her smooth skin. He daren’t, he might scare her away, probably forever, and although she seemed at ease in his company, Heinrich didn’t trust the dog. He had to build up that trust and that would take time. And time was something he had plenty of lately.

‘It is my birthday today,’ he suddenly said.

Izzy looked up at him. ‘How old are you?’

‘My mother told me never to divulge my age to strangers.’

Izzy laughed. ‘That’s what women are supposed to do,’ she said.

‘I am thirty six today,’ he smiled.

‘Haben sie ein gutes Geburstag,’ she said.

‘Vielen dank. You are the first person to wish me
Happy Birthday.’

Izzy looked away. ‘I really do have to go,’ she said.

Heinrich desperately wanted her to stay. ‘Will you be down here tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘That depends.’

He knew it depended on him. ‘May I come and talk with you again?’ he asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Isabelle Rouchon, but everyone calls me Izzy. What’s yours?’

‘Heinrich Beckmann.’

‘Be seeing you,’ and she walked off with her dog trotting obediently by her left leg.

As he watched her walk away Heinrich was left wondering why he’d not yelled
verboten
in her ear, or asked to see her papers, or arrested her for being somewhere she was not supposed to be. Analysing his resistance to the set procedures he wondered no more. He knew.

For the following few days Heinrich wrestled with the idea that perhaps he should not make any attempt to forge a relationship with the woman, even though the thought of touching her, she touching him: kissing her, she kissing him: fucking her, and she responding, eventually won the battle over his un-decisiveness to go down to the beach. Try as he may, in the end he just couldn’t get her out of his head. She stayed there not only like a pebble in his boot, but she had become that constant ache in his groin, the sort he had to soothe when alone in his bed. He couldn’t bear it any longer, he had to go down to the beach again.

Izzy, too, was wondering if she shouldn’t have led him on; let him think he had a chance. For the past three years she’d been celibate, pleasuring herself while thoughts of her husband drifted through her head. Her husband, though, perhaps wouldn’t save himself for her. Perhaps he would meet someone else whilst he was in England. At least he wouldn’t have the dilemma of wondering whether or not he should be consorting with the enemy. But Izzy had been surrounded by elderly men these past years, and the only young, handsome males she had come across, were German. And numerous other women, incarcerated on the island, had eventually succumbed. The need for male, or female company, went beyond racial boundaries.

Heinrich stood on the beach thinking if she doesn’t appear within the next twenty minutes he would leave: it would be a sign. He lit a cigarette and stared out to sea. It was a cold, fresh, blustery day, and the sea spray licked his face as it hung in the air, blown ashore by the strong wind and incoming tide. He was half-way through his smoke when he heard the dog barking. He turned to see Izzy coming down the rocky path from the cliff top to access the beach. Her dog bounded towards him. He stood stock-still until Izzy was within a few yards.   

‘Sit,’ she said to the dog, before lifting her head to look into Heinrich’s face.

Heinrich’s stomach fluttered, his groin began to stir. He couldn’t stop it, it was like being a teenager again where the connection between his brain and his cock had not yet fused, once again both appearing to be functioning independently.

‘Good morning,’ he smiled, showing a set of even white teeth.

‘Hello,’ Izzy replied, restricting her smile by keeping her lips together.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m very well; you?’

‘Better now I’ve seen you again,’ he replied. What an idiot, he thought. He could have thought of something more mature to say.

Izzy knew he was flirting with her, and she liked it. On the other hand she had to let him know she wasn’t the sort of woman who would drop her knickers for the first man who tried to seduce her, and many had tried before.

‘I’ll bet you say that to all the women,’ she replied, feeling a little embarrassed by her stock retort. She, too, wished she’d thought of something less typical; something more original.

‘Not at all,’ he said, his smile becoming broader. ‘I save the flattery for women I find most irresistible. And you… You are the most charming of females I have met recently.’

‘We are both married,’ she said, noticing he wore his wedding band on the third finger of his right hand, as was German tradition.

Consciences were suddenly pricked.

‘And I am also the enemy,’ he replied looking down.

‘The rules that have been laid down by the authorities is, that we shouldn’t form romantic liaisons,’ Izzy commented.

‘Yes, I know. They are stupid rules if you ask me. We mix with each other every day, we have to or nothing gets done, and we do have to live alongside each other, whether we like it or not,’ he replied.

‘People are already talking. We were seen together on this beach,’ she informed.

‘I know. I have been constantly teased by my men for the past few days,’ he informed.

Then he looked up at one of the two concrete gun-emplacements that sat on either end of the two spits of land enveloping the beach.

‘We were spotted by the men guarding the coastline,’ he said nodding at one of the emplacements.

‘Oh,’ was all Izzy said.

‘Why do you suppose you’ve not been arrested before now?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’ Izzy frowned.

‘Those men let you run your dog on the beach because it gives them respite from the boring job of continually looking out to sea. So they turn their binoculars towards the beach to catch sight of you, a very attractive woman. And they have said that when the wind blows to catch your skirt, they get sight of your lovely legs, and…’ He immediately stopped talking.

‘And what?’ But Izzy suddenly realised and covered her face with her hands, she felt totally embarrassed now. Naive didn’t come close enough to how she felt.   

‘You had no idea?’ Heinrich asked.

‘No,’ Izzy replied. ‘Is that why you came down here, to see for yourself, and…?’ she asked annoyed.

‘I had no idea you existed until I almost shot your dog.’

Izzy turned to walk away, but he caught hold of her arm. He soon let it go as he could feel her recoil.

‘I am sorry, I will not come down here again,’ he said.

‘No, you come down whenever you want, it will be me who doesn’t come here again. I’ll exercise my dog elsewhere,’ and she began to walk off.

‘Izzy?’ he called. He couldn’t let her go like this: feeling wounded and humiliated.

Izzy stopped dead in her tracks, her stomach lurching as he called her name. She began to cry.

‘Izzy?’ he said again.

As she turned around he could see her tears as they flowed down her cheeks to drip off her chin onto her chest, and seeing her upset like that suddenly brought on an overwhelming urge to put his arms around her. He resisted.

‘Izzy, I want to see you again,’ he said.

And she really wanted to see him.

‘Where can we meet?’ he asked.

‘You know Thorn Hedge Farm?’ she sniffled.

Yes,’ he replied.

‘Carry on about a mile and a half along the coast road and you’ll come to a secluded cottage. I live there,’ she said.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘I’m there every day from four onwards.’

‘And if we happen to meet during the course of the day, should I ignore you?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Might be better for the both of us,’ and she walked off, calling her dog, who obediently ran towards her.

Heinrich was in a foul mood for days after that meeting on the beach. He snapped at everyone, including the cook. Busch had heard he suffered from chronic constipation so one day he left a small bottle of liquid laxative in Heinrich’s room. When Heinrich had found it he picked it up and just looked at the label. His first instinct was to sling it across the room. Instead he burst out laughing. He couldn’t stop. He was laughing so much he had to sit down on his bed. But the laughter soon turned into tears of sorrow. He reproached himself for being so abrupt and outspoken that day on the beach, and the Major had kept him so busy he’d had no time to go and see the woman he couldn’t get out of his system. He’d spent the past three years fighting, and his once amenable, happy disposition had been turned into a sour, cynical, battle-weary man, whose rough exterior needed smoothing out, especially in female company, and he so wanted to come across as the man he once was, not the man he had become.

On the fifth day, Heinrich was at the dairy trying to sort out milk quotas when a milk lorry stopped directly outside the main gates. Izzy was driving. She jumped down, leaving her dog on the passenger seat. As she climbed onto the flat-bed of the lorry to drop down the tail-board, Heinrich appeared from inside the manager’s office. Walter followed him out.

‘I’ll give you a hand there, Izzy, just give me a second,’ Walter shouted.

Heinrich walked towards Izzy and asked for her milk quota papers. She handed them to him.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and began to walk back towards the office, but not before he ordered Walter to off-load the lorry.

Heinrich shut the door to the office and turned to Izzy. 

‘Is there something wrong with the papers?’ she asked worried.

Heinrich turned to put his back to the window to block the view from outside.

‘Not even looked at them,’ he smiled. ‘I just wanted to talk to you for a while.’

‘Aren’t you going to check them?’

‘No,’ he immediately replied. ‘I’m sure they’re fine. So what if your father creams…’ he paused waiting for a response. He didn’t get one so he finished off his sentence, ‘a pint off for himself every now and then,’ he added. Then he frowned. ‘You do not find my joke funny?’

‘Not particularly,’ Izzy replied.

‘Then I shall have to try harder,’ he said.

‘Much harder,’ Izzy retorted. Then she smiled. An open smile, showing her teeth this time.

‘You have the most, lovely smile,’ Heinrich said staring at her.

‘And you are keeping me from my work.’

‘I wanted to tell you I’ve been too busy to come and see you. I didn’t want you to think I was…’ he paused.

‘Avoiding me?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t think you were. I know orders can be changed at the last minute,’ she said.

‘You are very understanding,’ Heinrich stated.

‘Not really, just being practical.’

‘I have some time off this afternoon, may I come and see you?’

‘Yes, can I go now, my father will be fretting about his tyres. It’s either his cows or his tyres he’s always hassling me about?’

Heinrich turned to open the door. He let Izzy out first and she immediately walked to the lorry to help off-load.

Heinrich walked towards Walter. He gave him the papers.

‘Alles inordnung,’ Heinrich said, and was gone.

Heinrich shaved again that afternoon, put on a clean collarless, white shirt and clean underwear then walked to the beach. He knew the cottage was about a mile and a half, westwards, from the spot where they met and as he walked down a compacted dirt track of soil and coal-fire ashes to reach the front door, he stopped for a second. Over the door was a stone lintel, and carved on that lintel was a date, 1843. He’d heard that it was customary when two people married they would have the date of their marriage carved above the door of their first home. The islanders called it a marriage stone. He paused awhile listening to the music he could hear coming from side the cottage. It sounded like a gramophone player and it was belting out Vivaldi. He turned down the collar of his great-coat and knocked on the door. His stomach knotted as Izzy opened it.

It was about five in the afternoon, and dark. Candle light shone out from inside the room, forming a yellow halo around her head as she stood there. She looked lovely, her hair hung loose and thick, her face shone, and her bright green eyes, surrounded by the thick curling, dark lashes sparkled as she smiled. She had coloured her lips with a smudge of lipstick, and her cheeks were pink, as if she’d exerted herself. And the figure hugging dress she wore accentuated the curves and bumps of her body.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘The electricity’s off again.’

Heinrich walked in. There was a log fire in the range and a kettle boiling by the side of it. He took off his cap and great-coat. Izzy took them from him to hang them on a peg by the door.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as he stood there, feeling quite nervous. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine. How’s your day been?’ she asked.

‘The usual. It sometimes makes me feel more like a kindergarten teacher than an army officer,’ he replied.

Izzy smiled. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Thank you, I would.’

‘Sit down,’ Izzy said, and Heinrich went to sit on the sofa which was placed at an angle to the range fire. An armchair was positioned opposite.

Izzy made a pot of tea. ‘How many sugars?’ she asked.

‘Two please, but only a splash of milk,’ Heinrich replied.

Izzy poured out the tea then placed a cup and saucer on a small round table at the side of the sofa. She went to sit on the armchair, putting her cup and saucer on the floor.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

Izzy shook her head.

Heinrich got up to offer Izzy a cigarette. She took one and he held the lighter while she lit it, then he went to sit down again.

The gramophone was one of those wind-up ones with a big brass speaker, and it suddenly began to wind down; the turntable turning so slowly it distorted the music to a dirge-like drone. Izzy went to take off the arm.

‘You like classical music,’ Heinrich said. ‘So do I.’

‘I’m rather partial to Vivaldi and Chopin,’ she informed.

‘I like Jazz,’ Heinrich replied. ‘But it’s considered the music of the devil by the people who govern my country. Mozart appeals more to their catholic tastes; conformist and unadventurous.’

‘I have some, more modern records,’ Izzy said.

‘May I look through them?’

‘Yes, they’re underneath the record player.’