They then went to a grocer, where Joe bought a bag of ginger biscuits, two anaemic iced buns and half a bottle of red wine. Ag, curious, but determined to ask no questions, helped him carry the purchases to the car.
It was three o’clock when they drove out of the town. The light had not yet begun to fade.
‘Poor Stella,’ said Ag, ‘I bet she would have liked a lift home with us.’
‘Probably,’ said Joe, ‘but Stella wasn’t part of my plan.’
His plan, he explained eventually, as they drove into deep country of small wintry hills, was for tea in Robert’s cottage. Robert was his oldest friend, unable, like Joe, to be called up, because of weak lungs.
‘Before you all arrived,’ Joe said, ‘we used to meet most nights in The Bells. Have a drink or two, talk about anything except the war and farming. It was something to look forward to at the end of the day. But since you’ve all been here … I don’t know. I’ve grown used to Prue’s mindless chatter, your serious little head bent over a book, Stella’s dreamy look while she keeps up polite conversation. There’s more to the evenings, now, somehow.’ He smiled. ‘When I rang him last night, he reminded me we hadn’t spoken for a week. Some friend, he said. What Robert needs is a woman, a girl. He’s lonely. I was rather thinking—’
‘I know exactly what you’re thinking.’ Ag laughed.
‘Think she’d do? Save her a lot of scouring the streets and cinemas of Blandford.’
‘I don’t know Robert. How can I judge?’
‘He’s a good man. Funny. He’ll make an uxorious husband one day.’
‘Rich?’
‘Far from it.’
‘Temporary measure only, then. Prue’s set on her gold taps. But you could try.’
They turned off the lane into a muddy, uneven track between high hedges, and reached a grey stone cottage. Its moss-clad thatched roof, in danger of slipping off, was only held in place by the frailest netting. Paintwork was peeling. Windows were thick with cobwebs and grime.
Joe took an old iron key from the lintel above the front door. He led the way into a dark, damp room. It smelt of past cats and rotten fruit. There was little furniture, but for an old sofa in front of an empty grate. Dozens of books were piled on the floor, some of their covers smeared with mildew.
‘He doesn’t have much chance to be domestic,’ Joe said. ‘You go and boil a kettle while I organize a fire.’
Ag took some time to find her way round the unpleasant kitchen. She had to wash dirty tin mugs under the single cold tap, and she could only find one plate. By the time she returned to the sitting-room with tea things on a rusty tray, Joe’s fire had brightened the place a little.
‘So when’s he arriving, Robert?’ Ag asked.
‘Don’t be silly. He’s not.’
‘I see.’
‘Biscuit? Bun?’
‘I’m suddenly not hungry.’ Ag sat at the far end of the sofa.
‘We needn’t go through with this if you’ve changed your mind,’ said Joe, gently.
‘Last night I was awake for hours, thinking I was mad, immoral, wicked, a ridiculous fool. I was going to say I had changed my mind. But now I’m here …’
Joe took two cloudy glasses from a shelf and a corkscrew from his pocket. His pre-planning was exemplary, Ag thought. He opened the bottle of red wine. ‘This’ll take the edge off things for you.’ He handed her a glass.
‘Thanks.’
Ag took a sip. It was cold, bitter. She forced herself to keep drinking, treating it as medicine. A flicker of warmth came from the fire. She began to feel better. The outrageousness of her behaviour seemed slightly less outrageous. By the time she had finished the wine, there was only one real worry left.
‘I fear you may not find me very attractive,’ she said. It came out sounding prim as a governess. To obliterate the taste of the wine, she tried the nasty tea. She could not meet Joe’s eyes. ‘So if … it doesn’t work, I’ll quite understand.’
Joe touched her hot cheek. ‘In a few years’ time, when this roundness has fined down a little, you’ll be more striking, more original-looking, more
arresting
than either Prue or Stella.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘I do. Prue’s prettiness, her kitten looks, won’t last. Stella can look beautiful – that night at the dance she was stunning – but she doesn’t take enough trouble. But you’ve got the bones. Somewhere. Waiting to emerge.’ They both laughed. ‘I said to Robert how lucky we were. Imagine the three land girls we might have been sent, I said.’
‘We’re the ones who’ve been lucky. We might have been landed in one of those hostels – not much fun, I hear. Or with some tyrannical farmer. Hallows Farm, the kindness of your parents – no land girl could ask for more.’
‘It was Ma’s idea.’
They finished the wine. The second glass Ag found less difficult. It had, as Joe predicted, taken the edge off things. The bleakness of the room, the apprehension of the act they were about to commit, lay more gently on her spirits. Joe stood up, took Ag’s hand.
‘I think we should go up.’
Ag stood, too. She was as tall as Joe. Their eyes met on the level. He kissed her on the forehead.
‘Just one more thing,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Janet.’
‘What about her?’
‘Isn’t all this very immoral? What about your conscience – and mine, for that matter?’
Joe sighed, impatient. ‘It’s not the time to discuss Janet, is it? You should have said something about her before if she troubled you. I can’t tell you why, but for some reason she’s not on my conscience. I’ve given her my word: I’m going to marry her. Until that time I feel free to do what I like. All right?’
Ag nodded.
Joe led her out of the door and up the narrow wooden stairs. Ag wondered how many other times he had made use of his friend’s house: how many other girls had followed him up those stairs, and into the little cold bedroom with its sloping black wood floor and crooked window. Joe drew the scant cotton curtains. Dead moths fluttered to the ground. Then he pulled down the bed cover. Two blankets lay folded on an ancient mattress. Stained pillows were slumped, caseless. He switched on an exiguous bedroom light. The low-watt bulb smeared the walls with a dun light, increasing the gloom. Ag stood by the window, taking in the scene of her impending seduction.
‘Not exactly a honeymoon suite, I’m afraid,’ said Joe, ‘but I don’t think we should use Robert’s room, which isn’t much more cheerful anyway.’ He sat heavily on the bed. The springs yelped. ‘Why don’t you get undressed?’ He bent down to untie his own laces.
Ag wanted to say that she had imagined a lover would help with this process. But then she remembered Joe wasn’t a proper lover, just a friend about to oblige her in her irrational request. So, in silence, she slipped off jersey, skirt, shoes, let them slide to a heap on the floor. She paused before raising her petticoat above her head. There would be something either comic or distasteful, she felt, in the sight of her knickers, suspenders and brassiere. But Joe must be used to such things. The glance he gave her did not indicate surprise.
‘You’ve the body of a ballet dancer,’ he said. ‘Degas would have liked to have painted you – the blue lights on your skin.’
Ag smiled politely, rolled off her stockings. A moment later she was completely naked. This time Joe’s look was appraising. She stood to attention, knees touching, a blade of light between her thighs. Her cold fingers curled about in small whirls over her thumbs. She told herself this would probably be the only time in her life any man would sit looking at her body, taking in the thinness of her legs, the smallness of her breasts.
But even as Ag enjoyed Joe’s silent approbation, a worrying thought came to her. What if she became pregnant? It would be a dreadful irony, that – to conceive a child in a single sexual experience designed (in a fit of madness, she now thought) to impress the stranger of her fantasies, Desmond, with her past ‘experience’. In some alarm, still not moving, she tried to remember what Prue had said. One night, just before Stella had gone to Plymouth, Prue had volunteered to advise them on the matter of birth control. Something about making quite sure the man either used a french letter or – a bit riskier – ‘unplugged’, as Prue called it, before the vital moment. But what was the vital moment? Ag hadn’t liked to ask Prue, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask Joe, displaying even further her pathetic naïvety. She remembered, too, Prue declaring that sometimes, at safe times of the month, she couldn’t be bothered with any of the whole boring palaver, and, touch wood, she’d been lucky so far.
Ag put a hand on the chest of drawers. When was the safe time? Anxiety clouded her swift calculations. She wished she had listened to Prue – whose advice was chiefly aimed at Stella – more carefully. But she’d fallen asleep, probably missing important details. There was nothing for it, now, but to take a risk. If this was to be her one and only sexual encounter, possibly
ever
, then it should not be complicated with technicalities. It should be as uninhibited and enjoyable as possible in the peculiar
circumstances
. Screw your courage to the sticking place, Ag told herself, privately relishing the aptness of the self-advice, and get through the whole business with as much dignity as possible. She gave the faintest smile of encouragement.
Joe rose from the bed, came towards her. The fact that he had taken off only his shoes seemed to Ag unfair. She was curious to see his body, too. The nearest she had come to the study of a naked man’s body was her study of Michelangelo’s David. She had judged that Joe, with his height, his broad shoulders, narrow hips and firm thighs, would be something like that. She wanted to see the private parts. She was curious to learn what happened when stone turned to flesh. But this she was to be denied.
Joe picked her up. In a concave position, slung over his arms, she knew he was studying the flatness of her stomach, the hands modestly placed over the Mons Venus. He laid her on the bed. It smelt of cat, like the sofa downstairs.
‘I’m going to put out the light,’ he said, ‘and we can pretend we’re somewhere better.’
A murky dusk clogged the room. Joe, his face a clutch of indistinct shadows, bent over Ag. He rested on stiff arms placed each side of her shoulders.
‘Are you sure …?’
Ag nodded. Joe moved to lean on a bent elbow. With one hand he began to unbutton his shirt. With the other he traced a gentle path from her neck to breast, to stomach, to thigh. Ag closed her eyes.
Later, lying stiff and cold in his arms, the experience reminded Ag of a visit to the doctor. It had been efficient, clinical, easy, swift. It had not hurt. Neither pleasure nor displeasure had been present: all Ag could think about, feeling the bulk of Joe upon her, was
this is happening
. It did not differ from the imaginings, because she had never been able to imagine exactly what it would be like. How it felt, in the end, was not very exciting. Perhaps, with someone you loved, it would be different. The only really curious thing about it all, she thought, was her lack of concern about what she called her wickedness. Thoughts of betraying Janet – for which she had berated Prue – existed no longer. Perhaps, it occurred to her, such callousness is a sign of maturity.
In a matter of moments Joe was swinging his legs off the bed, sitting up. He switched on the lamp, glanced at his watch.
‘We’ll be back in time for supper, complete innocence. You all right?’
‘Fine. Thank you.’
Joe patted her leg with an uninterested hand. ‘There,’ he said.
There
, she had heard him say, so many times, at the end of a task: milking, muck-spreading, parking the tractor.
There
, he would say, meaning
a good job done, and now it’s time to eat
.
He stood up and reached for his clothes, his back to Ag. Gone was her last chance to view the sight she had craved for so many years.
‘Hope it wasn’t too disappointing.’
‘No. Thank you.’ Ag shook her head. It wasn’t disappointing: it wasn’t anything. So she could not bring herself to say the deflowering had been either satisfactory or happy. It had been merely interesting. He had efficiently performed a function she wanted, needed, for her own esteem. And the best thing about it was that it was now over. The small web of deliquescence that had netted Ag as she lay in his arms, due more to fatigue than fulfilment, now broke. She leapt up and scurried to her pile of clothes, dressing with her back to Joe.
Ten minutes later they were in the Wolseley, on the way home.
‘Now that’s over,’ said Joe, ‘we can spend our time with more important things, like books.’
Ag smiled. Really, he had been – was being – very kind about the whole thing. Her only concern now was that her new status would not be observed.
Joe carried the basket of books into the kitchen. Mrs Lawrence was pouring soup into bowls, inspiring Ag with unusual hunger.
‘Very literary afternoon,’ Joe said, ‘advised by my tutor, here.’
He gave Ag an open smile.
Ratty spent the evening in the front room, smoking his pipe by an unlit fire. He wanted to listen to the news, imagine the war. Edith did not. She darned peacefully – it had been a strangely peaceful evening, not a single argument – at the kitchen table.
At ten o’clock, she opened the door, stood looking at Ratty slumped in his chair. She always liked to keep bad news till late, to ensure Ratty would have something to trouble him in bed.
‘There’s a stomach upset going round the village,’ she said. ‘Seven or eight down with it.’
‘Ah. Hope it won’t clobber us.’
‘Don’t suppose it will.’ Edith sounded oddly definite.
She went on standing there, not moving, arms folded defiantly under the bolster of her bosom.
‘I forgot to tell you,’ she said at last, ‘my batch of scones went like greased lightning, everyone wanted more. Fighting over them like cats and dogs, they were.’
They returned to silence. Ratty could think of no appropriate answer. He could hear the tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. Its rhythm set something off in his brain: a thought so vile he must quickly speak – say anything – to block its progress.