Sail Upon the Land (11 page)

Then they were on the balcony, looking down on the dance floor packed with dancers: girls in white and men in black. Melissa narrowed her eyes to blur the swirling monochrome. It was a bit like watching television. Only the mothers were wearing colours, and they weren’t dancing.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘You were saying?’ They sat with their elbows on the table, looking at each other. She liked his face. It helped that he wasn’t handsome, which would have been frightening.

‘Well, Daddy is a GP in Dorking, but Mummy is Lady Sarah, although she never mentions it except at things like this. Why are you called Munty?’

‘It’s a long story.’ He was silent for a moment, and Melissa worried that she had annoyed him by asking about his name. Had she been rude? She seemed to be tuned up like a violin to his mood. Then he looked up at her, took her hand, kissed her fingertips and smiled. It was like the sun coming out, and Melissa melted.

‘Completely unexpectedly, I inherited a title when I was thirteen. Lord Mount-Hey – everyone at school took to calling me Munty and it just stuck. It was a shock at the time and I don’t talk about it much. Not since school in fact.’

Not since school? That must have been ages ago.

‘I’m sorry your father died when you were so young.’

‘Oh, no he didn’t. I mean he didn’t die then, he died when I was a baby, in the war. In an air raid. My poor mother had to cope with that, and then this strange business of me being a lord, and inheriting a tatty old house, all by herself. Well she had her parents, but they were more confused than her if that was possible.’

Melissa made encouraging noises.

‘You see I don’t come from a grand family at all,’ he went on. ‘That’s why I work in P&Q. My grandparents are grocers in Eastbourne, although they’re retired now. My mother runs the business with her second husband, who always worked for them too. My father was just an ordinary bloke but he was also a distant cousin of Lord Mount-Hey. So many people were killed in both world wars, or just died unmarried, that I ended up inheriting.’

A quietness pooled in her mind. She paused and then she said: ‘You mentioned a house? Do you live there?’

‘No, I’ve never lived there as it’s almost a ruin. I’ve only seen it once. It’s in Sussex. Rather lovely. Needs waking up like Sleeping Beauty.’

Again he stopped.

‘What’s it like? I love old houses.’

‘It’s so old that there was once a moat, although all that’s left is a little lake.’

‘A lake?’ Melissa shivered.

‘Goose walk over your grave?’ he teased. He went on, ‘It wasn’t a castle back then just a moated farmhouse. At some point in the eighteenth century one of my ancestors became obsessed with Strawberry Hill Gothick and changed the name from Hey House to Castle Hey, altering the windows and adding castellations. The mount bit in Mount-Hey refers to a little mound nearby with a ruined tower on top – a bit grand to call it a mount.’

He hesitated.

‘In fact if you like houses I’d value your opinion. You’re probably busy but I was thinking of driving down to have a look round this weekend. It’s properly mine now. The War Department let go.’

Melissa stared at him.

‘Would you like to come and see it?’

Of course she would love to drive out of London with the first man who had ever shown any interest in her, and visit what might turn out to be a romantic ruin. She too hesitated.

‘Sorry,’ he said, looking rueful. ‘Too bouncy, like Tigger. Of course you don’t want to come and see some old house.’

‘But I do, I think. How far is it?’

‘Not far. I’m working for the rest of the week. I was thinking of going down for the day on Saturday. I don’t think Castle Hey is habitable, otherwise I’d ask you to stay.’

She pulled herself up straighter and took a gulp of champagne, trembling with excitement. She told herself not to be so silly. Of course she could go off for a drive in the country with anyone she chose. She was meant to be nearly grown up now, wasn’t she? He looked so nice and unthreatening, she was sure he wouldn’t pounce or frighten her.

‘I can put together a hamper at P&Q and we can have a picnic.’

Then he laughed and pulled her hand towards him, kissing her gloved fingers again. It was very late, and the dance floor below was punctuated with a last few couples leaning against each other and circling like hair in a drain.

When Lanin announced the last waltz, Munty raised his eyebrow at her, but she declined. Her foot had had enough. They went to the cloakroom to collect Melissa’s long velvet cloak, clasped at the neck with the silver buckle from her mother’s wartime VAD uniform.

Outside in Park Lane, the doorman hailed a taxi for them.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Cheyne Place. Thank you.’

She expected to climb in alone, but Munty followed her. She had pulled the silk-lined hood up over her hair as there was a faint misty drizzle in the air. As he settled beside her, she peeped up at him from within her hood’s creamy depths, registering as she did so a look of surprise. He leaned forward as if he couldn’t help himself, his nose bumped hers and he muttered an apology. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and this time found her lips. She felt the softness of his mouth against hers and was uncertain what to do next. They sat for a moment lip to lip, looking into each other’s eyes, then his lips parted and a sense of warm delight moved through her. After that, there didn’t seem to be any need for deciding what to do.

She awoke the next day with her mother’s lips on her uppermost cheek. Foggy threads of a dream evaporated as she swam up reluctantly from the bottom of sleep.

‘Daddy and I are just going home. Wanted to leave you sleeping until the last possible minute. You were up very late. How’s your foot after all that dancing?’

‘Fine. Lovely,’ she murmured, irritated as she always was by any mention of her foot, turning her head on the pillow away from her mother’s warm, tea-scented breath.

‘Was that young man nice?’ Melissa could hear an interested note in her mother’s voice. ‘Munty? Was that his name? I suppose it comes from his title, Mount-Hey. I looked him up in your aunt’s Burke’s Peerage. Old title, rather fascinating. His ancestor helped to rescue Charles II.’

‘Hmmm.’ The irritation persisted. She wished her mother would go away.

‘Most post-Restoration titles are descended from one of Old Rowley’s by-blows, so it’s interesting that this one is different.’

This was an annoying hobby of her mother’s, perusing what she called ‘the herd book’ to see who was related to whom, and how they got their titles in the first place.

Melissa’s returning consciousness brought the memory of Munty’s invitation with it. She glowed and rolled her head back, consciously letting her hair flop across her face, all too aware that her lips were sore.

Pretending to be sleepier than she was, she stretched up her naked white arms to her mother and pulled her close for disarming kisses and farewells. She wanted to be alone to think. Sarah laughed and kissed her again, saying that they must be off for Daddy’s afternoon surgery.

‘Aunt Melinda’s going to take us to the train. Do telephone to let us know what you’re up to. Get plenty of sleep and take care of that foot of yours. Don’t overdo it.’

‘Yes, Mummy.’

Melissa was glad when her mother shut the attic bedroom door behind her. Hearing her tread recede down the uncarpeted stairs, Melissa let out a breath, opened her eyes properly and stared at the ceiling. When could she see him again? He knew where she was staying having brought her home, and she had responded to his request for her phone number by whispering it against his lips, ‘Mogador 3715,’ over and over again. She was so close, so entwined and trusting, taking liberties with his mouth and breath as he did with hers.

He was smiling, and the tip of his tongue touched the inside of her upper lip, shutting her up. It was shockingly intimate, and she considered pulling away just for a second. That soft intrusion, sliding up over her teeth. She breathed into his mouth, ‘Will you remember?’

‘Oh yes, it’s only four numbers,’ he replied, before holding her all the closer until her insides were quite liquid with longing. Perhaps this is what the debs meant by Not Safe in Taxis, but at least he didn’t try anything else, just this glorious kissing that went on and on as the taxi grumbled towards Chelsea. After a while, she noticed they had stopped and the driver was clearing his throat. She pulled back, embarrassed at having forgotten the third party behind the glass partition.

Munty had seen her to the door, after paying for and dismissing the taxi. The house was dark, the street quiet. He insisted on kissing her on the doorstep. He seemed already to be attached to her by invisible shining ropes which she was afraid to break in case they melted with the morning like goblin gold.

She knew she must remove herself, so she pushed her latchkey into the lock with one hand, and with the other gently eased him away down the steps. He clutched at her hand against his wilting shirt front, and she wriggled her fingers to release herself. Opening the door and holding her cloak around her, she gazed back at him, now standing at the bottom of the steps, looking up at her. She waved one gloved hand, mocking and imperious, and slipped inside.

‘Keep something back,’ she had told herself. ‘Leave them wanting more.’

Thirsty now, she hopped out of bed to run across the passage to the lavatory, bending over the tap to drink from her cupped hand. While she drank she decided not to tell Mummy and Daddy what she was planning. She was quite old enough at eighteen to make up her own mind where she went and what she did – and with whom. No one need know, at least not until those gossamer ropes had woven her and Munty so firmly together that she could trust them with her weight. It was easy to be free these days and evade her parents’ notice, as there were so many parties and weekend invitations, and they trusted her.

When she had had the curse for the first time at fourteen, her mother had sat her down for an excruciating chat about men and what they wanted from a girl, and how it was important not to give it to them until she was married. Her father had given her a book called
A Doctor Answers Young Girls’ Questions
, asking her to read it all and come to him if she didn’t understand anything. She would rather have died than ask him any questions. She was deeply grateful for the paper substitute, where she learned that she was in possession of a whole lot of things that sounded like Latin girls’ names, Labia, Vulva, Vagina.

She giggled. There were deadly warnings about disgusting sounding venereal diseases. And a protracted and boring description of sexual intercourse that made you wonder why anyone bothered to overcome their embarrassment for long enough. This was followed by a detailed account of the journey that millions of battling sperm must make to meet the egg waiting, huge and passive like a sad planet invaded by tadpoles, somewhere up inside her.

She couldn’t imagine herself doing anything of the kind, and contraception sounded so difficult and messy she would prefer to remain a virgin until her dying day. But there must be something more to sex. Everyone seemed so excited by it these days. It was all about youthquake, she read in the
Daily Express
, and the dolly birds were on the Pill – a great improvement on all those gels and pessaries and rubber devices.

Melissa couldn’t wait for Saturday morning to come, and the rest of the week’s social life had lost its hopeful savour. On Friday she went to a drinks party and, spotting with the relief of the shy a girl she knew vaguely from debs’ teas, she hurried over to catch up. She quickly noticed that the attention of the ‘friend’ was fixed on a search for the nearest man rather than on what she was saying.

‘Nancy,’ she said with uncharacteristic confidence, ‘do stop looking over my shoulder, it makes you look as if you’ve got a squint.’

Nancy’s eyes swivelled and locked on to Melissa’s face. ‘Darling,’ she drawled, ‘you must know by now, it isn’t done to talk to other girls at parties. Not the point. Everyone will think you’re a lesbian. Not a good look for you. These days it’s men or nothing.’

‘What if you can’t get a man?’

‘Well, then you have to hire one. You up your value considerably if you arrive at a party with someone looking adoring on your arm. You can get models and actors for eight pounds an evening. Good-looking hip ones, too.’

‘Hire one? How?’

‘There are agencies that hire them out. Bertie Shaw-Wiggins told me all about it. Bit short after dropping this year’s allowance at roulette, he rang up something called Cockburn’s Agency – he kept laughing at the name, couldn’t work out why, isn’t it some kind of port? Anyway, he said they measured him and photographed him and said he could go on their books for fifty per cent of the fee, and all the expenses he could keep for himself.’

Melissa had heard of men hiring women for unmentionable things, but not the other way around. Blushing wildly, she said, ‘Do they have to do it?’

‘Oh god, Melissa, you are such an innocent. Get with it, darling. Everyone’s doing it. Bertie figured he might as well get paid for it, though with his gambling habit he’d have to do it an awful lot.’

Melissa knew she wasn’t doing it, but that for the first time in her life she would like to and then blushed more. What would Mummy think?

Nancy was going on, and a little group had formed around them to listen: ‘I think Bertie imagined he’d just be taken out to dinner by rich old bags. I believe he was rapidly disabused. Anyway, the idea of bumping into someone he knew and trying to explain – or even being hired by a friend of his mother’s. Can you imagine? And they weren’t all women if you know what I mean.’

Melissa didn’t know what she meant, but everyone else was laughing, so she joined in and drank the champagne to help her keep up.

‘Would you like another drink?’

Warm breath on her neck alerted her to a man she didn’t know smiling down at her. She accepted, and drifted with him through the cigarette smoke to the bar at the back of the large Belgravia drawing room. Ceiling-high windows draped in gold damask looked out over a still-sunlit garden square, and the waiter with a napkin-wrapped bottle took her glass out of her hand. He picked up a clean coupe, filling it with champagne that never had a chance to foam up and waste itself.