Dead Romantic Read online

  He feared that the speech sounded corny. He had never had any problem with words, shaping them into lines and sequences of lines, but he had never been a good judge of their impact. What he had said to Madeleine was more or less what he meant, but he was afraid that the words might sound false to her.

  He need not have worried. Madeleine loved words for their own sake, loved people to be articulate and, particularly, loved people to talk in abstract rather than specific terms.

  ‘Maybe we’ll get that privacy we want one day, Bernard,’ she said. And she leant down to bestow a chaste kiss on his forehead.

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’m afraid I must be on my way. Got to get to see my friend at the Metropole.’

  He was in fact not sorry that the encounter was about to end. Partly this arose from the delicious confidence that they would meet again soon, but also there was a braking instinct within him, that didn’t want things to move too fast, to get out of hand. Already he was worried that too much had been said that evening, that too much had been committed. He felt guilt and a little fear. He was so determined that the mistakes of the past should not repeat themselves. This time no one must get hurt. So he needed solitude, time on his own to think about what was happening, to assimilate and assess the new situation in which he found himself.

  Madeleine, too, was not displeased that he had to go. She had known the time-limit of the evening from the start and she was a great believer in the rationing of romance. Life, she thought, should be made up of wonderful moments and little quiet times day-dreaming about those moments and building on the day-dreams. The ‘light supper’ with Bernard had stocked her up with some days’ supply of fantasy-fodder, and that was all that she had required of it. She, like him, was aware that their relationship could not stand still, but she, like him, was in no violent rush to move on to the next stage.

  She stood behind him in the tiny hall as he put on his coat. Then he turned to face her.

  ‘Thank you for the supper. It was really lovely. Just what was needed.’ He swayed in front of her, uncertain.

  ‘And we’ll see each other again soon.’

  ‘Of course. Round the Garrettway or. . .’ He gave a little smile and shrugged.

  ‘Yes. I was thinking, Bernard. . .’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘We must play it very cool at the Garrettway. Stella is so nosey, such a gossip. And I wouldn’t put a lot of money on Julian’s discretion. Probably better if we try not to take too much notice of each other there. You know, just colleagues. You can ring me here if you want to fix anything.’

  ‘If you like. Though it doesn’t seem necessary to. . .’

  ‘I’m thinking of Shirley, Bernard.’

  He nodded, put in his place. She’s much more concerned to keep it from my wife than I am, he thought ironically.

  ‘I’d better be off. Mr Nassiri waits.’

  ‘Yes.’ Madeleine leant forward to place a kiss on his cheek. His face moved round suddenly and their lips fused. Arms found their way around the two bodies, and they pressed fiercely against each other, moulding together the contours of flesh as if their clothes had not been there.

  It was a long, hungry, searching kiss and, when they finally drew apart, both looked a little shocked by its violence, almost shy at the new facets of their personalities so suddenly exposed.

  ‘Oh God,’ Bernard murmured huskily, ‘I want you.’

  ‘I want you too,’ Madeleine’s words came out instinctively and what she had said gave her a new sense of shock. But she knew that she meant it.

  ‘Well,’ Bernard pronounced with grim resolution, ‘we must see what we can do about that.’

  And, still shaken by the strength of the lust he felt, he went off to teach Mr Nassiri conversational English.

  Chapter 10

  On the evening that Madeleine entertained Bernard to haddock soufflé and a variety of interesting salads, Sharon Wilkinson went to the cinema with Tony Ashton. He had rung out of the blue suggesting that they should go out together, and she had been unable to think of any particular reason to refuse. After the way Paul Grigson had behaved on their last date, she felt she owed no special loyalty in that direction.

  Besides, Tony Ashton was quite attractive and rather intriguing. True, he wore an ear-ring, which was something of which Sharon’s father (and so automatically Sharon herself) disapproved strongly. Also, he didn’t have a job, so his score wasn’t very high on the husband/mortgage/fitted kitchen/matching bathroom suite scale. But a friend who worked with her at Boots had been out with him a few times and had said that he was a very good dancer. This gave him an immediate appeal, offering Sharon wonderful images of fun at the local discos. She was therefore a little disappointed when Tony, on picking her up at the agreed time, announced that they were going to the cinema. But she did not say anything. After all, at least on the first date, it was the feller’s decision what they should do.

  Her friend at Boots had also advised her to beware of Tony’s wandering hands and, as soon as the lights in the cinema went down, she was made aware of the reasons for this warning. His left arm was immediately around her shoulders, which was perhaps not unusual, but his right hand was equally immediately on her right breast, kneading away through the cardigan, blouse and brassière – and that was. She might have expected some approach of that sort halfway through the main feature, but to encounter it during the trailer for ‘NEXT PRESENTATION AT THIS CINEMA’ seemed distinctly premature. She removed the hand firmly from her breast and placed it down on Tony’s lap.

  This was a bad idea. Turning his hand and clasping hers, he pressed it against somewhere totally unsuitable. Sharon snatched her hand away and, folding her arms rigidly over her breasts, watched the screen.

  Her point seemed to have been made, because Tony sat back demurely through the rest of the trailers and advertisements, until the cinema’s management deemed that their customers had earned an intermission and flashed up pictures of soft drinks, ice-cream and hot dogs, available variously from the sales staff and in the foyer. Tony asked if Sharon would care for any of these delicacies and, on receiving the answer that she wouldn’t mind a Coke, went chivalrously off to the foyer to furnish her with one. On his way back, slightly less chivalrously, he topped up the cardboard cup from a quarter-bottle of vodka he had in his pocket.

  Sharon thanked him for the drink and commented that it tasted a bit funny. Tony was of the opinion that this was probably caused by the water which had been used to make the ice.

  The lights then dimmed for the main feature. It was not the sort of romantic story which Sharon favoured. Instead it was one of those farragos about American college students, in which the crudeness of the action is matched by the crudeness of the dialogue, and titillation provided by much peering into locker-rooms, groping in the back of cars and nude bathing.

  Tony, clearly aware of the film’s content, took the opening credits as a cue to recommence his assault on Sharon. The wandering hands, of which she had been warned, were instantly all over her, pressing, squeezing, tickling, kneading. At the same time Tony’s lips were brought in as reinforcements. They moved first to nibble her ear, then, parting, they released a tongue to probe its orifice. This produced in her a sensation of tickling, but had no other effect.

  Her jaw was then moved round and his lips fused with hers. She returned the kisses. They were, after all, what was expected. Boys asked girls out because they wanted to kiss them, and it would have been churlish of her to refuse this harmless interchange.

  What the hands were doing, on the other hand, was not what, to Sharon’s mind, boys asked girls out for. At least, it might be the reason for the invitation, but it was not a liberty that she thought proper to grant. As with most areas of her life, Sharon had very strict ground-rules about her body, about which bits were available, to whom and under what circumstances. These ground-rules came down to two basic prohibitions: nothing was allowed to go on inside her clothes, and nothing was allowed to
go on below her waist.

  But Tony Ashton’s assault was so pertinacious that Sharon realised that if she did not wish to resort to unpleasantness (and she didn’t think the moment for unpleasantness had come quite yet), she might have to make some adjustments to her ground-rules. One or other of the prohibitions would have to be relaxed. It did not take her long to decide which. Hands on the flesh of her upper torso could be tolerated, but incursions below the boundary of her waistband could not.

  These negotiations and trade-offs were conducted without words, but Sharon managed to make her terms perfectly clear. She deterred the downward movement of the hands by wriggling so violently each time they threatened, that cinema-goers in nearby seats turned to see what was going on. The use of this ploy on three occasions was sufficient to embarrass even Tony Ashton, and the hands moved up out of the prohibited zone.

  Once above the safety margin, they encountered less resistance in their probes through cardigan and blouse- buttons to the warm flesh beneath. They were not even slapped off when the right one undid two of the buttons and sidled in to circle a brassièred breast. Nor was there adverse reaction when the same pioneer insinuated itself between nylon and skin to encapsulate the breast itself. Emboldened by its partner’s success, the other made a flanking movement from the other side of the blouse up to the clasp of the brassière and, with an expert squeezing pressure, released it.

  The right hand, now given more room to manoeuvre, found the small pimple of a nipple with its thumb and forefinger and started a gentle cigarette-rolling motion.

  Sharon, on whom this manoeuvre had been frequently attempted but always before frustrated, was surprised by it. Surprised first that it was happening, and surprised second by the effect its happening had on her. Because, although the stimulation produced a localised tingling, its effects were by no means confined to that part of her body. Other muscles twitched, other parts grew warm and melted. When Tony, while maintaining this stimulation, kissed her, the kisses seemed to have a new potency, linking together the separate sensations into something which washed through her whole body and whose intensity she found a little frightening.

  As the film reached the final freeze of its clumsy dénouement and the credits started to roll, Tony removed his right hand from its occupation and Sharon almost found herself regretting its departure.

  The cinema-goers shambled to their feet and Tony’s hands reached chastely to find his jacket beneath the seat.

  Sharon, confused and blushing, reached under her blouse and, with difficulty, reattached the errant straps of her brassiere. When she stood up, Tony gave her a sardonic sideways smile and, placing two fingertips on her shoulder, led her out of the cinema.

  Of course he wanted to come in for a coffee when they got back to her house. It was about ten to eleven. On a weekday her parents were unlikely to have finished clearing up in the restaurant till midnight at the earliest, so they certainly couldn’t be expected home before half-past. An hour and forty minutes to survive.

  He clasped her to him and kissed her deeply as soon as they were in the hall. Sharon was very aware of the contours of his body against her, and also of the way her body was responding to them.

  She broke loose, straightened her clothes and in a voice of convention said, ‘Won’t you come in and sit down?’

  He gave her another sideways smile as he slouched through into the sitting-room. Ignoring the three easy- chairs, he slumped down on the sofa. Sharon hovered in the doorway. ‘I’ll just go and put the kettle on.’

  ‘Sod coffee.’ As he spoke, he reached out for her hand and pulled her down on top of him. She felt helpless as he pressed her to him, his hands roaming, pulling up her blouse at the back, reaching, probing, invading.

  His tongue, too, was making its own incursions, stifling her complaints as it probed into her mouth. Then it moved downwards, licking from the point of her chin, over the skin of her neck, down to the cleft between her breasts. She felt the cold metal of his ear-ring against her flesh. Then her blouse-buttons were somehow undone, her brassiere unclasped, and his tongue was continuing the stimulation that his fingers had started in the cinema.

  She felt those fingers now, worrying at the zip at the back of her skirt. Something gave and all at once they were inside, pressing her crutch hard against his.

  ‘No!’ She drew back, prised herself off him, stood upright, one hand salvaging her tumbled skirt, the other trying to close the front of her blouse.

  Tony looked up at her with a lazy grin. ‘You don’t mean no.’

  ‘I do. I do.’

  ‘No. I can tell. You’re panting for it. I’ll give you a good time. Come here.’ He reached out a confident hand.

  ‘No, Tony. I can’t. I mustn’t.’

  ‘Why not? Look here, Sharon, you’ve been giving me the come-on all evening.’

  This didn’t seem to her to be true, but she couldn’t muster the arguments to deny it. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Come on. It’s not such a big deal. Don’t pretend you haven’t done it before.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Ha, bloody ha. What about laughing boy? What about that little wimp Paul Grigson? Go on, you’ve put out for him. I’ll give you a better time than that.’

  Sharon shook her head. There were tears -now in her eyes. ‘I haven’t. Paul and I never . . . He never has, I’m sure . . . nor have I – really – not with anyone.’

  Tony laughed. It was a brisk, unattractive sound.

  ‘And’, she continued defiantly, ‘I certainly wouldn’t want to do it with you.’

  Tony swung his legs round on to the floor and looked at her. He was angry, and he knew he could have her if he wanted to. He was strong enough.

  But a virgin . . . A weeping virgin at that. He wasn’t sure that he fancied it.

  He rose to his feet. Sharon flinched away from him, fearing a blow. But he just said, ‘Goodnight’ lightly, and walked to the front door. He still felt angry as he walked home, but not that angry. He’d give Tracey Ruskin a call the next day. No point in going for things that were difficult when you could get them easy.

  Sharon felt huge relief when he had gone. She rebuttoned and rezipped her clothes before taking them off and having her customary bath. It had been a narrow escape.

  But she didn’t feel the satisfaction of virtue triumphant. She felt ill-at-ease as she donned her crisp little nightdress and got into her crisp little bed. She found she could not concentrate on her newest Mills and Boon and, when she turned the light out, sleep did not bring its usual, immediate benison.

  She couldn’t pretend. She knew what was troubling her. When she had said she did not want to do it with Tony, she had been lying.

  Paul Grigson was trying without marked success to keep his mind on Shelley the next morning, when at about half-past eleven his mother came through the front door. He looked up, surprised. Her face was once again drawn and grey.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  She nodded wryly. ‘Oh yes, fine. Well, fine-ish.’ She sighed. ‘Let us say that the doctor cannot diagnose anything wrong with me.’

  ‘You’ve just been to the doctor?’

  Another nod. ‘Yes. Thought I should check with a so-called expert. But – surprise, surprise – he didn’t know. I’m not sure why we bother going to doctors. Either they just admit they don’t know or, if they’re feeling really adventurous, they diagnose a virus.’

  ‘Well, if he couldn’t find anything, you’re probably OK.’ But Mrs Grigson wasn’t going to be comforted that easily. With a look of pity for Paul’s acceptance of such a simplistic solution, she announced, ‘He wants me to go into hospital to have some tests.’

  The panic thought of his mother’s dying again swept through him, but only briefly. ‘When?’

  ‘Thursday. That’s the next time they’ve got a bed free. Should be out by the weekend.’

  Paul dared to ask what the tests were for.

  ‘Oh God,’ his mother sighed dramat
ically. ‘You don’t think they tell you that.’ She became brisk and practical. ‘At least it gives me a couple of days to stock up for you. You’ll have to cope on your own. Do you think you’re capable?’

  She couldn’t resist that last dig. Paul didn’t rise to anger, as she had hoped, but assured her that he could manage.

  ‘I’d better get to work,’ his mother said wearily. ‘Late enough already.’ And slowly, not allowing her son to be unaware of her invalid state, she started to collect her things together.

  Paul felt a spasm of guilt, as had been intended, but it did not last. A new thought was blossoming in his mind. He would have the house to himself. For two blissful days he would be on his own, free to invite anyone ‘back to my place’.

  One of his fantasies of Madeleine instantly shifted location. It moved away from imagined hotels and hillsides to the specific setting of his bedroom.

  Julian Garrett was reaching the end of his third afternoon tutorial in a fortnight with the young housewife in Hove, and deciding that he had probably achieved as much as he was likely to for her progress. But she clasped her arms round him as he tried to put his trousers back on.

  ‘Julian, I wish we could have longer together. It’s always so rushed. We don’t have time to talk.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Well, it’s difficult. You’ve got the kids, your husband.’

  ‘He works away a lot. I could unload the kids on to friends for a night. We could spend a whole night together.’ Julian rose from the bed to button up his Turnbull and Asser shirt. ‘What you forget, my dear, is that while your family can be so conveniently abandoned, my wife is likely to prove less accommodating.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ asked the housewife.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from my answering that question. It’s not relevant to any relationship you and I may have.’

  ‘But I feel awful when you’re not here. It’s terrible trying to pretend with my husband, when all I really want is to be with you.’