Dimity had no idea how long she stood without moving, staring at the patchy paint and wood grain of Littlecombe’s door. Time didn’t seem to matter, didn’t seem to move as it should; like she was still in the grip of some fever, and only half alive. She was shivering, though the day was mild, and when she eventually turned to go, the ground seemed treacherous. Her feet caught in invisible snares, and she had to hold on to the gatepost for support. She felt eyes upon her, and thought at once that Charles was there, that he had come out to see her. But when she turned, searching for him, she saw only Delphine, standing at one of the upstairs windows. A shadowy figure with a sad face who raised one hand to wave at her forlornly. Dimity did not wave back.
For three days, she looked everywhere for Charles. Everywhere but Littlecombe. She looked in the village, at the pub and the grocer’s; she looked on the beach and the cliff path, and up at the ruined chapel on the hill. But she did not see him. Valentina noticed that her daughter had stopped bringing money back from her outings, and cornered her one day.
“Has he lost interest, then? You don’t take his fancy no more?” She jerked her chin up aggressively as she spoke, and for a blinding second, Dimity hated her utterly.
“He loves me! He told me so himself!” she said.
“Oh, does he, now?” Valentina chuckled. “Well, we’ve all heard that one before, my girl. Believe me. You tell him from me, it all costs. Love or no love. You hear?” Dimity fought to pull her arm free. “And you, Mitzy-you need to bring in a wage. You’re old enough, now. If he’ll not pay for the privilege, then I know several that will. We could get enough for your maidenhead to see us right through the winter.” Her voice was as bleak as her face, and her words made Mitzy think of the men in Fez, with their dark faces and angry eyes, and their open mouths above her, hard hands holding her down, poised to take everything. She wanted to run from her mother, just as she had wanted to run from them. Like in a nightmare, she wanted to run with every ounce of her will, but she couldn’t. She had nowhere to run to.
Dimity fantasized that Charles would come knocking on the door of The Watch with that hungry look in his eye that she’d seen, just for a second, in a narrow alley a whole world away. She conjured it so carefully, so intensely, it was almost a spell. She pictured going to London with him when he left; pictured Charles finding a flat for her, or letting her live in his studio, where she could be his model, his lover. Perhaps she would not even have to stay hidden away like this-perhaps he would marry her and introduce her to everybody as his wife, kissing her hand and looking at her with such a fire in his eyes that nobody could mistake it for anything but the most powerful devotion. His artist friends, whom she pictured as bearded men with beetling brows and mad habits, would be jealous of him for having such a young and lovely wife, and he would be proud of her, so proud, and the thirst of having to be decorous in public would only heighten the passion with which he would ravish her once they were back behind closed doors. In the night, these images kept her awake, aching with longing; made her hand reach down between her legs, desperate for release.
But it was Wilf Coulson she saw, not Charles. She saw him outside the Spout Lantern where, now aged sixteen, he had taken to drinking with the other men at the end of the working day. He came after her once or twice, walking behind her like he had in the past, so that she would know he was there and could lead him somewhere private where they could talk. Lead him to Barton’s barn to lie close in the straw and touch each other amid the stench of cattle. But this time she turned around and gave him such a furious look that he stopped in his tracks, bewildered. She did not want his fumbling attention, his gifts, his boyish kisses. So after a while he came to The Watch to look for her, and the knock at the door set her alight because she thought it might be Charles. When she saw Wilf, her face fell; when he saw this, so did his.
“Will you walk out for a while, Mitzy?” he said, dipping his chin into his chest and scowling.
“I’ve the chores to do,” she said numbly. Wilf looked up at her then with such hurt and anger in his eyes that it startled her. “All right, then. Just for a little while.”
She led him down the steep path over the cliff edge and onto the stony beach below The Watch, walking always slightly ahead of him, hands clenched, picking her way expertly between the rocks. A fitful breeze pushed at them, and the sea was a deep, glistening gray. A desert of a different kind, rolling into the far distance. Dimity kept walking right to the far end of the beach, then climbed up onto the rock jetty and walked along it until it began to slide beneath the water. She looked down at her battered leather shoes, and thought about continuing in spite of them.
“Mitzy, stop!” said Wilf, still behind her. Dimity looked back at him, and saw that his eyes were red and shining. “What’s happened, Mitzy? Why don’t you want to know me no more? What did I do?” He sounded so stricken that Dimity felt little prickles of guilt, and turned around to face him.
“You didn’t do anything, Wilf.”
“What is it then? Aren’t we even friends now?”
“Course,” she said grudgingly. She doubted she would see Wilf again, once she’d gone to London with Charles. No more Wilf, no more Valentina. Or perhaps she might visit her mother sometimes-drive down to The Watch in a shiny motorcar, wearing a silk scarf over her hair and high-heeled shoes and stockings with the seams perfectly straight, running up the backs of her calves. Wilf broke into this pleasant fantasy.
“I missed you, when you were gone. It wasn’t the same without you about. I even think your ma missed you-she had to come up to the village a couple of times, for this and that. Walked around with such a look in her eye that nobody dared go near her!” He smiled slightly, but stopped in the face of her silence. “So… what was it like, where you went?” He seemed desperate for something to say, some way to make her talk.
“It was the best place I’ve ever been. Charles said he’ll take me back there sometime. Next year, probably. We might take a holiday there every year.” She smiled vaguely.
“Charles? You mean Mr. Aubrey?” Wilf screwed up his face in confusion. “What do you mean, take a holiday?”
“Well, what do you think it means?” she snapped.
“You can’t mean that you and he… that you’re… with him now?”
“Can’t I?”
“But… he’s twice your age, Mitzy! More than twice… and he’s got a wife!”
“No he hasn’t! She’s not his wife, they’re not married!” She turned again to look out to sea. “He’s going to marry me. I’m going to be his wife.”
“Then why are you still at The Watch with your ma, while he’s packing up Littlecombe with his family, ready to go back to London?”
“What?” His words physically rocked her, made the jetty seem to pitch like the deck of a ship. Something came bulging up in her throat and she thought for a second that she might scream. “What?” she said again, and instead of a scream it was a whisper, half lost in the breeze. Wilf blurred in front of her, smearing out of focus to become a part of the sea, a part of the shore behind him.
“I heard him talking about it in the pub not half an hour ago, settling up his bill. Mitzy,” he said, stepping forwards to take her by her upper arms. She looked up, only now realizing how tall he’d grown, how his shoulders had fanned out above his narrow hips, how his jaw was stronger and firmer. “Mitzy, listen to me. He doesn’t love you. Not like I do. I love you, Mitzy!”