In her mind’s eye the good memories were gaining the ascendancy.
“I nearly didn’t go through with it, you know,” she said. “That first time. When I saw that disgusting tattoo of yours. Kill everyone and everything horribly or whatever it said.”
“Death Or Glory,” Jack corrected her. “I know you thought it was juvenile, Polly, but I’m in the army. It’s our regimental motto.”
“I used to work for Tesco’s but I haven’t got ‘Great quality at prices you can afford’ written across my arse.”
Jack laughed and topped up his drink. He could certainly put the booze away, but then he had always been able to do that.
“I had a tattoo done too, you know, after you left,” Polly said, pulling at the collar of her raincoat and nightie to reveal the blurred decoration that her parents had found so unpleasant. Jack inspected it.
“It’s the female symbol with a penis in it,” he said.
“It’s not a penis, it’s a clenched fist, for Christ’s sake!” Polly snapped. “Why does everybody say that? It’s so obviously a clenched fist.”
Jack leant in a little to inspect the design more closely. “Yeah, well, maybe.”
Except, of course, he wasn’t looking at the tattoo. By now he had shifted his gaze and was using his position of advantage to drink in Polly’s partially exposed breasts. Polly had been aware when she pulled down her clothing to show her tattoo that she was displaying rather more of her bosom than was decorous, and she knew that Jack was looking at it now. Polly was rather vain of her breasts. She thought them perhaps her best feature. They were not particularly large or anything, but they were very shapely, cheeky almost. Age had not yet wearied them; they were well capable of standing up for themselves, so to speak.
Polly could feel Jack’s breath upon her shoulder. It was hot and damp and seemed to be coming quicker now. He wasn’t exactly panting, but he wasn’t breathing easily either. Polly knew that she too was breathing more quickly and that her breasts were trembling slightly beneath Jack’s gaze. She also knew what would happen to her body next. Spontaneously, involuntarily, her nipples began to harden under the nightshirt. It always happened when she felt aroused, and Jack, of course, knew that.
Even through the clothes Polly was wearing Jack could see the process beginning and it brought back such memories. How he longed to pull apart Polly’s shirt and press his lips once again to those glorious dark pink buds.
But he didn’t. He drew away and gulped again at his drink.
“Yeah, well, we both had some adjusting to do in those days,” he said.
For a moment Polly did not know what he was talking about. She had lost the thread of the conversation they had been having. She readjusted her clothing, covering her shoulders, slightly confused. She knew that he had wanted to touch her, she knew that she would have let him do it too and she knew that he knew that; her body had given it away. But he hadn’t touched her. Instead he was talking again. He had retreated across the room, clearly anxious to put distance between them. He was resisting his desires. Polly wondered why.
“Oh, yes, that’s for sure,” Jack continued. “We both had to make allowances in those days.”
“What allowances did you have to make, then?” Polly enquired rather sharply. “I seem to recall that it was you who called the shots.”
“Well, for instance I cannot say I relished discovering your organic raw cotton sanitary napkins soaking in the bathroom basin.”
The years had not blunted this point of contention. Once again the ancient row bubbled to the surface.
“That’s because you fear menstruation!” she retorted. “You’re scared of the ancient power and mystery of the vagina.”
“No, Polly, it’s because washing your sanitary towels in the bathroom is totally gross.”
Polly still didn’t understand this point of view. She found it as offensive as he had found her hygiene arrangements.
“What? Grosser than flushing great chunks of bleached cotton into our already filthy rivers?”
That was easy. Jack could answer that. “Yes,” he said. “Much grosser.”
“Are you seriously saying,” said Polly, rising to the bait as she always did, “that you find the idea of a woman disposing of her body’s byproducts in a responsible manner using sustainable resources more gross than dumping used tampons into the water system? Grosser than the seas being clogged up with great reefs of them knitted together with old condoms? Grosser than fish feeding on toilet paper? Grosser than tap water being filtered through surgical dressings and colostomy bags?”
Jack had to admit that these questions were more difficult.
“Uhm… maybe about as gross,” he replied.
“Jesus!” Polly snapped. “You’re a soldier. I thought you were supposed to be used to the sight of blood.”
How could Jack explain that as far as he was concerned there was a big difference between proper blood, manly blood, the blood that flowed from a wound, and blood left lying about the bathroom by menstruating feminists. He knew that this was not necessarily a laudable point of view, but it was how he felt.
“Look, Polly, we see things differently, OK? We always have. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
Polly smiled. Jack was embarrassed, which was something she had rarely seen.
“What is it they say?” she said softly. “Opposites attract.”
And so they were back at the point at which they had been a moment before. Looking at each other, the bed beckoning. The tender tension of love in the air. Jack’s knuckles whitened on his glass. Polly wondered if it would shatter. She could see that he was struggling to control his desires. She did not know why he was struggling, but she decided that she hoped he would lose.
“You look great, Polly,” said Jack, his heart thumping.
“Thanks.” Polly met his gaze. “You too.”
Jack did not reply. He could not think what to say. He knew what he ought to say. He had business to get through, that was why he had come. There were things about his past which only Polly knew, which only Polly could help him with. What Jack needed to do was ask the questions he had come to ask. But what he wanted to do was to make love.
“I’m glad you came back,” said Polly.
37
Polly was smiling.
Polly was frowning.
She was yawning at the bus stop. Peter’s mother knew those photographs almost as well as Peter did himself. Often when he was out she would find herself drawn to his room, where she would stand, surrounded by images of the woman whose existence had so infected her own. She knew what a terrible thing it was to be the mother of a child gone wrong, to be always looking back on life, searching for the moment when the change had come, when the damage had been done.
It seemed to Peter’s mother that her whole life had been a preparation for this current despair. Every moment of her past had been rewritten by the present. Peter’s boyhood, which had brought her such happiness, was now forever tainted by what he had become. Every smiling memory of a little boy in shorts and National Health Service glasses was the memory of a boy who had turned into a deceitful, sneaking pervert. Every innocent hour they had spent together was now revealed as an hour spent in the making of a monster. Could she have known? Could she have prevented it? Surely she could and yet Peter’s mother could not see how. It was true that he had never had many friends but she had thought him happy enough. After all she was lonely too and so they had always had each other. Perhaps if his father had stayed… but that swine had gone before Peter had even been born. She could scarcely even remember him herself.