‘Will you give me a chance to get ready for bed,’ she asked in a little voice.
‘Sure. I’ll wait in the shop.’
I didn’t want to risk putting the light on and attracting attention from that dark side street and so I took the torch. It didn’t take long to exhaust the sights. Standing in the dark, I got childish: I spun the light in circles, threw it up and caught it; stopped when I decided this was one night I particularly didn’t want to spend in a police cell. I stood quiet and let the light make discreet passes. As if it had a life of its own, it kept sliding back to a cash register on the counter. There was an illegal feel to the dark. I wondered how much Margaret was taking off to go to bed. There seemed no harm in looking at the register. It was an old model. When I tapped one of the keys, nothing happened. I tugged at the drawer but it wouldn’t open. There was a faint shout from Margaret. She must have got into bed. I got the trick of it – the drawer opened when you leaned on No Sale and pulled. They kept the petty cash in it; no notes but a lot of coins. I picked out the big ones and dropped them in my pocket. Softly I pushed the drawer shut. My heart was pounding till I thought it could be heard outside. Apart from cakes out of the bakers as a schoolboy, that was my first theft.
All that she had left outside the blanket was her face and a spread of black hair across the pillow. Trying not to be obvious, I looked around for her clothes. I thought she might have climbed into bed fully dressed until I saw her stuff folded at the foot of the bed. She had spread her shirt on top so it was impossible to tell what was under it.
‘Put the light out,’ she said.
‘Where’s the switch?’
‘There by the door. No, the other side.’
I put the light out and then put it on again.
‘I’ll need a minute to work out where things are or I’ll break my neck.’
Conscious of her eyes dark and wide over the blanket like a fugitive from a harem, I padded around adjusting the chair so that I could tip it back against the wall and pulling the table forward to where I could lift my feet on to it. I’d never seen an unlikelier sleeping arrangement.
‘That’s it then. It’s about as good as it’s going to be.’
I went back to the door and charted the route.
‘I’ll put the light out.’
The blackness was total. I stood still trying to get my eyes back. Suddenly, a breathless whisper asked, ‘Where are you?’
‘Here. By the door. It’s too dark to see.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m giving my eyes a chance to catch up.’
Gradually I decided I could make out shapes. The hatch window to the left of the sink didn’t so much give light as qualify the darkness. Slowly I edged forward. The side of my left hand knocked wood and I knew I was by the table. I bumped the chair and it rattled away. When that happened, I heard her gasp. I lowered myself into the chair and tipped it back gingerly until it rested against the wall. I put my feet up one at a time on the table. The silence was perfect.
‘Good night.’
‘Good night,’ I said. The chair cut into the back of my neck.
‘It was good of you to come with me.’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘I couldn’t have come by myself.’
Surprisingly, I slept. Perhaps it had something to do with the warm glow of righteous self-approval I was generating.
Even righteous sleeps end.
It was still dark.
‘Margaret?’
No answer.
I cleared my throat and tried a little louder.
‘Margaret? You asleep?’
Carefully I lowered the legs of the chair to the ground. It was a miracle I hadn’t tipped over and broken my neck. When I got up, my knees buckled. Blood must have stopped reaching them some time earlier.
In the dark I started undressing. As I pulled off my trousers, change spilled jingling from the pocket. My breathing stopped until I heard the deep rhythm of hers. Mother naked I set out for the bed.
This time I could see a little better but the bed was only a shape full of shadows. I thought she might be awake listening to the sounds I had made, pretending to be asleep or pretending it was a dream. I was ashamed enough to go back to my upright chair until I imagined trying to find that scatter of clothes. A small cold breeze licked my buttocks and I explored the cleft of pillows and sheet, peeled back the clothes and slid in.
She rolled over and put her arm round me. One problem solved: she wore bra and pants to bed. I lay still for a year or two and then softly ran my hand down her back. She had skin like warm velvet. I eased under her pants and on the last little bone I came to, rubbed gently. She sighed and snuggled comfortably closer. I stroked my fingers down one side of her soft parting and back up the other and pressed in between her cheeks.
‘Peter,’ she murmured and opened her legs so that mine slipped between them. Then I felt her hand come down and hold me.
Conscience apart it should have been all downhill sledging from there, but when I brought up my hand and touched her on the breast she trembled, let go as if I’d turned hot and threshed like a swimmer going down.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
I thought she was having a fit. She quietened.
‘What are you— Is that— Get out!’
‘Look,’ I whispered reasonably. ‘I’ve slept in that hellish chair. It must be your turn.’
There was a pause. She was still spread half under me. The size of my interest puttered against her thigh like an over-crowded motor boat.
‘That was a terrible thing to do,’ she said very quietly.
‘You haven’t sat in that chair for hours.’
‘But you’ve taken all your clothes off.’
‘I didn’t want to get my vest crumpled.’
If she would only laugh, things might go right even yet. It was like lying beside a furnace. The heat of her body beat round me. I licked her shoulder. It tasted salty and smelled like warm milk and apples.
‘You’ll have to get out,’ she said calmly.
‘No.’
‘Please, now, you wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want you to.’
Somewhere about the middle of the next day, I would brood on what might have happened if I had yelled Yes and got on top of her.
‘Good God, no,’ I muttered soothingly into her neck. ‘I wouldn’t force myself on a girl. I’m not like that. I’ve never needed to force myself on a girl. We’ll do whatever you want.’
‘Get out of the bed, please.’
‘Apart from that. It’s bloody cold out there. I won’t stop you if you want to sleep in the chair.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. There was an intensely practical strain in her.
Another pause. After a bit, I moved my leg closer imperceptibly; only she perceived it and said, ‘Will you lie still . . . And we’ll go to sleep. That would be fair.’
She freed herself and turned away. The dim bulk of her back was presented to me. I put my hand on her backside hoping for some repetition of the earlier effect. She reached behind her and picked it off.
‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘That’s fair.’
‘Fair!’ I heard my voice squeak and deepened it for the next bit. ‘How can you talk that way?’
‘You’re a decent fellow,’ she said. Her voice began to trail away. Either she was the best actress since Sarah Bernhardt screwed on a wooden leg or she was falling asleep. ‘You’ve been good to me. I trust you.’
Sometime before morning, I fell asleep without abusing myself or murdering her – which must prove something about the resilience of human nature.
ELEVEN
There was a smell of frying bacon and since it was an illusion I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to be disappointed. Thoughts of the middle of the night ebbed into the forebrain. By cautious fractions, I stretched in the bed.