‘There’s work to be done,’ he said, ‘but the hours will be irregular, though you’ll get enough time off. You already know what the premises are like. You’ll have a room here, and be absolutely private, I promise you. I know you already, and I like you, though I’ll say no more about that. Maybe you know what I’m trying to say, in any case. And I might not get anyone who’d fit the job even if I did advertise. I’m not trying to do you a favour, as much as one for myself.’
She wanted to say yes, but such a way out of her dilemma would be too easy. It would be wrong to take advantage of his loneliness and incoherence. She felt close, yet separated from him as by a high wall. ‘I’m helping you already, so why do we need a contract?’
He smiled at her simple notion of the truth. You sign on for the voyage and sign off at the end. Old habits led him to expect regularity. The signature was everything. Such articles were the nuts and bolts of a disciplined service, but they obviously had no place in love. Compartments were not divided by watertight doors, below the Plimsoll Line or not. Now that he had found her he couldn’t bear the prospect of being alone, but considering the way they had met there was no certainty of her remaining. Such unpredictability disturbed him. But she hadn’t said no, and he would have to be satisfied with that.
2
Her watch said half-past nine and for a few moments she wondered where she was. She had forgotten to get a pillow with her two blankets, and by the time she had undressed and lain down she was too sleepy to look for one. What would George say if he knew she had spent the night in another man’s flat – and ended up with a stiff neck? Maybe one of his brothers had followed them to Brighton and, posted outside, observed that she had been there all night, and that she had – he could hardly deduce otherwise with his kind of mind – slept with him. Let him think. She wondered why she hadn’t. He’d surely expected her to. She liked him enough, and could easily imagine how pleasant it might have been, but she had been too exhausted, either to allow any move or make one.
She pushed a curtain aside. A gleaming estate car with its lights on moved around the square. Neither of the two pedestrians resembled George or his brothers. The bleak sea was ruffled with feather-tops. She came back to the couch. Yesterday had been like ten years, but as time going in reverse, so that she felt a decade younger. It was as if she had already spent a honeymoon which had been perfect and glorious: she had come out of a long tunnel, exhausted but unhurt, and with a strange feeling of happiness. She looked out of the window again. The car had found a space and parked.
She emptied her bag to get clean pants and a blouse. Having expected him to sleep most of the day, she scooped up her clothes and went to the bathroom. The door was locked. He called that he wouldn’t be long. Using her coat for a dressing-gown she went to the lavatory, then into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Not being used to alcohol, her head ached, and her mouth was dry from thirst. She thought of what she knew about him. He was a man, as they said, with a past. So was she, and it was called prison, a long slumber of the unknowing until the bars were suddenly behind instead of in front, and never to be stepped back into by returning to someone of George’s sort. They had to cut free.
She resisted singing in her freedom. She was with another man. She liked being with him. She was sparing with words, even with herself, yet didn’t want to care. She swung open the huge curtains. An enormous patch of sun from the sea warmed her face. There was no movement in the square. They hadn’t traced her, after all. She would stay for as long as it wasn’t the beginning or the end of anything, but knew she mustn’t hope for too much.
The kettle whistled. Before it reached full shriek he had taken it off and was opening the tea caddy. He was dressed, with tie on, face shaved, shoes polished, fresh-looking as if he had slept deeply, looking different to last night when his agonized face in the shadowy light had given age no chance to mark his features. He seemed free of whatever weight the long search through his aunt’s leavings had heaped on him, though on a further glance she noticed that more than a trace remained in his eyes. She wondered what he saw in her face. She was uncertain as to what was there herself now that she speculated on him, wishing she had merely said good morning and then gone in to have her bath.
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘I’m still coming up for air,’ she said.
‘Sorry it had to be in the living-room, but I did offer you my bed – I mean, on condition that I took the sofa.’ They drank in silence, as if a treaty had been signed not to bother each other unnecessarily. She laughed at the thought. He didn’t, and looked up from his cup. ‘Someone once said that a person who laughed soon after getting out of bed was hungry. Shall I boil some eggs now, or do you want to dress first?’
‘I don’t know.’ And she didn’t. She wanted something, but didn’t know what, except that it had to be everything. She couldn’t be still, left her tea and walked into the living-room. The light of day made it hard to breathe, but she didn’t try, kept her lungs shallow, as if a good breath would fill her with something she did not want, and cause her to lose the feeling of desire. She felt restless and ashamed, not entirely under her own control, yet uncaring. On no other morning of her life had she been so fragmented in her sensations.
She went back into the kitchen and said to him: ‘I can’t answer questions first thing in the morning.’
He frowned, so she didn’t doubt that he was wide enough awake to answer any question put to him. But she had none to ask. Questions were finished, for the moment. His intense gaze suggested he hardly knew what to say for fear of uttering useless and puzzling words that would push them apart.
There seemed an absolute end of talking. She took off her coat and folded it over a chairback. He looked, but did not move. She had no wish but to be as close as it was possible to get, as a way through what complications might needlessly build up between them. Any less action seemed destructive. She gave reason no chance, but pulled her nightdress over her head and went to him, thinking as the cool air rushed at her body that since she wanted him so much it didn’t matter what was in either of their minds.
3
Her body had decided, so her will was free. Yet the course her body would take had been decided long ago, though she was not aware when the agreement had been reached. It had grown in her, but she had so far ignored it, a half deliberate neglect that had given the fragile plant a possibility of survival.
The inevitability of their becoming closer began during the total preoccupation with his aunt’s documentary belongings, a task which had taken him too far into the area of a peculiar past for her to follow. She had been left alone long enough and in sufficient ease to reflect on her feelings, though she was careful to deny any force which they threatened to assume.
Knowing what she wanted to do, she had been afraid on waking that she would feel some old-fashioned twinge of shame should the event take place at his convenience. If anyone knew that they had been together she wanted to be able to say that she had not allowed anything to be done to her, but that she had started whatever they liked to call it herself, out of the need of her own pride and unsurfaced dreams.
Guided by her own will, all sense of the tawdry had been sidestepped. Having nothing to lose by beginning, neither had she any of the shame which she would have dreaded had it been he who had taken the first step. No one could reproach her. Feeling love, a move had been made, and what came afterwards would be his reaction to the thing she had started, and so could never be a matter of regret to her. She would not be in any way demeaned if he couldn’t bear the sight of her and they parted never to meet again, though because her initiative had grown out of the ease she had known since their first meeting, such action on his part seemed unlikely.