‘Gryffe,’ Bannerman corrected her.
‘And to think we were speaking to him just the night before.’
‘Yes,’ Bannerman said. ‘Goodbye. I hope you have a good journey.’
‘Why thank you, Mr. Bannerman. Goodbye young lady.’
Schumacher shook his hand solemnly. ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said. ‘If you should change your mind, about the drink I mean, give us a call. We’re at the Hotel Regent in the Avenue Louise.’
‘I’ll do that.’
And when they had gone Mrs. Schumacher said, ‘They haven’t even finished their drinks. He seems a very peculiar young man, doesn’t he. You don’t think he’s trying to avoid us do you?’
‘They struck me’ Schumacher said thoughtfully, ‘as two young people with rather a lot on their minds.’
II
Bannerman watched her undress in the moonlight that came in through the open shutters. The room was cold and he felt a shiver run through him. He knew this was a mistake. It would only make it all the more difficult afterwards. But he wanted her with every fibre of himself. ‘Let me,’ he said in the quiet.
She had slipped out of her jeans and panties and stood only in her tee-shirt. Bannerman ran his hands overs its intimate softness, over the swellings of her small, firm breasts, nipples hard and pouting. Then behind her, pulling her to him, feeling the smoothness of her buttocks and lifting the shirt up over her head. He dropped it on the floor and kissed her, his tongue in her mouth, seeking out every part of it. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bed.
He undressed and lay down beside her and laid his hand on the soft mound of her pubis. There was a great tenderness in him and he kissed her softly on her breasts and on her belly and moved his hands about her body as though it were porcelain. She moaned softly and he felt her nails in his shoulders as he entered her. Her legs crossed over his back and he buried his head in her neck and smelled her perfume.
Afterwards they lay still for a long time, curled up in each other’s arms, each reluctant to be the one to make the break. Finally it was Bannerman who rolled over and turned on the bedside lamp, and they blinked in its sudden brightness. She pulled the sheet up over her and lay on her side watching him. ‘I wish...’ she said. But her voice trailed away and she never said what she wished.
But Bannerman could guess. ‘It probably wouldn’t have worked out,’ he said. ‘It’s probably as well that you’re going.’
And for the first time she knew for certain that he didn’t want her to go. But it was all too late now. They would go their separate ways though neither of them wanted it. Neither of them had had the courage to face the alternative.
She reached up and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him, taste him again, reassure herself about what had gone before. ‘It was so perfect,’ she whispered. ‘You and me. It’s never been like that before.’
Bannerman pulled away, rolling over on to his back and staring up at the ceiling. ‘Perfection,’ he said, ‘only comes once. It’s never the same a second time. You spend the rest of your life trying to recapture the illusion.’
She was silent then for a very long time. Finally she said in a strained, quiet voice, ‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you?’
He thought about it. ‘Yes. It probably means more to me than you’ll ever know. But that’s now. What it will mean next week, or next month, or next year — I don’t know.’ He sat up and fumbled for a cigar and lit it. She lay quite still. ‘A week ago’ he said, ‘there was no-one in my life. Now there are two people.’ He heard her head turn but he didn’t look. ‘You and the child,’ he said. ‘And you are leaving. Sometimes life is like that.’
‘Yes.’ Somehow that one word was the final acceptance of their parting, that whatever they might feel now there was no real future in it. Then she asked, ‘Does she mean that much to you? Tania?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
And he wanted to tell her. He knew that tomorrow she would go and it didn’t matter any more.
‘Somewhere,’ he made a vague gesture, ‘there is a child.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Not even a child any more. Almost a young woman. A part of me. My daughter.’ He turned to see her, but there was nothing in her face. ‘I’ve never seen her, not even a photograph. I would pass her in the street and not know.’
‘You were married?’
‘No, it was a girl, a long time ago. She was only seventeen. She worked in the same office where I had my first job in newspapers. I was eighteen. She was a shy girl. Didn’t know much about anything. Least of all sex. She thought she loved me, and maybe she did. I used to pretend that I loved her, even to myself. It was a kind of growing up game I played where I was sort of testing her, testing myself, playing with both our emotions to see what would happen. I was just a raw boy who thought the world had given him a pretty raw deal. Anyway, I took her virginity, hurt her. I led her into it when she really didn’t want to. I had to promise that I loved her, you know, the way kids do. And it was easy to say it; it’s always easy to say it when you don’t mean it.’
He paused to draw on his cigar and lost himself in thinking about it. All the detail, the finely etched memories that he would carry with him always. ‘And, she got pregnant and I thought my whole world had fallen in. I don’t think I thought too much about her. All about myself. I felt trapped. I tried to persuade her to get rid of it. But she wouldn’t. She just cried and her face went all red and blotchy and she said she would have to tell her parents. So I said I would marry her.’ Again he paused and he smiled to himself and shook his head sadly. ‘And you know, she turned me down. No great fuss or anything. She just said, no, she didn’t want to marry me. She would have the child and stay with her parents if they would have her. And still I only thought about myself. My first feelings were of confusion and hurt. She would rather go through the hell of being an unmarried mother than marry me. The mist was gone from her eyes and she saw me for what I was. A liar and a cheat. And then I thought, I’m free. I didn’t have to marry her, there’ll be no paternity suit. It lost me my job though. Word got around, the editor got to hear about it. He called me in and told me he didn’t want my kind on his staff and that I’d better start looking for another job. I was pretty sore at the time, but I got another job, in England. I heard later she’d had a baby girl, and then I lost contact. It didn’t seem to matter then. I was just glad that I’d escaped.’
His cigar had gone out and he reached for a match to relight it. ‘Then, well then I had time to think about it. The years pass and you get older and wiser and you become more aware of consequences. I find it difficult to reconcile myself now with what I was then. I ruined two lives. I soured a young girl’s attitude to sex, and I scarred her for all to see, as plainly as if I had taken a razor to her face. And I robbed a child of her right to a proper home, to the love of a father. I didn’t discover my own wounds until later. Perhaps not until now.’
The cigar had gone out again and he dropped it in the ashtray. He felt no better for having told her. What had he expected? And suddenly he felt embarrassed at having opened his soul to her. This was only making the moment of parting worse.
He rolled away and climbed out of bed, crossing to the window and standing naked in the darkness with his back to her.
‘Neil...?’ Her voice trailed after him.
‘You’d better go,’ he said, his voice muffled against the glass.
She rose and dressed slowly. He heard her moving about behind him. Then he heard the bedroom door opening and closing, and then the landing door shutting and there were footsteps echoing away down the stairs. When he could no longer hear them, he let his face rest against the cold glass and whispered, ‘Goodbye.’