The alcohol and nicotine transported her somewhere away from fear and broke the anxious chains of inexperience. They allowed her to stop observing.
Ralph didn’t comment and continued with his cooking, throwing together an omelette, jazzy with tomato, green pepper and feta. When he had dressed the herb-filled salad with olive oil and lemon, they carried the meal into the courtyard. She made the marble table pretty, lighting candles and bringing out her grandmother’s white napkins; then, sitting opposite each other, they clinked glasses. His face was the most beloved thing in the world. The air thrummed with a shrill cicada buzz and was heavy with jasmine.
The evening cooled and quietened, despite the rhythmic thudding of an open-air disco in the distance.
‘The cicadas are going to bed,’ said Ralph. He rose, drained his wine glass and, like a prince in a fairy story, stood humbly before her, holding out his hand until she took it. He helped her get up and, holding on to her waist, led her into the house and up the stairs. She was drunk enough to be relaxed and sober enough to be glad the lights were off. The moon lit their way into the bedroom.
She sat on the edge of the bed, the crocheted cover lumpy under her legs, and observed Ralph as he unbuttoned her borrowed dress and kissed her breasts.
‘I want you so much.’ He looked directly at her. ‘Do you still want to?’ She nodded and he delayed tactfully, before digging out the dreaded packet and placing it on the bedside table. They continued kissing and he put her hand on his cock. ‘Like that.’ When he ripped open the wrapping and started rolling on the condom, it was as though he was masking a strange animal. Fascinating but bewildering. He climbed on top of her and pushed between her open legs. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’ She didn’t reply. More pushing against something that felt closed.
After a few minutes of stubbing himself hopelessly against an impassable door, Ralph groaned and rolled off, peeling away the sticky layer of rubber.
‘I can’t stand this awful thing,’ he said, flinging the offending item on to the floor. ‘I love you, Daff.’ She felt a failure. This prospect was worse than the discomfort she had experienced and it was miserable to leave it like this. She put her arm across his chest, moving her body against his, and then laid herself on top of him. This provoked a sudden change of tempo. He flipped her over and, with new determination, entered her.
It hurt but she didn’t make a noise.
‘I’ll be careful,’ he whispered, moving more gently now he was inside. She gripped his shoulders.
‘You OK?’
‘Mm.’
‘Should I stop?’
She shook her head. It felt strange, this big thing right inside her. Big but fine. She observed the scene as though from above, pleased but detached, noting the intensity of Ralph’s pleasure. His mouth pressed against hers and then, ‘Christ…’ He arched upwards. ‘Daphne, I…’ The sentence never finished. He pulled out and made a noise that sounded like disappointment or pain, but was obviously Vesuvius.
‘Oh my God!’ He exhaled as though shocked by what they’d done. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah.’ She looked at him, but he was already retreating. ‘You?’
‘Unbelievably, incredibly, blissfully well.’ His breathing slowed as he lay beside her and before long he was asleep. So there we are, she thought. I did it. It’s lost. That’s good.
The bedroom window was open and through the slatted green shutters she could still hear the far-off disco beat throbbing in the darkness. It took her ages to get to sleep but she didn’t mind. It was an unusual luxury to spend the night in a bed with him. She put her arm across his chest and, pushing up close, smelled soap and sweat from his armpit, the warm, vanilla skin of his neck and the animal fur of his hair.
When she woke, the bedroom was striped with bright daylight slicing through the gaps in the shutters. Ralph wasn’t there. Crouching motionless on the floor was a grasshopper, the size of a well-nourished mouse. It was a similar non-committal yellow to the shrivelled rubber that lay next to it. Ralph came into the room, a towel wrapped around him like a loincloth.
‘You OK, Daff?’
She smiled but didn’t reply, following his gaze to a dried bloodstain on the sheet. It was uncomfortable to see this evidence – exposing.
‘Oh! Oh dear.’ She got up, pulling bedclothes over the offending area. ‘No. Yes, I’m fine.’ She pointed at the large, spiky insect. ‘But what about him?’
‘Christ, it’s a monster.’ He leaped up on to the mattress next to her and, as if in response, the armoured creature moved towards them unhurriedly but efficiently as a mechanical toy, and ratcheted itself up the cast-iron bed leg. Daphne screamed.
‘I’ll get a broom from the kitchen,’ he said and ran out.
While he was gone, she quickly pulled the dirty sheet off and took it with her to the bathroom, holding the bloodied part under the tap. She scrubbed at it but a mark remained – a faded brownish proof of the night before. It reminded her of Bluebeard’s wife with the bloody key, rubbing sand in desperation, unable to remove the red evidence that would betray her curiosity about the forbidden rooms. She half-filled the bath with water and threw in the whole sheet. The previous summer, Evgenia, her older girl cousin, had described the tradition of hanging the bridal sheet from a balcony the morning after the nuptial deflowering. ‘The whole village would come to take a look. Frightful.’
When she returned, Ralph was sitting on the bed, holding the broom, triumphant as St George with his spear, having just killed the dragon. ‘That took some doing,’ he said proudly. ‘He refused to die. He leaped from the bed right up on to the wardrobe. But I got him in the end.’
‘Where did you put it?’ She didn’t want to see the yellow corpse and noted that the rubber Johnny was gone too.
‘Straight out of the window and into the bushes.’ He smiled heroically. ‘Right, I’m off to get breakfast going.’
When she joined him in the kitchen he had already made coffee and was slicing a melon. ‘My darling girl. Come here.’ He gripped her shoulders in an almost avuncular way, kissing her forehead as if anointing the non-virgin.
‘Do I look different?’ She laughed.
‘Transformed by love. More exquisite than ever.’
The coffee was strong and she struggled to drink it, even with dollops of Nounou evaporated milk. In truth, she hated coffee, but she viewed the habit as a challenge, believing that if she was able to smoke and drink alcohol, not to mention doing what she liked with a man, then surely coffee should not confound her. It was shaming to drink milk for breakfast at her age. She wanted to be the sort of person who needed the dark, poisonous-tasting liquid first thing in the morning, perhaps with a cigarette; someone like her mother.
As she gave up on the coffee and spread honey on a slice of bread, the house telephone rang, loud and improbable. They looked at one another puzzled, then alarmed, as though they’d been caught.
‘Don’t answer. It’s probably for your grandmother.’ Sure enough the ringing stopped and they continued their breakfast. It wasn’t long, however, before there was a knock at the door and a woman’s voice calling for Daphne.
‘Fuck, shit, bugger, wanker!’
Daphne managed a smile. ‘I think it’s kyria Lemonia.’
‘Bloody bastard, bollocks, cunt, arse,’ Ralph continued with a grimace.
‘What shall we do?’ She was tempted to ignore this intrusion, to sneak upstairs and hide until it was over. Perhaps her grandmother’s housekeeper would leave. The knocking continued and the strident voice was clearly audible. ‘Daphnoula, I need to speak to you.’ By the time Daphne had traipsed into the courtyard towards the door, kyria Lemonia was letting herself in; she must have had a spare key.