‘It would appear that Mrs Lloyd is taking tea in the main lobby with Miss Lloyd. Would you – would you like us to take you out through the side door Mr Lloyd… ah… discreet…’
‘No. I was hoping she’d be here. I want to introduce Lawrence.’
The Treasurer and Secretary looked nervously at him. Though they probably didn’t expect anything so vulgar as a ‘scene’ to occur, they were the kind of creatures to whom a situation with even the potential for a scene, even where that potential is sure to remain firmly suppressed, is a source of anxiety.
After I had filled out my forms and signed the membership book – an ancient volume with a column in it for your title as well as your name and address – I followed Robert back down to the main lobby, which was now alive with the particular muted but purposeful buzz of the upper classes going about their leisure.
Mrs Lloyd and her daughter were seated in an alcove half-screened by potted palms. As we approached them, I saw at once that the daughter was beautiful, and moreover beautiful in a way that so intimately corresponded to my ideal conception of female beauty at the time, that it was hard to resist the feeling that she had been created and placed there expressly for my personal delectation. My interest in the place, till then not nearly as strong as my mother’s, abruptly sharpened.
Mrs Lloyd, a smaller, sallower, skinnier woman than I had imagined, gave a brief start as she saw us, but quickly recovered her composure. Emily looked gravely at her father, her bee-stung little mouth firmly closed.
‘I want you to meet Lawrence,’ Robert said. The same aloof, secretive smile played on his face. Perhaps it was just his way of showing embarrassment, though its effect was to suggest he wasn’t actually present in the situation at all, other than in the most banally literal way.
‘Geraldine’s son,’ he added.
Mother and daughter looked at me blank-faced.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, immediately noticing a look flash between all three Lloyds.
‘Emily, I was hoping you might show Lawrence around. Introduce him to your friends. He doesn’t know anyone here. Would you do that?’
The girl seemed stunned, almost benumbed, by the situation. But she said ‘yes’ with an obedient simplicity as though it would never have crossed her mind to oppose her father’s will.
‘Good. Well then. I’ll see you on Sunday dear. Lawrence, I’ll pick you up at six.’
To his ex-wife he merely nodded, receiving the faintest of nods in return.
Emily was true to her word. After her mother left, which she did as soon as was civilly possible, she gave me a tour of the building and grounds, introducing me to various teenage acquaintances on the way. She made no attempt to converse with me, and was largely unresponsive to my remarks. Even so, I felt that I was making a favorable impression on her. I was intensely smitten by her. The thick, reddish-brown spill of her ringlets, her agate eyes, her sharply chiseled nose and pointed, elfin chin, were altogether too close to my image of that longed-for but hitherto entirely elusive entity, a girlfriend, for me to be capable of separating her from my fantasy. Her prolonged presence by my side as we strolled through the club began to acquire a meaning of its own in my imagination; something more than just duty and circumstance could account for. In some ineffable way we were ‘together’ – a fact that seemed further cemented every time she introduced me to someone new. Her voice was soft and clear, with a faint, nascent edge of imperiousness. She wore a perfume that rapidly insinuated itself into the deepest cortical centers of my brain: even today, when I catch it in a store or lobby, I am instantly back in her sweetly enchanting aura.
By the time we finished our tour, I was feeling distinctly proprietorial about her. Doubtless she expected me to wander off by myself now, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind, and she was too well brought up to say anything.
Some friends of hers came up, and as I persisted in lingering by her, she introduced me to them. These, it turned out, were her particular set, and over the next three days I got to know them well. The mere fact of Emily’s introducing me appeared to be enough to gain their acceptance. No doubt she found a way of quietly explaining who I was, but she must not have conveyed any particular antipathy on that score, because they included me in all their activities as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Like her, they were extremely polite and superbly confident. The boys were constantly standing up and offering their seats to older women. The girls – Fiona, Rosamond, Sophia, Lucy – were miracles of deportment and elocution, their adolescent bodies always under perfect control. Their facial expressions had the sophistication of seasoned matrons – little nuances of irony, moues of mock petulance, casting a wonderful allure over the most neutral of remarks. But nothing off-color or spiteful was ever intimated. They seemed almost conscious of a responsibility to set an example of gracious conduct, whether they were lobbing an easy ball to a weaker player over the tennis net, or complimenting the dinner ladies on the rhubarb pie in the dining room.
Among the boys was one I immediately identified as a rival. His name was Justin Brady. He was good-looking – tall, with a supple athletic build, wavy black hair and a cheerful, animated face. There was some kind of understanding between him and Emily. At first I thought he might actually be her boyfriend, but they never held hands or kissed, as some of the others did, so I ruled that out. But when we first played doubles he seemed to take it for granted that he would partner Emily, and later, when she mentioned that she wouldn’t mind going out on the river for a sail, he seemed to assume this meant she wanted him to go with her.
In both instances I managed to ward him off by sheer force of will. I simply stuck by her at her end of the court, creating a standoff, until, with a pleasant grin, Justin retreated to the other end. And when it was decided that we should all go sailing, I preempted him by asking Emily outright if she would come in my dinghy. She did hesitate a moment, looking at Justin, but he merely gave his pleasant warm smile again, and told her to go ahead.
Out on the river a mild breeze, scented with the flowers that grew on the banks, puffed out our sails and sent us rippling across the water. Emily said nothing, barely looked at me, but I felt that I was in paradise. To the extent that I even noticed her unresponsiveness, I put it down to shyness and her generally subdued manner. This was almost enough; almost all I wanted of love at that moment, to be gliding silently across the river with this bewitching girl. My own sails were filled! There had been talk of the upcoming Easter Dance, some preliminary discussion of partners and costumes. It seemed to me an inevitability that Emily would come as my partner, that we would dance all evening, and seal our budding romance with a long, tender kiss out on a balcony.
By the second day I had half-intoxicated myself with the imagined taste of her kisses, the sensation of plying my hands through her wondrous mass of ringlets. I spent the day waiting for opportunities to gaze into her eyes. On the rare occasions when she looked back at me, it was with a curious, dazed expression, as though we were meeting in a dream.
The next day her mother had to pick her up earlier than usual. On the spur of the moment, a general invitation to tea was issued. It didn’t cross my mind that I might not be welcome at Robert’s former home, and I ran to get my things along with the rest of them. When I turned up at her Land-Rover, Mrs Lloyd frowned slightly. Wasn’t Robert expecting to pick me up at the club later that afternoon? she asked. Gently, with the effusive politeness I had learned from my new friends, I assured her she needn’t worry – I would ring him from her house and he could pick me up there instead. Since she appeared to operate at a fairly cool temperature at the best of times, I didn’t think anything of the frostiness with which she received this, and I piled into the car next to Emily.