Chapter 5

Saturday 25th June 1983

I waited for her to trot out the ‘let’s just be good friends’ routine, but I was surprised.

“This has never happened to me before,” she said reflectively. “It’s not like a crush or an infatuation, I’ve done both of those and I won’t be fooled again into thinking they’re the real thing. But this – what’s going on here with us – this is different.”

Oh, it was’t the ‘good friends’ talk. “I agree. Go on. I’m listening.”

“I’ve never felt as totally at ease with anyone, as I do with you. And it’s been like that since the moment we met. In no time it felt as if I’d known you all my life and you were so comfortable to be with.”

She stopped again and assumed an enquiring expression.

“You’re asking if I feel the same,” I said. “And you’re absolutely right. I felt an instant rapport with you, a closeness. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t. Now don’t get what I’m going to say wrong, will you? I was puzzled because from past experience I thought that you weren’t my type – I mean physically.”

She frowned.

“I told you not to take it the wrong way,” I said patiently with a hint of gentle reproof. “I was puzzled because it felt so right and I definitely wanted you. I wanted to get to know you better, much better. I was jealous when the other men of the House went out with you–”

“They didn’t–”

“Yes, I know they didn’t get anywhere. They both actually apologised. Anyhow, It was soon clear to me that you were very much my type, and it felt natural that we made such rapid progress with each other. You’ll agree we haven’t been together very long to feel this way?”

We both laughed. It was self-evident.

“David,” she said earnestly, “I feel as if we’ve been together for months if not years. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, perfectly. It seems too good to be true.”

“Exactly!”

Her smile showed her pleasure that I understood her. She was so pretty when she smiled: her eyes sparkled! Then she looked more serious.

“The problem is that things that seem too good to be true usually are. I feel a little guilty that I pushed too hard – last night and today. I mean – stripping off in front of you, going braless, and last night – more or less inviting you to...” She left the sentence unfinished.

“You’re not really sorry you did any of those things, are you?” I said with a grin. “But you think that wiser counsels should prevail. It was just so exhilarating to find each other, we got carried away. I mean, for goodness’ sake: quoting Shakespeare!”

We both laughed at that one.

“You see?” she said with a loving smile, and reaching for my hand and giving it a good fondle. “We understand each other so well, almost too well!”

At that moment our food arrived.

After the meal, as we sat with the inevitable coffee, and both knew there was more to say.

“David, I’m saying this more for myself than for you, after all, I’ve been making the running haven’t I?”

“I wasn’t trying to avoid you, love–”

“No, I didn’t mean that, just that I seemed unable to stop launching myself at you. I still get urges that way!” She giggled then, and I loved it.

“I’m asking–” she began.

“That we go slower, get to know each other better,” I said.

“Once again we think alike. David, this is uncanny. Yes. Slower, but with progress! Can we do that?”

“Darling, honestly I don’t know. I can try, but you are devilishly hard to resist.”

She smiled contentedly at that and shook her head.

“Is that shake of your head that you don’t believe that of yourself, or you’re not sure we’re going to manage it?”

“Both!” and she laughed, her eyes twinkling. “I think I’ll feel safer if I stay at my place. Once the smell of paint has gone down, I’ll move in then. In any case, I’m off to London on the fourth and I’ll be going home early next week to see my parents before then.”

I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. At last we were clearly together, beginning a relationship that was of more importance than I’d had since Susan. Already our days together were disappearing.

“David, if I go home on Monday until Wednesday, you’ll be working those days anyway, won’t you? We’ll have tomorrow, and then I’ll move the rest of my things over and begin to unpack then and continue on Thursday and Friday. Again you’ll be at work all day, but we’ll have the evenings, even if I’m unpacking.”

She had seen my expression and was trying to help me see sense!

I nodded, “Yes, you’re right of course. Then we’ll have the weekend together before you go on Monday.”

I drove her back to her place. We parked outside the house.

“It’s pretty bare in there now,” she said. “Glenda is leaving on Tuesday, moving the last of her things home for the long vac. Jill goes on Thursday evening, so between us by Thursday we have to finish cleaning the house to get our deposits back. We’ll do a bit tomorrow. Might even get Glenda to give us a hand, after all it’s her deposit as well!”

She turned towards me and I reciprocated. We naturally put lips together and kissed, then separated, looked at each other, grinned, and fell upon each other, soft lips moving mouths opening, tongues duelling. Her hands swept over my shoulders and over my arms, as mine caressed her sides down to her hips. We were panting when we forced ourselves apart.

She looked sad. “I wish we’d met before I committed to that work experience in London. I’d never have gone. Someone’s law again!” and she giggled.

I was just about to say it would stop us moving too fast, but we could still meet now and again.

“You will be able to come to London? At least being apart will slow us down. Except when we meet! Then I suspect the reverse may happen!”

How did she do that, speaking my thoughts?

“Yes,” I said, “and I’ll pay for you to come up here.”

She hummed with pleasure and fell into another torrid hug and kiss. Then she decisively broke the embrace and opened the car door.

“See you tomorrow,” she said with her smile, and left the car, shutting the door firmly but quietly. She walked away, and watching her bottom sway I wished the path to the door were longer, then she turned and waved when she reached the house door before entering.

I drove home feeling happy.

When she did not arrive on Sunday morning, I wondered if I should have picked her up, but remembered that she said she’d help Jill with cleaning. She arrived mid-afternoon and between us we began the process of unpacking some of her things.

Christian was making a roast pork dinner so I had appended our names. I took two bottles of wine, a Grenache and a Durif Syra, which were gratefully accepted by Kim, Nuala and Harry. The conversation centred on Kim’s impending stay in Cologne, a city Harry had visited on one of his jaunts, and alsoon Helen’s summer in London. Kim was quite upset.

“You’ve only just got together, and now you’re going to be apart for the whole of the summer,” she said plaintively, as if it were she who was to be separated!

“Yes, but I’ll be living here from September onwards, and we will still be seeing each other on some weekends.” Helen told her. “Honestly Kim, it will do us good – give us a chance to appreciate each other and think about things more. Neither of us is looking to be going out to find someone else!”

“I suppose not,” Kim said, seemingly unconvinced.

“Kim, we trust each other,” I said. “I’ll be working all through the summer and so will Helen. I’ll have a heap of holiday time saved for when Helen has finished her work experience. We can have extra time together then. Deferred gratification if you like.”

After dinner, Helen and I almost went to bed, by which I mean we lay on the bed together fully dressed and hugged and stroked. By common unspoken consent we both avoided arousing the other.

Then I walked her back to her empty house. We parted with hugs, kisses and mutual assurances of seeing each other on Thursday if the house cleaning went well.

It was quite a new experience for me, walking home from a girlfriend’s house, having had a fairly platonic evening together, and with hopes for later in the week. It felt good, and I found I did not mind the separation too much.

We seemed to have settled together, and there was no fear that she would somehow find someone else and jettison me! Life was getting better.

I was enthralled by how much in tune we were, how we thought the same things. I began to think that we would have a perfect relationship. The future looked serene and unruffled, I thought. As it happened that was unrealistic and naïve, and would prove so sooner rather than later.

I had realised at work on Monday morning that I had no means of contacting her, and it turned out that she did not phone me while she was at her parents’, nor did she arrive at the House on Thursday afternoon or evening. I had left work and come home early in case she arrived, but by eight that evening I began to worry. At 8.02pm she rang and I ‘just happened’ to be next to the phone in the kitchen.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed before I could get a word in. “Jill and I have been working all day and we’ve nearly finished at last. I just now got a feeling you’d be worried, so, could you come and collect me and the rest of my stuff about ten?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can do that. Looking forward to it.”

The phone call awoke something in me. She had not contacted me the whole time she’d been away. I assumed her family had a phone; she knew our House number, so why didn’t she call?

When I got to the House, the front door was open and there was a small heap of assorted household items in the hallway and two rucksacks. Helen was wielding a vacuum cleaner in what I assumed to be the living room.

“That pile in the hall,” she shouted over the machine’s shrill whine, “that’s all mine. It’s going with me.”

No rush to fall into my arms after our days apart, just an implied order to load the car. With disappointment I loaded the car, and was sitting in the driver’s seat waiting for her to arrive.

She hugged Jill and said farewell, then fell into the passenger seat and belted herself. Still no hug, no kiss hello. It annoyed me. We set off on the short return journey.

“You didn’t ring while you were away.” I began, letting the statement lie.

Silence. Then, “Was I supposed to?”

“No. I just thought you might. I don’t know your parents’ number. You know mine.”

Another silence. Then, “Sorry.”

“Did you tell them about us?”

“No.”

“Why not? Ashamed of me?” I was unaccountably annoyed.

“No!” she said becoming animated. “It ... It didn’t feel like the right time ... I suppose that’s why I didn’t phone. I always ask if I can use the phone and I always say who I’m ringing. Always have.”

“No big deal,” I said to lighten my own mood, but I was still unhappy.

“I’m sorry, David. I should have phoned.”

“It’s not a matter of ‘should’, as if it’s some chore to be got through. If I’d had your number, I would have wanted to.”

There was no answer from her to that.

We were nearly home, after all it was a short journey by car. In the silence that followed my last remark, I became unsettled, not by her actions or lack of them, but by my own annoyance. Until I asked her about phoning I had not given the lack of a call much thought and now it had suddenly taken on an importance I had to admit, it did not merit.

We unloaded the car in silence, putting her stuff in the middle of her floor. When we had finished, I went and parked the car away from the front door and made my way to my room, not to hers.

I was washing my hands after moving her stuff when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” I shouted from the bathroom. When I emerged, drying my hands on the towel, she was standing just inside the door looking worried. She made no move towards me.

“Why don’t you sit down,” I said and waited for her to comply. I remained standing. She was now getting upset.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, unmoving in the doorway. “You’re upset with me. What have I done?”

Upset? Was I? Then it dawned on me. I was upset and I knew why.

“More what you’ve not done.”

“But I’ve said I was sorry about not phoning.”

“Not that.”

“Then what?”

“Partly that. Last Saturday we were talking about moving too fast, and it seems you took time while at home to realise you want to distance yourself even further from me, in fact to cut me off altogether.”

“David that’s not–”

“Let me finish. Today you were back. No call to say you wouldn’t be coming over or to ask me to come there when I got in from work, which I did early so as to see you. I could have helped or at least made tea. You called me late on, to use me to bring your stuff over.

“When I get there, do I get a hug, a kiss hello? Do you show how pleased you are to see me? No. I get a shout to put your stuff in the car. I load up and wait in the car. You hug Jill then get in the car. Do I get a hug? Kiss? No. Any sign of affection at all since you got back? Not one.

“So I have to conclude you’re having second thoughts about us, and will probably be relieved to be in London over the summer, and away from me. I won’t be surprised if when I call to arrange a visit, I’m put off. I think you’ve changed your mind about us.

“That’s fine. From now on you’ll just be another house mate. You’ve made it clear you want to separate yourself from me.”

Her expression at this was not distress or shame, which I think I rather wanted from her, and thus she showed she did not believe for a moment half of what I said! So as it happened her expression was fitting. Pity! Mockery! Pretended affront!

“David, give up the self-pity for God’s sake! Poor badly done to boy! Ah diddums! Talk about blowing something up out of all proportion. I’m not even going to apologise for your imaginative construction of my motives from what I did or didn’t do.”

In my surprise I made as if to counter her response, but she hadn’t finished and was not going to give me the satisfaction.

“We both said we needed to ease off. OK, so I’ve eased off, so what? I’ve been away for three days, David, three days, not a month or a year!

“When I got back I had the remains of a pig-sty of a house to clean from top to bottom with only Jill to help me, and that’s after working at it last Sunday. I arrived at nine in the morning and worked solidly until I called you. I calculate that’s eleven hours and no lunch or dinner beyond a packet of crisps and an apple.

“So I was and I am dead beat. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not the end of the world that I didn’t fall into your arms with a girlish sigh. If you’d been a bit patient, about now would have been the time to kiss and say hello, here, alone, not in the middle of my house move!

“And while I’m at it, no I didn’t mention you to my parents. Why? Because I was ashamed of you? Hah! Don’t flatter yourself! I never discuss my private emotional life with my parents. If the time ever came to formally introduce you, it would be because we had something to tell them and not before.”