Chapter 10

Mark was reading in bed that evening when there was a soft knock on his door.

"Come in," he said quietly wondering who it was.

It was Serena wrapped in a dark red dressing gown that fell to her ankles. She was wearing matching slippers.

"Can I come in and talk for a little while, Mark?"

"Of course you can. What a treat! You haven't done this for years and years." He patted the side of the bed. "Come and sit down."

Serena sat on the side of his bed with her hands folded in her lap. She was silent for a moment or two then, looking up at him she said, "I had a talk with Mum."

"I wondered when you sloped off after we got in. Did she help?"

"You bet." She told him what Elspeth had said.

"Makes sense," responded Mark adding with a rueful smile, "and she summed up the male of the species pretty well too."

Serena grinned and then turned solemn again. She looked down at her hands and then glanced nervously up at him through her eyelashes. "I umm ... told her about how we used to stroke each other's backs when we were kids. Hope you don't mind."

Mark shook his head. "Nothing to mind about. It was innocent fun. Nice fun too," he added with a gentle smile. "What was her reaction?"

"She said, 'You weren't the first, darling, I promise you.' and I blurted out, 'You and Uncle Bob?' And she nodded."

Serena looked down at her hands again.

"Go on," said Mark. "That's not all, is it?"

Serena shook her head but said nothing and her hands twisted nervously in her lap.

"It's all right if you don't want to tell me the rest but you've certainly roused my curiosity."

Serena shot him another glance through her eyelashes. "I was so surprised and shocked almost and I asked her whether they had committed incest." She fell silent again.

"What did she say?" prompted Mark gently.

"'No, darling, not incest.' But it was the way she said it made me think that they hadn't been far short. And then I wondered about Daddy and Aunt Jean and she seemed to read my mind because she said 'Yes and them too' and then she added with a smile 'Sex wasn't invented in the 1960s.'"

"Phew!" exclaimed Mark. "That must have set you back on your heels."

Serena nodded and then paused clearly trying to sort her thoughts out. Mark put his hand on hers to control the nervous twisting of them.

"Relax, my sweet. It doesn't make you feel any less for them, does it?"

"No ... not really ... but they were playing with fire and could have got into serious trouble ... particularly in those days. And then they might have gone too far and got into incest and..." she tailed off.

"But they didn't, did they? Mum told you."

"Yes, but if they took things as far as Mum hinted it must have been awfully difficult not to go the whole hog."

"True but it was, I suspect, a bit more of her encouraging you to set limits."

Serena stared at him wide-eyed.

"You absolutely shook me rigid me this morning," he went on.

"Why?"

"When you said you didn't know whether you'd be able to control yourself. I suddenly realised that I'd never thought of you as anything else but my darling, beautiful, little sister. The thought of you having sexual desires or anything like that had never entered my head even though I knew I'd be pretty critical of any boyfriend you brought home and might even be jealous of him. It's almost as though you became human instead of a lovely, funny, intelligent, living doll. Sorry that sounds awfully patronising."

"No, I'm actually touched not to mention flattered that I managed to pull the wool over your eyes for so long."

"What?"

"Yes. Mark, I've loved you as more than a brother since I was fourteen. You have been my handsome hero, the person I could talk to about some of the things I was too embarrassed to talk about to Mum or Dad. You've been the standard I've measured any possible boyfriend against."