1973 – aged 17 #2
‘And what might possibly tempt you?’ She threw her hair over one shoulder to expose her decolletage and positioned her legs just so to show off her skin, wanting him to want her in the way she wanted him, and knowing that if Glenda were to witness such shenanigans, even she might just pray for her.
It was playing a part, adopting this persona, and she liked it very much.
She felt sexy, grown-up and invincible all at once!
‘You are quite lovely, Elizabeth-Roberta.’ His tone was sincere now as he stared at her, and she felt the pulse of want in the base of her throat. His words had the biggest effect – swooning, almost, she feared she might fall off her perch.
‘Am I?’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘Yes. You really are.’ He stood and came close to her. ‘I was thinking about you all the way here, trying to figure out, if you were a season, which season you would be.’ He narrowed his eyes as if still undecided.
‘I hope summer.’ She liked the idea of it, all that warmth and light.
Wilkie shook his head. ‘Summer is too predictable. I think you’d be spring.’
‘Spring?’ She bit her lip, trying to work out if this was a good or bad thing.
‘Yep, spring. Secretly, quietly powerful, having to fight to break through hardened soil to bloom, to be noticed, but once you do, you dazzle, absolutely dazzle! Delivering colour, fragrance and hope that has been missing for the longest time!’ Reaching out, he ran the pad of his index finger over her cheek and her whole body shuddered, tightening and aching for more of it.
‘And hope is surely the greatest gift, is it not?’
‘I’ll take it. Spring,’ she managed, almost breathless.
‘And beauty . . . beauty, too, let’s not forget that. The intoxicating flush of pure beauty after a bleak and dull winter.’
‘I’m not and never have been considered beautiful.’ She shook her hair over her face once more, feeling suddenly self-conscious, wanting to hide.
‘What a ridiculous statement.’ He withdrew his hand. ‘How could you possibly know how you’ve been perceived by everyone who has ever encountered you?’
He was right. The simple truth was, she had never considered herself beautiful and therefore assumed everyone else must feel the same.
‘I suppose . . .’
‘I think you’re beautiful, Lilly.’ He spoke with a confidence that was irresistible.
‘You don’t have to say that.’ She wanted to be clear that while she wanted him to be as enamoured with her as she was with him, he didn’t need to resort to corny flattery or predictable clichés.
‘You’re right, I don’t have to say anything, don’t have to do anything. I choose to say it because it is my truth. And I’m here because there is nowhere else on the earth I’d rather be right now.’
‘And your truth doesn’t have to be the truth?’
‘It can only be my truth, can’t it? My thoughts, my voice, my feelings right now, in this moment . . .’
‘I guess so,’ she said.
Lilly felt her heart jump in her chest. Despite having only ever thought of those long-haired fakes who flattered girls like Tilly, Liz and Julia with their pseudo-philosophy as charlatans with ulterior motives, suddenly she understood the power in these words of seduction.
Not that she placed Wilkie in the same category, but she certainly recognised she wore the same dreamy expression as those girls, doe-eyed and compliant, addicted almost.
‘So’ – Wilkie ran the tip of his tongue over the gluey strip of his roll-up and folded it over with a deftness to his fingers – ‘the day after tomorrow, then. Time?’
‘Seven thirty.’
‘Place?’ He put it into his mouth and lit it with a silver lighter that thunked shut as he flicked it.
‘B’Art Gallery, Eccleston Street.’
‘I’ll see you there.’
‘Yes, see you there, probably.’ She beamed at him, feeling a shiver of want along her limbs as he placed his bag over his shoulder and walked along the towpath without looking back, not once.
Yet he moved with an awareness, as if confident that she watched his progression, taking in his particular walk, the way his hair lay on his shoulders and the shape of his arse in his jeans.
The moment he was out of sight Lilly packed away her paints and easel, left the towpath and stashed them in the flat.
She was excited, busy, motivated, jumpy, on high alert, and felt the need to share what had just happened with someone – anyone!
Her dad was out for the evening; orchestra rehearsal night.
Not that she would have been able to discuss it with him, not really, aware that he still saw her as a child, but also never wanting to make him feel less than, to be like her mum, with a fancy new man while he was still very much single.
On no more than a whim she grabbed the loose change from the little wooden bowl on the shelf by the front door and ran to the phone box at the back of the building.
It would have been hard to explain why, but she felt the need to call her mum.
She supposed at some level she wanted Jeannie to know she wasn’t the only one who was desirable, who could trap a man – not that Wilkie was anything at all like dull-as-ditchwater Derek Manners.
It also felt good to be wanted, to be asked, to be flirted with, and this she wanted Jeannie to know.
The woman herself might have walked out, chosen a different life, but Wilkie was choosing her!
Her preference would have been to call Glenda if she’d been home, but Lilly knew that right about now she was in Norman’s blue Cortina, no doubt necking somewhere while she dreamed of wedding bells and Norman probably dreamed of more than necking . . .
To share this bloom of joy and excitement felt vital, as if putting it out into the world made it real somehow.
At the end of the day, Jeannie was her mum, and Lilly was going through something, and it felt kind of important to share this thing.
With her heart beating fast and a breathless energy to her excitement, she dialled the number that she knew by heart, having learned it just in case.
‘Double five, three one four, double six.’
Her mum stated the telephone number clearly and with confidence, further erasing her early history, as if she had never lived in the flat without a phone.
Without a phone – but with a daughter, a marvellous husband and an unrivalled view of the river.
Lilly, by choice, hadn’t seen her for nearly eight months.
The last time was at Tottenham Court Road, where her mum had laid out a buffet that Lilly, her stomach squeezed with anxiety and nestling somewhere under her throat, had been loath to pick at.
‘I did your favourite, pineapple and cheese on sticks!’ Her mum had shoved a large foil-covered potato in her direction, covered with toothpicks, on the ends of which sat sweating cubes of orange cheese and chunks of pineapple.
‘I don’t . . .’ Lilly didn’t know what to say, aware her mum had gone to some considerable trouble, but the thought of eating the odd combination off a little wooden stick made her feel nauseous. ‘I don’t really like them . . .’ She’d kept her voice small.
‘Well, you used to like them – you did! You’d say, Mummy, make me a hedgehog!’ There was no mistaking the crack of emotion to her mum’s voice, and Lilly, unsure of what to say or what to do, stared at the woman, wondering when this might have been.
That was the thing when your mum left home, left you: she took all the small and yet significant stories of your childhood with her.
Lilly had made her exit shortly after, inventing a sudden, pressing chore that she had to get home for.
It was only when she stood in the street outside her mother’s claustrophobic hideaway that she breathed, taking great, gulping lungfuls of air that helped clear the distress of yet another failed visit.
‘Mum, it’s me.’ Lilly shot the two-pence piece into the slot. The beeps stopped, and they were connected.
‘Lilly! Is everything okay?’ Her mother sounded more than a little panicked.
A question that perfectly demonstrated how infrequently they talked, her mum clearly worried that something must be amiss.
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Oh good, good!’ Jeannie breathed out with obvious relief.