1973 – aged 17 #2
‘You are a lost cause!’ She ran, and he ran after her, catching up as they neared the end of Vauxhall Bridge, her heart beating too fast and her breath stuttering in her throat.
Wilkie took her hand and spun her towards him, as if they were shaking, rattling and rolling in a jive.
It happened quickly, her body landing against his and his mouth coming down on to hers as he kissed her long and hard.
It was the kiss she had imagined, the kiss she had longed for!
Right there on the end of the bridge where the lights of Pimlico pooled in juddering shadows on the water and the moon looked particularly large and beautiful.
This contact, this desire, proof that the attraction was a mutual thing, the relief of which was extraordinary.
Her body responded by lifting clear off the ground and allowing her to float overhead, watching from above as she spiralled among the stars.
This was the very moment she transitioned from girl to woman, or at least that was what it felt like.
‘I’m thirty-three,’ he whispered when finally she landed.
‘You’re very old,’ she replied in jest, running her hand over his lower back, feeling beneath his shirt to touch his skin, to scratch him with her nails, to indicate that she was no child and was aware of where this contact was headed.
They held hands as they meandered their way back to Waide House. Stopping to lean against the wall that edged the river, to kiss and gasp and murmur their pleasure, all the more intense because of what it promised.
‘Is your dad at home?’ he asked nervously as she fished in her bag for her door key.
‘I’m alone tonight.’
Stumbling through the front door, Lilly wasted no time in taking his hand and leading him to her bedroom, where all of her dreams and imaginings were made real. Wilkie wrenched off his clothes and stood in his pants before shedding those, too, and reaching for her once again.
‘Is this . . .’ he breathed into her hair between kisses as he helped her out of her shirt and bra. ‘Have you . . .’
‘No. But I want this, Wilkie, I want you. I do.’
Quickly now, he kissed her with an urgency as they tumbled back on to her rather narrow bed.
It was the next morning that Wilkie asked, ‘What was it you wanted to show me?’ She handed him a mug of tea, laughing as he pulled the silk edge of the blanket, which he’d fashioned into a kind of toga and now wore at the kitchen table.
A strange moment where she understood that, in the space of hours, his presence in her family home, his nudity, his body, his most intimate secrets, his moments of release and vulnerability were all familiar to her in a way that only yesterday would have been unthinkable.
At seventeen, she had come to understand it was this way with life – those seconds when the world flipped upside down and what was beyond comprehension and imagination one minute was the norm in the next.
Mum has moved out . . .
Is this . . . have you . . .
No, but it’s what I want . . .
‘Ah yes, follow me for the big reveal!’ Reaching for his hand, the novelty of which she knew might never wear off, she pulled him up and guided him into the lounge, watching as he, like everyone else who had spent time in the room, walked straight to the wide window with the exceptional view.
‘Wow!’
‘Yep, wow!’ It was delightful to see he was as impressed as she’d hoped he might be. It was important to her.
‘It’s incredible! Like you’re almost in the water, over the water – not sure how to describe it!’
Wilkie stared at the river and sipped his hot tea.
Lilly blinked as if her eyes were the shutters of a lens so she could capture this moment for always.
His hair resting on his shoulders, his unshaven chin, his eyes still a little puffy from lack of sleep.
His pale skin, covered in dark curls that tufted on his chest, his lower back, his shoulders and shins.
‘This is some place.’
‘I never take it for granted. I think that’s why I paint it a lot, or try to. I want to capture it, but it’s never the same one minute to the next.’
‘An impossible task, then.’ He turned to smile at her, tea in hand, wrapped in the peach-coloured blanket that had been next to her skin since she was a small girl.
She liked the fact that when he wasn’t here she would be able to put it against her body, knowing it carried the imprint, the scent and essence of him.
‘I guess so, and yet, oddly, that doesn’t put me off. In fact it makes me more determined.’
‘Tenacious, undaunted and beautiful. You really are the whole package, Elizabeth-Roberta.’
She didn’t feel the need to correct him, giggle or play dumb, because this morning she felt beautiful! Felt alive! And knew for a fact she was tenacious, which meant she would keep painting until she got the picture just right.
‘I wanted to ask you, what season would you be, if I’m spring?’ She sat in the chair and folded her legs beneath her.
‘Ah, I’d be winter, no doubt.’ He spoke without hesitation, suggesting he’d given it some thought.
‘Winter?’ she laughed.
‘You seem to disagree!’
‘Yes, I disagree! Surely not winter.’
‘You don’t know me.’ He turned to face her then, his tone cool, wintry.
‘I know enough.’ This the truth, her truth: that after the physical union they had shared, the way he had looked her in the eye as his face hovered mere inches from hers, the intensity with which he had held her tightly, breathed against her, found a mutual rhythm that was as hypnotic as it was binding, she knew him enough. Her first . . .
‘And that’s another adorable thing about you.’ He smiled. ‘Your transparency, your trust. It’s all still there, intact, because experience hasn’t yet taught you to think differently.’
‘That sounds ominous!’ She pulled a face.
‘It’s the truth. You have that guileless exuberance of youth that is a magic elixir!’
‘I see.’
‘You don’t. You can’t possibly,’ he countered, as if reading her mind, ‘but don’t think of it as a negative thing. It’s wonderful.’
His words and tone verged on the patronising, and she didn’t like it, folding her arms around her body and looking out towards the water, wanting him gone in that second, punishment almost for making her feel like a child.
‘I am almost double your age, Lilly. Double!’
‘And?’ she fired back, facing him now.
‘Not so disastrous, maybe, with you at seventeen, but if you were fifty . . .’
‘You’d be a hundred!’
‘And if you were seventy . . .’
‘A hundred and forty – now that is old.’ She widened her eyes.
‘A lot of people would have a lot to say about the age gap.’ He shook his head, as if she just didn’t get it. ‘You’re a bud, beautiful, tightly packed, about to burst forth, and I am already wilting at the edges . . .’
‘Wilkie, you’re thirty-three, not eighty-three!’
‘Physically maybe, but my mind is old, my ways set, my route planned, my life on track.’
‘You and I are not set, not planned! This is spontaneous and glorious!’ She beamed.
‘Indeed.’ His face broke into a smaller smile.
‘It’s both of these things, and the realisation of that makes me feel old, understanding how rare it is for me to feel this way.
Others would see me as old, in comparison to you, young Elizabeth-Roberta, too old.
They’d question my right to take this exuberance, this moment of youth, from you. ’
‘My dad says you can only truly find contentment when you worry less about what other people think.’