1973 – aged 17 #2
‘No, I’m afraid of falling! There’s no way I’m doing that! What if the drainpipe came away from the wall, or what if the window didn’t open? I’d be stuck, and you’d have to call the fire brigade!’
‘You’re putting the kybosh on all my brilliant plans. So, what do you suggest?’ He pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth, a hard and deliberate kiss that was full of promise. Her stomach folded with want.
‘I suggest you open the door, I’ll quickly run up to the landing, while you loiter and make a noise and chat to the landlady, and then you come up and find me and we slip into your room and lock the door!’
‘That might work.’ He kissed her again. ‘I mean, it’s not as funny or as adventurous as the drainpipe suggestion, but it might work.’
Doing her best not to laugh out loud, Lilly stood with her hand clamped over her mouth, as Wilkie, as quietly as he was able, unlocked the front door.
True to her word, she sprinted across the hallway, up to the first landing, and stood in a doorway, listening, as Wilkie coughed loudly and rattled the doorknob.
As Lilly had suspected she would, the landlady appeared from the parlour.
‘Good evening, Mr Jones. Thought I heard the door. Trust you’ve had a lovely night?’
‘I have, thank you.’
‘Smashing. My husband and I are watching Parky, and you’re more than welcome to join us for a nightcap if you’d like?’
‘That is very kind, but it’s been a long week. I’m exhausted. My bed’s calling.’
‘I quite understand. Well, breakfast is in the dining room as usual from seven thirty to nine thirty.’
‘Thank you. See you in the morning.’
‘Yes, see you in the morning, Mr Jones.’
Lilly heard the parlour door close and watched as her lover tiptoed theatrically up the stairs. He reached for her hand, and with a feeling of triumph in her veins, she let him lead her across the square landing and into his room.
With the door locked behind them, she paid no attention to the detail, could not have told you anything about the burgundy flock wallpaper, scarcely noticed the old, wide, walnut wardrobe, nor the sink on the wall with a tooth mug and a glass shelf on which sat a rolled flannel and a bar of Imperial Leather in a small green tray of marbled plastic.
Couldn’t have accurately described the dark velvet drapes or the armchair in the corner on which Wilkie had piled his clothes – none of it.
Only able to focus on him, his mouth on hers, his hands tearing almost at her jeans and T-shirt in a desperate hurry to remove them, as the two stumbled, entwined, a jumble of arms and legs, on to the green, puffy, silky eiderdown that sat on top of the double bed.
Compared to the narrow single bed of her childhood, this was a luxury!
Their union was this time without the tenderness or initial hesitancy that had wrapped their first encounter, but was instead mutually urgent, hurried, more mechanical certainly, but no less lovely for that.
It was only as they slowed, and dawn threatened and birds sang to welcome the coming light, that Lilly found herself physically weary yet mentally wired as she lay back on the downy pillows and stared out of the sash window.
It was a rare and lovely thing, to see this little corner of London on the other side of the river.
Here there wasn’t the abundance of concrete, high rise and the smoke of industry that blighted the Vauxhall skyline.
The Victorian lamppost right outside of the lodgings on this modest street in Chelsea reminded her of Mary Poppins, a film she had been to see with her mum when she was nine and it had hit the big screen.
Not that she wanted to think about her mum right now.
Lilly knew she had never felt so happy, so content, as she did in that moment.
Lying in a double bed with Wilkie’s naked, sleepy form by her side.
Her body spent, warm and cosy beneath the sheets, and a feeling of pure contentment on her skin, aware that if she could stay like this for ever it would not be long enough.
It was everything she had dreamed of and more.
‘I love you.’
Her voice was a whispery croak; her words had left her mouth without planning.
It was a second or two before he said anything, seconds that felt like hours as each tick of the hand on the bedside clock moved slower and louder.
Her heart rate increased and what had been a moment of pure peace turned into a fraught period of fear.
She silently willed him to respond, her naked body begging him to respond!
Turning on to his side, Wilkie propped his head on his hand, his elbow firmly planted on the mattress.
His words were calmly yet resolutely delivered as he toyed with the end of her hair. ‘You don’t, my lovely young thing. You don’t love me.’
There it was again, that slightly patronising undertone that wasn’t present during sex, when there was parity in their connection, only in the aftermath. A voice of reason that she imagined he might reserve for his pupils.
‘But I do.’ She held her position, speaking plainly and willing him with every fibre of her being to admit to feeling the same.
‘No.’ He shook his head and sat up, propped against the headboard with his pillow cushioning his pale skin against the dark wood.
His denial was a dagger that lodged in her breast, the pain just as real.
Lilly closed her eyes, unable to look at the man who was negating her, confusing her, hurting her.
‘Look at me.’ He reached out and touched her cheek.
She opened her eyes, hating the tears that gathered, feeling that this emotional outburst only confirmed in his view that she was indeed a lovely young thing.
‘You don’t love me, Elizabeth-Roberta.’
‘You don’t get to tell me how I feel, and you certainly don’t know how I feel!’ she insisted.
‘I do know that what is coursing through your body is a confusion of hormones and lust and infatuation and novelty and all that wonderful, wonderful stuff, but not love.’
‘How could you possibly know that, Wilkie?’ Her throat was hoarse with all it tried to contain.
‘Because I’m old, remember, thirty-three. Nearly double the life you’ve had.’
She might have only been seventeen but understood enough to know that his words, no matter how phrased, meant he did not love her in return.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but was however still disappointing, just as it had been the first time, when her own mother had walked away, and no amount of sugar had helped that medicine go down.
She thought of Glenda, wondering if her friend was right; was she the cow who had given her milk away for free? She hated the phrase even more now that it cloaked her in something very close to shame.
‘I think I should . . . I should go.’ Looking around the floor, she sought out her jeans, T-shirt, pants and bra, feeling, despite the intimacy they had shared, suddenly awkward at the prospect of having to get dressed in front of him, the man who did not love her.
It was with a sense of desperation that left her feeling hollow.
‘I don’t want you to go.’ He reached out and pulled her towards him.
She fell against him, letting her cheek rest on his chest, listening to his heart beat as her tears gathered, clogging her nose and mouth.
His fingers tracing her spine again lit the fire of want, which felt mistimed and was for the first time conflicting, as even in this moment of sad reconciliation, her body yearned for him.
‘You’re amazing.’
‘You don’t need to say that.’ It was the last thing she wanted to hear, his words of consolation that sounded a lot like pity.
‘I wish . . .’ he began, taking a deep slow breath in and out that hinted at more.
‘What do you wish?’
She looked up at the underside of his throat, his Adam’s apple rising and falling and the sprout of whiskers where he shaved the base of his beard, the delicate white skin, frail and enticing and where she wanted to plant her lips for reasons she was still yet to fathom.
‘I wish I had the verbal and emotional freedom to speak as you do, to state with such certainty something that is no more than a seed of an idea. I truly envy you that.’ He bent his head and kissed hers.
‘Are you saying that what you feel for me is hard to express?’ It was light at the end of a bleak emotional tunnel, it was hope to cling to while she was all at sea.
‘I am saying that, exactly that.’
It was incredible how quickly his words could change her mood, dry her tears, as if he were steering her with a suggestion, a phrase.
And in this heightened emotional state, her tears only made her love him more, long for him more!
It was part of their journey, their story!
Her joy once again threatened to bubble from her as she twisted on the mattress to straddle him.
Holding on to her with his hands either side of her face, he spoke softly, slowly, using words that were magical, pure and full of intention.
‘All in good time. How could anyone not love you, Elizabeth-Roberta . . .’
It was late on Sunday morning, with breakfast missed, when Wilkie watched Mrs Horn-Haverington wander along the street with her trusty hound on a leash. This was Lilly’s cue to leave. The two dashed to the front door, which he held wide for her.
‘When will I see you?’ She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ She had expected to have to wait a couple of days, as was his MO.
‘Yes. Will you be on the towpath, the usual time?’ He kissed her mouth, her neck, her cheek, running his hand over her hip and thigh as he did so, clearly as reluctant as her to part.
‘Probably . . .’ She laughed as she trotted down the stairs and out on to the street, looking back at the fabulous man who she loved – loved!
And who, if he had the verbal and emotional freedom to speak as she did, would say he loved her too.
It was enough, it would have to be, until he found a way to set his words free.