1973 – aged 17 #4
‘Do you think when it comes to love and sex and choosing who you end up with, we’re like our mothers?
’ It was still on her mind, what Glenda had said.
Lilly didn’t want to abandon her man, walk out on her family, make a mess of things, break someone’s heart, she didn’t want any of that. It was vital she got it right.
Bertie let go of her. ‘Well, I can only speak for my own mother, and I can categorically say without hesitation that yes, I am definitely like her in that regard.’
‘Really?’ She had hoped for a different answer, desperately hoping she had avoided the curse and was not going to be the kind of woman who was no good; morally slack, of all things!
‘Absolutely.’ He flicked his scarf over his shoulder. ‘My mother and I both have a thing for Burt Reynolds.’
Lilly laughed out loud. Bertie was, as ever, just the tonic she needed.
‘I’d better go. I’m meeting Wilkie.’ She beamed and pulled her shoulders up to her chin as excitement rippled through her limbs.
‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’ He issued the stern warning.
‘Might be a bit late for that,’ Lilly whispered as she reached for the door handle, giving him an insight into this love, this beginning, this heady joy!
‘Good Lord, Bob! That’s what I’m worried about.’
The two shared a lingering, knowing look, before she blew him a kiss and made her way home.
Having set up her easel on the towpath, Lilly arranged her hair over one shoulder and opened the top button of her blouse, before twisting her large silver and topaz ring on her index finger.
She wanted to look her most alluring when Wilkie saw her, and she’d do as she always did, make out she hadn’t seen him immediately and give him a moment to privately admire her!
Her stomach bunched in anticipation. Already she was thinking of where they might be able to go for sex, somewhere quiet, possibly back to his boarding house on Royal Avenue.
The thought of having to sneak in again was thrilling, not that she’d be able to stay all night, still feeling bad about having lied to her dad about Glenda’s mum being ill.
But a couple of hours would be wonderful .
. . Who was she kidding? A couple of minutes would be wonderful!
Removing her brush from the old jam jar, she ran the bristles over the canvas, before taking on some blue paint and dipping that back into the murky water, creating a shade with which to coat the surface entirely.
It was how she worked, building layers, removing the light, erasing the nothingness, the space, until all that was left was the detail: the water, the riverbank, the outline of the buildings opposite and the reflection on the surface of Old Mother Thames.
‘What are you painting?’ The question was asked over her shoulder, familiar, predictable, and yet still she struggled a little with how to accurately respond. She turned, smiling at the girl, who looked to be about ten, wearing canary-yellow dungarees, roller skates and a Peanuts T-shirt.
‘Just the river, the water.’
The girl wrinkled her nose at the damp canvas.
‘You should put a boat on it.’
‘A boat? That’s a very good idea.’ She laughed to herself as the girl rolled off along the path. She couldn’t wait to tell Wilkie, knowing he’d find the humour in it.
The sun dropped and the sky took on the bruised hue of dusk and with it the warmth of the day was replaced by a breeze that was a little cool. Lilly felt the shiver along her limbs as her skin prickled into goosebumps.
‘Hurry up!’ She spoke aloud to the wind, waiting for her lover to arrive. Her heart jumping, her mood lifting as every new person, dog, bike or tumbling leaf drew her eye, thinking it might be him.
It was as night began to fall that she understood he was not coming.
The disappointment sat like a physical thing at the base of her throat.
A million reasons why ran through her thoughts, ranging from he’d been kept late at work, there’d been an emergency on the Tube, to the fact that he might have come down with a terrible disease or been hit over the back of the head and left for dead in an alleyway .
. . Either way, he was not with her, and her heart flexed with frustration.
‘Can I make you a sandwich, love?’ her dad called from the kitchen after she’d returned to the flat, the strains of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet coming from the lounge and filling her room.
The melancholic pull of the oboe was enough to reduce her sorrow to a thick syrup that slowed her heart and made her breathing a little laboured.
‘No, thanks. Not hungry,’ she managed, turning her face into the pillow to catch her tears.
‘You’ll waste away!’ he laughed, and she thought she just might, if she didn’t see Wilkie soon.
Wilkie didn’t come the next night.
Wilkie didn’t come the night after that.
Wilkie didn’t come the night after that.
Nor the night after that.
Nor the night after that.
And Lilly carried her heartache like a heavy stone in her arms, unable to sleep, rest, work, eat or think straight, entirely preoccupied with the space next to her where she wanted him to be.