WATCHING YOU LOOK out of your window at the rain, I wonder if you remember the day Tom and I were married, and how it poured like it would never stop. Probably that day seems more real to you than this one, a Wednesday in November in Peacehaven at the end of the twentieth century, where there is no relief from the drabness of the sky or the wailing of the wind at the windows. It certainly seems more real to me.
The twenty-ninth of March 1958. My wedding day, and it rained and rained. Not just a spring shower that might have dampened frocks and freshened faces, but an absolute downpour. I woke to the sound of water hammering on our roof, clattering down the guttering. At the time it seemed like good luck, like some sort of baptism into a new life. I lay in my bed, picturing cleansing torrents, thinking of Shakespearean heroines beached on foreign shores, their past lives washed away, facing brave new worlds.
We’d had a very short engagement – less than a month. Tom seemed keen to get on with things, and so, of course, was I. Looking back, I’ve often wondered about his haste. At the time it was thrilling, this dizzy rush into marriage, and it was flattering, too. But now I suspect he wanted to get it over with, before he changed his mind.
Outside the church, the path was treacherous beneath my sateen shoes, and my pillbox hat and short veil gave me no protection. All the daffodil heads were bent and battered, but I walked tall down that path, taking my time, despite my father’s impatience to reach the relative safety of the porch. Once there, I expected him to say something, to confess his pride or his fears, but he was silent, and when he adjusted my veil, his hand shook. I think to myself now: I should have been aware of the significance of that moment. It was the last time my father could make any claim to be the most important man in my life. And he was not a bad father. He never hit me, rarely raised his voice. When Mum wouldn’t stop crying over the fact that I was going to the grammar, Dad offered me a sly wink. He’d never said I was good or bad, or anything in between. I think, more than anything, I puzzled him; but he didn’t punish me for that. I should have been able to say something to my father at that moment, on the threshold of my new life with another man. But, of course, Tom was waiting for me, and I could think only of him.
As I walked up the aisle, everyone but you looked round and smiled. But that didn’t matter to me. My shoes were soaked through and my stockings were splashed with mud and you were best man instead of Roy, which had caused some trouble, but none of it mattered. Even the fact that Tom wore the suit you’d bought for him (like yours, only grey rather than dark brown) instead of his uniform hardly registered with me. Because once I reached him, you passed him the ring that made me Mrs Tom Burgess.
We followed the ceremony with beer and sandwiches in the church hall, which smelled very like St Luke’s – all children’s plimsolls and overcooked beef. Sylvie, now actually pregnant, wore a plaid frock and sat smoking in the corner, watching Roy, who’d appeared to be drunk even before the reception started. I’d invited Julia, who I felt sure was becoming a firm friend, and she came wearing a jade-green two-piece and her wide smile. Did you talk to her, Patrick? I don’t recall. I just remember her trying to start up a conversation with my brother Harry, who kept looking past her towards Sylvie’s breasts. Tom’s parents were there, of course; his father kept slapping everyone on the shoulder, rather too hard (I suddenly saw that this was where Tom got it from). His mother’s shelf-like bosom was larger than ever and stuffed into a floral blouse. After the ceremony, she kissed me on the cheek and I smelled the slight staleness of her lipstick as she said ‘Welcome to the family’ and dabbed her eyes.
All I wanted was to leave that place with my new husband.
What did you say in your speech? At first no one listened very hard; they were all too keen to get to the luncheon-meat sandwiches and the bottles of Harvey’s. Still, you stood at the front of the hall and carried on regardless, while Tom looked around anxiously, and after a while, the sheer novelty of your fulsome, velvety voice with its Oxbridge vowels pricked people’s ears. Tom frowned a little as you explained how the two of you had met; it was the first time I’d heard about the lady on the bicycle, and you enjoyed yourself telling that story, pausing for comic effect before you repeated what Tom had said about her being a batty old bird, which made my father laugh uproariously. You said something about Tom and I making the perfect civilised couple – the policeman and the teacher. No one could accuse us of not paying our debt to society, and the people of Brighton could rest easy in their beds knowing that Tom was pounding the streets and I was attending to their children’s education. I wasn’t sure how serious you were, even at the time, but I felt a little twinge of pride as you said those things. Then you raised your glass in a toast, drank your half of stout down in a few gulps, said something to Tom that I couldn’t hear, patted him on the arm, firmly kissed my hand, and took your leave.
The night before the wedding, I went to Sylvie’s flat. I suppose this was what people would now call my ‘hen night’, since Tom had gone out with some of the boys on the force.
Sylvie and Roy had finally managed to move out of Roy’s mother’s place in Portslade, and their flat was in a new tower block, with lifts and large windows, overlooking the municipal market. The place had been occupied for only a few months; the corridors still smacked of wet cement and new paint. But when I entered the shiny lift, the doors opened smoothly.
Sylvie had irises on the wallpaper and the curtains in the living room, I remember – the deepest blue with yellow flecks. But everything else was modern; the sofa, with its low seat and thin arms, was covered in a slippery, cold fabric that must have been mostly plastic. ‘Dad felt sorry for us and shelled out,’ she said, seeing me glance at the sun-shaped wooden clock above the gas fire. ‘Guilty conscience.’
He’d refused to see Sylvie for months after the wedding.
‘Mackeson? Sit down, then.’
She was already quite big. Little, brittle Sylvie’s edges were blurring. ‘Don’t get yourself in the club as quick as me, will you? It’s bloody awful.’ She handed me a glass and lowered herself on to the sofa. ‘What’s really annoying,’ she continued, ‘is I didn’t even have to lie to Roy. As soon as we were married, I got pregnant anyway. He thinks I’m six months gone, but I know this baby’s going to be a late arrival.’ She nudged me and giggled. ‘I’m quite looking forward to it, really. My own little thing to cuddle.’
I remembered what she’d said on her wedding day about wishing she could do as she pleased, and I wondered what had happened to change her mind, but all I said was, ‘You’ve got it nice here.’
She nodded. ‘Not bad, is it? The council moved us in before it was finished – wallpaper was still damp – but it’s nice to be up high. Up in the clouds, we are.’
Four storeys up was hardly in the clouds, but I smiled. ‘Just where you should be, Sylvie.’
‘And where you must be, what with getting married tomorrow. Even if it is to my useless brother.’ She squeezed my knee and I felt myself blush with pleasure.
‘You really love him, don’t you?’ she asked.
I nodded.
Sylvie sighed. ‘He never comes to see me, you know. I know he’s fallen out with Roy good and proper over this best man thing, but he could come by when Roy’s not about, couldn’t he?’ She looked me in the face, her eyes wide and clear. ‘Will you ask him to, Marion? Tell him not to be a stranger.’
I said I would. I hadn’t realised Tom and Roy’s rift was quite so bad.
We drank our stout and Sylvie talked about baby clothes and how she was worried about getting the nappies dry in the flat. As she fetched more drinks and continued to chatter, I let my mind wander to the next day’s events, imagining myself on Tom’s arm, my red hair catching the sunlight. We’d be showered in confetti as he looked at me so intently, as if seeing me for the first time. Radiant. That would be the word to come to his mind.
‘Marion, you remember that thing I said to you, years ago, about Tom?’ Sylvie was on her third stout and was sitting very close to me.
I caught my breath and placed my drink on the arm of the sofa, just to be able to look away. ‘What thing?’ I asked, my heart beating a little faster. I knew full well to what she was referring.
‘That thing I said, about Tom not being, you know, like other men …’
That was not what she’d said, I thought. She had not said that. Not exactly.
‘Do you remember, Marion?’ Sylvie insisted.
I kept my eyes on the glass doors of her display cabinet. Inside, there was nothing but a blue jug with the words ‘Greetings from Camber Sands’ written on the side, and a photograph of Sylvie and Roy, unframed, on their wedding day, Sylvie’s downcast eyes making her look even younger than her years.
‘Not really,’ I lied.
‘Well. That’s good. Because I want you to forget it. I mean, none of us thought he’d get married, and now here you are …’
There was a small silence, and then I said, having managed to calm my heart by concentrating on the photograph of Sylvie’s wedding, ‘Yes. Here we are.’
Sylvie seemed to exhale. ‘So he must have changed, or maybe we were wrong, or something, but either way I want you to forget it, Marion. I feel awful about it.’
I looked at her. Although her face was pink and fleshy, it was still attractive, and I was back on that bench, listening to her tell me about how Roy had touched her and how I should give up all hope of ever gaining her brother’s affection.
‘I don’t even remember what you said, Sylvie,’ I stated. ‘So let’s just drop it, shall we?’
We sat in silence for a while. I could feel Sylvie groping around for the right thing to say. Eventually she came up with, ‘Soon we’ll both be married ladies, pushing our prams along the seafront.’ And for some reason, this utterance seemed to increase my irritation.
I stood up. ‘Actually, I plan to keep working at the school, so we’ll probably put off having children for a bit.’ The truth was, children hadn’t featured in my daydreams about marriage to Tom at all. I hadn’t even considered the prospect. I’d never imagined myself with a pram. I’d only imagined myself on his arm.
Making some excuse about having to rise early to make my preparations for the wedding, I fetched my coat. Sylvie said nothing. She walked with me into the chilly corridor and watched in silence as I waited for the lift.
When the lift doors opened, I didn’t look back to say goodbye, but Sylvie called out: ‘Get Tom to come here, won’t you?’ and, still not looking back, I grunted my assent.
‘And Marion?’
I had no choice but to hold the lift and wait. ‘Yes?’ I asked, fixing my gaze on the button that said ‘Ground’.
‘Good luck.’
Our ‘honeymoon’ was a night at the Old Ship Hotel. We’d talked vaguely about a few days in Weymouth at some other time, but since Tom wasn’t due any leave for a while, that would have to wait.
The Ship, whilst not quite the Grand, had the kind of hushed glamour that I found very impressive at the time. We both fell silent as we pushed through the revolving glass doors into the lobby. The thickly carpeted floor creaked and groaned reassuringly beneath our feet, and I repressed the urge to comment on the place even sounding like an old ship. Tom’s father had paid for the room and for dinner as a wedding gift. It was the first time either of us had spent a night at a hotel, and I think we both experienced a slight panic at not knowing the etiquette of such places. In the films I’d seen there were bellboys who manhandled your luggage, and desk clerks who wanted to know your personal details, but all was quiet that afternoon in the Ship. I had a small case, in which I’d packed a new lace-trimmed nightgown, the palest apricot in colour, bought especially for the occasion. I’d already changed from my wedding dress into a turquoise wool skirt and twinset, with a short bouclé jacket, and I felt just about smart enough. My shoes were not new, and were badly scuffed around the toes, but I tried not to dwell on it. Tom had only a canvas bag with him, and I wished he’d brought a suitcase, so as to look more the part. But, I thought, that was how men did things. They travelled light. They didn’t make a fuss.
‘Shouldn’t there be someone here?’ Tom asked, peering about the place for signs of life. He approached the desk and placed both his hands on the shining surface. There was a gold-coloured bell very close to his hand, but he didn’t touch it. Instead he waited, drumming his fingers on the wood and staring at the glass-panelled door behind the desk.
I made a little circuit behind him, taking in the menu board for the night (sole au vin blanc, lemon tart) and the list of conferences and balls for the coming week. I didn’t quite dare to sit in one of the high-backed leather armchairs, in case someone should appear and ask me if I wanted a drink. Instead, I made another circuit. And still Tom waited. And still no one came.
Not wanting to keep going round in circles, I paused at the desk and brought my hand down sharply on the bell. The clear ringing sound echoed around the lobby, making Tom flinch. ‘I could’ve done that,’ he hissed.
Immediately a man with polished black hair and a starched white jacket appeared. His eyes shifted from Tom to me and back again before he managed a smile. ‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr and Mrs …’
‘Burgess,’ said Tom, before I could. ‘Mr and Mrs Thomas Burgess.’
Tom’s father’s budget didn’t quite stretch to a sea view. Our room was at the back of the hotel, overlooking a courtyard where the staff gathered to gossip and smoke. Once inside, Tom wouldn’t sit down. Instead he stalked the place, plucking at the heavy crimson curtains that covered most of the window, stroking the liver-coloured eiderdown, exclaiming over luxuries (‘They’ve got a mixer tap!’), just as he’d done when we were at your flat, Patrick. After a struggle with the catch and a terrible squeal of wood, he managed to get the window open, letting in the afternoon whine of the seagulls.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked. This wasn’t what I’d meant to say. Come away from the window and kiss me, was what I’d wanted to say. I’d even thought, briefly, of saying nothing at all; of just beginning to undress. It was still early; not past five in the afternoon, but we were newly-weds. In a hotel. In Brighton. Where things like that happen all the time.
He gave me his lovely grin. ‘Never been better.’ He came over and kissed my cheek. I moved my hand up towards his hair, but he was already back at the window again, twitching the curtains and looking out. ‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘we should have some fun. It is our honeymoon.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘We could pretend we’re holidaymakers,’ he said, pulling on his jacket. ‘There’s plenty of time before dinner. Let’s go on the pier.’
It was still raining. Going on to the pier, or going out at all, was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d imagined an hour’s intimacy – canoodling, as we called it then, and sweet talk about being newly married – followed by dinner, followed, swiftly, by bed.
It may sound to you, Patrick, as though I was interested only in one thing. You may even be surprised to think of me, in 1958, as a twenty-one-year-old girl who couldn’t wait to lose her virginity. These things are commonplace now, and at a much earlier age, too; although, if truth be told, I believe I was a late starter, even for 1958. Certainly I remember feeling that I should be a little scared, at least, by the prospect of sleeping with Tom. It wasn’t as though I’d any experience at all, or knew much about the act itself, save what Sylvie and I had gleaned, years ago, from the copy of Married Love she’d stolen from somewhere. But I’d read plenty of novels, and I fully expected a sort of romantic mist to descend as soon as Tom and I were between the sheets, followed by some mysterious, mystical state called ‘ecstasy’. Pain and embarrassment didn’t enter my head. I trusted that he would know what to do, and that I would be transported, body and soul.
As Tom smiled and held his hand out to me, I knew I should pretend that I was nervous, however. A good, virginal bride would be timid; she would be relieved that her husband had invited her out walking, rather than jumping straight into bed.
And so, a few minutes later, we were strolling arm in arm towards the noise and lights of the Palace Pier.
My bouclé jacket was a pretty flimsy affair, and I clung to Tom’s arm as we sheltered beneath one of the hotel’s umbrellas. I was glad there’d been only one available, so we had to share. We rushed across King’s Road, were splashed by a passing bus, and Tom paid for us to go through the turnstiles. The wind threatened to blow our umbrella into the sea, but Tom kept a firm grip, despite the waves foaming around the pier’s iron legs and throwing shingle up the beach. We battled past the sodden deckchairs, fortune-tellers and doughnut stalls, my hair coarsening in the wind, and my hand, clutching the umbrella above Tom’s, going numb. Tom’s face and body seemed set in a determined grimace against the weather.
‘Let’s go back …’ I began, but the wind must have stolen my voice, for Tom ploughed ahead and shouted, ‘Helter-skelter? House of Hades? Or ghost train?’
It was then I started to laugh. What else could I do, Patrick? Here was I, on my honeymoon, battered by a wet wind on the Palace Pier, when our warm hotel bedroom – bed still immaculately made – was only yards away, and my new husband was asking me to choose between fairground rides.
‘I’m for the helter-skelter,’ I said, and started running towards the blue and red striped turret. The slide – then called ‘The Joy Glide’ – was such a familiar sight, and yet I’d never actually been down it. Suddenly it seemed like a good idea. My feet were soaked and freezing, and moving them at least warmed them a little. (Tom has never felt the cold, did you notice that? A little later in our marriage, I wondered if all that sea swimming had developed a protective layer of seal-like fat, just beneath the surface of his skin. And whether that explained his lack of response to my touch. My tough, beautiful sea creature.)
The girl in the booth – black pigtails and pale pink lipstick – took our money and handed us a couple of mats. ‘One at a time,’ she ordered. ‘No sharing mats.’
It was a relief to get inside the wooden tower, out of the wind. Tom followed me up the stairs. Every ten or so steps, we caught a glimpse of the grey sky outside. The further we ascended, the louder the wind howled. Halfway to the top, something made me stop and say, ‘Hang her. We can share a mat. We’re newly-weds.’ And I threw mine down the stairs. It landed with a whump, having narrowly missed Tom’s startled face. He laughed nervously. ‘Will there be room?’ he asked, but I ignored him and ran the rest of the way to the top without stopping. The floorboards of the narrow platform thrummed in the wind. I took in great gulps of salty air. From there, I could see the lights coming on in all the rooms of the Ship Hotel, and I thought again of our bed with its thick cover and its sheets ironed to perfect slipperiness.
‘Hurry up,’ I called. ‘I can’t get down without you.’
When he emerged, he looked very pale, and before I could think about it, I stepped forward, grasped his face between my hands and kissed his cold mouth. It was a brief kiss, but his lips didn’t stiffen, and afterwards, as if catching his breath, he leant his head on my shoulder. He was shaking a little, and I breathed a sigh of relief. At last. He had responded to me.
Then he said, ‘Marion. You’ll think I’m a coward, but I don’t like heights very much.’
I looked out over the churning sea and tried to take in this information. Tom Burgess, sea-swimmer and policeman, was afraid because he was standing at the top of a helter-skelter. Up until that moment, he’d seemed wholly capable, unflappable, even. And now here was this weakness. And here was my chance to tend to him. I held him close, smelling the newness of his suit, and was surprised by the warmth of him, even in this cold, exposed spot. I could have suggested we walk back down the steps, but I knew his pride would be wounded, and I also did not want to forfeit my chance of sharing a mat with my new husband, the two of us clinging to each other as we rushed down the slide. ‘We’d better go down, then, hadn’t we?’ I said. ‘I’ll get on first, and you sit behind.’
He was holding on to the rail, his eyes fixed on my face, and I knew I had only to suggest an action for him to perform it; if I just kept talking in my best soothing-but-firm schoolteacher’s voice, he would do anything I asked. Nodding dumbly, he watched as I sat on the prickly mat. ‘Come on,’ I instructed. ‘We’ll be down in no time.’
He sat behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I leant into him, feeling his belt buckle against the small of my back. The wind blew about us, and at least a hundred feet below, the sea foamed.
‘Ready?’
His thighs were squeezing the breath out of me. I heard a grunt, took it for a ‘yes’, and pushed us off as strongly as I could. As soon as we moved, Tom gripped me tighter. We gathered speed around the first bend, and on the next we were going so fast that even I thought we might crash through the side and sail out over the water. Blaring music, coming from the pier’s tannoy, warped and waved as we went, and the greyness of the day became a sudden blast of refreshing air, a thrilling glimpse of the waves below. For a moment, it seemed as if there were nothing between us and the deep, save for a square of raffia mat. I screamed in delight, Tom’s clinging thighs forcing my squeals to a higher pitch, and it wasn’t until we were nearly at the bottom that I realised it wasn’t just me making a noise; Tom was wailing, too.
We overshot the end of the slide by quite some distance and crashed into the fence surrounding the mats. Our limbs were tangled in all sorts of impossible ways, but Tom was still gripping me around the waist. I began to laugh wildly, my wet cheek touching his, his breath heavy on my neck. At that moment, everything in me relaxed, and I thought – it’s going to be all right. Tom needs me. We are married and it’s going to be just fine.
Tom disentangled his body from mine and brushed his suit down.
‘Shall we do it again?’ I asked, jumping up.
He rubbed at his face. ‘God, no …’ he groaned. ‘Please don’t make me.’
‘I’m your wife. It’s our honeymoon. And I want to go again,’ I said, laughing and tugging at his hand. His fingers, I noticed, were slippery with sweat.
‘Can’t we just go for a cup of tea?’
‘Certainly not.’
Tom eyed me uncertainly, not sure if I was joking. ‘Why don’t you go again, and I’ll watch,’ he suggested, fetching the umbrella from the stand at the side of the booth.
‘But it’s no fun without you,’ I pouted.
I was enjoying this new feeling of careless flirtation, but again Tom seemed unsure how to react.
After a pause, he said, ‘As your husband, I am commanding you to come back to the hotel with me.’ And he slipped an arm around my waist.
We kissed once, very softly, and without a word I let him lead me back to the Ship.
All through dinner I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing at the slightest thing. Perhaps it was the relief of the wedding being over, perhaps it was the excitement of the helter-skelter, perhaps it was the anticipation of what was to come. Whatever it was, I had a breathless feeling of rushing towards something, headlong, unheeding.
Tom grinned, nodded, responded with a chuckle when I completed a long monologue about why the hotel was very like an old ship (the creaking floors, the flapping doors, the wind battering the windows, the staff looking a little seasick), but I got the impression he was simply waiting for this slightly hysterical mood to pass. I rushed on regardless, eating hardly a thing, drinking too much Burgundy, and laughing openly at the waiter’s waddling gait.
In our room, Tom switched on the bedside lamps and hung up his jacket whilst I collapsed on the bed, giggling. He’d ordered two glasses of Scotch to be brought up to us; when the boy appeared at the door with a small tray, Tom thanked him in the poshest voice I’d ever heard him use (he must have learned it from you), and I giggled all the more.
He sat on the edge of the bed, drank back his whisky, and said, ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I suppose I must be happy,’ I replied, gulping down a burning swig of Scotch.
‘That’s good,’ he said. And then: ‘Shall we get ready for bed? It’s late.’ I liked the first half of that sentence: he’d used the word bed; but I didn’t much care for the second, with its tone of practicality, its suggestion of sleep. ‘Do you want to use the bathroom?’ he continued.
He was still using the quiet, drawn-out, slightly upper-class tone he’d tried out on the boy at the door. I sat fully upright, my head swimming a little. No, I wanted to say. No, I don’t want to use the bathroom. I want you to undress me, here on the bed. I want you to unzip my skirt, unhook my new lacy bra, and gasp at the beauty of my naked breasts.
Of course I said nothing of the kind. Instead, I went into the bathroom, slammed the door, sat on the edge of the tub and suppressed the urge to giggle. I took several deep breaths. Was Tom undressing on the other side of the door? Should I surprise him by bursting into the room wearing only my slip? I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were blotchy and the wine had stained my lips brown. Did I look different now I was married? Would I look different in the morning?
When we’d first arrived at the hotel I’d unpacked my new apricot rayon nightdress and hung it on the back of the bathroom door, hoping Tom would spot it and be tantalised by the sight of its plunging neckline, the long split up one side. Leaving my skirt and twinset in a heap on the floor, I now pulled the nightdress over my head and combed my hair until it crackled. Then I brushed my teeth and opened the door.
The bedroom was dim. Tom had turned off all the lights, apart from the lamp on his side of the bed. Between the sheets and the pillow, his pyjama-jacketed shoulders lay straight and still. His eyes followed me as I approached the bed, pulled back the sheet and climbed in beside him. By this point, my heart was clattering about in my chest, and the urge to laugh had left me completely. What would I do if he merely switched off the light, said good night and turned his back to me? What, Patrick, could I possibly have done about that? As we lay there, not moving, my teeth began to chatter. I could not be the one to touch him first. We were finally married, but I had no right, I felt, to make any demands. As far as I knew, physical demands could not be made by wives. Women who pleaded for sexual contact were abhorrent, unnatural.
‘You look nice,’ said Tom, and I turned to smile at him, but he’d already turned off the light. My body stiffened. So that was it, then. Sleep was all that lay ahead. There was the longest silence. Then his hand brushed my cheek. ‘All right?’ he asked, softly, and I had no answer.
‘Marion? Are you all right?’ I nodded, and he must have felt the movement, because his big body shifted towards mine, and then his lips were on my mouth. Such warm lips. I wanted to lose myself then. I wanted that kiss to transport me, as the novels I’d read suggested it would. And it did, a little; I opened my mouth to let more of Tom in. Then he began to tug at my nightdress, pulling great handfuls of it up around my waist. I tried to move to make it easier for him, but it was difficult to do so when his other hand was on my hip, pinning me to the bed. My breath quickened; I stroked his face. ‘Oh Tom,’ I whispered, and saying it made me feel as though this was actually happening to me, here and now, in this pristine bed in the Old Ship Hotel. My new husband was making love to me. Tom planted his elbows on either side of my shoulders and heaved his whole body on to mine. I placed my hands on the small of his back and realised he’d taken off his pyjama bottoms. I let my hands stray to his buttocks, which were smoother than I could ever have imagined. He took a few lunges towards me. I knew he was nowhere near the target, but could say nothing. For one thing, I was holding my breath. For another, I didn’t want to spoil things by uttering something inappropriate.
After a while, he paused, panting slightly, and said, ‘Do you think you could – open your legs a bit more?’
I did as I was asked, thankful to shift down beneath him and wrap my thighs about his hips. He made no sound as he managed to enter me. What I felt was a sharp pain, but I told myself this would pass. We were there now. Ecstasy couldn’t be far away.
And it was wonderful, holding on to Tom as he moved in me, feeling his sweat on my fingers, his breath hot at my neck. Just the unbelievable closeness of him had a wonder about it.
But Patrick, I knew even then – although I doubt I admitted this to myself at the time – that the delicacy with which he’d held me during our swimming lessons was absent. As he made his thrusts, I found myself picturing that scene once again, imagining how I’d gone under and Tom had found me, how he’d held me at the waist as I’d floated in the salty water, how he’d carried me back to shore.
Suddenly Tom held his breath, made one last thrust that caused me almost to moan in pain, then collapsed by my side.
I stroked his hair. When he’d got his breath back he said, very quietly, ‘Was that all right?’ but I couldn’t reply because by then I was weeping, using my every muscle to do it silently and without moving. It was the relief of it all, and the wonder of it, and the disappointment. So I pretended not to have heard his question, and he kissed my hand, turned over and went to sleep.
I tell you all this, Patrick, so you’ll know how it was between me and Tom. So you’ll know there was tenderness, as well as pain. So you’ll know how we failed, both of us, but also how we both tried.