It was Sunday afternoon and such a bitterly cold day that Kate’s aunt could not understand why she had wanted to go out. But she went out every Sunday afternoon to the Armstrongs. She ought to have gone home by now, it was almost dark, but she lingered there by the fire with Tommy, playing draughts with Jon and wishing that every day could be like this. Greta was in the kitchen and had been baking. Kate could smell fresh scones.
Mrs Armstrong came in from next-door where she had been gossiping to Lizzie’s mother. She came into the front room now just as Kate said to Jon, ‘You’re cheating.’
‘No, I’m not. You said we could jump over our own men.’
‘I never did.’
Kate had Tommy on her lap, her feet under her. Nellie, Greta’s mother, was dozing by the fire. The bottle tops on the checker board reflected the firelight. It was almost teatime.
‘Some news from next-door,’ Jon’s mother said. ‘Their Lizzie’s getting married.’
Jon didn’t look up.
Nellie opened her eyes.
‘What’s that?’
‘She’s marrying Eddie Bitten.’
Nellie sniffed.
‘He’s been trying to get his feet under the table for months.’
‘You can’t move there,’ Jon said to Kate.
‘What?’ Her startled gaze met his calm one.
‘You can’t move back. It’s not allowed.’
‘You make up the rules as you go along,’ she accused him. ‘I’m going to go and help Greta.’ And she went off to the kitchen.
Greta was not there. Kate waited about for a short while and then found her standing in the back yard, crying.
‘Greta,’ she said, shocked, ‘whatever’s wrong?’
Kate had never liked her much but when the other girl sobbed and said, ‘Lizzie’s getting married. I wish I could get married,’ Kate felt so sorry for her. She hadn’t thought about Greta, just about how awful it was for Jon. ‘Eddie Bitten’s the nicest lad in the village. She won’t have to live with his mother and her mother and never be able to touch anybody.’
‘I thought you were happy?’
‘I was, but I’m the reason Jon can’t marry Lizzie. How would you like it? Being the cause of somebody’s unhappiness when you care about them isn’t very nice.’
Kate didn’t have time to reply. Jon came out to them.
‘I suppose you want us to butter our own scones now?’ he said.
Kate went back inside and as she did so, said, ‘You’re not a lad, Jon Armstrong, you’re a brick wall.’
‘It’s just as well I am.’
But it was not like that, she knew. He insisted on walking her home through the icy darkness. Kate loved being out when it was so starry.
‘Doesn’t your aunty ask where you’ve been?’ he said.
‘Yes. I tell lies.’
‘You aren’t a good lass,’ he said severely.
‘I can’t afford to be. I’d never get what I wanted that way. So, are you going to go and dance at Lizzie’s wedding, metaphorically speaking of course?’
‘It’s summat to look forward to.’
‘Greta cried.’
‘She’s cousin to a watering-can,’ he said.
Kate stopped and looked at him.
‘Why will nobody marry Greta when she’s so beautiful?’
‘They’re that bloody daft around here they think you have to want to put a bairn into a lass before you bed her,’ Jon said.
It was a rather more frank answer than she had expected from him.
‘You could at least stop pretending that you don’t mind about Lizzie marrying Eddie,’ she said.
‘My minding isn’t the point.’
‘Then what is?’
‘The point is, Little Miss Cleverclogs, that Eddie can marry her and look after her and she has a chance of being happy. And if I didn’t want that for her there wouldn’t be much good in my caring for her, would there?’
‘That’s extremely noble of you, Jon, but it makes you the biggest liar in the county.’
‘Well, you know what they say, bonny lass. It takes one to know one,’ he said.
*
Lizzie Harton was married in white; it was the talk of the village, the dress which her mother had sewn for her. It made her the prettiest bride for a long time, her hair free, the first of the spring flowers in her hands and Eddie was in his best dark suit, as were all the men. Kate’s triumph was that she had been allowed to go. Her aunt would have refused but her uncle intervened. He said that Eddie was a thoroughly respectable young man and that Lizzie came from a decent family and since she had been asked there was no reason why Kate should not go. Indeed it would have been an insult to have refused. She wore cream and green. Jon told her that she looked like a sand dune. Kate wondered how he could sit there and watch the girl he loved get married, and wondered how on earth Lizzie would marry a man she didn’t love, though for her part Kate liked Eddie Bitten. He was in fact a much better bet than Jon, being sober, even-tempered and clean-mouthed. He was not pious or boring, and on that day he looked very happy. Kate saw how the bride avoided looking in Jon’s direction and wondered how long it would last.
Throughout the ceremony Jon sat with Tommy on his knee. Children, Kate thought, were so useful on these occasions, and afterwards at the meal Jon sat with his arms around the child reminding Kate rather awkwardly of a doll she had clutched to her when first starting school.
Greta cried throughout the ceremony, though not audibly - apart from the occasional sniff - and Lizzie’s mother wore a new blue hat and looked very satisfied, as well she might, thought Kate, Lizzie having landed the most eligible pitman in the village. She knew that generally the bride was regarded as a very lucky girl. Lizzie herself smiled a great deal as though she had to keep on reminding herself to do so. Kate wondered whether the friendship between Eddie and Jon would survive the ceremony.
That morning Lizzie had got up at an early hour. Several weeks since her mother had suggested to her that she might have a new dress for the occasion. Lizzie had looked at her old rose pink and decided that if she wore that Jon would probably run away with her out of the chapel and down the lane. It had been altered to suit her size and shape and still fitted, but it would not do.
White would not have been her choice. She knew that posh people were married that way but she was not posh, and besides, when she saw herself in the mirror in the white she felt like some kind of sacrifice. There was something so untouched about it, which of course was how brides were meant to be. Lizzie didn’t feel untouched. She felt as though every part of her belonged to Jon Armstrong. Marrying Eddie seemed somehow adulterous.
She went through the day feeling strange, as though somebody else was getting married. From time to time she thought that she saw a smiling girl in white being married to a man who was almost a stranger to her. She felt as though she was sitting next to Jon where she should be and was nothing to do with the actual ceremony. She remembered nothing of the wedding itself, the responses or the words. She remembered coming out of the chapel into bright sunshine and various people congratulating Eddie and talking about how bonny she looked, but there was a cold part of her deep inside which remained aloof. She could eat and drink nothing. She saw Jon sitting with other people, talking with them and behaving quite normally, and that should have made her feel better but she knew him too well by now to think that the way he behaved had anything to do with the way that he felt. And when she and Eddie went over to where he was sitting, as they did with everybody at some time during that afternoon, she only had to look into Jon’s eyes to know the truth. Smiling at him and trying to go on as if there was nothing the matter exhausted her. It was a good thing that Eddie had hold of her arm. She did not think she could ever have moved away otherwise.
The day seemed like a mountain she was climbing which kept getting bigger and bigger no matter how hard she tried. By the time the wedding was over all she wanted to do was cry, and still, she thought, there would be no let up. There was the evening to be got through with no one but Eddie, and then there was the night, and to make it worse Eddie’s house was next-door so she had her mother near and Jon too, so near, and yet he was lost to her now for good and always. She stood in the sunshine in Eddie’s front room and shook and shook. He was in the kitchen, doing she didn’t know what; she was just glad that he was out of the room. He came back before long and pushed a glass into her hands. Lizzie looked down at the golden liquid which smelled strange.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Brandy. Drink it.’
Lizzie looked at him. And him a good Methodist, she thought.
‘I think I’d rather have a cup of tea.’
‘I’ve put the kettle on. Drink that anyway.’
Lizzie swallowed it in three gulps. It bit the back of her throat and went down warmly on to her empty stomach, making her feel much better. She was surprised. Eddie made tea and sandwiches and she was suddenly hungry and ate and had two cups of tea and then fell asleep on the sofa.
When she woke up she could tell by the light that it was late-evening. She was stiff from lying down and her dress was so crumpled that she was only glad her mother wasn’t there to see it. Eddie came to the doorway as she got up.
‘Feeling any better?’
‘Lots.’
‘How about a walk on the beach?’
It seemed so normal, something she always did and not the kind of thing new husbands usually asked, Lizzie felt.
‘Just give me a minute. I’m not going like this.’ And she went upstairs to find an old dress. The covered buttons on the back of her wedding dress defeated her and she hovered, too embarrassed to ask Eddie to help, but he came upstairs after a little while.
‘I thought you were getting changed?’ he said.
‘I can’t unfasten it.’
‘You should have shouted.’
‘I couldn’t.’
Eddie undid the buttons for her and then went off downstairs again, saying, ‘Don’t be too long.’ She pulled off the dress, left it in a heap on the floor and found her oldest, most washed out frock and put that on.
Being on the beach made her feel even better. It was late now and almost dark and there was nobody around. The tide was halfway down. Eddie put an arm around her just as he always did when they went walking and they set off slowly along the beach. It was so much like those evenings with Jon had been when they had gone walking in the summer and planned their marriage that Lizzie forgot to be unhappy. By the time it was dark they had walked all the way back and sat down in the sand dune which had been hers and Sam’s. That seemed like such a long time ago now.
Jon had taken her into his arms so often in that sand dune that when Eddie did it didn’t feel wrong. She was also used to his kisses now. She didn’t remember who he was, or care, just that she had waited so long. And she thought of what her mam had said: ‘He’s put his hands on you and more.’
Now he did. It was just as well, Lizzie thought, that she was not wearing the awful white dress because those covered buttons down the back would have created problems, but her old dress had its buttons at the front. She thought afterwards that if she had been less in shock she would have known right then that the man was not Jon because Eddie Bitten, serious young Methodist that he was, had obviously not always been the God-fearing lad he was now. At some time in his life there had been other women. He knew how and where to touch her, and exactly what to do, and although Lizzie thought that perhaps instinct might take you to there it would not have done quite so surely. Eddie seduced her. He did it so well that there was no awkwardness and no pain. Also, Lizzie had always imagined that whatever happened happened in bed, and yet they were outside in her favourite place in the whole world, dark and secluded, so that they couldn’t be seen. There had been no lead up as there would have been at home, worrying about undressing and facing one another. It felt so natural. This was how she would have been with Jon if she could have chosen. Afterwards Lizzie’s first reaction was that her mother had been wrong about it, that she felt sorry for women who had not been sent out of their minds with pleasure, but that was just her first reaction. Beyond that was the knowledge that he was not Jon, that she did not love this man, and that somehow, somewhere she would be made to pay for having taken part in such an act without love.
When they got home Lizzie took herself off to bed and lay there in the not quite darkness, thinking about what May had said about Rob hurting her. Eddie came upstairs and the candle threw shadows against the wall. Lizzie turned away from him and as she did so the tears ran so fast that she could not stifle a sob.
Eddie sat down on the bed and turned her over towards him and took her into his arms. He held her there against him, stroking her hair and saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ while she cried.
*
Kate went back with the Armstrongs to their house after the wedding. It was a mistake. Mrs Armstrong made tea and talked brightly and Greta’s mother drank her tea and said what a lucky lass Lizzie was to have such a husband. They talked about how beautiful she had looked in her white dress and what a lovely mother she would make and Kate was not surprised when Jon got up in the middle of tea and walked out. She went after him. It was early evening. She caught him up at the end of the lane. He was walking very fast.
‘Jon!’
He didn’t take any notice of her, just increased his pace. Kate nearly fell over trying to keep up.
‘Jon—’
‘Go away.’
‘If you go and get drunk it’ll only make things worse.’
‘Things couldn’t be any worse,’ he said.
‘Yes, they could. Jon, please. Will you slow down?’
He didn’t. Kate ran after him and grabbed his arm and he stopped and turned on her.
‘I suppose you think it’s summat to do with you like, is it?’
‘You’re ruining your life.’
‘You should be writing books.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so sarcastic.’
‘Look, Kit, I’m going to the pub. Women aren’t allowed in pubs around here, so stop following me, all right?’
‘It isn’t right.’
‘It’s the only place I get any peace. Go home.’
‘Jon—’
‘Kit, you don’t have any place here. Go home.’ And he walked off fast and left her standing there.
Watching Lizzie being married was to Jon like being given a good hiding. He tried to think of something else but he couldn’t, and afterwards he went off to the pub. He stayed there until late, not drinking much because somehow the beer wouldn’t go down just when he needed it to, listening to the other men talking. There was a great gaping nothingness between himself and the world. When it was dark and late he went to the beach and sat down on top of a dune and let the darkness surround him until the night grew cold and the weather turned stormy.
Everybody was in bed. He walked quietly into the house and tiptoed up the stairs. He took one candle with him and was shrugging off his jacket when he heard the door click. He looked up. Through the small mirror which stood on the dressing table he could see Greta standing just inside the door. She was wearing a long pale blue nightdress and her hair was braided.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, watching him through the mirror as he pulled off his tie and hauled at his collar.
‘Nowhere.’
‘I thought maybe you’d gone to the pub.’
‘I did earlier and then I went for a walk.’
‘You must be wet through. It’s raining and it’s cold.’ And Greta shivered visibly.
The wind tore around the outside of the house.
‘Go to bed then,’ Jon suggested, but she didn’t move and he turned around and looked hard at her. ‘Go on, it’s late.’
‘Lizzie made a lovely bride.’
‘Aye.’ Jon hesitated over his shirt. ‘Are you going or aren’t you?’
She didn’t say anything, she stood there against the door, and gradually her head lowered. Jon went to her and then he said softly, ‘Summat the matter?’
Greta raised drenched cornflower blue eyes and a tremulous mouth.
‘I want you to kiss me,’ she said.
Jon stared at her.
‘What? No, you don’t. Come on, Greta, don’t play up to me. I’m tired.’
‘Just once.’
‘Will you go back to bed? You’ll catch your death wandering around like that.’ When she didn’t move he said, ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
He tried to open the door and Greta, who had been standing near it, moved back against it. Jon’s control started to slip.
‘Don’t do this to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a bad day.’
‘Do what?’
‘You don’t want me to kiss you, not really. You don’t like being touched, you never did. And besides, I couldn’t kiss anybody right now.’
‘Is it because I’m not Lizzie?’
‘Greta,’ Jon sighed and sat down on the bed, ‘you don’t owe me nothing. It wasn’t owt to do with you. Just accept that it’s the way that it is. I will.’
‘Will you?’
‘Yes. In time.’
‘And until then?’
When Jon didn’t answer she started over the room up to him.
‘Will you go away?’ he said.
She went to him. She got down on the bed and slid her arms up around his neck and she kissed him. Her mouth was soft and warm and her lips were parted. Jon couldn’t believe it. This was Greta. This was the lass who had lain silently under his brother, the chapel lass who didn’t want a lad anywhere near her. She had never liked it, he knew she hadn’t. She was doing him the favour for what she thought she had stolen away. He pushed her from him.
‘Right, now go to bed.’
‘No.’
He was aware of her now, the young rounded body beneath the material, the sweetness of her lips, the feel of her fingers against him, her warmth beneath his hands.
‘Greta, you’re going to be good and sorry about this.’
She reached up and would have fastened her hands round his neck but Jon caught at both her wrists.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m fine.’
‘Are you?’ she said, and when Jon let go she started to take down her hair. It made him think of the story of the girl in the tower and it mesmerised him. When the hair was loose it was almost to her waist and as bonny as gold. Then she started to undo the buttons on her nightdress. They went all the way down past her waist. By then Jon couldn’t think what he was trying to say. She took hold of his hands and guided them inside to the warmth of her bare skin. Her breasts were more generous than he had thought they would be, warm and round and soft, filling his hands, hard-tipped under his palms. He got hold of her and put her down on to the bed. Her mouth was sweet and willingly parted and when he lifted her nightdress she let him put his hands all over her. He took the nightdress off her and she was beautiful, neatwaisted and slender-thighed, her stomach still flat and her hips with exactly the right curve for his hands. The candlelight gave her body a glow which it didn’t need. She even helped him off with his clothes. Jon didn’t think about her with his brother. She let him take her, naked by candlelight. To him it was wonderful, like nothing before, her body yielding more and more to him, so soft and fluid. It was as though she drew him into her, further and further, right into the very centre of her. At some time he pushed a pillow under her arched back and went on until their bodies were slick with sweat and Greta was making helpless little whimpering sounds in her throat. At the finish she gave a sharp cry which Jon tried to smother with his hand for fear of somebody hearing. Under his fingers she gave another. He thought that it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard in his life.
‘Are you sorry?’ she looked over the white pillow at him a few minutes later and Jon saw her differently than he had ever seen her before, her eyes as blue as a summer sea, her mouth like crushed raspberries. He got hold of her quite ungently but she only laughed and gave him her lips and then her body, down across the narrow width of the bed.