35

On the day Auntie Mim was finally admitted to hospital, Rad and I made a return visit to Half Moon Street, alone. Mr Radley had cancelled our sitting in order to take her in himself and see her safely installed. He had packed her bag with clean night-clothes and her ivory-backed hairbrush and the Agatha Christie Omnibus which was the only book I’d ever seen her reading.

Rad and I, meanwhile, had packed his car with the dog-blanket from the chaise longue, and a picnic consisting of sandwiches made with the end of a jar of peanut butter, a couple of softish apples, and the remains of the day before’s treacle tart. Rad didn’t take a book – a fact which struck me as significant. As I was washing the apples – one of which had an ominous curve of puncture marks, as though a small dog had picked it up in his teeth and dropped it – Rad came into the kitchen carrying two towels. ‘Shall we take swimming gear?’

‘It says No Swimming,’ I reminded him.

‘If there’s no one there …’

‘There are always people there.’

‘There might not be. It’s not that sunny.’

‘If it’s cold enough to put people off going, it’ll be too cold to swim,’ I pointed out.

‘Shall we take them just in case?’

‘Rad, you know I can’t swim.’

‘I’ll teach you.’

‘I don’t want to learn.’

‘You must do.’

‘I don’t.’

Rad sighed, and returned the towels to the airing cupboard. We didn’t speak much on the journey. There was an awkwardness between us that was something to do with my refusal to swim, and was about something different too. The last time we had been to Half Moon Street had been a year ago, with Frances and Nicky. Rad had bought us all lunch, we had sat on the grass, Narziss and Goldmund had ended up in the water, we had eaten ice cream on the way home, Rad and I were just friends: we were all happy. Today I was nervous. If I said or did the wrong thing, would I be cast off?

Rad was fiddling with the radio, which seemed to offer nothing but hiss and crackle and the odd burst of German. Occasionally when he spun the tuning dial it would let out a high-pitched whistle and cut out altogether. I was then called upon to smack the top of the dashboard with the A–Z to try and revive it.

‘I hope Auntie Mim gets better quickly,’ I said at one point. ‘She needs feeding up – but I don’t suppose they have potatoes and sprouts on the menu every day.’ She had looked terrible being helped into the car by Mr Radley. I’d hardly ever seen her on the move before – she had always been sitting in her armchair – and it struck me how tiny she was, and how brittle. If she had fallen on the driveway she would surely have broken into a thousand pieces. My granny’s bones were like steel: she could crack a paving stone with one blow from her hip. Auntie Mim had given us a little wave from the front seat, tiny clawed fingers trembling at the window.

‘Feeding up?’ Rad laughed at me. ‘You’re such an optimist. ‘She’ll never come out of hospital.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They don’t try and cure people her age.’

‘But they have to try and preserve life, don’t they?’

‘Oh, they’ll stick her on a drip and do “tests”, but … She knows she’s not coming back. I went into her room to see if she wanted anything carrying down, and she’d packed all her stuff up in boxes, ready for Mum to take to Oxfam.’

‘No.’

‘It’s true.’

She put her affairs in order, I thought with a shudder. We hit a pot-hole in the road and the radio came back on suddenly and loudly. ‘Our lips shouldn’t touch, move over darling,’ sang Doris Day. The sun was shining, love songs were playing on the radio, children were out on their bikes, and Auntie Mim was packing up and moving into Death’s waiting room. I thought of that bony hand at the window.

‘She’s a lesbian. Did you know that?’ I said.

‘Doris Day?’

‘Auntie Mim.’

‘Never. That must be one of Dad’s tall stories.’

‘Honest. She sort of confided in me one day. She showed me this photo of a woman – a black and white, really ancient-looking, must’ve been taken in the 1920s or something, and said it was the love of her life.’

‘What did you say to that?’

‘I don’t think I said anything. I just gaped.’

‘I won’t be able to look at her in the same way now you’ve told me that,’ said Rad.

‘You won’t get the chance to look at her at all if your prognosis is correct.’

Rad pulled a face. ‘That’s going to be one quiet funeral.’

‘I’ve never been to a funeral,’ I said.

The cottage at Half Moon Street was still abandoned and boarded up, though one of the upstairs boards had fallen off, giving the place a one-eyed look. There were plenty of other people about, walking by the water or sitting on the grass. It wasn’t sunbathing weather, or swimming weather – the clouds had started to roll in as we walked down, hand in hand, from the pub car-park. We made our way automatically to the spot we’d occupied last time, and sat eating our sandwiches and treacle tart. I offered Rad the two apples to choose from and he obligingly took the mauled one, waited until I’d finished mine and then lobbed his into the undergrowth. We hadn’t thought to bring any drinks with us, and the combination of peanut butter, treacle and yesterday’s pastry left us gasping with thirst.

‘Shall I go back to the pub and get something?’ Rad offered, clambering to his feet and brushing the crumbs off his jeans.

‘It’s too far,’ I protested half-heartedly: it was over half a mile to the pub, but I was ready to plunge my head in the lake if I didn’t get a drink soon. ‘Shall I come too?’

‘No, I’ll run.’ And he set off, self-consciously, knowing he was being watched.

I threw the soggy pastry crust we’d rejected to a flotilla of ducks at the water’s edge. They were soon joined by some Canada geese. Peeved at arriving too late, they waded out on to the grass and bore down on me, honking, until I was forced to beat a retreat.

By the time Rad came jogging down the path with two well-shaken Coke bottles the geese had given up and flopped back into the water, and the first fat drops of rain were starting to fall. Although there was blue sky at the horizon, above us it was black. ‘It’s just a shower,’ he said, as the clouds opened and the rain came down like spears. The few other people still at the lakeside were dashing for the cover of the trees. There would be no chance of making it to the car. We would be drenched in seconds. ‘Come on,’ Rad ordered, flinging the rug over his shoulder and wading through the knee-high grass and poppies to the cottage. He peered through a chink in the boards. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘There’s even some furniture.’ The front door was locked, but the back door, itself rotten and crumbling, was secured by a rusty padlock which fell apart in Rad’s hand. Rad leaned gently on the door which shuddered open, scratching an arc on the flagstones.

Inside it was dark and cool and smelled of soot. Thin wands of light from holes and cracks in the boarding striped the walls and floor. The ‘furniture’ consisted of a cast-iron range and a couch whose seats had been ripped out to reveal the springs and webbing. Through an archway a further room, apparently empty, was visible. Rad dropped the rug on to the stone floor in front of the range and sat down. He passed me one of the bottles. ‘Don’t …’ was all he managed to say before I had twisted the lid off and showered us with a foaming fountain of Coke. ‘I suppose you’ll want to drink mine now,’ he said, when we’d wiped our faces.

‘No,’ I said bravely. ‘There’s a full inch and a half left in here.’ He opened his a degree at a time until it had stopped hissing and then handed it to me.

‘Go on.’

When we had shared the drink I stood by the window and listened to the rain drumming on the plywood. Rad by now was lying on the rug, propped up on one elbow, idly spinning the empty bottle, waiting for me. I could feel embarrassment welling up inside me like hot lava. In these situations I am either struck dumb or I start to jabber. On this occasion silence prevailed. I don’t know why I was so hesitant. I’m not such a hopeless romantic that I’d imagined I would lose my virginity between white satin sheets in a four-poster on my wedding night, but somehow I’d never envisaged it happening on Growth’s blanket. I suppose it was fear – of giving too much away and having nothing left in reserve for emergencies.

‘Well, are you going to spend all afternoon gazing out of a boarded-up window, or are you going to come here?’ Rad asked finally, and I spun round guiltily, like someone tapped on the shoulder by a store detective. My heart was thumping wildly – you couldn’t have beaten time to a rhythm like that; it was all over the place. Perhaps I’ll have a heart attack, I thought as I lay down beside him, then I won’t have to Do It. A few seconds later we were kissing and for a while it was like it had been in the summer-house – a sense of discovery and relief – and I relaxed and thought, it’s all right, nothing’s going to happen. The back of my head was pivoting around a piece of grit under the blanket, so I reached back with one hand to dislodge it. Rad must have interpreted my sudden squirming as a sign of encouragement, as he began to undo first my jeans then his own.

‘What are you doing?’ I said, breaking away.

He shrank back as though I’d thrown cold water in his face. ‘What do you think?’ he said, looking rattled. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t think we should?’ I said, unable to meet his eye.

‘Why not?’

‘I … I don’t know you well enough.’

‘You’ve known me for six years.’ We were sitting up by this point, cross-legged, not facing each other but at right angles, like two sides of a triangle.

‘No. I mean properly. Like this. We’ve hardly even talked about things.’

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Nothing specific. I just … you’ve done this before, haven’t you?’

‘Abigail. I’ve been at university for two years. I’m not a monk.’

‘Well I haven’t, so it’s a bigger deal for me.’

‘Are you worried about getting pregnant?’

‘No,’ I said, a trifle shrilly. It was at this point that I did my trousers up. ‘I mean, yes, that would worry me too, but that’s not it.’

‘It must be me,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone off me.’

‘I haven’t,’ I insisted. ‘I just need to feel sure of you. I could only Do It with someone I love, who loves me.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rad in a disappointed tone. ‘You want me to tell you I love you, is that it?’ And I felt myself shrivel under his gaze.

‘Only if it’s true.’

‘I can’t do that,’ he said after a moment’s reflection. ‘No. It would be a bit like paying for sex.’

If I hadn’t already been so reduced, so mortified by this exchange I would have gasped. Instead I said, ‘You must hate me to say something like that.’ We were on our feet now, tucking our shirts in, trying to preserve what remained of our mortally wounded dignity.

‘Love. Hate. Nothing in between will do for you.’

‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about,’ I said. Any second now I’d be in tears and there would be nothing for it but to chuck myself in the lake, or emigrate.

‘You know me,’ said Rad. ‘In spite of what you say, you know what I’m like. I don’t know about “love”, and I won’t say something that isn’t true, even if that’s what it takes to get your knickers off.’

‘I’m just frightened that you’re going to screw me and then dump me.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because you can.’

‘So could you.’

‘Oh no. It won’t be me that splits us up. It’ll be you. You’re the one who isn’t sure of your feelings.’

‘I’m sure that I prefer you to anyone else I know, and that I’m not looking over your shoulder for someone else, and that I wouldn’t intentionally do anything to hurt you. But that’s not enough for you, is it?’

I opened my mouth to retaliate and then shut it again. I was suddenly overwhelmed with misery and weariness. I slumped down on the arm of the broken couch. ‘I’ve really messed everything up,’ I said. What I really wanted to say was ‘Am I still your girlfriend?’ but I knew this would be received with even greater derision.

Rad softened a little. ‘Come on, let’s go home and forget all this. It doesn’t matter.’ He pulled the door open, flooding the room with watery sunlight. ‘When you’re ready,’ he said, and I wasn’t sure whether he was urging me to get a move on or referring to the larger issue, but from that time onwards there was a sort of restraint in the way he kissed me, and he was careful not to touch me in any way that might cause a repeat of that day’s unpleasantness.