E Major
JUST A FEW days later, on 14th June, the Falklands War came to an end at a cost of 255 British lives and 777 wounded. Among the Argentinians, 652 men were dead or missing.
The stories had been shocking, quite different from any other war that I’d ever read about. The thirty-three Welsh Guardsmen who were killed on the Galahad; the twentieth SAS commandoes who were drowned when their Sea King helicopter struck an albatross; the taciturn Old Etonian, Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, dying the hero’s death as he stormed a machine-gun nest.
But far more moving for me than the stories were the pictures in my newspapers. The submarine HMS Conqueror returning to Faslane with a jaunty Jolly Roger on its conning tower to mark the sinking of the General Belgrano. The Sheffield, with smoke and flames pouring out of its guts. The Antelope, still gushing oily smoke as its prow slipped into the Atlantic. And a photo of a rifle, a paratrooper’s helmet and a jam-jar of daffodils, marking the spot where the Falklands’ second VC, Sergeant Ian McKay, fell on Mt. Longdon.
Frankie ran a Union Jack up the house flagpole. Sap was so gung-ho that given half a chance he’d have quit his A-levels and joined up.
But all I could do was stare at that tragic picture of the rifle and Sergeant McKay’s helmet, and wonder if the military was for me. Was that what I wanted out of life? Another decade or two in the sole company of men? More rules, more regulations?
There was a plus side, I was aware of that. I would be maintaining over a century’s worth of family tradition. For the first time, my father might be proud of something I’d done. The truth was, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I left school. But if not the army, then what else could I turn my hand to?
I was equally in two minds over Estelle. For days, I imagined myself the wronged victim. I believed that I was 100 per cent in the right, that it was me who was in need of succour, and that it was within my remit to offer forgiveness.
Every night as I went to bed, I would torture myself with vivid images of Estelle at the Fourth of June, not kissing me but another Etonian. Truly, it felt as if she had done the deed right in front of my very eyes.
Occasionally, I would relent. I would leaf through her letters, putting them to my nose and smelling her perfume. I could recall every one of our kisses and how I had stroked her back; ah yes, and that image of her topless, sitting in front of me—that was another memory that was forever playing in my mind.
But every time Estelle called on the house pay-phone, all these happy memories were snuffed out by my jealousy, which was like a tank steam-rollering everything in its path. When we spoke, I was clipped, formal, like an upstanding Victorian father dealing with a disobedient child. I made light of her coming to Eton the previous year. I said it didn’t matter, I said I forgave her—and she was grateful.
It was all supposed to be behind us. But everything was different. It kept cropping up in conversations. I believed I had a perfect right to bring the matter up as and when I felt like it. My daily letters had become curt and precise.
For although I’d said I’d forgiven Estelle, I could never forget.
Now I can only shake my head at that foolish, foolish boy.
For in this life, there are so many things that it is possible to feel aggrieved about. But jealousy over your loved one’s past should never be one of them.
Things might—possibly—have been different if I had been able to work through my feelings. Though how laughable the very thought of that is at a school like Eton. I didn’t even feel able to confide in my best friend Jeremy.
The truth was that I was not even able to come clean to myself.
The letters and the phone calls, they fizzled, they sparked, and, after a short period, I had stamped it out. Killed it.
And my primary and foolish feeling at the time was that Estelle had received her just desserts.
SHORTLY AFTER HALF-TERM, I was in an English class. I remember it well, for it was the first time that Shakespeare had ever really resonated.
In previous years I had studied Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar. All of them had left me cold. Stories of flawed men and conniving women. Not one of them had meant a thing to me.
But Othello, the dark, charismatic, trusting Moor . . .
I got it.
I could understand the madness, the cold logic with which his clinical mind had appraised the situation; the seething impotent rage; and the final red raw explosion of anger as his unbridled jealousy was given its head.
Angela and I still liked to look at each other during the lesson. We would gaze at each other across the room, and probably imagine all manner of fond and libidinous encounters.
She was still looking at me as she raised her hand to ask a question.
“Do you have to be in love to feel jealous?” Her hand came down and for a moment I thought her accusing finger was pointing dead at me.
Her eyes never left mine.
The question stopped McArdle in his tracks. He was intrigued, had never thought of the question before. He perched himself on the edge of his desk.
“Interesting.” He temporized and tugged at the point of his beard. “Never thought about that before.”
For a while he stared at the ceiling. “If you’re truly in love, then you won’t suffer from the grosser excesses of jealousy. You might still feel the odd pang, but you could work it through. True love can dilute almost anything.”
McArdle was up now, strutting around the front of the room, hands behind his back. “The problem arises when you’re in love for the first time and you experience jealousy for the first time. Like, for instance, Othello.
“He’s been so used to being in control of everything about him. Then out of nowhere comes this powerful new emotion and he has no idea how to deal with it. Yes—the first time it hits you, it can be as powerful as love itself.”
My eyes were on Angela but I was taking it all in. It all made perfect sense.
McArdle had paused in mid-stride as if struck by a new thought. “The first time you experience them together, the two are like yin and yang, black and white, each as strong as the other.
“It takes practice to learn to deal with jealousy, to control it.”
He shrugged and smiled. “It takes practice to learn to cherish the one you love.”
Wise words indeed, and, as he said them, Angela unfolded her hands and proffered her palms towards me, as if to say that this was me, a yin-yang mixture of love and jealousy.
I blushed to the roots of my hair, for it was as if she had found out my darkest secret.
SINCE HALF-TERM, INDIA and I had had only one music class together. Although she’d seemed pleased to see me, the lesson had been formal, as if the coffee and crying, and, yes, that kiss, had never occurred. I didn’t know what it was about. But then I had never truly expected anything to happen with India. I was grateful to gather up whatever scraps fell from her table.
And then everything changed. And I mean everything.
I can recall each moment.
My life has never been the same since.
It’s a half-day, a Thursday, and, yet again, it’s another scorching afternoon.
I’d been practising The Well-Tempered Clavier at the Music Schools. But this relentless diet of Bach could pall for even a devotee like me and after a couple of hours I was taking a break to go for a dip in Eton’s outdoor pool. I remember it distinctly—I was wearing faded jeans, a white T-shirt and some Green Flash plimsolls. Under my arm, my sheet music, towel and trunks.
I was taking a different route from my usual one, going via Judy’s Passage, one of Eton’s main walkways.
I’ve just crossed the Eton Wick Road and was just about to turn into the high-walled gloom of the passage.
And suddenly from the other direction appears India.
“Hello you,” she says. She looks exquisite in another of her white cotton dresses, a rug under her arm and leather knapsack on her back. India’s beauty in the flesh was always far superior to any of my memories.
“Good afternoon.”
We stand opposite each other at the end of Judy’s Passage and India takes in my towel, my music book.
“You’re right,” she says.
“I am?”
“On a day like this, swimming is definitely better than Bach.”
All I can do is smile. “And where are you off to?”
“Oh, you know—any leafy bower . . .” She kicks at a dandelion, about to say more. Then her eyes dart down the passage. The smile trails from her face. “God, it’s him.”
“Who?” I squint into the shadows, making out a silhouette. I can recognise the figure only too well.
India is already one step ahead of me. “Come with me.” She takes my hand and we are dashing over the Eton Wick Road. We dive into the elderberry bushes by the Master’s Field, and, like scrumping schoolchildren, drop to our knees. It’s crazy, it’s madness, but India and I are hiding in a bush because neither of us wants to be seen by Savage.
We watch him as he emerges from Judy’s Passage. He’s wearing his full pop regalia and sunglasses. For a heart-stopping moment, he stares directly at the elderberry bush, looks straight at me. I’m sure he’s spotted us, must have spotted us.
Then he looks to the left, to the right, and lopes off down the Eton Wick Road.
For the past minute, I’ve been holding my breath. I let out a huge sigh. And I realise with surprise that India is still holding my hand. She gives it a squeeze.
Yes—she gives my hand a squeeze.
“Can’t stand that boy,” she says. “I see him almost every day.”
“I’m stuck in the same house with him.”
“Did you see him when the Monarch capsized?”
“Did I see him?” I laughed. “I only wish I’d got it on film.”
We’re resting back on our heels, easy, comfortable, squatting amid the roots and dry old leaves of an elderberry bush. Over the green tang of the tree, I can smell her lily-of-the-valley.
I wish I could have bottled up the moment—that time when we were right on the brink, my guts churning with a mixture of terror and expectation.
An elderberry bush on the Eton Wick Road, with dead leaves scrunched beneath us and dappled sunlight filtering through the branches. It is not the first place that springs to mind for the beginning of a romance. But that, nonetheless, is where it all started.
“I can feel your pulse.” India is lightly holding my hand, two fingers against my wrist.
I gaze at her, our heads only a foot apart. “Yes?”
She presses her fingers and counts. “Fast.”
“It is?”
She counts off the seconds. “150 beats a minute. At rest.”
She had found me out. For two months I had done my best to mask my ardour, to hide my feelings, to be nothing more than the model pupil who was devoted to Bach and his preludes. But now . . .
All had been revealed. There was nothing more to hide. “I’m sitting next to you,” I whisper. “You’re holding my hand.”
“I am?” She looks at my hand as if for the first time realising it is attached to my body. “I am.” She brings my hand close to her face and looks at my fingers, my nails, glances at my palm. “A kind hand.”
And with that, India, my twenty-three-year-old music teacher, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, the vision whose very presence makes me go weak at the knees, raises my hand to her lips and kisses the inside of my wrist.
It is the most mesmerising thing I have ever seen or felt. India’s eyes are still locked on mine, but slowly she is planting kisses on my wrist.
Inch-by-inch she is working her way up the bare flesh of my arm.
My body is in a vise. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. Couldn’t speak even if I had words to say.
I’m in freefall, have finally been swept off the precipice and have no idea how or when it will all end.
India isn’t moving her head. Instead she is drawing my arm towards her, reeling me in. She’s at my elbow and I can feel her hair trailing on my hand. Her kisses are the lightest of touches, the delicate stroke of a humming-bird’s feather.
My arm may be still, but the rest of my body has started to shake. Cramps in my legs, fire in my belly, and the hairs on my neck prickle like a pin-cushion. I am fascinated. Ensnared. Even in my most outrageous dreams, I had never thought to imagine she would be staring into my eyes and kissing my arm.
She kisses the sleeve of my shirt. I dare myself to think how it may end. For now her unblinking eyes are just inches from mine, drawing me in. I can’t see her lips, but I can feel them. Pecking at my shirt. Her breath is warm on my neck, her chin light on my shoulder.
That lily-of-the-valley, how can I ever forget it? For me the scent could never be anything other than India.
I am a statue, not moving an arm, a leg, a finger, even an eyelid.
But underneath, I am a raging, pulsating cauldron of emotion and desire. Total turmoil masked by a stoic veneer.
A car goes past, a sigh of wind. Ever more slowly, India kisses my neck, her lips lingering longer. A kiss on my jaw. On my cheek. The silk caress of her cheek against mine. I haven’t moved, can’t move, but I am quivering at the hope, the desire, of what might happen next. My thumping heart feels as if it will shatter with the strain.
A kiss on my cheek, just an inch from my lips. She pulls back ever so slightly, looks me in the eyes, so close that I can feel her long black eyelashes.
India.
Kisses.
Me.
And nothing will ever be the same again.
The lightest touch of an angel’s wing.
I have been touched by God.
India draws back once more, smiling as she gazes at me. Her fingers lock through mine, holding my hand tight. My hip rests lightly against her thigh.
A slight lean forward, she kisses me again, not on my lips, but on the other side of my mouth. All the while, those eyes, those black tarns, never leave my gaze for a moment.
And kisses me on the lips once more, still so soft, but India holds it a fraction longer.
She brings her other hand up, and with her long pianist’s fingers strokes my cheek. I move my head to the rhythm of her hand.
It is as if her kiss has released me, for it is my turn. As delicately as India herself, I kiss the inside of her wrist. Draw back.
And kiss her on the lips. No open mouths, no darting tongues. A reverential kiss and for the first time her eyes close, as if she has come home.
Without a word needing to be said, we break off and enfold our arms round each other. Not knotted, but firm enough for trust. I stroke her hair.
I am bound in the moment. Not marvelling at what has occurred, not amazed at my luck that India is still in my arms.
No, I had given myself up to my senses—to the cocoon of scent that surrounded us, the warmth of India’s chest pressed against mine, the texture of her hair at my fingertips, and the tenderness with which she strokes my neck.
Still holding me fast, she kisses me on the ear, whispers, “Thank you.”
I rub my cheek against hers. My voice is hoarse with excitement. “It is I who should thank you.”
India strokes my cheek, little soft dabs on my skin. There are so many things to say, the whys and wherefores, and how longs and how manys, but there is nothing that cannot wait, because now she has kissed me again and, for the first time in my life, it is a kiss that feels natural. Right. In the correct order of things. Just perfect.
One kiss, another and another, harder, more urgent, more insistent, and I can feel her lips start to melt beneath my own, parting fraction by fraction. She leads the way, but is doing everything at such a leisurely pace that it feels as if we have all day to pleasure each other. There is no coarse stab of a tongue, just this total awareness that her lips are pressed open against mine.
I am in her hands, am taking my cue from her.
We are both holding back, both waiting to see who will be the first to break, to move from lips to tongue.
Heady desire. I am alive for the sense of her lips.
How brutish those past kisses with Estelle seem—gross, open-mouthed snogging, when all I had wanted to do was bury my tongue into a girl’s mouth.
For now I am receiving my first proper lesson in how to kiss, learning that kisses, like every other act of love, are always sweeter when savoured slowly.
My eyes are closed; I have given myself up to India’s kisses. Nose-to-nose, lip-to-lip, then, with all the delicacy of a mouse emerging from its hole, I can feel the light touch of tongue.
As delicately as if I were coaxing a butterfly onto my finger, I dab my tongue. The lightest of touches.
Her tongue glides against mine, almost lazy, not a full charge, but with artful patience.
Wherever India goes, I follow. She touches my teeth, lets her tongue slip between my lips and I don’t know how long it’s taken, how many minutes have ticked by, but she’s now kissing me with wanton abandon, her lips moving firm against my own, working her mouth against mine.
What a kiss; what a woman; what a day.
I lose track of time. That first kiss lasted so long that even my mind stops. My life is India’s lips and India’s mouth.
I never want it to end, aware that if it did stop India might come to her senses and realise she was kissing a seventeen-year-old schoolboy.
But when she does eventually stop, she crushes me to her breast, and slowly my senses return. To realise that I was sit- ting in the brush of an elderflower tree, that the shadows were lengthening, and that in my arms was my beautiful piano teacher.
One more time I look at her face and gaze into her eyes, just to confirm that the unthinkable, the unbelievable, has happened. But yes, yes, it really is her, it is India in my arms.
“Hello,” she says, and it is as if she has spoken to me for the first time, as if our relationship has started afresh. Which in a way it had. For we were no longer teacher and pupil; it felt like we were lovers embarking on our maiden voyage, with the wind set fair and not a smut of cloud on the horizon.
“Hello.” I hugged her again. I had never known a hug to feel so good. I saw those lips once more and could not stop myself from kissing them. I still could not bring myself to believe such things were permissible.
“Happy?”
I laugh at the thought. “Right here, right now, with you underneath this elderberry?” I say. “I have never been so happy in my entire life. You?”
“I think I’m happy too.” She traced her fingers along my jaw-line. “Shall we go somewhere else?”
“Some leafy bower?” I echo her earlier words.
I’m rewarded with a peck on my lips. “You leave first.”
AS I STOOD up, I had a last regretful look at our den and at India, still sitting on the leaves and gazing at me like a beautiful nymph.
After the shade of the bush, the sunlight was dazzling. I squinted in both directions and the road was clear. I called India out and she emerged like a delicate fawn. In the Master’s Field, she brushed off the worst of the twigs and leaves, and we walked—walked, but did not touch, walked with a gap of three or four feet between us. If we had been more sensible and more alert to Eton’s thousand eyes, we would not have been seen within a hundred yards of each other. At the time though, we were feckless and so dazed with love that we didn’t recognise the need for discretion, had not even contemplated the thought that the mere sight of the pair of us walking together would be enough to launch a score of rumours and a flurry of speculation. No—we were oblivious to it all, incapable of thinking about anything but our doughty ship that we had just launched onto the high seas.
But although we couldn’t touch as we walked, we could still talk. There were so many things that I longed to ask her. When had it all started? Why me? Why now? Would it last? Could it last? When could I see her again? Could I see her again? Could she kiss me again? Please? Hundreds and hundreds of questions, but, even then, with even my first true love, I knew that some things were left best unasked; that sometimes there is not the need to have every question answered in full; and that, more often than not in life, ignorance is bliss.
Wise beyond my years. It showed an awareness of the delicacies and the pulse of a relationship. Sometimes, I was quite capable of being sage and practical. If only I could have been like that all of the time.
But of course I was still a schoolboy—and schoolboy emotions are nothing if not volatile, the one moment climbing the dizzy peaks of love and the next terrified at how far you have to fall.
Well as it happened, I did fall—and am quite possibly still falling.
But don’t think for a moment that I would have missed that climb. India took me to the extremes of love and rage, and jealousy and sorrow, and they were in every respect the emotional high-points of my life.
We found a weeping ash tree far from Eton’s playing fields. India slipped off her knapsack, sat down and patted the rug next to her in invitation.
I sat and, not daring to believe my luck would hold, I slipped my arm round her waist.
It had been twenty minutes since we’d kissed and I longed for more. I leaned over; she leaned up to kiss me. And she kissed me—again. And once more, as powerfully as the first time, I was overwhelmed by India’s beauty.
Without a word, India started rummaging in her knapsack, and as she did so she was humming to herself, humming the courtly Ninth Prelude in E-Major.
She was wooing me with Bach, her head gliding to the beat as she found her thermos. Her movements, like everything else in her life, spoke of controlled efficiency. She was as relaxed as if she were at the keyboard. She unscrewed the thermos top, poured and passed me the glass.
“Here’s to us,” she said. Ice-cold lemonade, homemade, astringent and razoring the back of my throat.
I sipped three times and passed the glass back to India. “And here’s to you.”
She drank and lay back on the rug, stretching out her arm to take my hand. I had never seen her looking so beautiful. Her white dress stark against the tartan rug, her hair in a billowing brown halo about her head, and her face lit by shafts of dying sunlight.
We could have talked, but instead we gazed unblinking into each other’s eyes. I leaned over and kissed her.
I hate to admit it now, but I think that time under the weeping ash was the high-water mark of our relationship— when everything was new and fresh, when our potential was limitless, and when my heart and mind had not yet been soured by demons.
We kissed and hugged, and the sun was now low on the horizon, peeking through the treetops. I checked my watch. My heart lurched.
We had been together for three hours. I’d missed Absence.
“I’ve got to go.” I climbed to my knees.
She just smiled. “It’s been a wonderful afternoon.”
“I want to . . .” I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you for everything. Thank you for the lemonade. Thank you for you.” I was standing up now, though still holding her hand.
“It is I who should be thanking you.”
She was using my words on me.
“Do you want to come too?”
“I’ll stay a while.”
I knelt and kissed her fingers. As I left, I looked round one last time. She was still sitting there, in black silhouette against the sky, and, as she waved, her diamond ring glinted in the dying embers of the day.