The Paying Guests (25 page)

The gown had three small pearl buttons on it, hard and round. She undid the first, and then the second.

‘May I do this?’

She felt Lilian hesitate. But the third button was undone now; now she had parted the cloth, had dipped her head, was stroking and kissing. And after another few seconds of it Lilian moved forward with a sigh to meet the touch of her fingers and mouth. Her breasts were warm, fantastically heavy, fantastically hard at the tips. Beyond was the thud, thud of her heart – Frances kissed every beat of it.

She forgot about her mother. She forgot about Leonard in the room upstairs. The embrace took hold of them as it had before, became hectic and skinless again, drew them on, on, on, past caution, past care. She hauled up the hem of Lilian’s nightdress and touched her naked hips and buttocks. She ran her fingers over and over the hot, smooth, astounding flesh.

Then she brought a hand around Lilian’s thigh to the crisp curls between her legs. But at that, Lilian stiffened, and wriggled her hips away. Reaching to feel with her own hand, she said, as if she couldn’t believe it, ‘I’m all over wet!’

‘Move back a little,’ urged Frances.

‘I think we ought to stop. It’s too much.’

‘I can’t. I want to so badly. Don’t you?’

‘It’s too much, though.’

‘I can’t. I can’t.’

And, even as they were whispering, Lilian was allowing herself to be guided back towards the sink; and then she was braced against the rim of it, had parted her legs and opened herself to the delicate slide of Frances’s fingers. Almost at once her hips began to move to match the rhythm of the touch. Soon she was working herself against Frances’s hand with a slick, quickening motion. One of her thighs came in between Frances’s as she did it; Frances shifted, ungainly, to straddle it, to nudge at it, to rub and strain. The skirt of her dress was lifted and bunched, the satin panels creasing and spoiling – the thought made her nudge her hips all the harder. When Lilian began to tense, the tension communicated itself to her, a muscular charge passing between them. And when Lilian cried out, their mouths were tight together; Frances took in the cry like a breath, and it became her own.

Aside from that they made no sound, did nothing to unsettle the silence of the house; Frances was certain of it. They jolted against each other for another few moments, their rigid poses loosening. Finally they eased themselves apart, Lilian going weakly to the bath-tub, sitting down on the edge of it, pulling up the satin wrapper that had slipped from her shoulders.

‘Oh, Frances,’ she said, as Frances joined her. Her hair was across her eyes like a veil. She put it back, then kept her hands at her head. She was trembling. ‘What have we done? We must be mad. We must be drunk. Are we drunk?’

‘We aren’t drunk,’ said Frances. She was trembling too.

‘What have we done?’

‘You know what we’ve done. You know what it is. Don’t you?’

She saw the little curving gleams of wetness at Lilian’s eyes and mouth. She saw her nod, heard her whisper. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m in love with you. I’ve fallen in love with you.’

‘Yes.’

That was all they said. Lilian reached for Frances’s hand with both of hers and held it tight. She let her head sink to Frances’s shoulder; Frances raised an arm and pulled her closer. She kissed the crown of Lilian’s head. She lifted the hands that were joined around hers and kissed the wrists of them, kissed the thumbs of them. Lilian let her do it all, without a word, without a murmur. Only when Frances’s lips began to travel to her knuckles did she draw one of the hands free – the left hand, the one with the rings on it. She set it down to steady herself against Frances’s embrace, and there was the muted tap of her wedding-band, a small, chill sound in the darkness.

Next morning, just for a moment, it might have all been some feverish dream. Opening her eyes in the half-light, Frances saw an unsmoked cigarette on the marble top of her bedside cabinet, stared at it in stupefaction – then felt her insides leap with excitement and alarm. She had rolled the cigarette the night before, but had been too agitated to smoke it. That had been – what time? She and Lilian had returned to the kitchen at just before two. She had helped Lilian to straighten her nightdress, to smooth and tidy her hair. They had stood in a final close embrace, and then – ‘Oh, Frances,’ Lilian had said again, her head at Frances’s shoulder, and she had pressed Frances’s fingers and broken away from her, slipped from the room. Frances had remained in the kitchen, unable to sit, be still, do anything: she had seemed to be quivering, to be ringing, like a wine glass that had just been struck. By the time she had climbed the stairs to her bedroom, Lilian and Leonard’s door was closed and no light showed beneath it. She had lain awake for what felt like hours, trying to take in the wonder of it all.

Now, at ten to seven, touching her fingers to her lips, she could still feel Lilian’s mouth there, Lilian’s impossibly full, wet mouth. She could still feel Lilian’s breasts and hips pressed hard against her own.

Her stomach gave another leap. She drew up her knees and rolled on to her side. Outside, church bells were noisy, but the house itself was still. She was almost afraid to rise, to set the day in motion.

When she finally went downstairs, she found her mother already in the kitchen. And at the sight of her pale face and fretful expression, her heart seemed to hold its breath.

‘What’s the matter, Mother?’

Her mother frowned. ‘Well, I barely slept. Did you? After last night?’

‘Last night?’

‘I wonder how poor Mr Barber is.’

‘Oh —’ Frances’s heart beat naturally again. She remembered that, of course, as far as her mother was concerned – as far as Leonard was concerned, too – the assault was the thing that had happened to set the world on its head. It was only for herself and for Lilian that this other more astonishing event had taken place.

Her mother had gone to the kitchen passage and was listening for sounds of movement upstairs.

‘Ought we to go up there, do you think? I should so like to know that Mr Barber is all right. One can never be too careful with blows to the head. Why don’t you go, Frances, and just tap at their door?’

‘Their bedroom door? No, no. Let’s not disturb them. If they want our help, they’ll ask for it. Sit down, and I’ll see to breakfast. You don’t want to be late for church.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I’ve the strength for church today. Mr Garnish will understand. Perhaps I’ll run myself a bath.’ She began to make for the scullery.

Nimbly, Frances got there ahead of her. ‘I’ll have the water when you’ve finished with it. I’ll run it for both of us.’

She couldn’t believe that she and Lilian hadn’t left some mark or trace behind them. But the room seemed quite unchanged. Holding a match to the geyser, she looked over at the sink, where she had pushed with a slippery hand between Lilian’s legs; and at the bath-tub, where she had said,
I’ve fallen in love with you
.

With a pop, the flame found the gas, and she snatched back her scorched fingers.

The next hour or so passed in a stew of frustration. She saw to the stove, made breakfast, every moment expecting to hear Lilian’s step on the stairs. She took the bath after her mother but couldn’t relax in the cooling water for fear that Lilian would come down while she was in there. But Lilian did not come. Her bedroom door remained closed, and Frances simply had no idea what was going on behind it. Was Lilian longing for her, as she was longing for Lilian? Had she lain in bed, as Frances had, unable to sleep for excitement?

At last there were definite sounds of movement in the rooms above, and her mother rose from her chair. ‘There’s Mr Barber’s voice, isn’t it? I think I’ll go up, just for a moment. Just to put my mind at rest.’

‘I’ll come too, then,’ said Frances, unable to stand the suspense.

They found Leonard on the sitting-room sofa in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, his nostrils crusty, his nose swollen and both of his eyes with dark shadows beneath. But the injury, Frances thought, looked rather mild for something that had produced such gallons of blood, and perhaps he was thinking the same, for he greeted her and her mother in a hang-dog, rueful way, and seemed to want to make light, now, of the entire affair. He’d slept like a dead man, he said, and had woken with the whopper of a headache, but aside from that he was perfectly all right. He’d enjoy spending the day with his feet up. No, Mrs Wray needn’t worry. He was only sorry that he’d given her such a time of it last night! He was afraid he hadn’t been very gentlemanly. He’d been thinking over some of the things he’d said, and wondered if he hadn’t had a touch of concussion. Yes, he’d certainly speak to the police. He’d do it on his way home from work tomorrow.

‘Oh, but you surely won’t think of going to your office tomorrow, Mr Barber?’

‘What, and miss the chance to parade these shiners!’

He caught Frances’s eye as he said this; she was just about able to return his smile. For Lilian was there, right there, sitting next to him, rigid with embarrassment, her eyelids fluttering, her expression so unnatural that it might have meant anything. Frances thought back to the way they had parted the night before:
Oh, Frances
. In the over-bright kitchen she had taken the words for an exclamation of tenderness, of wonder. Now she wasn’t so sure. She looked at the flushed exposed flesh of Lilian’s throat, and remembered kissing it. She remembered undoing those three pearl buttons, the give of the cloth as they pushed through.

As if Lilian knew what she was thinking, she raised a hand to the lapels of her blouse and, blushing harder, pulled them closed.

Frances touched her mother’s arm. ‘We oughtn’t to tire Leonard, Mother.’

‘No, indeed not.’ They rose and said their goodbyes.

And after that, unbelievably, the week-end began to be like any other, as Sunday, that dull, dull tyrant, stamped its foot. There was beef to be put in the oven, potatoes to be peeled, carrots and green beans to be washed and trimmed, pastry to be rolled, apples to be sliced, eggs, sugar and milk to be whisked into a custard… Frances saw to it all with an eye on the clock, over-conscious of the minutes ticking by. Surely now, she thought, her mother would settle down with a book or a paper. Surely Leonard, up on the sofa, would yawn and start to doze. Surely there’d be a way for her and Lilian to meet.

But her mother didn’t settle. If anything, she grew more restless, coming out to the kitchen, getting in the way. She regretted now, she said, having missed morning service. It would have given her the chance to share the news of Mr Barber’s assault. She’d begun to think that she and Frances ought to caution the neighbours. Could the food be left to itself for an hour? If the two of them set off right away, they could catch people in the lull before luncheon.

Frances looked at her in dismay. ‘You don’t really need me to tag along, do you?’

‘Well, yes, I think I should like you to come, when it’s such a serious matter as this.’

And seeing how pinched she looked, Frances resigned herself to it. She moved the pans from the stove and did her best to put herself tidy. They called on their immediate neighbours first, the Goldings on one side, the elderly Desborough sisters on the other. They crossed the road to the Dawsons, then went down to the Lambs, then climbed the hill by the cinder lane and finished up at Mrs Playfair’s. Everyone, of course, responded in the same way. To think of such a thing happening in the neighbourhood! On their very door-steps, practically! Yes, the police must certainly be informed. Mr Lamb would talk to them himself. No, nothing had been the same since the War. Civilised behaviour had gone out of the window. It was all very well to blame lack of employment, but the plain fact was there were jobs aplenty; it was the men who put themselves out of work by insisting on unrealistic wages. They had had to be conscripted into defending their country while the sons of the gentry had willingly laid down their lives. And now respectable people feared to walk down their own street!

Frances couldn’t bear it. At Braemar she left the drawing-room while Mrs Playfair was in full flow, and wandered through the open French windows to the garden. She felt so hollowed out by tiredness and uncertainty that she seemed to be floating. The Siamese cats trotted beside her along the gravel paths; she passed the bench where she had once sat with limp Mr Crowther, and arrived at last at the garden pond. A few stout orange fish were just visible in the murk, and a leaf was travelling across the surface of the water as if propelled by tiny oars. That made her think, with a pang, of Ewart, of the ‘little row-boat’. She remembered being squashed beside him on Netta’s sofa. It felt like a century ago. Then, clear across the garden, she heard the midday
ting
,
ting
,
ting
of one of Mrs Playfair’s clocks, and – What in God’s name was she doing there? She ought to be back with Lilian. Why had she left her, without a word, without even any kind of note? She began almost to panic about it. She had the idea that the two of them had whipped something into life the night before, something like a humming top that, unless she were at home to keep up its whirl, would falter, would tilt, would clip the ground and skitter away to a standstill.

But perhaps the faltering, the skittering, had already occurred. For when, in a fizz of impatience, she got her mother back to the house; when she had climbed the stairs and heard Leonard giving one of his leisurely yodelling yawns; when she had passed the sitting-room doorway and glimpsed Lilian herself, blandly shaking a Sunday table-cloth out of its folds, it seemed for an unbalancing moment as if she might have slipped back in time, or else as if the embrace in the scullery, her hand between Lilian’s legs – as if it had all been some sort of hallucination.

She went into her bedroom, began numbly to take off her outdoor things; and she was just easing a foot from its shoe when she saw that on the cabinet beside her bed someone had placed a sprig of silk flowers in a red-and-gold jar. The flowers were blue forget-me-nots, and might have come from the trimming on a hat. The jar could only have belonged to Lilian. She went across to it, lifted the flowers to her face, touched her lips to the dainty silk petals. The thought that some time in the past hour, and all, presumably, without Leonard’s knowledge, Lilian had found the flowers, had perhaps cut them from their setting, had put them into the jar, had slipped in here with them – the thought set off a quick, sharp movement inside her, a wriggling sensation, like a fish on a hook. She gazed at the wall of her room. How far was Lilian from her now? Fifteen feet? Twenty, at most? She heard Leonard yawning again.
Oh, go away
, she begged him silently as the yawn extended itself into another yodel.
Go away! Go anywhere! For ten minutes! For five!
She felt no trace of guilt at thinking it, just as she had felt none the night before while making love to his wife. She saw him simply as some tiresome negligible thing that was keeping her from Lilian, like the bricks in the wall, the mortar, the paper, the air.

But he did not go away. And the roast was over-browning. So she gave up and went downstairs, counting on his coming to visit the WC; planning to dart up to Lilian the moment he did. Perversely, he didn’t appear. In mounting frustration, she drained the vegetables, stirred the gravy… But it wasn’t until hours later, when the lunch had been eaten and the dishes washed and dried, and she had almost given up on the day as utterly wasted, wasted, that she finally heard him on the stair. She left it a moment to be sure, then made an excuse to her mother and went softly and swiftly upstairs.

Lilian must have known that she would come: she was hovering in the sitting-room doorway, looking not at all how she’d looked that morning; looking flushed in a different way; looking open-eyed, open-faced. They stood on the landing, close together but too nervous to embrace.

‘You left me flowers,’ whispered Frances.

‘You don’t mind that I went into your room?’

‘I’ve been longing to see you all day.’

‘I’ve been longing for it, too. I didn’t dare —’

‘Have you? I thought, when I saw you this morning —’

‘Oh, my heart was beating like mad! I thought it would beat right out of me! Didn’t you see? I thought Len and your mother would be sure to notice.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to look at me. I thought you were regretting the whole thing.’

Lilian bit her lip, closed her eyes, shook her head in a sort of shiver – That was all there was time for. The back door banged and they sprang apart.

But Leonard went off to work the next morning, just as he had promised; and a little later, it being a Monday, Mrs Wray also left the house, to spend her customary three or four hours with the vicar. Frances was in the kitchen, putting chops in the meat-safe, when her mother said goodbye. The instant she heard the front door close she washed her hands, took off her apron, went cautiously out to the hall. And again she found Lilian waiting for her at the top of the stairs. She was barefoot, and dressed, as she had been on Saturday night, in her nightgown and wrapper; her hair, however, was tidier, as if she had taken trouble with it.

The detail plucked at Frances’s heart. She climbed the final few steps, then slowed. They had the house to themselves at last, and were suddenly shy with each other. They stood a yard apart. Lilian said, ‘I dreamt about you, Frances.’

‘What did you dream?’

‘We were in a motor-car, going fast. A man was driving. I was afraid, but you held my hands.’

Frances said, after a moment, ‘Let me hold them now. Come into the bedroom. Let me hold them there.’

She had left the curtains drawn against the bright July morning, and once she had closed the door the plunge into twilight made them shyer than ever. They stepped towards each other with nervousness, and the embrace, when it came, felt stiff, even awkward. But then they kissed; and the kiss unfurled, unfolded like a bolt of rippling silk. After a minute of it, Lilian drew free to put her hands to Frances’s face.