‘Then why didn’t you lot join the League of Nations?’ snapped Simon, sounding remarkably like Veronica at her most acerbic. ‘You could have talked tough to Hitler and saved everyone a lot of trouble. Failing that, why didn’t you join the war in 1939? If you’d thrashed the Germans with your tough fighting when they invaded France, it’d all be over now.’
‘
Now
you’re talking!’ cried the Lieutenant Colonel. ‘You’re right on the money
there
, pal!’ And off he went on a long rant about the incompetence of the British Army. Finally Daphne interrupted with a ‘Yes, darling, we know all that,’ and dragged him away, onto the dance floor.
‘Are there any
quiet
Americans?’ wondered the girl sitting opposite Julia.
‘Yes, but Daphne only ever goes out with the loud ones,’ sighed Julia. ‘The loud, handsome ones.’
‘Do you
really
think he’s handsome?’ said the naval officer beside her, his face falling. I’d met him before, but I’d forgotten his name. I knew he was in love with Julia, and that she was too kind to banish him entirely from her presence, even though she wasn’t interested in anything but friendship.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get married again,’ she’d told me sadly, late last year. ‘Well – perhaps when the war’s over, to some nice man who’d make a good father. But I don’t think the war will
ever
be over, not really. Do you?’
And, studying Simon’s tight, shuttered face that evening, I realised the war
would
go on forever. Even if it ended tomorrow, we’d still have to live with its consequences until the day we died. I reached out and touched his hand.
‘Dance with me?’ I asked, and he rose at once and led me into the middle of the swaying couples. Things were better there. With his arm round my waist and his other hand clasping mine, I could feel him begin to unwind. The band segued into a slower song, and I rested my cheek against his shoulder. He drew me in closer, gazed down into my eyes and smiled.
How odd,
I thought.
I probably know him better than anyone
,
right at this moment, and yet I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s thinking.
Two songs later, our main courses arrived and he led me back to our table. Under cover of the clink of silver on china, Julia leaned over and whispered, ‘Is he all right?’ But then Daphne and the Lieutenant Colonel started up a noisy debate about where we ought to go dancing after dinner.
‘Julia, you absolutely
must
come with us, I
know
you’re not on duty tomorrow,’ Daphne shouted across the table. ‘And you too, Sophie and Simon!’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, with a glance at Simon. ‘Not tonight.’
Later, as I was saying goodbye to Julia, I had the impression she wanted to say something further. But then Simon walked over with my wrap, and she simply smiled and thanked us both for coming. Then we left.
The night, when we stepped out into it, was cool and quiet after the bustle of the restaurant. I tilted my head back, and a roll of black velvet, sprinkled with diamonds, unfurled before my eyes. It went on forever. It was almost like being back at Montmaray. It was dizzying. Simon grabbed my hand to stop me falling backwards, and he kept hold of it after he’d helped me into the taxi, and he was still holding it as I searched for my key outside the flat, even though it would have been more sensible to use both hands. But I didn’t want him to let go. And
he
didn’t want to let go, either.
I think, now, that I knew what was about to happen. It was as inevitable as the sun setting at the end of a long, hot day.
Anyway, we got inside. He closed the door (one-handedly) and we walked straight through the kitchen and the sitting room, down the narrow hallway into my tiny bedroom, and I turned on the light, and then he took me in his arms and kissed me. I’d been kissed before, of course, by Peter, that Polish pilot. That had been lovely. But it bore about as much resemblance to Simon’s kiss as a flickering candle does to the blazing sun. I felt as though I’d burst into flame, using up all the oxygen in the room. I gasped for air and he did, too – it was
both
of us burning up.
Finally, he pulled away and said, ‘Stop. Sophie, we
can’t
.’
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and said, ‘All right. Fine.’ It wasn’t fine at all, I wanted it to go on and on. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Undo my buttons. Then go, if that’s what you want.’
He turned me round, and neither of us moved for a long, silent moment. Then his hands swept up my hair (which had all fallen down by that stage) and I felt his lips on the back of my neck, and I
melted
. I could barely stand up long enough for him to get the dress unfastened. He laid me down on the bed and I tugged him on top of me and . . .
And now I’m at a loss as to how to describe it. His hands, that’s what I recall most vividly, his warm palms smoothing across my skin, his fingers lacing with mine when I stretched my arms over my head. But then there were his lips, and his tongue, and oh, just the
weight
of him. He kept breaking off and saying ‘Is this all right?’ and I’d say, ‘Yes!’ or, occasionally, something like, ‘No, your shirt’s scratching me. Take it off.’
It did turn out to be a bit messier than I’d expected, but on the whole, I was too caught up in breathtaking sensation to remember to feel shy or awkward. The other thing that struck me was how he was so much more knowledgeable about what I might like than
I
was. It wasn’t that
everything
he did was blissful – some of it was merely nice. But at one point, he slid my fingers down my own body and stopped kissing me just long enough to say, ‘Here,’ and it was like flicking a switch, setting off a shiver that ended with a jolt of electricity flashing all the way up my spine. Why hadn’t I already
known
that? (I didn’t need to wonder how
he
knew it. Years of practice with girls other than me, of course.)
At last, we fell asleep, huddled together on my very narrow iron bed. Even then, he kept hold of me. When I woke a few hours later, his arm was curled round my waist, his face was pressed into my neck and the rest of him was squashed against the wall. It couldn’t have been at all comfortable, but when I twisted round to examine his face, he looked more peaceful than he had all day.
I considered that he must trust me a great deal, to allow me to see him at his most vulnerable. Then I started thinking deep thoughts about love and romance and intimacy and what we’d just done, and I pictured them all as interlocking circles, overlapping only in parts. But then I fell asleep again, and the next thing I knew, the blackout curtain had been pulled aside, sunlight was striping the blanket covering me, and Simon was burning toast in the kitchen.
We pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed, after Simon delivered an entirely predictable ‘Oh no, how could I have done this to you?’ speech, and I told him to stop being such an idiot. I wasn’t interested in being the subject of a new load of guilt on his part. (I hadn’t been drunk. I was of age. I could have stopped it any time I’d wanted. If anything,
I’d
taken advantage of
him
. And it wasn’t as though we’d done anything that could have dire and irreversible consequences – technically, I was still a virgin.) It wasn’t very difficult to convince him. I held out my arms and he hesitated for about half a second before crawling back into them. Not that I thought for a moment that this was due to my captivating beauty or alluring nature. It was simply that Simon was lonely and desperately unhappy and in need of comfort, and I was there, able to offer comfort.
Still, there was nothing noble or self-sacrificing about my own actions. I’d been feeling miserable, too, and it was wonderful to have his undivided and expert attention, especially after I’d been infatuated with him for all those years. I’d been curious, too. What was sex
like
? Now I realised it was both overwhelming
and
nowhere near as significant as people made out. I was the same person I’d been the day before. I hadn’t fallen either into or out of love with Simon. I wasn’t sure love had much to do with it at all. However, I was certainly feeling very
fond
of him as I lay there, stroking his chest and marvelling at how different the bodies of men and women were, quite apart from the obvious bits. Wherever I had soft curves, he was all hard lines and planes. It seemed odd that some people – Simon, for instance – could be attracted to
both
sorts of bodies. Then the thought occurred that he was here with me because I was the closest he could find to
Toby
. I didn’t like that thought at all, so I shoved it away and concentrated on other things. How pretty the pink glow of sunset looked when filtered through my dusty window, for one thing. How hungry I was, for another.
‘I never know what you’re thinking,’ Simon sighed. ‘Especially when you smile like that,’ he added.
‘Actually, I was wondering whether there’s anything interesting in the kitchen to cook for dinner,’ I said, quite truthfully. ‘Or we could go to that British Restaurant down the road. The food’s not too bad and it’s really cheap and we wouldn’t need our ration books for it. What do you think?’
‘I think,’ he said, propping himself up on one elbow, ‘that we should get married.’
I started to laugh, then saw his face.
‘Why not?’ he said, hurt suffusing his voice. ‘People
do
get married, when they care about one another. Don’t you think I’d look after you? You once said I was hard-working and clever. You thought I’d make a good husband
then
.’
I couldn’t believe he’d remembered that conversation. Or that we were having
this
conversation. Usually, conversations with Simon made some sort of
sense
.
‘Is it because your family wouldn’t approve?’ he went on, pulling away from me.
‘You
are
my family,’ I reminded him. ‘Besides, it’s not even legal, is it?’
‘Of course it is. Royalty are always marrying their cousins. Look at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Anyway, we aren’t officially cousins.’ Then he grabbed my hand. ‘Oh, Sophie! Don’t think about what everyone will say! Don’t worry about any of that. We’ll go away,
far
away. Scotland or, or . . . Ireland! Yes, Ireland’s neutral! There’s no war there.’
‘Is this about you leaving the air force? Because you can’t just
desert
! Simon, this is ridiculous.’
I sat up and retrieved my dressing gown from the floor. When I turned round, he was glowering at the wall behind me.
‘You haven’t even mentioned the word
love
,’ I said gently. ‘You just want to escape. So do I, sometimes. But this is real life.’
‘Just say
yes
or
no
,’ he said tightly.
I leaned over and kissed the top of his tousled dark hair. ‘No,’ I said. ‘But thank you for asking.’ He averted his face from mine, so I sighed and walked off to the bathroom. When I came back, he was in Veronica’s room, getting dressed.
‘You don’t have to go,’ I said, but he only frowned and concentrated on knotting his tie. ‘Well – can you at least promise me that you’re going back to your job?’
He buttoned his tunic and glanced around for his cap, his lips pressed together.
‘Oh,
honestly
!’ I said. He was probably already regretting his impulsive proposal. He’d probably only done it because he’d thought he
should
. He always did have such old-fashioned, hypocritical ideas about women. I stomped off to get dressed myself, and a few minutes later, he appeared in my doorway.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
Asking what he was apologising
for
might have led to another argument, so I simply said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’ He came over and kissed me, very quickly. ‘Are you
really
going?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be on the early shift tomorrow.’
I didn’t like the uncertain sound of that verb phrase, but he refused to discuss it.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, turning his cap around in his hands. ‘I’ll be fine. I have to go now.’
He didn’t even want me to walk him up to the taxi rank. I bit back an entreaty for him to write to me, because I was starting to feel I’d forfeited my role as his confidante. He did look better than he had when he’d arrived – there was
that
, at least.