by Stef Penney
He lets out a pent-up breath.
‘I hoped not. I’ve often thought of that time in Neqi. You may not agree – you will tell me if I am presumptuous – but I felt when we met that there was a . . . an affinity. Is that presumptuous?’
She feels him looking at her, but doesn’t dare meet his eyes. ‘No. I felt it too.’
‘But . . ’ She hears him smile; an attempt at levity. ‘I’m aware that much time has passed since then, and if you regret coming here, it is no matter.’
Looking up, Flora experiences another shock. She reads appeal and doubt, the possibility of rejection.
‘Do you regret it?’ Flora asks, in a whisper. At that instant, all her doubts and cavils vanish and are replaced by a single, anguished fear.
‘No, I don’t regret it at all.’
She feels something like a blush steal over her whole body. She is unaware that, at this moment, she is smiling.
‘Nor I.’
He smiles, looks delighted, and his face becomes familiar. The look in his eyes warms her. The way his cheeks crease when he smiles – she could never forget that.
‘I was afraid you would be disappointed when you saw me again, that you would think, What a poor, meagre creature he is, with his old-man’s hair.’
‘No.’
She moves her fingers until they rest lightly against his hand on the table. Even the clock holds its breath. Flora draws her hand away, and they both sit back, looking around at the new world they are in.
‘Do you have any engagements for this evening?’
‘No,’ she says, terrified, her eyes on the tablecloth. She will remember its pattern as long as she lives.
‘Would you do me the honour of dining with me, then?’ he asks, with such comically exaggerated politeness that she laughs.
.
In her room, she is thankful for the time alone. She has no doubt that they understand each other, but the knowledge only creates a different anxiety. She is crossing a border into a new and dangerous country whose customs are unknown to her. She confronts her reflection, looks for signs of wickedness, a burning mark that must have sprung up, but sees only the imperfections in the mirror, as if her face has less substance than the glass. She lifts her chin; her face looks dim and unreal. She has the sensation of falling.
‘Shall we walk a little?’ Jakob says, when they emerge from the restaurant into the night. He glances at the fog, which has thickened while they were eating. ‘I would say we could have some fresh air, but I’m not sure that is available.’
He offers her his arm, and she takes it, aware of the firmness of his bicep through her glove and his sleeve, but taking care not to walk too close to him. Both walk more slowly than they would like, but then, they don’t know where they are going. The fog confounds them, making streets they passed through earlier unfamiliar and disorienting.
‘This way, I think . . . Fog in Greenland was never like this, was it? Sometimes it was violet, or yellow, but I don’t recall it being brown.’
He is trying to set her at ease. Flora could hardly bring herself to eat, has no idea what was on her plate, or what they talked about, and drank too much wine. She could only meet his eyes for the briefest of moments, as if his gaze would shrivel her. Her heart is thumping so hard she is sure it must be visible through her coat.
‘I think the main street is just down here. Flora, are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’m just . . .’
She looks at him, and presses a hand to her breastbone. Breathing is a struggle. He stops and looks at her with concern, one hand lightly holding her arm.
‘I’m sure we’re only a few minutes from your hotel. I will walk you there. Tomorrow, if you wish, we could . . .’
Like a sleepwalker, she floats towards him – she has no memory of taking steps – and kisses him, bumping into his jaw, jerking back as he turns to her, and then his mouth finds hers. She has not anticipated this moment – not exactly – but is aware of his lips being first cold and then warm, dry and then wet, like butter in her mouth, and she thinks, Yes.
A passer-by, from nowhere, mutters an indistinct, though clearly coarse, remark.
Flora pulls back, again can’t meet his eye. ‘I feel as though everyone knows,’ she whispers.
‘They don’t. Anyway, they don’t care.’
‘But is it really possible?’
‘Anything is possible. Anything you want.’
She lifts her eyes at last.
‘Flora, you look as though you’re being tortured, and I don’t want to torture you. Come, I will walk you back to your hotel.’
Flora fixes her eyes on his fog-bedewed shoulder. ‘Can we go to your room?’
Jakob looks positively alarmed. ‘Now? Are you sure?’
She almost wants to laugh at his expression. She nods. ‘If you want to, that is.’
His face changes and he grins. ‘I want to. I just wish you didn’t look as though you were being led to your doom.’
Up to this point, she has not thought, specifically, whether she desires him or not. But at this moment she knows. She wants to make him happy . . . and hopefully, herself, although she isn’t confident about that. They kiss again, for longer, and she opens her mouth against his. His tongue stirs her, engendering a restless ache. His hands are on her back, chastely still; there is an uncomfortable space between them. Flora wants to wind her arms round his waist; she wants to feel his body against hers and, as she steps inside his coat, his arms tighten around her. With a shock that is also a thrill, she feels his erection against her belly, and presses against it. Her own boldness excites her. It makes her think, Yes, this is possible.
When they finally pull apart, he looks into her face, his eyes slightly dazed and soft, faintly embarrassed by the evidence of his desire.
In complicit silence, they turn towards the Victoria, her arm in his. At least, that is the intention, but after a couple of turnings, they realise they are lost. The buildings are meaner, the streetlamps fewer and dimmer. There is a pungency of drains.
‘Perhaps this way . . . I will ask someone.’ Jakob sets off confidently. But the streets are empty of people, and the windows of the houses lightless. A huge, shapeless cat with sulphurous eyes crouches on a sill, regarding them with spite.
‘I think we should be heading over there.’ She points to their left.
Jakob smiles a rather sickly smile. ‘Perhaps. We should be able to manage this – we are, after all, explorers.’
Flora hiccups with laughter, and because she is nervous and they are lost, and, because a hiccup is not a dignified form of expression, she giggles and can’t stop. He joins in. The cat turns its back, tail twitching.
‘We may starve . . .’
‘. . . in the back streets of . . . Where are we? Liverpool.’
‘They will find our bones in years to come, picked clean by’ – a string of young men in bowlers appears at the end of the street – ‘swells.’
Jakob lowers his voice as they pass the nearest man, whose eyes, from a pallid slab of a face, rake Flora with a hungry glance. ‘I think you have lured me here on purpose, and now your confederates are going to set upon me, an innocent tourist, and rob me . . . Well, they will be disappointed.’
‘I have no confederates.’ She smiles at him. ‘And I don’t think you are an innocent tourist.’
As they reach the end of the next street, they both recognise the thoroughfare. More lights and hansoms; a gas man mending a streetlight; people. And there, in the distance, is the Victoria Hotel, ablaze with light like a beacon of sin. The bubble of laughter in Flora’s throat disappears.
Jakob tells her to go in first. She walks past the desk with a thumping heartbeat, but no one looks up as she passes. Jakob joins her on the landing. He takes her by the elbow and they walk along the corridor, in silence, like any c
ouple who have something or nothing on their minds.
.
Jakob stirs up the fire and insists she take the armchair in front of it. She holds her hands out to the flames. He opens the wardrobe and takes out a bottle of wine and two glasses, and proffers them with an ironic flourish.
‘Oh, thank you.’
She accepts a glass of wine. She doesn’t really want it, but holding the glass gives her something to do. He sits on the rug close to her chair. She thinks, He has done this before.
They touch their glasses, self-consciously, though neither can or will name their toast. They have gone beyond small talk without arriving at anywhere else. Flora looks to the window. The curtains are drawn; the stars are not visible, and would be no help if they were. She, who is sure of herself at sea, without landmarks, is lost here. She takes a sip of wine, which turns out to be a mouthful. She prays: Help me; make me less afraid.
At length, though it is possible only a minute has passed, Jakob takes her glass and puts it down; he kneels, facing her, and takes her hand in both of his. She is aware of his geologist’s callouses, the difference between her hand and his.
‘If you’ve changed your mind, it’s all right.’
Flora shakes her head. She presses his knuckles to her lips, feeling the ridges and calloused skin. He turns his hand to cup her cheek, and rough pads of skin graze her face. She brings her face closer to his, aware of the smells of soap and tobacco and some scented lotion that barbers use. And then his mouth is against hers.
Flora slides into the heat in his mouth, tastes the bitterness of the wine, feels his tongue against hers, and feels her limbs loosening. It is not one kiss followed by another, but a slow, deliberate process of dissolution, and it undoes her. She touches the softness of his hair, feels the bones of his skull, the movements of his jaw. His hand goes from her arm to her waist, and heat flares from the epicentre of his touch. She presses towards him. His hand creeps up to cup her breast and a moan escapes him.
She is subject to a sudden and complex restructuring: finite to formless, solid to liquid . . . She gasps and turns her head away.
‘What is it?’
She pushes him away and leaps to her feet.
‘Flora? I’m sorry . . . Are you all right?’
Flora sees the washstand on one hand, the bedroom door on the other, wavers, then rushes to the washstand and is unstoppably, unbelievably sick into the bowl.
Paralysed with horror, she hunches over the stand. The smell of vomit assaults her nostrils, from inside and out. The monogrammed ‘V’ in the bottom of the bowl is obscured by a stew of wine and undigested cutlet. She coughs, her throat burning. Jakob is next to her.
‘You poor darling, here . . .’ He pours a glass of water and holds it out. He doesn’t touch her. She keeps her eyes on the glass, rinses her mouth.
His voice sharp with distress, he says, ‘Flora, I’m so sorry. Are you ill? Tell me, please.’
She shakes her head, hot tears in her eyes. She brushes away a strand of hair that is sticking to her lip.
‘I’m sorry – I don’t know . . . I’m sorry.’
‘Are you finished?’ Jakob takes her arm and he leads her back to the armchair.
‘Sit down.’ He is almost comically solicitous. ‘Are you hot?’
She nods, and he opens the window, after a brief struggle and an oath. The smells of soot and fog mingle with the smell of vomit. It is not altogether an improvement.
‘Shall I send for a doctor?’ He crouches beside her, looking into her face, although she can’t bring herself to look at him.
‘I’m not ill. I’m . . . in a tumult.’
Hesitantly, he strokes her hand, very lightly. As though his touch is the last straw, a tear spills out of each eye. He puts his arms round her hunched shoulders. Her tears are blotted by his jacket.
‘I’m sorry . . . I . . . I can’t.’
He says, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ then relinquishes her. She feels abandoned, suddenly chilled to the bone. Is this what her morality is made of? The inability to go through with flouting it?
Jakob takes the bowl into the corridor. She hears his voice as he calls to a member of staff: ‘Excuse me, I’m afraid my wife was taken ill . . .’ His voice is crisp and commanding: he lies convincingly, a part of her registers. The voices fade to a murmur. She slumps back in the armchair, a hand over her eyes. The door opens and closes softly.
‘They’re coming back with another bowl.’ He hovers inside the door. ‘Flora, tell me what you would like. I can send for a doctor . . . If you want to be alone here, I can leave you . . . Or I’ll call a cab to take you to your hotel. Please say what you would rather.’
When she dares look at him, his face is strained. The bruise on his forehead seems more livid in gaslight. How ridiculous we are, she thinks. And we think we choose the course of our lives.
‘I’m sorry, this is horrible. Me, I mean, not you.’ Another tear slips down her cheek and she wipes it away. ‘Please know that I don’t regret anything . . . but perhaps you do, now.’
Jakob comes over to her. ‘I regret that you are suffering, that’s all. I’ll do anything I can to alleviate it.’
A knock at the door. Jakob takes the clean bowl and returns it to the washstand. She thinks of how he called her his wife, how impersonal it sounded.
‘Well . . .’ He waits for her to say what she wants, but she doesn’t know. ‘Perhaps the best thing is for me to take another room here. If you write a note, I will fetch some of your things.’
.
When he has gone, she exhales with relief. Every nerve and sinew in her body seems to have been strung tight for hours – days. She is light-headed with exhaustion. She shuts the window against the fog. She washes the strands of hair that still reek. She opens the wardrobe and trails a hand across his clothes. They are workaday, well worn. The only new clothes are the ones he is wearing.
She undoes her hair and dries it in front of the fire. Then, as quickly as she can, she undresses, terrified that he will return while she is doing so. She takes off her jacket and blouse, fumbling with the buttons, her skirt and petticoats, her shoes and stockings. She rinses her mouth again. She takes off her camisole, and is left in her chemise and drawers. The bed seems to have been made so tightly as to defy anybody’s attempts to get into it. Perhaps they know, she thinks to herself, with a hysterical giggle. At last, she hauls back the bedclothes enough to get in, shuddering at the cold sheets. Finally, she lies down and pulls the blankets up to her chin. Her heart is going like a piston. Clasping her arms, she is revolted by her gooseflesh. She thinks of paintings of seductresses lolling naked and smooth on cotton sheets – clearly in different, warmer climates. If she ever believed in the reality of such depictions, she now knows them to be false. She is shivering, clammy, afraid. She wonders if this is what it feels like to be sinful: mainly, it transpires, that is cold and rather ill. She thought it would be easier.
.
Jakob’s despondency on leaving the Victoria has quite lifted by the time he reaches the Adelphi. He is even, in some measure (pathetic to admit – probably a sign of advancing age), relieved. He has not slept more than two hours together for the past week and is more tired than he can remember. In the hushed warmth of the Adelphi lounge, as he waits for Flora’s overnight case to be brought downstairs, he pretends to read a newspaper, and allows his eyes to close. The ordeal of the voyage – he had joked about it, but it took its toll – steals up on him. The gorgeous luxury of solid ground – which even now he doesn’t quite trust . . . He could fall asleep right here.
But now that he is alone with his thoughts, he feels an upwelling of delight and . . . what? Hopefulness? Perhaps he is not entirely without merit, because she came here to be with him. Since reading her note this morning, he had been in a fever of excitement that drove him to take a bath, then to
the barber’s shop; an excitement seasoned with anxiety that he had misunderstood, or that she would take one look at him and change her mind. But she had kissed him; she had thrillingly, deliberately pressed her body against his . . . There was a touching candour in her actions, a sense that she was offering her entire self. Behind the Evening Mercury, he relives the exquisite sensation of nestling against her soft, unstayed body, and his hand involuntarily hollows, as if it still cups her breast . . . His fluctuating tumescence, nagging for the past several hours, quickens again.
Carrying her case and some food bought from a stall, he knocks gently on the door. There is no answer. Opening the door, he sees with a shock – a deep, galvanising thrill – that she is in his bed, then realises that she is asleep. Her breath is loud in her throat. She has turned out all the lamps but one, which picks out bright highlights in her hair. He puts the case on the dressing table, and is collecting his things when her breathing changes. He jumps like a startled thief.
‘Hello. I’m just taking my things to the other room. It’s on the floor above: number twenty. I’ve brought you something to eat, if you would like. You didn’t eat much earlier.’
‘Thank you. Please don’t go yet.’
She raises herself on one elbow. Her cheeks have a hint of colour. Her eyes glitter in the lamplight. Weariness and want tear him in different directions.
‘You’re very kind; I am causing you a great deal of trouble.’
‘No . . .’ He smiles, because it is patently untrue. ‘In any case, I am causing you more trouble, I think.’
‘I don’t want you to think that this is . . . I’m here because I want to be with you.’
She draws herself up to a sitting position, causing the bedding to fall down to her waist, and holds out her hand. Jakob comes over, his eyes drinking her in; a thin chemise is all that covers her nakedness. He takes her hand, aware of her heat, his coldness.
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes. Is it cold, outside?’
