by Anne Weale
Whether he would be able to do that tonight was an open question. She was beginning to arouse him merely by smiling at him, or crossing her long slim legs, or making some gesture with her hand that made him want to reach out and catch it and hold it against him. Which, of course, would immediately undo all his efforts to make her relax with him. There was a chasteness about her that he found both refreshing and exciting.
He remembered a conversation with his grandmother relating to her favourite musical My Fair Lady. She had been at the opening night of the original stage production in 1956. At the end of her life she had taken her mind off her illness by replaying the video of the film version. More than once Cam had watched it with her, and the line that had prompted their subsequent conversation was Professor Higgins’s complaint, ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’
‘The trouble is that nowadays girls are more like men,’ his grandmother had said, with a sigh. ‘Too much like them, in my view. Young men have always sown wild oats, but I don’t think girls should.’ She had been worried about one of her great-nieces who, not yet twenty, had already had several affairs.
When Cam had pointed out that sowing wild oats could not be done without female co-operation, Mrs Fielding, her perspective typical of her age group, had replied, ‘They should do it with older women, not the sort of girls they might marry.’
Despite her out-of-date views, Cam had been influenced by his grandmother. Apart from anything else, she and his grandfather had embodied the kind of lasting happiness that was a universal ideal.
In many ways, Liz reminded Cam of his grandmother. He knew they would have liked each other. What his parents would make of Liz he couldn’t tell. Not that their opinion mattered to him, but it might matter to her if she sensed they were hostile.
While Cam was thinking about her, Liz was relaxing in a scented bath. At least her body was relaxed and she was attempting, not altogether successfully, to think calming thoughts.
After her bath she did her nails and then used an expensive revitalising facial mask her aunt had given her at Christmas. These were things she usually did every Sunday but they helped to fill the time until seven.
It was a few minutes past the hour when she heard the rap of the knocker and went to let Cam in. He had changed into pale whipcord trousers and a cotton shirt finely checked in navy and white with a navy sweater slung round his shoulders, the sleeves casually tied across his chest.
‘Hi.’ He greeted her with a light kiss on the cheek. ‘You look very nice.’
‘Thank you.’ Because there was a significant drop in the temperature after dark, she had lit the fire and put on a long dark brown wool skirt—the colour of black chocolate—and a short-waisted clingy sweater of lambswool mixed with angora in pale blue.
‘What would you like to drink? Wine…gin…beer?’ She gestured for him to take the large wing chair by the fire that, like most of the furniture, she had bought from Beatrice Maybury.
‘Wine, please…red if you have it.’
Guessing he would like red wine to drink with their meal, she had already opened a bottle. He was still on his feet, looking at the print she had hung on the chimneybreast, when she brought him a glass. He remained standing until she sat down.
‘How do you cope with the firewood problem?’
‘You mean when it’s dumped in a pile in the street and has to be carried through the house to the back yard? Mrs Maybury didn’t mention that…and I didn’t think to ask her. I’d never lived in a house with no rear access before.’ Liz laughed. ‘Caveat emptor…let the buyer beware. I guess I was lucky that was the only hidden snag. It could have been something much worse. It’s hard work getting the wood through, but a two thousand kilo load lasts me a long time.’
‘You won’t have to do it any more,’ he reminded her. ‘When we’re married, I’ll be stacking the logs and laying the fires.’
‘I assumed you paid someone to do the stacking for you.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s a job I enjoy. There’s something satisfying about a well-stacked log store, and it’s good exercise. I like laying fires too. There’s an art in it.’
‘It seems an unlikely art for you to practise.’
‘There’s a streak of the boy scout in most men. Not that I ever was a scout. Were you a guide?’
‘No, I went to dancing classes run by a retired chorus girl. In her teens my mother had dreamed of becoming a dancer. She projected that frustrated ambition onto me. She wanted me to be picked for the school’s troupe who danced at charity shows. But, to her disappointment, I wasn’t. I quite liked tap, but I wasn’t much good at it.’
‘Can you remember the steps? Give me a demo.’
Liz hesitated. Then she got up, lifted her skirt to mid-calf and, on a patch of tiled floor between the rugs, did a short routine she remembered and sometimes danced in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘I’d like to see you do that in black fishnet tights,’ said Cam. ‘Can you do high kicks and splits?’
‘I could when I was twelve. I shouldn’t care to risk it now. I might do myself an injury,’ she said, laughing and letting down her skirt. ‘Excuse me a minute. I need to put something in the oven.’
‘I thought we were only going to have some fruit salad,’ he said, as she turned towards the kitchen.
‘We are, but I thought a small hot starter might be a good idea. It won’t take long.’
When she came back she asked him to help her move a small table, that normally lived against the wall that blocked off the staircase, to a position in the centre of the room.
Without being asked, Cam fetched the two upright chairs from where they stood when not in use. With two other chairs from upstairs, Liz could seat four people for dinner.
She had everything ready on a tray in the kitchen. It didn’t take long to lay the table.
‘Right: if you’ll sit there, I’ll bring in the starter,’ she said, hoping he wasn’t expecting anything spectacular.
She had to use oven mitts to handle the earthenware dish from the oven. ‘This is a poor man’s version of angels-on-horseback,’ she explained, setting it in front of him.
‘I like anything wrapped in hot bacon. What have you used instead of oysters?’
‘Pieces of banana…and I’ve also done anchovies on toast with a dab of alioli on them.’
Considering how many top-class restaurants he must have dined at, Cam was gratifyingly enthusiastic about her efforts. He couldn’t have been nicer had he been in love with her, she thought. But that was wishful thinking and she must not indulge in it.
It was important to keep her feet firmly on the ground and remind herself at regular intervals that it was only good manners, not affection, that made him such an agreeable companion.
The fruit salad did look rather special. She had mixed some strawberries and Chinese gooseberries with the glistening red seeds from the pomegranate and, in place of cream, she served queso fresco, the Spanish equivalent of fromage frais.
‘Did you know that the pomegranate is the symbol of Spain?’ she asked, while she was serving it. ‘A crowned pomegranate was Catherine of Aragon’s personal badge.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘When I was studying historical needlework at college. Stylised pomegranates appear on all sorts of period textiles. There are pomegranates in that copy of Elizabethan black-work that I worked for one of my exams. But most people wouldn’t recognise them as such.’
Cam rose from the table and went to look at the framed piece of embroidery she had indicated. When he came back, he said, ‘You’re a woman of many parts…tap dancer…expert embroiderer…what else am I going to discover about you?’
A sudden shiver of apprehension ran through her. What if she turned out to be a disaster in bed? What if, despite the excitement induced by his kisses, there came a point when…?
‘Not nearly as many discoveries as I’m going to make about you, I expect,’ she
said, trying to sound carefree. ‘Your life has been far more exciting than mine. I’ve never been outside Europe.’
‘That reminds me, after supper why don’t we take a look at the Spanish Tourist Board website and pick out a parador for our honeymoon?’ he suggested. ‘By the way, I’ve looked into the question of our getting married in Spain and I don’t think it’s going to be possible. There are no facilities for civil weddings at any of the British consulates. They suggest going down to Gibraltar as an alternative. But I think it would be easier to do it in London by special licence.’
‘Might the fact that I’m now a Spanish resident be a complication, do you think?’
‘Possibly. I’ll check. Up to now, I’ve never been here long enough to become a resident. That’s something else I must look into.’
Unlike Cam, Liz did not have a dishwasher. After supper, he insisted on washing up for her. Then they took their coffee and what was left of the wine upstairs to her workroom.
From force of habit she had left her bedroom door open. As she mounted the stairs ahead of him, she wondered what construction Cam would put on the sight of her double bed with its old-fashioned white cotton quilt and brass head and foot rails. Might he think she had left the door wide open deliberately?
The last time they had sat side by side at a computer she had felt uneasy and made an excuse to move away. This time she was still intensely aware of his nearness, but there was no way to avoid it. Nor, to be honest, did she want to.
‘Try keying in parador dot, e for España, s for Spain,’ Cam suggested, when she was online.
His guesswork proved correct. A moment later they were at the Paradores Website, where a map marked the locations of more than eighty paradores.
‘I’ll show you the ones I’ve stayed at.’ Cam put his hand over hers where it rested on the mouse and moved the cursor to a point near the north-east coast. Without removing his hand, he said, ‘Click there.’
The feel of his palm on the back of her hand did crazy things to her pulse-rate. ‘Why don’t we change places and you do the clicking?’ she suggested.
‘I like it the way we are. Don’t you?’
She could tell by the tone of his voice he was looking at her, not the screen, and that he was smiling.
Then he put his free hand on her shoulder, the one farthest from him, and moved the tips of his fingers over the softness of her sweater. ‘This looks and feels very strokable.’
‘We’re supposed to be doing a tour of the paradores,’ Liz said, her voice suddenly hoarse.
‘I’d rather be doing a tour of you,’ he said softly, and his hand moved down her back and moved slowly round her midriff till it lay over her ribs just below her left breast.
She stopped breathing. Or that was how it felt. As if she had gone into freeze mode, the way a computer sometimes did when its circuits became overloaded. The strange thing was that although all her normal responses had suddenly ceased to operate, others, normally dormant, were behaving like Geiger counters reacting to radiation.
There was nothing she could do but wait, staring blindly at the screen, for whatever was going to happen next. What happened was that Cam bent towards her and kissed the part of her neck just under her ear while, at the same time, his hand moved upwards to caress her breast.
‘Mmm…your skin smells delicious,’ he murmured, as his right hand stopped covering hers and came up to cradle her cheek and turn her face towards his.
There were moments, while he was kissing her mouth and gently fondling her breast, when Liz thought she could not contain the feelings he aroused, that he would be sure to guess the sensations he was inducing. But then, when the tension had built to the point when it had become almost unbearable, he took his mouth and his hand away.
‘You’re right…this won’t do,’ he said. ‘If we’re going to reserve these pleasures for our honeymoon, we had better get on with deciding where to spend it…and the sooner the better, don’t you think?’
Later, when they were downstairs, saying goodnight, Liz had a wild impulse to say, Don’t go. Stay with me tonight.
If he had kissed her, she might have done. But instead he bent over her hand in the most formal way, as if they were barely acquainted, not two people planning to marry.
After he had gone, knowing that she couldn’t sleep, she got ready for bed but then went back to the computer and retraced the route they had followed. Jarandella de la Vera…Sigüenza…Ciudad Rodrigo…Chinchon…all of them well worth a visit but none, in Cam’s view, the perfect place to start married life.
To her it was immaterial where they went. All she could think about was their wedding night and how it might turn out.
Tonight’s experience should have allayed her misgivings. As it had…until she remembered that long, long ago she had felt similar sensations. Kissing and touching was one thing. Full intercourse was another. Just because she had come close to ecstasy tonight did not mean she could take it for granted that all would be well when he finally took her to bed.
They flew to England from Valencia, an airport that, unlike Alicante, was not seething with expats and holidaymakers but catered mainly to Spaniards, most of them well-dressed people flying around Europe on business.
They also flew business class which to Liz, used to the cramped conditions in economy, was unaccustomed luxury. Also, she soon discovered, travelling with Cam was like travelling with a prince. Even when he wasn’t recognised, there was something about him that made people helpful and deferential. As his companion, she shared this special treatment.
At Heathrow, a driver was waiting to take them to Cam’s apartment in central London where, that evening, his close family were coming to a dinner party organised by a catering firm he had used before.
Cam’s flat was in a block overlooking the Thames and the view of the river from the large living room made it seem less citified than she had expected it to be.
‘On my grandfather’s advice, I bought a place to live as soon as I could afford to apply for a mortgage,’ he told her, while showing her round. ‘The way property prices have risen in London—or any big city—it hasn’t been difficult to keep upgrading, especially for a bachelor without any of the usual family overheads. If you like the flat, we’ll keep it. If you don’t, we’ll find somewhere else.’
He opened the door of a comfortable twin-bedded room. ‘You’ll be in here for the time being. My room overlooks the river and the third bedroom is an office with a sofa-bed for when my sisters and their children make use of the flat. I told them there wouldn’t be room for them here tonight.’
‘Won’t they think that strange? I mean usually…’
‘…people about to be married share a room,’ he finished for her. ‘Our sleeping arrangements are no one else’s business, and after three or four hours of their company you’ll be glad to see the back of them. Other people’s relations can be heavy going, though I think you’ll find Miranda on your wavelength. I have some phone calls to make and you’ll want to get unpacked.’
Left on her own in his guest room, Liz surveyed her surroundings. The decor had the hallmarks of a professional designer’s work and, though tasteful, lacked the personal feel of his house in Spain. She guessed that he didn’t regard this place as a home so much as a necessary pied-à-terre and an investment.
A little while later Cam knocked on the door. When she opened it, he said, ‘I have to go out for about an hour. The catering people won’t show up much before seven. But in case you should be in the bath, or having a nap, I’ll tell the hall porter to let them in. See you later.’
He didn’t kiss her goodbye as a normal husband-to-be would have done, she noticed. Since the night he had come to supper, his behaviour towards her had been as circumspect as if they were living in a more conventional era. Was that because the waiting time was putting a strain on his willpower? Or was there some other reason?
It crossed her mind that he might have arranged to visit one of his former girlf
riends with a view to releasing the controls he was exerting in his relationship with Liz. For a moment the thought made her steam with anger. Then she forced herself to dismiss it. If she thought Cam capable of that sort of behaviour, what was she doing committing her future to him?
Liz didn’t emerge from her room till half an hour before the guests were due to arrive. She was wearing the dress she had worn to the Drydens’ party, but with her hair in a French pleat instead of loose.
Cam was nowhere to be seen, but the catering team was in action. A long table, probably a board on trestles concealed by a long cloth, had been set up and laid for twelve. A lot of well-organised activity was taking place in the kitchen. Sophisticated flower arrangements that had not been there earlier had been placed around the living room.
‘Would you like some champagne, madam?’ asked one of the caterers, coming out of the kitchen. She was wearing a discreet little black dress and looked in her early twenties.
The ‘madam’ made Liz feel ancient. ‘Yes, thank you, I would.’
She had taken her first sip when Cam appeared. He was wearing a dark grey suit with a lighter grey shirt and mimosa-coloured silk tie. His hair was damp from the shower as it had been the first time they met.
His gaze swept over her. ‘Do you think a market bracelet is right for that dress?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She looked at the beads encircling her left wrist. ‘I think it’s perfect.’ Something impelled her to add, ‘Far more romantic than diamonds.’
‘Diamonds are for queens or trophy wives. I think these are more your style.’ He took from his pocket a long slim leather-covered box containing a string of stones that gleamed like crystallised sea water. Taking the bracelet from its satin bed, he put the box aside and came towards her.
‘Hold this a moment while I take that thing off.’ Having removed the beads, he tossed them into a nearby wastepaper basket. Then he took the aquamarines from her and fastened the clasp and safety clasp.
