‘This is Mr Troy.’ I glanced at him. He was standing. ‘I invited him for a coffee.’ I nodded to my sister. ‘My sister, Xanthe.’
Xanthe held out her hand for a brief shake before sitting down at the table. All trace of the tears had gone and she looked her normal pretty self. Oh hell, I thought. This is the point at which Amyas’s interest in me dies.
‘I believe you’ve been going out with Clive Powell.’ He had resumed his seat and spoke to her in an almost big-brotherly way.
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘What of it?’
Amyas shrugged. ‘He’s a rotter. A rotter and a fascist. And a married rotter and Fascist.’
‘Oh!’ Xanthe cried. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’ She scowled at me. ‘You told him that. I hate you.’
‘No I didn’t,’ I snapped back. ‘I just said his name.’
‘How do you know him?’ Xanthe demanded, glaring at Amyas. ‘I’ve never seen you at any of the parties I go to. Who are you, anyway?’
He grinned. ‘I’m Amyas Troy. And as for how I know Clive Powell, well, let’s say I know everyone.’
Surprisingly, that shut her up and she sat for a moment annoyingly tapping a coffee spoon on the table. Then she said to me. ‘You can drive me to the station. I’m going back to London.’
‘No,’ I argued wearily. ‘You have to stay here.’
‘I don’t. And I’m not going to. If you won’t take me, I’ll get a taxi.’
She was quite right, of course. Xanthe didn’t have to stay anywhere. She was over twenty-one and had her own money. We both had money, substantial amounts left to us in our grandfather’s will. To all intents and purposes we were wealthy young women, despite the fact that we still lived at home.
‘Oh all right,’ I grumbled, ‘but you explain it to Mother.’ I was glad that she was going because that meant I could get back to the paper. The only thing was, I’d met Amyas. I looked at him. He was leaning back in his chair with his bare feet up on the veranda railing. He looked as if he owned the place.
‘If you wait till tomorrow,’ I said, turning back to Xanthe, ‘I’ll drive you to London. I can’t go today, it’s too late now. Besides, I’ll have to close the house up.’
‘No. I’m going today.’
In the end she agreed to wait and take the night sleeper and I set about looking for something to make for lunch. ‘Will you stay and eat with us?’ I asked Amyas.
‘Thank you,’ he smiled.
Lunch was a jolly affair. He charmed Xanthe out of her bad temper, talking about people she knew and dropping seductive bits of gossip. I heard her say, ‘No, not her, surely?’ then screaming with laughter while I was in the kitchen making a crab salad.
‘We’ve only got beer to drink with this,’ I said taking the tray of salad on to the veranda table.
‘What could be better?’ asked Amyas, looking straight into my eyes and smiling.
I tried not to watch him as we ate our lunch but he fascinated me. He was using his fork to push the crab around the plate, eating the salad and bread only and pausing now and then to drink deeply from his glass of beer. Perhaps, I thought, he doesn’t like crab and is too polite to say so. But I said nothing and when we finished I took his plate away without asking. He had no problem with the bowl of fresh strawberries.
‘What do you do with your life?’ he asked us when we had put down our spoons.
‘Do?’ asked Xanthe. ‘What d’you mean, do?’
He shrugged. ‘Do you have a job?’
She laughed. ‘No, of course not. Why on earth would I want a job? Seffy’s the one who works.’
‘Yes,’ he grinned. ‘I thought she might.’ He turned to me. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m training to be a journalist.’ I said this shyly and wondered if he would laugh. Xanthe was hooting with derisive mirth.
‘Seffy imagines she will be the next great writer,’ she laughed. ‘She has ambition.’
‘We all have ambitions,’ Amyas said. ‘You do, Xanthe.’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘I told you. I don’t go out to work.’
‘But you’re looking for a wealthy husband. Isn’t that an ambition?’
I waited for her to give him a sharp dismissive reply but I was surprised. She grinned. ‘Yes, I am looking for somebody rich, preferably with a title. If you call that ambition, then yes I do and I think it’s a damn sight better than Seffy’s.’
‘I should imagine that you’re already quite rich.’
Xanthe reached for her packet of cigarettes and after taking one handed the packet to Amyas who took one also. ‘Yes,’ she blew out a lungful of smoke. ‘I suppose I am and that should make it easier. Nobody could really call me a gold-digger.’
‘And what about love?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly. Love isn’t necessary.’
Amyas looked at her for a moment and then away to the sea. A boat with a red sail was tacking slowly across the bay, the sailor so expert that he hardly raised a ripple as he wove his way through the water.
‘Love is always necessary.’ Amyas spoke so quietly that at first I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. Xanthe had got up and gone inside so we were alone.
I put my hand on his arm and leant towards him. ‘What was that, Amyas? What did you say?’ He didn’t answer but instead suddenly turned his head and kissed me hard on the lips. It was the most wonderful yet alarming thing that had ever happened to me. When he drew back I was too shocked to say anything and sat gaping at him while he lifted his hand and gently pushed my hair away from my face. ‘I said, darling girl, that love is always necessary.’
‘Anyone want a gin?’ Xanthe had come back on to the veranda with a glass in her hand.
‘No, not for me,’ I said, clearing my throat and standing up. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’ I needed to get into the cool of the house. I shot a look over my shoulder at Amyas as I went through the long windows. He was smiling at me, his brown eyes full of desire and promise, and I nodded.
‘You’re smitten,’ whispered Xanthe, following me into the kitchen. ‘I don’t blame you, he’s absolutely gorgeous.’ She went into the pantry to get some cream. ‘Who is he? D’you know?’
I shook my head. ‘He came out of the sea.’ I could hear the note of wonder in my voice. ‘Like something out of a story.’
‘Who’s the silly one now,’ Xanthe smirked.
At about four o’clock Amyas pulled on his canvas shoes and grabbed his jacket. ‘I’ll go now and join my friends. We’re staying at the pub.’ He looked at Xanthe. ‘I meant what I said about Clive Powell, but you must do what you want to.’
‘I always do,’ she answered, shaking his hand. ‘And,’ she screwed her eyes up and gave him a studied glance, ‘I suspect you do too.’
He laughed. Turning to me, he took my hand in his. ‘This has been a wonderful day,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll never forget it.’
Later, in the car, as I drove to Truro to put Xanthe on the train, we talked about Amyas. ‘What does he do?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you know anything about him?’
‘No.’
After a while she said, ‘He’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t he, and I don’t think Mother would like him. Not really our type, she’d say. D’you think he’s foreign?’
A vision of Amyas’s beautiful face swam into my head. Foreign? No, I was sure not. His English was perfect and there was an almost poetical quality to his voice, or rather, to the way he framed his sentences. ‘No, he’s as English as we are,’ I said.
‘Mm.’ Xanthe pursed her lips. ‘Did you notice that he found out everything about us but told us nothing about himself?’
I thought back. She and I had chatted all through lunch and afterwards. We talked about our parents and grandparents and Xanthe had been quite animated, telling him about the people who were part of her set. I thought I’d been quieter but now I remembered that I had told him about university and the ne
wspaper and how I yearned to travel. I’d even recounted the argument I’d had with Monica and put forward my reasons for supporting the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Somehow he had encouraged us to talk while managing to remain silent about himself.
‘Well,’ I said as we turned into the station. ‘It doesn’t really matter. We’ll never see him again. Now,’ I gave her a kiss. ‘I’ll see you in a few days. Try and behave yourself.’
‘You should talk,’ she smiled sardonically, pulling her suitcase out of the back of my car. ‘You’re the one who picked up a man on the beach.’
I finally went for my swim when the sun was going down, crossing the bay with long, lazy strokes. Thoughts and images were chasing one after another through my mind, without ever settling into something I could understand. Ever since Amyas had walked out of the sea I had felt excited and unnerved as though something momentous had happened. I had been immediately attracted to him, but then I often got immediately attracted to something – a painting, perhaps, or a piece of music. Once, in Italy I’d visited the same church in Florence four times just to look at a triptych covered in gold leaf. And only very recently I had been attracted to Charlie Bradford, yearning to hear more of his life of travel and adventure.
But my feelings for Amyas seemed stronger than that. Could it be that I had fallen in love? Is that how love at first sight happened? I wondered. But if that was true for me, I wasn’t sure he felt the same. Indeed, as he’d left, he’d said goodbye firmly, indicating that although he’d had a lovely day with me, it wasn’t to be repeated. Oh, hell, I thought, and stopped swimming, treading water while I tried to calm myself. Eventually, realising that my excited state was wrong for swimming alone, I headed back to the shore and, reaching land, trudged slowly across the sand until I was by the steps.
Amyas was an experience, I told myself. A mysterious, magical happening which I could savour and remember while I got on with my life and career. I climbed the steps and went into the house to make tea, before packing my few belongings ready for an early start in the morning. It was a hot night and I lay in my bed with the long windows open and the net curtains blowing in the breeze coming off the sea. I could see the moon, a silver crescent in a velvet star-studded sky, and hear the deep rumble of the surf as it rolled on to the sand. The sight enchanted me, and I felt as though I was floating on a coral boat towards the wild shores of Illyria.
‘Hello, darling girl.’ Amyas walked in through the window and while I watched, enthralled, he took off his clothes and slid into bed beside me. I didn’t cry out or urge him to leave or any of the entreaties I should have made.
‘Hello, Amyas,’ I said, and closed my eyes as he lowered himself on to me. It was the beginning of ecstasy.
Chapter Three
THAT NIGHT AND the days and nights that followed, I existed only in the land created by Amyas. A land where passion ruled, where all sense of time or obligation was forgotten and where I gave myself utterly and completely to him. I was the abducted girl of myth, but, unlike her, I was a willing visitor to my lover’s kingdom.
On that first morning I lay in my tumbled bed and gazed at the sleeping man beside me. He looked completely relaxed, his arms bent above his head, his chest and one leg exposed with only the sheet covering the rest of him. I felt that if I closed my eyes and then opened them again quickly, I would be alone in my bed. But it wasn’t a dream. Amyas, whom I’d met less than twenty-four hours ago, was still beside me. I thought of the night that had passed, and smiled. How could this person who had cried out in savage pleasure be me, the so-called bluestocking of the family? I wanted to laugh out loud with the sheer joy of it all.
I turned away to look out of the open window on to a chalk-blue morning sky. The long net curtains wafted in the slight breeze, bringing in a distinctive smell of the sea and over it the pungent odour of the fish which would already be landed on the quay. Gulls swooped above the bay, squabbling over dropped fish from rivals’ beaks and the choughs on the cliff tops pierced the air with their distinctive caw. Life was going on as normal in the village and everywhere, I supposed. I wondered briefly about Xanthe. She’d be in London, having breakfast at my parents’ house and explaining why she’d decided to come home.
‘Seffy was no help,’ she’d grumble. ‘More concerned with her stupid job than me. Anyway, she’ll be here tonight. It’ll take all day for her to drive up. You know what’s she’s like.’ Mother and Father would be expecting me but I wouldn’t be there.
Amyas moved slightly and I returned my gaze to him. I had been a virgin when he slipped into my bed but that act had burst a dam of passion and desire in me. Now, I was anxious to experience everything that lovers had ever known.
I propped myself up on my elbow. He was asleep, his face turned slightly to the side and his dark eyelashes resting softly beneath his closed eyes. Locks of his hair curled beneath his ears and lay carelessly over his forehead. He looked like a man in a Renaissance painting, a young god who stood guard over distressed mythological maidens. Was it his otherworldly beauty that fascinated me, I wondered, or was it his lack of moral rectitude? It was both, I decided and took a deep breath, thinking of the night that had passed and my own lack of morals. I had been abandoned, reckless and I felt no contrition. The passion that he’d generated in me was beyond my imaginings. Curious, I looked down at the sheet covering him and gently pulled it up, peering beneath to study the first entirely naked man I’d ever seen.
It lay before me, that important part of a man. Of course I’d seen it in paintings and in anatomy books, guiltily perused in the library when I was supposed to be studying. But, in the flesh, literally in the flesh, never. I stared, fascinated, longing to touch but not daring to.
‘Come up to your expectations?’
‘Oh!’ Dropping the sheet I transferred my gaze to Amyas’s face. His eyes were still closed but he was smiling. He knew that I was blushing.
‘Shall I show you how it works?’
He rolled over in the bed and grabbed me, transporting me once again into the realms of ecstasy. ‘Oh, Amyas,’ I breathed when we were lying back, exhausted. ‘I never imagined it would be like this. So, so wonderful.’
‘Persephone,’ he groaned. ‘Strange, unworldly Persephone. How could you not know? You’ve studied English, did you not realise what the writers were saying? Poets have written about love. Bards have sung about it. What are so many of Shakespeare’s stories about if not the delights of love?’
I considered what he said. The poets had written about love in the abstract sense. But I couldn’t remember reading about the raw sex that I had just experienced. Or maybe I couldn’t read between the lines. Then I realised that he had used the word love and held it to my heart.
While I was still thinking about it, Amyas slid out of bed and walked on to the veranda. He was naked but unconcerned. I was thrilled. Nobody could see him, unless they were on the beach, but it was something I’d never done. Now I followed him. The sea air bathed my body and I breathed deeply, exulting in the sheer pleasure of being alive and in love. Totally and completely in love.
The words ‘I love you’ were teetering on the tip of my tongue when suddenly he said, ‘Christ, I’m hungry.’
‘Me too,’ I agreed, quickly going back into the bedroom to pull on my nightdress.
Later, we sat on the veranda drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs, which I’d made, as Mrs Penney hadn’t come up to the house this morning. I could hear the sound of the fishing boats chugging into the harbour and the occasional squeal from a joyful child on the public beach, but we could have been the only people in the world as far as I was concerned and I think Amyas felt the same. He kept smiling at me and had one hand on my thigh under the table. It was bliss and I wanted it never to end. Suddenly he stood up and grabbing my hand pulled me through the long windows into my room.
‘What have you done to me?’ he said after we had made frantic love. ‘I can’t get enough of you.’
&nb
sp; I couldn’t get enough of him either, and grinned stupidly through the tears that had welled up.
Afterwards, we went down to the beach and swam in the cold morning sea. ‘Shall we race across the bay?’ he asked. ‘Can you beat me?’
I shook my head. ‘No. I don’t want to race. I feel too soft this morning, too relaxed.’
‘Chicken,’ he laughed and set off to the headland, leaving me to stroke lazily towards the shore.
Lying on the beach after our swim I thought idly about phoning my mother. I would have to tell her I was staying on in Cornwall for another few days so that she wouldn’t worry. She’d be surprised, I was sure, and Xanthe would smirk and drop mysterious hints about me meeting a man. My mother would certainly not connect, ‘meeting a man’ with full-blown sex, but would ask, ‘Do we know him? Has he connections?’
Amyas was drawing his finger down my body, tracing a line along my breast and on to my belly. ‘You’ve got a fantastic body. So straight, so boyish.’
I couldn’t believe he liked it. I’d always wanted to be like Xanthe. Petite and curvaceous with a peaches and cream skin. But it seemed that he preferred me, gawky, coltish me.
‘I must go and phone my family,’ I said, after a while. ‘They’ll be expecting me. Then I’d better go to the grocer’s. Get some bread and things. We’ll need to eat.’
‘I thought you were going back to London.’ He said it quietly and I froze. Had I taken him for granted? Was I simply a holiday fling and he was ready to move on? I swallowed. ‘It’s too late to set out today.’ My mouth was dry and my heart was thumping.
Amyas rolled on to his back and closed his eyes. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Stay here, with me.’
The relief almost overwhelmed me. ‘Your friends will be missing you,’ I said. ‘What about your walking holiday?’
‘They won’t care.’ He grinned. ‘Neither will I.’
For a week, Amyas and I drifted through the days and nights exulting in each other. He would pick up shells, the glistening ones that looked like mother-of-pearl, and present them to me as though they were precious jewels and pick pink thrift and sea lavender and thread the flowers through my hair. And in between making love we talked about everything – art, literature, music and politics. He had a breadth of knowledge that amazed me and sometimes I felt like a student lapping up the wisdom of my tutor.
What Tomorrow Brings Page 3
