Going Gently

by David Nobbs

  ‘Oliver,’ she breathed. ‘Am I the prettiest girl in Swansea?’

  ‘You’re the prettiest girl in the whole wide world,’ replied that charmer with a blush.

  This was beyond her wildest dreams. She’d have been satisfied by ‘Swansea’, and thrilled by ‘Glamorgan’, but ‘in the whole wide world’!

  It was amazing how resourceful she was in meeting Gwyn Jones and what lies she was able to tell now that she no longer respected her father. Gwyn never smoked in her presence again after she asked him not to. ‘Thank you, Gwyn,’ she said, and he replied, with that disarming frankness that made him stand out from all the other boys, ‘Well, I don’t particularly enjoy it. I only do it out of bravado.’

  Yes, he did stand out from all the other boys. There was a seriousness about him, deep down inside him, that turned Kate to jelly, and the looks he gave her were so serious, without being solemn, that she was almost sure that she stood out for him from all the other girls. Sometimes he seemed to look beyond her towards something he didn’t much like, and then his eyes would return to her and he would smile. That look frightened her. That smile undid her altogether.

  The other children in Kate’s class talked foolishly about the boys they liked. Kate didn’t speak of Gwyn at all. He was too precious to be shared. She was sure that it would be the same for him.

  She knew that it was serious. Each of their brief shared moments seemed better than the last. Each parting seemed the most painful yet.

  She knew, too, that he was bold, but even so, the suggestion, when it came, knocked her breathless. They were sitting on the beach, near the Slip, on a late spring morning only just warm enough. The sun was shining on the great bay that swept from the high hills round past the town to the Mumbles Lighthouse. The beach was almost deserted. The tide was out. Turnstones were turning stones. Oystercatchers were catching oysters. In the marshalling yards, shunting engines were shunting and marshalling. All was as it should be in this corner of the world. There was nothing to show that this was the twentieth month of a terrible war that everyone had expected to end in weeks. Gwyn Jones looked at Kate with that unusually grave face of his and spoke the words that turned her world upside down.

  ‘My parents are away on Saturday night,’ he said, and he gently kissed her right knee and then rolled over in the sand and didn’t look at her.

  She gasped.

  ‘They’re leaving you on your own!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘They trust me.’

  She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘How incredible,’ she said.

  ‘They made me promise.’

  ‘Promise what?’

  Far above them gulls were wheeling. Poor things. They would never have conversations as momentous as this.

  ‘Promise not to do anything naughty.’

  Her whole body was tingling. Her breasts were heaving. Her insides were seething. It was awful. It was wonderful. She felt sick. She felt terrified. She felt happy.

  ‘Making love to you wouldn’t be naughty, Kate. Making love to you would be the best thing ever.’

  He ran his fingers up her thigh. It was excruciating. The Mumbles train whistled. She would never forget that whistle.

  ‘How can I make love to you, Gwyn?’ she asked.

  ‘Creep out of your house when everyone’s asleep.’

  The enormity of it! The utter and total impossibility of it!

  ‘But it’d be, it’d be almost midnight by then,’ she said. ‘That means it’d be . . .’

  She couldn’t say it.

  ‘Sunday,’ he said.

  She nodded. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t swallow. There was a lump like an oyster shell in her throat. Am I sure about being an atheist, she wondered. Supposing I’m wrong. I’d be struck down by a thunderbolt. Supposing I was caught. It would kill them.

  But then again there was that intense longing inside her, that emptiness waiting to be filled.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said.

  ‘I never doubted you, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and fetch you. I’ll stand at the end of the crescent.’

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘You mustn’t.’

  ‘I can’t let you walk the streets alone at night.’

  ‘It isn’t the streets. It’s Walter Road. It’s respectable. I won’t be frightened. I’d be far more frightened that someone I knew might see us.’

  He gave in reluctantly. His tongue forced her lips apart, their tongues felt each other like affectionate snakes, she ran her tongue over his teeth – his teeth were the equal of any in Glamorgan – and then he let go of her and said ‘Saturday’ and hurried off before she could change her mind.

  As she walked home, in a fervour of fear and sexual stimulation, Kate looked in astonishment at people going about their everyday business and thought, Don’t they know this is the most astonishing, memorable day in the history of the world?

  The rest of the week seemed an eternity to her. She was, after all, only sixteen. She tried so hard to be normal that she ended up worrying that she would be so normal as to be abnormal, so she tried to be a bit abnormal, and then worried that she was being abnormally abnormal, and hurriedly became abnormally normal again. The excitement never left her genitalia, and her stomach ached, and she felt weak at the knees and was terrified that she’d get so anxious that she’d start her period two days early and ruin the whole thing.

  She tried hard to be nice and helpful, praising the sausage meat at breakfast, which drew an odd look from her mother, because it was the same sawdusty sausage meat they had throughout the Great War. Her father frowned. Food was a necessity, not a pleasure, although he lapped up his Welsh cake and bara brith as enthusiastically as anybody. Blind in his righteousness, John Thomas Thomas noticed nothing odd in her behaviour. Nor did her brothers and sisters, cocooned in their childish egotism, although Bernard did once say, ‘What are you thinking about, Kate?’ and to her horror she blushed as she said, ‘Nothing,’ and even John Thomas Thomas gave her a brief questioning look, while Bronwen’s blue eyes rested on her momentarily with keen speculation and compassion. And the horrible thing was that Kate wished that she wasn’t there, wished that she wasn’t still part of this close-knit family, and hated herself for thinking so.

  Saturday seemed to go on for ever. The pain in her insides intensified. She was sure she’d be sick. How she managed to eat her thin slices of tongue at tea she would never know.

  She went to bed at the usual time, even kneeling at the side of her bed and pretending to say her prayers as usual.

  Almost as soon as she had got into bed she got out of it again and knelt to pray once more.

  ‘Almighty God,’ she prayed. ‘I realise that I’m not an atheist. I’m an agnostic. If You do exist, forgive me for doubting You, and I’m sorry if You think I’m going to sin tonight, I don’t think I am, because I love Gwyn so very much, but I know it’s naughty to creep out of my home in the middle of the night, but there’s no other way, so I’m sorry. Amen.’

  She felt better after that. She also felt sleepy. How on earth was she going to keep awake?

  She would count sheep. No, that was so boring that people used it to get to sleep. She began to count how many letters there were in the names of the girls in her class at school. Arbel Meredith thirteen. Glenys Edwards thirteen that makes twenty-six. Caitlin Price-Evans, there’s pretentious, that double barrel, they were only glorified grocers, oh Lord, that sounded snobbish, seventeen or eighteen if you counted the hyphen, which you should because it took up as much space as a letter eighteen plus twenty-six makes forty-four Sheila Proctor thirteen so many thirteens that makes . . . that makes . . . start again . . . Arbel Meredith thirteen Glenys . . . suddenly she knew that she’d been asleep. How long had she been asleep? She was wide awake now, no risk of further sleep. Had she nodded off for a moment or for several hours? How did you tell? There were footsteps in the street and the faint clip-clop of the cabs in Walter Road. She strained to hear the grandfath
er clock in the hall but it was two storeys away, and quite faint.

  It struck quarter past. Quarter past what?

  What I Will Do With My Life, by Kate Thomas. I will marry Gwyn Jones and have three children and an old house and lots of money, enough to have holidays abroad and be good to the poor.

  Half past. Half past what?

  What will actually happen tonight? Caitlin Price-Evans claims to have had sex and said it was all grunting and wet beds, which doesn’t sound immensely appealing, but my body tells me otherwise, and what sort of man would want sex with Caitlin Price-Evans and her fat legs anyway, some grunting farmer who narrowly preferred her to sheep on a casting vote, Gwyn won’t be a grunter. Gwyn! His lips. Can I really picture them? How much hair will there be on his body?

  Quarter to. Quarter to what?

  The mournful hoot of a distant tram. The bark of a dog. The whining of the wind. The clip-clop of the late-night horses. The roar of a car. Oh please, please, let there be no noise as the clock strikes the hour.

  Bong. Oh, let it not be one o’clock already. Bong. Or even two. Bong. Three in the morning? Bong. Four, had she slept for hours? Bong. Or even five. Bong. It can’t be six. Bong. It couldn’t be seven, or it’d be getting light. Bong. Waves of relief. It’s still evening. Bong. Great neighing of a startled horse. Silence. Bong. Silence.

  Ten bongs. Was there a bong during the neigh? There must have been. Eleven o’clock. Could there have been two bongs during the neigh? She considered the neigh carefully, tried to time it from memory, felt it had been a one-bong neigh.

  Eleven o’clock. What time could she safely get up? Supposing John Thomas Thomas was doing to her mother what Gwyn Jones would soon be doing to her. Unlikely as it seemed, her parents had had sex in the past, because you couldn’t have children without sex. Unlikely as it seemed, John Thomas Thomas had said to Bronwen whatever it was that Welsh chapelgoers said to their wives when they wanted to make love, and he’d said it at least five times. Almost certainly much more, because you didn’t have children every time you did it. And at that the awful thought struck her that maybe she’d have a child by Gwyn Jones, and this terrified her so much that she missed the ding-dong ding-dong of the quarter, and the clock didn’t seem to ding or dong for ages and then suddenly she heard the ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong of the half-hour, and she couldn’t move, she was petrified, she’d be heard, she’d be caught, she wouldn’t be caught but she’d have twins, it ran in the family, she daren’t go, but the room was filled with the waiting presence of Gwyn Jones, expecting her, wanting her.

  Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong oh oh oh oh!! A quarter to twelve. Now or never, Kate Thomas.

  Never.

  A life lived in fear? Never.

  Never say never.

  Now.

  Move, legs, move, damn you. For a moment she thought she was paralysed with fear and then she was moving, slowly, agonisingly slowly, she was out of bed, she was feeling for her clothes, she daren’t put the light on, somebody might see.

  She got dressed slowly, awkwardly, in the dark. She carried her shoes, and crept to the bedroom door, closed the door with great care, crept past the bedroom where Oliver and Bernard were sleeping, crept down the narrow stairs to the first-floor landing, past the door of her parents’ room, heart hammering in her ribcage, down the wide main staircase, feeling the banisters, round the two corners counting the steps.

  In the hall she realised the enormity of the task that still awaited her. The front-door key was kept on the ledge round the bottom of the face of the grandfather clock. She daren’t light a gas lamp or a candle. There was just enough moonlight coming through the frosted glass pane in the front door to show her the bulk of the clock.

  She fetched a chair from the dining-room, climbed up on to the chair, felt along the ledge for the key, and, just as she was picking it up, the clock terrified her by striking next to her ear, she dropped the key, lunged, caught it by sheer good luck, felt herself falling off the chair, jumped, landed with a thud, saw the chair toppling, caught the chair, leant on the chair, panting with fear, and listened. The clock finished its twelve bongs and there was silence. The Welsh Sunday had begun! There was no noise. Utter silence, deep as a grave. No one had heard the thud of the chair or the thudding of her heart.

  She put the chair back in the dining-room, sat on the bottom stair while she put on her shoes, crept across the hall, turned the key with infinite care. The door opened without a squeak, she locked it no less carefully, and emerged from the porch into a night which smelt gorgeously of horse manure and hydrangeas, but was far too bright for comfort.

  She scurried to the end of Eaton Crescent, eager to get out of sight of her house. She forced herself to walk calmly down Walter Road. There were few people about. The suburbs slept self-righteously. Only the wicked were abroad. Kate was wicked.

  A man in a long dark overcoat bid her good-night and looked at her inquisitively. She tried to look older than sixteen and hoped that her answered good-night was sufficiently worldly.

  A horse-drawn carriage strained up the long straight hill from the town centre. The horse looked at her and deposited a heap of manure in the road. Had it recognised a sinner?

  Control yourself, Kate. That sort of thought is stupid.

  She turned left into St James’s Crescent. The moon had gone behind clouds. There was a smell of approaching rain. The wind was getting up. Soon Kate would be going to bed.

  The bulk of St James’s Church loomed like a rebuke. She tried to ignore it.

  Lovely St James’s Crescent. Lovely sober three-storey end-terrace house of lovely Gwyn Jones. Bay windows to each side of the pillared entrance. There’s stately. Suddenly Kate felt daunted, and an awful thought struck her. Supposing his parents had come back unexpectedly.

  They hadn’t. There he was, filling the doorway, more handsome even than in her memory, smiling, hungry.

  ‘I knew you’d come, My Kate,’ he said.

  She was quick to reply, ‘My Gwyn.’ This was a meeting of equals.

  This was a night of lovers. Luckily Gwyn’s bedroom was on the detached side of the house, or the neighbours might have complained about the noise. This was a night of beautiful young bodies thrilled by the completeness of their love. At first, yes, she was awed, Kate the chapel girl, Kate the virgin. She was awed at their nakedness, at his gasp when he saw her full beauty for the first time, awed at the size of his erect penis, for which nothing in her education or her reading of literature had prepared her. But soon she was awed no longer, and soon after that she was a virgin no longer, she was bursting and exploding with razor-sharp ecstasy. She thought for a moment that it was their lovemaking that was rattling the windows on this wild, wet, Welsh night.

  Just once Kate imagined her father looking down at her sorrowfully from a framed photograph on the mantelpiece, but then she looked down at Gwyn, the bedclothes humped over his bouncing bottom as he thrust himself into her so ardently and yet, as it only occurred to her years later, with rare gentleness. She cried out again at the joy of orgasm and wanted to cry out to her father and to all fathers, ‘There can be nothing shameful in this glory.’ She lost count of the number of times he entered her. She lost count of the number of times she lay back exhausted and fulfilled and so . . . complete, only to be roused to further ecstasy even deeper within herself. Gwyn seemed to put his whole life into that night, and Kate responded with a sustained ardour beyond her wildest imaginings.

  In the middle of all this she had an image of poor Caitlin Price-Evans desperately avoiding the wet bits in some farmer’s bed, and asked Gwyn what he was going to do about the sheets. He hadn’t thought. ‘My poor baby,’ she said. ‘You haven’t thought about that, have you?’ ‘I’ll wash them and dry them before they come back,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to.’

  Mundane thoughts about laundry put a full stop on the purple passage of the night. Entwined together, they drifted into sleep. And then sudd
enly it was getting light, it was gone half-past six, Kate leapt up, she had to get home, oh how she had to get home. She rammed her clothes on, kissed Gwyn briefly, and was gone.

  She longed to run through that wet and gloomy dawn. How could the world be so gloomy after such a night? The hydrangeas drank the rain greedily, the slate roofs glistened gloomily, the light grew stronger with terrifying speed.

  Kate let herself into the house as carefully as she had left it, locked the door, fetched the chair from the dining-room, put the key back on the ledge beneath the clock face, which stood at five to seven, not as bad as she’d feared but dangerous enough, took the chair back to the dining-room and crept up the stairs, heart hammering again. The house remained silent. The door to her parents’ bedroom was still the same. The narrow stairs to the second floor were still the same. Her cold bedroom was still the same. The linoleum under her feet was still the same. The samplers with their warnings about sin were still the same. The sad stag and the wet glen were still the same. Only Kate was not the same. Only Kate, lover of her king, was utterly changed for ever. She got into bed, pulled the bedclothes over her head, smelt the rich odour of the king’s semen still upon her, and fell into a deep, deep sleep.

  She was so tired that morning that she had to pretend to be ill. Her temperature was normal and she was declared fit for church. Did nobody suspect?

  The Reverend Aneurin Parkhouse preached on the subject of sin that morning and, just once, seemed to look straight into her eyes. Did he suspect? No. He preached about sin because he always preached about sin, and he looked straight into her eyes because he always looked straight into her eyes, because he longed to sin with her and knew he never would, which was why he was so aware of the frailty of human nature that he always preached about sin.

  That evening, at tea, Bernard, that irritatingly perceptive child, said, ‘Kate’s trying not to yawn. I don’t think Kate slept very well last night.’

  Oliver, who, if he’d been a medieval king, would have been known as Oliver the Oblivious, said, ‘I dreamt of dragons last night.’