‘Michael,’ she began, taking a deep breath.
‘What?’
‘Michael, I know this means a lot to you, clearly it does, why even I like it...’ but she did not know how to go on.
‘What?’ he repeated.
‘Michael, can I ask you?’
‘Ask me what?’
‘What is it about women naked in plastic macs? Tell me. Why in macs, and those macs?’
He looked away momentarily then smiled slightly yet there was a tinge of wistfulness in his eyes.
‘Why?’ he asked, repeating the question. ‘Why women naked in plastic macs?’, and he giggled slightly as if he too found it somewhat odd himself. But then he took a long, deep breath. She felt his chest rise under her fingertips then slowly go down as he gazed into the distance. ‘Childhood. It was in my childhood.’ He spoke in muted tones. He cleared his throat. ‘I know, he's blaming others, that's what you're thinking.’
‘No!’ she said, ‘I'm not. Not at all. I'm really interested. Please. I'd like to know.’
He studied her face for some seconds but she felt no discomfort, only a keen sense of closeness to him.
‘Please Michael...go on.’
He sighed, shrugged his shoulders and looked somewhere beyond her.
‘It's ridiculous really. And yet...’
She instinctively placed her hand over his and laid her head lightly on his chest as if to reassure him in what was clearly something difficult for him.
‘It seems like a long time ago. I'd be about two maybe three, something like that, I’m not sure but about then ...’ She tried to imagine this big man as such a little child. ‘Believe it or not, I come from a fairly poor background. In those days, the terraced streets were real communities, everyone knew their neighbours, not just next door, but the entire street, and the adjoining ones.’ He stopped as if to relive what he could see in his mind's eye. ‘My parents knew everyone. People half-lived in each other’s homes, the front door always seemed open. Can you believe that?’ Catherine could not.
‘Another world,’ she mused.
‘Same world, different time,’ he said, ‘I remember one particular house we regularly popped into, in Laxton Street. It was my mother's friends, Brenda and Linda, two sisters. Early twenties, maybe, not sure. Brenda was dark-haired, extrovert, loud and laughed a lot. Linda, fair-haired, quiet, sensible, rather sweet. At least, that's how I remember them. My mum and Brenda, well, they got on like a house on fire. I can remember lots of laughter, and Brenda always picking me up and hugging me and giving me big, wet kisses on my cheek. Ugh!’ and he shivered and laughed.
Catherine smiled to herself. She could see it now, little Michael, the natural centre of attention, sloppy kisses or not.
‘Anyhow, what I do remember clearly...’ and here he stopped.
She kissed his chest lightly and squeezed his hand ever so gently.
‘I was being picked up as usual, and fussed, and held in tight to her, perched on her left arm, her right arm round me. The smiles, the kisses, the laughter. It must have been raining outside or about to because both of them were in macs, Linda in blue, light blue, Brenda in yellow.’ He paused, as if taking in the scene right there in front of him. ‘I could feel the softness of her bosom as she hugged me to her. Touch her long, dark hair that cascaded over her shoulders. Not just feel but smell the warmth of her. It all felt good, really good and, as she hugged me, holding me ever so close, so secure, so pleasurable...’ and his voice tailed off.
‘Yes. I know what you mean,’ she said, ‘I think we are all a bit like that.’
He went on.
‘Only this time … only this time, I remember how she seemed extra soft, the plastic of her coat tight across the smooth curves of her upper body and the shine on her under the bright light of the ceiling lamp. I grasped her shoulders, feeling her in the soft plastic, sort of clambered up her higher, and leant over her left shoulder and gazed down. I can see it now. I discovered the hood at the back and fingered it, trying to make sense of it and pulled it outwards and upwards and sideways.‘
Catherine could see the child wrapped up in his private world of curiosity, exploration and adventures in touch and feeling, and the pleasure and the warm sense of wellbeing it must have given him.
‘I can see Linda standing to the left of her, softly smiling at me. I leaned even more over her shoulder and saw the straight back, the curve of her hips, the soft mound of her bottom, all accentuated by the plastic, pulled in tight by the belt. I turned round and looked down Brenda’s front and reached out with my left hand and patted and pawed her breasts in the tight plastic. She just smiled in my face, so close to hers, and gave me a big kiss and hug.’
Silence.
She sensed he had finished. That was it and she came quickly back to the room and the bed.
‘That's OK,’ she said softly. ‘Children explore feelings that may inhibit adults. At least you started out right by feeling good about women.’
‘It's more complicated than that,‘ he said, still pensive, and the ease she was now feeling suddenly seemed premature.
‘It was years later,’ he went on, ‘I was ten. There was this girl, Carol, who lived in nearby Elmsley Drive. Same age, short, straight, fair hair, rather pretty. A bit of a tomboy really. Always running round screaming with the other girls. Excitable, definitely. Loved going round thumping boys for fun.’ Catherine gave out an impromptu giggle. ‘She used to tag along with me when I went off on my adventures exploring the city. I suppose she was my first girlfriend, sort of, in a way, pre-puberty or not.’ He paused, as if being there with her for a moment. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘It wasn't all cosy though. There were sex wars even at that age. The thing is, it was one hot summer's afternoon, some boisterous knock-about between the two gangs of boys and girls on the street, and then suddenly, Carol was throwing this cup of water over my best friend Ricky. Next thing, everyone's excited and screaming, rushing indoors to get cups of water and all hell breaks loose.
'I grabbed my water-pistol determined to get Carol for what she'd done. Back out on the street, there she was, brandishing two cups and, clever as always, buttoned up in a white plastic raincoat, hood up, and crazy with glee. I was taken aback. Next thing, one cup of water, two cups of water all over me. I'm standing there like a drowned rat and to piercing squeals of delight and then, bursting with excitement, she's off like a shot, to refill her cups.’
Catherine was really warming to the story.
‘Something happened in me there and then. I decided to get her and the thought excited me. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, things developed and I ended up chasing after her down the street and across Bradley Street and all the way up towards the playground near the health clinic. It’s like I’m there again. The more she was screaming, with terror or excitement - I don't know which - the more I really had to get her.
'When I caught up to her, I grabbed her arm and she spun round and fell, and we both ended up on the pavement. I can see her now on her back, red-faced and panting for breath, her chest heaving rapidly in the white plastic. I'd wanted to smack her, teach her a lesson, but kneeling astride her, I don't know what happened, I suddenly kissed her. On impulse. I kissed her on the mouth, and though I was out of breath myself, the kiss went on and on. She struggled violently and I stopped, and she finally managed to draw breath. She looked right up at me, furious-like, shaking all over, for a moment, then suddenly slapped me hard in the face. I was stunned and reeling and collapsed off her, and then she was up and away, running home howling in tears and I lay sprawled there on the pavement … devastated … in shock … empty.’
Catherine saw a small boy close to tears, slumped on the hard ground, alone, confused, rejected. Had she been there, she would have hugged him.
‘Anyhow...’ he continued, ‘things passed and, I suppose, got back to normal except for one thing. Weird. She started playing out sometimes in her mac even though it was a hot, dry summer. Then a new game cam
e along invented by the older girls, called Are you nervous? Do you know it?’ he asked Catherine.
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Oh! OK. These girls, well, a number of them around ten or eleven were developing breasts. Puberty hadn't arrived yet for the boys so these new things girls had – we called them ‘pointies’ - were weird. Sort of like what real women had, like Brenda, only not the same but whatever they were, they meant something to the girls that thought up the game.’
‘And Carol had them,’ added Catherine.
‘Hmm, no. Or rather, at least not as you’d particularly notice.’
Catherine was thrown for a moment.
‘Sorry, I presumed she had.’
‘She had! As I found out in the game.’
‘Oh! Sorry, I’ve ruined your story,’ she said, mentally kicking herself.
‘You haven’t! That’s not the story! Or rather it’s only a part of the real story.’
She felt relief her interruptions had not put a sudden end to this spell of closeness and intimacy she was having with him. She was now intrigued by the tale he was unfolding and snuggled up closer to him. He continued.
‘The girls that played put on cardigans and the game was simply this: each girl took turns to stand with her back to the wall while the boy she’d chosen had to undo one button at a time on her cardigan starting at the bottom.’
Catherine was thinking of her own cardigan she used to wear sometimes when younger.
‘Before undoing a button, he had to ask the girl ‘Are you nervous?’ She had to keep her hands by her side. If she lost her nerve and said ‘Yes’ she was out. If she said ‘No’, the button was undone and so on till the last button. If she still said ‘No’, the boy undid the button and then put his hands down by his side, then, in his own time, made a sudden grab for her pointies. If she got her hands there first, he was out. The other way round and she was out. A bit like the quick draw in the Wild West films. Anyway, the object of the game was to eliminate everyone but the winning girl or boy.’
It sounded an interesting game and she wished she could have played it with all those boys she hung around with in her pre- and early teens.
‘And you played the game?’ she asked.
‘I instinctively knew there was something meaningful about it, something not lost on the girls, and I knew at the outset I wanted to play with Carol. I knew she would choose me at some point. Don’t know how but I just knew it.’
‘Ah!’ said Catherine.
‘Anyhow, I cheated. Though no-one really complained and certainly not her.’
‘You cheated? What did you do?’
‘I went back indoors and got some stuff.’
‘Some stuff?’
‘I tied her up.’
‘You did what!’ exclaimed Catherine, half-sitting up.
‘Yes, I tied her hands behind her back with my belt. She protested but still let me do it and, all the while, the other girls were just screaming in excitement. She let me do it, though I remember her face was fierce and getting bright red. Then I tied her ankles with string to stop her running away. More screaming. And then, to stop her spoiling it in case she said she was nervous, I gagged her with one of mum’s scarves I borrowed. That really got the other girls worked up. It was great. They were hysterical. I felt really good. It was brilliant.’
‘But that's thuggish, that’s cruel!’ protested Catherine.
‘The girls obviously loved it, quite a commotion. I don't think the other boys were quite with it, really. No it wasn't cruel. I could sense the game had moved on to a new level, was more exciting, and I could tell Carol felt that way too. Anyhow, there's lots of ways you can give a girl a good time, that was just one of them. I had no problem finding out that she too had pointies and was surprised yet weirdly, quite pleased. Brenda flashed into my mind. But then that’s boys for you.’
Aggressive, arrogant, smug... the words welled up in Catherine's brain but her anger vanished at once and she knew he had a point.
‘You're shocked,’ he said, ‘Well, I was too. After that, the girls chose only me for their turn, and Are you nervous? had changed for good. I’d ruined it. It was once a game of innocence till I came along.’
At that, he grew silent as if re-living the regret she could sense he had.
A little uncomfortable, she was stuck for words.
‘The rest is history I suppose,’ he said. ‘We seemed to spend more time together, but perhaps not, though sometimes, she was in her mac, me tying her up for our games. It was a natural thing to do. She didn’t mind. Really! I’m telling the truth. Honest. She didn’t mind. We were children, for heaven’s sake!’
‘OK, I believe you!’
However, she would rather have liked to have Carol’s side of the story too. He was continuing.
‘She made no complaints. Sometimes I would make her hop along the pavement tied up, sometimes gagged with her hood up. I liked her like that. She was a pretty girl and, strangely, in a way, more than pretty like that. I could kiss her like that and she wouldn’t be angry with me. Sometimes, I’d get the urge to smack her bare legs or whip her with my belt. It was elastic and didn't hurt her but it made her scream and I’d hug and kiss her all the more. Sometimes, when she was not tied up and we were amongst the gang of the other boys and girls, she’d suddenly kiss me on the cheek for no reason but if I tried to kiss her myself she’d be angry and not let me. Weird, but that’s how it was.
'Anyhow, our adventures were immense fun and we played like that even with people walking by. I don’t think we ever gave it a thought. In some ways, it was better than playing with the boys, though Ricky was always a good pal and sometimes asked if he could tag along. I said no, they were private adventures of Carol and me. He was not happy and although I felt a bit disloyal to him, he had to find his own private adventures. I think he understood.’
Catherine did not know whether to be angry or smile.
‘You see, I liked to get her hot and bothered like the way she was on that day I chased her. Anyhow, one late afternoon, this workman came by, on his way home, I suppose, and stopped me, telling me not to do that, it was wrong and no way to treat a girl. I felt a bit ashamed when he said that. He pulled the gag down from Carol’s mouth and untied her wrists warning her about ‘nasty lads’ and telling her not to let me do that to her. ‘It's all right,’ she said, and he asked her then why did she let me do that to her. I can see her now, her face crimson-red, eyes cast down to the ground, her voice muted. ‘I like it,’ she said. The man was speechless. He just stood there not knowing what to say or do, then muttered, ‘It just isn’t right,’ shaking his head then going on his way. He was right in one sense but in another, it seemed right for us, that’s all.’ There was a long silence. He looked sad and as though somewhere else. Catherine did not know what to say.
Echoes of her own childhood came into mind, but try as she might, she could not recall any really significant happenings that had clear connections with her own emotional and sexual development. Michael's world seemed to be so different from her own. The communities of the inner cities seemed a fertile breeding ground for all kinds of relationships and adventures which her own quiet suburban upbringing had denied her, and for a moment she envied him.
But it was not the innocent child that now lay beside her but a real man, and one that could take her into danger. He was leading her into the labyrinth of another city, whose shadowed streets twisted their way ever deeper to the heart of the dark landscape that harboured her own deeper desires. She felt, however, safe with him. Whatever the journey involved, she, like Carol, wanted to tag along.
He was suddenly asleep, breathing gently. All this, she thought. All that had led her to this bed, this place, this time, was not easy to put a finger on. She wished she could put it down simply to, of all things, a plastic raincoat. As if all human motivation could be reduced to such simple things. And such motivation! But the more she tried to seek the foundations of the bond between
that little boy and that little girl in the plastic coat, and apply it to this big man and her, the new woman in the mac, the less she could weave together the threads of insight that underpinned the relationship this far.
She felt sleepy herself and suddenly cosy with the thought that if all it took to bind Michael to her was the girl of his dreams, in a mac, so be it, she was that girl, and forgetting her own complex needs, smiled dreamily to herself as she sunk down beside him into blissful sleep.
Chapter 20. Pas de deux
‘Ah, Catherine!’
She turned as Michael came striding into the library, a beaming smile on his face. Behind him was another man.
‘Allow me to introduce you to a valued associate - Brian Cole.’
A smartly-dressed man stepped forward, middle-aged, quite attractive.
‘Delighted to meet you Miss Day. I have to say the exquisite reality exceeds Michael's glowing description of you.’
Catherine, taken aback, blushed at what she thought an excessive compliment. She could not imagine what Michael must have been saying about her.
‘Why, thank you Mr Cole.’ She was struck by the look of obvious delight that accompanied this easy display of charm and, for a moment, enjoyed the attention. ‘You and Michael are business associates?’
The two men glanced at each other.
‘That is what one hopes,’ said Michael.
‘Michael and I know each other, shall we say, socially.’
‘Socially?’ Catherine pricked up her ears.
‘Hmm... through mutual club membership,’ replied Mr Cole, smiling.
‘Ah! Another time!’ and with that, Michael ushered his companion towards the door. ‘‘We'd better get a move on Brian, it's nearly three-thirty.’
‘I look forward to meeting you again, Miss Day. Goodbye,’ and after a lingering look at her he was gone, hurried along by Michael.
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