Prelude

by William Coles

  I’d wait till the Monday, would turn up to my piano lesson and, unless India alluded to our kiss and our Thursday afternoon, the subject would never pass my lips. A clinical, practical solution.

  But sometimes you’ve got to go with your heart.

  And that—praise God and all his angels—is what India did.

  We don’t have it anymore in Britain but, twenty-five years back, there was the great luxury of a second post. Two bites of the cherry, one at breakfast and one at lunch, just to find out if anyone thought enough of you to write.

  And she had.

  I have India’s letter here in front of me now, matching cream paper and envelope, black pen, and handwriting so elegant that it is almost copperplate. The moment I first saw it sitting in my pigeonhole, I knew it was from her.

  And my favourite thing of all about it is not the letter itself, but a little drawing on the back of the envelope of two people sitting underneath a tree. Because when I saw that picture I knew instantly that it was all going to be ok—that, far from being finished, we were a ‘Go’.

  That picture meant that I didn’t have to tear the letter open then and there; I allowed myself the luxury of reading it in my room.

  And this is what she wrote:

  Dear Kim,

  I’m still having to pinch myself.

  I was wondering if you might like to come over for tea on Sunday. Any time after three.

  Much love, I xxxxx

  Five kisses, I counted them, and after I had read and reread her letter, I hugged it tight to my heart and felt this enormous explosion of relief, total and utter relief. She wanted me. She wanted me.

  The next day after lunch, I contented myself with a wash, a shave, and the smartest clothes in my wardrobe. A shower might have prompted unnecessary questions.

  For already I was getting canny, had realised that a spray of aftershave might have piqued the other boys’ interests.

  I left the Timbralls at 2.45 p.m. wearing my standard garb for a hot weekend afternoon, just jeans, T-shirt and music book. Your regulation Etonian off for a normal practice session at the Music Schools.

  Only this time, instead of turning right at Keate’s Lane, I continued straight down the High Street, past the last of the boy’s houses, until gradually the college had stopped and I had entered Eton’s civilian world. Instead of school shops, I was walking past pubs, cornershops and tearooms. Dreaming of greeting India at her door, of her warm in my arms.

  I was all but on her doorstep when I realised that I had no gift. I jogged back to the florists for flowers. Roses, red, red roses. Roses for my love. A cliché, I know, but, apart from being made to buy flowers for my stepmother, I had never bought flowers for anyone before.

  Within fifty yards I’d realised my foolishness. I was horrified at myself. A schoolboy with red roses in his hand? Could I have made it any more obvious? Even the most ignorant dullard could not have missed the inference.

  That first time I was relatively lucky. A few cars passed me by, but there was hardly a boy in sight. Over the next few weeks though, when I was to make an almost daily pilgrimage to India’s door, I was to be much more circumspect.

  But that was because, over the next few weeks, I was to have much, much more to lose.

  I hurried on down the street, trying to mask the flowers with my arms while I checked left and right for boys.

  India lived in one of the little cul-de-sacs off the High Street, not far from the Windsor Bridge. Many times I’d walked past her road but had never realised that this was the home of my love.

  Gravel scrunching underfoot. Flowers in precise herbaceous borders. And there at the end was number 16, with a clear varnished oak door and a brass knocker. Parsley, thyme and sage growing in pots by the porch.

  Before I knocked, I stared at the house. I still remember it so well that I can describe it precisely—for this has always been my house of love.

  Since my Eton days, I have honeymooned in style in Paris, have stayed at some of the world’s finest five-star hotels, have whisked girlfriends to spas in Thailand, and have found love and passion in the most luxurious of resorts, with silken sheets, champagne on ice, oysters for breakfast and every other kind of aphrodisiac for lunch, tea and supper.

  But none of it, not a single five-star hotel, not a resort, not a spa, can even compare in my heart to number 16, with its Spartan lines, cotton sheets and baby grand piano.

  I loved it from the first moment I saw it—but then, I would have loved even the shabbiest bungalow if India had lived there.

  It was Edwardian, peeling white paint on the walls and windows, a bit tatty at the edges. Ivy growing up the sides, chimney perched on the end. I stared up at the roof, soaking it all up. So this was it; this was the home of my love.

  My eyes were still on the roof when I caught her, caught her staring at me from an upstairs room. So motionless that I’d almost missed her. She had her finger pressed to her lips, as if cautioning me to keep a secret. She waved and was gone, gone almost as quickly as she was eventually to disappear from my life.

  I CAN HEAR her coming down the stairs. My heart is drilling with excitement. The door opens, and she stands before me—welcoming me, yes me, into her home. Of all the boys and all the men that could have been invited into her home, she has chosen me.

  Just at the mere sight of her my heart convulses. Should I kiss her? Should I touch her? What would she like?

  “These are for you.”

  “Thank you, Kim.” She takes the roses and inhales. So stylish. I could almost have believed it was the first time she’d been given a bunch of flowers. “Why, they’re lovely.” And with that, she cups her hand round my waist and kisses me on the cheek. Kisses me as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, as if it’s a girlfriend just saying thanks to her guy, as if we are already an item.

  We’re in the communal hall that she shares with the flat downstairs, handsome flagstones, a table for the post. I recognise her coat hanging on one of the pegs and her boots lined up underneath.

  “Let’s go up.” She carries the roses in both hands and I follow just a few steps behind. Her light-blue cotton skirt swaying in front of my eyes. I have to hold myself back from stretching out to touch her. Another thick oak door at the top of the stairs, and then we step into the one place which, more than anywhere else on earth, I have come to associate with love.

  “Welcome,” she gestures with her hand, as if to say that what’s hers is mine.

  I still remember every inch of the flat, even down to the exact pictures that she had on the piano.

  And the predominant feeling about it was that it wasn’t meant for a woman, that it was more of a bachelor lair, with heavy oak panelling on the walls and high raftered ceilings.

  From the stairs, you stepped straight into the main room. It was beautiful in its simplicity. A lofty gracious ceiling, three windows, a creamy sofa with two matching armchairs and, in the corner, the baby grand piano. Underneath the piano was an old wooden trunk and, on top of it, three stacks of sheet music. Nothing more—no television, no side-tables, no clutter of any kind.

  India goes to the kitchen to put the flowers in a vase and, when she returns, she laughs as she sees me wallowing in her atmosphere. The noteboard beside the door has photos, letters, notes, mementoes. Three pictures on the wall, one of New York, one of Sydney, and one of Johann Sebastian.

  I walk to the piano, a Steinway with a light brown patina. I play a chord and stare at the pictures above. Two photos, one of India between her parents and one of a beach, a sunset and a silhouette in the surf.

  “Like it?”

  “I love it.”

  “Do you want the guided tour?”

  “Very much.”

  And with that she came over, slipped her hand into mine, and showed me her home. Off from the main living room there were three doors: a spare room-cum-office with a desk, a double-bed and shelves thick with books; a galley kitchen with a small café table and two
chairs; and a grand old-style bathroom with a sink and bath that would not have looked out of place in a baronial hall.

  I took it all in, staring wide-eyed at her books, her shampoos, her moisturisers, her herbs on the shelves. I wanted to see everything.

  “Ready for the highlight?” She led me to the oak spiral staircase in the corner of the living room.

  The stairs were steep, so steep that as I held her hand I was offered the most tantalising of glimpses up her skirt. I was hot, sweating, my chest taut with nerves.

  At the top, India’s bedroom.

  It was the most elegant room I’d ever seen. Viewed even with the most unforgivingly objective eye, it was still breathtaking. And this is what it contained: a double bed with nothing but two plumped pillows and a plain white duvet; a small wooden side-table, on it a lamp and a book of Walt Whitman poetry; off to the side, a shower-room and toilet; and, at the foot of the bed, a wrap-around window that took up an entire wall, with a view so stunning that all I could do was goggle in amazement. The Thames was but a stone’s throw away and behind it, looming high above us, was Windsor Castle. I had never seen the castle looking so beautiful, the river so alluring.

  But it was far more than just a window. It was a vast sliding door, with a patio that stretched over the length of the living room.

  As we stepped outside, she discreetly let go of my hand. For India, far more than I, already knew that Eton was nothing but a goldfish bowl.

  She stood at the door and watched while I prowled round the edge of the patio, my hand trailing over the clematis and the black wrought-iron railings; I was a dog marking its new territory, a lover discovering the confines of his nest.

  I looked at her, framed in the patio door. Even weeks later, even years after, I still found it difficult to believe that she was mine. Mine to kiss, mine to hold, mine to love.

  For on that patio, I didn’t feel like a swain, but like a gangly schoolboy who had been invited for tea by his teacher.

  We gazed at each other, India in the doorway, me leaning against the railings on the far side of the patio, holding tight for fear that the ground might swallow me up.

  Without a word, she beckoned to me. The smallest of gestures, just a wag with the crook of her little finger.

  I went over.

  “I think we should go inside,” she said.

  “Why’s that?” I followed her in.

  She stopped by the side of her bed and turned to me. “So I can kiss you.”

  Possibly the most beautiful words I have ever heard. I beamed with delight. For although now it seems obvious that India was interested in me, I’d still been tormented by doubts. Perhaps I’d been reading it all wrong; perhaps she was just being the good teacher taking an interest in her boys; hell, I didn’t know, perhaps she just felt sorry for me?

  Yes, even when something like India was in the very palm of my hand, I could still find reason to doubt. And I did this right to the very end. Could not allow myself to truly relax and believe that India loved me and only me, that she accepted me in all my lumpen teenage entirety, and that all she wanted in return was my love. No, I could never just simply accept that.

  “You want to kiss me?” I said. In that instant I had become cocksure. From being craven and nervous, she had empowered me.

  “Very much.” She took a step towards me, lightly clasping my elbow.

  “And why is that?”

  “You do it so well.”

  “I do?”

  “Beautifully.” She tilted her chin up and kissed me on the lips. Languorous. Long.

  “Like that?” I breathed into her ear.

  “Yes,” she said. “Just as good as I remember it.”

  “Another?”

  “Please.” She looked up at me, pouted and closed her eyes.

  I traced my fingertips lightly on her cheek, kissed her on one side of her lips, the other side. Then drew back.

  India’s eyes were still closed as she clasped my fingers. “I want more,” she whispered.

  “Like this?” I kissed her on the mouth. It was even sweeter than that first time under the weeping ash, because now there was the added knowledge, the expectation, of what might happen next.

  “Like that.” Her arms snaked up round my shoulders, braced round my neck, and, just as before, her moist lips began to open.

  But this time she was pressing against me as well as kissing, pressing hard, leaning into me until I was falling backwards onto the bed and she was lying fully on top of me; once there, her lips showering my face with kisses, teasing me with her tongue.

  And what I remember more than anything is not her lips, her mouth, or her hands, but that mane of brown hair that surrounded us like a curtain. Just our two faces, locked together in a sweet-smelling cave, her hair so dark, so thick, that all I could make out were her eyes burning in front of me. I abandoned myself to her kisses.

  But it wasn’t just her hair, her mouth, her double bed that made it all so memorable. My eyes are shut, one hand solid round her back, the other soft against her chin. We kissed, and we kissed, and we kissed—but nothing more. There were no hands slipping up shirts; no fingers fumbling at bra-straps; we were locked into each other’s mouths.

  Of course I was aroused. How could I not be? It was by far the most erotic experience of my life. But our erogenous zones seemed taboo. Lips and mouths were one thing, but breasts and buttocks were out of bounds. I wouldn’t have dared to go there, would not have let my hand stray. She might have thought it too forward. Might have thought I was pushing too fast.

  But besides all that, I was content. Just to be allowed to kiss India, my Goddess, left me replete. I could have kissed her for days, weeks, on end. Thoughts of sex, in all its many mysterious ways, may have crossed my mind in the abstract, but the actual reality of making love with India and other such intimacies had not yet entered my head. Truly.

  Until that afternoon.

  For as we kissed, eyes shut, my senses wrapped in the smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the texture of her lips, I felt a delicate quiver. At first, I did not know if it was deliberate, if it was really meant for me. But then it came again, a soft pressure against my belt as she pressed her hips against mine. I knew what it meant in an instant—that now anything was possible. That together we might scale the sexual peaks.

  I responded in kind. I pulsed back and, when she did it again, I stretched my arm down and, as tentative as any first-time lover that ever walked this earth, I stretched and stroked her upper leg. She purred.

  Holding me fast, she rolled over. For the first time I was on top, her legs parted just a little. I leaned on my elbows and gazed down at her. As gorgeous a woman as I have ever seen.

  India then writhed against me, parting her legs a little more until we were comfortable. “That feels good,” she said.

  “It’s beautiful.” I kissed her. “You’re beautiful.”

  She traced her index finger along my jaw-line, my cheek, over my eyelashes and up to my hairline. “And to think that I haven’t even offered you a cup of tea.”

  “Shocking.”

  “Shall I put the kettle on?”

  “How will I be able to kiss you?”

  She idly kissed me before whispering, “Sate me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  We kissed for five minutes, or maybe longer, only this time her hand slipped up my shirt and was stroking my back.

  “I could come down to the kitchen with you,” I said.

  “I’d like that.”

  I followed her down, my hands not wanting to leave her for a moment, forever pawing at her shoulders, her hair, and, when we made it into the kitchen, we had to kiss again. The kisses seemed like oxygen that we needed for our very survival.

  We had Earl Grey with lemon and then she played for me. The Well-Tempered Clavier, of course, it was becoming our music. The music that would always come to remind us of how much we’d loved each other.

  She was playing not from Ba
ch’s first book but from the second; he’d finished it in 1742, some twenty years after the first.

  I sat on the piano-stool beside her. “Book Two?” I asked.

  She was concentrating on the Third Prelude in C-sharp Major, a true behemoth with seven sharps, so difficult that I would never have dreamed to touch it.

  “Got to keep raising the bar.”

  “Is there much difference between the books?”

  She paused, fingers poised above the keyboard, weighing up Bach’s two heavyweights. “The second book might be a bit more mature. But you can hardly tell the difference. Although I’ve always felt the First Book is just that little bit looser. A bit freer, not quite as tight.” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “I think we’re all like that when we start out.”

  She started to play again, picking up from where she’d left off.

  “I love it when you play for me,” I said. “I always have.”

  “Thank you.” She leant over and kissed me on the cheek without missing a beat. “I know you do.”

  She loved The Well-Tempered Clavier, she truly did. The music touched her soul, and, through her, it touched mine too.

  From sight, she played preludes, fugues, the whole gamut, and there was not a note that I did not treasure.

  I never realised at the time that India was such an accomplished pianist. She must have been close to concert class. To me she was only ever my piano teacher, my love, and the beauty who played me Bach.

  We sat with our legs pressed easily together, knee-to-knee, thigh-to-thigh.

  But already, only hours into romance, before even we had consummated our love, I was rocking the boat and conjuring up storm clouds from out of nowhere on the horizon.

  That picture of India on the piano, tanned and wearing a sarong as she stood barefoot in the surf; did she look like she was in love? Who’d taken the picture? Was it the man who’d given her the diamond ring?