Miss Purdy's Class

by Annie Murray

  Gwen waited patiently, as she always did at these meetings, for Daniel to deal with all the people who wanted to speak to him. She exchanged a few words with people she knew, then sat quietly at the side of the hall with her bag and watched. Though trying not to think about it, she was conscious all the time of where Esther was in the room. The vivid green dress stood out among all the drab clothes of the men as she worked her way over to Daniel. Gwen saw them laughing together.

  He may be laughing with you, she thought, but he’s coming home with me.

  She looked down into her lap, at the skirt of her pretty blue frock. I’m jealous, she realized. She’d never been jealous before. Never with Edwin. It was a bitter, fearful emotion, which shamed her. She looked up again to see Esther lean forward to say something, then languidly kiss Daniel on the cheek. The sight filled Gwen with outrage. Who did Esther think she was? But Daniel was already trying to move away and, as he did so, his eyes met Gwen’s. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement that she was waiting.

  ‘I’m going to be off now,’ she heard him say. He strode towards her and she got up to meet him . . . ‘Sorry about all that. The comrades always have a lot they want to say. Did you meet some of them?’

  They went out into the street and Daniel immediately put his arm round her shoulder. At last, they could be close, she thought. But his mind was still very much on the meeting.

  ‘I could feel them tonight – feel the energy,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s not always like that. We recruited two new members as well.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ Gwen enthused. She had yet to join the party herself, and Daniel was working on her. She knew she would, soon, and wasn’t sure exactly why she was hesitating. It was something to do with the shift in her life, stepping over a line away from the past. Joining the party seemed to be a symbol of that.

  Daniel talked excitedly as they walked across town in the mild evening. His body felt taut and almost explosive with energy beside her. They were the only ones waiting at the tram stop. Daniel gave his habitual look around to see if he was being followed. Then he turned and took her in his arms, but she was still sore over Esther.

  ‘Why does she kiss you?’

  ‘Esther? Oh,’ he said dismissively, ‘she’s just one of those people who carry on like that. Doesn’t mean anything – forget it.’ Hs gaze was burning into her. ‘You’re so damn lovely.’

  At the feel of his hands on her back, his lips on hers, desire coursed through her. For these past few weeks she and Daniel had spent so much time together – at meetings and afterwards, talking, kissing in the dark. Every time they met felt more charged and when they were apart she struggled to think about anything except him and being with him again.

  They sat close together on the tram out to Hands-worth. At the end of May Gwen had moved out of the Soho Road house, parting with a genuinely tearful Ariadne, and had moved into the room she was renting from Millie and Lance in Broughton Road. Daniel stayed on beyond his own stop to see her home. As soon as they’d turned into the road with its big, respectable villas, Daniel stopped her again, kissing her hard and hungrily.

  He drew back suddenly, his expression taut. ‘God, girl – I want to have you.’

  She stared at him, longing and frightened at once.

  ‘I’ve never . . . I was brought up to believe it was wrong . . . You know – if you’re not married.’

  Daniel stroked her back. ‘I know. We all were. Church and all that. And bourgeois morality. Anything they could do to control the passions in us.’ He looked down at her intensely. ‘But we can be as free with our bodies as we can with our minds. Truly free. You needn’t . . . You know – there needn’t be a child from it. I’ve got something to stop it.’

  Gwen felt herself blush all over at the intimacy of what he was saying. She had only the haziest notion of what he was talking about.

  ‘I do love you . . .’ she faltered.

  Daniel ran his hands down her sides, then pressed her close to him so that she could not mistake how much he wanted her. He reached round and pulled the bow undone so her hair fell in waves round her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t make me wait any longer.’

  She looked up at him. ‘How can we? Where can we go?’

  ‘The park? It’s not far.’

  She thought about the dark park gates, the damp grass. It didn’t seem right.

  Daniel sensed her hesitation.

  ‘What about your room? You said it was at the back.’

  Her heart beat faster. How awful, sneaking a man into Millie and Lance’s! But she knew she would – she had to. For all her misgivings she ached to lie with Daniel.

  ‘They’ll be in bed by now. Millie’s so tired with the pregnancy and Lance is so . . .’ She gave a wicked giggle. ‘Sort of limp. He falls asleep almost as soon as he’s had his tea. Least it means they can’t argue if he’s snoring away on the couch! And Mrs Markham’s not bothered with us at all so long as we pay the rent. She’s too old to be a dragon landlady.’

  Gwen felt in her bag for her key, her hands trembling. She opened the door as quietly as possible. Inside, the hall was lit by one faint bulb. All seemed quiet, but Gwen had to stifle giggles from pent-up nerves, especially as Daniel made exaggeratedly frightened faces at her as they crept up the wide staircase, waiting for each tread to creak like a thunderbolt. Once they’d managed to get safely into Gwen’s room at the back, they both erupted into laughter, trying to repress the noise.

  ‘Ssssh – for goodness sake!’ she hissed at him as he flung himself down on the bed.

  The room was basic, with bare wooden boards and shabby curtains, but half the ceiling sloped where the attic stairs ran up above it and it looked out onto the garden at the back. Gwen thought it had atmosphere, especially now she’d arranged her few belongings in it and her pictures.

  ‘Least you don’t have to share it!’ Daniel whispered. ‘Not like at Ma’s – all boys together!’

  ‘Well, not until now, anyway!’

  Daniel bounced on the edge of the bed. ‘Squeaky bedsprings? No – not bad.’

  Gwen’s heart beat faster. ‘She’s a bit deaf, anyway – Mrs Markham.’ There was something she didn’t like about the way he was testing the bed. It felt calculating and for a moment she wanted to draw back, to say she had made a mistake and ask him to go. It had robbed the moment of intimacy. But he leaned forward and picked up the picture on the table near her bed.

  ‘Amy Johnson?’

  ‘Yes – she’s a heroine of mine.’

  ‘Remarkable woman, she is.’ Daniel stared seriously at the picture for a moment, then put it back. Gwen was appeased by this, and then Daniel got up and came close to her. They stood looking at one another and his eyes grew serious. He put his hands on her shoulders. She knew she was not going to refuse him. She blushed. ‘I’ve never done this before.’

  ‘I know. That makes me want you even more.’

  He kissed her gently, easing her lips apart with his tongue, as if they had all the time in the world and in seconds her doubts had gone. She wrapped her arms round him and he kissed her deeply, his body pressing tightly to hers. He drew back and looked at her again.

  ‘Let’s see you, my lovely.’ His finger played at the neck of her dress and slowly he unfastened the buttons, peeling back the soft cotton. Her dress fell to her waist, leaving her naked at the top except for her bra. She felt vulnerable, being more naked than him.

  ‘Take it off,’ he whispered.

  She reached round for the fastening. ‘Take your shirt off?’

  He pulled it off over his head and flung it on the floor, watching hungrily as she removed her bra and dropped it on the chair beside her. His hands cupped her immediately, fondling her, then he reached down to lick and suck her. With sudden abruptness he took her hand and led her to the bed.

  ‘Get undressed.’

  His tone was so urgent that she did not feel offended. He was pulling his clothes off, then pulling her to her f
eet again, helping her remove the rest of hers, so fast that she did not have time to feel embarrassed or afraid. She was carried along, excited by his need. She reached out to hold him and his muscular arms pulled her close.

  ‘Lie back!’ Daniel ordered. She lay on the candle-wick bedspread and he kneeled over her. For the first time in her life she saw the strange, alien sight of a naked man, smelt his hungry, sweaty smell, and he was stroking her thighs apart, gently but urgently.

  ‘God, girl, I can feel you want me – let me in. Lift your legs!’

  She obeyed, moved by his desire, but with a feeling of somehow having been left behind in what was happening as he pushed into her, groaning as he released himself into her. He lay panting, his head next to hers, and she kissed his cheek tenderly and stroked his thick hair, her arms and legs wrapped round his back, holding him close.

  ‘My girl,’ he whispered, looking into her eyes. He kissed her nose playfully. Then she saw the loving contentment in his eyes turn to a look of horror.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ He pushed himself up on his arms.

  ‘Sssh!’ she warned him. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I forgot. Christ, I forgot all about the French letter! I got that carried away!’

  A sick feeling jolted into her. It hadn’t crossed her mind! After all, she had no experience of this – had barely even been able to visualize it before.

  ‘Does that mean . . .?’ Heavens, why was she so ignorant? What did it mean?

  ‘Not always. It doesn’t always mean there’s a child. Course not. But there’s a chance.’ Daniel rolled off her, suddenly far away from the closeness of a moment before. He seemed to decide something, and said almost carelessly, ‘Chances are it won’t happen. Don’t you go worrying, pet.’

  He dressed hurriedly and she felt a coldness, as if there was something she had lost. She got up, feeling something trickle wet down her thighs and she had to get a hanky out of her drawer to mop herself with. She put her dressing gown on.

  ‘I’ll have to come down and let you out,’ she told him.

  ‘Right you are.’ He smiled at her, but she thought it was a nervous smile.

  ‘Daniel?’

  He was moving towards the door, putting his waistcoat on. He turned. ‘What?’

  She wanted him to be warm to her, to hold her and tell her he loved her, that it would all be all right.

  ‘Was it . . . all right?’ She felt pathetic, asking like this.

  He stepped back to her and quickly kissed her cheek. ‘It was marvellous. Night, night.’

  He departed along the street with a brief wave. Once she was back in her room, Gwen lay with the light on for a long time, staring up at the cracks in the sloping ceiling. Her body could still feel his touch and between her legs felt damp and sore.

  I’m his now, she thought. That was what it meant if you gave your body to somebody, wasn’t it? I’ve burned my boats. My life now will be with Daniel Fernandez.

  Twenty-Eight

  ‘How do you know when you’re first expecting?’

  Gwen slipped the question casually into the conversation when she and Millie were washing up the tea things. The cooker and sink were squeezed into a wide part of the corridor between the bigger bedroom at the front and the living room behind it, where Lance was already sprawled on the couch, his eyes closed. Questions about babies didn’t seem out of place, with Millie’s on the way.

  ‘Oh, well.’ Millie held out a wet, soapy pan for Gwen to dry. Gwen saw that her nails were chewed right down to the quicks. ‘The first thing was,’ she lowered her voice, ‘my, you know – monthly visitor – didn’t appear. I didn’t think much about it because I’ve never kept track of that very well. Then I started feeling ropy all the time – not just in the mornings. That was when I went to the doctor.’

  Gwen made a mental note of all this. She wasn’t exactly worried about it. It all seemed too unreal. Even what had happened last night between her and Daniel felt distant, as if she had dreamed it. A letter had come from Edwin that morning and he seemed unreal too. Gwen smiled into Millie’s round face. Millie was starting to put on quite a bit of weight. She looked softer round the edges. ‘Are you all right?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘Not so bad.’ Millie’s eye wandered towards the living room, and Lance, and for a moment Gwen thought she was going to say more. Instead she just sighed and turned back to the sink. ‘It’ll all be different when the baby’s here.’

  Gwen eyed her, worried. Millie tried terribly hard with Lance, but he was such a lethargic, moody so-and-so and they squabbled often. It certainly would be different when the baby was there but would it be better? Gwen felt a worm of fear twist in her. What if Daniel had – she struggled to think of the term – impregnated her? But she dismissed the idea again. It seemed too ridiculous. And there were plenty of other things to worry about.

  The Whitsun holiday, which had occurred a couple of weeks earlier, should have given her the opportunity to go home to Worcester. But the thought of being at home with her mother and Edwin and trying on wedding dresses seemed out of the question now. Whatever was she going to do? She couldn’t face the fact that there were decisions to be made, that she could not just go on writing cheerful notes to Edwin pretending everything was as normal. She was supposed to be marrying him in less than three months. She was Daniel’s now. She loved him. She had given herself to him. This meant everything so far as she was concerned. Yet she could not quite face the reality that she was going to have to step right out of that secure life, tell Edwin the truth – jilt him, that was the truth of it!

  She had written to tell her mother and Edwin that she could not come home because she was moving her lodgings over the holiday, and in order to salve her conscience she had moved to Millie’s then. The two holiday days she had spent with Daniel and the Fernandez family. On the Sunday they had gone back out to the Lickey Hills, spending most of the time wrapped blissfully round one another.

  A stern letter arrived from her mother:

  I can’t imagine what you think you’re doing not coming home for Whitsun. Your father and I are deeply concerned about your behaviour and your disgraceful treatment of poor Edwin. It’s bad enough that you are away at all at this time, without showing any sense of duty. He’s your fiancé, for goodness sake! And Mrs Twining is waiting to work on the alterations to your dress. I strongly suggest you come home next weekend and try to make up for it. I’m appalled at the way you’re letting everybody down. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking of.

  Gwen didn’t go home. How was she ever going to face them? Edwin had done nothing wrong. He was a good man, she knew perfectly well. She had been content to be with him until she found out what it was possible to feel when she met Daniel. Daniel had awoken in her not just passion, but a new sense of herself. That wasn’t Edwin’s fault and she knew how much she was going to hurt him. She couldn’t bring herself to write to him, though, even to apologize. From this distance the situation still all seemed like a dream that might just fade away if she didn’t think about it.

  ‘Where’re you off to?’

  Millie’s tone was wistful. It was a warm, humid day and she was on the old couch in the sitting room with her feet up, hair loose, her hands resting on her swollen stomach. She looked hot and tired. The three of them had had some toast for breakfast and Lance had gone out for the day to the Blues match. Gwen felt guilty leaving Millie.

  ‘I’m just going to meet my friend. There’re a few things she needs help with.’

  Millie frowned. ‘You seem to go out such a lot. Who’s this friend then?’

  Gwen forced a smile. ‘Just someone I met. She wants some help printing leaflets – bit of local politics. All rather dull, but never mind.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of thing.’ Millie looked bored by this. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’

  Gwen had put on her oldest skirt, a very unglamorous, straight navy thing, and a plain black blouse.
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br />   ‘She said we’d get grubby. Anyway’ – she picked up her bag – ‘have a peaceful afternoon. It’ll do you good.’

  As soon as Gwen was out of the flat she tore down the stairs, ashamed at her lie to Millie in referring to Daniel as ‘she’. Millie had not met Daniel, and as far as she knew Gwen was all set to marry Edwin. It was three weeks since Daniel’s secret visit to the flat, but Gwen could not bring herself to confide in her about it all – about her feelings for Daniel. About the party. Daniel seemed like her secret life, yet her real life – the one she hungered for.

  There was a yellowed looking-glass in the hall and she paused in front of it. Her hair was pulled back more severely, more carelessly than usual, held by a thick rubber band. She had no ribbons on, no make-up and in the austere clothes and flat shoes she felt serious, more like a proper Communist worker. She had decided now that she was definitely going to join the party, to identify herself with those other passionate, purposeful people who were going to change things for the sake of working people, for the human race. People who got up and did something, instead of just talking about how the world should be a better place! She stared sternly at herself, then, at the thought of Daniel’s face if he could see her, an irrepressible smile broke across her face. She let herself out into the street, bouncing with happiness. I love him! she sang inside herself. I love him so much!

  She ran eagerly up the stairs into the offices. Daniel was already there, his dark head bent over the temperamental duplicating machine. He turned and grinned at her.

  ‘Hello – can’t come too close like this!’ He smiled, holding up his hands, and Gwen saw they were covered in ink. She went to him and kissed him.

  ‘Playing up again, is it?’

  ‘Blasted thing.’ Daniel lifted his arm and shoved his hair out of his eyes. ‘I’ve been fighting with it an hour already. Herbert thinks he knows what to do – he’ll be back soon.’