‘You’re the only one I really love, honest,’ he whispered.
‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Y . . . yes,’ she said, doubtfully, ‘but . . .’
‘No buts.’ His mouth came down hard on hers as he pushed her flat to the ground. ‘I’ve been dreaming about this for months, and I can’t wait any longer. I’ve been going mad wanting you.’
His demanding kisses thrilled her so much that she didn’t realise he had opened her blouse until his hands gripped her small, firm breasts, and her feeble protests were cut off by more kisses. ‘Darling,’ he crooned. ‘They’re like little apples, and now you’re wanting me as much as I’m wanting you.’
‘How do you know?’ she murmured. His fingers were fondling her nipples, sending wonderful sensations downwards, and she wished he would go on for ever.
‘I just know.’ He laughed softly as he took her hand and slid it down his body. ‘That’s what I meant was hard, last week. Feel it, it’s sitting up and begging for you to let it out.’ Now she understood, but she panicked suddenly when his hand crept under her skirt and up her thigh. ‘No, Fergus, please!’
‘Say yes, Fergus, please.’ He was under her French knickers by this time, and his breathing, like hers, was a series of short gasps. ‘Say I’m the very first for you. I must be your first, Renee.’ He heaved himself on top of her and forced her legs apart.
Her fear of the unknown made her tense, so he moved himself around a little until, with a sigh, she relaxed to receive him. He entered her slowly, and when she moaned at the pain, exquisite though it was, he kissed her fiercely.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ he panted, thrusting deeper. ‘I won’t hurt you, and you really like it, don’t you?’
He climaxed very quickly and collapsed by her side, leaving her ashamed of the feelings he’d aroused in her, and which were still clamouring to be satisfied.
In a few minutes, he sat up. ‘Now you’ll always belong to me, because I know I’m the first man to have you, and you’re my Monday girl, because you’re the first girl for me.’
‘Your first time, too?’ Renee wanted to believe this, but needed his assurance that it was true.
He looked at her with a wry smile. ‘No, I can’t say that. At my age, you couldn’t expect me . . . I’ve had sex with quite a few girls, but you’re the first, the most important to me, now, and Monday’s the first day of the week, so that’s why it’s right that you’re my Monday girl.’
She smoothed down her clothing and sat up, still trembling, but he only kissed her gently before he pulled her to her feet to resume their homeward walk.
Later that night, Renee was glad she had her own single bed where she could relive the wonderful time in the park, the kisses, the words of love, the . . . She could feel Fergus there inside her, and desire for him rose again. It was a good thing her mother couldn’t sense the innermost thoughts of her fifteen-year-old daughter, otherwise there would be trouble.
During the following evening, the girl was unable to settle to anything for thinking about Fergus out with Lily, his Tuesday girl. Over and over again, she consoled herself by remembering that he’d said he was trying to shake Lily off, but she kept torturing herself by imagining him doing to the other girl what he’d done to her the previous night. Jealousy ate into her very soul, like a canker, and she was sure she’d never be able to bear this uncertainty until she was old enough to tell her mother how she felt about him.
All through the winter and spring, they made love on Mondays in the Victoria Park; mad, passionate love, until Renee could hardly keep their secret to herself. She wanted the whole world to know how much she loved Fergus, and how much he loved her, but it wasn’t possible, at her age.
Once she was sixteen, though, it would be different. After all, in Scots law, girls could marry at sixteen without parental consent, so she could make her feelings public and her mother couldn’t do a thing about it. She meant to tell Fergus what she intended to do, but their time together was so precious, so intense, that she never remembered about it when they were alone, and there was no opportunity inside the house. The light summer nights made things more difficult for them, however, because he worried that someone might see them and pass the information on to Anne.
‘I don’t care who sees us,’ Renee said, indignantly, one night, annoyed that his fears were damping his ardour.
‘It’s you I’m thinking about, darling,’ he protested, but she was stung into action when he lay back, not having attempted to do anything except kiss and caress her. She surprised herself, and Fergus, by pulling him towards her again, and kissing him wildly until she felt him responding. His hands went willingly now to where she had ached for them, and he muttered, ‘You’ve asked for it, Renee, and by God you’re going to get it.’
His frenzied penetration alarmed her into fearing that he might rip her apart, but, in a few seconds, she, too, was caught up in a great tide of passion, and she forgot everything except the blinding need for the gratification of her desires.
‘Oh, Fergus, I love you,’ she moaned, just before they peaked together.
‘And I love you,’ he panted, digging his nails into her arm.
He had just turned on to his back again, when they heard footsteps coming along the path towards them, and he averted his head as a young couple passed. ‘I don’t think it was anybody we know,’ he muttered as the sound of their feet died away, then he grinned. ‘God, that was good, Renee. We’re absolutely made for each other.’ Her irritation at his first reaction vanished. They were made for each other, that was what was so wonderful for her.
That Wednesday was the last of her classes until after summer. She had forgotten, in the torrid passion of Monday night, to tell Fergus that they wouldn’t be able to meet outside the grammar school until the evening classes resumed in October.
Over three months! She turned cold at the thought. She must find a way to keep their weekly assignations carrying on. Perhaps she could tell her mother that she was going out with a friend? That way, she could spend a few hours with her lover instead of the snatched twenty to thirty minutes they’d had until now, but she’d have to pave the way with her mother, and arrange it with Fergus. Letting him know was going to be almost impossible with the other three lodgers in the house, so the only way to do it would be to scribble a note to him, and to find an opportunity to give it to him before Monday.
On Thursday evening, when they were all seated round the dining-room table, she made her first real move into the sordid world of lies and deceit. ‘I met Phyllis Barclay when I came out of the office tonight, Mum. Remember, she was in my class at school?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Anne waited until her mouth was empty before she went on. ‘You used to speak about her quite a lot. Where’s she working these days?’
‘She’s in a solicitor’s office in Bon Accord Square, and she gets better wages than me. She went to Webster’s Day Classes for six months when she left school, so she’s a shorthand-typist.’
‘You’ll maybe have better wages than her, in the long run.’ Anne smiled. ‘You’re getting yours up every year until you’re twenty-four, so you should end up with a really good salary.’
‘I suppose so . . . Anyway, Phyllis asked if I’d go to the pictures with her on Mondays, now that my classes are finished.’ The falsehood tripped off her tongue as if by magic. She hadn’t even thought of what she would say. She saw Fergus raise his eyebrows, but she couldn’t explain to him. It was all in the little note tucked up her sleeve, and which she was intending to slip to him when no one was looking.
‘That’ll be nice for you,’ Anne remarked. ‘But, remember, I don’t want you to be too late in coming home.’
‘OK, I’ll remember. I’ll come straight home every week.’ Renee rose to go through to the scullery to refill the teapot, and, as she passed behind her mother, she looked over to Fe
rgus and pulled the edge of the note into view, to let him know what to expect. He couldn’t give any sign that he had understood, because he was facing Anne, but she trusted that he had realised what she meant.
Later, when she saw her mother deep in conversation with Mike Donaldson, she looked enquiringly at Fergus, who gave a slight nod and puckered his lips in a make-believe kiss. She noticed then that Jack Thomson had seen the by-play and was frowning at her. She didn’t care, it was none of his business what she did or who she went out with. Fergus remained at the table after the other boys left, so Renee was able to slide her piece of paper under his plate just before her mother came back into the room. He retrieved it at once and pushed back his chair.
‘I’ll have to hurry if I’m going to beat that three to the bathroom. I’ve to spruce myself up tonight – it’s my Thursday girl.’ He laughed and winked as he went out.
Renee turned round quickly to see if her mother had noticed, and was horrified to see that Anne was right behind her, and was blushing like a young thing. My God, the girl thought, she must have believed he was winking to her.
Over the weekend, Renee was very excited at the prospect of a whole Monday evening with Fergus – a real date. He had slipped his reply into her hand on Friday, when she passed him in the dining-room doorway, and she’d gone into the bathroom to read it.
‘Darling,’ it said. ‘Half past seven Monday outside Woolies. Love, Fergus.’
She had been in a state of euphoria ever since, and her spirits were not in the least dampened on Monday morning, when she saw the rain lashing down. It couldn’t last all day. Half past seven! Half past seven! The words went round and round inside her head, even after she started work.
She kept glancing out of the window, but the rain hadn’t stopped, then she remembered a little rhyme her granny used to say to her on wet days when she was a small girl.
Rainy, rainy, rattlestanes, dinna rain on me.
Rain on Johnny Groat’s hoose, far across the sea.
She repeated the jingle to herself during the rest of the forenoon, crossing her fingers childishly whenever she could, to make sure it worked. It was still raining when she went home at lunchtime, but not quite so heavily, and by half past five it was off altogether. She’d been sure that it would be.
After teatime, she quickly helped her mother to clear up, then rushed to wash as soon as Jack came out of the bathroom, before anyone else went in. She dressed herself extra carefully in the green Grandholm flannel dress she had made at school, and which she kept for best. Then she rubbed a little Pond’s Vanishing Cream into her face before powdering it and applying a touch of lipstick. She imagined that the Tango shade was a bit too orange for her, so she flapped her powder puff over her lips to tone it down.
Her hair had grown again and was curling under at the ends in a lovely stylish page-boy, but she swept the sides up and pinned them with kirbigrips. Perfume now. She hadn’t used much of the ‘Evening in Paris’ that Granny and Granda had given her at Christmas, so she tipped it on to her finger and dabbed it behind her ears.
Her heart was palpitating as she walked down the stairs. There was no sign of Fergus – he must be getting ready to meet her – but Jack’s eyes lit up when she walked into the living room.
‘You’re looking really bonnie, Renee,’ he said. ‘I think it must be a lad you’re going to the pictures with tonight.’
She couldn’t meet his admiring, teasing eyes. ‘Don’t be daft. I don’t have to be meeting a lad just because I’ve tried to make myself look nice.’
‘You don’t have to try to look nice,’ he said softly, but Mike Donaldson came in at that moment and prevented him from saying anything else.
‘If you hang on a minute, Jack,’ Mike said, ‘Tim’s nearly ready, so we can all get the same bus.’
Jack smiled pleasantly. ‘OK. There’s no desperate rush for me. What time are you meeting your chum, Renee?’
‘Half past seven, but I want to be there in plenty of time. I hate having to wait for other people, so I try never to be late myself. I’ll just go and wait for the bus, in case you lot don’t make it.’
She’d been standing at the stop for a few minutes when she saw the bus coming, and heaved a sigh of relief that the three boys wouldn’t be in time to catch it, but they came racing round the corner and jumped on as it was moving off.
‘Phew! That was close.’ Jack was puffing as he took the seat beside Renee, while the two Donaldsons sat down in front of them, laughing breathlessly.
Tim turned round and spoke to Jack. ‘Is Fergus going out, or is he staying in again to keep Mrs Gordon company?’ Renee had noticed the amused glance that had passed between him and his brother, but she was afraid to look at Jack, though her stomach was sinking at what Tim had implied. ‘What d’you mean?’ she demanded. ‘Do you think something’s going on between Fergus and my mother?’
‘Tim’s just blethering.’ Jack’s voice held a note of warning. ‘He should keep his stupid jokes to himself.’ Tim coloured as he turned to the front again.
Jack nudged the girl and laughed. ‘He’s a great comic, Renee, take no notice of him. You know what he’s like. Where are you meeting your pal?’
‘Outside Woolies,’ she replied, without thinking, her mind still preoccupied by what Tim had hinted. Had Fergus really stayed at home with her mother all those other Mondays, before he met her at the classes?
She felt sick at the idea of what might have been going on, but tried to make excuses for him. He’d only been passing the time until half past nine, and he’d been sitting talking, that was all. She was his Monday girl; she was his first, most important one, not her mother.
Tim and Mike went off the bus at the stop before Woolworth’s, and Renee wished that Jack had done the same. It would be awful if he came off at the same place as she did. But that was how it happened, and she wondered if this was where he had originally meant to go, or if he suspected the true identity of her ‘pal’.
They crossed the tram lines on Union Street, and walked along until they came to the first entrance into the store which boasted ‘Nothing Over Sixpence’.
‘I’ll just leave you, then,’ Jack remarked. ‘One of my mates works in the Club Bar in Market Street a few nights a week, and Monday’s aye slack kind, so I promised I’d go in to keep him company.’ Whistling, he walked away. Renee was grateful for her narrow escape. He hadn’t been checking up on her, after all. Not that it mattered, really, because he already knew how she felt about Fergus, but it was safer for her if he didn’t find out about this meeting.
She watched the passers-by hurrying to keep a date, or strolling arm in arm already partnered. She felt very grown up, waiting for a boyfriend, and there were only a few weeks left until she’d be sixteen and could broadcast her love to the world, or, more specifically, to her mother.
When the next bus from Cattofield drew up, she watched hopefully, but Fergus didn’t come off. Nor the next bus, nor the next. At eight o’clock, she walked a little bit along the pavement, to save people thinking she’d been stood up, but she kept turning round to watch the bus stop at the other side of the street. She was certain that he’d come, but why was he so late? Tim’s remark came back to her, but she laughed it away. Fergus and her mother? Never in a million years!
The Town House clock had chimed quarter past before he ran round the back of a bus and across the street. ‘I wondered if you’d still be waiting,’ he said. ‘A button came off my only decent shirt, and your mother offered to sew it on.’
Renee rejected the unwelcome thought that sewing on a button shouldn’t have taken three quarters of an hour.
‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she pouted.
‘Oh, no! My God, Renee, I’ve been counting the minutes till I could have you all to myself again. Your mother kept me speaking for a while, that’s all, and I couldn’t get away without be
ing downright nasty to her.’
His black eyes bored into hers, and her heart melted. She couldn’t suspect him of . . . anything like Tim had suggested. It was impossible. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked brightly. ‘How about going to the Bay of Nigg? There shouldn’t be so many folk there.’ He took her hand and led her back across Union Street to wait for a bus.
On the journey, Renee told him that her father used to take them to the Bay of Nigg in the car. ‘That was the Erskine that Uncle George had eventually, but it was my favourite evening run. Through Torry, down St Fittick’s Road, then up past the lighthouse and the Torry Battery. Dad told us that it was full of soldiers during the war. I don’t think he was ever there himself, though. He was mostly in France and Belgium.’
‘Your mother doesn’t speak about him at all.’
‘She wouldn’t, would she? It’s a long time since he died –
1933, that’s six years ago – and it would be like asking people to pity her, and she’s not like that.’
‘No, she’s not like that. Did he take you right round to Sinclair Road and into Torry again? Because that’s what we’ll be doing tonight.’
‘Yes, that’s the way we always went, and it just used to take us about twenty minutes in the car.’
Fergus smiled. ‘It’ll take us a lot longer than that, though, going on our own feet.’
‘It was always my favourite run, but it’ll be my extra-special place after this.’
They were the only two people still on the bus when it reached the terminus, and the conductor winked knowingly when they went off. ‘The grass’ll still be too wet for lying on.’
‘We’ll find a dry bit, don’t you worry.’ Fergus laughed and winked back.
Renee’s face had turned red with the embarrassment of what they were meaning, and she was very relieved when the vehicle turned round immediately and went back towards the city centre. Fergus also seemed more relaxed now that they were away from the crowds, and slid his arm round her waist possessively.
Monday Girl Page 7
