Paper Moon

by Marion Husband

  She wriggled down the bed a little until her head rested on his chest. He stroked her hair, thinking that he could just as easily sleep, that like her he felt loose-limbed and lazy. He smiled, realising that for the first time in his life he felt content.

  After a while she said carefully, ‘It was a joke – what I said about the notch on the bedpost. I was joking.’

  ‘I know you were.’

  ‘I didn’t offend you?’

  ‘No!’ He tipped her chin back so that she met his gaze. ‘Before you there was really only one girl. And before you I thought she would be the only one ever.’

  ‘You still love her.’

  ‘No. Jane –’ He sighed. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Last night, during your nightmare, when you called her name out …’

  His feeling of contentment was destroyed by the memory of the nightmare. He believed he was more scared in the dream than during the crash, that in reality he had been calmer. Braver, he supposed, the kind of bravery that came from having so little idea of what was in store for him.

  He said, ‘That dream – it’s one I often have. It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t mean anything any more.’

  She was silent for a while. Eventually she said, ‘I wasn’t sure what to do – whether to wake you or not. What shall I do next time?’

  ‘Next time?’ He smiled at her. ‘You’d need to spend the night with me. What excuse could you give him?’

  ‘I could tell him I’m going to my mother’s.’

  ‘This weekend?’

  She nodded. There was such desire in her eyes he became hard again and thought of a whole weekend with her in his bed. They could retreat behind the locked door and closed curtains; he would take the phone off its hook. They needn’t dress; they could bathe together and eat picnic meals in bed. No one would disturb them. Imagining it he smiled and she kissed his mouth gently.

  She said, ‘I’d worry he would find out.’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘But if he did –’

  ‘Would he care so much?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Does he have a right to?’

  She moved away from him a little. ‘He cares for me, I think.’

  ‘Not like I do.’

  ‘This is too quick.’

  ‘I don’t know how long it’s supposed to take.’

  ‘You don’t know me – I don’t know you!’ She laughed but he could see that she was on the edge of tears.

  Quickly he said, ‘My name is Robert Harris. I’m twenty-six, almost. For five years I was a pilot in the RAF, until 1944 when I was shot down. I was in hospital for two years – blah blah blah. Last month my grandfather died and left me this house and a comfortable amount of money. I’m in sound mind and body, fit even, apart from my clumsy hands.’ After a moment he said, ‘I hate looking at myself in the mirror but I do, often, because I’m probably the vainest man you’ll ever meet and I want to reassure myself. Of what, I don’t know. Maybe I’m trying to get used to it.’

  She closed her eyes and tears spilled out over her cheeks.

  Wiping them away with his fingers he said, ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ She sounded exasperated. ‘I don’t cry very often. I’m sensible and careful. Timid.’ She looked at him. ‘My name is Jane Mason. My maiden name is Castleton. I still think of myself as Miss Castleton, often. I’m not married, not really, not in any meaningful sense. Is that an excuse? Because I am married. Whatever it feels like, I am married.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  She gazed at him so long that he held her face between his hands and asked her again. At last she said, ‘No. I think I love you.’

  Still holding her face he kissed her. Drawing back he said, ‘Don’t go home tonight.’

  ‘Bob – I must. I’ll lose my job, everything –’

  ‘You’ll have me.’

  For a while she said nothing. He felt his smile freeze on his face until it felt absurd and still she went on watching him, silent and anxious, so he blurted out, ‘I think I love you.’

  She exhaled softly. ‘Let’s not talk. Make love to me again.’

  Pretending to be asleep, Jane heard him get up and go to the bathroom. She heard the lavatory flush and a tap turned on, she heard him draw back the bolt on the door and go downstairs. She rolled on to her back and ran her hand over his side of the bed where the sheets retained the heat from his body. Hesitantly her other hand went between her legs; she was tender and sore despite his gentleness.

  His size had surprised her, her body resisting him so that he’d sucked his fingers to wet them and carefully pushed them inside her. ‘Relax,’ he’d whispered and for a moment he seemed impatient, but then he withdrew, brushing her mouth with his as he found that place she had discovered for herself. He smiled, his gaze holding hers as his fingers rubbed and stroked and pressed against her, harder and faster until she was arching her back and opening herself for him, so wide open, so blatant with want. When he pushed inside her she gave easily, orgasmic still and crying out words she had never used before.

  Listening to him move about in the kitchen downstairs she curled on to her side. Earlier he had drawn the curtains but an oblong of sun slanted through a gap he had left and lit a patch of frayed carpet. The room was quite bare, only a wardrobe and a chair beside the bed. There were no pictures or books, no toys or games left over from his childhood. He would have hidden such childish things away, she was sure, all too aware that his childhood was less distant than hers was. He was a kind, thoughtful man; his voice was beautiful and his eyes made her forget herself so that she became confidently sluttish whenever he looked at her. She smiled, only for her smile to slip away. He was kind and thoughtful and his voice made her weak-kneed. His eyes were beautiful. And he was strange.

  There was something not right about this man, as though a part of him was too badly damaged and corroding. She thought of him burning, the terror of it. Perhaps such pain had killed something in his mind, something that if left to survive would make it impossible to go on. She closed her eyes against the sudden fear that she was no longer safe. All her dull, comfortable security had been sacrificed to a boy whose fragility she should have recognised from the start. She drew her knees up, hugging them to her chest. She deserved this fear, the numbing shock of it; her foolish horror of dying a virgin had wrecked her life.

  And yet the sex had been better than all the days of her life so far. Even now when she thought of him inside her she wanted him again. He could be quick and hard or slow, too slow and teasing, knowing how greedy she was for him. She had thought of him flying, so brave and ruthless, and she had groaned with lust, shocking herself. She had been thrilled by the idea of a man in uniform: she thought she had been above such silliness.

  There was wetness between her legs and she drew her hand away and inspected it, expecting to see her deflowering blood. Instead there was mucus-like whiteness, a smell like thin flour-and-water-paste. She stared at it fearfully. He had made her pregnant. Of course he had.

  From the doorway he said, ‘Tea, madam.’

  She heard him set a tray down on the table at his side of the bed, felt the mattress dip as he climbed into bed beside her. She expected him to pull her into his arms, but she only felt his hand on her shoulder. Gently he said, ‘Jane? Are you asleep?’

  She couldn’t bring herself to answer him. Ludicrously she thought of the snoring noises children made when they pretended to sleep. She clutched the bedcovers more tightly beneath her chin, smelling his sperm on her fingers so that she suppressed a sob.

  ‘Jane?’ He sounded anxious and he moved closer to her. ‘Jane, is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. I’m tired, that’s all. I should go soon.’ She was surprised at how calm she sounded, the shock, she supposed, kept her steady.

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘All right.’ After a while he said, ‘You’ll come back
though, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She felt him move away and get up. He began to pick her clothes from the floor, laying them over the chair before gathering his own clothes and beginning to dress. She watched him. Looking up from the awkward business of buttoning his shirt he caught her eye.

  Timidly she said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘About?’ His voice was hard, his eyes dark and unreadable. Lifting his collar he draped his tie around his neck and began to knot it. ‘Perhaps you should dress now.’

  She hesitated, not wanting to expose her nakedness to his hurt and anger. He would see her as she was, older, skinny, her breasts sagging. He would wonder what she was doing in his bedroom. She realised suddenly that if he was strange, she was stranger, just because she wanted him so much. She was indecent with want. As he sat down at the foot of the bed to put on his socks she said, ‘I’ll come back, if you want me to.’

  At first she thought he was deliberately ignoring her. Eventually he said, ‘If I want you to? What about you, Jane? What do you want?’

  ‘You.’

  He laughed shortly. ‘Me. You don’t want much, do you?’ He looked at her at last. ‘You’d leave your husband for me? Give up your job – I’d suppose you’d probably have to? How would you feel walking down the street with me – people stare, you know, children point and ask their mothers what’s wrong with that man’s face. And I dream – my god, you haven’t heard the half of my nightmares …’ He had been talking too quickly, breathlessly, and he breathed in deeply. He gazed down at the shoes he’d been about to put on. ‘Listen to me. I’m such an idiot. All I want to do is beg you not to go but I end up giving you a reason to leave.’ Looking at her he said, ‘I’m not really as odd as you must think.’

  ‘I don’t think that!’

  He smiled bleakly. ‘No? You look scared of me, sometimes, wary. I think I was in hospital too long; I’ve forgotten how to behave amongst the well.’

  She reached out to touch his arm. ‘Lie down. Talk to me.’

  ‘What shall I talk about?’

  ‘Hospital?’

  ‘Hospital?’ He smiled. ‘That’s boring.’

  After a moment he lay down and took his cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling. She kept quiet; aware that she was holding her breath she breathed out softly and he glanced at her.

  Looking away again he said, ‘I was in a hospital where everyone was burnt like me – some worse, poor buggers. The senior MO there had wangled it so we didn’t have to wear our uniforms – they were too stiff and chaffing, too many buttons – so we could wear what we liked.’ He laughed as though at some bad joke. ‘I wanted to wear my uniform. Vain eh? The others lolled about, gossiping and drinking beer – another concession the MO had fought for – but I just wanted to be on my own, sober and on my own. I wanted my life back, my face back, my hands. All the others were just walking reminders of what I’d become.’

  He blew a smoke ring into the air. Watching it he said, ‘The doctors said I was depressed. Properly depressed, not just angry and sad and frightened like all the others. They threatened me with an asylum if I didn’t buck up. They called my parents and when I heard they were coming to see me I went out into the town and got drunk. It was the first time I’d been out on my own – although they were always encouraging us to go out. I was scared stiff, but it was easier than facing them.

  ‘They waited for me, my mother and stepfather. When I came back, drunk, I was sick over his shoes. He told me I should be ashamed of myself. I haven’t seen him since.’

  Carefully she asked, ‘Did they send you to the asylum?’

  ‘Jane, are you worried I’m mad?’ Rolling on his side he looked at her closely, frowning a little. After a while he said, ‘I bucked up. Pulled myself together. I don’t think they were serious about the loony bin, just bored with my silence.’ He smiled, reaching out to hook a strand of her hair behind her ear. She shivered.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘No, not cold.’

  ‘The tea will be stewed. Did you want a cup of tea? I could make some fresh?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed and stubbed his cigarette out. Somehow he looked frailer dressed, the soft grey shirt he wore making him appear boyish. She remembered the scars on his body where they had plundered undamaged skin to graft on to his hands and face. She had kissed them and he had smiled self-consciously, obviously wanting her to stop. For a moment she had felt awkward and too sentimental, the only time he had made her feel anything other than cherished.

  She thought of his semen leaking between her legs and unable to resist the nagging worry she said, ‘Were you careful?’

  He frowned at her over his shoulder. For a moment she thought she would have to explain what she meant but then he said, ‘I’m sorry – I meant to withdraw.’ He exhaled sharply. ‘Oh Christ.’

  ‘Yes. Oh Christ.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean – what I mean is …’

  ‘I might not be pregnant.’

  ‘Yes. You might not be.’

  Hesitantly she said, ‘But if I was?’

  ‘Would you marry me?’

  ‘I’m married.’

  ‘After your divorce.’

  She laughed miserably. ‘It would take years. Bob junior would be a bastard.’

  ‘He’d be yours. Yours and mine.’ He knelt beside her. ‘I want you to be pregnant. I think you should lie still, perhaps lift you legs up in the air so the little buggers are given a fighting chance.’ He grinned. ‘What shall we call him? Not Bob – bloody awful name.’

  ‘It might be a girl.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Gazing at her he said, ‘I think you’re blooming already.’

  She looked away from him and the blatant look of love in his eyes. She felt dazed by the speed of what had happened between them. If he went on looking at her like that they would make love again. She was reminded of how young he was, how insatiable, how his appetite for her seemed to feed hers for him. She laughed shortly; he might just as well have brained her for all the sense she could make of it.

  He lay down and placed his hand gently over her belly. For a while they didn’t speak and gradually she sensed that he was waiting for her to come to some decision. The words formed in her mind, she rehearsed them, fine-tuning and re-phrasing, wanting to be sure he wouldn’t misunderstand.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll pretend to him that I’ve spent the day at home and tomorrow I’ll go back to school. The play is staged on Thursday, the boys have worked so hard I can’t let them down. But after the play I’ll hand in my notice. I’ll leave Adam. I’ll come here, if you’ll have me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. ‘We’ll be the talk of the town.’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘No.’

  He kissed her. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Getting up he said, ‘I’ll go and make you something to eat while you dress.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FRANCIS SAT BY THE river on a bench carved with a heart and intertwining initials. He ran his fingers along the indentations. Perhaps C&W were still together, married with children; perhaps they sometimes came back here and traced the outline of the enclosing heart. Perhaps C was dead, killed in this recent war, and W mourned, believing him to be the only one, her true, lost love. She may have forgotten him. It seemed more likely. Everyone was forgotten, in the end.

  Francis closed his hands into fists. His bitterness, even after so many years, still made him feel unhinged, as though he could seize a stranger by his lapels and beg him to agree how unfairly he’d been treated, how terribly wronged. He could tell this stranger the whole story, he could rant and weep and say ‘This was done to me! Do you think I deserved such treatment?’ The stranger would, of cours
e, say no, because even a mad man who had accosted him on the street deserved to be treated kindly.

  Until lately he had always managed to keep this agitating bitterness to himself. Even Patrick, who knew most of it, didn’t understand how deeply he’d been hurt. Patrick believed he had come to terms with the past and was relieved because he couldn’t bear him to be sad or to think that he missed any part of his old life. Patrick wanted all to be well if only because he loved him so badly.

  Lately, however, he’d decided that Patrick should recognise his hurt, should be made to see it and understand. One morning, during a breakfast of figs from their tree, he had found himself watching Patrick as he ate. Catching his eye, Patrick had smiled at him.

  ‘Will you finish your picture today?’

  Francis thought of the painting he was working on, how badly it had failed to show what he wanted it to. He had decided that he was a fraud and would stop painting. He hadn’t told Patrick this. Patrick would think he was craving attention.

  Pouring coffee for them both, Patrick said, ‘Samir thinks you’re angry with him.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Ignoring him Patrick went on, ‘Odd, really, that he should think so, because actually I’ve been thinking that you’re angry with me.’ Setting the coffee pot down he said, ‘What have we done to upset you?’

  He was such a beautiful man, so fuckable still. Often the only place he wanted to be was in bed with him, his weight pinning him down during the kind of hard, silent sex that Patrick allowed him sometimes. Patrick, who was gentle and careful and wanted only to make love to him, half understood his need to be fucked with the kind of violent force that would make him groan with the shock of it and come too quickly. Francis suspected that Patrick was ashamed of him after such sessions, ashamed of himself too for so easily becoming his bit of rough.

  Patrick had said, ‘Francis?’

  He’d realised he’d been staring at him, as though trying to memorise his face. He had an idea that he would be changed by what he was about to say. Resisting the urge to touch his mouth to silence any words that might come, he said, ‘I’m going to England. I have to see him, Pat. I have to. I’m sorry.’