Thorn in the Flesh

by Anne Brooke

  Kate continued to laugh. A place in her body she hadn’t known she was holding on to suddenly unknotted itself and slipped away. Even later, when the laughter transmuted to tears for a while, the sense of release stayed with her. She was glad of it. This new, unlooked for understanding brought power, something that she would soon need.

  That night, she slept well. There’d been no more letters since her return and she hadn’t re-read the ones she already had. It wasn’t necessary; she knew their contents. The meaning, of course, was more subtle.

  Bank Holiday Monday found her with nothing important to do. She’d already made the decision to make her telephone call tomorrow, Tuesday, before Nicky arrived. That way, there would be a past and present story to tell. It would be the logical path to take. And wasn’t that the one she’d always taken?

  All morning however, the telephone lurked on the hall table like a small but demanding animal waiting to be fed. Kate found herself passing through the hallway several times on the way to the garden, the kitchen, the bathroom, when she had no pressing need to do so. Each time, she hesitated and once she went so far as to turn her address book to the M slot again, just as she had on the morning of the attack even though she knew she would never have acted on that impulse then. It would have been impossible. Now, she longed to pick up the receiver and hover her fingers over the numbers, the string of digits calling in her head.

  But no, it would be ridiculous to ring today, on a public holiday. It was the worst possible time to make such a call. The time wasn’t yet and, heart beating fast, she dropped the telephone back onto its cradle and drifted away.

  When lunchtime came, she made herself a salmon spread and lettuce sandwich and a pot of Earl Grey, but tasted none of it. Halfway through the tea, she closed her eyes, opened them again, and pushed her chair behind her before stumbling out into the hall.

  Now. She would call him now. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  Clutching the receiver to her ear, she swallowed down bile and need, and the pulsating image of him in front of her so close she swore she could touch him, and tried to unclench her fingers. How could he still have that effect on her after so long? The ringing tone pierced her senses, a distant cry from the life she’d once had and which she’d chosen to leave behind. Or partially chosen. Her cotton dress was drenched with sweat.

  The ringing continued. But no reply came.

  She put the receiver down, leaned forward, her forehead pressed against the wall, and tried to get her breath back. Of course. She was being stupid. He wouldn’t be in. Not today. He’d be out, laughing in sunshine with his family. For surely he must have a family, by now. He’d said he wanted one once, some day. It was best to stick to her original plan. Ring later, ring tomorrow.

  She would have to wait.

  When, at last, at 9.30pm that same Monday night, her sixth call was answered, it took all she had to form the words.

  ‘Please, can I speak to Peter McLeod?’ she said.

  Chapter Ten

  When Kate Harris met Peter McLeod on the fourth day of Freshers’ Week, Durham University, October 1985, she was already in love with someone else. Or thought she was. A fellow Linguistics student, Penny Saunders, slim, fair-haired and with eyes as brown and deep as the earth. Sex with Penny was simple, as relaxing as the comfort of warmth. And as natural. It was also an adventure. Sleeping with another girl was something she couldn’t have done in her parents’ home, back in Godalming, or in the intense late teenage girl atmosphere of Prior’s Field School sixth form. It was something special, secret, for her alone. And, yes, a part of herself she’d never felt the need to explore fully while Nicky was there, to talk, giggle and dream with. To meet a need she hardly dared express.

  With Nicky now gone, on her year out travelling through the Far East and Australia, the time without affection stretched long and plain before her, and Kate found herself, in those first few days at Durham, searching not only for friendship, but also for something deeper. Then Penny had sat next to her at one of the departmental inductions and smiled. It had changed everything. Even now, Kate regretted the knowledge that she and Penny had only made love a few times before she’d met Peter. She remembered the smoothness of the other girl’s tanned flesh, the musky taste of her breasts and the way she’d laughed in delight at their coupling. She’d been a fool to let it go in the way she had, but nothing could have stopped her wanting the man she’d met on the afternoon of the Freshers’ Fair or her joy in what happened after.

  She’d been chatting to Penny as the two of them wandered round the stalls set out in the Union. Penny had stopped at the ten-pin bowling stall and Kate, laughing, had moved on, intending to wait for her friend to catch up. She’d turned the corner, squeezed past the Christian Union display whilst not making eye contact, and had slammed against someone wearing a navy blue tee-shirt and smelling of smoke and beer.

  ‘Hey! Watch it, won’t you?’ a male voice said, staccato, but by then it was too late. The plastic cup half-filled with beer spun out of his hand and the golden liquid arced like a fountain, spraying itself over his shirt and jeans, and over her white top too.

  ‘Sorry, I …’ Kate began to say and then glanced up at the stranger.

  His eyes were blue like the sea, and everything around her turned to stillness.

  It was ridiculous, she knew, but for a second or so outside time, nobody in the world except this man and herself existed. No Union, no stalls, no music, no noise, no anything. Only herself and him.

  She watched his mouth move, but heard no words. Then, as if an invisible door was being opened, the world and its sounds slipped back into place.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘What did you say?’

  He grinned and shrugged, a gesture that pinioned her heart as if it were an unsuspecting butterfly. ‘The usual, I suppose, for Freshers. What’s your name, which A levels did you do and which is your college?’

  ‘You’re not a first year, then,’ she guessed, with a frisson of surprise at the normality of her own voice.

  ‘No, I’m far too confident, or so everyone says. Can’t you tell? I’m Peter McLeod, my A levels – and I’m dredging my memory here – were Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and I’m in my final year reading Maths at Castle. You?’

  ‘Kate Harris, A levels of French, German and History, all As, and I’m reading Linguistics at St Mary’s.’

  ‘I thought so. You’ve got the look of a Mary’s Girl.’ He laughed.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Hey, don’t get in a sweat. I didn’t mean anything horrible. Mary’s Girls are sweet, sassy and sexy. As well as unobtainable, usually.’

  ‘Why are they unobtainable?’

  He shrugged again, ‘Easy. They’re either virgins, prudes or dykes. Which are you, Kate?’

  His eyes pierced into hers and she was sure, for another split second in time, that all her life, both past and present, was utterly open to him. Someone jogged him, and then pushed past her, muttering, but neither lowered their gaze.

  It was she who broke the impasse.

  ‘Why should it be the woman’s fault?’ she asked him. ‘Perhaps the boys they come up against are impotent, crude or homosexual? Anyone of those would make me unobtainable.’

  And, with that, she swung away from him, striding off down the long line of stalls touting their wares. His laughter, as fresh as water, followed her.

  ‘See you around, Kate,’ he called, and it was all she could do not to stop and cry out to him, when?

  That night, Kate’s roommate was out at a departmental party, and Kate took the opportunity to invite Penny back, lock the door, and make love to her for a long and delicious time, without any laughter. But when she shut her eyes, the face she saw was Peter’s.

  For the next three days, she saw him everywhere, even when it was only in her thoughts or dreams. Though sometimes, she knew it for reality and, in the street, in the market place, across the cobbles, near
the church, she followed him as if drawn by a call stronger than her own sense. Not once in those times did he acknowledge her though if anyone had asked her, she could have described every inch of his long, haunting face, how his eyes pierced hers, the way one curl of blond hair was not quite in place. She wondered how that would feel if she brushed it back and touched the warmth of his skin with her fingers. She dreamt also of the throatiness of his laugh, the first time she’d dreamt in sounds.

  During that time, she missed two dates with Penny, and felt her explanations float away, guilt being something acknowledged but not truly felt. Then on a Saturday morning bright with frost, as she ambled, not without purpose, through the narrow lane up past the castle, she saw him again.

  He was leaning against one of the walls of the college, head resting on stonework, a cigarette in his right hand. As she watched and shivered, he brought it to his lips in one fluid movement, drew on its muskiness, shut his eyes and exhaled before letting the cigarette drop and crushing it underneath his sneakers. No-one else was around.

  Almost without realising it, she’d moved closer, but not close enough to touch. For a moment he said nothing and then he opened his eyes and looked at her.

  He smiled.

  ‘Kate,’ he said.

  Two minutes later, they were in the narrow corridor outside his room and he was fumbling with his key. At last, he opened the door and stumbled inside. She watched as he gathered up papers on his desk into one corner and then flung the dark blue bedspread over the tumble of sheets and blankets beneath.

  ‘You should come in,’ he said, his voice not quite steady. ‘Please? Seeing as you’ve come this far.’

  She hesitated at the doorway, breathing in the smell of smoke and sweat hanging heavy in his room. Gazing around at the Hitchcock posters, the tennis racquet and the uneaten chips on a plate on the floor, she shrugged.

  ‘Have you got anything to drink?’ she asked him.

  ‘Sure. What do you like? Beer? Wine? It’s white, but it won’t be cold.’

  She hadn’t meant alcohol, especially not so early in the day, and anyway all this week she’d been building friendships on the fragility of coffee. But the fact he’d given her a different choice didn’t surprise her. It was right to feel different, now.

  ‘Beer,’ she said.

  Without looking round, Peter reached out and grabbed a bottle from the shelf. He opened it against the edge of the desk and handed it to her silently. Then he did the same for himself. She couldn’t tell what brand it was. In her mouth, it tasted bitter, stale and too warm, but Kate swallowed it as if it were nectar. She could feel the heat of it searing her throat and setting her stomach on fire. Her companion placed his unfinished bottle onto the shelf and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her.

  She finished her drink. All of it, not one drop wasted, although when she stretched out and let the empty bottle fall into the bin, there was no hint of intoxication in her.

  Dragging the one chair from the desk nearer the bed, Kate sat down. When Peter reached forward and pulled her tee-shirt loose from her jeans, she trembled but didn’t say anything. His hand felt rough and warm against her skin and she gave a small moan.

  ‘That okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She should be with Penny right now, she thought, getting to know her a little better, comparing notes on what the tutors had said, thinking about what they could do together next, but she knew she wouldn’t be. It didn’t matter. Here, her new friend seemed to be a thousand miles away from the fierce beating of her heart. Was she about to be unfaithful? Promiscuous? She couldn’t grasp the answer and besides no promises had been made. By anyone. Had they?

  Peter ran his hands around her waist and eased her tee-shirt over her head. She pushed her chest out to try to make her breasts bigger, more pleasing to him, and he smiled. As if he understood. With an uncertain movement, he scrambled to unhook her bra and dropped it on the floor next to her. She was naked, from the waist up, in the room of a man she’d only met twice.

  She didn’t care.

  Leaning forward to kiss him was as if he’d given her permission to be free. His tongue tasted of beer and smoke, and the shiver of his fingers on her stomach, her breasts, her nipples made her moan again.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you done this before?’ he murmured between kisses.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, shuddering.

  ‘No, I mean, with a bloke. Properly. Because you do it with that dyke from your department, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I …’ she broke away, still tasting him in her mouth. ‘It’s not like that, I …’

  ‘Really? That’s not what I’ve heard. Don’t you do it with Penny Saunders, Kate? That’s the rumour.’

  She looked at him. His eyes were a clear blue, so much like the sky.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and in the air between them the truth tasted bitter. ‘I’ve done it with Penny. But I’m not a virgin either. Not in your sense. Does it matter? Now?’

  He grinned. ‘No, I don’t think it does. Not in either case.’

  Then, with no more words, he removed her sneakers, jeans and knickers, and unzipped himself. His penis sprang upwards, already hard. When Kate stretched forward to touch him, he shook his head and then lifted her gently, as if she might break, onto his lap. As he eased her down, she felt him enter her, filling her up, and arched her back, shaking her hair free.

  ‘Peter,’ she said as great waves of joy shuddered through her body, an uncontrollable tide sweeping through every part of her. She cried out, clinging to his shoulders, while he moaned and rocked beneath her.

  Afterwards he laid her down, slick with sweat and semen, onto the bed and, still clothed though she remained naked and shameless, kissed and stroked every part of her body, making her come again.

  She saw Penny only once after that, and the meeting between them was inconclusive. Penny talked in words that seemed to fly over Kate’s understanding: loyalty; commitment; even love. She was crying as she spoke, tears making her eyes small and reddened, and Kate tried to comfort her, but she flinched away.

  ‘No! Don’t touch me. How can you be with him when you’re already with me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry, Penny, but …’

  ‘You cow, you’re not sorry. I can see you’re not. Look at you, I mean look at you!’

  Without warning, Penny grabbed her and swung her round to face the small curved mirror above the washbasin.

  ‘What ...?’ Kate gasped.

  ‘Shut up,’ Penny snapped, giving her imprisoned arms a quick shake. ‘Just look at yourself, won’t you?’

  Kate looked. She could see her own face gazing back at her, skin glowing and clear, her green eyes dancing and auburn hair shining in the morning light from the window.

  ‘See,’ Penny said. ‘You’re not sorry.’

  She shook Kate once and then released her, taking a step back.

  ‘I know you’re not sorry,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want to see you again. Bitch.’

  ‘Penny, please …’ Kate began, though she had no idea what she might have been about to say, but already her friend, or ex-friend, had gone, slamming the door so hard behind her that the bed shook.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to no-one, but even the air no longer believed her.

  All she could think about was Peter.

  He filled her every sense. When she was with him, she couldn’t stop touching him, looking at him, listening to him. He didn’t seem to mind. Not that they did much talking. In between lectures, seminars, getting to know people and exploring the town, Kate spent a lot of time lying with him in his bed. After the first time of making love, Peter had produced condoms and used them. Not that, for Kate, it had seemed to matter. The practical implications of what they were doing were surely a thousand miles apart from this secret world of lips and tongues and teeth. A world where Kate felt as if she were lying on soft grass, gazing up at a gentle su
n. Or floating down a sparkling river to a welcoming sea. The skies she lived under during those few magical weeks with Peter were all the colours of blue, and sometimes could be streaked with the pink and apricot of morning, or the denser silvers and blacks of the night. The scents around her were salt-warm, honeyed, fresh: the scents of his body and how it blended with hers. There was no future and certainly no past. Only the present mattered.

  This, she thought, this is how it is to be in love. This is how it is, and how it will always be.

  Being in love taught her many things. She learnt how to respond to the rhythms of somebody else’s customs and how best to align her own. She learnt very soon that Peter began his day later than she did, often not being up before gone 9am. Even then he didn’t rouse himself fully until his first mug of strong coffee, black, one sugar, accompanied by a cigarette, and was never in any mood for conversation. She loved the smell of him when he woke. A strong, earthy smell, something she’d never been used to in her brief time with Penny, whose body had always smelt of citrus soaps and herbs. Peter, on the other hand, smelt of smoke and heat. His hair would be tousled and she would take delight in smoothing it down, even though he grumbled or pretended to nibble and bite at her hand.

  He preferred making love in the mornings and sometimes would, she was sure, only be half-awake when he drew her close, easing himself inside her and pulling her body further against his. At his first touch, Kate would always be fully alert, her skin trembling with the need for him, as if she’d been branded by fire. During those times, his lovemaking would be quick, urgent, as if only fulfilling a physical need rather than knowing who it was he was with, but she didn’t mind. Any chance of being with him was a chance she would never choose to miss.

  It was evenings though when she felt most relaxed with him, and most responsive. She learnt how to take him with her mouth, drawing her tongue up and down the length of him, something she’d never done before, and she learnt how to read the slight quiver of his hardness with her lips and fingers. She learnt too how to bring him to the brink of release and then hold him there until he could no longer contain himself. The burst of salt warmth into her mouth reminded her each time of the sea and all its richness. Her body discovered its own rhythms, and every part of her rejoiced in Peter and what he did to her. She loved the way he would stroke her arms and shoulders for a long and slow time before moving to kiss and touch her breasts. With every touch of his lips and hands, the boundaries between her skin and the world, between her skin and himself, would grow more fluid, as if she were taking into herself a joy that existed outside them both, and which only he, Peter, could release for her.