by Rosie Thomas
He took her arm as they wound up the spiral stairs together.
This evening is like some kind of formal Elizabethan dance, Chloe thought. It starts out very slowly and stately, then gets faster and faster until finally everyone falls over. I shall certainly fall over myself if I have any more to drink.
‘I didn’t catch the economist’s name,’ she whispered to Stephen.
‘Edgar France,’ he told her, and Chloe clapped her hand to her mouth with a horrified giggle. ‘Oh God, not the Edgar France? The world expert, no less. And I was treating him to a lecture on the fundamentals of economics in selling.’
‘I haven’t seen old Edgar enjoying himself so much in months.’
They both laughed delightedly and went on up the ancient stone steps arm in arm.
The setting for the last measure of the dance was a low room whose dormer windows looked out across the leads to the stone crenellations ornamenting the roof edges. When Chloe glanced out, she saw them standing out black and lacy against the dark blue sky.
In this room there were deep leather sofas and armchairs, another huge log fire, and a rich smell of coffee. The fellows were grouped around a loaded tray of drinks, pouring themselves liberal measures of brandy and coffee in thimble-sized cups. Chloe shook her head at Stephen’s offer of brandy.
‘Not if I’m to walk out of here on my own two legs.’
He brought across a cup of coffee and made himself comfortable beside her on her sofa. Dave Walker was hovering nearby but Stephen waved him away.
‘Do you dine like this every night?’ she asked Stephen.
‘Of course not. Think of our poor livers. This is a special guest night, and we only have a few of them a term. Usually I’m at home with Beatrice having a bowl of soup and a sleep in front of the television. Just like everyone else.’ He smiled at her, and Chloe saw the fine wrinkles at the corners of the bright blue eyes.
Lucky Beatrice, Chloe murmured to herself. I’d share my bowl of soup with Stephen any day. Or night.
She forced herself to look away from him and glance round the room. There were more red faces and slurred voices than old Puffett’s, and an atmosphere of irritation coming from some of the little groups. Chloe had a sudden insight into the pressures of living in a closed community like this, eating with the same people night after night and rubbing along with them like the members of an awkward family. She suddenly understood Stephen’s throwaway remark about fights breaking out. But she thought that it was probably up here after a good dinner that the real business of the College was done too. The Master was deep in conversation now with two of the senior fellows, and she had the impression of plots being hatched elsewhere in the room as well.
‘I should think this is the real nerve-centre, isn’t it?’ she asked Stephen and he looked at her admiringly.
‘You spotted that? Yes. The College is governed from here, in the odd half-hour or so after dinner. All those formal meetings we sit through are so much wasted time, after this.’
They sat quietly together for a few more moments, watching, then Stephen squeezed her hand.
‘I don’t want to spend any more of my time with you up here. Come back to my rooms and have a last drink.’
Chloe met his enquiring eyes coolly, levelly. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’
They said their goodbyes. The Master bent to kiss Chloe’s hand. From behind one of the sofas, like a barricade, Dave Walker gave her a clenched-fist salute and a broad grin.
With Stephen’s hand guiding her, Chloe negotiated the twists of the spiral stairs once more and they came out into the clean, cold air of the Quad. It must be very late, Chloe noticed. There were hardly any lights to be seen anywhere. Above the fanciful stonework of the chapel, the stars looked white and brilliant in the thin winter dark.
‘I enjoyed that,’ Chloe said softly. Stephen’s hand kept firmly hold of hers.
He chuckled. ‘I thought it might amuse you. It’s like a complicated game, isn’t it?’
He led the way through the dark tunnel of some cloisters and unlocked a door.
‘Home from home,’ he murmured beside her.
Stephen’s College rooms did have the lived-in look of a home. There were books everywhere, filling the shelves and overflowing on to the solid desk, the window seats and floors. There was a white marble bust of Shakespeare, wearing Stephen’s mortarboard rakishly over one eye, a dish of alabaster eggs on the low table in front of the fire, and the air was scented with the dusky warmth of potpourri. The walls were hung with tranquil English watercolours. On another table was a huge bowl of chrysanthemums, gold and deep bronze. Chloe put out a finger and touched the waxy curled petals.
‘From our garden,’ Stephen said absently. His eyes followed Chloe as she prowled around the room. She was quite at her ease, picking things up and putting them down before moving on as though she wanted to fix the whole room in her memory.
‘I’m so glad to be here,’ she said at last.
‘At Oxford?’
Chloe smiled quickly. ‘Yes, that of course. But I meant here, with you, in this room. It’s just like I imagined it would all be.’
For a moment Stephen said nothing. Chloe stood in her silky black dress with her hair tawny in the firelight, watching. She lifted her hand to push the hair back from her face and as she moved, the diamonds in her ears shot light at him.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he whispered. ‘Come to me.’
Chloe came, her green eyes alight. Stephen’s hands reached out for her and slid from her shoulders to her narrow waist. Then he took one of her hands and slowly, carefully, undid the tiny black buttons at the wrist. He lifted it and pressed his mouth against the warm skin where the pulse throbbed. It was silkier than the black dress, and fragrant with the scent that clung about her.
As they stood together, Chloe looked down at Stephen’s bent head and saw the fine grey threads at the temples. She had a sudden sense of all his life, radiating outwards from the centre of this room, all unknown. She longed to change that, to know everything about him that there was to know. Suddenly she ached to possess him, to make him belong to her and no-one else. Her hand brushed against his hair.
Stephen lifted his head. His blue eyes were very clear.
‘Yes?’ he asked, softly.
‘Yes.’
His hands went to her throat and again slowly undid the long line of buttons. Chloe’s dress slid from her shoulders and the light shone on her bare skin. Under the black slip she was naked and Stephen’s fingers traced the hollow beneath her ribs under the slippery silk and then the outline of her breasts. Chloe’s eyes never left his face. She was smiling through parted lips. With a whisper the black slip dropped away and she stood in front of him, creamy pale skin against the tumble of red hair, naked except for the sheer black stockings. ‘Leave them,’ he commanded, his voice very low.
Teasingly, Chloe stepped back against the desk and swung herself on to it, her long legs crossed. Her outstretched hand met the heavy folds of Stephen’s gown and suddenly she shook it out and slipped her arms into it. The black stuff half masked her body, transforming her into part schoolmistress, part pin-up. When she turned away from Stephen, the gown billowed behind her in a black cloud.
Stephen half laughed, half groaned.
‘That’s very sexy.’
He reached out to catch her before she could slip tantalisingly out of his reach. He lifted her up effortlessly and laid her on the low sofa. The gown fell away as he knelt beside her and buried his face between her breasts. Chloe’s eyes closed as his tongue began to travel, exploring relentlessly. Blindly now her fingers fought with the folds of his clothes.
At last he was naked beside her and they stretched together, glancing down at the length of their bodies, before he came on top of her. His hands and mouth were insistent.
Chloe’s hands found him in response and as she guided him inside her, he whispered, ‘Chloe, Chloe, Chloe.’
She drove him insisten
tly, expertly gauging the movements of his response until he lost himself and arched back in her arms, his eyes sightless and his fingers tangled in her hair. Chloe’s face was soft with satisfaction as her mouth explored his cheeks, the faint prickle of beard along his jawline and the fringe of lashes that lay dark against his skin. Her hands smoothed over the bunched muscles in his back and shoulders, then returned to stroke the damp hair back from his face.
For a long time there was no sound except for the hiss and crackle of the fire. Then she opened her eyes and looked into his.
‘Again. Please,’ she said, and at once she felt him move against her. She smiled, teasing, until he pulled the folds of his gown away from her.
‘Just you, this time,’ he ordered and her answer was to slide on top of him and then bend forward, so that he was blindfolded by the curtains of her hair.
Stephen laughed back into the wide eyes and reached up, further and further into her soft heart.
Suddenly Chloe’s face changed. Her fingers dug into his arms and the challenge faded from her face as her mouth met his.
‘Stephen.’
He had found her now, and it was his turn to play her. He did it unrelentingly, until there was nothing in Chloe’s world except his flesh against hers and the image of his face inside her eyelids. Then even that was gone and she wound herself around him, lost, drowned. Without breaking the rhythm of his movements, Stephen turned her so that she lay beneath him once again. When she opened her eyes, she saw his face over hers, dark, and with a twist to the mouth she had never seen before. There was a kind of cruelty in his face, and an exultation in his total power over her. Chloe didn’t care. The change in him excited her and she lifted herself against him, hungry for her own release. Still Stephen held her back, changing the pace and depth of his thrusts until she moaned out loud and dug her fingers into the tense muscles of his back.
‘Stephen. Please.’
For an instant he stopped, holding her poised on the very edge. The world hung in silence around them. Then one single thrust tore a low moan out of Chloe and she shuddered in his arms for long obliterating seconds. As the waves slowly receded, she clung against him with her eyes glued shut. Gradually awareness crept back to her. Something had happened. Subtly, in the course of their love-making, Stephen had reversed their roles. Before, Chloe had felt like the leader and the instigator. She had been very confident with her own experience and the certainty of what she wanted from him. Now, after that glimpse of his pleasure in his mastery over her and the sheer expertise of his love-making, Chloe was not so sure. The gentle, clever don with the suggestive mouth had become someone else, much bigger.
What did she want from him, after all?
Chloe sighed and turned her face into his shoulder to block out the light. She wouldn’t think about that, not now while he was still so close.
Beside her, with her head pillowed on his shoulder, Stephen drifted quietly into sleep.
The sky was dirty with the grey light of dawn when they woke up again. Stephen frowned for an instant at the mass of red hair spreading over him, then smiled in satisfaction.
‘Chloe,’ he whispered. ‘Time to wake up.’
She blinked at him and then stretched luxuriously like a cat. Whatever had happened, it felt good.
‘It’s nearly morning,’ she said, and a little twinge of anxiety immediately nibbled at her. ‘What will … Beatrice say?’
‘Beatrice is quite used to me,’ Stephen said smoothly. He was dressing, knotting his tie and looking away from her to the spread of daylight over the Quad outside.
I see, Chloe thought. ‘I enjoyed my evening,’ she said lightly to cover the little awkwardness. Stephen caught her from behind and kissed the nape of her neck.
‘So did I. Shall we do it again soon?’
Questions hovered in Chloe’s mind but she dismissed them. Wait, she warned herself. Wait and see.
‘Yes, I’d like that.’
Stephen fastened the last two buttons at the neck of her dress for her, and then Chloe bent down to pick up his gown. She shook it out, and tried vainly to smooth out the creases. Stephen watched, one eyebrow raised, and they both laughed. It made the atmosphere between them easy again, and left them feeling pleased with their new intimacy.
‘Come on,’ Stephen said. ‘I’ll drive you home before it gets properly light and all the world can see us tiptoeing across the Quad.’
And so in the early morning light, Stephen drove Chloe back to Follies, then turned his car around and headed for the stone rectory where his wife and children were asleep.
For a week of evenings, Helen and her mother sat in their armchairs on either side of the gas fire in their small sitting room and struggled to keep one another cheerful.
Helen had been disturbed to see how thin her mother had become. Her plain tweed skirts hung loose from their waistbands, and her shoulders looked shrunken under her home-knitted cardigans. Her hair looked greyer, and when Helen hugged and kissed her goodnight, she felt her mother’s bones knobbly under her skin.
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ her mother kept saying. ‘We can manage. But it’s lovely to have you here to talk to, darling.’
And Helen would nod, keeping her heaviness of heart to herself. She had discovered very quickly that it was easy to talk bravely about getting a job, much less easy actually to find one. An abandoned degree in English Literature from Oxford was a positive drawback. The supermarket managers and factory personnel officers eyed her with suspicion and chose someone else from dozens of applicants. Helen had never learned to type, and although she was sure she could learn the rudiments of bookkeeping quickly enough, there was no-one who was willing to give her the chance. She was beginning to despair of ever finding any work, however menial.
The ugliness of the offices she visited depressed her unreasonably, and her head throbbed from the neon lighting and cigarette smoke.
This is what life is like, she kept telling herself. Dad worked in places just like this, and so do millions and millions of other people. Your own existence up to now has been utterly unreal. But still she ached for the beauty and calm of Oxford. The peace of Addison’s Walk, on the morning that she had shared it with Tom Hart, seemed to belong to another world.
She dared not think about Oliver.
At the end of a week’s job-hunting, she was no nearer to becoming a wage-earner. Desperation was beginning to take hold, in spite of her continued promises to herself that so long as she kept trying something was sure to turn up. Then, late one afternoon, the telephone rang for her mother. After the call Mrs Brown came back into the kitchen where Helen was chopping the vegetables for a stew. Her daughter saw at once that her face was lit by a rare, real smile.
‘That was Mr Leigh, the headmaster,’ she said. ‘There’s a part-time permanent job from January, if I want it.’
‘And do you?’ They were smiling at each other, foolish with relief.
‘I may just deign to accept it.’
Helen put down the knife and wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders. Magically, the load was lifted. They would be able to cope after all. She felt a pang at her own failure, and a double sense of gratitude to her mother, but most strongly of all a thrill of pleasure at the thought of going back to Oxford.
Then she saw her mother frowning again, creases deepening between her eyes. ‘But there won’t be any salary until the end of January. That’s two months. I could ask for an advance, I suppose, or try the bank again.’
Helen took her hands and rubbed them between her own.
‘There’s no need, Mum. I can help, this time. I’ve got money in the bank – seven hundred and fifty pounds. I’ll write you a cheque for it tomorrow.’
‘Where did you get so much money?’
Helen saw a different anxiety in her eyes, and for a second her carefully rehearsed explanation eluded her. Then it came rushing back and she was lying convincingly.
‘The College. There’s a special f
und, a sort of charity, for students in difficulty and the money’s a loan from that. I don’t have to think of paying it back until I’m established in a proper job. It’s almost a gift, really.’ She was relieved to see that her mother was prepared to accept this story without question.
‘I can’t think of anyone who deserves their help more than you do,’ she said, as proud of her daughter as ever.
Resolutely Helen squared her shoulders under the double weight of the lie and the knowledge of where the money had really come from, and why.
Their supper that evening was a more cheerful meal than any they had shared since before the terrible summer. Helen went down to the off-licence and bought a bottle of white wine. Her mother pursed her lips at the extravagance, then got pink and giggly after a single glass. She looked happier than she had done for months, proud of her ability to provide for the three of them after all. Helen glanced from her face to her brother’s, round and solemn behind his glasses, and struggled against the lump in her throat.
Later, after she had cleared away the meal, Helen went upstairs and tapped at her brother’s door.
‘Graham? Can I come in?’
He was lying on his bed reading. Helen turned the book over to look at the tide and saw that it was Heart of Darkness. The adult choice startled her, then she grinned at him.
‘You’re grown up, aren’t you? I suppose I still think of you as being about eight, with pockets full of fruit gums.’
‘Yes,’ he said, not smiling. ‘I’ll be able to take care of Mum soon, not the other way round.’
‘You don’t have to worry about that yet,’ Helen told him lightly. ‘She’s got me as well, you know.’
‘Helen?’
‘Mmmm?’
‘Will you be going back to Oxford now? Now that Mum’s got a job again?’
‘Do you think I should?’
‘Of course. But something’s happened, hasn’t it? Something important? You look different. Sad.’
