my hand on her naked knee, encouraging it further, up her thigh, where soon I found she wasn’t wearing any knickers. We’d made love, her skirt around her neck – passionate, furious, fulfilling – as if neither of us had had it in years, which was true.
I’d asked her if she was on the pill. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been on it almost from the day we first met, wanting you to screw me, and wondering why the hell you wouldn’t do anything about it.’ The surprising sexual coarseness behind the prim-and-proper façade. I ‘made love’. She ‘screwed’. It was an exciting idea to begin with. I’d no idea of the price I’d have to pay for it in the end.
‘Would you like to see the admiralty charts in the wheelhouse?’ I asked Elsa, ‘How we’ll get to Paris?’
She nodded. I stood up. ‘There is one thing, though, one obvious point,’ I said, ‘which we should think about before we go. If your father was able to tell you that you should meet me, that I would “explain” everything – why didn’t he tell you what it was that I was to explain to you himself? He must have known the connection between him and my father. So why didn’t he just tell you?’
‘Yes, I’ve thought of that, and I don’t know why.’
‘If he didn’t tell you, more than likely it was because it was something unpleasant.’
‘But what, though? What?’ She came towards me, anguished.
I was just going to tell her about the list of priceless pictures and objets d’art, the inventory I’d found in the Burges toilet cabinet, but something stopped me. It could wait until we got back to Killiney, or to Paris. She turned and started to get dressed, picking up her bits and pieces. I got dressed myself and we went into the wheelhouse to look at the charts.
‘Ben,’ she said, turning to me, suddenly alive and buoyant. ‘It’llbe great to go straight to Paris on this boat! No one will ever know, It’ll be such a good secret.’
I didn’t know what she meant, but was happy as she was with the idea, so I didn’t ask.
I thought I was going to France to find out about the Modigliani nude, and have a good time with Elsa. I was kidding myself. I was going to Paris because of the life not lived with Katie – to try to live it with Elsa.
When we got back that evening, and Elsa had gone home, I felt sufficiently encouraged about things to get out Katie’s journal.
I glanced through the pages. Quite a bit of it was about us, but whatever good thoughts she had written about us were usually cancelled at once by doubts, questions, criticisms, of herself, then latterly of me – these grim reflections set round the memorabilia of dead wild flowers, herbs and leaves picked up on our walks and trips. A collection of withered stalks and petals, which had punctuated the bright days of our affair, now interleaved with a text of despair.
I skipped through half a dozen pages before I began to read properly towards the end of the journal, a passage dated about two months before, in that fast, sprawling handwriting of hers that used to make my heart race, in earlier times when she had written to me; short notes saying something quite inconsequential, or that she loved me.
‘Cheerfulness keeps breaking out!’ He said to me after we’d made love last night. Again trying to persuade me of ‘us’, as a pair with a real future together, though I know how very far he is from being cheerful. The hurt to his idealism – I’ve felt it just as deeply as he has – in wanting to live, to be with, to marry me. This is greater than ever in him now, since he keeps it so firmly suppressed. In any case I want to stop his pain for ever. And mine. And the only way to do that is to stop ‘us’, so that I can’t hurt him anymore –knowing I can’t properly love him now, that I’ve been pretending love with him, almost from the start. Pretending happiness. I know this now, because I’m with the
I’d asked her if she was on the pill. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been on it almost from the day we first met, wanting you to screw me, and wondering why the hell you wouldn’t do anything about it.’ The surprising sexual coarseness behind the prim-and-proper façade. I ‘made love’. She ‘screwed’. It was an exciting idea to begin with. I’d no idea of the price I’d have to pay for it in the end.
‘Would you like to see the admiralty charts in the wheelhouse?’ I asked Elsa, ‘How we’ll get to Paris?’
She nodded. I stood up. ‘There is one thing, though, one obvious point,’ I said, ‘which we should think about before we go. If your father was able to tell you that you should meet me, that I would “explain” everything – why didn’t he tell you what it was that I was to explain to you himself? He must have known the connection between him and my father. So why didn’t he just tell you?’
‘Yes, I’ve thought of that, and I don’t know why.’
‘If he didn’t tell you, more than likely it was because it was something unpleasant.’
‘But what, though? What?’ She came towards me, anguished.
I was just going to tell her about the list of priceless pictures and objets d’art, the inventory I’d found in the Burges toilet cabinet, but something stopped me. It could wait until we got back to Killiney, or to Paris. She turned and started to get dressed, picking up her bits and pieces. I got dressed myself and we went into the wheelhouse to look at the charts.
‘Ben,’ she said, turning to me, suddenly alive and buoyant. ‘It’llbe great to go straight to Paris on this boat! No one will ever know, It’ll be such a good secret.’
I didn’t know what she meant, but was happy as she was with the idea, so I didn’t ask.
I thought I was going to France to find out about the Modigliani nude, and have a good time with Elsa. I was kidding myself. I was going to Paris because of the life not lived with Katie – to try to live it with Elsa.
When we got back that evening, and Elsa had gone home, I felt sufficiently encouraged about things to get out Katie’s journal.
I glanced through the pages. Quite a bit of it was about us, but whatever good thoughts she had written about us were usually cancelled at once by doubts, questions, criticisms, of herself, then latterly of me – these grim reflections set round the memorabilia of dead wild flowers, herbs and leaves picked up on our walks and trips. A collection of withered stalks and petals, which had punctuated the bright days of our affair, now interleaved with a text of despair.
I skipped through half a dozen pages before I began to read properly towards the end of the journal, a passage dated about two months before, in that fast, sprawling handwriting of hers that used to make my heart race, in earlier times when she had written to me; short notes saying something quite inconsequential, or that she loved me.
‘Cheerfulness keeps breaking out!’ He said to me after we’d made love last night. Again trying to persuade me of ‘us’, as a pair with a real future together, though I know how very far he is from being cheerful. The hurt to his idealism – I’ve felt it just as deeply as he has – in wanting to live, to be with, to marry me. This is greater than ever in him now, since he keeps it so firmly suppressed. In any case I want to stop his pain for ever. And mine. And the only way to do that is to stop ‘us’, so that I can’t hurt him anymore –knowing I can’t properly love him now, that I’ve been pretending love with him, almost from the start. Pretending happiness. I know this now, because I’m with the
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