her life, to be of such use.
âWhen you met him, I knew if I walked away with you, he had lost his power over me. You have freed me from him.â
And then she fell silent, fearing that his love for her might now be fatally impaired by the confession, fearing it the more because this young foreign implacable suitor had become so swiftly the keystone in the building of her new life.
Joe let a silence help him absorb both her story and what he could breathe in like air itself, her continuing distress. He felt that he had been admitted to the deepest and most private corner of her soul. He could feel what it had cost her to make that confession and the love that was growing for her was now steeled with an all but worshipping admiration. Insofar as the confession could be uttered in a neutral manner, it had been. There was no sobbing, no self-pity. She had offered him the freedom to walk away.
Pity, engulfing pity was what Joe felt. But responsibility as well. She had put herself in his hands and that was a sort of real love, wasnât it?
And as for the pain of it, he felt it pass into him from her, he felt some of the weight of it light on him and he was glad. It more strongly bound them, that he could bear some of her pain. In those moments the love which had grown in the vague blind ways of inexperience and impatience, as much in the fear of not succeeding as by the usual rules of desire, took on the possibility of a new dimension, of sharing pain and truth and of being open to the understanding of what was most intimate and perilous about the nature of someone else.
Joe lay there after her challenge, her confession, and wave upon wave of warm feelings swept through his body and his mind with a certainty of exhilaration twin to the surge of sexual fulfilment. If he knew anything at all in this tidal rush then he knew he would never leave her, nor she him.
CHAPTER SIX
âI think you may prove to be very lucky,â David said. âSheâll lever you away from that charming but clinging background of yours and set you free. I see you as a pair of refugees, exiled from your own countries, out to find a new life. Iâm rather pleased with that!â He giggled and his brief intense look as always made Joe feel uniquely appreciated.
They were in the Cadena, fashionable with the artistic and intellectual crowd, taking mid-morning coffee and biscuits which David, plumping out, ate instantly. Joe sat back. David cast some sort of spell on him; in his company he felt cradled.
âMay I?â He took one of Joeâs biscuits, swept his eyes around the room, ceaseless searchlights, spotting and docking, and then returned his gaze to someone who, for a short time, would be his plasticine. But also someone he respected, puzzled over, wanted to befriend. âNot that thereâs anything intrinsically wrong with your clinging background,â he spoke through the biscuit, âon the contrary,â a wistful smile, âeverything you tell me about it makes it sound enviably desirable but you have to let it go now or youâll end up going back there as an outsider, a schoolteacher or something, very nice too, but I think you can do something other, not better, âotherâ. To me Natasha proves it. Your interest in her, to use an anaemic word for the PASSION of it!â a sudden loud ear-catching laugh, âis telling you what I am telling you. She wonât let you go back.â
Joe laughed. It was such rubbish. He loved Davidâs company. For a moment he was tempted to tell him that the clinging background was the setting for two recently written short stories, which had driven him straight back to his childhood in that far Northern town so exotic to David, so magnetic to Joe. But the writing had to be kept secret . . .
A few days later, Roderick and Bob, friends he had met in his first week in Oxford, were introduced to Natasha, also in the Cadena. She had heard much about them
âWhen you met him, I knew if I walked away with you, he had lost his power over me. You have freed me from him.â
And then she fell silent, fearing that his love for her might now be fatally impaired by the confession, fearing it the more because this young foreign implacable suitor had become so swiftly the keystone in the building of her new life.
Joe let a silence help him absorb both her story and what he could breathe in like air itself, her continuing distress. He felt that he had been admitted to the deepest and most private corner of her soul. He could feel what it had cost her to make that confession and the love that was growing for her was now steeled with an all but worshipping admiration. Insofar as the confession could be uttered in a neutral manner, it had been. There was no sobbing, no self-pity. She had offered him the freedom to walk away.
Pity, engulfing pity was what Joe felt. But responsibility as well. She had put herself in his hands and that was a sort of real love, wasnât it?
And as for the pain of it, he felt it pass into him from her, he felt some of the weight of it light on him and he was glad. It more strongly bound them, that he could bear some of her pain. In those moments the love which had grown in the vague blind ways of inexperience and impatience, as much in the fear of not succeeding as by the usual rules of desire, took on the possibility of a new dimension, of sharing pain and truth and of being open to the understanding of what was most intimate and perilous about the nature of someone else.
Joe lay there after her challenge, her confession, and wave upon wave of warm feelings swept through his body and his mind with a certainty of exhilaration twin to the surge of sexual fulfilment. If he knew anything at all in this tidal rush then he knew he would never leave her, nor she him.
CHAPTER SIX
âI think you may prove to be very lucky,â David said. âSheâll lever you away from that charming but clinging background of yours and set you free. I see you as a pair of refugees, exiled from your own countries, out to find a new life. Iâm rather pleased with that!â He giggled and his brief intense look as always made Joe feel uniquely appreciated.
They were in the Cadena, fashionable with the artistic and intellectual crowd, taking mid-morning coffee and biscuits which David, plumping out, ate instantly. Joe sat back. David cast some sort of spell on him; in his company he felt cradled.
âMay I?â He took one of Joeâs biscuits, swept his eyes around the room, ceaseless searchlights, spotting and docking, and then returned his gaze to someone who, for a short time, would be his plasticine. But also someone he respected, puzzled over, wanted to befriend. âNot that thereâs anything intrinsically wrong with your clinging background,â he spoke through the biscuit, âon the contrary,â a wistful smile, âeverything you tell me about it makes it sound enviably desirable but you have to let it go now or youâll end up going back there as an outsider, a schoolteacher or something, very nice too, but I think you can do something other, not better, âotherâ. To me Natasha proves it. Your interest in her, to use an anaemic word for the PASSION of it!â a sudden loud ear-catching laugh, âis telling you what I am telling you. She wonât let you go back.â
Joe laughed. It was such rubbish. He loved Davidâs company. For a moment he was tempted to tell him that the clinging background was the setting for two recently written short stories, which had driven him straight back to his childhood in that far Northern town so exotic to David, so magnetic to Joe. But the writing had to be kept secret . . .
A few days later, Roderick and Bob, friends he had met in his first week in Oxford, were introduced to Natasha, also in the Cadena. She had heard much about them