I knew she wasn’t lying — almost. The memory of Miss Bolsover’s ripe body went out through my big toe, and I looked at the one tear of anguish and vinegar that came to Claudine’s pale cheek. ‘Won’t Alfie marry you? You’ve only got to get him to bed once and he won’t know the difference.’
She sat down, with both hands over her face, and I began to feel sorry for her, till she burst out: ‘Oh, you’re so rotten. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to tell Mam and Dad, and hoped you’d come home with me so that we could both do it.’
‘You ditched me,’ I shouted, ‘didn’t you? And now you want to take up with me again! I was bitter about you going off that day, I admit it. You walked out just because I’d lost my job. Do you call that love? And now that you and Alfie Bottesford have been rubbing up together so that he’s got you loaded, you come moaning back to me. I’d like to know what for.’
She leapt up as if to knife me, but before she could say anything I took hold and kissed her: ‘I love you. I’m going mad with love for you, Claudine. I’ll do anything for you. Just tell me and I’ll do it.’ She kissed me back, and in a few minutes was more relaxed.
We stood in front of the mantelshelf mirror smoothing each other’s cheeks with our lips: ‘I came because it’s your baby,’ she said. ‘I want you to come home tonight, and see my parents. We can tell them we’re engaged, and that it would be best if we got married in a month or so.’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘but I can’t come up tonight. Make it tomorrow. One day more or less wain’t mek much difference.’
‘Why not tonight? It’s as good as any other.’
‘My car wants something doing to the engine,’ I said, ‘and a pal of mine who works at a garage can only do it tonight.’
She jumped away: ‘Your car? What car?’
I told her I’d bought it out of my savings. ‘Savings?’ she yelled. ‘You mean you had all this money in the bank while you were going with me, and you didn’t tell me?’
‘That’s right.’
She broke down at this: ‘How can I ever trust you?’
‘Easy. You’ll just have to believe me, then you can. I thought you’d be pleased to hear I’d got a car, but no. You look at me as if I’ve taken to crime. Every good thing I tell you turns out to be the end of the world. I suppose if I tell you something bad you’ll think it’s marvellous. Listen, you know when I said that my old man had been killed in the war, and that’s why I hadn’t got a father?’ I couldn’t stop myself even though I wanted to, though I’m not sure that I did. She looked at me, waiting for something special. ‘Well, I never had a father, at least not one that I’d know. My mother didn’t get married, and I was born from one of her affairs during the war — out of wedlock, as they say, or, to put it in blunt talk, I’m a bastard, a real no-good, genuine twenty-two-carat bastard in every sense of the word, so if ever you call me one again you’ll at least be speaking the truth for the only time in your life, because I don’t believe that you’ve never had hearthrug pie with Alfie Bottesford. The only thing I can’t understand is why you come to me now that he’s knocked you up.’
She roared and cried: ‘I’ve got no one else to turn to, that’s why.’
‘I can’t understand, you’re courting Alfie, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you come to me when you’re pregnant. All right, if you want thirty quid to get rid of it I’ll give it to you.’ One of the men at the office had done it for his girlfriend, and putting the same proposition to Claudine made me feel big.
A bottle smashed over my head, a small compact square sauce bottle she snatched from the table. I grabbed her and slapped into her face. She cried out, and I thought that if this free-for-all went on much longer we’d have the neighbours in to part us. ‘I came here because it’s yours,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
A thin red line trickled over my nose, and I knelt down to wipe it with a corner of the tablecloth. ‘If that’s the way you feel,’ I said, ‘I’ll be at your house at half past six tomorrow night.’
‘Tonight,’ she demanded.
‘Tomorrow. I must get my car fixed. It’s the only chance I’ve got. He goes to Mablethorpe first thing in the morning to see his aunt. So it’ll just have to be tomorrow. I promise.’
‘If you aren’t there,’ she said, ‘I’ll come with my father and mother. I will, and I mean it.’
‘You won’t have to,’ I said, with my best honest smile. I love you. I really do. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’m already beginning to see how nice it’ll be to live in a married way with you.’ She sat on my knee, and my old passion came back for her: ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I said. After a little more persuading she agreed. We lay in bed till four o’clock, and then she left, thinking that all was well again. I went back and dozed in the marvellous rumpled sheets until it was time to drive to Miss Bolsover’s.
‘How long can it last?’ Gwen wanted to know.
‘Years,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘I always ask myself that, and it’s a bad sign.’
‘If I love someone it’s for ever — unless I’m ditched. Then it’s not my fault. But you don’t need to ask it with me.’ We lay on the rug in front of her electric fire.
‘I ask it with everyone,’ she said, ‘then I can’t blame it on the fact that I asked it — if it goes wrong. But I ask it. I can’t help it.’
‘If that’s the way you like it,’ I said, ‘but as far as I’m concerned I love you, and that’s that.’
‘Oh Michael — you’re so strong and simple. You’re so direct. That’s what I love most about you. I can understand you, and I’ve never had that feeling before.’ It was hard to take this as a compliment, though I saw that in one way she was right. I’d felt for a long time that I couldn’t do anything at all unless I was simple, so in order not to be paralysed I fought to keep that simplicity. And Miss Bolsover’s approbation of it was flattering in this respect, but if I loved her for saying it, it was only because she had said something at all.
She made a short meal of meat, chips and salad, and served us both on a small table in the living-room. She had a huge bathgown over her, and I wore her brother Andrew’s smoking-jacket. I stroked her hand at each mouthful, which made me feel like a husband, and also as if I owned the house — both new sensations for me. Afterwards I smoked a Whiff, and talked her into a few puffs of it. Then we went to bed, not at midnight like grown-ups, but at eight o’clock, driven there by a pure and marvellous lust to get back to the centre of things.
But as usual lust did not mean force, because Claudine had blunted me, so we romped for an hour, though Gwen (if I could by now be permitted to call her that?) tried to pull me on immediately, and when she saw it wasn’t possible started to mother me. I cured her of this by a few slaps on her fat behind, which she didn’t object to, and then our loving continued through a couple of deep and meaty encounters. When I began to get dressed, she asked what was the matter. ‘I love you,’ I said, ‘but I must go. I have an appointment to meet a client early in the morning. I was late yesterday (for the most wonderful reason in the world) but if I don’t get in at the right time tomorrow, it’ll look bad.’
She embraced me, her warm naked body against my shirt and trousers, or rather she grasped me, and turned her full lips for a big kiss, which I gave with my heart bursting. ‘Tomorrow night?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I’ll be here. You can bet. You’ve got me for ever, you know.’
‘I don’t want you for ever,’ she said. ‘I only want you for now. Always is not good for anybody.’