“Come, you are no longer bereft. No one shall stay our passage. There is wine in my rooms, sandwiches, nurturings.”
“If I remembered who I were! But I remember now the house, the house, the house. You will remember, I know you will, upon seeing it you will remember. If it is dark there, they will light lamps. It was always promised. Upon our returning.”
“There will be such, I am sure there will be such. I remember you. Do you not think that I remember you?”
Our hands touch, clasp, I lead her out. The fellow confronts us anew and frowns.
“Are you about your duties?” he enquires of her.
“She is about mine. You may go in there, there are clothes to be had.”
“I would not, Miss, for all the tea in China.”
“Leave us then, depart, or I shall make complaint upon it. You will end up in an infirmary, a poorhouse, if you do not mend your ways. Remember the poetry you have forgotten and meditate.”
“There is a coming here, Miss, an arrival. She is out of Time.”
“Are we not all? What do you know of Time, what know? Your beseechings shall be to the pavement and the gutter. Beware that my father does not come and horsewhip you for impertinence. Go!”
Upon my command he is gone. The lights this time do not go out, one by one do not. Surely here is a benediction. Our palms moisten together. There are prayers in our togetherness.
“Take off your dress, it is dusty. Remove all. Let me see you naked, Charlotte.”
“Will you not, too? We shall remember better then. It was always nice being naked together.”
“Keep your stockings on. Were we not so taught, burring of silk to silk and the soft sighing? He was at my bottom first, then yours, while we enlaced took purchase on each other's lips.”
“It was a deep bed. Do you remember the deep bed? His sister would whip us for disobedience. At my sobbings she put a dildo to me. How rude she was!”
“Do you remember where our house was, where? Murmurs of running streams, the dark elms in the night?”
“I said you would remember, Laura, I ever said. Ah, rub upon me, yes! I remember. It were far from here, ceilings of lanes and winter's coming. The sun rose to our eyes, fell at our backs. You stood naked in the grass once while he tickled you.”
“I was young then. Oh, you are coming! Are you coming? Her name was Anthea-his sister, yes. Rub faster, it is coming back! Tiverton-by Tiverton it lay. I shall remember upon the seeing of a bridge, grey stoned, well humped, a mill that stood beside. Ooooh-ah! You sprinkle faster now than I!”
When the pleasure is done, when the pleasure is done. “Let us to the wine again, Charlotte. How merry I feel, how eased between my thighs. What a silkiness of skin you have! Were you not his favourite, or was I?”
“He would have none of that, of favouritism, nor she. Perhaps that were the beauty of it, I don't know. Was it not cold in winter, though? His cock was fire between the sheets. She would get him steady up, then put him to us. Sometimes she would nurture him herself and make us watch. Anthea, yes. How clever you are, more skilled than I, remembering her name. Soft as a cloud her name were, like her lips. She taught us fair to kiss then, and to tongue, holding him back, she said, till we were ready for it.”
“There were wonders to be seen, as we thought then. They may become as dust, Charlotte. Ever be wary of the ways of man. Did you know I was in Brighton?”
Her head shakes, her eyes bemused.
“I was married. What a dull, bleak, and neutral time that was-ever the bedsheets wrinkled and the toast cold. Once when drunk he brought a housemaid to our bed. I would have watched-the foolish girl escaped. Thin and pale she was as a poet's thoughts.”
“You wanted her yourself perhaps. You were ever so, Laura.”
Am I reprimanded? Her eyes, however, hold mischief. There is a dying here, though we are little aware of it. I touch her, but she shrinks, will not be enfolded, taken up, caressed.
“Are we not to go, Charlotte?”
“There was badness there. I remember badness there. If I don't get about my business, Miss, they will be after me. The house is gone, the shutters ruined, I swear of it.”
Her voice becomes a whine, her look-that changeling look-distraught.
“Very well, if you will, Charlotte. If you will go, go now. You may never return.”
“I shall be hereabouts, Miss-thereabouts. The people of the town crowds thick as leaves. I gets lost among them, can go here and there and hide myself in alleys. Where shall I go now but they are haunting me?”
“Anthea? And her brother? His name was Victor, I remember now.”
“They will be gone now, Miss, and starlings on their gravestones, his penis withered, eaten by the worms. They were older than us. I heard said once they were taken by the cholera.”
“Even so the house will be there. We can wander up the stairways, discover old notes, a mouldering of clothes, know who we are.” My voice is too steady. I perceive angels.
“Let me to the doorway, Miss-Laura-I beg of you. The housekeeper has at me terrible if I am late.”
She giggles in her going, casts flirtatious eyes at me. Through the doorway to the drawing room we tread as burglars in our own domain.
“He had a big one, though, didn't he?” She leans against the door, regards me as one dismissing me might. “I remember when she opened your cheeks to it and put him in. You wriggled awful, kicked a churn. The chickens ran a-crying all around. Then I saw a burst of feathers and he had it in you. It was sudden that first time. There was chasing in the orchard, apples falling. She said as you would squeal the first time and warned him not. I see your hands say no, pushing at the straw, pushing up, but quick she moved and held your shoulders down.”
“You watched? Did you watch? I do not remember. Only the apples and the falling of them I remember; One bumped my shoulder. I thought it a bird, a poor bird falling-that was my startlement. The foreman was shouting out afar among the hayricks, but he could not see.”
“At the first upping of your skirts and the lowering of your drawers, frilled drawers, they carried you in. The wood was rotting and the stones uneasy.”
“Did you not beat at his back? Why did you not beat at his back?”
“Oh lawks, you took to it, though. After he had his piston pummelled in. I saw your face all right, saw your expressions. Wanted to cry, you did, but couldn't bring the tears. She pushed his breeches down, got your bottom to his belly. Fair corked you were and I were jealous of it. Your eyes rolled, there was a flush on your face. When you stopped squeaking and moving, then he used his cock fair fit to pleasure you. She said she didn't have to hold you then and you were good. I called your name out loud. You would not look. 'Now, move your bottom, move,' he said. I did not think you would. You were proud in your look for a moment. I ever knew you proud in your looks when you were taking it. Are you still?”
“Yes. Should I not be? I was exercised no more frequently than you. Oh, I do not remember.”
“What falsities you declare! You are still at it, I know of it. I have heard it in the ballroom, in the dark, whisperings of wind along the gutter's edge.” Her voice cracks as ice cracks upon the coming of the warmer tides. “I must go, Miss, they will be after me.”
“You may leave. We have perhaps no other life than this. The rest is mirage, mystery, echoes that we did not make, along corridors we have not trodden.”
“That is the truth of it, perhaps, Miss-yes, I swear it is.”
“Go, then.” Her look is humbled now, our eyes exchange apologies. I shall finish the wine.
“Do not ever wonder where the past is, where the future is. They are ever present,” my father said.
“That is tautology,” my aunt replied. She showed her ankles. Mother tutted at her. I had shown my thighs ere that, girded with kisses, my garters caressed as though they were a part of me. I had threshed my hips to his threshing, cried my soft cries, known the ardent moments of the dark, tasting the bitter edges of the plants along my windowsill. Demonic, I sat as angel and Mama appraised me for my goodness, praised and appraised, her eyes unknowing at the glow within my cheeks.