Maurice stank of mould and was hardly glamorous, but she enjoyed getting in next to Ralph and watching him coax the old crock into action, pulling out the choke then letting it in again until the engine stayed fired. She wound down the window for fresh air and leaned out as they progressed up Putney High Street and then turned along some of the side roads. It quickly became clear that they were unlikely to find Daphne like this.
‘She’s probably in a shop or something.’
‘Yes, fuck it,’ said Ralph. She thought he was going to ask her to get out of the car, but he continued. ‘Shall we go for a little drive? Get some air?’
They chugged their way to the top of Putney Hill and along the side of Wimbledon Common, until they got stuck behind an ice-cream van playing a jingle from Popeye the Sailor Man. Ralph sang the words in an embarrassing tenor voice and, when the van turned into a road leading to the common, he followed, stopping behind it in a car park. ‘Fancy an ice cream?’ he said. He bought two Cornish strawberry Mivvies and they sat in silence in the car, biting through the icy pink shell to reveal the creamy inside. She was intensely aware of her naked legs – freshly shaved the night before, she was glad to remember. Her tummy was squashed so tightly by the shorts she noticed every breath, but, bewilderingly, the constriction was not disagreeable.
She longed for something to happen. The wave of yearning that filled her was almost overwhelming and beyond reason. When Ralph touched her thigh she almost screamed. Very softly, he drew his finger across her skin and she closed her eyes, turning herself invisible, holding her breath. Then, without warning, he cupped his hand against her crotch, squeezed a finger under the leg of the shorts and thrust it inside her. It was utterly shocking. He did not kiss her, but she smelled wine on his breath, and he pulled her hand and placed it on his trousers – on the hard bulge she didn’t dare look at. This was what Daphne did, she thought. This was how men behaved. It was raw and outside regular, rational time and space.
The episode ended as abruptly as it began. Ralph jerked away his hand and she opened her eyes to see a couple with a toddler walking towards the car. They passed by without even looking inside, but whatever had happened was over. The whole episode lasted maybe a minute. But that is long enough, she thought, when writing down the estimated time for Gareth. After all, you can kill a person in a second; why should it take much longer to complete a sexual assault?
Ralph’s expression was as unreadable as a cliff face when he started up Maurice’s sputtering engine and drove off. She was not clear what had happened and neither of them spoke. Were they getting involved? she wondered. Is this what happens? The combination of the corset-like shorts, the ice cream and the sexual riddle were giving her a tummy ache. She discreetly undid the shorts’ button under her shirt.
They parked back in Barnabas Road and walked wordlessly through the front garden with its unmown grass and straggly privet hedge that the Greenslays hated but never got around to trimming or removing. The eccentric, home-made sculpture was gradually disintegrating into a pile of rubbish.
‘No need to knock,’ said Ralph, pushing open the door. She followed him in, imitating his easy, buoyant steps. They paused to listen at the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen, but there was no sound of human activity so they went upstairs to see if Daphne was there. Her deserted bedroom was airless and flies hammered against the windowpanes. Ralph imitated their whining thrum and the abrupt impact against glass. ‘Can you hear? They’re a chorus of buzzing.’ His smile was like a miraculous gift. He continued, getting faster and madder, and they both laughed, which was a relief after so much strangeness.
Theo and Liam were lolling in languid poses on the river wall at the end of the garden. They were smoking – probably dope. There had not been any sign from Liam after the previous year’s kiss. Ralph followed her gaze and nipped out of the line of vision so he couldn’t be spotted.
‘Ask them where she’s gone,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t say I’m here.’
She pushed up the sash window and, at the grinding sound, both boys turned.
‘Hi!’ she shouted, waving so they’d see her. ‘Did Daphne come back?’
Liam raised a lazy hand in greeting and Theo called out, making his diction like a railway announcer, ‘Gone to Portobello Road with Billy and Martin. Back about six.’ Liam said something inaudible and Theo sniggered then pulled himself together. ‘She said…’ there was more laughter ‘…you can wait if you like.’
Pulling down the window, Jane wondered how to get changed out of the purple shorts. She suspected Ralph would be in a bad mood after being stood up by Daphne again, and was caught off-guard when he grabbed her shoulders. He was not rough, but his movements left no room for discussion and he didn’t speak. Decisions were taken out of her hands, like being swept into a river with a powerful current. Perfect. It just happened.
He was no taller than her and his build was light, but he was wiry and strong. In an almost acrobatic move, he tipped her on to the floor and rolled on top, looking into her eyes without smiling. In other circumstances this might have been unpleasant and she might have protested, but so strong was her feeling that she had become Daphne that she played along with the imagined role. In Daphne’s room, dressed in her clothes, and getting off with her secret lover. The carpet rubbed static against her hair and Ralph pressed down, kissing as if he was eating her face. There was nothing tender or affectionate. His urgency reminded her of those nature documentaries where a lion mauls its prey, its muzzle covered in blood, eyes half-closed as it gnaws.
He grunted from the effort of tugging at her shorts that refused to roll down, despite being unzipped. It was a point where they might have stopped; embarrassment was an efficient killer of passion. But she lifted her buttocks off the ground to help him undress her, going through the squirming process in reverse. The sight of her ugly blue knickers was mortifying.
‘I think we should stop,’ she said, hesitantly. She had changed her mind. This all looked like a dreadful idea. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the racoon hat lying on the floor like roadkill.
He didn’t reply. It was almost as though she wasn’t there. After that, there was no delay and she felt a knifing pain as he penetrated her, and pinned her down, thrusting quickly and arching his back. He pulled out in a precarious coitus interruptus that left semen smeared across her thigh and a globule on her pubic hair, which hung, trembling like a dewdrop.
Ralph grasped the purple shorts and scrubbed at her leg, trying to tidy up. He attempted a smile. Zipping his fly, he flicked a watchful eye at the boys in the garden and then down at Jane, who was trying to put her trousers back on without revealing too much.
It wasn’t how she’d imagined losing her virginity. She’d been seduced, she thought, enjoying the word, with its aroma of boudoirs, lace and mustachioed scoundrels. In films, after a couple had done it, they lay back in bed and smoked an affectionate cigarette, but there was nothing like that. This was strange and awkward, but she was also pleased. It was a relief. She’d done it, like having a vaccination.