It was true that Ralph’s marriage appeared to make little difference to the progression of his intimacy with Daphne. It was only a year or so later when they first kissed. Kissed properly, ‘like in films’, as she thought of it as a child. ‘Tongue sandwich,’ as boys sneered at school. She was twelve. It must have been a weekend and the weather was fine enough for a picnic. He collected her in his car, a Morris Traveller so decrepit that the timber frame had moss growing on it. Ralph had given the car a name. ‘Poor old Maurice, he’s trying to get back to nature. Soon he’ll start sprouting trees. Before long he’ll be a small, travelling wood with birds’ nests and badgers’ lairs. And I’ll be the madman in the forest, making music only the animals can understand.’ Daphne got into the front seat and noticed the back was filled with musical instruments – old gourds and goat horns tied up with twine, or a funny object hung with beads that he said was a Sudanese lyre. Never something normal, like a clarinet or a guitar, and although he’d been a violinist, he rarely touched the instrument any more. Ralph drove to Richmond Park, teasing her by taking his hands off the steering wheel and pretending that Maurice was driving by himself. ‘Maybe he’ll start flying like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’ Later, she saw that Ralph was using his knees all the time.
When they arrived in the park, he handed over a paper bag. Inside were two reproduction Victorian masks made of card. ‘This one’s for you.’ He held up the face of a blond, plumed monkey and looked through the holes, making small grunts and grinning. ‘Here, I’ll help you put it on,’ he said and she twisted so he could tie the ribbons into a bow at the back of her head. ‘Ah, what a beautiful little monkey,’ he marvelled when she turned around. He stroked her hair and asked her to fix his mask – a dog with worried wrinkles on its forehead and wearing a small red fez. ‘Your loyal servant and obedient hound,’ he said, his eyes all dark and shiny behind the cut-outs. They stared at one another as if they’d metamorphosed into different people or indeed animals. The ability to step outside herself, to masquerade as someone else, was a skill she learned from Ralph and quickly made her own. It was a recipe for instant freedom – as simple as changing your trousers or putting on a hat but being transformed by it.
‘Shall we go, Miss Monkey?’
They left Maurice in the car park and made their way towards a wooded area. A number of walkers stared at this odd pair. She felt vulnerable – a fox slinking across the open space – until they reached the green shade. After following a narrow path through the trees, they reached a clearing that was almost like a room; apart from a discreet opening, it was surrounded on all sides by bushes and trees. She watched as Ralph put the picnic basket on the ground, unfolded a plaid blanket and stretched out on his back, his hands under his head. She lay down too, and gradually he turned towards her and caressed her face very slowly and gently underneath the mask. It felt nice. Any potential awkwardness was removed by their disguises.
‘We’re like animals in the enchanted forest,’ he said.
Inside the basket was a bottle, which he opened using the corkscrew on his penknife. Pulling off his dog mask, he took a swig and handed it to her.
‘I like drinking,’ she said, removing her mask too and tasting the slightly sweet white wine.
‘So do I.’
‘Sometimes I smoke too. I nick them from Ellie and she never notices.’
He leaned over and kissed her very gently on the lips. She didn’t respond, but nor did she draw back. Pulling away a few inches, he said, ‘I love you so much.’ Then he kissed her again, warm mouth just opened.
Looking up through the fluttering layers of green leaves made her feel reverse vertigo. Ralph lay on his side and looked as though he was examining her, lightly running his finger along her eyebrows. His face was deeply familiar; kind dog eyes, mobile features, and though he was much larger, his size was not imposing. ‘You’re the boss,’ he repeated. ‘I like it when you tell me what to do.’ She knew him, trusted him. A friend. ‘A special friend,’ was his expression. Not like the others – that was clear. He was free to pass between the age zones. She liked what was happening and was intensely curious about this man who loved her. Soft and dangerous. His skin hot against hers and slightly scratchy on her cheek. When he tried to slip his hand inside her shorts, she pulled it away. It gave her another sort of vertigo. They went back to kissing, long and slow and new, his tongue diffident, just inside her lips and along her teeth.
High above their heads, a parakeet with emerald plumage landed on a branch and began chirruping. ‘A love bird,’ said Ralph, ‘escaped from its cage. Come to serenade us.’ He squawked and chirped until a strange aria emerged between man and animal.
‘You won’t tell anyone,’ he said. ‘It’s our secret, isn’t it?’
‘Course!’ It seemed slightly insulting that he needed to say this. It went without saying that none of it could be spoken about. In any case, she didn’t have the words.
They agreed to meet on the train-bridge after school the following week, but by Wednesday there was no sign of him and she was getting worried. She dawdled in the middle of the walkway, leaning over the railings, staring down at the fast-moving river. The bridge’s structure was deeply familiar: ochre brickwork at either end sprouting tiny plants from the cracks; grey-tiled steps up to the ledge where she and Theo had sat and thrown pigeon shit on passers-by; garish yellow flowers that grew up between the train tracks. She enjoyed feeling the tarmac walkway shake and tremble as each train monster passed. The distant rumble became a roar, metallic slashing and gnashing of teeth against the rails, a breath like a wheeze and it was gone. She made a bet, like an appeasement to the gods: I’ll run to the next lamp post and if I get there before the train passes, he’ll come. Just before the last carriage went past, she saw his familiar figure in the distance, hurrying up the last steps, two at a time. Her chest thumped with guilty, bewildered pleasure and she looked away, pretending to be concentrating on the view. Out of the side of her eye she noticed him decrease his pace to a saunter.
‘I’d say snot-soup, today,’ he remarked casually, continuing their running competition to find the best description of the khaki-coloured water down below.
‘Decomposing diarrhoea,’ she countered.
‘Fetid putrefaction.’
He looked quickly up and down the walkway, established that nobody was about and pulled her against him. They kissed, harder this time than in the woods. As the faint rumbles of a distant train approached, they broke apart.
Ralph gripped on to the rail and looked out like a captain on a ship. ‘Panta rhei.’ He had done enough Ancient Greek at boarding school to put him off it for life. ‘Everything flows. You never step into the same river twice. Everything is changing all the time.’
‘Oh yeah, yeah, very clever. Of course everything is changing. Just look at my body, for a start. Panta rhei, pantaloons.’
‘Your wondrous body – exactly. And you should wear that sweater more often. Just like that, with nothing underneath.’ She knew her jersey revealed her tender nipples that were just starting to swell.
She and Ralph leaned against one another as they walked over towards Barnabas Road, not daring to hold on for fear of coming across someone they knew. But this anxiety was not enough to eradicate the invisible, magnetic pull of their bodies that diminished distances as if by a natural force.