The Paying Guests(74)

‘I’ve been longing to see you all day.’

‘I’ve been longing for it, too. I didn’t dare —’

‘Have you? I thought, when I saw you this morning —’

‘Oh, my heart was beating like mad! I thought it would beat right out of me! Didn’t you see? I thought Len and your mother would be sure to notice.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to look at me. I thought you were regretting the whole thing.’

Lilian bit her lip, closed her eyes, shook her head in a sort of shiver – That was all there was time for. The back door banged and they sprang apart.



But Leonard went off to work the next morning, just as he had promised; and a little later, it being a Monday, Mrs Wray also left the house, to spend her customary three or four hours with the vicar. Frances was in the kitchen, putting chops in the meat-safe, when her mother said goodbye. The instant she heard the front door close she washed her hands, took off her apron, went cautiously out to the hall. And again she found Lilian waiting for her at the top of the stairs. She was barefoot, and dressed, as she had been on Saturday night, in her nightgown and wrapper; her hair, however, was tidier, as if she had taken trouble with it.

The detail plucked at Frances’s heart. She climbed the final few steps, then slowed. They had the house to themselves at last, and were suddenly shy with each other. They stood a yard apart. Lilian said, ‘I dreamt about you, Frances.’

‘What did you dream?’

‘We were in a motor-car, going fast. A man was driving. I was afraid, but you held my hands.’

Frances said, after a moment, ‘Let me hold them now. Come into the bedroom. Let me hold them there.’

She had left the curtains drawn against the bright July morning, and once she had closed the door the plunge into twilight made them shyer than ever. They stepped towards each other with nervousness, and the embrace, when it came, felt stiff, even awkward. But then they kissed; and the kiss unfurled, unfolded like a bolt of rippling silk. After a minute of it, Lilian drew free to put her hands to Frances’s face.

‘What have you done to me?’ she whispered, gazing into Frances’s eyes.

‘Come to the bed,’ said Frances. ‘Lie down with me.’

This time, Lilian did not pull away to say Stop or Wait. They climbed on to the bed together, and kissed again; she let Frances untie the belt of her wrapper and ease her arms from its satin sleeves. But as Frances was tugging at those pearl buttons on her nightdress, she caught at her hand. With a mixture of shyness and boldness, she said, ‘Take some of your things off, too.’

So Frances slid from the bed, unhooked her skirt and wriggled out of it. She took off her corset, her stockings, her drawers, and laid herself down at Lilian’s side dressed only in her shift-like cotton camisole.

Lilian ran a hand over her bare shoulder and freckled upper arm. ‘You’re beautiful, Frances.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘You are. You are. I can’t stop touching you.’ She stroked the line of Frances’s collarbone as if fascinated by it. She touched Frances’s throat, her jaw, the lobe of her ear. She said, ‘It’s like a dream, isn’t it? It’s like I’m dreaming. It’s like a spell.’

Frances, shivering with pleasure at the creep of her fingers, said, ‘No. It’s just the opposite. I’ve woken up after – I don’t know what. A hundred-year sleep. You woke me, Lilian.’

Lilian’s eyes shone. ‘I woke you.’

‘That’s why you came to Champion Hill. I should have guessed it, straight off. Perhaps I did. When I followed the heels of your stockings across the floor – do you remember? When I followed your heels that day, I thought it was only so that I could point out the towers of the Crystal Palace through the window. When all the time – Did you ever kiss a woman before?’

Lilian laughed, looking scandalised, but moving her fingers again. ‘Of course I never did! I’ve hardly ever kissed anyone. Only two or three boys before Len, and they meant nothing. You did.’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Oh, dozens and dozens. Red-headed women, and fair-headed women, and dark ones too. But none like you.’

‘Oh, you’re just fooling. Stop fooling.’

‘Did you ever hear of such a thing, before you met me?’

Lilian was blushing, still stroking, following her fingers with her gaze. ‘I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so. But as something indecent. Or as something a hard society woman might do; not as something real. Len used to have some picture postcards he’d got in France. One of them was of two girls – But they were awful things, meant for soldiers. I only saw them once. I made him put them on the fire.’ She looked up into Frances’s eyes. ‘This isn’t like that, is it?’

‘No, this isn’t like that.’

‘There’s been a – a sort of romance to it, all along. Hasn’t there? When we went to the park all that time ago, and you chased that man away – it was such a funny bit of gallantry. If Len had ever done something like that, he’d have done it for himself. When you did it, you did it for me, didn’t you? And then we stood on the landing, and you asked if you could call me Lilian. You said you wanted to call me a name that no one else did.’