The Paying Guests(77)

Lilian came next morning, however, the moment Leonard had left for work: they had ten minutes together in Frances’s bed, before Frances heard her mother moving about and felt they had to separate. But they were able to kiss later, when her mother took letters to the post; they kissed again the next day; and on the Friday afternoon, while her mother was visiting a neighbour, they lay in a patch of sunlight on Lilian’s sitting-room floor, their mouths together, their skirts pushed up… Saturday was harder. Sunday was harder still. Worst of all was the evening early in the second week when Lilian and Leonard went out to a dancing-hall with Mr Wismuth and his fiancée, Betty. Frances sat at home, watching the fading of the light, feeling herself seem to fade with it.

But later, as she lay in bed, there was the rattle of the front door, and while Leonard was out in the yard Lilian came slipping in to see her, bringing a haze of troubling scents into the darkness: cigarettes, lipstick, stout, sweet liquor.

She put her arms around Frances, tight. ‘I thought of you all evening long!’

‘Oh, I thought of you too!’

‘I looked at all those people and not one of them was you, it was awful! I hated them! Everybody paid me compliments. They all said how well I was looking. I didn’t care, I only wanted you!’

They kissed, until the back door banged. And then, ‘I love you!’ she whispered, squeezing Frances’s hand as she pulled away. She hadn’t said it before. ‘I love you!’ Their fingers tore, and she was gone.

Frances lay with the back of her hand over her eyes, wondering how on earth it had all happened. How had things changed so utterly, so rapidly? She felt as alive as a piece of radium. She felt a sort of exaltation. ‘I want you with every single part of me,’ she told Lilian, the next time they met. ‘My fingernails want you under them. The hairs on the back of my neck rise up whenever you go by. The stoppings in my teeth want you!’ They kissed, and kissed again. There was no self-consciousness between them, no sort of shame or embarrassment: they had passed through all that, she thought, their eyes glowing with triumph and wonder, as easily as runners breasting the ribbon at the end of a track. Whenever they could, they lay together naked. The summer days were heavy and hot, the air like tepid water. Lilian tucked her hair behind her ear and placed her cheek to Frances’s bosom to listen to her heart. She put her mouth to Frances’s breasts, her fingers between Frances’s legs. ‘You feel like velvet, Frances,’ she whispered, the first time she did it. ‘You feel like wine. My hand feels drunk.’

And meanwhile, amazingly, the routines of the house went on. There were all the usual chores, as well as new ones because of the heat. If milk was to be kept from souring it had to be scalded as soon as it arrived. Jam turned sugary in the jar. Ants invaded the larder. Frances’s clothes clung to her as she worked, the dust rising from her brooms and fastening itself to her perspiring arms and face. But she did it all without fuss; she seemed to have the strength of a battalion of servants. She went to the pictures with her mother on Wednesday afternoons. There were the games of backgammon after dinner, the watery cocoa at quarter to ten… It was simply that there was now this other thing too, this thing like a bright, bright flame at the centre of her days, making the cloudy lantern-glass of her life blaze with colour. Could no one see the change in her? Sometimes she would look across at her mother as they sat together in silence, remember some kiss or caress, and marvel to think that it had left no mark on her. To her the caress was still with her; it felt as livid as a branding on the cheek. And what about Leonard? Did he have no idea? It seemed incredible. But then, since his promotion he had been busier at the Pearl, working slightly longer hours, coming home tired and complaining – but coming also with a touch of smugness, clearly rather liking the figure he cut as the weary breadwinner; his flag rising again as his bruises faded.

‘He doesn’t care about me,’ said Lilian moodily. ‘He cares more about his mates at the office. He gets his fingernails polished for them. What does he ever do for me? He’s been my husband for three years, and he doesn’t notice anything about me. You care more about me than he does, Frances. You care more about me than anybody. Even my family – they love me, but they laugh at me, too. They always have. You’ve never laughed at me. You never would, would you?’

‘No.’

‘We’re like Anna and Vronsky, aren’t we? No, that’s too sad. We’re like gipsies! Like the gipsy king and queen. Oh, don’t you wish we were? We could go miles and miles from Camberwell, and live in a caravan in a wood, and pick berries, and catch rabbits, and kiss, and kiss… Shall we do it?’

‘Yes!’

‘When shall we go?’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll pack a spotted handkerchief. I’ll tie it to the end of a stick.’

‘I’ll bring my tambourine, and a scarf for my head. We won’t need anything else, not shoes or stockings or money, or anything.’

And in the days that followed they spent an absurd amount of time debating the route they would take, and the colours of the caravan they’d have, the style of the curtains that Lilian would sew for it; even the name of the pony that would pull it.



Then, all at once, July was nearly over, and they had been lovers for almost a month. Frances had barely left Camberwell in all that time. She’d let slip the trips into Town, she had neglected Christina; she’d sent her a picture postcard, that was all – a boring view of Champion Hill, cows grazing in a meadow – to say that she was busy and would visit soon. But she hadn’t visited. She was nervous about it, she realised. She felt a sort of squeamishness about revealing the affair.