All the Days of Our Lives (15 page)

‘Were you with him last night?’ The question slammed at her.

‘Yes, if you must know.’

‘You were out shamefully late.’

There was a nasty, insinuating tone in her voice that roused Katie’s temper. ‘What are you saying? He took me out for dinner, that’s why. And I’ll go out with him again, if I please.’ She stood up. ‘I’m not just going to be your prisoner at your say-so all the time. I love him, and I’m twenty years of age – you can’t stop me going out and seeing people, spying on me like some old gossip. And you can keep your nasty fish as well – I’m not hungry!’

She slid her plate across the table so hard it almost fell off the other side, and stormed up to her bedroom.

As the winter passed into spring, Katie grew more and more besotted with Simon. Any doubts were pushed aside. She was in love! It was all she could think about. It was the first time she had ever gone much against her mother’s wishes. At first, Vera was furious.

‘Is she still giving you the silent treatment?’ Ann would ask, when Katie met up with her.

She hadn’t told Ann exactly who Simon was. She was so used to keeping things secret that she only gave away a few bare details. She did not question his need to be discreet.

‘It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone with you,’ Ann would say, exasperated. ‘Go on – what does he look like? Is he a dish? What does he do?’

She bombarded Katie with questions, which she sometimes answered, but just as often didn’t. But for the first time she had confided in Ann about her mother and what she was really like. Ann had been appalled.

‘But now, after all this upset,’ Katie told her, ‘something’s changed.’

She knew that she had more power on her side now, though she would not have said it quite like that. But Vera seemed to sense there was something in Katie’s life that had a stronger pull on her than she, Vera, did, and she had begun to behave more moderately, as if afraid of pushing Katie further away.

‘She’s not easy,’ Katie had said with a sigh. ‘I suppose she’s never really got over losing my father.’

‘She doesn’t
sound
easy,’ Ann said. ‘After all, she can’t expect you to stay a child forever, can she?’

After several days of silence heavy with anger and resentment, after Vera found out that Katie had someone else in her life, one evening when Katie came home she found her mother in bed.

‘Mother?’ Katie walked through the silent house and realized that Vera must be upstairs. She knocked on the bedroom door and went in, to find her mother lying on her side, facing the bedroom wall. She stood looking at her for a moment, concern fighting with exasperation. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said in the end, controlling her voice. ‘Are you ill?’

There was silence, before a convulsive sob came from the bed.

‘Mother?’ She dared to go nearer. ‘Has something happened?’

There was another sound of distress. Katie, full of dread, dared to go and sit beside her, and Vera began sobbing, emotion pouring out of her.

‘I just can’t bear it! You’re not my little girl any more. You’re deserting me! What’s going to happen to me? I’m here all alone . . . I’ll be alone, forever – I can’t stand it . . .’

The sobbing went on and on, and Katie listened with a mixture of sorrow and bafflement. She could see that her mother got a bit lonely, but her reaction seemed so extreme. It was very hard to know what to say, but she knew she had to try.

‘I shan’t leave you alone,’ she said soothingly. ‘You know I shan’t. But I do need to go out sometimes. It doesn’t mean I won’t come back. Why do you think it does?’

Her mother had quietened and was listening.

‘The thing is, you should be pleased for me. D’you know why? You know you told me about when you met Daddy, and how it was and all that you felt? Well, I’ve met someone who . . .’

This seemed to bring on more sobbing, so she stopped.

‘I know you lost Daddy, and it was very unfair and sad, but aren’t you glad I’ve found someone whom I can love and who loves me?’

Vera sat up, her hair dishevelled and her eyes red from crying. Katie moved back, afraid of the wild look in her mother’s eyes.

‘And are you so ashamed of me that you can’t bring him home to meet me? Or is it him you’re ashamed of? Perhaps you’ll think I’ll look down on him, that he won’t be good enough for you – some factory Jack you’ve decided to throw yourself at? Is that it?’

The direction of the conversation had shifted so fast that Katie could barely keep up.

‘No . . .’ she said unsteadily. ‘Of course not. I’ll bring him to meet you soon . . .’

A few days later, when Vera was calmer, she said to her, ‘I’ll bring him round to meet you. But let us just get to know one another a bit more first, eh? Otherwise I might find out it’s not worth your trouble.’

‘I thought you said he was the great love of your life,’ Vera said sarcastically.

‘Well, yes, but . . .’

‘As you like.’ She turned away. ‘But you be careful. Men are fickle fools, and don’t say I haven’t warned you.’

Katie was astonished by this outburst, when her mother was usually so starry-eyed in her description of men. But she knew then that she’d been right to delay bringing Simon round. He had been cautious about coming to meet Vera and seemed reluctant to take her formally to meet his family. The fact that she already knew his father from the works seemed to complicate things as well.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, when they were sitting in the car again, safe in the darkness, one evening when he dropped her off. ‘Maybe we should just give it a bit of time. After all, what’s the rush? As soon as you get all the families involved, it all gets very serious and . . .’

‘Well,
I’m
serious,’ Katie protested, a bit hurt. It felt important that things were on the right footing.

‘Oh, love – I didn’t mean that. But supposing your mother doesn’t like me? And knowing my family – well, they’re marvellous, but they tend to take over. They’d want us round there every week, and we shouldn’t have any time to ourselves. I’ve seen it all with my sister. And if there’s one thing I want more than anything, Katie . . .’ He turned to her and shifted closer, leaning over to kiss her neck. ‘It’s to be alone with you. Really alone. Oh!’ he breathed her in. ‘You smell so lovely.’

His breath on her neck made her feel warm and full of desire. Though she wanted to feel as if their relationship was serious, and for him to feel proud and introduce her properly to his family, she had misgivings about it too. Supposing they didn’t think she was good enough for him? After all, she was just a typist. Perhaps they had more ambitious plans for their son. And she also longed just to spend time alone with him away from all the busyness of the week. She turned and kissed him.

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Mom’s getting used to the idea gradually.’ She looked up at him, seeing him looking down longingly at her. ‘And all I really want is to be with you.’

Soon she didn’t question the way things were. She and Simon had some evenings together, but the best day was Sunday, or at least the Sundays when he wasn’t expected to go and have lunch with his mom and dad. This happened every other week, and as Saturday was usually still busy at the factory, the free Sundays became very precious. As the weather warmed up a bit, they would drive a little way out of town and go for walks on the Lickeys or the Clent Hills, or even, if Simon had enough petrol coupons, as far as the Malvern Hills. They walked and talked. Katie relaxed more with him and found that she could make Simon laugh. They would stop wherever they could find a cosy place to have cups of tea, talking about dreams of the future, when the war was over, of going to the seaside, even to France.

If it was wet, they went to Simon’s house in Kings Heath, and hoped Dai and Lewis, the two lodgers, would not be around. She had been impressed when she saw the house, a spacious terrace with a wide front window, furnished in a comfortable style with a big old settee in the front room. Though he had his own house, much of the furniture was obviously second-hand. Simon had a gramophone and a selection of records, nearly all jazz, and the two of them spent cosy winter afternoons curled up in his front room in front of the gas fire, with cups of tea and the gramophone playing Jelly Roll Morton or Duke Ellington while the rain poured down and the windows steamed up. Sometimes they read, or talked. The news had been full of the victory over the Germans at Stalingrad.

Last Sunday when she was there, and a March wind was blowing so hard outside that they had decided against walking, Simon stretched his long body languidly and smiled round at her. ‘Marvellous, this music. It just sounds like freedom to me – and sunshine and all the good things.’ He twisted round and sat sideways on, laying his hand on her breast, looking longingly at her. ‘Good, good things.’

His touch had filled her with desire, making her arch her back a little, but she was afraid. Every time they were together now, Simon became more and more insistent. They kissed, and often progressed far further than that, up in his bedroom overlooking the back garden. At first he had begged her to let him see her breasts, and at last she had let him undress her, unbuttoning her blouse with a wondering, hungry expression on his face, which made her love him all the more, fumbling so that she had to help, then unfastening her brassiere, peeling it away to expose her breasts, white and neatly rounded.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You’re perfect.’

He’d knelt and licked her nipples as she sat on the side of the bed, and at first she was embarrassed to see a man on his knees in front of her like that. She took his head in her arms and held him as his tongue gave her lovely sensations that went right through her. Again she had the feeling of being swept along by him. He looked up longingly at her.

‘I want to lie with you,’ he said. ‘You’re my woman, and I want you. Say you’ll be mine, Katie? Come here . . .’ He got to his feet and started to lay her back on the bed, which had a soft, silky green eiderdown on it. She was drawn along by his desire. But then she baulked. In those seconds, confused misgivings swarmed in her head. Oh yes, he wanted her – but wasn’t he just a spoilt boy who always made sure he got his own way? What about what she wanted and her feelings? But hadn’t she led him on? Now they had got this far, it seemed wrong to refuse him what he needed. She would have to do it . . .

But panic rose in her. ‘I can’t . . . Not yet . . .’ She pulled away. ‘I just – I don’t know . . . I’m not ready. What if – I mean, you know, a baby . . . ?’ Now they were talking again she felt exposed and chilly, and tried to cover herself with her free arm.

‘You won’t have a baby,’ he said firmly. He came and held her, talking to her rather as if she were a child. ‘It doesn’t happen that quickly, and anyway I’ve got something to stop it. Please believe me, Katie darling, there’s no harm – it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.’ She could sense his urgency. She looked up at him.

‘You’ve done it before. I mean, you’ve been with someone?’

A muscle twitched in his face. ‘No one like you. No one that I’ve really loved. I want to know what it’s like with the woman I truly love.’

Moved, she reached up and stroked his face.

‘Just give me a bit more time,’ she said.

She knew, with every week that passed, that she must soon give in. Their time together now always ended up the same, with each of them naked to the waist, touching, arousing each other and then pulling away with a sense of things remaining unfinished, and though Simon was patient with her, she could tell he was frustrated. She had some idea, also, from a chance remark Ann made, that it was bad for men not to have their desire satisfied. Ann, she imagined, must be satisfying Gordon’s desires quite freely. And Katie had some idea that if men were kept from sexual release, it actually injured them.

This time, when Simon leaned round and looked at her with such a wretchedness of desire, she knew she couldn’t say no. They had the house to themselves and she could not hold back from him any longer.

‘I do want you,’ she whispered. ‘Really I do.’

He was working his fingers inside her blouse, his eyes glazing with desire.

‘Will you let me this time, my darling? I’m just burning for you – I don’t think I can wait much longer.’

She followed him upstairs, led by the hand, feeling her legs turn weak with anticipation of what was about to happen. She had never seen a naked man, or been naked herself in front of anyone, not even her mother, for many years now.

Inside the room there was an awkwardness of removing clothes, which seemed to go on for a long time. Stripped to the waist, Simon turned to her. His upper body was familiar, lovely to her, with the V of dark hair on his chest. Otherwise he was smooth to her touch.

‘I’ve got some French letters. We don’t want to get you into any trouble.’

When they were both naked, he held her close. Feeling him hard against her, his penis like a strange branch coming out from him, the smells of their bodies, she wanted reassurance.

‘Do you love me?’ she asked, looking up, round-eyed.

‘Oh, my darling, of course I do!’ He reached down and kissed each of her breasts in turn. ‘Oh, lie back for me, will you – quickly, there’s a girl. I need you so much.’

The eiderdown was cold under her back. She waited as Simon sat with his back to her. She heard him curse quietly, and a horrible smell of rubber crept to her and she realized he was putting the French letter on. Then his warmth came down on top of her, his body thrusting hurriedly between her legs, and in those seconds before he managed to get inside her she thought: Oh my God, oh Jesus and Mary, what am I doing? And it was painful and intensely strange, and soon delicious as well and there was no going back. It was soon over, though. Simon seemed lost in his own feelings, and when he climaxed she held him, soothing him and stroking his back as he gasped and then was calm. That she could give someone such pleasure!