The White Family (31 page)

Shirley took a deep draft of her drink. The fire ran straight to her throat, her cheeks. ‘Darren’ll soon be on his way back to New York, as soon as he’s seen his trendy friends. He doesn’t care about us in England. He writes his column, but he couldn’t give a toss. He said that to me once, twenty years ago, when those American bombs were coming to England. Cruise missiles, weren’t they. And Darren said, “I write pieces saying it’s an outrage, but the truth is, no one in America cares. The British Isles are just so small. No one would care if they sank into the sea.” Darren wouldn’t care if we were blown to buggery.’ Shirley swore rarely, but now she enjoyed it.

Thomas was watching her with odd intensity. ‘We could both have been wiped out, just now. In one split second. Who would have cared? I wouldn’t even get an obituary.’

Shirley thought, we’re living on a different planet. Thomas wants his life to be written about. Whereas mine is so little. So ordinary.

And yet she liked him, all the same. He had a wistfulness she related to. As if the surface had been chipped away. She tried to remember about his marriage. The wife had red hair. Almost certainly left him.

They were sitting on his sofa, quite close together. ‘But you’re bleeding,’ Thomas suddenly said. ‘Look.’ And he put his hand on the side of her knee, and she saw there was a big hole in her tights and a black patch of skin traced with lines of red. His hand was large and white against the blackness. She wasn’t used to large white hands. His finger was tracing the edge of the nylon, the delicate edge where clothed became naked.

‘You’re still trembling,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring a bowl. We ought to wash it.’ His face was absolutely fixed on hers, stricken, tender, a kind of rawness as if they had been through fire together, and it seemed quite natural, inevitable for her to reach out and touch his cheek, his big man’s cheek, which was warm and rough – Elroy shaved twice a day, religiously. All her nerve ends felt near the surface.

And after all, he had saved her life, God had sent him to save her life, she could never have moved, it came so quickly – it was Thomas who pushed her out of the way.

What happened next seemed equally natural, he took her hand that was stroking his cheek and pressed it to his mouth, kissed it, sucked it. Why did she think of a child feeding? He was older than her, but he needed comfort, they all needed comfort, hungry men. Men without sex. She could always tell. She felt his hunger; it excited her. And yet he was also comforting her, and she needed comfort, she was sore, she was bleeding, she had faced death two times that day. Now he was stroking her knee again, in a kind of wondering, hypnotized way.

He seemed like all men and all boys to Shirley. He was like the boys she had grown up with, his whiteness, the softness of his hair, but too big and too gentle to be her father, thank God she had never had men like her father, and she took him in her arms, he took her in his arms, they were holding each other and kissing, suddenly, trying to suck out each other’s centres, trying to eat each other like fruit.

Taking their clothes off felt easy and simple, as if they had always been naked together.

They were very quick, as if it was essential, as if they had to steal what they wanted before death came and took it away, as if they were teenagers hiding from their parents instead of the middle-aged people they were. But they weren’t shy, and they weren’t guilty, though Thomas had a look of stunned delight as if he was half-afraid of waking up.

But his erection was real, and solid, his beautiful, smooth, heavy penis, the weight and swing of his big male body, she had always been moved by men’s nakedness, by the way their passion shows so clearly, their huge hunger, their desire to come in.

And she wanted him. She needed him. She could hardly wait to pull him inside her, and they lay on the sofa, side by side, one of her legs between his two, and he pushed inside with a groan of pleasure, she held his hair, it was thick in her hands, she stroked the naked back of his neck, she moved her hips and they moved together and his face had an expression of bliss as if everything in the world was right. One of his hands was holding her breast, pulling gently on the nipple. ‘Beautiful breasts,’ he whispered to her, ‘Your beautiful breasts, you’re so lovely, Shirley, why didn’t we do this years ago?’ She put her finger upon his lips and soon they were moving in rhythm together, their breath getting faster, they were panting, moaning, she wanted him, oh she wanted him, she wanted this, it was racing through her, nothing could stop it, she came, she came – she came with a great deep moan of pleasure that seemed to go on and on around him, and then he changed rhythm and began to groan and came with a shuddering, shouting roar and then stopped moving, deep inside her.

They were exhausted. They lay as one.

Shirley realized she had been asleep, for Thomas was staring down at her, leaning on one elbow, his face anxious. ‘Shirley,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? My God, Shirley. I don’t know what happened … I didn’t even think about contraception.’

She couldn’t help smiling at his rueful face. ‘Well you don’t have to blaspheme about it.’ She was half-joking, but he looked depressed.

‘Are you religious? – I suppose you are. Sorry, sorry.
Sorry
.’

‘Look I didn’t think about it, either.’ She still felt sleepy. She didn’t want to talk. It was curiously peaceful, lying there, in this unfamiliar place, with his face gazing down.

‘It’s moon madness,’ she said to him, running her finger along his collar-bone. To her he looked pale, compared to Elroy, but actually he was golden, olive, she remembered they called him
dago
at school, because he was part Italian (or Spanish).

So good to be close to another person. We’re close to so few people, in the course of a life … She held the moment in her hands. She wanted him to be happy too. ‘Don’t worry about the contraception angle. I was trying to get pregnant for over six years.’

‘Did I pressure you?’ he asked. ‘I probably did. I just – wanted you, Shirley. I mean, I don’t go round doing things like that.’

She laughed out loud. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. It’s the woman who’s supposed to say things like that. Just in case you don’t respect me.’

‘But I do respect you,’ he said at once, earnestly, how young he looked with his curls all crooked, a kind of soft halo round that big face, so different from Elroy’s lean, muscular head, which was beautiful as a panther was.
Elroy would kill her
– but he’d never know.

‘Look it was very nice. It was lovely.’ She nuzzled his arm and smiled at him. She wanted to lie a while naked together in the warmth of this unfamiliar room, this holiday from the rest of life. The time would be short, but that made it sweeter.

But Thomas ploughed on doggedly. ‘I’m not having sex with anyone else.’

Shirley suddenly thought things were going wrong. Was he promising her fidelity? ‘But you know I’m virtually married, don’t you? I mentioned Elroy. I love him, actually –’

And that made her realize she did love Elroy. She had always held back, could never say it, because it was hard to love anyone but Kojo. But as she spoke she was perfectly sure.

‘No,’ Thomas said. ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, I won’t have infected you. But there is someone – there’s a girl I like –’

And they smiled at each other: conspirators. Two people who had crossed the line. And no one knew.
No one knew
.

Then he went on. ‘I haven’t slept with anyone for some time. You probably noticed. That’s why I was so quick – You could say I was celibate, in fact.’

‘Well that’s a waste,’ she told him. ‘You were very nice. Very nice indeed.’

‘And so were you. It was … delicious.’

He sounded like a boy who had eaten the tuck shop. ‘But you didn’t eat me,’ she said, to tease him, getting up off the sofa, stretching, yawning.

‘May I kiss your breasts?’ They had moved apart; he already had to ask her permission. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Be my guest, Thomas.’

He kissed her breasts, tenderly, slowly, first one then the other, reverently, and then moved down and kissed her belly, nuzzling over the globe of her belly, round and white, her moon-belly. Then ‘Thank you, Shirley,’ he said. ‘You’re really beautiful. Thank you.’

She looked at her glass. All the ice-cubes had melted. The pale gold liquid winked in the light. ‘What’s the time?’ she asked. ‘You took my watch off.’

It was nearly eleven. She was suddenly business-like. ‘Quick, get dressed and take me home. I’ve no idea when Elroy’s back.’

And everything became ordinary; a married couple getting dressed in a hurry. She never did finish that glass of whisky.

Outside the house where Elroy might be waiting, she turned and kissed him, swift, light. ‘Thank you for the lift, Thomas. Oh, and thank you, you know, for saving my life. And Mum’s the word.’

‘Yes … We’ll never know where those police cars were going.’

Back inside, she hugged herself.

And twelve hours later she was still doing it, hugging her body and its happy secret, the secret that helped her come that night when she woke from sleep with Elroy inside her, home from work, tense, exhausted, desperate to lose himself in her body. She came without him touching her, rose to his penis like a fish to the rod, swimming up, up through the waters of the night where she had been dreaming of sex with Thomas. And deep inside, his sperm joined Thomas’s.

All that life, deep deep inside her. Shirley loved life. If it could only live.

He drove back home through a city of props. The houses were scenery, shadowy, shallow. White pools of street-light waited for the actors.

Shirley and he had made love in a dream; it had nothing to do with before or after. He laughed aloud. Nothing made sense. Something so delicious, so undeserved.

She didn’t make me suffer, or beg, or wait. She didn’t even make me use a condom.

Jeanie always made him use a condom, though later he discovered she was on the pill. On the pill because she was unfaithful, and her lover was too selfish to use condoms.

God knows what I’d do if Shirley did get pregnant.

Maybe nothing. Just – not worry.

Maybe human beings are laughable, sitting in our offices, planning and worrying.

He realized he had parked too near the corner for safety. What the hell, he thought, I’m invulnerable, nothing is going to hurt me tonight. It was quarter to eleven; the moon still hung, white and expansive, overhead, trailing a halo of pearly cloud which fell away, as he looked, like a twist of pale scarf, leaving the planet calm and radiant.

Slipping his key into the outside Yale, he remembered, with a jolt, the yob and Melissa, slouched against the door, interrupted in a kiss.

Perhaps that will make her jealous, he thought. Then, don’t be ridiculous, I was the jealous one.

The yob had looked – rough. Young and brutish. What things could he be doing to the lovely Melissa?

And her husky young voice, floating after him. ‘Oh by the way, I’ve started your book
–’
Did she say she liked it, or had he misheard? Such a sensitive girl, such a sensitive woman. And she hadn’t looked happy (did the yob mistreat her? Thomas would kill him if Melissa asked.)

Bounding upstairs feeling pleasantly superior, Thomas remembered he’d just fucked another woman and felt momentarily sheepish, because of course the one he wanted was Melissa, Melissa with her respect for his book and imminent appreciation of his greatness, Melissa of the sexy voice and large green eyes and heart-shaped face, Melissa with her wispy blond hair softening the collar of her leather jacket, Melissa the jogger, rosy on the pavement.

Was she upstairs now? Her hot little feet. He had always imagined her, mouse-feet, ballet-feet, skipping so lightly upon his ceiling. She appealed to his brain, his imagination.

But his body was drumming to a different beat.

His body had flared one nostril at the wind and made towards Shirley like a hunting dog, sniffing, eager, drooling with hunger.

When he was writing his book he completely forgot he had fangs and powerful hind-quarters. But when he was with Shirley, he was a dog. Panting with doggy happiness.

Thomas bounced around his living-room. It was here that he had her, here in this room … The pile of books on his desk had got knocked; half of them were splayed across his carpet. He started to pick them up, and close them. ‘The postmodern utterance of “I love” was masked by citationality …’

Suddenly it seemed like portentous nonsense. I love, thought Thomas, I love.
I love
.

Everyone heard. The whole ward heard.

(They had always been such a close family. And Darren was his pride and joy.)

Alfred had started it. Not meaning to! By saying that Darren’s writing was changing. True, in his view. But he should have said nothing –

I’m just an old fool. I don’t understand
.

What a day it had been. With the terrible news that Alfred had had to cope with already –

Darren didn’t mean it. He couldn’t have done.

But Alfred knew his son had meant it.

At first Alfred had been overjoyed to see him. Darren came back, when everyone had gone, just when Alfred was starting to feel a bit down. Then suddenly, as if in a dream, Darren marched back in, on his own. It was nearly nine o’clock, so he only just made it.

‘You’ve come back to see me. What about your dinner?’

‘We cancelled it.’

‘What about your plane?’

‘We’re not going.’

Joy turned to worry. ‘But you’ve got to go back. You’ll be late for work.’

‘My work’s not like that.’

But Alfred still fretted. ‘This bother of mine – it’s messing you about. You’ve got your life in America. I hope you’re not letting anyone down.’ It was one of his rules:
never let people down
.

‘You’re more important. We’ve decided to stay. I mean, I’ve hardly talked to you.’

Alfred hoped Darren wouldn’t talk about the cancer, which he’d put aside, mentally, for the day. It was one of his knacks. He’d learned to be strong. If things upset you, put them out of your mind.