Before I Met You (37 page)

‘It does feel like an awfully long time ago,’ said Arlette. ‘And it was an awful suit.’

They both laughed and Lilian stood on her pointed toes to reach up to kiss Gideon. He held her fingertips inside his hands, looked down at her fondly and said, ‘Lilian. You look a picture.’

‘A picture of what, exactly?’ she asked accusingly.

‘Of fresh-faced innocence and beauty,’ he replied.

Lilian smiled.

‘And tell me,’ he continued, ‘are you expecting a visit from Pierrot this evening?’

She smiled again and laughed. ‘That is entirely possible, Gideon,’ she replied. ‘And if you do happen to stumble upon one, please send him my way. Oh, in fact, never mind, here he is!’ Her face bloomed open into a smile and she put an arm out towards a beautiful boy with sandy curls and a matching clown suit. ‘This is Philip. Philip, this is Arlette and Gideon.’

Philip looked unbearably young, a million miles away from the characters Lilian had been socialising with in recent months in the jazz clubs and piano bars in Soho.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Arlette, appraising the young man in slight wonder, ‘wherever did Lilian find you?’

The boy smiled and said, ‘I live next door.’

Arlette smiled. ‘So not too far from home, then?’ Lilian and Philip looked at them and smiled, and then their hands found each other’s and knitted together.

Arlette felt her stomach lurch slightly at the sight of them, almost identical with their blond curls and baby faces, perfect twins in their matching outfits. And their lives, of course, simply, elegantly entwined by neighbourly proximity. The absolute opposite of her own romantic pairing: black and white, British and West Indian, London and Manchester. She wondered who she might have found herself holding hands with if she’d never left Guernsey. In Guernsey there had been no ‘next door’, just a cluster of stone cottages in the dip below the house, peopled with elderly, leathery-skinned couples and distracted young families. No golden-haired boys to pair up with in perfect homogeny. No Pierrot to her Pierrette. Had she stayed on Guernsey, she pondered, she would probably have found herself irresistibly drawn to someone who would whisk her on the first boat away from the island, someone with an accent and a tan, someone utterly foreign in every way.

‘Mother is delighted,’ said Lilian, breathlessly. ‘Philip’s father
is
the richest man in the universe and Philip is an only child.’ She laughed and Philip joined her.

‘
Second
richest man in the universe,’ he corrected.

‘Oh, yes, sorry. But still, he needs to sell only one more motorcar and maybe he’ll be the richest.’

They both laughed uproariously at their little joke, and Arlette pulled Gideon away by the hand.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s see who else is about.’

The party was spread across two rooms and out onto the wrought-iron veranda that led from the back sitting room. The air was scented with the tang of old bonfires and a warm wine toddy being ladled from a large vat by a girl in a green kimono. They mingled for an hour or so, taking every glass of champagne that was offered to them, until they were both quite merry. And then they came upon the two elder of Lilian’s brothers sitting side by side on either arm of an armchair, one with his feet on the seat, the other with his legs crossed widely and somewhat obscenely, staring around the party and whispering the occasional sneering comment in the other’s ear. The older one looked up when he saw Arlette heading in his direction and his eyes widened.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ he said, ‘whatshername.’

Gideon squeezed Arlette’s elbow reassuringly.

‘Arlette,’ she said.

The boy clicked his fingers and said, ‘Yes, that’s right. Arlette.’

‘Hello, Henry,’ she opened pleasantly, no longer even a tad nervous in his presence. ‘It is Henry, isn’t it?’

He nodded.

‘This is Gideon,’ she said, ‘my very good friend. I don’t believe you’ve met.’

Henry shook his head and shrugged disinterestedly.

‘Gideon, this is Henry, Lilian’s little brother.’ She emphasised the ‘little’ with a slight smile.

‘Jolly nice to meet you,’ said Gideon.

Henry put out a sulky hand and offered Gideon a limp handshake. ‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ he replied sarcastically. On the other arm of the chair, they heard Arthur, the younger brother, let out a small snort of laughter.

Arlette and Gideon looked at each other and a mischievous spark flew between them.

‘So, Henry,’ Arlette began, ‘I hear you have finished with school. I would imagine you must be about to head off to university somewhere?’ She stifled a smile, well aware that Henry had failed all his examinations and was in fact due to start an unpaid apprenticeship at his father’s firm, which would mainly involve sorting out the post in the mailroom.

Henry bridled and said, ‘No. I decided against that. I’m to work with my father. His firm is looking for young blood.’

Arlette raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, how marvellous. So you’ll be bringing some money into the house? I’m sure your mother must be thrilled.’

He shuffled a little in his seat and shrugged. ‘And you, Arlette, I hear you have been promoted to head of all the little shop-girls?’

‘I am the department manager, yes,’ she smiled graciously, ‘the youngest in the store’s history.’

He wriggled slightly again and said nothing.

‘And of course, as manager I am on a fairly decent wage, enough to pay for a lovely room in Bloomsbury and all the trappings of a modern girl about town. You must be looking forward to having your own money to spend?’

He glowered at her and ground his heel into the fabric of the armchair. ‘I do not need any money, Arlette. As you can see …’ He waved his arms around the room proprietorially.

She smiled sweetly. ‘Ah, well, Henry, so long as living off your father’s hard-earned money is enough for you … But personally, I believe an individual should forge their own path in life. Wouldn’t you agree, Gideon?’

Gideon nodded effusively. ‘Oh, absolutely yes, Arlette. Because, as you know, my parents own half of Oxfordshire.’

Arlette pinioned Henry with a smile and nodded her agreement.

‘If I’d wanted, I could have spent my entire life sitting at my mother’s table waiting for handouts. But where is the manliness in that? All those men and boys, younger than me, gave up their lives, died in conditions of putrid torment, lost their legs, their arms, not, I believe, so that Gideon Worsley could sit and count his father’s beans. No, no, no.’ He shook his head slowly and sadly.

Henry glared at him and a silence landed upon the four of them like a collapsed ceiling.

‘Anyway,’ trilled Arlette, ‘it has been lovely talking to you boys. Enjoy the party!’

‘Yes,’ said Gideon, stifling laughter, ‘have a super, super night.’

And then he grabbed Arlette’s hand and they moved briskly through the party crowds towards the open veranda doors, stopping briefly to accept mugs of mulled wine and then stumbling down the garden steps and out across the lawn where they let loose helpless peals of laughter that carried them into near madness.

‘What ghastly, frightful children!’ Gideon exclaimed, laid out on the grass on his back.

Arlette lay down next to him and laughed again. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘If they were mine I would put them in the workhouse.’

Gideon laughed out loud again at that. ‘If they were mine I would tie them down to railway tracks and let the next train deal with them.’

This struck Arlette as a little harsh and she let her laughter recede to a sigh.

A balmy breeze blew across them then, rustling the dead leaves scattered upon the lawn, making them rattle. The moon
was
out of sight, tucked behind the high trees at the bottom of the garden, and the sounds of the party inside billowed out across the garden in ethereal, indistinct bursts.

Gideon turned his head towards Arlette and smiled. Then he picked up her hand and held it in his, bringing it up to his mouth and kissing her knuckles gently.

Arlette smiled back and squeezed Gideon’s hand. She was about to open her mouth and say something, something nice about how much she had enjoyed Gideon’s company these past couple of weeks, how the period of Godfrey’s absence was, as Gideon had promised, passing by in a whirl. She was going to thank him for taking her to salons, to soirées, to parties and to clubs, where she had met poets and writers and artists and actors, and for the fact that she had failed entirely to write her mother a letter longer than three or four lines.

Her heart was filled with warmth and affection for her friend, and so, when he brought himself up on one elbow and appraised her intently for a second before then bringing his mouth down upon hers and kissing her, quite hard, upon the lips, she did at first acquiesce, because it did, for a moment, feel the right thing to be doing, a mere heartbeat away from the hand-holding intimacy they’d been enjoying since they’d first met, not such a big leap and not so shocking. But when the kiss continued beyond the firm avuncular thing she’d been permitting and it became apparent that he was trying to part her lips with his she put a hand to his chest and pushed him back.

‘Gideon,’ she said, ‘what on earth …?’

He looked at her quite strangely and said, ‘Oh, now, come on, Arlette. It’s not as though you’ve never been kissed.’

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘Well, but nothing,’ he said, before bringing his mouth down firmly again against hers.

Again she pushed him back. She looked at him sternly and said, ‘It is far from
nothing
, Gideon. I am spoken for. I can’t –’

‘Oh, Arlette, spoken for? Really? Do you really believe that? Do you really think your dear Godfrey is not, as we lie here, doing something rather similar?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She blinked at him.

‘Well, Arlette, my dear lovely girl, Godfrey is a West Indian. For goodness’ sake, do you know nothing about the world? When it comes to affairs of the heart, they are not to be trusted.’

Arlette attempted to push Gideon away from her entirely, but the force of her indignation was not enough to do so. ‘Rubbish, Gideon,’ she said, trying to get to her feet. ‘Utter, utter rubbish. Godfrey is not a West Indian. Godfrey is a gentleman. Now, if you’ll excuse me …’

She managed to scramble to her feet, and was about to storm back into the party when suddenly, and dreadfully, she found herself being dragged backwards, away from the house, down the lawn and towards the small wooded area at the end. She struggled against Gideon’s pull, but it was impossible. ‘Gideon!’ she cried out. ‘Will you let go of me!’

‘No, Arlette, I will not let go of you.’ He turned her to face him, her wrists still held tightly inside his hands. ‘I will not let go of you, you silly woman, because I have been in love with you since the very first time I set eyes on you and I have had enough.’ His eyes flashed angrily and Arlette felt something twist and spoil inside her gut.

‘Enough of all this nonsense. Enough of you treating me like a fool. I want you …’ He stared at her desperately and her wrists started to sting inside his rough grip. ‘I need you to understand me. I need us to reach an
understanding
.’ He tugged her backwards with every word, dragging her silver heels through the soil, her wrists feeling that they might come apart in his hands.

‘Get off me, Gideon,’ she hissed.

‘No,’ he hissed back. ‘No! Absolutely not.’

They were in the wooded area now and Gideon was holding Arlette up against the trunk of a tree. He appraised her darkly
for
a moment and then he smiled, and for a moment Arlette thought he might be about to laugh and make the whole thing a joke, that she might walk away from here with everything the way it should be. But he did not laugh. Instead he brought his face down against hers once again, over-hard, roughly, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Arlette thought to struggle, but she was pinned almost entirely beneath the weight of his body. She could feel knuckles and nodules of bark pressing into her flesh; she could feel his leg forcing its way between her thighs, bruisingly. His lips passed from her mouth to her neck until she began to shout out, whereupon he forced his mouth once more over hers to stifle her and then, hard and awkward, he dragged down his trousers, pulled up the pure white pleats of her dress and forced aside her underwear. Arlette screamed noiselessly into the hot, hard cave of his mouth. She clenched her eyes closed and concentrated on a point five minutes from now when this would be over, when she could go inside, wash, sit, cry, go home.

As he climaxed his body softened against hers and he brought them both down into the bed of dry leaves. Arlette sat with her back still against the tree, Gideon’s head buried first in her shoulder and then in her lap. He breathed heavily, in and out, and Arlette stared deep and dark into the sky, feeling the awful hot wetness inside her. It had all taken about thirty seconds.

After a moment, Gideon lifted his head from her lap and smiled at her, an incongruous look of childish wonder. ‘Oh, my darling,’ he said, cupping her cheek with his hand. ‘My precious darling. Thank you.’

Arlette blinked at him and said, ‘What?’

‘Thank you. Thank you for letting me show you how I really feel.’

Arlette could think of no words. Instead she nodded, just once.

‘A momentous day!’ Gideon cried out, suddenly getting to his feet. ‘A marvellous day!’

She watched mutely as he pulled up his trousers, put away his damp penis, buttoned up his fly, brushed away crumbs of autumn leaf from his clothing. ‘Here,’ he held his hand down to her and she took it. He pulled her up to standing and watched her tenderly as she pulled down her skirt, brushed away more crumbs of autumn leaves.

‘Oh, here,’ he said, ‘you have some dirt … let me …’

She stood numbly as he carefully brushed some clods of dry earth from the back of her dress. ‘Such a beautiful dress,’ he muttered sweetly. ‘We mustn’t let it be spoiled. There.’ He smiled at her triumphantly. ‘You look perfect. No one would ever know.’

She nodded again, feeling the rancid trickle of warm liquid in the gap between her underwear and her stocking tops. ‘I need to clean myself,’ she said.