She's Leaving Home (39 page)

‘You don’t have to mention me at all,’ Helen murmured. She picked up his hand and kissed his fingers, one by one.

‘Yes, I want to tell them,’ said Michael firmly. He did not elaborate, but Helen’s eyes widened. He did not need to spell out that she would be the first romantic attachment he had spoken about to his parents, and that this set her apart.

‘If you came to America you’d love it,’ Michael said suddenly. ‘You’d get on real fine. Away from Liverpool, and your Dad, and the tired old outdated ways which I know you hate. I don’t want to tread on any toes, but to me the UK looks shabby and broken. You won the war and have been resting on your laurels ever since, a kinda snooty but ragged bunch on the isolated edge of Europe.’ His voice took on an urgent rhythm. ‘America’s a young country. Most of it’s still empty. We have hills and rivers – this place is fine, Helen, but I’d love to drive you coast to coast, go west, stand with you by the Grand Canyon.’

She was listening attentively, so he pressed on.

‘Anybody that grafts can make money and live well. Here you’re tied in knots, seems to me. Your class system would drive me nuts – all those titles! However much a kid like you will try, you’re
going to be kept down. In America you could be free. It’s a “can-do” world – you don’t hear the phrase “Can’t be done, old boy, impossible”, which pops up every five minutes around here.’

Freedom again. She had heard that before. Her response was deliberately cautious. She did not want Michael to realise the extent to which she had begun to assess the options.

‘But in the States,’ she said slowly, ‘I’d have to pay to go through college. In Britain I’d get it free, plus a grant – assuming I get in, that is. And – I know it’s odd to mention this, but it matters – I’d have to pay for health care, wouldn’t I? Again we get it free.’

‘It’s free this and free that which has beggared Britain. In America you’d win scholarships – no question. You’re so smart you’d sail through college. And people plan – d’you know my Dad started to save for my education the moment I was born? And I took a night job in a diner to help out. It did me no harm – knocked a bit of sense into me, rather. I rubbed shoulders with these guys with no qualifications whatsoever condemned to a lifetime of fast – order hamburgers, and I stuck to my studies. Graduated Dean’s List,’ he grinned with pride.

‘As for health care, it’s much the same. You plan and take out insurance. People earn enough to pay for these things. In Europe where you’re accustomed to earning a pittance you can’t get your heads around it. We earn a lot, Helen. It is true that Americans have piles of money. We can make any necessary provision for our needs, and have a lot left over. That’s what it means to be citizens of the richest country on earth.’

She was solemn in the face of such conviction. ‘But what happens if you’re not insurable? If you’re diabetic, say? Or old? What happens if you have a handicapped baby? Here you’d be looked after. But you can’t tell me nobody falls through the net. We have a safety net in the end, you haven’t.’

‘That is true, and the Kennedy administration would say you’re right. There are big city hospitals which do treat people without charge but nobody’d say they were sufficient. Or much good. There are ideas for something on European lines, but more limited – the Medicare Bill, for example. The President is making haste slowly because he couldn’t get it through Congress just yet. He quotes Jefferson that great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities. Maybe after the ’64 election he’ll have bigger popular support and be more secure.’

‘You think he’ll win?’

‘Oh, sure. Especially if the Republicans choose Goldwater. Wipe the floor with
him
. Look, young voters will plump for Jack Kennedy in a solid mass. So will the Negroes, and millions more are registered now than used to be. He may not be flavour of the month with urban intellectuals like James Baldwin, but one endorsement from Martin Luther King and he’s away. And he’ll get it – nobody wants a right-winger in the White House instead.’

‘I find it hard to credit that anybody could be prevented from voting. At least in this country everyone has the vote.’

‘Don’t kid yourself. I went to a St Patrick’s Day meeting last year – out of curiosity, I hasten to add. You have to own your house in Ulster to be able to vote. That rules out most of the Catholics. You didn’t know that? It’s your country too.’

‘But look, when a Sinn Fein candidate is successful they won’t take their seats. The first woman MP elected was Countess Constance Markievicz in 1918. She never took the oath or attended. That’s how Lady Astor got to be the first to take her seat, in a by-election the year after.’

‘Prejudice rules, OK?’ Michael lightened the atmosphere. ‘Maybe all it shows is nobody has a monopoly on wisdom. But we got a written constitution, Helen. Our rights are explicitly laid down. Better than the bitty common-law arrangements you have here. And Kennedy is terrific: he’s so keen for change. His instincts are spot on – after all, as a Catholic himself he knows about discrimination. As long as he’s President we will make progress. I truly believe that.’

The sun was high in the sky. Above their heads gulls flapped and called incessantly. A clutch of cheeky sparrows scrapped over crumbs nearby. Below, the sea lapped lazily on undulating sand
dunes. The noise of children was carried on the breeze. On a grassy bank nearby an impromptu game of cricket had started, with shouted instructions and yells.

Michael unpacked the basket. Out came a tablecloth, two Thermos flasks, a chicken pie in an earthenware dish, bread rolls, muffins, little pats of butter, brownies, big Florida oranges, a green watermelon, plates, cutlery, cups and glasses. With a flourish he spread a tea towel on her lap and one on his own as napkins. She added her modest contribution with a laugh to the pile of food and they set to with a will, hungry in the sea air. He had to show her how to eat the watermelon and spit out the pips. The sweet juice ran down her chin.

The afternoon passed in a lazy blur. It seemed to both remarkable that they could range so widely over every subject that came into mind: over religion, and the organisation of society, and the relative merits of rhythm ’n’ blues versus country music or Elvis compared to the Beatles, and whether the movie of
Gone with the Wind
was as good as the book and exactly what Joseph Heller’s
Catch 22
really meant; whether Jackie Kennedy was beautiful, and what had constituted the special appeal of Marilyn Monroe, and whether her recent death was an accident or otherwise. One topic neither raised was the movie of
West Side Story
: its theme of star-cross’d lovers seemed altogether too close to the bone.

It was a tired but contented pair who turned into the main entrance of Burtonwood at around six in the evening. Michael showed his ID. Helen shrank down in her seat, timid at the guard’s scrutiny.

The base was virtually empty as many airmen had obtained weekend leave passes. For an hour Michael drove her round the vast acreage until she was giddy with its size. They climbed the stairs to the top of the control tower and gazed out over the flat scrubland towards the Mersey. The controller cheerily showed off dials and screens and explained that few planes had landed at Burtonwood in recent years – mostly they arrived in crates for assembly or repair. Nevertheless, everything was kept operational.

Michael had hardly touched her. A finger on her arm to guide her, a hand on her back to say it was time to leave. Yet she was conscious of his body, warm from the sun, familiar yet strange, at her side yet separate. As she smiled and nodded at his earnest colleagues she compared them. In most cases Michael was physically broader, and surer in his movements, with a decisive manner which suggested that were he to choose the military as his profession, his innate qualities of leadership would be promptly rewarded. He was greeted with warmth everywhere, and she with dignified politeness. It made her feel coolly adult, and ready for anything.

At last he parked the Jeep behind a small bungalow, one of a row which looked deserted. The hamper was at his feet as he found the keys and unlocked the door. ‘We might be hungry again,’ was his comment as he put the remaining food on the sink unit. ‘Come on in.’

The door opened straight into a tidy kitchen with a table and four chairs in the centre. On the table was a neat red check tablecloth, GI issue, and a jamjar with daisies, white and pink. The effect was homely and welcoming. Helen’s pulse began to beat faster. To one side was a bathroom with both bath and shower. To the other a bedroom.

A transistor radio stood by the sink. Michael switched on and fiddled with the dial till Radio Luxembourg could be heard. Helen noticed that he fumbled. He was silent.

Then he came to her and put his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her quietly. The disc jockey announced the next tune, a Bruce Channel number which had been a big hit the previous year. Michael’s face lifted and he smiled as he heard the first long chord and opening lyrics:

‘That says it better than I can,’ he said softly. ‘Will you be my girl?’ And he bent his head and pressed his lips to hers, so she had to stand on tiptoe and arch her back to reach him.

She had not answered. He held her face in both hands, his thumbs circling her cheeks, his fingers intermingled in her dark hair. ‘God, kid, you have eyes to dive into. You have me bewitched, you know that? Whatever I’m doing I can’t get away from you. My head is so full of you it feels it would burst. Oh, Helen.’

‘Only your head? Not your heart?’ she teased in a whisper. Her hand rested lightly on his shirt where she could feel the live warmth of his flesh. Between them lay a hair’s breadth of empty air. It was still possible to pull back.

From somewhere above her came his voice, steady and grave, as if he had rehearsed the request many times. ‘Will you let me? Please? I promise I won’t hurt you. I can’t tell you how much I’ve dreamed about being with you, dearest Helen –’

This was a man who had never asked before, never begged. She could picture the girls who had flirted before him, their skirts a-twitch: high school cheerleaders with tanned thighs, the freestyle champion in a high-cut swimsuit, the sassy waitress at the all-night diner. And he had had his pick.

In response she slid her arms around his body, behind his back, and in that single gesture gave him permission to come close, to press himself against her. As their hips came together he groaned slightly and she felt with shock the strength and hardness of him against her belly. Her mouth was half open and she could hardly breathe, but in answer she let her trembling hands slide down from the small of his back to his buttocks, and willed herself to caress the muscular curves.

‘Helen, if you do that, you are saying yes, you realise,’ he warned. ‘I won’t force you. We can stop now if you want.’

‘I want to know you,’ she murmured. ‘I love everything I know about you. I want to know more.’

He broke away, went to the front door and locked it. The key he placed on the kitchen table: this was no incarceration, merely the avoidance of interruption. Then he took her hand, led her into the bedroom, drew the thin curtain and shut the door.

The bed, a small double, was made up. Beside it was a wooden chest of drawers with an alarm clock. Quickly Michael pulled off the top sheet and blankets. Outside, house-martins twittered unconcerned in the eaves but in the charged dusk inside nothing moved but the two of them.

Helen waited. It was as if time had elongated, as if everything were in slow motion. She could savour each second as the clock ticked unobtrusively. In the background the song had changed to the Rooftop Singers:

She should ask him to be gentle. She was at a loss to know the words, the terms, the argot. She hadn’t the faintest idea what to say or do. All she could imagine was that, as she wanted him to be kind to her, so perhaps that was the best approach in return. As Michael bent to plump up the pillows, she placed her hand on his shoulder. The effect on them both was like an electric shock: each stared at the other, startled.

‘I want to see you,’ he said, and lifted her sweater up and over her shoulders. The hair-ribbon fell away and her curls framed her face. Then he reached behind and unhooked her bra, and draped both on the bedpost. She undid the button on her skirt and kicked it away, and stood before him in her panties only, shoulders back, her breasts held proudly. He gazed at her for a long moment, arms at his sides.

‘Don’t be shy. You are so beautiful. And remember, whatever we do, it’s not dirty. When two people care about each other, there is no shame, only love.’

Her mouth was dry and she could feel her heart pounding so hard: surely he could see it just below her ribs. Involuntarily she sought the spot as if to invite his attention. He placed his fingers over hers and laughed softly. ‘Mine’s doing that too,’ he said, and pulled his shirt off over his head in one swift movement. ‘Here, feel.’

Hesitantly she gazed where he indicated, but ached to run her hands over the muscles of his chest, to feel that wiry hair: suddenly she realised she too could do whatever she wanted, and with a sudden sparkle in her eyes began to move her hands over his upper body, letting her skin begin to know his. Michael caught her and kissed her palm inside, his eyes holding hers. ‘My, my. You catch on fast, don’t you? Hang on.’ And he unzipped his jeans and dropped them to the floor.

‘Give me your hand, Helen.’

She did, and he guided her to his penis through the fabric of his shorts. She folded her hand over it and was surprised how firm and hot it felt. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he whispered. ‘Come on, lie down.’

She obeyed and he slipped off her panties. Then he was kneeling over her, naked and erect. She closed her fingers over him once again as if in acceptance and encouragement and he cried out, then bent and kissed her mouth hard, pushing his tongue inside. Then he broke off, reached into the drawer of the bedside table, found the tiny silver packet and as she watched rolled its contents on. Again she held him and both smiled. Then he lay beside her, one hand under her shoulders to raise her mouth to his, the other fluttering and exploring her breasts, her nipples, her belly.