‘Only just! So where to, Cinderella? It’s not yet midnight so can I assume we have time before your carriage turns into a pumpkin?’
‘You can assume that.’ She fell into step beside him as they walked towards the river.
‘I’m following you. This is your neck of the woods. I’m just a poor teacher visiting from the country! No idea where we’re heading.’ He doffed his invisible cap.
‘When I was little, my dad explained that I could never get lost in this city, not really, as all I had to do was find a landmark near the river and follow the water all the way home.’ She felt the smallest flare of guilt; here she was, building a relationship, no doubt like her mum had with Derek Manners, both behind her dad’s back.
‘I like that. It’s important, isn’t it, giving kids the tools and not just the cliché? Showing themhowrather than just telling them that everything will be all right in the end.’
‘He’s always been good at that, helping me figure out how.’
‘He sounds like a good dad.’
‘He is.’ She smiled, looking forward to introducing the two men, knowing in advance they would get on.
‘And your mum?’ His enquiry was casual and not unusual. Yet still she felt the cool wind of shame ripple over her skin.She left us ... left me ...
‘Not around.’ Felt easiest. And she was thankful he didn’t press the topic.
‘So where are we headed, Elizabeth-Roberta?’
She liked it when he said her name.
‘I want to show you something.’
‘In that case, lead on, Macduff!’ He pointed over her head.
‘You like Shakespeare?’ She turned to him, grinning because they were together, and she had a plan.
‘Oh, is that Shakespeare?’
‘You are a lost cause!’ She ran, and he ran after her, catching up as they neared the end of Vauxhall Bridge, her heart beating too fast and her breath stuttering in her throat. Wilkie took her hand and spun her towards him, as if they were shaking, rattling and rolling in a jive. It happened quickly, her body landing against his and his mouth coming down on to hers as he kissed her long and hard. It was the kiss she had imagined, the kiss she had longed for! Right there on the end of the bridge where the lights of Pimlico pooled in juddering shadows on the water and the moon looked particularly large and beautiful. This contact, this desire, proof that the attraction was a mutual thing, the relief of which was extraordinary. Her body responded by lifting clear off the ground and allowing her to float overhead, watching from above as she spiralled among the stars. This was the very moment she transitioned from girl to woman, or at least that was what it felt like.
‘I’m thirty-three,’ he whispered when finally she landed.
‘You’re very old,’ she replied in jest, running her hand over his lower back, feeling beneath his shirt to touch his skin, to scratch him with her nails, to indicate that she was no child and was aware of where this contact was headed.
They held hands as they meandered their way back to Waide House. Stopping to lean against the wall that edged the river, to kiss and gasp and murmur their pleasure, all the more intense because of what it promised.
‘Is your dad at home?’ he asked nervously as she fished in her bag for her door key.
‘I’m alone tonight.’
Stumbling through the front door, Lilly wasted no time in taking his hand and leading him to her bedroom, where all of her dreams and imaginings were made real. Wilkie wrenched off his clothes and stood in his pants before shedding those, too, and reaching for her once again.
‘Is this ...’ he breathed into her hair between kisses as he helped her out of her shirt and bra. ‘Have you ...’
‘No. But I want this, Wilkie, I want you. I do.’
Quickly now, he kissed her with an urgency as they tumbled back on to her rather narrow bed.
It was the next morning that Wilkie asked, ‘What was it you wanted to show me?’ She handed him a mug of tea, laughing as he pulled the silk edge of the blanket, which he’d fashioned into a kind of toga and now wore at the kitchen table. A strange moment where she understood that, in the space of hours, his presence in her family home, his nudity, his body, his most intimate secrets, his moments of release and vulnerability were all familiar to her in a way that only yesterday would have been unthinkable. Atseventeen, she had come to understand it was this way with life – those seconds when the world flipped upside down and what was beyond comprehension and imagination one minute was the norm in the next.
Mum has moved out . . .
Is this . . . have you . . .
No, but it’s what I want ...
