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Take your trousers off, she said.
And the rest, she said.
She looked for a moment, tilting her head to the side, curious. She stood up and pulled her skirt and her tights and her knickers to the floor, stepping gracefully from the gathered heap like a magician's assistant. The sight of her made him want to applaud. His whole body was straining and taut, arching towards her.
There was so much skin to touch, and so much skin to touch it with. They stood there, shivering a little, pressing their hands together, their chests, their legs. He held on to her hips for balance and brushed his mouth across her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. She did the same, and then, delicately, cautiously, knelt down to kiss the very tip of his erection. She looked up at him and laughed quickly, and he turned his face away, smiling, embarrassed.
She lay on the bed, waiting, looking up at the ceiling. He couldn't get into the packet. He was worried about ripping the thing itself as he tore it open. When he'd eventually got it on, and knelt between her legs, she looked down and smiled briefly behind her hand. Sorry, she said. It looks funny though, in its wee mackintosh like that. Sorry.
He couldn't get it to go in. He wasn't sure about the angle, or the position. She waited for a moment, not looking at him, and then reached down to try and help. It didn't seem right at all. It was uncomfortable, for both of them. She said, you should probably - I think you need to - you know. He didn't know what she meant, but when he looked down he saw that she was pushing him away a little and rubbing at herself, and then he thought he understood.
She made little gasps and sucking sounds, winces, like the noises he'd once heard her make when she got her hair caught up in the zip of her coat and was trying to untangle it. Are you okay? he asked. Is it; does it? She nodded, quickly, it's okay, she whispered, it's okay. She laid her arms across his back and clung tightly to him. His face was pressed against the pillow beside her head, his arms squashed either side of her. He felt fragile, overbalanced. He held his breath.
She shifted uncomfortably beneath him, and the movement made him spill over into sudden regretful delight.
Don't stop, she whispered, it's okay. He mumbled something, his face still pressed into the pillow. No, he said, I've finished.
Oh, she said. He lifted his weight away from her. Oh, she said again.
They lay on their sides, looking at each other for a long time, wondering about what they'd just done. The room seemed suddenly very quiet and still. She smiled, and he brushed his finger against her lips, resting a knuckle in the squeeze of her teeth. She moved her leg very slightly, bringing her knee up towards his hip. He let his arm slip from her shoulder to the small of her waist.
He said - he whispered - bloody hell, Eleanor.
She smiled, pulling the covers up across them both, her eyes dimming and closing. He looked at their clothes, spread out across the room like stepping stones. He asked her if she was okay, if she was glad they'd done that, and she kissed him and stroked the side of his face, her eyes closed, her breathing slowing and deepening.
He said - he whispered - bloody hell. I feel like I hardly know you. She opened her eyes.
You do too, she murmured, you know me well enough.
No, but really I mean, he said, bringing his leg up towards hers, running his hand down her thigh, there must be plenty that I don't know at all. She pressed a finger to his lips, smiled, and closed her eyes. She opened them again after five minutes or ten minutes or an hour, and looked at him.
Are you awake? she whispered. He looked back at her.
Just about, he said. She shifted a little closer to him.
Would you tell me something? she said. Would you tell me something nice so I can get to sleep?
18 Disciplinary letter, typewritten on headed paper, January 1968
Your failure to fulfil the obligations of your position, or to meet the reasonable requests of your superiors, has been noted.
There were weeks when the only time he spoke to his mother was to ask her again what she knew. There must be something else, he would say. A second name, a date of birth. Tell me something, please. Why didn't you tell me before? he would ask again. And his mother would insist that there was nothing else, that there was no more she was hiding from him, that she knew she'd done wrong but could he please stop all of this, it was breaking her heart. He would always leave the room when she said that, slamming the door behind him.
It was like a hunger, an insatiable hunger, this need to know. There were weeks, months, when he could think of nothing else, could hear nothing else besides the slow refined sigh of Julia's voice, saying the words over and over again. Of course we never saw the poor girl again. You'll have to keep the little darling. Did I say something wrong? Of course we never saw the poor girl. The words repeating like a stuck record in a locked room, haunting him, so that he could get to sleep only by drinking too much and leaving the radio on, loud. You'll have to keep the little darling. We never saw the little darling. You'll have to keep the poor girl. And of course she disappeared off the face of the earth. Did I say something wrong?
He thought about leaving home, about cutting himself off and starting again, about never speaking to his mother again, but he was too numb to do anything about moving out, and his mother was the only person he could ask for answers, and so he stayed, seething with hurt and anger and betrayal and loss, wishing he'd never found out.
And even when he was at work he struggled to concentrate, his thoughts blurred by the many questions he wanted answe
ring: why he'd never been told; why he'd never suspected; whether Susan was lying when she said she'd never known; what he could do now to find the answers he was looking for, to find the people he'd never known he'd lost. One of the curators would ask him to repair a broken display cabinet, to rewrite an outdated label, to take a parcel to the post office, and within moments of being asked he would forget, sitting down on a gallery chair, or in the staffroom, or in the pub, knocked off his feet again by the memory of Julia's words. His colleagues started to comment, joking about his forgetfulness, his empty stare, his vacant tone of voice. The Director called him into the office to discuss his attitude towards work.
The poor girl hadn't even left you with a name, so we chose David, after that actor, what was his name? And of course, she disappeared off the face of the earth. What was his name?
Your difficulties with punctuality, and with timekeeping in general, have become of increasing concern.
He was surprised, when he asked, that it had taken him so long to think of it. What did Dad say when he found out? he said, and as soon as he'd said it he knew what the answer would be. His mother was in the back garden when he asked her, kneeling over the border, pulling out weed seedlings and heaping them into a small basket. How did you tell him? he asked, something cold and fearful turning over in his stomach. She straightened up, pulling her gloves off before answering him. She seemed uncertain what to say.
David, she said, and she looked up at him.
