Apple of My Eye (24 page)

Once it would have made her heart beat faster. But not now.

It was three months since his last visit. A stormy night in February just after her fourteenth birthday. He had sat on the bed while she had lain naked, feeling his clammy hand caressing her throat then moving over her breasts. A fat, five-legged spider crawling across her belly and on towards the soft down that grew between her legs while she had listened to the wind and rain and imagined that she was walking by the river, playing with Jennifer, anywhere but in that room.

Eventually he had sighed, his eyes dull and cold. In
the preceding months she had felt a diminishment in the heat he brought. Now the last drop of warmth was gone.

He rose to his feet. ‘Cover yourself. Don’t lie there like that. It’s wrong.’

‘You told me to.’

‘Only because you make me. It’s your fault. Not mine.’

She had done as instructed while he had stood watching, his expression suddenly reproachful. ‘You’re so clever. A masterpiece of deceit. You fool everyone but me. They think you’re good but you’re not. They think you’re beautiful but you’re not that either. You were once. Now you’re as plain and ordinary as everyone else.’

‘You’re still my friend, aren’t you? You won’t tell anyone?’

A sigh. The look of reproach remained. ‘No, I won’t tell.’

He had left the room, leaving her knowing instinctively that their strange and frightening ritual had been played out for the last time.

It should have been better after that. Her sleep, disrupted for so many years, should have been easier.

But it wasn’t. She was so conditioned to listening for him that it was impossible to stop. She would lie awake for hours, feeling as if the room were spinning, clinging on to her bed for fear she would drift off into the sky. And when sleep finally came it brought dreams of a world where everyone ran while she stood still,
screamed when she longed for peace, laughed when she wanted to cry. A world that made no sense and in which her place was at best uncertain.

Why had he stopped coming? She had tried to ask him but he had become angry and told her that she was never to mention it again, leaving her to struggle with questions that buzzed in her brain like angry wasps.

Did he no longer see the wickedness in her? Was she no longer wicked? Was she beyond redemption?

Perhaps you were never wicked at all.

The voice came from somewhere outside herself. Like the whisperings of a ghost, hanging in the air as fragile as a snowflake that would dissolve at the slightest touch.

The landing light went out. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, making for his own bedroom, leaving her alone to the spinning and the dreams.

Her father’s picture stood on her bedside table. She imagined him standing beside her. But when she reached out to touch him he dissolved like a snowflake too.

A wet Saturday in July, one week after the start of the summer holidays. She sat by the window in the old reading room of Kendleton Library.

The library was in Market Court. The reading room, situated on a floor above the main library, was rarely used. It contained a few shelves full of redundant periodicals, a table and three chairs. Nothing else. The
window that looked down on to the steps of the Town Hall was largely concealed by the eaves of the roof, enabling Susan to watch without being seen. A local businessman was presenting the mayor with a cheque to help repair the church roof. A crowd had gathered, sheltering beneath umbrellas as local journalists took photographs and the mayor, a pompous friend of Susan’s stepfather, beamed like a Cheshire cat.

‘Hello.’

A boy stood in the doorway, a pile of books under his arm. About seventeen with light brown hair. She recognized him from school.

‘I was going to work here,’ he said nervously. ‘It’s quieter than downstairs.’

She turned back towards the window, looking for a letup in the rain. When it stopped she would take Jennifer to play on the swings. The mayor was making a speech; as long-winded and boring as his dinner conversation.

The boy spread books across the desk, reading from each in turn while making notes on a pad.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked eventually.

‘Research for an essay competition. Five thousand words on the causes of the English Civil War.’

‘What were they?’

‘I don’t know. Hence the research.’ He smiled; a gesture that transformed a pleasant face into an attractive one. ‘You’re Susan Ramsey, aren’t you?’

‘How do you know my name?’

‘Everyone knows about you.’

She felt alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The most beautiful girl in school.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re in Alice Wetherby’s class, aren’t you? Her brother’s in mine.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘He’s all right. What about Alice?’

She grimaced.

‘Really?’

‘I can’t stand her.’

‘Actually I can’t stand him either.’

They exchanged smiles. Conspiratorial. Confiding. Comfortable.

‘Do you know who you look like?’ he asked.

‘Elizabeth Taylor. That’s what people say.’

‘They’re right. Do you know who people say I look like?’

‘Who?’

‘My gran.’

She laughed. It was the sort of joke her father would have made. He looked a bit like her father.

‘Why are you here on a Saturday?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s raining.’ And because it was better than being at home. But she didn’t want to say that. ‘What about you?’

‘Because it’s quiet. My father’s at home and he can be noisy.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She died last year.’

She felt embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry … um …’

‘Paul. Paul Benson.’

‘I’m sorry, Paul. My dad died when I was seven. It’s the worst thing that can happen, losing someone you love.’

‘I think about her all the time. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘Why?’

‘Because it won’t bring her back.’

Silence. He resumed his work. Outside, the rain was slowing while the mayor still spoke to an audience of glazed faces. Mrs Pembroke’s son, the disfigured man whom her stepfather had nicknamed Scarface, stood in the crowd whispering to the companion who was supposed to be a gold-digger. She had a nice smile, just like Paul.

Suddenly Susan thought of a way to make him smile again.

‘Come here,’ she said.

He did. She opened the window, shouted ‘Boring!’ then shut it again. The mayor, startled, lost his place while his audience, sensing escape, began to clap.

‘I’d better go,’ she said when they had finished laughing. ‘Stop distracting you.’

‘’Bye, then.’

‘’Bye.’

As she reached the door he called her name. She turned back.

‘I’ll be here on Monday in case you want to distract me some more.’

‘Maybe. If the weather’s bad.’

Monday was a lovely day. The first since the holidays began.

But she did go back.

*

A beautiful August evening. Susan entered her house.

Her mother and stepfather sat together in the living room; her mother mending a torn blouse while Uncle Andrew nursed a glass of whisky. Classical music played on the wireless.

‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.

‘Just for a walk.’

‘You said you’d only be half an hour. You’ve been nearly two.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t realize.’ She smiled to mask the lie.

‘What were you doing all that time?’

‘Just looking about. The countryside is lovely at the moment.’

And it was. Paul had said the same as they had walked together.

Uncle Andrew’s face darkened. ‘You should be in your room studying. I’m not paying a fortune in school fees for you to come bottom in everything.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘As good as.’

For years her school performance had been poor. Too little sleep playing havoc with her ability to concentrate. In the past he had taken a relaxed approach to her academic failings but in recent months his attitude had hardened.

‘Susan does her best,’ her mother interjected.

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I just meant …’

‘It’s your job to keep her in line. That’s not asking
too much, is it, even of you? After all, it’s not as if you have anything else to do except sit around all day.’

Susan felt uncomfortable. Uncle Andrew’s manner towards her mother had always been patronizing but recently the apparent benevolence had been replaced by contempt. She didn’t like it. But there was nothing she could do.

‘It’s not Mum’s fault,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m the one you should be angry with.’

‘I am angry with you.’ He downed his drink then poured another. His alcohol consumption was increasing. Yet another change. Paul’s father had also been drinking more recently, though he had always had a taste for the bottle. Paul had told her that.

He had told her a lot of things. That sometimes he still cried for his mother and that his father despised him for it. That his father was always taunting him for liking music and literature while not being much of an athlete. For not being enough of a man. His classmates taunted him too. Idiots like Edward Wetherby and Martin Phillips, who laughed and blew kisses at him while he would pretend not to notice, and she would long to hit them and knock the smirks off their faces.

She had told him things too. Her memories of her father. The nightmare of her mother’s breakdown. There were other nightmares but she kept those secret.

‘Go to bed,’ Uncle Andrew told her.

She kissed him goodnight. His cheek was hot and damp. She hated the feel of his skin.

As she climbed the stairs he continued to lecture her mother, his tone as contemptuous as before.

Early September. Three days before the start of the new term. She walked along the riverbank with Paul.

It was a beautiful late summer afternoon. Ducks glided alongside them, calling for food. They walked past Kendleton Lock towards the bridge that led to the village of Bexley. Mrs Pembroke’s son approached, listening to the gold-digger companion describe the shape of clouds. He gave them a smile then turned his damaged face away.

Past the bridge the path became overgrown. Few people came to this stretch of river, but she had always loved it. Her father had brought her here, carrying her on his shoulders, pointing out birds and plants, teaching her to enjoy the nature around them as much as he did.

Eventually she led Paul away from the water into trees so tightly packed together that their branches blocked out the sky. Then they parted, opening into a clearing with a large pond at its centre. Dragonflies danced over its surface, avoiding the eager tongues of frogs perched waiting on water lilies.

‘I used to come here with Dad,’ she said. ‘We used to eat picnics and he’d tell me stories. He called this place the nymphs’ grotto. He had names for every place we used to go. Secret names we didn’t tell anyone else. Not even Mum.’

‘But now you’ve told me.’

‘Yes, now I’ve told you.’

A single tree stood by the pond, its branches casting shadows over the water. They sat beneath it. A clump of roots stuck out of the shallows of the pool. She pointed to them. ‘Dad used to call them the troll’s fingers.’

‘And he called you Little Susie Sparkle.’

She felt a sudden emptiness inside. ‘That was a long time ago.’

‘My mother used to call me her little miracle. She thought she could never have children, you see, but then I came along. And now she’s gone and all I have is Dad. Do you know what he calls me?’

‘What?’

‘My little pansy. That’s what he thinks of me.’

‘He doesn’t mean it.’

‘That’s what they all think. Edward Wetherby and his friends. I hate it.’

‘They’re just idiots.’

He lowered his head, staring down at the ground. Overhead the air was full of birds.

‘But I can’t be a pansy because if I am then why do I want to kiss you so much?’

He looked up, staring at her with eyes that were like her father’s except for the sadness at their centre. She wanted to make the sadness go away and never return.

‘I want to kiss you too,’ she said.

So they did. Her tongue parted his lips, caressing the inside of his mouth. He put his arms around her, pulling her close.

The girls in her class talked constantly of sex, giggling in corners about this wicked, wonderful act that none of them dared experience but which fascinated them all. And as they talked they would think of Emma Hill; an older girl who had become pregnant and been forced to leave school. A grim warning of the dangers in straying from the path of virtue, however sweet the temptations might be.

She kept apart from these discussions, fearful the girls would discover the nature of her own experience, while wondering whether this act she had been told she wanted but which had always left her feeling dirty and ashamed could ever be as glorious as they seemed to believe.

Paul stroked her cheek. He looked exposed. Vulnerable. Filling her with the same feelings of protectiveness she experienced with Jennifer. But his arms were strong and they made her feel safe. Conflicting emotions that should have been confusing but instead left her with a glow she had never known before. It was stronger than desire. Better. Purer.

Perfect.

‘I love you,’ she told him.

They kissed again. She lay back in the grass, pulling him towards her, knowing what was coming and feeling no shame. Just a desire to be close to him, and make him happy.

He was clumsy. Nervous and hesitant. It was she who took the lead. Coaxing and soothing. Guiding him inside her. He thrust a few times then withdrew,
juddering to a climax and pressing his face into the grass.

She whispered his name. He didn’t answer. She tried again.

He turned towards her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why?’

‘I wasn’t very good.’

She stroked his hair. ‘Yes you were.’

‘It’s because it’s my first time.’

‘It was lovely, Paul. Really it was.’

‘It’s always difficult the first time.’

‘That’s right.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ve never liked it before but …’