Dance While You Can (7 page)

‘Stop it! Stop it! I wasn’t leading you on, I. . .’ I started to reach out to him but wrenched myself away and went to stand behind the sofa, using it as a barrier between us.

‘You’ve been laughing at me all the time, haven’t you?’ he shouted. ‘I can see you now, telling Mr Ellery everything, and laughing at the way I haven’t been able to do my work, the way I haven’t been able to do anything for thinking about you. I was nothing more than a figure of fun, was I?’

I pushed my hands up to my face. ‘You’re wrong Alexander, believe me. I wanted, you were . . . oh please, please go.’

‘I’m going, and don’t expect either of us back. You see, you even had Henry fooled. Even he saw the way you were with me. But that’s it from now on, Elizabeth, it’s over for all of us.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘And here! Here’s your Christmas present. Merry Christmas!’ He flung it down in front of me.

The door slammed behind him, and suddenly I knew I couldn’t let him go like that. He was at the bottom of the stairs when I tore open the door. He looked up as I called out his name. Then almost before I knew it was happening, I was in his arms. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t let him go.

He led me back into the sitting room and pulled me on to my knees in front of the fire. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, reaching up to wipe away my tears. ‘I’m sorry for everything I said.’

‘Me too.’ I lowered my head, but he lifted my face and kissed me.

At first his lips were gentle, but as his hands closed around my face I clung to him, needing to feel him closer.

‘Tell me you love me, Elizabeth. Please, tell me,’ he murmured.

He kissed me again, and this time I felt his tongue move against mine. I twisted my fingers through his hair and was saying the words before I even realised.

‘Now will you let me come with you?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘Please, look at it sensibly, Alexander. You can’t come, you mustn’t. Just because we’ve admitted to the way we feel doesn’t make it right. You have to go home to your parents, and I’ll go to London. Then after Christmas . . . well, who knows? I think it would be better if we don’t spend any time alone together after this.’

He put his hand over my mouth. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that again. I’ll agree to go home for the holiday, but only if you agree that you’ll see me afterwards, only if you promise that you’ll still love me when I come back. Elizabeth. Please, promise me, Elizabeth.’

In the end I was too weak to refuse. I loved him too much already.

– 7 –

I couldn’t have made a bigger mistake than to go to Mr Billings’s little hotel off the Bayswater Road. He was a kind and jovial man who told me with pride that I had the only room with a bath, but the wallpaper and curtains were drab and, feeling the way I did, once the door had closed behind him it was a struggle to hold back the tears. The big armchair under the standard lamp was just right for sitting and reading in, but I never got any further than the first few lines of
Girl with Green Eyes.

I went for walks round the shops or in Hyde Park, and tried as hard as I could not to think about Alexander – but I thought about nothing else. At night, listening to the sounds from the street, I sat by the mirror and ran my fingers over my lips, remembering what it was like when he kissed me. And always I’d end up wrapping my arms around myself, wanting to cry out with the need to touch him.

On Christmas morning I opened the present he’d given me. I’d said once, when we’d all been talking about what we would buy if we had lots of money, that I’d buy some expensive French perfume called
Y.
He’d remembered. I wished so much that he was there then, that I was almost stifled by the longing. And because I was shaking when I opened the parcel, I dropped it, and the bottle smashed. All Christmas Day I sobbed into my pillow, and most of Boxing Day too. I couldn’t bear to think of losing him, not yet.

It was two days after Christmas, late in the afternoon, when Mr Billings knocked on my door. I must have been asleep because there seemed to be a fuss going on in the corridor, and I heard someone call that she thought she’d seen me going out. I pulled myself up from the bed, my book thudding to the floor. As I opened the door and flicked on the light I could see Mr Billings at the top of the stairs.

His face lit up when he saw me and he started to speak, but I was looking past him. It couldn’t be. I was dreaming. He didn’t know where I was . . . .

‘. . . nice to have visitors, especially at Christmas,’ Mr Billings was saying. He clapped Alexander on the shoulder and pushed him towards me. Then I heard Alexander refusing the tea Mr Billings was offering, and in a daze I let him take my arm and pull me inside the room. When the door was closed he turned to look at me, lifting his hand and pulling the scarf away from his mouth.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he said quietly.

My voice seemed to come from somewhere far away inside me. It shook as I said, ‘How did you know . . .? What are you doing . . .?’ He put his hand on my face and I moved into the circle of his arms, and his mouth, still cold from the wind, was against mine, and his arms were holding me tight. He let me go and my eyes flew open.

‘Alexander . . .’

‘Just tell me you love me, Elizabeth. Please.’

Cupping my face with his hands, he kissed my eyes and my nose and my cheeks, and then my mouth again. ‘I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I had to come. Tell me it’s been the same for you too. Tell me you love me as much as I love you.’

‘I love you,’ I whispered, my voice breaking as I tried not to cry.

He took off his coat and put it on the chair. I looked away, but he put his fingers under my chin and turned me back again.

I tried to smile. ‘I don’t want to wait any longer,’ I whispered.

He kissed me slowly, and his fingers were shaking as he started to unbutton my dress. After a while he lifted my hands and nodded for me to undress myself while he took off his own clothes. Most of the time I kept my eyes on the wall opposite because I was afraid to look at him, and afraid he might be disappointed in me. And then he was standing next to me, running his hands over my arms and I buried my face in his neck.

He undid the catch at the back of my bra, then gently pushed me away from him. As he pulled the straps down over my arms and my breasts fell free, I heard the breath catch in his throat. I tried to cover myself, embarrassed by the way my nipples were standing out. He took my hands away and drew them to him. ‘Look at me, Elizabeth,’ he whispered. ‘Look at me here.

I looked down, mesmerised by the way my hands were moving over him, and then as he took my nipples between his fingers, my hand tightened around him. I looked up as the sound came from the back of his throat, as if he were choking. And then my hand and my arm were suddenly wet.

‘Oh my God!’ His voice was thick with fury and disgust. He turned away, burying his face in his hands.

I stood there, not knowing what to do, and then he pushed past me and escaped into the bathroom.

He was standing in front of the washbasin when I went in, one hand on each side, staring down into the sink. ‘Alexander,’ I whispered.

‘Don’t,’ he growled. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

I walked over and leaned my head on his shoulder. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘Don’t be angry. Sometimes these things happen the first time.’

‘How do you know?’ he snapped.

I slipped my arms around him and started to kiss his shoulder. He turned round and crushed me hard in his arms. ‘I just couldn’t stop it,’ he whispered.

‘I understand,’ I said.

Picking up a towel he wrapped it round his waist, then sat down on the edge of the bath. I cradled his head in my arms, running my fingers through his hair. He had tried to be so brave for both of us, and now I knew that it was my turn.

‘Will you come back in now?’ I said, eventually. He nodded, so I took his hand and led him to the bed, where we lay down together.

‘Elizabeth,’ he whispered into the silence. ‘What you said just now, that these things sometimes happen the first time . . .’ He lifted himself on to one elbow and looked down into my face. ‘I wish I could find the words to tell you how much you mean to me.’ I closed my eyes and pulled him down to kiss me. After a while I pushed my tongue into his mouth, and it wasn’t long before I could feel the passion rising in him.

His voice was gruff as he spoke. ‘Do you think we could try again?’

I nodded, then found I had to swallow hard as he lowered his mouth to my breasts. When he lifted his head again, he pulled me against the length of his body, and I could feel him hard against my belly. I was afraid, and closed my eyes as he slipped my pants down over my legs. And then he began to tease me with his fingers. I had never felt anything like it before. I stiffened, clamping my thighs against his hand, and then I looked up into his face and tried to say his name.

He took his hand away, and easing my legs apart, he lay down on top of me. Then very slowly I felt myself opening to him, pulling him towards me, until with one gentle push we were together. He touched his lips against mine, then pushed again. I gasped at the pain, and he stopped.

‘Are you all right?’ he whispered, looking down into my face.

I nodded, and my whole body swelled with love as we started to move together. He pushed his hands underneath me and lifted me closer to him. And as I wound my legs around his, he started to move faster until his breathing became laboured and heavy, and then he called out my name as with one final push he fell against me.

I wrapped my arms around him, holding him still. Our bodies were sticky and damp, and his heart was thudding against mine, but I didn’t want him to pull away yet. He lifted his head to kiss me, and I felt his tears against my cheeks.

Finally he moved away. I knew immediately that something was wrong, and I was terrified that he regretted what we had done. I had given myself to him so easily, what if he despised me for it now? I wanted to speak as I watched him sitting there on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, but my tongue was paralysed with fear.

‘Tell me what I have to do,’ he whispered. ‘Tell me what it is you want.’

When I didn’t answer, he turned to look at me. ‘You’re so beautiful, Elizabeth, and what you have just given me . . . But it must be the same for you.’

I closed my eyes against the surge of relief, and reached out my arms to him. ‘Just be here,’ I. whispered, ‘all you have to do is be here.’

‘But I can give you more,’ he insisted. ‘I know I can. Tell me, show me how to do it.’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered.

He looked into my eyes and I saw the doubt in his. ‘Can I try?’ he said.

I nodded, and as he started to stroke my body and then push his fingers between my legs, I suddenly knew what it was he had to do. So taking his hand, shyly, I held it where it was. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Just there.’ And as he touched me, and began to stroke me again, I experienced something so beautiful I could never even begin to describe it.

We slept for a while and when I woke up his fingers were tracing tiny circles around my nipples. He was frowning, as if he couldn’t really believe what was happening to my body, then he smiled when he realised I was watching him.

‘Can I make love to you again?’ he whispered.

Later, after I’d been downstairs to fetch tea and sandwiches, we talked, and I tried to pretend I was angry when he told me he’d looked in my diary before leaving school, and that was how he’d known where to find me.

‘It’s no use you frowning at me like that, Elizabeth,’ he said, sitting naked on the end of the bed and ripping apart a turkey sandwich with his teeth. ‘I know you were glad to see me. You were, weren’t you?’ he added when I didn’t answer.

I shrugged. ‘Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’ he choked. ‘Then I’d hate to think what physical state I’d be in now if you’d been really glad to see me. And stop looking at me down there, you know what it does to me.’

‘I’m not looking at you anywhere,’ I objected. ‘Now tell me, what about your parents, where do they think you are?’

He shrugged. ‘In London.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Well, not sleeping with the junior matron of Foxton’s, that’s for sure.’

I stopped smiling. ‘Don’t, Alexander, please don’t say that.’

‘I’m sorry. They think I’ve come down to see a show with some of the other boys.’

‘Are you only staying one night?’ I tried to keep the desperation from my voice, but already my heart was beating so hard that I tried to cover it with my hands.

He must have sensed how I was feeling because he came across to my chair and knelt down in front of me. ‘I’m not leaving you now, Elizabeth, I can’t.’

He looked so young, so brave. What was to become of us?

It was two days later when we finally ventured out to the theatre. We went to see a matinée of
Happy Days
, the Beckett play that, despite a really morbid theme, had us gripping our sides with laughter, as Winnie, buried to her waist in earth, tried to fill her days by filing her nails and rummaging around in her handbag.

All through the play Alexander held my hand, and every now and again he leaned over to kiss me, just as he did when he thought I was asleep. I kissed him when he was asleep too, because he looked so young then, and vulnerable, and I knew that despite his outward confidence he was as afraid as I was that something might destroy our happiness. There were times, too, when he couldn’t hide his bewilderment at what was happening to him, and he would gaze at me for minutes at a time, then beg me to tell him how much I loved him – and I’d laugh and say silly, romantic things until he laughed too.

When the show was over we decided that as we were having such a good time, we would splash out and find a noisy restaurant somewhere in Covent Garden. And we were just heading for The Bistro, tucked behind the market, when the unthinkable happened and Alexander spotted Mrs Jenkins walking down the street on the arm of her husband. Quickly Alexander pulled me into a shop doorway, took me in his arms and buried my face in his neck.