Fifty-Minute Hour (47 page)

Mary stifled a yawn as she watched a yellow taxi swivel round the near-deserted square. She'd had very little sleep last night, had been summoned in the early hours to each of the three other rooms in turn. The boys were sleeping together, in one three-bedded room, but the fathers had refused to share, despite the lower cost, since Lionel felt contempt for what he saw as Harry's hypochondria, while Harry objected to Lionel's midnight scribblings and the reek of his cigars. Harry already had diarrhoea and indigestion; Lionel had complained about ‘disturbance' from the boys, while the boys themselves had giggled, quarrelled, blocked their basin, engaged in boisterous pillow-fights, and, in Simon's case, thrown up.

By the time she'd soothed and refereed, doled out medicines and warnings, and sponged two pairs of sheets, it had been after two a.m. The night before, she'd been up till nearly one, finishing off the ironing and the packing. It had been a strain to get away at all – to wash and pack for seven, coax Horatio to kennels and Aunt Alice to her niece's; transform the turkey relics into future freezer meals, and find willing 'flu-free volunteers for her various good works. But she'd known that it was worth it as soon as they'd touched down, and she'd stepped out from the DC9 onto glittering Roman tarmac – a fat-cheeked moon competing with the floodlights, and one brilliant evening star seeming to promise help and guidance in her quest to find John-Paul.

The whole city was agog with the Blessed Edwin Mumford, but
she
was more concerned with her own private Blessed Doctor, who had surely as much right to be styled a saint himself, and certainly a martyr, since he martyred himself daily for the sake of all his patients. She'd been reflecting on the job of psychotherapist – its loneliness, its selflessness, the daily (hourly) listening to stories of distress, stoically enduring patients' anger, panics, violence; never fighting back or discussing one's own problems; unable to ask advice from family or friends, for fear of breaking confidences; unable to take a mid-week break or sudden unplanned holiday; always ruled and fettered by endless strict appointments, other people's needs. And ‘fettered' was the word. John-Paul was tied to one small chair in one small smoky room; deprived of normal movement and activity, denied a change of scene or change of view. He could hardly yawn or slouch or sigh in the middle of a session, or get up to stretch his legs, and even shifting on his seat might lead to accusations that he was fidgety or bored. The sheer physical constriction must surely irk him sometimes, and it wasn't just his bodily health which was threatened by the job – psychiatrists also suffered mentally, or so she'd read just recently in James's
Sunday Telegraph
– often slid into depression, or became secretly addicted to amphetamines or alcohol, or even killed themselves with their own battery of drugs.

She was all the more impressed by her own serenely stoic doctor, who never showed a trace of even minor instability, and had never once cancelled an appointment because he was ill or ‘indisposed'. And yet his life was one long battle against other people's suffering – always giving, giving, giving, with so little in return. He couldn't even accept a present from a patient (as she remembered to her chagrin from the débâcle of the mince pies). And his leisure-time seemed dismally restricted, as ascetic as a monk's. He'd told her once he hadn't time for reading, except professional books and journals, and he could hardly saunter off to clubs or pubs or theatres, with patients booked every night till ten. And if saints were proved by miracles, then John-Paul had worked his own – miracles as potent as the Blessed Edwin Mumford's: healing psyches, mending lives, resurrecting dead and cold libidos.

She ran one hand slowly down her body, stood stroking her mons veneris, praying to her saint. Was
he
awake, she wondered, maybe gazing from a window only streets away from hers, admiring the same vista, inhaling the same air; his pyjama jacket open in the warm breath of the night, the dark hair on his chest tangling past his navel to his …?

She drifted back to bed, touched her breasts, surprised to find them dry, and not spouting golden water like the fountain in the square. The nipples were erect, lacked only a god or satyr to fondle and admire them, excite them to a marble hardness. The satyr in the other bed was still breathing very hoarsely. (She would have almost called it snoring, except James forbade the word.) She longed to reach across and rouse him – rouse him in all senses – but John-Paul had suggested at their last December session that James was clearly threatened by her new eager sexuality; probably had a need to take the initiative in bed, to see himself as hunter and her as passive prey, and she had obviously undermined him by her reversal of their roles.

He might also feel alarmed by her vibrators, he'd explained; their sheer size and power and stiffness arousing basic fears about his potency and manhood.

She'd been so upset, so worried, so galled by the fiasco of their recent anniversary, which she had described with tears and shame, that she'd decided to disown her new miraculous libido (at least until the Doctor had worked a second miracle on James's own virility), and return to her old role – the bashful Mrs Frigidaire he'd once scorned and yet desired. But playing bashful wasn't quite so easy as simply being it spontaneously, and she'd become totally confused; a skirl of different voices discordant in the bedroom, some shouting ‘Stop!', some begging ‘More!', some urging both at once.

The last time they'd made love – a whole thirteen days ago now – she'd been so tense and edgy, she had infected James as well, and they'd both developed headaches, the thumping and disabling kind she'd once (wickedly) invented, to avoid sex altogether. But now they were away, she was sure things would improve. James had slept extremely well, had snored (no, breathed) through all the midnight crises; not even stirred when a drunken crowd of foreign guests paused outside their door to hoot and swill. With any luck, he'd wake refreshed – though if he slept much longer, the boys would wake as well, and instead of James lying groin to groin with her, it would be Jonathan jumping on her tummy. She checked her watch – ten to six already. The boys rarely slept past seven, and her ever-busy father would be pacing at first light, eager to have breakfast and start revising Chapter One.

She eased out of bed a second time, paused by James's pillows. She could always plead that she was cold, needed to slip in with him to warm her chilly feet. He jolted out of sleep as her shoulder brushed his own, tried to struggle up, both fists clenched aggressively, as if ready to do combat with the intruder in his bed. ‘Larry?' he exclaimed.

‘No, it's only me, dear. Larry Crawshaw's not in Rome. You've left all that behind.'

He fumbled for the light-switch, seemed bemused by the strange room, slowly got his bearings as he checked his watch and Filofax, blew his nose dramatically, then slumped back on the pillows. ‘What a night! I hardly slept a wink.'

‘Really, James? I'm sorry.'

‘I've got too much on my mind. And this stuffy room is murder for my sinuses. I don't think I dropped off until two a.m., or later, and then I was woken by some hooligan.' He poked a finger in his ear, removed a scrap of debris. ‘Well, at least the boys were quiet.'

Mary didn't answer. She was trying to play bashful while yanking up her nightie and arranging her bare thigh beside James's pyjamaed one. ‘Never mind, darling. You'll have lots of chance to rest here. It's such fun to be abroad.'

James grabbed the slipping duvet, edged his leg away. ‘I never like strange beds, though. They're always far too short. The Italians may be dwarfs, but they ought to realise Englishmen have longer legs and …' He broke off, head cocked sideways. ‘What's that noise outside?'

‘Just the fountain, darling.'

‘No, that
other
noise. Good God! It's heavy traffic, at this hour of the morning.' James was already out of bed, frowning from the window as he surveyed the scene below. ‘D'you realise, Mary, Rome has one of the most appalling traffic problems of any city in the world? Two million cars and damnfool motor scooters jammed into an area a quarter the size of London, and with no decent modern roads. The average speed of traffic has slowed to 3.7 miles an hour – I read it in that guide book on the plane – and the average noise during waking hours is well above the level which makes you permanently deaf. And they even said …'

‘The fountain's rather pretty, though.'

‘It's filthy dirty, Mary. That marble's almost black, and the nymphs have lost their noses. Most of Rome's monuments are literally crumbling away. They've got a major problem with pollution, yet nothing's done about it. And d'you know why?'

She listened to the first half-dozen reasons, which ranged from graft and indolence to what he called Byzantine bureaucracy, then coaxed him back to bed, pretending to be concerned about his sinuses, which justified a close examination of his ears and throat and chest. Ears were erotogenic zones – or so the sex-books said – though James complained she tickled and jerked his head away. She could glimpse his little tassel through the gap in his pyjamas. Strange they'd never given it a name. According to those sex-books, penises had scores of names – Johnny, Willy, Percy, Peter, Rupert, Roger, Dick – and even her vibrators were personalized with nicknames, often rather brutish ones, which wouldn't quite suit James. His model looked a little limp and delicate, at least compared with ‘Bully Boy' or ‘Titan'.

She sometimes wished it was fashioned in gold latex instead of staid pink flesh, or came complete with thrill-frills or a probing light-up tip. Back in the old and frigid days it had always seemed too big. She was becoming far too critical, perhaps predatory, aggressive, as John-Paul himself had hinted; must really make an effort to appear passive and no threat. She lay back on the pillows, arms across her breasts, which she hoped would look virginal, whilst drawing his attention to them. He hadn't even said ‘Nice tits', as he used to, pre-John-Paul. If only they were golf balls, or could be filled with best malt whisky which turned on like a tap, he'd probably show more interest. Ah! He was undoing his pyjamas now, slipping off the bottoms, and he'd swelled a little down below, reached the rough dimensions of her handbag-sized vibrator.

She still lay meek and modest, as if completely unaroused, ignoring the lewd urges pumping from her groin. James kissed her mouth perfunctorily, and she remembered not to open it, not to use her tongue; to reverse all the instructions in those emasculating sex-books. It seemed to be effective – James was now inside her – though he didn't feel as hard or stiff as her usual brute vibrators, left safe and sad at home. She didn't move beneath him, didn't make a sound, fixed all her concentration on acting the chaste virgin, so he could play the hunter, the rapist, the aggressor.

‘Are you all right?' he panted, pausing for a moment to scratch between his shoulder blades, and sounding half-concerned and half-suspicious.

She nodded, face demure. ‘Just be gentle, will you, darling? You feel so … so
big
today.' She watched him preen and brighten, relieved she'd got it right, at last. John-Paul had pointed out that many men needed to feel masterful, preferred their wives submissive, even cowering, in awe of their male powers. ‘You're always big in the mornings, James, but today you're really wild!' She tried to shrink away, as if he were splitting her apart; bit her bottom lip in what she hoped would seem a gesture of fear and yet surrender, eyes fixed on his adoringly. She longed to make him truly wild, to mount her like a tiger, snarl his mating-cry. Tigers did it twenty times a day or more, when the females were on heat. She had read that in a book on mating animals; read about the wildebeest who could chase young hinds all day, mount one after the other, until they collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

‘Don't move,' James breathed. ‘I love you lying still. It makes it more exciting. Pretend you're a Roman slave-girl I've just bought in the market and you have to do exactly what I want.'

She made her voice as girlish as she could, added a faint tremor as she simpered through her hands. ‘What
do
you want, Master?'

‘Turn over and be quiet.'

She rolled over on her stomach, half-kneeling, half-crouching, like an animal herself; shut her mouth, shut off her responses; lay, a sack, a duvet, while he mastered her, exulted. He seemed his normal self again; potent, energetic, relishing his power. So John-Paul had been right. James couldn't cope with any sexual rival, not even his own wife; needed an inferior, a position of command. She could feel him nearly coming, longed to shout ‘Not yet!'; gnawed the pillow to occupy her mouth, so it wouldn't want to bite his lips, or fret and chafe his prick. He discharged with a tiny cry, withdrew immediately, patted her left flank as if she were Horatio; mumbled ‘Lovely fuck, dear', then vanished to the bathroom.

She waited till she heard the roar of running water, then cried aloud ‘John-Paul!', voice pleading, almost desperate; both hands between her legs. He was there in seconds, sitting just behind her as she writhed naked on the couch. ‘Kiss me,' she insisted, now opening her mouth as wide as it would go, so he could thrust his avid tongue in, explore her teeth, her throat. He was still fully dressed in dark suit, white shirt, and highly polished shoes. She didn't want his clothes off, not even when he entered her. Clothes made it more exciting, kept him as a doctor, the smartly dressed professional who was examining her vagina while panting for her cunt.

‘Cunt!' she whispered wantonly; knew he loved to hear her repeat those naughty words, as well as the exotic ones which he himself had taught her. He'd taught her everything, had made her Woman – Empress, not a slave-girl, with him as Emperor-Consort. ‘Cock,' she gloated, reaching down to grasp it as he unzipped his bulging flies. ‘Cupid's torch, connecting rod, fowling-piece, Aaron's rod,
arbor vitae
, holy iron, goose's neck, hanging Johnny, fiddlestick, tickle-tail, middle finger, womb-brush.' Her voice crescendoed through the list, yet lingered on each one, giving it its due, its appreciation, reverence. She had learnt those words just recently from a book of Sexual Folklore, and there were at least six hundred more – six hundred different names for one tiny towering organ. Some were very ancient, and ‘cock' itself dated from the early seventeenth century. She was making up for her lack of education, learning new delicious facts each day from her vast library of sex-books (all hidden in the outhouse, where she'd once kept her home-made chutney).