House of the Lost (9 page)

Afterwards he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. Her hair was tumbling over the timbers of the landing stage and she was smiling at him.

‘So,’ she said, ‘finally and at last, we’ve done it.’

‘Finally and at last and for ever,’ said Theo, managing to beat down the stabs of jealousy that someone else had been first with her.

‘You stopped in time, didn’t you?’ she said, suddenly. ‘I mean – you withdrew in time?’

‘It was a bit of a close thing,’ said Theo, aware it had been more than close. ‘What happens now? When my finals are over and I’ve got a job, we could—’

‘No,’ she said at once. ‘No,
don’t
let’s do all that undying devotion, love for ever stuff.’ She pulled her skirt back in place, and put the sunhat back on to hide the disarray of her hair. ‘Not yet anyway. Let’s just go back to the house and be ordinary again.’

It was absurd to feel as if she had dealt him a blow, just as it had been absurd to assume she had not had boyfriends. Theo could not recall her ever mentioning any, but that didn’t mean anything; she could be very secretive at times. But he had always visualized the time after making love to her as deeply intimate and sweet – as a time when they might even glance at a shared future.

But she had said, ‘Not yet’, so Theo managed to match her tone. ‘OK,’ he said lightly. ‘But are you all right?’

‘What an unoriginal question. Still, at least you didn’t say “How was it for you.” Of course I’m all right.’ She brushed the dust from her skirt. ‘What I am,’ she said, ‘is absolutely starving.’

Words and tone came like a blow. Had this just been an adventure for her? Something intriguing and new to while away the afternoon because the family were exasperating her or she was bored? After all his years of hoping and planning and dreaming . . .? Only moments earlier, she had said, ‘Our thoughts fit,’ but it seemed they had not fitted enough for her to sense how he felt about her – how he had ached for today. But he clung to that ‘Not yet’, and said, ‘I’m quite hungry as well. Let’s go and raid the larder.’

‘People don’t raid larders these days. You sound like something out of a 1940s children’s adventure story.’

‘Enid Blyton?
Famous Five go Shagging
?’ said Theo.

‘You’re so vulgar I don’t know how you stand yourself.’

They walked back to the house, but this time the width of the garden path was between them.

She left Fenn House four days later.

‘Final school year ahead,’ she said, standing among the piled-up luggage in the hall, and kissing him with a light cousinly kiss that anyone could have witnessed. ‘A levels and all kinds of tedium. But we’ll be together when it’s my half term, of course.’

‘Do you want to be?’ Theo could not believe she was going to leave without any further acknowledgement of what had happened.

‘Of course I do.’

‘Come to Cambridge for a weekend before that,’ said Theo, a bit desperately.

‘Yes, if I can. But I can’t talk now. Pa’s bringing the car up to the door in about half a minute, and he’ll get impatient if I’m not there.’

‘But promise to try?’

‘Of course I promise.’ She glanced round to make sure no one was in earshot, then said softly, ‘It’s all right, Theo. Really, it is. I do love you. One day we’ll talk about it properly.’

‘Soon?’

‘Yes.’ Her hand came out to curl round his, holding it tightly for a moment. ‘Promise you won’t say anything to my parents, though – not even a hint. Not yet,’ she said again.

‘All right.’

‘Good.’ She glanced towards the half-open door, and Theo heard the car. ‘It’s only seven weeks to half term anyway,’ she said, and with that, and with the elusive promise contained in ‘Not yet’, he had to be content.

He left Melbray three days later because he could not bear Fenn House without her.

‘Revision for next term,’ he said to Charmery’s mother and Aunt Emily.

‘Work hard, but remember to play hard, as well,’ said Aunt Emily, who was planning to buy a new outfit for his graduation. Guff had discarded the Druid female and had now met a sweet young thing who ran a little boutique in the Brompton Road and was going to advise Aunt Emily on what to wear for the occasion. When Theo said there might not even be a graduation ceremony for him because at the moment there was more chance of ignominious failure than a degree of any kind, Aunt Emily said, ‘Nonsense’. She and Guff were going to sit in the front row where they could applaud Theo enthusiastically.

Back at Cambridge he wrote to Charmery several times – he did not dare email because she would be using the school computer which was not likely to be very private. He tried phoning, but her phone was nearly always on voicemail, and on the rare occasion he did get her, she always seemed in a hurry. There was a class she should be at, she said, or a sixth-form meeting. She was sorry if he kept getting voicemail, but there was a rule about not having phones switched on between 8.30 a.m. and 6 p.m.

‘Really tedious, but I’ve only got another couple of terms of it,’ she said, and Theo tried not to think that this new gushing way of speaking struck an unpleasantly false note. ‘It’s lovely to hear you, but I’ll have to dash because it’s the debating society in ten minutes and I’m one of tonight’s speakers.’

‘But I’ll see you at Fenn in October?’

‘Yes, of
course
.’

I’ve lost her, thought Theo bleakly, and it’s my own fault. I should never have let that afternoon in the boathouse happen. But she was as eager as I was. She was loving and warm and we were so close.

He tried to compose sonnets to her – paeons of praise to her beauty, and burning words of love and longing. Unfortunately, his first attempt was unpleasantly lewd, the second sounded like a reproving head teacher and the third had the dubious rhythm and scansion of a limerick. All three endeavours were crossly consigned to the bin in screwed-up balls, which was highly suitable since Theo’s own life at the moment seemed to be screwed-up and ballsed-up and might as well be thrown into the bin or down the loo and flushed into the Cam.

He reminded himself she was still very young. Perhaps in another year? Or two years. Oh God, two years is a lifetime, thought Theo. I’ll feel like some medieval knight serving seven years for his lady. It had better not be bloody seven years, though, or I’ll forget what to do in bed. I’ll bet when Lancelot stopped riding around on quests and finally got it together with Guinevere he wasn’t exactly a tiger in the sack.

On the crest of this last thought, he returned to composition, and at white-hot speed wrote a satirical sketch for the Footlights in which Lancelot had to embark on a new crusade, not in search of the Holy Grail this time, but of the Round Table equivalent of Viagra, blaming his sorry state on his long enforced celibacy. The sketch was performed with gusto, and caused considerable mirth among the students. Theo, fêted and congratulated after the show, told himself he could one day recover from Charmery and there might even be a life to be lived that did not contain her. He did not believe it, though. He did not think anyone who had loved her would ever recover from her.

Theo counted the days until that October holiday at Fenn House. The Kendals liked Melbray in autumn, and Helen and Desmond nearly always went to Fenn for two or three weeks. As Helen said, Charmery’s half term usually coincided with the half terms of Lesley and the twins, and Theo could generally come down for a long weekend as well. There were walks through crunchy autumn leaves and one or two local events which they enjoyed, and there was Desmond’s mulled wine which was nearly a legend by itself.

Guff was not there that year; he had gone to Scotland, having become enamoured of fishing – the sweet young thing from the boutique had obtained waxed jackets and waders for him, he said, although he had been shocked at the cost. Nancy was there, though, because of helping with the local Halloween Festival. You could not really trust the residents to get the decorations right, she said, they were apt to tip the thing over into outright paganism if not watched.

‘It
is
outright paganism,’ said Great-aunt Emily who had arrived in a hired car, pleased to be part of the festivities, but not best pleased at finding Nancy in self-appointed command of the kitchen. ‘It’s an old Celtic festival – I know that because I once had an admirer who was Irish and he told me about the Samhain bonfires. I believe there used to be all kinds of wild goings-on.’

‘Well, we aren’t going to have wild goings-on here,’ said Nancy. ‘I daresay we might run to a bonfire, though. You wouldn’t mind a bonfire, would you, Helen?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Desmond can make his mulled wine and Lesley and I can go into Melbray to order suitable food. Sausages and spare ribs, I think, don’t you? The twins can come with us, it’ll stop them tearing about the house like ruffians.’

‘Listen,’ said Theo, managing to draw Charmery out into the hall, ‘if we’re to get any time at all to ourselves it’ll be now while they’re unpacking pumpkins and calculating spare ribs. You only wrote to me once, and your phone was hardly ever switched on when I called. I’ve missed you like grim death for the last seven weeks, in fact it’s felt more like seven years. I’ve been through seven separate kinds of agony.’

‘I don’t think there
are
seven separate kinds of agony,’ she said. She was standing in the deep bay window, staring out at the autumn gardens. The soft light cast a golden radiance over her skin.

‘Charmery, come down to the boathouse with me now. I don’t mean for . . . I just want you to myself for half an hour.’

She turned to look at him thoughtfully. ‘All right.’ The remembered intimacy was in her voice again and she was the Charmery of Theo’s childhood – the cousin he had known since she was born and who was impossibly beautiful and unbearably exciting. ‘But I hope you want a bit more than just being alone,’ she said in a low caressing voice. ‘In fact after seven weeks I hope you want a lot more.’ She reached for his hand and Theo felt as if he had received a 1,000-volt electrical charge.

They went stealthily across the hall, trying not to make a sound.

‘Grab a couple of coats from the hall as we go,’ said Theo.

‘It’s almost like being children again,’ said Charmery, doing as he asked.

‘Tiptoeing away from the grown-ups, trying not to giggle.’

‘I never giggled.’

‘Yes, you did. I loved it when you giggled. Only don’t do it now. And mind the squeaky hinge on the garden door.’

‘What if somebody sees us?’

‘If it’s Nancy she’ll get the shock of her life to see me in this condition.’

‘Do her good,’ said Charmery, stifling one of the giggles.

The boathouse was cool and dim and smelt of autumn. Theo spread out the coats on the planks, then pulled Charmery against him, kissing her and cupping her face between his hands.

‘Will we hear if anyone comes down the path?’ she said, when he finally released her.

‘I wouldn’t hear if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode through the shrubbery.’ A sudden stab of conscience made him say, ‘Charm, listen, I honestly didn’t mean to steamroller you into anything. We can just be on our own down here and talk.’

‘I didn’t trek all the way down here just to talk,’ she said, unbuttoning her coat.

‘Yes, but I don’t want this to seem like a . . .’

‘Quick casual shag?’

‘Well, yes. Although there’s nothing casual about it as far as I’m concerned. You must know how much I love you. You do know, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but stop talking about it and demonstrate,’ she said, pulling his mouth down to hers, and Theo was lost to everything in the world save the soaring bliss of being with her again.

‘Don’t make the boards creak so much,’ she said, after a moment. ‘Supposing they give way and we go down into the Chet?’

‘I don’t care. We’re going to celebrate a pagan festival later, and the pagans didn’t care about creaking planks,’ said Theo. ‘I’ll creak boards and I’ll ford the Chet with all the ferrymen of the world and sail into the sunset with you. I’ll chant pagan spells so that you love me for ever, and leap through bonfires, and—’

‘You sound drunk,’ said Charmery, laughing.

‘I am. I’m drunk on you. I’d quote poetry to you if I could remember any. Wait a minute . . .’ He foraged in his jacket for the condoms and pushed her back on the folded coats. Her body, when he entered it, felt like silk and she gasped and arched her back, pulling him deeper. Ecstasy seared Theo so violently that his mind seemed to splinter into hundreds of fragments, and the dim boathouse shivered and blurred all round him. For a moment he was afraid he might be about to pass out or have a heart attack, and it would surely be the ultimate irony to die now.

He did not die, of course, and he did not pass out. He tumbled into a helpless explosive climax. He felt Charmery shiver and heard her cry of delight at almost the same time. He wanted to grab this moment and save it for ever.

They were still tangled together, Charmery’s hair tumbling over Theo’s bare chest, when there was the crunch of footsteps outside, and a voice said, ‘Theo, are you in here? Because they want some help pacing out a site for the bonfire.’ The voice stopped, but Theo, jolted out of the warm half-sleep of pleasure, had already recognized it as belonging to Helen Kendal. Her footsteps came along the path, and a shadow fell across the timbers of the landing stage. For a moment there was only the dark outline of her figure against the golden autumn afternoon. Then she stepped into the boathouse itself and Theo saw the horrified shock on her face as she took in the scene that confronted her.