But he waved me off, turning away.
“If there are pressures…,” I said quietly, guessing my way towards him.
“What would you know about it?”
“I wouldn’t. I don’t.” I waited for him to fill in the gaps, but he didn’t seem to know how. I certainly didn’t, either. I kept wishing Lady D were still here to give me encouragement or advice—or even Dos elbowing me in the ribs and saying, Go on then, you have to talk to him. Try harder. Left to my own devices, I’d poke the fire or find a book, or turn to the training ledger, going over the next day’s lists. I buried my head in work and tried not to give my doubts any air—as if that would silence them. But it wasn’t just Jock I doubted. There was furniture all around us. There were accounts to keep and meals to prepare, and beds to make and kisses to be had. This is marriage, I kept telling myself. People everywhere did this every day. Why, then, did it feel so strange and wrong for me?
Some nights I would try to close the distance and make love to Jock. In our room under the mosquito netting, I would slip my leg over his broad hip and search out his mouth in the dark. His tongue was warm and limp, whisky flavoured. I pushed on anyway, manoeuvring my way deeper into the kiss, straddling his waist while he kept his eyes closed. I kissed them and pushed up his cotton shirt with my hands, moving lower, my lips brushing the thick hair on his chest, circling his navel. I breathed along his belly, and he released a small groan. His skin was salty and warm, and he was responding to my kisses a little at a time. I hovered over the top of him, cupping him gently with my hand, and then, hardly daring to breathe, lowered myself onto him. But it was too late. Before I had even begun to move, he softened inside me. I tried to kiss him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Finally, I pulled down my nightgown and lay beside him, humiliated. He must have been humiliated, too, but he wouldn’t let me in.
“I’m sorry I’m no good, Beryl,” he said. “I’ve just got too much on my mind.”
“What? Tell me.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Please, Jock. I really do want to know.”
“Running this place is a huge burden, you realize. If we fail, it will be my fault.” He let loose a sigh. “I’m trying my damnedest.”
“I am, too.”
“Well then, that’s all we can do, isn’t it?” He kissed me chastely with dry lips. “Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night.”
I tried to fall asleep then, but as he breathed deeply, already off in a separate world, I was filled with a childish longing for my bed at Green Hills. I wanted to be in my old hut with the paraffin-box furniture and the shadows I knew by heart. I wanted time to reverse and leave me in a place I recognized. I wanted to go home.
—
“I wish I knew what to do about Jock,” I told Dos in town a few months later. She was busy with school and harried, but I’d coaxed her into meeting me at the Norfolk for tea and sandwiches. “I thought sex would be the easy part.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about it. There aren’t any boys at Miss Seccombe’s. The ones I meet at dances push and prod, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.”
“Nothing does with us, either; that’s what I mean. And we never talk about it. I feel so in the dark about everything.”
“Does he not like to do it then?”
“How should I know?” I watched Dos divide the crusts of her sandwich away from the good bits—pale butter and chopped ham—thinking how lucky she was to have only exams to worry about. “Don’t you sometimes wish we were still thirteen?”
“God, no.” She pulled a face. “You don’t, either.”
“It was so much simpler, though.” I sighed. “Jock has lived twice as long as I have, and he’s fought in a war. He should know things and take charge, shouldn’t he?” I sighed again, feeling exasperated. “It’s what men do.”
“I’m hardly an expert.” She shrugged. “And I don’t really know Jock.”
“Come stay with us for a while,” I urged. “I need someone on my side, and it could be fun, too. Like the old days.”
“I’ve got exams, remember? And when they’re done, I’m off to Dublin to stay with my mum’s family for a year. I’ve told you all about it.”
“But you can’t go away. You’re my only friend.”
“Oh, Burl. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.” But she didn’t get any further. I surprised us both by bursting into tears.