‘I don’t know about furious,’ said Jillie, ‘but maybe rather sad.’
Two days later, still with nothing accomplished, Tom realised, as he walked into the newsagent to buy his Daily Mirror, that it was Valentine’s Day. What happened next became, as they say, history.
Chapter 20
1951
‘Have you had many lovers before me?’ The question posed, very gently, startled her a little; they were sitting on a bench in Kew Gardens, where they had been walking on the new, fresh grass, surrounded by the shrubs and trees all coming into life again, in the annual lovely miracle known as spring. It was Sunday and he had asked her to walk there with him.
Since Jillie would have loved anything in Ned’s company, even a tour of the local sewage works, she rapturously agreed, and he had picked her up in his dark green MG convertible; whenever they had to stop for some traffic lights he would put his hand over hers, or raise it to his lips, and look at her with that smile of his, and everything in her seemed to lurch, not just her heart but her stomach, and her head and her thoughts. She looked at him rather anxiously now, wondering why he should have suddenly asked her, and what he would like her answer to be.
Jillie’s romantic life had been fairly uneventful; she had only had a very few boyfriends, and no really serious ones, although she did not quite share Alice’s view on the retention of virginity, nor the importance of it in a young woman’s life. Growing up in the home that she had, such opinions would have been almost impossible to hold. Her parents moved in liberal circles, their friends being writers, artists, the more intellectual breed of politicians (mainly left wing) and musicians. Her father had a great predilection for traditional jazz and was indeed most knowledgeable about it. Ned’s prowess on jazz piano had delighted him.
The people Jillie had grown up with were, therefore, for the most part free thinking, unconventional and possessed of a rather easy moral code. Jillie’s mother had told her, when holding a general and unusually frank (for the times) discussion on such things, that it might be ideal to go to the altar a virgin – although she wasn’t even sure of that, since sexual compatibility was one of the most important factors in a marriage – but the really important thing was not to have to rush to it pregnant. She then sent Jillie to her own gynaecologist who instructed her in the complexities of birth control, and particularly the usage of the Dutch cap, so that when and if Jillie should fall in love, she could make her own mind up as to exactly how far physically she should let matters develop. But except for one relationship, she had never felt a desire to take things further than the pleasant petting which she found only mildly exciting.
Ned Welles was like no one she had ever gone out with – older for a start, and an ideal companion. Charming, good-looking, urbane, amusing – she relaxed into their relationship easily and happily, flattered by his patent interest in and devotion to her. Ned took her all over London; to the smartest restaurants of the day – Le Caprice, Le Gavroche, Prunier’s – and to nightclubs and bars – especially the American Bar at the Connaught.
He took her to Covent Garden and the Old Vic, as well as the West End theatres and the Hollywood musicals they shared a passion for. They had seen the film version of On the Town three times and the stage version of South Pacific twice.
It was as if he was trying to dazzle her, and indeed she was at first, but then as the months went by, she became first bemused and then puzzled. For Ned had made no sexual move on her apart from kissing her – with varying degrees of enthusiasm. He had never touched her breasts, let alone her legs. There was none of the constant stroking and touching and hopeful journeying into areas shielded by bras and stockings and knickers and girdles. Occasionally he would tangle his hands in her long brown hair and bury his face in it, while murmuring things she could hardly hear, apart from frequent repetitions of such words as ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’, but that was as far as he would go; and then he would draw back and gaze into her eyes with his burning dark ones and tell her how lovely she was, and – that precious once or twice – that he loved her. She didn’t mind the lack of sexual activity, but it puzzled her, especially for a man of his age who must, surely, she thought, be more sexually experienced than she.
Ned smiled, clearly reading her thoughts, or at least the tenor of them, and took her hand and said, ‘Darling Jillie, don’t look so worried. I just – well, I just want to know. It’s important to me.’
‘Of course it is. Well, lots of flirtations and that sort of thing and one –’ she hesitated, but felt she had to tell him – ‘one important one.’
‘Important in which way?’
‘I just adored him,’ she said, for prevarication seemed pointless. ‘He was my first great love.’
‘And – what happened?’
‘It all went wrong,’ she said, hoping that her expression was as blank as her voice. ‘Just horribly wrong.’
He simply nodded, and to her huge relief and pleased surprise did not ask how or why; just said, ‘Poor darling.’
‘Oh, I’m over it now. It would never have worked, anyway, he was about a hundred times cleverer than me.’
‘Jillie, you do love to do yourself down. It’s silly. When you are clearly so clever.’
‘I know,’ she said, half surprised at the observation. ‘I suppose it’s coming from such a brilliant family with so many brilliant friends. I mean, if your parents had had, within their immediate circle, a dozen professors of literature, several Oxford scholars, two Royal Academicians, and of course—’
‘Those are your mother’s associates, the Academicians?’
‘Yes. And I mean, look at her!’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Ned, laughing.
‘And then frequently round the dinner table, we have prize-winning novelists, several leading politicians and – well, what have I done, scraped through my second MB? Come on, Ned, admit it. Not even an also ran. Now even my cousin Josh has won some Press Association award for the most promising political writer of the year. Of course I do myself down. I’m the family dunce. Thank God I’m an only child. It’s the one great blessing bestowed upon me.’
He smiled, leaned forward and kissed her.