Trio - страница 8

Very handy.

She smiled again and pulled away. Outside, they linked arms. It was bitterly cold for September. The sudden frosts had caused most of the trees to drop early and the smell of rotting leaves mingled with the smoke from coal fires and the stink of dye factories along the canal.

She pulled her muffler up to cover her nose and pulled him closer.

Caroline

Caroline just couldn’t believe that you could get pregnant on your first time. Her understanding of it was a bit hazy, though she knew something from seeing the animals on the farm where she helped out and from the local wildlife to have a rough idea of the way of the world.

It was when she tried to apply it to her own experience that things got all mixed up. For example, they had to keep Bess, the dog, inside when she was on heat or there’d have been pups. But Caroline’s mam had told her that her own monthlies were a clearing-out, so how did that work?

She turned over in bed. The room was bitter now and although she had heaped extra blankets on and wore her socks her toes were like ice and she knew she wouldn’t sleep until they were warm. She reached down, her head under the covers, to rub at her feet.

If she’d only known, if she’d had an inkling. It had all been so quick. Five minutes. If only she could take that five minutes back.

A barn dance to mark the end of harvest. Jim Colby, chuffed at the amount of hay baled in his barns and the promise of a good fruit crop to follow. A hot summer had blessed them.

Caroline liked Roy, Jim’s middle son. A quiet, hard-working boy with sulky, film-star looks like Montgomery Clift. Roy had no steady girl and despite his looks no bad reputation. He was shy and didn’t mix much.

She’d worked alongside him at the farm for the harvest. Hot, thirsty work, following the tractor or the baler, stacking the bales, chaff and dust in her throat and her eyes and her ears.

Any talking was snatched, desultory. Breath was too precious and there was nothing the flies liked better than an open mouth.

She’d been hoping he’d dance with her at the hoedown and he had, several times, till it seemed they were matched for the evening. They’d done strip-the-willow and maid’s morris, ending up breathless from the pace and the hilarity that erupted when some lummock with two left feet had the set in disarray. She’d worn a new dirndl skirt, red and black, and a white bodice blouse. The skirt flew out when he spun her round, just right for the swings. In-between the demanding dances they gulped down cupfuls of dry cider.

‘I need some fresh air,’ she said after an hour of this, and he followed her out of the barn and round to the little orchard at the back. She sat herself down and lay back on the ground, sighing aloud. ‘I’m jiggered,’ she said, then giggled.

He was quiet. He sat beside her. She opened her eyes and looked through the boughs of the apple tree to the sky with its frosting of stars flung between wisps of cloud. She turned to look at him and he lowered his face to hers. Excitement prickled her skin, mimicking the tickle of grass beneath her bare arms and legs.

His lips were firm and dry and warm. She wondered whether she should move but she was fearful of breaking the embrace. She lay still and felt him shift about, his lips still moving slowly on hers.

He lay alongside her, then she felt one of his arms across her knees, then his fingers stroking along the side of her leg, under the edge of her skirt. It tickled and she squirmed, stifling a giggle, making a tiny mew in her throat. Roy wriggled against her, she felt his hand again, grazing her thigh, the inside, moving up. Her stomach lurched, it felt so good. Like the swing boats at the fair or the waltzers, a tingling, dizzy feeling. But she shouldn’t let him. She twisted away from his kiss.

‘Roy,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t.’

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. His voice sounded strange. ‘Please.’

He didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth found hers again, damp now, and his hands moved, he was touching her down there, edging his fingers inside her knickers. What did it feel like to him? Another hand on her breast. She felt giddy, like she was melting. She must stop him. But it didn’t hurt, it was so nice. Oh, golly it was so nice. He eased the tip of a finger inside her and she felt her thighs tighten and everywhere glowing. He moaned. She swallowed hard. He kissed her, moaned again as if he was hurting. He kissed her neck, moved until he was above her, bracing his weight on one arm, breathing fast. He said her name. Kissed her, slid his finger further in and wiggled it about. She could just make out his face in the dark, the whites of his eyes. ‘Please,’ he said again.