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not likely to see each other again. Ever.
A feeling of sadness had her searching the hillsides with misted vision, felt
a tear trickling slowly down her cheek. Oh Eric, come back, please, I need
you. I'm so sorry for everything.
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She couldn't see Jon any longer, he was somewhere up the far end of the
holding working on that strip of Jerusalem artichokes. He could bloody well
stop there for all she cared, Christ, she couldn't stick this for the rest of
her life, chained to the kitchen. Give me a hand with this, give me a lift
with that. We'll be glad of it when winter comes. Live for the bloody winter
because it's going to be hell. Never mind the summer, winter's on the way.
Bang your head on the wall because it'll be lovely when you stop.
The weather had certainly turned much more showery and Sylvia was keeping the
Rayburn in all day. Jon had promised to lug another load of wood soon. (They'd
need it because winter was coming.) Raining again, slanting spots on the
window; just a shower because she could see a patch of blue sky behind the
dark grey cloud formation.
Eric again. The best times had been the early days before they were married.
Her parents had not liked him, they didn't like anybody who might just take
advantage of their sixteen-year-old virginal daughter. You take a tip from us.
Sylvia, don't get tied up with one boy, have plenty on the go. Safety in
numbers. Sure, mother, I'd like plenty of boyfriends. Good girl!
Sylvia was sixteen and a half when she got pregnant. It had happened at the
Jamiesons' twenty-first party, at least that was what she told her parents.
True, it might have. She'd named Roy Patterson as the father. Again, it just
might have been, and to be fair to him he hadn't cut and run, had stood like a
man and owned up to it. Except that the odds were that it was Eric Atkinson
who had put her in the family way.
The Jamiesons had gone away for the weekend which was why the party turned out
the way it had. By 10.30 there were couples snogging all over the place
from,the conservatory up to the sixth bedroom. Slow smoochy music from the
stereo and if you were a boy you grabbed the nearest girl and tried your luck,
and if it was out you tried another. Sylvia reckoned Sue Ballon was the first
one to get laid because she was always boasting about having it off with
somebody and judging by the way she was squealing and giggling it wasn't just
one of the lads having a bit of finger on the Chesterfield.
Anyway, that was none of Sylvia's business and it wasn't long before Roy
Patterson was doing his best to have a feel at her under the guise of doing a
very slow samba, a new version that you had to be slightly drunk even to
contemplate. A circuitous tour of the corridors, up the stairs, and then they
found themselves in Jerry Jamieson's bedroom; the bed was empty, still warm,
and there was a damp patch on the bottom sheet.
By this time Sylvia was wanting it very badly, still remembering the loss of
her virginity only ten days ago (with Billy Farr) and desperate to relive the
experience all over again. Roy was almost too drunk to get aroused properly
and she had to give him a helping hand. Then he fumbled and dropped his French
letters on the floor and it took him five minutes on his hands and knees with
his trousers round his ankles, striking endless matches and threatening to set
the pile carpet on fire, before he finally found them.
She told him not to bother with one, even tried to roll it off him when she
got really randy but he was adamant. Damn him! That was why it hadn't been
such a good screw, that and the fact that he couldn't keep his hard-on.
So later, her appetite already whetted, Sylvia had gone in search of another
screw, and stumbling about in the darkened house that now resembled a Soho
brothel she had found Eric. Good old Ek!
He had confessed years later that a bird had gone cold on him and he was off
to find a nice quiet place to jerk off and sod the birds! Sylvia had taken him
upstairs and on the way they had passed a still-drunk Roy who had dropped
something else and was striking matches again.
Eric had thought his luck was in when she told him not to bother using
anything, didn't even ask if the time of the month was OK. God, he'd really
pounded her that night, managed it twice, and it had been four in the morning
when she'd got home. Her mother was up waiting for her. Girls who stop out
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till this time end up pregnant before very long! Not with Roy Patterson
though. His name threw a better light on the scene; she didn't mention Eric.
Roy had stood by her but the baby had been adopted so it was really academic.
She didn't want to go out with him again, just biding her time to produce Eric
out of the conjurer's hat. Come back Eric, I need you.
Those early days had been really good. They could have kept them going if they
had both worked at it. She could see his face now as clearly as though it was
only yesterday, that cheeky smile, a quip when you expected a lazy draw!. A
good lover, the best she had ever had. Jon Quinn didn't amount to much, he
fucked when he was in the mood but mostly he was too tired at nights to do
anything other than fall fast asleep the moment he got into bed. Oh, Eric, I
wish you were here, we missed out on such a lot. We were damned fools, both of
us.
She saw his face again; she had to look hard to make sure it really was him
because he'd grown a beard, his hair was long and matted and his features were
much more squat. But it was Eric all right, the old flame of desire lighting
up his eyes the way they used to. She closed her eyes. Opened them again.
He was stilt there, head and squat shoulders framed in the window like a 3-D
painting, nose flattened against the glass. That was when she screamed and
almost fainted, recoiled against the table, knocked over a jar of beetroot so
that it ran blood-red across the scrubbed pine.
Her mind boomeranged, came back and hit her with stunning force. Realisation,
so wonderful and yet so awful. Staring back at an empty window, only
half-praying that it had been a trick of the mind; hearing the door click
open, thud back against the wall.
Eric, I need you, but God I'm scared to hell!
He was in the kitchen. She could hear his stertorous breathing, smell him, a
kind of indoor canine odour like a dog that has been curled up on its mat for
most of the day. She closed her eyes, wanted to remember him as he had been
that night of the Jamiesons' twenty-first party. You don't need to use
anything, Eric, I'll be OK. Maybe we could invite Alan round again one
evening. Or perhaps we could go look up the Joneses again.
She felt her eyes opening, couldn't stop them. It wasn't a shock because she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]