Harry and Levon were both thoughtful as Levon’s chauffeur ferried them back to London after dinner. Mrs. Bates had excelled herself again, preparing smoked salmon with blinis and goats’ milk cottage cheese made from the milk of goats kept on a farm just outside the village, with a lemon mousse as dessert. More of a light supper than a meal, with Muscadet as an accompaniment, and their silence was a silence of well-nourished companionship.
Levon spoke without looking at Harry. ‘She has fire, that girl.’
Harry had been thinking the same thing, but he had other priorities. ‘Don’t burn your fingers.’
‘You think she’s trouble?’ Levon’s voice implied that he sought nothing better. He prided himself on knowing how to handle women, how to be generous, how to be careful, and how to be firm. He thought that he might take an interest in this Julia, whilst waiting for Shosanah.
‘Your call.’ Harry’s voice held just a shade of envy. Levon was fast on the draw.
‘Ah, yes.’ Levon rested his hand on Harry’s knee for a moment. It was a gesture of consolation. ‘You have a friend of your own.’ He was silent for a moment again as the Mercedes sped along the M4 towards London. ‘You must introduce me to her.’
Harry shook his head. ‘I don’t want to lose her.’
‘You think I might like her?’
He made a face. ‘Levon, she might like you.’
Doreen was bored out of her mind. Jason had gone off to wherever, leaving her to clean up Harry’s flat. She worked through it thoroughly, vacuuming and dusting, because she was afraid that Jason might have left a trace, some near invisible marker, some kind of tom cat spray, and watched television when she was finished. She thought of helping herself to a stiff drink, but feared she might overdo it, so she drank coffee instead, and wished she were out enjoying herself somewhere, instead of being cooped up. She passed the door to the wardrobe holding the clothes belonging to Harry’s other woman several times, and felt sorely tempted to have a good rummage. But she had promised to leave the wardrobe alone, and knew she would gain nothing by digging back into his past. So she waited, and wondered whether mistresses always spent a great deal of time waiting. Perhaps some had other men on the side. She deserved to be out having fun. She found the thought thoroughly depressing.
Sylvia was also in a black mood. She wanted her clothes back, but dared not return to Harry’s flat. The girl had frightened her, waving a sharp knife. She turned her anger over in her mind, fashioning thoughts of revenge, and decided to get her own back by calling his home and talking to his wife. She knew she would savour any pain she heard, even if she only heard a series of agonised yelps. But then she realised that her call would pass straight back to Harry, and she would never see her things again – she imagined Harry would retaliate by destroying them. She herself would certainly destroy anything in her possession that caused her pain. She thought of her beautiful black and white dress, and a number of other expensive items at the flat that she treasured, not to mention beautiful silk underwear Harry had bought her, in times when they had been very close, and knew in her thinking that she wanted her things back even more than she wanted to cause pain. Well, she wanted both to have her things back, and cause pain into the bargain. Perhaps she could call Harry first, and negotiate recovery, possibly by swearing silence, and then call his wife afterwards. That way she could both have her cake, and eat it as well.
She picked up her phone, rehearsing her phrasing. She would be cool, not to say formal, because the girl now stood between them. But she would also be courteous, and perhaps inject just a note of pleading. She would swear discretion, in return for collection. But she might hint at revelation, in the event of refusal.
Harry took Sylvia’s call as the Mercedes cruised past the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was a little taken aback to hear her voice, but also pleased in a strange way, because he wanted her things out of his flat and a line drawn under her.
Sylvia came straight to the point. ‘Can I have my things back, Harry? Please?’ She made her voice soft, and almost caressing. She feels she was acting her role well.
‘Whenever you like.’ Harry’s voice was studiously neutral.
‘Can you send them to me?’ Sylvia spoke, and then bit her lip. It was the wrong thing to say, raising a whole range of awfulness. The girl might pack them. Her touch would be soiling, and beyond any cleansing.
Harry had the same thought, and did not like it. Doreen was best kept out of the picture. ‘I think you’ll have to come and collect them.’
Sylvia caught her breath. ‘I can’t.’
‘I’ll make sure the flat is empty.’
‘For a whole evening?’
‘If that’s what you need.’
‘When?’
‘Whenever.’
They were playing verbal table tennis. She thought quickly. She would have to move fast, before the girl grew ambitious. ‘How about tomorrow?’
Harry pondered for a moment. He could promise Doreen a gala night out, maybe touring Tramps and Stringfellows. ‘I’ll make sure the flat was empty after seven.’
‘I’m grateful to you, Harry.’ She paused. Men were so easily led. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again, one day.’
‘Perhaps we will.’
Two mobiles flicked off, in relief that things had gone so easily. Sylvia decided to get all her things back, before swinging over to the attack. Harry judged himself rid of a problem.
Levon stirred in his corner of the Mercedes’ back seat. ‘You should never burn candles at both ends.’ He had met Sylvia, and been interested, but had judged her rather expensive.
Harry sniffed. ‘I’ve put one end out.’
The Mercedes purred on, dropping Levon off at the Savoy before heading east towards Dockland. Harry pictured his return, envisaging an evening of acrobatics and then more acrobatics, with a good deal of crumpling. Sylvia’s call had left him with a bad taste in his mouth, and a faint sense of unease. He needed refreshment.
However he found Doreen in anything but crumpling mood. He had looked forward to her waiting at the door as he let himself into the flat, arms spread wide to embrace him, but he had to go looking for her, and found her spread out on his sofa in front of his television. She smiled up at him, but her smile was more a reproach than any happy expectant greeting, and her arms were not really spread very wide at all.
‘I’m starved.’ She swung herself up off the sofa to kiss him a little perfunctorily. ‘Can we go and have something to eat?’
For a moment Harry was torn. He thought of acrobatics and crumpling, and his present need, and the smoked salmon he has eaten, balancing desire against repletion. But it was plain that Doreen was not going to be very willing on an empty stomach, and he wanted her to feel generous. He nodded. He would sip at a glass of something nice while she eats, and clean up on gratitude.
They walked to Fish! hand-in-hand, to sit at the same table as before, and Doreen ate as though food was going out of fashion. She made short work of a plateful of whitebait, although she complained that a myriad tiny eyes pricked her conscience, and then set about a Dover sole in a rich creamy cheese sauce. Harry sipped a glass of Vouvray, and wondered where she found room to stow it all. She probably expected to use up a good number of calories in the night ahead. He told her about Levon and his presents, and showed her the silver dagger.
Doreen yawned, and said that she had stayed up late watching television. However she felt her conscience prick her a little as she listened to herself speaking. She had been bored, and in need of a night out, and now she was lying. She also judged herself a little ungrateful, not to say deceitful, because she had bought herself a Sunday paper especially to know the programmes she had missed, and noted a late night movie she had seen before, so that she could present a good cover story. She wondered whether deceit formed part of being a kept woman. Deceit, and lies, along with the waiting. She wondered whether she could enjoy it for very long. It seemed rather an empty existence, hanging around most of the day, spending the rest of the time on her back, being ditched at weekends, and having to smile forever. She was not a cow like her mother. She had been with Harry a week, and the thrills of comfortable living were already starting to pall. She needed something to do, and some company of her own age.
She finished her sole, and toyed with a crème brulee. She wuold bonk along for another week, but insist on spending at least one evening sampling bright lights, until her period started, and then start throwing out hints about becoming more independent. It would just be a matter of playing her fish the right way. She smiled her most dazzling smile. Now she was full, and ready for whatever.
She squeezed Harry’s hand as they walked back to his flat, and he wondered whether it was a good time to tell her about letting Sylvia move her things out. But he decided to wait. Confidences were best exchanged in slack moments, when energy has been sapped, and defences were temporarily down.
There are times when passion runs high, and times when passion runs deep. They were both now full, but Harry was also filled with expectation, and his expectation demanded compensation. He stepped back to let Doreen pass him as they reached his flat, and touched her arm as she passes, and she turned to face him as he pushed the door closed. She knew what he wanted, and knew that she could deliver in style, because she also entertained expectations of her own. They were face to face, and she kissed him, first lightly, and then with more concentration, pressing herself up against him. Then she stepped back again, and began to unbutton his shirt, and knelt on the carpet before him to unfasten his belt, and Harry did not move, because their engagement formed a ritual, with set motions and responses, one participant building desire in the other, fuelling and fanning a fire, and the recipient choosing to be active or passive, seeking to drive, or savouring enjoyment. Harry felt Doreen tug at his zip, and pulled away a little. He could feel himself engorging, and he was in the wrong place. Congress can sometimes be exciting on a carpet, when both partners are needy. But his need was slow-burning, a thing beginning to grow from a smouldering heat into an open flame, and he wanted to exploit it to the full extent of its potential.
Doreen smiled, because she understood him completely, and took him by the hand to lead him to his bed. Harry helped her lift her top over her head, kissing her lips as the cotton gathered around her neck, and then her neck just below her left ear as she helped him to free herself. She had already freed herself from her bra, and her nipples stretched out, pointing at him, and he kissed each in turn, but barely kissing them as he closed his mouth gently around each one, feeling its growing hardness. He felt his chinos slip to the floor, and Doreen’s hand cupping under his scrotum, and her fingers caressing him, and now he had grown into readiness. He pushed her back against the bed, and she fell away in front of him, her legs parting before him, and he held her hands in his own as he knelt, bending over her, questing with his lips for the parting in her pubic hairs, probing gently with his tongue until he heard her moan softly, and she moved her thighs as though seeking his entrance, and then he joined her on the bed, lowering himself over her, and into her, advancing gradually, to withdraw a little before advancing again, until he could feel himself fully embedded, and move his hips against her in a controlled and measured conjuration, and Doreen began moving in a corresponding rhythm under him, jerking a little as though to spur him on, but he held himself to the same measure, moving against her to build her passion, until she was struggling to force him on, and her breath was a series of short sharp intakes and exhalations, and suddenly she was crying out, and moving without any control, and he drove on to release himself in his own culmination.
Then they lie enlaced, surrounded and surrounding, in the closeness that accompanies the fulfilment of passion. But they were also both separated, each thinking their own thoughts.
Doreen sighed. ‘That was nice.’ But there was something in the tone of her voice that suggested other pleasures might also be meet.
Harry looked down at her. ‘We should spend an evening exploring.’
She frowned. It was not quite the way her mind was thinking.
‘I thought of taking you clubbing. Somewhere like Tramps.’
She looked up at him, her eyes now wide open. ‘Really?’
‘You could get bored, just bonking.’
Doreen smilea. There were times when silence was the best answer.
‘How about tomorrow?’
‘I’d like that.’ Doreen paused. She was a percipient girl. ‘You could get your other woman to come and clear out her gear while we’re out.’
‘She will.’
She giggled, moving to free herself. ‘You’ve got it all planned.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then I better reward you, hadn’t I?’ She had already raised herself to bend over him, and Harry closed his eyes. He wanted to savour this pleasure, for a moment, and then engage with her again. For coition was something best shared, in the fulness of passion, in the closeness of connection, in the matching of provision and need, and best fulfilled when provision and need and culmination all coincided most exactly.