Before Lunch
When we have left the motorway and entered the countryside proper, driving
between sweet-smelling hedgerows with the windows down, Kim without warning
slows the car, turns onto a grass verge, and brings us to a halt. She switches
off the engine and swivels in her seat to face me. I feel a thrust of
apprehension.
'I just wanted a snog,' she says, putting her arms around my neck. For several
minutes we embrace and kiss. From a nearby meadow comes the melodious lowing of
cows.
Then Kim says, 'Will you promise me something?'
'Anything!' I say, awash with lust.
I see her wide moon face with its sparse freckles, and her brown eyes that look
attentively into mine, flicking from one to the other, as if she wants to divide
her attention equally between them. It's a way she has.
'I want you to promise me, that despite...' She stops, thinks, and starts
again. 'My family has certain habits, which you may find rather eccentric.'
'All families do.'
'Will you promise ...' she begins again, and gets stuck once more.
'Not to laugh?' I say. 'To behave myself?'
She smiles and nods. 'Exactly!'
'Of course I'll behave.'
'And just to take it easy...'
'I always take things easy.'
She watches me. Her face is white. She has pulled her curly black hair back in a
grip. I can feel the warmth of her gaze on my skin. She is everything I could
ever want in a girlfriend.
'I want you with me today, Jake,' she says.
'I am with you,' I say.
'I know. Thank you.'
We kiss again, and she starts the car. As we continue our journey I demand
details of these eccentricities. She doesn't reply, so I suggest some myself, a
lunatic uncle, a man-hungry aunt, pig-sticking before lunch. It's some time
before I notice she is irritated. I fall silent, and watch the August landscape
go by, heavy with green and blue. By and by I try to start a fresh conversation,
but can't think of anything interesting to say, and Kim plainly doesn't want to
talk. We drive to her parent's house in silence. I find myself thinking, how
typical of Kim to have framed her request, modest as it was, with bouts of
kissing. How cleverly planned. How nicely scheduled. And I think, everything
about Kim is scheduled. Even her conversation. Even her intimacies.
*
Kim's mother turns out to be an older version of her. The same half-curly hair,
and the same eyes. The same warmth. We find her in the kitchen, peering at a leg
of lamb in the oven. She bustles about us, kissing first Kim and then me.
'Welcome, Jake!' she cries. 'Kim has told us so much about you.'
She asks about our journey, and says that lunch will be another hour, according
to the lamb. Then she exclaims at how thirsty we must be, and pours lemonade
from a jug into three tall glasses. I take a sip, and it's sweet and fresh. The
family is more or less teetotal. Kim sometimes has a glass of wine on special
occasions. Otherwise she drinks sparkling water, which she buys in great
quantities. I have tried to tempt her with a beer, urged her to risk a
gin-and-tonic. She gently tells me she just doesn't like alcohol. Once, after
I'd spent the afternoon in the college bar, I took a bottle of wine up to her
room, where she was working, and insisted upon her having some. She refused. She
hadn't finished her essay, she said. She offered to make some coffee. I
suggested sex instead, and she refused this too. We had an argument, which was
probably what I wanted all along. It would be more accurate to say that I argued
and she listened. I told her she needed to have more fun, that her existence was
colourless, that there was more to life than work. Life is for living, I said,
it's not a preparation. You've got to live in the here-and-now. Carpe diem, you
know. Soon even I was bored of my own drunken repetitions, and went away
downstairs.
We take the lemonade onto a stone terrace which overlooks the garden and the
fields. I drink mine and watch the butterflies in the hollyhocks, as Kim and her
mother talk. I am anxious to play my role well - the polite new boyfriend, ready
to join in when called upon, but careful not to intrude.
Kim asks about her sister, Virginia. Oh, she's here, says her mother. She's
already in with your father. And so is Jamie. 'Oh. Good.' says Kim. She starts
telling her mother about lectures and anatomy class and the rowing-club. Soon
she falls silent. Immediately I tell Kim's mother how beautiful her garden is.
She thanks me and starts describing the pond she is going to create because she
loves frogs and bulrushes. She points to where it will go, and what she will
plant around its edges. She listens in turn while I tell her about the lily-pond
we have at home, and all our problems with water-snails. She protests that
water-snails are a good thing, and begins counting their virtues on her fingers.
As she talks I see Kim sitting very upright in her chair, half-listening, and
swallowing her lemonade in measured gulps. When the glass is empty she puts it
on the table. She waits for her mother to stop talking, and says 'Well, I'm
finished.'
Her mother smiles at her.
'We're all finished. Shall we go in?' says Kim.
'Perhaps Jake would like to stay out here in the sun,' says her mother. 'Jake,
we can supply you with newspapers, more lemonade, things to nibble on...'
'In!' says Kim.
'A chessboard...'
'In!' says Kim.
'I guess I'll be coming in,' I say.
As Kim turns to go I see her mother lay a brief hand on her shoulder.
We go through the kitchen and into the hall, which is almost pitch-black after
the blazing garden. I can hear a thudding clock, and song-birds outside. I
follow them down a wide corridor, and we stop outside a door. Kim's mother
knocks and opens it.
We go in. The first thing I see is a man, very obviously Kim's father, getting
to his feet. He approaches us, beaming. In his hand are some sheets of paper.
'Hello Kim!' he says in delight, and kisses her.
To me he says 'Jake! Welcome! Welcome!' He shakes my hand in a warm, forceful
grip. He gives the impression that it is utterly splendid to meet me. I feel
enormously pleased.
Kim begins apologising for our lateness, but he scoffs it away. 'You came up in
the flying tin can, I suppose? Then all is forgiven.'
The girl standing nearby I know must be Virginia, Kim's sister. She turns and
gives Kim a smile, and smiles at me too when Kim introduces us. She is wearing a
pleated knee-length skirt with white socks, and a white sleeveless blouse. This
is almost exactly what Kim is wearing, I notice, except that Kim has a
long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up neatly. Virginia's hair, lighter
than Kim's, is in a plait. She is in her last year at school, I remember.
The other person in the room is Jamie, Kim's brother, who is thirteen. He sits
rather awkwardly at one end of the sofa, and his eyes are red, I guess from
hay-fever. Kim also gets it. He half-stands to shake my hand, and half-smiles.
'Do be seated, all,' says Kim's father. He sits down in his chair. Everyone else
sits except for Virginia, who folds her arms and stands swivelling on one toe.
We have obviously come in in the middle of something. Kim's father continues
reading the document. While we wait I look around the room. It is large and
airy. There are windows on three sides, all of them open, but the curtains are
half shut. They sway stiffly in the breeze. At the far end are a piano and
various cabinets. Nearer to us are several chairs and sofas, mostly of wicker
and cane. They give the room a colonial feel. There are large, subdued
watercolours on the walls of India and Egypt. I turn my attention back to Kim's
father. He has an urbane and efficient face. He was in the army, I know, and now
he is something in Whitehall. Even Kim wasn't exactly sure what. He sits heavily
in his chair, reading carefully and without a trace of haste, as if studying a
dispatch on which lives depend. I see his very blue eyes travelling over the
words, and now and then the hint of a frown. Once he pauses, tapping the paper
with a finger, and looks at Virginia.
'Your Civil War project. It was not entirely based on your own research?'
'No, Daddy.'
'You rather gave the impression it was.'
'Yes, Daddy.'
School report, I think.
Another five minutes go by, and still nobody talks. We sit hushed, like
churchgoers waiting for communion to end. Once Kim's mother smiles at me. Once I
feel Jamie stealing a glance at me. Our eyes meet and he instantly looks down.
At last a movement from the father. He has finished the document. He glances
back briefly over the pages, of which there are three or four, as if to remind
himself of their contents. Then he lays it in his lap and looks at his standing
daughter.
'Well,' he says. 'Well.'
She is silent.
'Don't fold your arms like that,' he says. She at once drops them and clasps her
hands behind her. His curtness offends me. I decide not to like him after all.
'How do you spell disappointment?'
She spells it out.
'Two S's?'
She thinks. 'Is it one?'
'It is indeed only one. You're meant to be the good speller in this house.'
'Yes, Daddy.'
'Apart from which, I think it would be fair to say that this is no better or
worse than usual.'
Virginia seems to slump down into herself, in relief or resignation.
'What do you say to that?'
'Yes, Daddy.'
'You would agree with the assessment?'
'Yes, Daddy.'
'Yes, Daddy. Righty-ho, then!'
He is just getting out of his chair when his wife says 'Peter!' She raises her
eyebrows at him, and then glances at me, full of meaning. He looks at me too,
and there is amusement in his face.
'Jake's not squeamish. Are you Jake?'
'No,' I say, startled.
'Then let us on! Let us on! Or lunch will never come round!'
And at last there is activity. Virginia goes over to a long low couch. The frame
is of dark wood and the seat is woven. It looks Chinese or perhaps Indian. She
sits down on it and slips her shoes off.
Her father meanwhile fetches something from the corner of the room. And I
experience a sudden thrust of fear and excitement when I see what it is: a
bamboo cane, three feet long.
I refuse to believe it, of course. It is a joke, a family charade put on for my
behalf. They are teasing me. I almost blurt it out at once. I almost laugh. And
then I see Kim.
She is staring intently at the rug beneath her feet, then suddenly swings her
eyes up to meet mine, and the message in them is clear: 'remember your promise!'
She holds my gaze, and that's how we stay until she drops her eyes again. There
is no mistaking that she is serious.
At once I start blushing and fidgeting, not knowing where to look, as if I am
the centre of the drama instead of Virginia. I need to choose a stance quickly.
I think: a girl is about to be beaten in front of my eyes. I should protest, I
should step in, appeal to reason. At the very least I should leave the room. As
often happens, when moral choice is involved, I start thinking of various
decent, left-leaning acquaintances back at college. I feel the heat of their
anger, their disapproval of me, even, should they ever know. And immediately the
counter-argument arrives. Families do things in different ways. Who am I to
judge? And another role for myself occurs to me: the detached, cynical observer
of life, always watching and never interfering.
Virginia is now lying face-down on the couch, her skirt pulled right up to her
waist. Her legs are bare from her pants to her short white socks. She has
surprisingly sturdy legs.
Kim looks at me again. I glare at her resentfully, letting her feel my full
disapproval. I still haven't decided what position to take on all this, but I
certainly don't want to be an easy accessory. Ironically, however, I have the
best view. Kim is sitting on an errant piano stool, and her mother and Jamie are
on the sofa. All three would have to look over a shoulder to see Virginia,
whereas I am facing her.
Her father stands two feet away from the couch. I hear him say something very
quietly, it might be 'ready?', and her muffled reply. Her head is on her arms.
She presses her forehead into them. I see how the muscles in her legs are
tightly clenched, and her toes curled in the white socks.
Her father raises the cane above his head, neatly and precisely like a
marionette, or an orchestral conductor, and brings it down. I hear it in the
air, and then the crack as it lands on her legs, just below the hem of her
knickers. The noise is not as I'd expected. Not a crack or a thud, but a neat,
precise little snip.
Virginia raises her head off her arms. Her eyes are shut and her mouth wide
open, and I think, this is a joke after all, because her expression is so
absurd, a comical grimace of pain, like a clown who has hit his thumb with a
hammer. I cannot believe it is real. Then I see her chin jut forward, and she
gasps for air. She holds the posture for a few seconds, and her mouth moves
wordlessly. At last, perhaps realising her time is up, she sinks down and
prepares herself again.
He waits for two or three seconds, and then brings down the cane again with the
same precision, in the same place. This time Virginia keeps her head down, and
nothing moves at all except for three tendons in her forearm that dance as she
clenches her fist. The knuckles turn bony, with angry red splotches.
The three other family members sit sorrowfully. Virginia's mother wears a little
smile. Jamie tugs at a piece of skin on his thumb, trying to pinch it off. Kim's
head is bowed. I suddenly realise I have been looking on with indecent
curiosity. So I turn my gaze to the dried flower arrangement in the fireplace.
But when I see, out of the corner of my eye, Virginia raise her head after the
third stroke, I cannot stop myself looking again.
At first her face is almost expressionless. Then her eyes pop open. She stares
sightlessly out of the window and gives a single loud sob. It comes from deep
inside her. Her father stands by politely. Virginia pauses, as if waiting for
more to come, then lowers her head. She arranges herself in a new posture,
gripping her wrists with opposing hands, pressing her left temple into them, and
pointing her toes straight at the wall. When she is ready, he raises the cane
and brings it down for the fourth time.
Virginia raises her head and gives a succession of sobs. I watch in fascination,
seeing how they originate in her belly, travel up her throat and explode in her
mouth. I'm reminded of a barking seal.
Kim sits with her hands clasped together. I think she is praying. Jamie shuffles
uncomfortably. And their mother presses four fingers of one hand together,
counting off the strokes. How many more? I wonder, trying to work it out from
her fingers, trying to guess what 'the usual' might be. There is hot excitement
in my stomach.
The sobs continue, rasping up Virginia's spine, bending her neck-bones into a
backward arch, erupting like great hiccups that ring around the room. When she
raises her face it is full of tears. And again there is a comical aspect,
because as her sobbing increases it sounds as though she is repeating a word,
over and over; something like 'Dahoo! dahoo! dahoo!' Suddenly I feel giggles
collect in my throat like silver bubbles. I scowl hard at the rug.
After the next stroke I see Jamie briefly glance round, and Kim exhaling in
relief. It is over. A good cop/bad cop routine then takes place, as Virginia's
father withdraws to his chair, and her mother goes to comfort her. She perches
on the edge of the couch, kisses Virginia on the head and gently pulls her skirt
down. I feel a thrust of disappointment, eager as I was to get a look at
Virginia's skin, to see the damage.
By and by Virginia gets up, and walks slowly to the far window. She stands
half-hidden in the curtain, looking out at the garden as she cries.
Her father briefly glances through her report again. Then he carefully places it
face-down on the floor. Or to be more precise, on top of another document
already lying there. And suddenly I think - Jamie? And remember his red eyes.
Then her father looks at Kim. She reaches into her shoulder bag, which she
brought into the room with her, and extracts what looks like a thick letter. She
takes it over to her father, and I see then it is not a letter, but several
neatly-folded sheets of paper. Kim returns to her seat. She doesn't look at me.
No, I think. This can't be.
A burst of horror and adrenaline inside me. I flush red with embarrassment, as I
realise it is my plain duty to protest. But the seconds pass and I sit in
wordless panic, overcome by the solemnity of the proceedings, too timid to raise
my voice. Virginia's obedience, Kim's quietness, Jamie's aloofness, and even the
breezy good-humour of their father are parts of a forbidding whole. I am too
intimidated by the smooth surface of their silence to break into it.
Her father has unfolded the sheets of paper, flattening them. He begins reading.
Kim clutches her knees and bows her head again.
I grow angrier as each minute passes. I blame myself for having sat through
Virginia's punishment without a word. Now I am guilty by association. Wouldn't
it be absurd to object, simply because Kim is my girlfriend? Hypocritical, too.
And I have no way of knowing yet what is going to happen to her. Kim's not a
schoolgirl, he surely can't take a cane to her. I don't want to make a fool of
myself. The moment he touches that cane, I tell myself, that's when I will wade
in, no ifs or buts. I try to content myself with this resolution. But every time
her father finishes one page, and starts reading the next, my panic increases.
Because it is clear that the process of Kim's chastisement has already begun,
and the longer this preliminary stage takes, the more foolish it will be to
object later on. Again I remember my promise to Kim, and I think, perhaps I will
sit and do nothing, if that's what she really wants. But will she despise me,
deep down? Is she silently begging me to save her? Perhaps at some level she is
not even aware of?
Kim goes over to her father to help decipher a word. Whatever he is reading
would seem to be in her own hand-writing. She doesn't return to her seat, but
continues standing in front of him, as Virginia had. And suddenly I find myself
on my feet too, and talking before I know what I am going to say.
'Excuse me,' I say. 'Excuse me!'
I address myself first to Kim's mother and then to her father, although he is
hidden from my sight behind Kim. He peers around her skirt with a quizzical
look.
I say: 'Are you planning to ... like you did to...' nodding in turn at Kim and
Virginia.
'Yes!' says her father. 'Most probably!'
'Well,' I say, 'She's twenty-one. This is the twentieth century. The
twenty-first century! I think there are better ways of, you know ... If you want
to make a point. Hitting people with sticks isn't going to solve anything. I'm
sorry.'
They don't seem surprised at my outburst. Kim's mother cocks her head, as if she
is hearing something interesting and original. Her husband too listens
patiently. Unnerved by this, I stop talking, and there is a brief silence.
Then Kim says, 'Daddy, will you excuse me?' She waits for his nod, then crosses
over to me and guides me to the door. We leave the room, go along the corridor
and into the hall. We face each other.
'I won't let it happen,' I say at once.
'It is going to happen,' she says gently.
'I can't believe ... is this is a regular occurrence?'
She smiles and waggles her head to say: yes, there it is, what can you do?
'I won't let them do this to you!'
'You'll make things worse for me.'
'Someone's got to make a stand!'
'Jake, please. I haven't got much time.'
She tries to close the space between us, but I stop her with my hand.
'How dare you make me sit through that?' I say. 'Without any warning!'
'I'm sorry,' she says. 'I should have told you, shouldn't I?'
'I'd never have...'
'I'm sorry.'
'So what's on that paper? Is that what you were writing all last night?'
She nods. Then she approaches again, puts her arms around me and lays her head
on my shoulder. Her breath is very loud.
'It'll all be over soon,' she whispers. 'I promise. You'll come back in with me,
won't you?'
'No.'
'I need you Jake. Please?'
I stand stiffly. She runs her hands over my back, massaging away my anger. We
stay like that, listening to the clock. And then, from along the corridor, comes
her mother's gentle voice, calling for her.
Kim looks at me, pleading, and I am shocked that her eyes are already full of
tears.
'If you insist then,' I say.
'Thank you.' She leaves a teardrop on my cheek as she kisses me. Smiling, she
wipes it away with her finger.
I follow her back down the corridor. As she walks she presses her eyes into the
sleeve of her shirt. We return to the room and she goes over to her father. I
stand behind my chair with my arms folded, registering my disapproval. Nobody
looks at me, however. After a while I sit down.
'And this is really a month's worth?' says Kim's father, as if nothing has
happened. He riffles the corners of the pages with a thumb.
'Yes, Daddy.'
He looks at her intently, and I see his eyes searching her face, exactly as hers
often do mine. At last he nods and returns to the page, satisfied. But then his
eyes briefly flick up at her again in amusement, as if to say, can you believe I
asked you that?
He glances over several of the pages. Then the real questions start.
Why can't you get to grips with Microbiology? Why are you behind in Embryology?
What's going on, Kim? Is it the chemistry? Then why? Can't, or won't? And why
haven't you been to see Mrs Imbry? Are you sure your bicycle was locked, when it
was stolen? Was it necessary to give up tennis? Are you doing enough sport? What
about the choral society? Have you re-joined it? Why not? How many rehearsals do
they have a week? And how long are they? Even if you can't go to them all, does
it mean you can't sing? Have you asked? How often do you go swimming?
Kim stands and answers him in a quiet, steady voice. But many of his questions
are rhetorical, unanswerable. Why haven't you called on Anna Geist again? Have
you tried? How do you know she doesn't? How do you know? How do you know she
isn't sitting in her room, waiting for your knock? Are you psychic?
No Daddy.
Before our eyes he is stripping her down, taking her life apart. It's as if he
has sliced her open with a cold scalpel, folded back her soft freckled skin, and
revealed naked bone and sinew. And I see, properly for the first time, what I
have always been aware of, beneath Kim's kindness and her charm, but have mostly
only scoffed at. It is that skeleton of steel, that lacerating self-discipline
that makes her set her alarm-clock for 6am, that hauls her out of bed and
through the murky dawn in shorts and trainers, that has her study for an hour
before breakfast, and for half an hour afterwards, before first lecture. That
divides her day into segments, hours and quarter-hours and five minutes, with
something she must do in each: studying, singing, swimming; attending a
committee meeting, going to chapel, cleaning her room, checking up on someone.
Question after question. Some are blunt accusations. Not once does she try to
defend herself. Into her silences I want to shout 'She is not a machine!'
One last, deliberative pause. And then:
'Well,' he says, exactly as he said with Virginia.
He puts the sheets of paper into their original order, and lays them neatly on
top of Virginia's, face-up.
'A bit disappointed, is how I feel,' he says, and Kim nods.
I hear myself blurting 'She works three times as hard as anyone else at
college!'
Her father peers around her again, and gives me a friendly smile.
'That may be true, Jake, that may be true,' he says. 'Thank you. But
comparatives don't interest us.'
He leans back and disappears from sight. I want to retort. All I can think of is
'It seems like nothing interests you, except hitting your children,' and I urge
myself to say this, weak as it is, but can't. So I give a sardonic snort
instead. It comes out louder than I meant.
'Jake,' says Kim's father, out of sight. 'You are under no obligation to stay in
this room, but while you do, be so good as not to interfere.'
'I'll stay,' I say sulkily, 'Because Kim wants me to.'
'Splendid,' he says. 'You might want to sit on your hands for the next few
minutes.'
At his nod, Kim goes over to the couch and starts taking off her shoes. Then I
see the bamboo cane again, and I feel a twist of futile anger. I realise how
negligible is my part in all this, how unimportant I am to the proceedings, how
easily brushed aside. And it suddenly strikes me that I am about to be
cuckolded. My girlfriend is about to be raped in front of me, by her father, and
I am unable to protect her from him. It is not Kim who is about to be
humiliated, but me. Resentment burns inside me. Knowing that it is fuelled by my
own impotence hardly helps.
Kim is awkwardly getting ready. She sits on the couch, her skirt hitched up. Her
bare legs - which like Virginia's are rather chunky - are blue-grey, and the
front rail of the couch flattens her thighs where it passes under them. She is
wearing white knickers hemmed with pale blue. I imagine her standing at her
wardrobe that morning, going through the neat piles of underwear, choosing.
She swings her legs onto the couch, lies back, and turns over. In the process
her skirt falls. She reaches behind and pulls it up, spreading it neatly over
her buttocks and her lower back. She shakes her head to rearrange her hair. Then
she grips both wrists with her hands. She is ready.
'Off we go!' says her father.
I close my eyes and thoughts come chattering through my brain. I think, so how
does one act while one's girlfriend is being caned? What exactly is the correct
etiquette?
Another thrust of resentment, this time aimed at Kim. It is Kim who has put me
in this demeaning position. I play with this thought, trying to clarify it and
justify it, and meanwhile I hear the cane, first the whoosh through the air,
then the neat snip.
Kim hisses. Somebody else shuffles their feet. Then silence. I keep my eyes shut
and curl my lip. I sit aloof in my self-made darkness for the next two strokes.
And then I hear Kim give a whisper of pain, and I decide it's time to watch.
Her head is up and her eyes already misty. Her gaze moves around the room,
coming to rest on a lampshade, a table-leg, her mother's shoes, and then
flitting on. Trying to keep ahead of the pain, I think. Her body leaps every
time the cane hits her legs, but immediately she settles down and readies
herself again. I notice the different styles of the two sisters. Virginia,
pressing her head into her arms, had burrowed deep down into herself,
disappearing like a mole into the dark, until the pain had come and fetched her
out again. Kim on the other hand seems determined to face it down. Perhaps her
four years seniority have taught her this.
And she is tough as a boot, of course. I realise I am watching a sort of contest
here, a game of Sunday tennis played by a competitive father and daughter.
The cane lands precisely, each time in the same spot, driving a single nail of
pain deeper into her flesh. Each spasm of her spine, as the bamboo bites, is
more violent than the last, and her self-control slips away stroke by stroke.
But still she manages to collect herself, steady herself and prepare herself.
At last a tear escapes from one eye and rolls like a raindrop down her cheek.
She wipes it away with her hand. Immediately another appears on the other side,
and she deals with that too. And then a third. She gives up and lets them come.
Her lips are parted.
There is now a confusion of emotions within me. I actually want her to be
punished for humiliating me, even though my humiliation consists of her being
punished; and although I still feel like a cuckold, the scene nevertheless is
erotic. Soon she will belong to me again, I think, and that evening I will rub
cream into her legs, and make love to her so tenderly...
Six strokes. Virginia had the traditional six. I hold my breath. And very slowly
let it out as the cane rise into the air again.
The seventh fetches a single sob from her, quickly stifled. Two more, and she is
sobbing properly. But she doesn't give in as easily as Virginia. She tries
converting the sobs into words. 'Oh! oh! oh!' she says. 'Oh God, oh God.' She
clenches her jaw to lock them in. She breathes through her nose. I see tendons
jut from her neck.
Her father half-humorously wipes his brow with his sleeve, shifts his weight,
and carries on.
Only at the eleventh stroke (I count them carefully) does the fight begin to go
out of her. Like Virginia she lets the sobs come freely, and with them the tears
and dribble and snot. Her face is wet and red, like a crying baby. I am
embarrassed for her. Not very attractive, I think. And still the strokes
continue. There is astonishment in her wet, wide eyes. Astonishment at the
realisation that pain can be this painful.
Her sobs grow in size, each is now an entire lungful, and very loud. I have
heard this noise before, but only once, when a boy at school was winded on the
football field. They sat him on the bench and he heaved the breath in and out of
his lungs while the nurse was sent for. You could hear him from across the
pitch. Like a frigging donkey, hee haw, hee haw, I said afterwards to someone
who had missed the excitement.
Daddy! she sobs. Daddeeeeeee!
She looks up at him, pleading. And I think bitterly, I wish they wouldn't keep
calling him Daddy. It's so upper-middle-class. I start remembering another girl
who called her father Daddy. But she was Irish, of course, so it's different.
Whereas Kim, a grown woman ...
Each time she yells Daddeeeee, I scowl at the dried flowers and think, why not
'Dad', like the rest of us?
A brief pause. He rests the tip of the cane on her backside to tell her to stay
put, while conducting a wordless conversation with his wife. She wants him to
stop. He holds up four fingers. She protests, sighs, and resigns herself.
He begins again, and after the first of the four, I notice water dribbling from
the couch. Kim has peed. I watch in sick fascination. It is a little rope of
urine, curving from the underside of the wicker seat to the floor. It thickens
and straightens, and the flow increases. A puddle begins.
Her father has seen it too. He gives the final strokes in quick succession, but
no less hard, and counts them off. 'Three ... two ... one! And we're done!
Hurrah!' He throws the cane away into the corner.
Kim sobs rhythmically on the couch. It sounds like 'Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!' Immediately her mother is at her side, comforting her,
stroking her shoulders. The flow of urine begins to diminish, the solid rope
turning first into a string of pearls and then into individual drops.
I slump in my seat, shaken, breathless, empty, as if I have just watched an
uncompromising bout of screen violence.
'Virginia!' cries her father. 'You are on mop duty.'
Virginia, now sitting on the floor beside the sofa, doesn't look very pleased.
But she obediently gets up and leaves the room.
Kim is on her hands and knees now, her skirt still around her waist. Her sobbing
begins to slow. Her mother is talking to her in a low voice. Kim nods. Very
gingerly she gets off the couch, holding her skirt up. Her mother gently lowers
her knickers, holding the wet cotton away from the backs of her thighs, but even
so Kim winces. I catch just a glimpse of pubic hair, and then Kim lets drop the
folds of her skirt. Her mother lies the wet knickers in the puddle for Virginia
to deal with.
Her brother now appears at Kim's side, and says something I can't hear. She nods
and smiles. Briefly she rests her chin on his shoulder, and he strokes her back.
Then her mother takes one arm and Jamie the other, and they begin to walk her
from the room. She waddles stiffly between them. They are nearly at the door
before I realise I should have a part in this too. I deserve a central role, in
fact. I jump up and hold the door open for them, although it already was open,
and when we are in the corridor I walk in front as if to clear a path for them.
I can't think of anything to say to Kim other than 'Are you okay?' We reach the
hall and they lead her towards the stairs. I hover uncertainly. I don't know if
I should accompany them. I watch them ascend, and only when they disappear
around the turn do I decide not to follow. Needing something to do, I study a
print of a Thames barge on the wall.
Virginia comes through with a bucket full of soap-bubbles, and a mop. She
flashes me a smile, and disappears.
Her father shortly comes from the other direction. 'Jake!' he cries, clapping a
hand on my shoulder. 'Come through! Come through! I do believe there is lemonade
about.'
Just in time I remember my decision to dislike him.
'Excuse me,' I say. 'But I'd better go and see how Kim is doing.'
I go up the stairs, meeting Jamie at the top. 'I'm looking for Kim,' I say,
rather unnecessarily.
'They're in the bathroom,' he says, pointing it out. He goes downstairs and I
knock on the door. It opens a little way and her mother's face appears.
'Is she all right?' I say.
'Nothing we can't put right, Jake dear,' she says, with a wry smile.
'I'm fine, Jake,' I hear Kim say from inside.
I see angrily that there is a tube of cream in her mother's hand. But already
the door is shutting.
There is nothing for me to do but go down to the kitchen. It is empty. Jamie and
his father are on the terrace. I hover inside, pretending to read the titles of
the cookery books. Then the father spots me with a great shout. He bounds in to
thrust a glass of lemonade in my hand, and drags me outside to show me the
garden. We go down to the lawn and along the flowerbeds, and he showers me with
questions. What am I reading at university? How long is the course? What am I
going to do with it? By the time we have reached the end of the lawn, his
friendliness has crept under the edges of my resolve and began to pry it loose.
Even so I say 'You seem to take a strong interest in other people's lives.'
He sees my face and gets my meaning. He grips my shoulder and laughs. 'We do
things a little strangely here at Toad Hall, don't we?' he said.
'You could say that.'
'But - results. Results, results, results. Wouldn't you agree?'
Presently we see Kim, Virginia and their mother come out of the kitchen door and
onto the terrace. They stand in a colourful row, looking over the garden and
chatting. Kim is now wearing a long black skirt. She rests her hands on the iron
railing at the edge of the terrace, smiling, her head raised as she smells the
air.
Her father bellows across the lawn: 'What about lunch? Jake and I are starving
here!'
'Ten minutes!' calls his wife, and the little group disperses. The mother goes
inside, Virginia joins Jamie on an ironwork bench, while Kim descends the stone
steps from the terrace and comes slowly towards us over the lawn.
*
That evening, as we drive back to college, she stops the car again and extracts
another promise from me, more urgent than the first: not to tell. Of course! I
say, kissing her all over. I love you! How could you even think that? We sit
together in the soft purple evening, and vows of love and secrecy tumble from my
lips.
As to whether lovers' vows remain valid when a relationship is over, I'm not
really sure. Ours soon is. Exactly thirteen days later, in fact. I'm not really
surprised when Kim gently breaks up with me. I was never really her boyfriend at
all. I was a chore, a duty, perhaps even a punishment, one she inflicted upon
herself. Nevertheless I cry for days. I cry on her shoulder, and on her bed, and
outside her door when she is asleep, and outside her window too. She devotes a
large part of her schedule to comforting me. 'How can I live, seeing you every
day?' I wail, for we are at the same college. After a few days I get tired of
her pity, and I turn to hurting her instead. I give her the silent treatment,
ignore her, rebuff every approach, giving her no more notice than a cold nod.
She persists with me for a good while. Now she more or less ignores me too.
I've written this primarily for my own amusement, but I don't mind other people
reading it too, if they're interested. I can easily change the names, of course.
Sam instead of Kim. And Johnny. And Victoria. Or maybe I'll keep them as they
are. I haven't really decided yet.
