the moment.’
‘Join the club.’
‘There was a row, you see, about my coming away.’
‘So what should I know that men never do? Tell me, I’m truly interested.’
‘Sure? I don’t want to bore you. We both came here for some fun, remember.’
‘Which is just what you’re telling me your parents are worried about, isn’t it?’
‘You’re getting warm, I’ll give you that!’
‘Fun and games. Hanky-panky. And actually I’m boiling with frustrated passion.’
‘I should have brought the aforesaid extinguisher. Actually, they use phrases like that: hanky-panky and fun-and-games. Would you believe? You see, if I got preggers that would confirm their beliefs about life. Another of the traps. And if I liked the bloke and married him that would make it all right. I’d be properly trapped, paying for my mistakes, taking the consequences of my actions—all that guff. And I’d be there, lumbered, for them to cluck over still, giving advice, and, what’s best, with a baby for them to feel sentimental about.’
‘And all forgiven.’
‘Of course.’
‘But if you had fun, played hanky-panky and didn’t get with child?’
‘I’d be a loose woman. I’d be promiscuous and, worst of all, I’d be enjoying it. I’d be an unpaid whore, a happy hooker, a woman of easy virtue. Etcetera. That’s what bothers them most.’
‘Ugly words.’
‘Ugly sentiments.’
‘But never said straight out?’
‘O, no. That’s what makes it so horrible. I don’t think I’d mind if they came straight out and said what they think. Trouble is, I suspect they don’t even know that they think it. So it all comes out in innuendo, by implication. And somehow, that makes everything worse. Dirties everything.’
Ditto thought of his father; their rows; their straight words. And of his mother, with whom he rarely discussed or argued about anything. (He had promised to telephone home this evening and must not forget; he owed them that, and was glad to discover he wanted to keep his promise.)
‘The other way can be as bad sometimes, you know,’ he said. ‘People say wounding things in anger. And words said can’t be unsaid.’
‘I’d take my chances.’ She stood up. ‘My bus leaves in a few minutes.’
He stood up too and leaned back against the wall. He felt an impulsive desire to probe her presence with him now, to hear her reason it. He knew before he spoke that his question was a mistimed curiosity. But could not help himself.
‘Just tell me one thing before you go.’
She looked at him, her face still betraying the feelings their conversation had revived. But he could not hold back.
‘Why did you send that letter and your photograph?’
‘Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies,’ she said. ‘But if it bothers you—’
She turned and all but ran from the castle.
‘Helen!’ he called.
But she did not stop; and he did not follow.
He pressed his back against the wall. Hard. Bruising stone on brittle bone. Till it hurt. Sharp, clean pain.
His eyes guarded the castle gate against her return. (She
must
return.) While his mind picked himself to pieces.
Fool. Idiot. Clod. There is about you an instinct to disruption. I have noticed it before, often. I could list a number of such occasions but it would be tiresome. Cloth-head. Why don’t you just shut up sometimes. You like to get something going nicely and then upset it. You have few talents but your skill in this is consummate. Like a small child building sandcastles and then smashing them down because the sea might get them. You pole-axed or something. What chance again. Stupy. Why. To stop anything coming too close. Is that it. Afraid to be known. To be vulnerable. It’s so. Admit. Foolarse. Afraid what you’ll learn about yourself. True. It is. Pity ’tis. Twit.
Unthought conclusions sent him sprinting from the castle, belongings left abandoned by the wall.
In the market place he stopped. The Reeth bus was there by the cross, its
‘Join the club.’
‘There was a row, you see, about my coming away.’
‘So what should I know that men never do? Tell me, I’m truly interested.’
‘Sure? I don’t want to bore you. We both came here for some fun, remember.’
‘Which is just what you’re telling me your parents are worried about, isn’t it?’
‘You’re getting warm, I’ll give you that!’
‘Fun and games. Hanky-panky. And actually I’m boiling with frustrated passion.’
‘I should have brought the aforesaid extinguisher. Actually, they use phrases like that: hanky-panky and fun-and-games. Would you believe? You see, if I got preggers that would confirm their beliefs about life. Another of the traps. And if I liked the bloke and married him that would make it all right. I’d be properly trapped, paying for my mistakes, taking the consequences of my actions—all that guff. And I’d be there, lumbered, for them to cluck over still, giving advice, and, what’s best, with a baby for them to feel sentimental about.’
‘And all forgiven.’
‘Of course.’
‘But if you had fun, played hanky-panky and didn’t get with child?’
‘I’d be a loose woman. I’d be promiscuous and, worst of all, I’d be enjoying it. I’d be an unpaid whore, a happy hooker, a woman of easy virtue. Etcetera. That’s what bothers them most.’
‘Ugly words.’
‘Ugly sentiments.’
‘But never said straight out?’
‘O, no. That’s what makes it so horrible. I don’t think I’d mind if they came straight out and said what they think. Trouble is, I suspect they don’t even know that they think it. So it all comes out in innuendo, by implication. And somehow, that makes everything worse. Dirties everything.’
Ditto thought of his father; their rows; their straight words. And of his mother, with whom he rarely discussed or argued about anything. (He had promised to telephone home this evening and must not forget; he owed them that, and was glad to discover he wanted to keep his promise.)
‘The other way can be as bad sometimes, you know,’ he said. ‘People say wounding things in anger. And words said can’t be unsaid.’
‘I’d take my chances.’ She stood up. ‘My bus leaves in a few minutes.’
He stood up too and leaned back against the wall. He felt an impulsive desire to probe her presence with him now, to hear her reason it. He knew before he spoke that his question was a mistimed curiosity. But could not help himself.
‘Just tell me one thing before you go.’
She looked at him, her face still betraying the feelings their conversation had revived. But he could not hold back.
‘Why did you send that letter and your photograph?’
‘Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies,’ she said. ‘But if it bothers you—’
She turned and all but ran from the castle.
‘Helen!’ he called.
But she did not stop; and he did not follow.
He pressed his back against the wall. Hard. Bruising stone on brittle bone. Till it hurt. Sharp, clean pain.
His eyes guarded the castle gate against her return. (She
must
return.) While his mind picked himself to pieces.
Fool. Idiot. Clod. There is about you an instinct to disruption. I have noticed it before, often. I could list a number of such occasions but it would be tiresome. Cloth-head. Why don’t you just shut up sometimes. You like to get something going nicely and then upset it. You have few talents but your skill in this is consummate. Like a small child building sandcastles and then smashing them down because the sea might get them. You pole-axed or something. What chance again. Stupy. Why. To stop anything coming too close. Is that it. Afraid to be known. To be vulnerable. It’s so. Admit. Foolarse. Afraid what you’ll learn about yourself. True. It is. Pity ’tis. Twit.
Unthought conclusions sent him sprinting from the castle, belongings left abandoned by the wall.
In the market place he stopped. The Reeth bus was there by the cross, its
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