LITMIR.BIZ

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school, before he joined his new regiment, the girl had taken a fancy to him. He could still remember the smell of dust and saddle soap and horse sweat exuded by the blanket that they spread on the floor of the barn loft, and see the dreamy, intent expression on the girl’s face as she unbuttoned his clothes and took hold of him with her cool hand.

      ‘Please,’ he had begged her. ‘Please, let me.’

      ‘No-o,’ she whispered. ‘I darena’. What would I do wi’ a babby?’

      ‘I’ll be careful,’ he said in his innocence. The girl only giggled.

      ‘For sure you will. But I’ll not let you, whatever. Look, this is what you do. It feels just as good, I tell you.’

      She had guided his hand until his fingers slipped in the silky wetness and rubbed against a hard nub of flesh. She had stretched out on the blanket then, with her skirts up around her waist, exposing her thin white legs and a patch of dark red hair. She had closed her eyes, sighing and lifting her narrow hips under his hand. It seemed to Peter that she took her pleasure and achieved satisfaction with the same uncomplicated innocence as the cats in the farmyard.

      ‘That’s right,’ she said afterwards. ‘Now I do it for you, see?’

      She did, with quick, businesslike strokes, and he groaned when the milky jet spurted over the blanket to lie in glistening clots between their bodies.

      Peter knew that it was not as good as burying himself inside her, but it was good enough. There were variations, too, they discovered together before it was time for him to leave for France.

      Part of him longed to rediscover all those variations with this miraculous Clio. When she wasn’t with him he thought of it constantly. But when she did come to his room he was immediately and painfully conscious of every creak and whisper in the old house, imagining a footstep outside the door, voices intruding on them, staring eyes and shocked exclamations.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Grace whispered. ‘Don’t you like it when I do this?’

      ‘I like it too much,’ he answered, half-ashamed.

      She was much braver than he was, much more reckless. She seemed to have no fears of discovery. Her hand brushed against him, and he felt that it was hot through the thin sheet.

      Peter had begun to be puzzled. He admired her, he was captivated by her in all her moods, but he was confused by her capriciousness. Sometimes when she came she was demure, even shy, seemingly happier to lie in his arms and whisper disarming confidences than to touch and tease. She said, I love you, and he believed her. And then at other times she was evasive, except in the matter of her thin, smooth body. The heat in her seemed almost febrile. He would follow her lead and then he would shiver with the fear that someone would come in and discover them.

      If he told her he loved her then she would only smile, and look at him from beneath her dark eyelashes.

      He felt more comfortable with her innocent, confiding manner, but it was the other one he dreamt of when he was alone.

      He lay in his room and for all his satisfaction otherwise his thoughts circled around the mystery of it, as if he could not keep his tongue away from an aching tooth.

      At last he said to her, when she slipped into the turret room on Friday evening. ‘Wicked Clio, today, is it?’

      Clio was in her bedroom, finishing her translation. Alice was being put to bed in a state of furious over-excitement, and the rest of the household was preparing for the birthday party and the arrival of Jake and Julius. Grace had stretched out full-length on the bed beside Peter, her head propped on one hand. Unusually, her hair was loose and a strand of it lay across Peter’s shoulder.

      She hesitated only for an instant. Then she looked full at him. ‘What can you mean by that?’ she asked, in her teasing voice. ‘I am never wicked.’

      His eyes met hers. She saw that he was serious.

      ‘You know what I mean.’

      Grace had sensed his confusion, almost from the moment he had become aware of it himself. She had understood that whatever it was that Clio and Peter did or talked about together, it was different from what she did. She was not finding out what it was like to be Clio, only setting herself further apart from her. She was not directing anything, and she had no power at all. She was simply involved in a mean and sordid piece of trickery.

      The realization had made her feel miserable and defiant. It was worse because she had grown to like Peter Dennis, and to wish that he might like her for herself, rather than for her inept version of Clio.

      She wondered now if she had said or done something obviously wrong, or omitted to do something else, and so given away her wretched secret. She had already decided that it was time to stop her visits. She would change her clothes and give herself an elaborate coiffure, and re-introduce herself as Grace. If it was not already too late.

      She answered warily, ‘I don’t think I do know.’

      She saw that he hadn’t guessed, but that he must do soon.

      Peter sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter, then.’

      Grace sat up. ‘I’d better go. Mama needs help downstairs.’

      He held her wrist then, unwilling to let her go in either of her incarnations. ‘Stay.’ He wanted to force her back against the white pillows, shutting out her life that he didn’t know beyond the door of the turret room. He wanted her to belong to him, with all her inconsistencies.

      A little of Grace’s confidence flooded back. She did have her own power that was nothing to do with Clio. She had learnt that from Jake and Julius.

      ‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ she promised. One last time, she told herself. She leant over and kissed him, and for a moment the dark veil of her hair obscured the light.

      In the morning Clio said happily, ‘I’m so looking forward to you meeting my brothers.’

      She had brought his breakfast tray. Instead of her school uniform she was wearing her best dress, hyacinth-blue crêpe de Chine with the faint traces of an ink stain in the front panel of the skirt. The bodice had slightly too many fussy ruches and pleats, but Peter thought she looked beautiful. He wanted to reach out for her, but the morning nurse was bustling in and out with her thermometer and hot water. They contented themselves with touching hands when her back was turned.

      ‘I’m looking forward to it too,’ he said.

      Clio had talked a lot about her brothers. He knew that Jake had finally been invalided home from a hospital in France, suffering from pneumonia and exhaustion. He was a medical student now, at University College in London.

      He knew about Julius the violinist, too. Clio talked less about her twin, but he guessed that it was because there was a closeness between the two of them that went deeper than words. He was particularly curious to meet Julius Hirsh.

      While they were talking, they could hear Alice’s high-pitched voice rising excitedly through the house. Now she materialized in the open doorway and blinked at Peter. Her springy black curls had been pulled back into a tight braid, and her round face suddenly looked older.

      ‘I’m six,’ she said importantly. ‘My cousin Grace did my hair grown-up for me. It’s my birthday.’

      ‘I know it is. May I wish you many happy returns of the day?’

      Alice had firm likes and dislikes, not always logically based. She included Peter amongst her likes. ‘Thank you. Did you buy me a present?’

      Clio remonstrated. ‘Alice!’ but Peter held up his hand.

      ‘I am afraid I didn’t. It isn’t very easy for me to buy presents, lying here like this.’

      ‘Pappy and Mama gave me a dolls’ house. With furniture.’

      ‘I see. Is there a dog kennel?’

      ‘Of course not.’

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