place, softer than a woman’s breast, as honest as a woman’s stomach, and stronger in its effect than anything else in the world. Wilfred was still trying to get the knot undone and becoming frustrated, pulling at the cord. It was loose. He yanked down his pyjamas trousers, started to drag his top over his head but it wouldn’t go, pulled it down again, undid the top button and with both hands, lifted it over his head. Then he lay on top of Grace and she felt the weight of him over her.
Wilfred used his left leg to push open her legs. He brushed her hair from her face, put his arms under her and held her tightly. Grace bent her knees and lifted up her legs. How did she know how to do this, she wondered.
She thought she could do this without it hurting. She had licked her fingers earlier and dragged her fingers between her legs to moisten herself. And if it hurt she would bite her lips, she would close her eyes, she would think of the bees in their hive, think of each precise step of their dances. If it hurt or rubbed harshly she would think of her bees.
This was easier than with … she wouldn’t think about it. She felt a blunt nub along her upper thigh, pushing blindly into her. Wilfred pressed his forehead into her forehead and took his weight on to his arms, hunching his shoulders. That hard-soft nub kept pushing into the flesh at the very top of her leg, searching blindly for what it wanted. Grace could feel it moving nearer and nearer to where it wanted to go, where it needed to be for the marriage to be consummated. Only an inch … less than an inch, and the way forward would be smooth and easy. Oh …
‘No! No …’ Wilfred climbed off Grace, threw himself back on to the bed, legs apart, arms above his head. His face was covered in sweat. Grace saw the dark hair on his chest and stomach and his thick, muscular legs spread out on the sheet.
‘No, Grace. I want it – God help me, I want it. But I won’t want it in the morning, when I’m spent and empty.’
Grace looked at him. His body still wanted it: here, now, regardless, with her. That’s what men’s bodies wanted. Bodies didn’t care about consequences.
‘You are … you are lovely,’ he continued, breathing deeply and wiping the sweat from his brow, ‘and I was sweet on you in your yellow dress. Wanted to know, Grace, how you got out of it. Imagined you taking off your dress at the picnic, imagined where the buttons were. Wanted you there, on that blanket, naked, wanted to be inside you.’ He breathed out audibly. ‘But it was only for a moment. And that was the moment I proposed.’ He rubbed his chest back and forth with his hand.
‘I wanted to love you, but it was only for a moment, not a lifetime.’ He brushed his hair from his face and brought the sides of his pyjama trousers together, covering himself. ‘Grace, you are beautiful, you are good. And your brother has ruined your life.’ He was lying spread-eagled in the middle of the bed; Grace was on her side at the edge, her hands across her breasts, her feet pulled up.
‘I could take Madoc and I could hold him against a wall and I could … I could break his body, Grace, for what he’s done to you.’
The room fell silent. The air was muggy with the sweat and smell of their bodies. They lay there, abandoned. Grace looked at the brown wallpaper. Eventually she spoke.
‘Is there someone else?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
12
The Notes
It had been so simple. Grace had stood there in her gabardine macintosh, despite the weather being too close for a coat of any description, because she felt protected and hidden in it. Wilfred once again had his sombre suit on. It was his funeral suit, his wedding suit and now his annulment suit. It was a suit for every occasion.
Grace and Wilfred were standing facing the magistrate who was wearing a wiry grey wig. Grace wanted to sit, her feet ached, but it wasn’t allowed. The magistrate had enquired if the marriage was consummated. It was so intimate a question in so formal a setting. Wilfred said it wasn’t. The magistrate asked Grace the same question. She shook her head.
‘Speak,’ he commanded.
‘No,’ she said.