The Promise Ese (14) “Please” he cooed closely into her ear, “you’ll feel you’ve missed something.” Instead she began to control his own fingers, pushed out his thumb, increased the speed of groan, the tenseness of thigh muscle, the curling of toes, the back buckling. Incensed by her smell, Hector took the metallic necklace from her mouth with his…when triumphally, in tears the waves quit breaking and she subsided and all the moons alight in the ice-chest studio flickered, and her relief melted strain into tears and her kisses erupted and her pressure against his body grew super-human as the shame or timidity wafted away before dominant passion and thanks. “What about you?” she gurgled. Hector nestled. “Uh-uh,” he said, squeakily. “no babies. Enjoy that m’dear?” Hector felt bashful and imperilled by the situation. Leave the ball in her court. Her demesne. Her sensuality. Her responsibility. Had he earned love? He lay heavily on her, reminding and revealing. He wanted to drink her. He wanted her to drink. * * * “Drink this,” said King Hector persuasively. “It’s powdered milk laced with brandy.” Greaves hobbled to a packing case and sat. “They’re getting ahead of us, Boss, Hunt’s men. What do they think it’s a blooming marathon or something? Do you think the rescue ship will steam off without us, I mean without their sovereigns?” Hector belted him enthusiastically on the shoulder. “It’ll lay off, “ he reassured. “They have documents aboard to absolve them from errors of judgement. They await my command. I often linger behind with the halt and the infirm – my intended date for departure varies ten days either side, whereas the Tundra king …well he’s always off at a gallop regardless of his men’s’ discomfort.” Greaves steaming mug of milk splashed in the snow. Hector replenished it with some from his own when out of the blue a strange thing happened. A great, flaring light seemed to rise from the ice, with it a sort of transparent pudding-shaped dome pushing up like a jellyfish on a barber’s pole. Heavenly choirs swelled as if the entire landscape swung bells. The women and the trudgers ahead turned, let their pannikins fall and then fell themselves to their knees – the Pole. The Pole! The Pole! “You have found the Pole.” Amaranthus stated with a solemnity of churches. “No it is a floating Pole. It has found you, helpmate and tenderer of the halt, the weak, and the unfortunate. The Pole is yours forever. Can you feel it bulging through your chest-wall?” Greaves had spoken. With the aid of sprouting wings he then splurged into the layers of low cloud so that the soles of his suppurating feet flashed as a robin’s plumage before dissolving. All of the company sobbed. * * * Percy tried his parent’s hands as if they roped a swing and he was it, during their cursory amble along, dodging human traffic, glancing at the store window tableaux, ogling the cut of frocks and suits and vehicle brass work. He jumped and cavorted between them like a bead on a tight wire. Emily reprimanded and flexed her pulled arm. ‘Are you quite sure about “Destiny?” The winner of the ship-naming contest had been decided upon. “Leave that Percy, you mustn’t pick up rubbish off the street. What is it, a little man? It must be one component of a game. A counter of some sort…” They paused in their walk outside of a bookshop as it so happened, moved closer to the shopfront allowing their inquisitive child to examine, without damming up the thoroughfare, his find which was really just a scuffed piece of stamped, painted tin. This led Hector to cup his hands around his face and peer circuitously through a window, through a peopled shopfloor to a far wall. “Arrowsmith” booksellers by appointment. He presumed the dusky blue tessellation of an eye height shelf to be the shells of his own “Ice-bound” (at 77degrees south) – quick mover. Someone browsed in a copy. It made him feel awkward, like a pervert. In the window a titillating title draped delicately over a subdued and discreet dustjacket caught his attention. “A Woman of Destiny”. Well now, what had been Emmy’s penultimate utterance before their little hiatus? “Destiny”, you will learn to love it. It would be nice if you could insert the ships name onto that bland central space. ‘Destiny’ in fine copperplate embroidery,” he said with bonhomie, springing aside as the halo of his breath on the window shrunk. “Notice the exciting title of this new novel, Em? Notice the D word? It’s a sign. Co-incidence don’t count for much…” “Oh you and your signs. Anyway, I though you said it was consensus opinion amongst the men and out of your control. In the wash-up who played ultimate arbitrator – a newspaper Boss? I have long suspected newspaper competitions, you know, as fait accomplis.” “Shall I go through the finalists again?” “Why not “Plover”, completely innocuous…the ones you prefer are too Millenarian – “Resurrection”, ‘Goliath’, “Avalon”, “Triumphal”. I think you should simply call it rover or plover like a valued pet and be done. What would you call Daddy’s boat, Percy?” Emily questioned his small face with an overtly hollow interest. Percy’s nose by now was glued flatly to the glass in front of the latest pulp a la Corelli ‘A Woman of Destiny’. He pointed desultorily to the word ‘woman’ and said: “That’ll do ducky.” “Yes of course m’boy laughed Hector…”but which one, I ask you, which one….” Now the inanity coupled with the inevitability of this riposte drew a sigh of resignation from Emily as she dovetailed the sentiment with: “There has only ever been one…. the white, the white one.” Chapter 3 Potts stacked some tins of food on the deal table used as dresser, sideboard chopping bench and preparation area. Prepare a tin repast by opening the tin. Prepare bread by cheesing it. Prepare fruit by rinsing it. A bat had unfortunately mummified itself between the beams and slates overhead. Its grizzled face as small as the Kings portrait on a penny. Any small animal could capably squeeze through from the crisp anterior air to the interior comforts available in Potts humble and basic shanty. Hay had been stored in it at one time. Poachers had reclaimed it as a hide and then a watercolourist had sheltered in it from a heath-fire because the mud walls were thick as a flameproof blanket. Now G.E. Potts, ‘aircraftman grade one’, hugged the small cottage to his private heart of hearts as a sanctum that writers need, that introspective recluses yearn for, that men overwhelmed by bossy and possessive mothers feel as positively an imperative chair in their higgledy-piggledy barricade against maternal interference that Potts called his ‘resistance’. Willingly he had resolved, however, to share this anonymous overgrown sanctity with others, who wandered, who sought refuge from publicity, as long as they were happy to make do with draughts and spiders and the odd toad that accidentally crossed the threshold. Katherine never complained of roughing it camping-style. She had torn her skirt on his motorcycle quite unflusteredly. He had brought in some sweets for her, crunchy coconut ices baked by the neighbours industrious mother who adroitly tumbled in with broom and pan to sweep away mice droppings now and then. She had also suggested a vase of heather to cheer up the place, to feminize it. Thanks to her, Potts cottage settled serenely for the spring day with a smudge of sunlight thickening the quietude in each room, batting dust particles into lazy clouds abuzz with echoing voices lost from long ago conversations about partridge or silage. His rich brown leather couch smouldered like a pile of autumns refuse. His brutal candlesticks warded off intruders. And his tins of beans and peaches lined up as the props in a child’s game of shop. Books, of course, as pivotal slabs held the edifice together, some valuable. Katherine had presented him with Shelley’s pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism”, gleaned from her betrothed whose family seat contained a splendid library. With the impoverished and maverick state of the cottage it might become a prey to thieves she feared – well-educated ones. The hills and downs area seemed remote and edgy, in a way far from relaxing. Potts neighbour Simpson collected Katherine from the station in a pony-trap. An enormous flopping hat concealed her bumptious phews of anticipation. She struck people enroute as a women of fine dignity and quirky beauty even if she did clap her heels against the box seat with the innocence and abandon of a pepped up girl going to a birthday party. Perhaps she relied overly on the hat to give that subtle air of aristocracy. Upon arrival at ‘Pooks Hill’ she unexpectedly, encountered its owner, Aircraftman Potts alias Colonel Pink secreting his door-key up the mouth of a drainpipe. His bike, named after one of the Georges, the third, closely stood guard like a hound awaiting its daily run. Carelessly tacked on to Potts neat body like a security blanket hung his airforce uniform, birds sung, the sun drifted in and out of a cotton-wool sky. They talked quickly for he had to go. He displayed for her the meagre amenities and some gaps in the roof then made four minutes of Amberly’s second symphony last an eternity. Katherine nodded and nodded. She shuffled his records until one slipped from her grasp and splintered on the hearth-stone. Her cry of apology sounded extremely despairing. A welter of feeling suddenly rushed out in response to the minor tragedy. She asked Potts if he thought she was doing the right thing. In a sensational novel this little holiday with Hector would get labelled an ‘assignation’, her mood ‘neurasthenia’ even if it was lightheadedness from not eating. Most people she knew would murmur ‘scandalous’ if they found out, if only for the reason of Hunt’s enemy playing protagonist, or because she was a mother, or because of middle-age or because they had chosen to remain in England instead of retreating to the chic Mediterranean coastal snogging spots. But little did they know. Polar explorers had for many years now been her sexual addiction. All men owed it to themselves to be heroes. Explorers demonstrated the feasibility of this belief. In her estimation, battling and conquering the elements made them immortal and wholly at peace with the male’s natural inclination. “I am aware of the conceit but I need to feel a man is totally worthy of me. Do you think that sounds abominable, a woman having a high opinion of herself? I set standards for myself. It only follows that I choose a mate who can meet them too. I seek adventure. I warned Richard, he knew he would never be able to change me, so he expected me, I hope this is right, to stretch our marriage vows to the very limit. He was naughty himself…in Florida an incident with a married woman, I believe. The Navy hushed up that one, although it happened long before we were married.” She took off her hat and fluffed her hair dressed in a simple chignon and a trifle sweaty, then put one hand to her face thoughtfully, and stared at the oak floor, the boards as solid as steel. “Hector will be my farewell affair, you can bank on it. I’ll be one hundred percent faithful to my new husband whose very definitely a non-hero and not likely to appreciate my tendency.” G.E. said incisively: “Have you ever wanted to go South yourself.”? “Of course, of course. I practically ran Richard’s expedition. I did love him, G.E. You know he was a bit of a bumbler, he had so much on his mind at once and the publicity applied even more pressure. It was worse than any navy exam he’d had to face.” She strode to the casement window, unlatched it and dropped her gaze to the chalky clearing ringed by juvenile rhododendrons and magnolia trees. The soil bleached as tropical sand stretched in a whorl towards “Gallows Hill” in one direction and descended to the river Frome in another through airless undergrowth, along a maze of claustrophobic pathways. “Yes,” she went on, ‘all his men were terrified of my desire to travel with him, because you see I was with the ship right until the latest possible moment. They honestly expected him to stow me in a cupboard…” “Carpenter might take you on as a cabin-boy.” “Do you really think it’s a possibility.”? She turned and faced Potts and her face twinkled. Potts felt the strength of her dream resourcing the fire in her limbs. A dream she strived to starve and make laughable. “He’s conventional,” she said, “ but...did you know I had him in my bed as a hot-water bottle when I was sick a few weeks ago? Don’t turn aside…I mean just for the heat, squeaky clean. That shows strength of character and reliability, doesn’t it and radicalism. Its not the done thing to invite a strange man into ones bed and hold him to innocent intention, is it? Because you, my dearest friend think we are unsuited. He has HOPE, G.E., that’s what has got him through. Richards’s hopes were mostly false ones. The other is the ‘blue-gum’ the Australian, know who I mean, he married a very pretty girl. He had been with Hector and had the same unquenchable hope, staring down death. He crawled, hands and knees, for two miles pulling a loaded sledge. I feed on hope, I think, that kind that tweaking ones nose at fate.so I suppose you can say I consume people who present with it but I give back what I take. Do I give you something, excitement? No I suppose not. I wish this thing with Hector could be more simple…” “Do you?’ “No, no it is the fire that’s the attraction. “ she readily admitted, jade-stroking. “His marriage is rocky anyhow. ‘The Polar Family”. His wife, we are all in it. Jansens fell in love with me, the mighty beautiful polar warrior and we had some time together in Berlin while Richard was marching to the Pole, it turns out his death...but that was the last thing I wanted. Can you imagine how guilty and how egregiously cruel and debased that makes me feel? I wrote to Richard, I confessed...he never received the letter. I can tell you all this, load you up with my neuroses since you are of the hero mould yourself.” “Not anymore.” G.E looked at the bare boards bashfully. His stillborn book might soon disillusion Katherine Hunt and others like her. It debunked. He believed every serviceman who survived the war came back a hero. The more prominent, with men to command, weighed their bravery on subordinate shoulders. “Yes you are. For a hero it’s heroic just to appear ordinary. You have proved yourself, more men should, more people should. I would if I could.” After Potts had roared off down the lane Katherine took some caramelised almonds from her bag and began to munch almost manically whilst she awaited Hector. Remarkably calm weather. A tipsy mouse did pop from the chimney piece to collect a sticky crumb. She watched it nibbling on its hind legs with hand-like paws managing the crumb. How placid was the scene. Then she heard whistling. She popped her head through the window and dangled out so as he could reach up to her and their finger-tips touch. He was wearing a yokel’s tweedy cap. They touched like God and Adam. “If it isn’t Eustacia Vye.” Hector had been boning up on Hardy. “No I’m Sue Bridehead.’ “Funny name that, like maidenhead. Seems I have the wrong hovel.” She had barely seen him in unapologetic daylight which exposed some scarring of hands and patches of white on his face where it had been burnt by the snow reflected sun. And his cheeks pirate scar. Even in the secluded setting the couple automatically panned about checking for uninvited observers concealed in the brush. Whites of eyes were hard to spot. It was a fine day for sun-basking, so whether observed or not, they sat on a log halfway up a slope and drank tea from blue and white enamelled mugs and picked out in the yellow distance a curious, unidentified obelisk sprouting from the wheaten pastures threatened by heath, like a skeleton tree. Why would anyone erect an obelisk in an empty field? And any undesirable could have been hidden behind them in bracken thicket, any photographer or itinerant or Mac the super-spy. Yet this was as close as they could get to Shangri-la. It had better be now. Either they would love or lose. And the tea tasted of heaven. And Katherine’s pale dress dappled by the overhang made her an Impressionist woman, as petulant behind her mug as a coquette’s fan. And Hector felt a swoony softness in his manner and Katrine’s cheek like petal. Then the sun fell asleep beneath a rug of dozy cloud. And they coughed in the downstairs storage, shed-like room dusty from kindling and spades before mounting the steep stairs to the ‘salon’, planning as they went, the few days each had wheedled from their lives for basic enjoyment purposes. Katherine desired the sea-shore. Weymouth was near. Hector wished to forsake civilization by diving into heath. But first things first – the physical. She wanted him to do it hard. She wanted to feel the hero in him somehow revenging itself against the world of women. The difficulty being his lack of resentment against women. They had always served him well. So, make Hunt the motivation. Thrust the taint of Hunt from her system. First they selected appetizing tins from the frugal larder – baked beans. Katherine literally turned her nose up with her right index finger. “Strictly a bread and cheese girl” she said, grimacing. ‘Potts will assuredly be offended if you do not partake,” said Hector persuasively. “He probably filched these from barracks. Look at this, old bully beef.” “And artichokes.” She reluctantly jabbed a fork into some beans, carefully avoiding the ragged edges of tin. They had from necessity used a hammer and chisel to open the tins. “Perhaps He whacks them with a stone.” “I promised that we would consult his neighbour across the road if any problem arose or if we were in need,” said Katherine, ‘There is a hole for the W.C. and a big tub for water from the ‘gravity feed’. Is that what its called when the angle of slope controls the flow? G.E filled me in before he left but…” “I thought I could smell petrol. Sound carries along way around here too, I shouldn’t wonder... It is very still today, but I must say, the eyes of your handyman are something I do surely miss. Shall we get the neighbour over here to be the eyes? It’s no fun without an audience. It was queer on the “Stalwart” when Hurlstone had his camera operating it made every action feel staged.’ “And you found it difficult not to act the fool? I saw it twice, your film. Who was the comedian in the background with an oafish expression chastising a dog? In fact I think you managed to walk through in every single scene, multiple cameos. But the dog- a stroke of genius. I envy that shipboard camaraderie, Hector, to see men having fun together even in adversity, the guffaws and ragging. There exists no equivalent for us. There is no isolation for women, never the need to solely fall back on each other, just women helping women. Nurses have doctors – men. Maybe nuns, but then there are priests and a male God. Its never life or death...missionaries maybe. Perhaps I’m wrong. Yet who could conceive of an all female crew?” “What about schoolgirls?” “But they are girls not women.” He put down his tin on the wide fender, noticed the shards of record without comment and moved to embrace her in the centre of the wee room under a transom type skylight which brought in the light in the same manner as a tent- canvas welcomed through ice-light. He needed to see her divorced from familiar surroundings for it was only then a person’s unadorned soul reared its head. He needed to hold her. That’s why he had agreed to the cottage. Could his hands, holding her soul like clay, stretch it into a useful article, a cup, a clay pipe, a flowerpot? “Why won’t Potts have you? Would you let him?’ She looked annoyed. He invariably broached the question of Potts desires, whenever they were together, like pigeon-holing correspondence according to type. Did he seriously wish the swoon to evaporate? After they had made love in a very run-of- the- mill no-nonsense fashion, the first time like some harried but needy married pair she lay on her sleeping-bag on the floor in his arm, perfectly satisfied. She gazed at the sky through the skylight over their ‘camp’, and assessed the weather as if weather was a critical factor in their romance. The roof was prone to leak. He then elaborated on the subject of ‘anemomaniacs’, weather obsessives. On marches, when all memories and arguments had been disgorged into the bottomless gut of inactivity, the weather, God and food alone used to wend among the tee-pee and dome tents, inhabit the groans of men like topics in a mind-game. It was almost like that at ‘Pooks Hill’, just planks and tins and sleeping-bags and the overhanging, shaky branch-arms waving semaphore and the simple combination of woman and man immersed in the paradigm of footsie, carnival loving. Something frivolous and feckless. Perhaps Emmy had taken his dedicated heart and fun love was all he was capable of. He asked Rabbit how he ‘stacked’ up in the lover stakes. Inadvertently Katherine dropped Jansens name. Hector raised his eyebrows and exhaled loudly. Jansens danced poorly but that wasn’t the reason for their brisk parting. Hector was a better dancer. She supposed he wanted her to sing his praises insanely, for a man in questionable health but nevertheless up to it. Mooney always congratulated him upon his virility as if anyone over the age of forty-five who could copulate without wheezing deserved some commendation. “Hector, why did you omit the heart issue in the letter under my door?” Katherine rolled onto her stomach and leant on her elbows gaining a rather unflattering impression of the inside of his nose as she waited for an answer. “Pride.” he said folding one arm behind his head, peering from beneath lowered eyelids. Leather sofa cushions did for head-rests. Apparently Potts curled up like a cat in any comfy corner. The cottage had no bedroom, just two levels and two rooms. “ Are you pleased to have the original returned to you, its rightful owner? It must have been mixed up in some scientific gear that found its way…’ He stopped short of the ‘where’. “I sold a lot, you know, gave some away…’ she explained. “All the people who donated, the paraphernalia is really theirs. But after the horror of the whole thing everyone mercifully turned soft on me and I sold some. Some also went to museums, private collectors.” “Well everyone returns with debts to account for. It forces them to run away again.” She saw his eyes were very blood-shot. He saw her freckles, yet her hair, a glorious, riotous tangle like crushed grass framed her face into youth. She wore the post-coital glow. He frowned when she told him unashamedly that she had burned the letter whilst feverish, almost out of her mind. ‘I’m disappointed,” he said dryly, “it cost me a great deal of money. It’s paid off now…have a school-friend who builds bridges. Gave me up over that to-do but the evidence of Hunts coercion, yes I could almost call it that has swung him my way again. I tried to straighten it out in my book. Hunt had done his work though all those letters of protest to the papers. He really was an old woman, I hate to add, Rabbit. Anyway the other chap is my dear friend again and you know what that means in the exploring business. It means the good ship ‘Destiny’.” Katherine had her mind elsewhere. “Why did you give it me, anyway? Shall I reimburse you,” she said vaguely. “It was so as you could take back what he said about me.” “Me,” she started, “What do you think I am my husband in another skin? Must I absolve you or something? The quarrel is not mine.” He continued, ignoring the interjection. “The boy-scouts are given this model to follow; one boy-scout littering orange-peel in the street just so another boy-scout may have the honour of picking it up again. I therefore composed that document myself, to see if your future husband might make it his good deed. He could have said, gallantly...No, no, my ol’chum Carps, no need to put it in writing. Take it upon my word…I prefer you not to make your base in the Sound but if the conditions are not what one would expect, elsewhere, feel free...must look after your men, number one priority. Billy actually suggested we formalize some kind of understanding because he felt only ink and carbon would satisfy Hunt. Mean, don’t you think, his making a row about it?” “Yes,” said Katherine thoughtfully, “but he was so scared of under achieving. Maybe there’s a separate reason for his disliking you. It seems such a little thing.” Hector sat up and felt about for cigarettes. “What do we drink here,” he asked, patting every pocket. “I’ve brought some pink gin.” “Aha, the neighbour’ll have it I assure you. Best drink it all while we are in residence.’ He licked his lips thirstily before cupping his hands around a match. Habit. Not a puff of breeze. She followed his cue and in her petticoat whilst curling her tongue into talk, she crawled towards her haversack and the grog; heavily conscious of her body all of a sudden. Its true but she was finding it impossible to ‘queen’ it in the cottage where Potts reigned. Lately she had grown reliant on ‘things’ to cosset her. One good thing about sex, no accessories required, well except one, one which Hector had fetched with him, in abundance. The french-letter. “Is this your pay-back - having me, like a revenge-play of Shakespeare’s? Do you consider that when we make love? Do you sort of snigger at poor Richard, like a school snitch behind his dead back? This is the first time I have asked, may not be the only one. Tell me what you think when we do it.” She rummaged in her bag – a notebook fell out. ‘You have the spark of mischief, Rabbit, like I have, that’s all. Can’t imagine what else has swayed you in my direction, however. You see beyond Hunts slanders.’ “Mischief as you say, curiosity. We can be alright as long as we acknowledge the falsity of what the other says. My secrets are secret and you are never going to know them, so there. I warn you, though, I had a young Greek last year as playfellow, very brawny and bronzed…but listen to this, Pink-Potts wrote it, you called him that once.” She opened the notebook and read out: “I loved you so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars.” Neither Carpenter or Browning could ever top that, never.” He clapped with mock sarcasm. “But d’you know midear the Service poem, aptly suited to the occasion, about a lady called ‘Sunshine’ who perishes for want of it.” He lay back, puffing and ruminating. “But not today, the weather is beautiful, in fact I long to be out in it again.” She stood-up, raced to the window, hung out and called “Well, here I am, Sun” and the light revealed all her contours through the next to nothing sliver of underclothes. “Precisely. But that is not the point. Come back next to me” He smiled intriguingly, his voice whisking the air like a catkin, tantalizing. She rested her head against his chest. And so we dreamed and drifted, she and I; And how she loved that free, unfathomed life There in that peach-bloom of the midnight sky, The silence welded us, true man and wife. Then North and North invincibly we pressed Beyond the Circle, to the worlds white crest. ‘Do you fancy living at the Pole with me in a cabin, trading furs, remote and silent and free, hmm? There’s prodigious sunlight South. I don’t know why ‘Sunshine’ had trouble. Maybe up North its different” * * * Shimmering, scintillating, glittering the shallow water of the Frome’s ford at Melton made a perfect paddling site. Hector and Katherine slithered their bare feet across the broad flat rock shelves where strange flat fish wove and ducked, nuzzled grit. Some children with ponies had tethered their charges to the bridge rail and were poking about with sticks in the clear river sand. One of them ran up to his friends with some velvety strands of liquorice from the village shop. Hectors agility over the glassy rocks became evident as Katherine readily slipping, forced herself to reach for his arm. “Let me try this one out on you,” he began, his arm rock- solid, his trouser legs rolled up comically, his cap jaunty, his forearms speckled with spray from Katherine’s promiscuous teasing. “Its for my little boy, part of an intermittent serial,” he qualified. She said: “Oh very well,” as if she required cajoling. The glare from the water was beginning to stress her eyes.
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