Walking with Ghosts
amount of life you pack into them.
And though Billy kicks and screams through the night and Diana prowls like a sullen ghost through the house, you are infected by a germ of happiness. Well, that is what you call it during the day. At night you know it is something else. It is an escape. But an animal in a trap tries to escape. It is its nature. You were not the first, Dora. And you will not be the last.
‘People are allowed to be happy, Dora,’ Smiley tells you as his hand moves over your knee. You watch his fingers playing with the hem of your skirt, three of them disappear under it, then emerge again and come to a hesitant rest.
The week has brought you to a small private hotel on the edge of the park. You have passed it hundreds of times, and never given it a second glance. It is where the more athletic staff of the University bring their particularly ambitious female students. Smiley has used the place before, he is known here. He calls the proprietress Julie.
‘It’s a place I would not take my wife,’ Smiley explained earlier. ‘A place where two adults can be alone. Where they can relax. Where they can get to know each other.’
The prude in you was outraged, Dora. But not enough to say so. The lonely woman in you was so much stronger, so much more present, that the other was cast into shadow.
He was talking about sex. For some time you failed to understand that. How could you have been so dumb? Whose fault was it that you were so dumb? Arthur’s? Your mother’s? You were a widow, the mother of two children.
But sex had never entered your life. It was an occasional Saturday night occurrence with Arthur. Something else he did to you, something else you had to submit to. It never occurred to you that it might be a pleasure. You never thought about it seriously. Dylan Thomas enjoyed it, apparently, but he was a man.
And Smiley was a man. He chased you around for a week, every time you turned a corner he was there. He enthused about the number of signatures you had collected. He took you by the shoulders and laughed, kissed you on both cheeks when the University of Durham asked for a supply of the petition forms. He sent a bunch of daffodils to your door with a note: Thanks for all your help. Love, Smiley.
And then it was sex. It had not occurred to you, Dora, but you were quick enough to respond. He was not another Arthur, after all. He was Smiley. He was a compassionate and concerned human being, and he had lifted a veil for you, shown you a glimpse of another life, an involved and busy life which would release you from the guilt of your marriage, your children, and your conscience.
Poor Dora. Arthur’s ghost is never far away. Living, he was ever present, and now he’s dead you feel his silent gaze every time you look at Smiley Thompson.
And look at Smiley, Dora. Just look at him with his baggy-knit crew-neck sweater and his paisley-patterned cravat. Look at the shining dome of his head and his huge, almond-shaped eyes: the eyes of a thoroughbred horse. He has dressed for the occasion. He is presenting himself to you, a neatly packaged gift. You notice the broad check of his cotton shirt protruding from the neck of his sweater, his manicured nails, and the stiff whiff of aftershave.
‘A girl like you shouldn’t be alone.’ You sip at the gin and tonic and listen to the resonance of his voice. You are not a girl, Dora. He is wrong about that, but you concentrate on the sound, on the deep timbre of his voice, letting it enter you and then recede again to its origin deep within his chest. What he has to say comes back into you again, warm, obliterating the frozen loneliness of your life. Now he swims away again, separate, paisley-patterned, silent and Predatory.
He reaches for your glass and removes it from your hand. The pink flesh beneath his nails pulses bright. He brings his face to yours, his breath beneath your ear. His lips lightly pressing your cheeks, eyes, forehead. His arms enfold you. He whispers hungry words into your hair.
Your fingers are entangled in the wool of his sweater, and you let your head fall backwards and feel his mouth on your neck, first on one side, then the other. His hand cups your breast and in spite of yourself you hear a long, ancient growl escape from your throat. A growl you never knew you possessed. Smiley cups the other breast and emulates the sound. You laugh nervously, a quiet, conscious laugh that is a counterpoint to the harmony and the rhythm
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