She arched her back, thrusting herself against me, then moved suddenly to clasp my penis at the base, jerking it up and down a few times, then leading me to her. I went on, physically capable but emotionally distant. I felt her nails gripping my shoulder blades, and I kept my eyes closed, hair in mouth and nose. I finished, but it was Seri who was there with me, turned to the side so I lay on her leg. Gracia gradually relaxed, still sensing my emotional withdrawal from her, but because she was physically satisfied the tension faded from her too. I pretended she was Gracia, even though she really was, and held her close while she smoked another cigarette.
Later, when Gracia had driven to Dave and Shirley's flat in Fulham, I walked down to the Underground station in Kentish Town, and caught a train to the West End. The exchange of tickets was simply done; seats were available for the following night's performance, and tonight people were waiting for cancellations. Sure that I had at last done the right thing, I caught a second train to Fulham.
Dave and Shirley were teachers, and they were into wholefood. Shirley thought she might be pregnant, and Gracia got drunk and flirted with Dave. We left before midnight.
That night, while Gracia was asleep, I thought about Seri.
I had once believed that she and Gracia were complementary to each other, but now the differences between them were hecoming obvious. That day in Castleton I had used my knowledge of Seri to try to understand Gracia. But the fallacy in this was the assumption that I had consciously created Seri.
Remembering the way I had written my manuscript, blending conscious invention with unconscious discovery, I knew that Seri must be more than a fictional analogue of Gracia. She was too real, too complete, too motivated by her own personality. She lived in her own right. Every time I saw her, or spoke to her, I felt this growing in her.
But so long as Gracia was there, Seri was in the background.
Sometimes, I would wake in the night to find Seri in bed with me. She would pretend to be asleep, but my first touch would rouse her. Then she would become, sexually, everything Gracia was not. Lovemaking with Seri was exciting and spontaneous, never predictable. Gracia knew I found her sexually irresistible, and became lazy; Seri took nothing for granted, but found new ways to excite me. Gracia was sexually adept, an expert lover; Seri had innocence and originality. Yet after making love with Seri, when we were fully awake and had the light on, Gracia would sit up to smoke a cigarette, or get out of bed to go to the loo, and I would have to adjust to Seri's withdrawal.
During the days, while Gracia was at work, Seri was an occasional companion. She was often in the next room, where I would be aware of her, or she would wait for me in the street outside. When I could get her near me I would talk to her and explain myself. Our excursions were the times when we came closest to each other. Then she would talk to me of the islands: of Ia and Quy, Muriseay, Seevl and Paneron. She had been born on Seevl, had married once, and since then had travelled widely in the islands. Sometimes, we walked together through the boulevards of Jethra, on took a tram ride to the coast, and I would show her the Seignior's Palace, and the Guards in their exotic, medieval costumes.
But Seri only came to me when she wanted to, and sometimes I needed more of her.
Suddenly, Gracia said: 'You're still awake.'
I waited several seconds before answering. 'Yes.'
'What are you thinking about?'
'All sorts of thing's.'
'I can't sleep. I'm too hot.' She sat up and switched on the light.
Blinking in the sudden brightness, I waited for her to light a cigarette, which she did. 'Peter, it's not working, is it?'
'You mean my living here?'
'Yes, you hate it. Can't you be honest about it?'
'I don't hate it.'
'Then it's me. There's something wrong. Don't you remember what we agneed in Castleton? If it went wrong again we'd he straight with each other about it?'
'I am being straight.' I noticed that Seri had unexpectedly appeared, sitting on the end of our bed with her back turned and her head tilted slightly to one side, listening. 'I've got to adjust to what happened last year. Do you know what I mean?'
'I think so.' She turned her face away, then played with the end of the cigarette in the ashtray, twisting it to niake the ash shape into a cone. 'Do you ever know what _I_ mean?'
'Sometimes.'
'Thanks a lot. The rest of the time I just waste my breath?'
'Don't start another row, Gracia. Please.'
'I'm not starting a row. I'm just trying to get through to you. Do you ever listen to what I say? You forget things, you contradict yourself, you look through me as if I'm a pane of glass. You were never like this before.'
'Yes, all right.'
It was easier to concur. I wanted to explain, but feared her anger.
I thought of the times Gracia was at her most difficult, when she was tired after work or something had happened to upset her. When it first happened I had tried to meet her halfway, and offer her something of myself. I wanted her to expend her frustrations so that they became something that united us, rather than divided us, but she put up emotional barriers that I found impassable. She would dismiss me with a petulant gesture, on flare with anger, or retreat from me in some other way. She was extremely neurotic, and although I tried to accept this sometimes it was very difficult.
When I had first started sleeping with her in London, a few months after Greece, I noticed that she kept a little pot of liquid detergent by the bedside. She told me it was in case she needed to remove her finger rings in the night. (I asked her why she did not take them off before getting into bed, but she said that was supposed to he unlucky.) When I knew her better she explained, half embarrassed, that she sometimes suffered claustrophobia of
