Tom apart by conflicting desire and anxiety, she had always made love furtively, hurriedly and guiltily; and they had managed it only three times before he went to Spain. Of course, she had blithely imagined that they had all the time in the world ahead of them. Then he had been killed, and with the news came the dreadful realization that she would never touch his body again; and she had cried so hard that she thought her heart would burst. She had thought they would spend the rest of their lives learning how to make one another happy; but she never saw him again.
She wished she had given herself to him freely right from the start, and made love recklessly at every opportunity. Her fears seemed so trivial now that he was buried on a dusty hillside in Catalonia.
Suddenly it occurred to her that she might be making the same mistake again.
She wanted Harry Marks. Her body ached for him. He was the only man who had made her feel this way since Ian. But she had turned him down. Why? Because she was afraid. Because she was on a plane, and the bunks were small, and someone might hear, and her father was close by, and she was terrified of being caught.
Was she being foolishly fainthearted again?
What if the plane should crash? she wondered. They were on a pioneering transatlantic flight. Right now they were halfway between Europe and America, hundreds of miles from land in any direction: if something should go wrong they would all die in minutes. And her last thought would be regret that she had never made love to Harry Marks.
The plane was not going to crash, but even so this might be her last chance. She had no idea what was going to happen when they got to America. She planned to join the armed forces as soon as she possibly could, and Harry had spoken about becoming a pilot in the Canadian air force. He might die fighting, like Ian. What did her reputation matter, who could worry about parental anger, when life could be so short? She almost wished she had let Harry in.
Would he try again? She thought not. She had given him a very firm no. Any boy who ignored that kind of rejection would have to be a complete pest. Harry had been persistent, flatteringly so, but he was not mulish. He would not ask her again tonight.
What a fool I am, she thought. He might be here now: all I had to say was yes. She hugged herself, imagining that Harry was hugging her; and in her mind she put out a tentative hand and stroked his naked hip. There would be curly blond hair on his thighs, she thought.
She decided to get up and go to the ladies’ room. Perhaps Harry would get up at the same time, by lucky chance; or he might call the steward for a drink, or something. She put her arms into her robe, unfastened her curtains and sat up. Harry’s bunk was tightly curtained. She slid her feet into her slippers and stood up.
Almost everyone had gone to bed now. She peeped into the galley: it was empty. Of course, the stewards needed sleep, too. They were probably dozing in compartment number 1 with the off-duty crew. Going in the opposite direction, she passed through the lounge and saw the diehards, all men, still playing poker. There was a whiskey bottle on the table, and they were helping themselves. She continued toward the back, weaving from side to side as the plane lurched. The floor rose toward the tail, and there were steps between the compartments. Two or three people sat up reading, with the curtains drawn back, but most bunks were closed and silent.
The ladies’ powder room was empty. Margaret sat in front of the mirror and looked at herself. It struck her as odd that a man should find this woman desirable. Her face was rather ordinary, her skin very pale, her eyes an odd shade of green. Her hair was her only good feature, she sometimes thought: it was long and straight, and the color was a glowing bronze. Men often noticed her hair.
What would Harry have thought of her body, if she had let him in? He might be revolted by big breasts: they might make him think of motherhood or cows’ udders or something. She had heard that men liked small, neat breasts, the same shape as the little glasses in which champagne was served at parties. You couldn’t get one of mine into a champagne glass, she thought ruefully.
She would have liked to be petite, like the models in Vogue magazine, but instead she looked like a Spanish dancer. Whenever she put on a ballgown she had to wear a corset underneath it otherwise her bust wobbled uncontrollably. But Ian had loved her body. He said model girls looked like dolls. “You’re a real woman,” he had said one afternoon, in a snatched moment in the old nursery wing, kissing her neck and stroking both her breasts at the same time with his hands under her cashmere sweater. She had liked her breasts then.
The plane entered a bad patch of turbulence, and she had to hold on to the edge of the dressing table to avoid being thrown off the stool. Before I die, she thought morbidly, I’d like to have my breasts stroked again.
When the plane steadied, she went back to her compartment. All the bunks were still tightly buttoned up. She stood there for a moment, willing Harry to open his curtain, but he did not. She looked along the aisle, up and down the length of the plane. No one stirred.
All her life she had been fainthearted.
But she had never wanted anything this much.
She shook Harry’s curtain.
For a moment nothing happened. She had no plan: she did not know what she was going to do or say.
There was no sound from inside. She shook the curtain again.
A moment later Harry looked out.
They stared at one another in silence: he startled, she tongue-tied. Then she heard a sound behind her.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw movement behind her father’s curtain. A hand grasped it from inside. He was about to get up and go to the bathroom.
Without another thought, Margaret pushed Harry back onto his bed and clambered in with him.
As she closed the curtain behind her she saw Father emerge from his bunk. By a miracle, he did not see her, thank God!
She knelt at the foot of the bunk and looked at Harry. He was sitting at the other end with his knees under his chin, staring at her in the dim light that filtered through the curtain. He looked like a child who had seen Santa Claus come down the chimney: he could hardly believe his good fortune. He opened his mouth to speak, and Margaret silenced him with a finger on his lips.
Suddenly she realized she had left her slippers behind when she jumped in.
They were embroidered with her initials, so anyone could tell whose they were; and they were lying on the floor beside Harry’s, just like shoes outside a hotel bedroom, so everyone would know she was sleeping with him.
Only a couple of seconds had passed. She peeped out. Father was climbing down the stepladder from his bunk, and his back was to her. She reached out between the curtains. If he should turn around now, she was finished. She scrabbled for the slippers and found them. She picked them up just as Father put his bare feet on the airline carpet. She whipped them inside and closed the curtain a split second before he turned his head.
She should have been scared, but instead she felt thrilled.
She did not have a clear idea of what she wanted to happen now. She just knew she wanted to be with Harry. The prospect of spending the night lying in her own bunk wishing he were there had become intolerable. But she was not going to give herself to him. She would like to—very much—but there were all sorts of practical problems, not the least of which was Mr. Membury, fast asleep a few inches above them.
In the next moment she realized that, unlike her, Harry knew exactly what he wanted.
He leaned forward, put his hand behind her head, pulled her to him and kissed her lips.
After a momentary hesitation she abandoned all thought of resistance and gave herself up to the sensation.
She had been thinking about it for so long that she felt as if she had already been making love to him for hours. But this was real: there was a strong hand on her neck, a real mouth kissing hers, a real person mingling his breath with her own. It was a slow, tender kiss, gentle and tentative, and she was aware of every small detail: his fingers moving in her hair, the roughness of his shaved chin, his warm breath on her soft cheek, his moving mouth, his teeth nibbling her lips, and finally his exploring tongue pressing between her lips and seeking her own. Yielding to an irresistible impulse, she opened her mouth wide.
After a moment they broke apart, panting. Harry’s gaze dropped to her bosom. Looking down, she saw that her robe had fallen open, and her nipples were pressing against the cotton of her nightdress. Harry gazed as if hypnotized. Moving in slow motion, he reached out with one hand and lightly brushed her left breast with his fingers, stroking the sensitive tip through the fine fabric, causing her to gasp with pleasure.
Suddenly clothing seemed intolerable. She shrugged off her robe quickly. She grasped the hem of her
