The notion made her laugh out loud, despite the usual pang of sadness that came with thinking of home. Her existence here felt so separate, so different. She could hardly imagine Jos in West Coombe, let along being there with her, being presented as the person she was courting.
This gave her pause. Were they courting? After all, it was not as though courting, in this case, would lead to an engagement. She could not marry Jos. Besides, they had already been far more intimate than a courting couple was supposed to be. She already understood that amongst modern young people such intimacy was nothing to be surprised about, and she was sensible enough not to assume it meant there was anything deeper between them. It was not that they had shared a bed, it was more that they had shared real feelings, an emotional intimacy. She was drawn to Jos irrevocably and she was fairly sure that Jos felt the same. But it was difficult to fit such a connection into the known patterns of courting between men and women, as she had known them. Perhaps she would ask Jos, the next time she saw her, to define their relationship a little more clearly.
The next time she saw her. Happily, Evelyn put her concerns aside and dwelt again on the happy memories of the night before, teasing herself with the wonderful anticipation of the next time she would be with Jos.
*
Evelyn spent a lazy day, revelling in her thoughts and memories, rather enjoying having a secret shared between her and Jos alone. She took a bath, remembering the touch of Jos’s hands on every part of her naked body. Looking down at herself, she no longer saw a woman’s body she barely understood. She felt at one with her body finally, fully aware of its potential for sensation and pleasure. Finally a grown woman who understood the mysteries she had been told she was not meant to understand for the sake of decency.
Late in the afternoon, when Lilian had still not returned and James was still at work, and tired after her late night, she retired to her room for a nap. As she drifted into sleep, she imagined she could feel Jos’s arms around her once more. She dreamed of a butterfly, flying in a warm summer sky, and this time nothing came to crush that dream.
When she awoke, it was dark outside, and for a moment she was disorientated, thinking she’d slept into the night. However, a glance at her wristwatch told her it was in fact just before dinner time and the darkness was only that the days were so short this deep into December. James would still be at work, but she was fairly sure she’d been woken by footsteps outside her door.
Evelyn rubbed her eyes and slowly got out of bed. After a moment to steady herself and register that taking a nap had given her rather a headache, she went towards the door, listening. She was keen to find out if Lilian was home, and face any questions, if there were indeed any to come. The longer she avoided it, the longer she would be left wondering if she had been missed at all last night. At the same time, she rather hoped that the first person she saw would not be James. If she heard him arriving home from work, she was prepared to retreat back into her room until dinner time, when she would see them both together.
She heard no one on the landing outside, so she went out, blinking slightly in the electric light after the dark of her bedroom. Now she could more clearly hear that the sound of movement was reaching her from Lilian’s attic rooms. “Lilian?” she called, but received no answer. Determined to get this first encounter over with, so she knew whether she would have to lie about her wherabouts or not, she crossed the landing and climbed the narrow flight of stairs that led to Lilian’s part of the house.
Lilian was humming to herself, which possibly explained why she had not heard Evelyn’s call. Evelyn came into the room to find Lilian seated at her dressing table, with her back to the door. The room was a little more disorderly today, with one or two dresses laid out as if they had been tried on. As before the room sparkled with gems and crystals and sequins, made even more lustrous by the yellow light of the lamps. Lilian was wearing a simple dark pink dress, which rather clashed with the red of her hair, Evelyn thought. She was bending to her left, though Evelyn could not see what she was doing.
“Lilian?” Evelyn said loudly, uncomfortable with watching Lilian while Lilian was unaware of her presence.
Lilian started and turned suddenly, her eyes wide with fear, which turned quickly to anger. A moment later her composure returned and a mask of ambivalence appeared. She hastily laid something down on the dressing table and got to her feet, standing rather obviously in front of whatever she
