XII
On Saturday 7 October the sun shines, there is a light mist off the sea, and Barbara gets ready to go to London. There is bread in the house, food in the refrigerator; the guest-room window has been mended, the dishes are washed, the glasses have gone back to the wineshop, and all is fit to leave. Just before nine o'clock, Howard, the helpful husband, goes up to the square, and fetches the minivan; Felicity Phee, the helpful help, takes the children outside, and lifts them, giggling and full of enjoyment, into the back. Barbara is smart in a furry coat, and high boots; she runs down the steps, carrying a small striped suitcase, and puts it in the back, and shuts the doors, and gets into the van beside Howard. Felicity waves from the steps. 'Have a good time,' she shouts, 'I'll take care of all of them.' Things are well arranged; Barbara smiles, the van starts. The bright sun glares into the van windows as they drive up the hill, through the traffic, and pull into the station yard. 'Weekend in London ', say the posters under the covered arcade where the van has stopped; Barbara will. She leans across to her helpful husband; she kisses him on the cheek. She kneels up on the seat, and kisses the children in the back. 'Be good,' she says, 'all of you.' Then she lifts out her case, and walks into the bustle of the concourse. They can see her from the van; she stops and waves; she goes through the glass doors into the bright ticket hall. She stands in the queue, and buys a weekend ticket, waiting in front of the counter while the booking clerk prints the ticket on a large console. Her coat is smart, her hair is frizzed and pretty; the people in the line look at her. She is still in good time for the train, so she goes to the news-stand at the end of the platform, and looks through the magazine display: the bright photography of faces, clothes and breasts, the clean modern graphics. She browses a while; then she picks out a glossy magazine designed for today's sophisticated woman, advertising articles about Twiggy, and living together, and the controversy about the vaginal versus the clitoral orgasm, and pays for it.
The train stands at the platform, a very convenient train, with a buffet. The day's travellers walk down beside it, past the orange curtains. Barbara joins them, passing the coaches until she finds the buffet; she gets in, finds a corner seat, and throws her magazine down on it. She looks around; the coach is not busy; the buffet counter is being arranged by the attendant. She puts her case on the rack; she hangs up her coat on the peg; she sits down, and places the magazine on her knee. She watches the people get onto the train. A young man in a denim suit, with a briefcase, comes and sits opposite her; he smiles at her, and she smiles back, but does not speak. The train whistle blows; the train pulls out of the domed shed of the station. With the magazine on her knee, she stares out at the freight-yards, the dumps of coal, the office blocks in the town-centre, the pillars of the motorway, the view, down through the shopping business of Watermouth, to the sea. The blind of the buffet rolls up; she gets to her feet, goes to the counter, and buys a cup of coffee, carrying it back in its plastic cup held in a brown plastic holder. The man smiles at her again as she sits; he says, 'Off for the weekend?'
'I'm a married woman,' says Barbara, and puts her head down, and reads an article about vasectomy. After a while she lifts her head and stares out of the window, at the fields and hedges. The day is bright; the sun shines and shimmers in her eyes; it is a red disk in her lashes. The man stares at her. At home the household arrangements are secure; Felicity will take the children for a walk on the beach this morning, and put out their lunch, ready in the refrigerator, and spend the afternoon with them at the fun-fair, and bath them before they go to bed. The man still looks at her; she puts her head down, and stares into the magazine, examining the fashion photographs in which, on some beach in Tunisia, nipples slip chancily into view out of loose silk, and female faces pout angrily, in the fashionable style, at the prodding camera. Her eyes are green; her cheeks are rubbed red; she sits comfortably in her seat, taking the man's gaze over her.
The train is convenient, the service to London fairly quick; that is one of the pleasures of Watermouth. It is a familiar journey. The cars stand in the car parks of London commuter-land, and then there are the back gardens of London suburbia. The tenement area comes up; then they are following the Thames, and running down the platform at Waterloo under noisy loudspeakers. She rises from her seat, and puts on the furry coat. The man opposite rises, and lifts down her case. 'Have a good time,' he says. She smiles at him, thanks him, and goes and stands by the train door. When the train stops, the man walks beside her down the platform. He asks her name; she does not give it. She comes to the barrier, and there, waiting, waving, is Leon, in his much-worn leather motor-cycle jacket, his hair long. He pushes to her, puts his arm round her, kisses her. The man has gone. She puts down her case, and kisses him. 'Oh, you're here,' she says. Leon takes her case, and they go across to the station buffet, and sit talking busily over a cup of coffee. Her eyes are bright; she slips her coat down her shoulders. After a while they leave the buffet and walk across to the Underground entrance. They go through the busy concourse, take tickets, and wait on the platform for a Northern Line train. The train comes through the tunnel; they get in and stand close together, Leon 's hand inside her coat, until the train reaches Charing Cross where they change to the Circle Line for Sloane Square. They leave the train there, hurry through the station, with Leon in front, laughing, and they come up into the street, among the traffic. Leon carries her bag; they make their way along, stopping frequently, staring into the windows of boutiques with their fancy display of fabric, their tactile colour-mixes, their strobe lights. They go in and out of shops, touch objects, look along racks of bright clothes. Music booms from speakers, and theft-detection cameras show their pictures on a screen, a smart couple.
They buy a pepper-mill; they look together at a sex magazine; they look through a rack of posters. Here and there Barbara takes dresses off the racks, and shows them to the pretty shopgirls, and takes them to the fitting- rooms, trying them on, this style and that, in a crowd of girls in their under pants. Each dress she tries she shows to Leon, posing before him, showing him different selves as he sits on a chair among the racks, or leans against the counter, talking to the assistants. Together, in due consideration, they pick two; they are put into high-coloured plastic bags, which she carries as they go on. Later they find a pub, and sit together drinking, and eat sandwiches from the bar. Afterwards they get on a bus, and go to a cinema; they watch a Hungarian film and lean lazily against each other, their hands feeling into each other. When the film is over they walk the shopping streets, walking and talking. There is a restaurant in Greek Street where actors go; they eat dinner there, and talk to acquaintances of Leon 's. Then there is a pub where actors drink; they join a crowded table there, with actors and actresses, television-directors and writers, all talking in bright style about football. Girls kiss Leon; men kiss Barbara. Much later on, they go out, through the restaurants and strip-shows, to find a bus and go to Islington, where Leon 's bedsitter is. They go past cracked stucco and antique shops and ethnic stores to the ramshackle house. They go up the stairs, unlock the door, light the gasfire. It is an untidy room, barely tenanted; there are posters on the walls, and photographs of sets, productions, many face shots. There are only two chairs, and a daybed, and a table, and an old brown carpet on the floor. There is a stereo; Leon switches it on, and noise booms. They then pull cushions off the daybed, onto the floor; they lie together in front of the gasfire, and reach out and undress each other, quickly; and then Barbara subsides backwards onto the cushions, and looks as Leon's face pushes towards her, his body comes over her. His hands stir pleasure into her, his body comes in.
It is pleasant to hold him inside, with the heat of the gasfire on the skin of her side, her leg. And later it is pleasant to make up the daybed, and get into it, and fold into each other again, to feel sensation, to let pieces of self come alive. It is pleasant, too, to wake in the night against flesh, to stir, to touch and press the adjoining body until it connects with yours once more. It is pleasant in the morning to lie in bed, while Leon goes out and fetches the
