Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Very gently, she draws the sheet and the blanket down, until they’re no longer covering him. He lies in the moonlight, in his pyjamas, the pyjama top buttoned up, the trouser cord tied in a bow.

Kitty undoes the buttons one by one, and she loosens the bow and draws apart the cords. She folds back the flaps of his pyjama trousers, and lays her warm hand between his thighs. Very slowly, back and forth, she strokes his cock, and feels it start to grow. She looks up at his face, but his eyes are closed, and his breathing is steady. She goes on stroking until the cock has grown big and hard. She can feel her own heart beating, and wonders that he can sleep on.

‘What?’

He starts out of sleep, raising his arms to defend himself.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Hush,’ she says. ‘Hush.’

She goes on stroking him, moving her hand faster now.

‘No, Kitty!’ he says.

‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘Don’t talk.’

She leans close and kisses him, her hand moving all the time up and down his cock. His arms reach round her, pull her close. She hears him groan.

Then his hands are tugging at her nightdress, pulling it up, and she moves to free it, wanting to be naked for him. His whole body begins to turn now, his hips thrust upwards, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. His hands pull her onto him. She lets him do as he wants, moving her hand away so that he can press her body to his.

Now she feels his hard cock against her belly, and his chest against her breasts, and he’s groaning loudly as if in pain. Then with a rough and powerful movement he rolls her over and now he’s on top of her and he’s forcing her legs apart and his cock is pushing between her thighs. She lifts her hips, wanting it to be easy for him, and feels his cock drive into her.

‘You want it? You want it?’

His voice harsh and distant.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I want it.’

He starts to ram into her, making wordless sounds with each thrust.

‘I want it,’ she whispers. ‘I want it!’

Then all at once she realises she does want it. Her body awakens, she wraps herself round him, pulling him deep into her, hungry for sensation, rubbing herself against him, rocking with his angry thrusts.

‘Ah!’ he cries. ‘Ah! Ah!’

He hammers at her, shouts at her, a creature possessed. Then there comes a gasping moan, and she feels his convulsion and feels the pumping inside her. Now he’s sinking down onto her, moving still, but slowly now. She feels his body come to rest, heavy on hers, and she lies still, holding him in her arms. She kisses the sweat on his brow.

For a long moment he doesn’t move. Then she realises he’s weeping.

‘No, darling. No.’

She kisses the tears on his cheeks.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’

‘No, darling,’ she says, kissing him. ‘I wanted you. I came to you because I wanted you.’

‘Not like that.’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Like that.’

They lie in each other’s arms until they become cold. Then she moves him off her, and he climbs shakily to his feet.

‘Lie down now, darling.’

He lies on the bed and she covers him with the bedclothes. He holds her hand, doesn’t want her to go.

‘Kitty, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be like that with you.’

‘I’m yours,’ she says. ‘You can be anything you want with me.’

‘I didn’t know. I thought … I don’t know what I thought.’

‘You thought I was too good for you.’

‘You are good.’

‘I’m yours,’ she says again.

‘Is it going to be all right?’ he says.

‘Yes, my darling,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

The next day Ed moves back into Kitty’s room. Pamela expresses her disapproval.

‘That’s not your room. That’s Mummy’s room.’

‘I want to be with Mummy,’ he says.

‘So do I want to be with Mummy,’ says Pamela. ‘But we have to sleep in our own rooms.’

Kitty points out that George and Louisa share a bedroom. Pamela becomes puzzled.

‘Who can I share with?’ she says.

‘When you’re grown up, you can share with your husband.’

‘My husband!’

This enchanting idea distracts her entirely.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Augustus,’ says Ed.

‘Augustus? Yech!’

That night Kitty lies in Ed’s arms, and it’s both strange and familiar at the same time. She thinks she won’t sleep but she does sleep, and when she wakes in the morning he’s still there.

She gives him a kiss and he too wakes.

‘Good morning,’ she says.

Larry Cornford kneels beside his father in the Carmelite church on Kensington Church Street, murmuring the familiar Latin words. All round him he hears the soft voices of the others in the packed pews. Before him the priest stands, his back to them, green-robed at the altar.

‘ Beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, Sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis et tibi, Pater …’

The names are friends Larry has known all his life. At the appropriate moment in the prayer his hand forms a fist and taps his breast in the sign of contrition.

‘ Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa .’

He feels no sense of blame, only deep and comforting familiarity. The shape of the Mass never varies, its mystery has embraced him since childhood. The buildings may change, priests may come and go, but the ritual unfolds always in the same way. When the time comes for the consecration – ‘ Haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata ’ – and the priest bends in holy secrecy over the altar, making the sign of the cross over the bread and wine – ‘ Benedixit, fregit, deditque discipulis suis dicens, Accipite et manducate ex hoc omnes, hoc est enim corpus meum ’ – and kneels, and raises the host, and the altar boy tinkles the bell – at this time the wonder always returns, and he feels himself to be in the presence of the supernatural. The child who was taught to see in the Mass a true ever-repeated miracle, the real presence, the coming of God among them – that same child lives still in Larry today, as the priest elevates the host, and the smell of incense rolls over the pews.

Later he takes his place following his father in the line of communicants, and receives the papery biscuit on his tongue. He feels the living God melt in his mouth. He knows that by the letter of the law he has committed mortal sin and should not take communion, but his God and his Church are merciful. Larry is a very modern Catholic, taught by enlightened monks that God loves the generous heart and the truthful mind more than a petty conformity to rules. He returns to his place in the pews, and kneeling with his head in his hands he prays that he may learn to serve God with his chosen work.

After Mass he walks home with his father to the tall house on Camden Grove and shares a late breakfast with him. His father talks to him about the company and its present difficulties. He is to make a trip to Jamaica very shortly, to attend to problems on the ground.

‘I’m afraid we’re facing a serious supply shortage,’ he says. ‘Partly it’s the hurricane season. But we also have a bad outbreak of leaf-spot disease.’

‘I thought the Tilapa came into Avonmouth with a full cargo.’

‘So she did, God bless her.’ His father sips at his coffee and sighs. ‘But there’s not much more where that came from. We’re looking seriously at the Cameroons. Also I think it’s time now to come to a new arrangement with the Ministry.’

‘Are you still managing the Ministry depots?’

‘One hundred and twenty, all told. It’s far too much, of course. But the truth is the Ministry is still operating on a wartime footing.’