William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“Gabriel?” she said quietly.

“Yes?” he said. He hadn’t moved from the door.

“Are you all light?”

“I’m just letting my eyes get used to the dark. Fiendishly dark in here…with the lights out.”

“Oh. I see. Yes, you’re right, it is dark.”

“I think I can make things out a bit clearer now.”

“Good.”

He came uncertainly over to the bed. She felt it give as he sat down. A spring creaked.

“Just taking my slippers off.”

“Fine.” Charis congratulated herself on her calmness. She knew exactly — from a physiological point of view — what was going to happen. She felt it was a woman’s duty to know. Or at least that was what Aunt Bedelia had said. Aunt Bedelia could be a rather fierce person, and, Charis now realized, she had ‘advanced’ ideas. She had given her ambiguous, wordy books to read and had explained certain things to her. But her aunt, who had never married, couldn’t tell her what it would feel like. Charis was in genuine doubt about this. Eleanor had implied it was extremely unpleasant, though Eleanor had had no more opportunity to test her theories than Aunt Bedelia.

Finally Gabriel eased himself into bed beside her.

“Hello,” he said. She felt his hand grip hers.

“Hello,” she replied, her voice suddenly thick in her throat. She felt him roll towards her. His nose touched her cheek. She smelt the mingled scents of tooth-powder, brandy and cigars on his breath. He threw his right arm haphazardly across her body, just beneath her breasts. His left hand still squeezed her right hand. He kissed her and Charis tried to abandon herself to the mood of romance that she felt must be welling up somewhere inside her. But instead she was only conscious of a mounting sense of curiosity and alarm. What was Gabriel going to do next? What, if anything, should she be doing to help him?

Suddenly, with his lips still applied to hers, Gabriel heaved himself on top of her, his weight driving the air out of her lungs. She broke off the kiss and inhaled as quietly as she could. Gabriel’s face was now buried in her neck. She felt him shifting and her legs obediently widened. The hem of her nightdress rose still further up her thighs; she seemed to be excruciatingly conscious of its passage against her skin. She felt it being tugged gently higher. Gabriel’s right hand! His left still faithfully clasped hers. And now her heart did begin to thump and echo in her chest. The hem of her nightgown was now above her pubic hairs. Dear Gabriel, she said to herself again, dear Gabriel. She felt the thick cotton of his pyjama trousers against the inside of her thighs. He made tentative thrusting movements. Lord! she thought. Now his ‘erect member’ should penetrate her ‘vagina’. She had seen naked men, in statues and pictures — even swimming in rivers; glimpses of a white sausage thing hanging from a dark clump of hair. Now she felt something squashy pressing intimately against her, but there was, she was sure, no penetration of any kind. The weight of his body between her thighs was pleasant, so too was the way his nudging thrusting movements rocked her. But she knew it had to be hard, and there was nothing hard there, or so she thought.

Then Gabriel rolled off her. Charis lay immobile with astonishment.

“Are you all right?” Gabriel whispered.

“What?”

“You’re all right? I didn’t…upset you?”

“No,” she whispered. “No.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. I didn’t want to, you know, upset you too much, the first time.”

“No I’m fine, really. Fine.”

“Good, good.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Night-night, Carrie,” he said, his tone buoyant with relief. “We’ll go to the château tomorrow, shall we?”

Charis lay back in bed. Tonight, she said to herself, Sunday the twenty-sixth of July 1914, I, Charis Cobb, nee Lavery, became a woman.

♦

The next day they hired an excursion-brake and went to the Château d’Hebentot, about ten miles away from Trouville. They stopped for a picnic — provided by the hotel — on the way, in the Forest of Toques. Gabriel was in a good mood again, and after their picnic offered Charis one of his cigarettes. The day was hot and cloudless. Charis sat with her back against a tree and Gabriel stretched out on the ground with his head in her lap. She puffed her smoke up into the branches above her and her uncertainties about the previous night disappeared under the onslaught of Gabriel’s relentless good humour. She was left, though, with the abiding thought that something had gone wrong last night; that in fact very little had occurred which should have, and this she found lingeringly discomfiting.

That evening Gabriel again indulged heavily in wine and postprandial brandies. The undressing and getting into bed was achieved with less fuss but with no real alteration in the subsequent events. Gabriel did spend more time kissing her, and for a while hugged her close before rolling heavily on top. Charis, having only a little second-hand knowledge to rely on, and having to use her imagination more than she liked, couldn’t work out what was happening with Gabriel’s anatomy, whether it was functioning perfectly or whether — a worrying idea this — it was some defect in her own make-up. She wondered if she ought to be doing something herself, and Gabriel was being too polite to ask it of her, but he never uttered a word, nor conveyed any hints she was performing inadequately. Once again, the presence of Gabriel between her thighs and such shoving and heaving as went on provided ghostly sensations of pleasure, notions of potential enjoyment. But, she wondered, perhaps this was all anyone ever felt? She knew, from Aunt Bedelia’s instructions, that there should be an issue of semen during the act. When Gabriel lay once more beside her she carried out a covert examination but all seemed to be as it always had. But then she had no real idea what semen would be like, should she encounter it, and so her bafflement remained constant.

Gabriel, as on the Sunday night, was extremely solicitous, asking her several times if she felt all right and expressing his earnest desire not to cause her any harm or emotional discomfort.

♦

They went bathing again on Tuesday, Charis braving the bellowing old crone in the bathing boxes, then splashing about happily in the crowded shallows. In the afternoon they walked down to the harbour and fishmarket to watch the fishing fleet come in.

That evening Gabriel drank two whiskies and soda before the meal, most of a bottle of claret and two brandies afterwards.

Charis’s preparations took the form of a fresh nightgown. As she pulled it over her head she heard Gabriel blunder into a chair. She felt a surge of irritation that he had to drink so much in order to ‘perform’ in so unsatisfactory a way. For a moment she looked forward to the end of the honeymoon, to the time when the nightly obligation to behave as honeymooners would be over.

She lay obediently in bed as Gabriel sheepishly emerged from the dressing room and went over to the door to switch off the light. On his journey back to the bed his hesitant, inebriated course caused him to collide heavily with the bedside locker.

“ Ouch! Damn it!” he swore petulantly, hopping about on one foot. “ Oui ’. Good grief, that’s sore .”

Charis sat up in exasperation.

“What’s happening?” she said angrily.

Gabriel collapsed on the bed. “I cracked my knee on that wretched cupboard-thing,” he moaned in a sulky voice.

“Let me see.” Charis reached out for him, something in his little-boy tones making her less yielding, more firm. Gabriel levered his way across the bed to her.

“You great goose,” she said, relenting. “Who’s had too much to drink tonight, eh? Where’s your knee, you silly boy?” She grabbed hold of his proffered leg and started vigorously rubbing his knee. Gabriel rested his head on her shoulder, moaning.