William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

“Phew,” she said. “It’s so hot. Beastly hot. Do you think it’s as hot as this in Africa?”

“Charis,” Felix said, with visible effort and a strained formality, “I have to say. I can’t…” and to her utter astonishment he lurched forward, put his arms around her and tried to kiss her. For a moment she did nothing, stunned, perplexed and amazed to feel the pressure of his hand on her shoulders and his lips squashed against hers. She pushed him away.

“Felix,” she cried. “ Really! ” She picked up her hat which she had dropped. To her vague discomfort she didn’t feel outraged or disgusted as she had with Sammy Hinshelwood.

Felix then seemed to curl up inside himself on the seat. He covered his face with his hands, then snatched them away and stared up at the hazy evening sky.

“I’m so sorry,” he said fiercely. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it’s disgraceful. Please forgive me. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Well,” she said. “Well,” noticing that her cheeks were now hot and her heart was thumping noisily in her chest, “let’s forget it. All about it. Too much sun,” she laughed with too much gaiety. “Too much in the sun. Driving you mad.” She threw some bread into the pond and there was swirl and burble of water as the carp fought for the pieces.

“Look at those fish,” she said a little wildly. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to be a fish today, all cool and wet at the bottom of the pond? Swimming around without a care in the world.”

♦

Charis opened her eyes and looked at the electric light fixture in the ceiling. Felix still lay on top of her, his weight pressing her spread-eagled body down into the soft mattress. The whole of the lower half of her torso seemed to be humming still, a feeling of delicious sensitivity at the base of her spine. She heard Felix’s breathing slowing down. He gave a small groan. Nine times now. With Gabriel it had really only happened twice. But nothing like this. She clenched her fists.

♦

The embarrassment of that first lunge passed away in a day or so. Felix returned, she thought, to his normal self, friendly and amusing. But all the changes had been wrought in her. Try as she might she couldn’t re-consign him to his old role of companion and welcome distraction. Feelings had been unleashed, emotions aired: she found these facts impossible to ignore. In a subtle way everything had changed. The past became different too. All through the summer, she now realized, he had been looking at her in ways she was innocent of: seeing her not, as she thought, as sister-in-law or new friend, but as someone desirable. She started reliving the months of their friendship, going back to that dawn visit in late March, running through her innocuous memories for signs and clues that would explain his amazing outburst. Felix, of all people. How extraordinary! Felix harbouring these thoughts about me through all these months…

She was — she had to be honest — pleased in a way, and vaguely flattered. And, suddenly aware, she became conscious of the effect her presence and appearance had on him: covert glances, inexplicable tensions and strange expressions on his face she would have missed before. It was nothing serious, she told herself. Very young men like Felix often indulged in these ‘crashes’. It was amusing, something to smile about privately and tolerate, not condemn or proscribe.

But then, another evening at the fishpond, he seized her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. An absurd romantic gesture that she supposed he must have seen in a play or some musical revue.

“Felix,” she rebuked jokingly, pulling her hand away. “Some-one might see. Now stop it.”

It was the wrong thing to have said, she realized later, in the wrong tone of voice. His adoration now moved into a new phase. From being something private and inconceivable it became now an enjoyable secret that they shared and acknowledged. Their flirtation was something that they could both allude to and that she could tease him about.

On another day she suggested a walk and a picnic.

“Ah,” Felix said. “But I might not be able to control myself.”

“You shall only come if you promise to behave.”

“I swear, I swear.”

The fact that it all took place beneath the innocent eyes of the Cobb family made the summer weeks tinglingly illicit. There was nothing that anyone could find remotely improper about brother and sister-in-law finding some harmless pleasure in each other’s company, and for the first time since Gabriel had gone away she found that life at Stackpole held something for her.

Then late one evening Felix came round to the cottage with some old blankets which he said his mother had asked him to deliver. Charis offered him a cup of cocoa and they sat and chatted in the small parlour for an hour. When Felix took his leave it was in the tones of mock-medieval romance which he sometimes employed to ridicule his infatuation but which also allowed him to air it.

“I must to horse,” he said, striking a dramatic pose. “Farewell, sweet maiden.”

“Fare thee well, gentle knight,” Charis laughed, dropping a curtsey. She showed him to the door. It was nearly dark. Felix melodramatically folded up his jacket collar.

“Egad, the night is wondrous wild,” he said. “When shall we two meet again?”

“Ah me,” Charis said, clasping her hands on her heart and expiring against the door jamb. “Luncheon tomorrow?”

They both laughed at the bathos. But then suddenly Felix was kissing her again and reflexively Charis had her arms round his neck for an instant before she came to her senses and struggled herself free.

“Felix,” she said seriously. “You must stop. You mustn’t do that.”

He looked very unhappy. “I know,” he said. “I should. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Somehow, because it’s Gabriel, it seems to make it all right.” He looked at her. “Does that make any sense?”

It didn’t, but she ignored him. “But you must stop. Don’t you see, you have to. You’ve got to.”

He went away but came back later after eleven ‘to apologize’. Charis had been in a state of real agitation after he’d left, angry with herself for not censuring him more and for not having checked this state of affairs before. Felix started to kiss her again and her attempts at resistance only seemed to make his ardour more intense. Nothing she said had any effect. It was easier, she found, to give in. He left after midnight. He half-heartedly beseeched her to let him stay, but she bundled him out of the door.

♦

Charis watched Felix knot his tie. He was whistling to himself, ‘Lily of Laguna’, she recognized.

“A happy man,” she said, hunching the blankets over her shoulder. He caught her eye in the glass.

“Of course,” he said. “You too?”

“Of course.”

“Want breakfast?” he asked. “They’ll be serving by now.”

“No. I’ll just have a pot of tea.”

“Sent up?”

“No, I’ll be down soon.”

After that first night Charis suffered some remorse. But she still couldn’t understand how it had all come about. The facts were irrefutable: she and Felix were having a love affair.

Everything would be all right, she told herself, if it could be maintained at this level of kissing and hand-holding. She knew that many women — respectable married women like herself — indulged in this sort of thing. It was no more than a flirtation, a pastime, nothing serious. If only Gabriel, she told herself in moments of irritation or when her conscience bothered her unduly, had acted more like a husband. If only she’d had more of a married life before the war claimed him then she was sure she would never have yielded. It was hardly her fault, after all, What could anyone expect; married for a week, then a year of separation. And who knew how long that would last? It was like giving a child a bag of sweets, watching her open the bag and then snatching it away. She couldn’t be blamed for wondering what they would have tasted like.