Ben Elton - Blast From The Past

It was cruel, so very cruel for Polly to hear this now, after so many years of having lived under the shadow of Jack’s rejection. Yet difficult though it was, her heart soared at the dawning realization that he had suffered as much as she had. That perhaps, after all, he had truly reciprocated her love.

“Jack. Oh, Jack. You tell me all this now. After all the years I’ve grieved for you.”

“I have to, Polly. Because…”

But Polly put her finger to her lips and breathed a “shhh”. She had had enough talking now. She would put up with no more. It was her flat and she was going to take control of what went on in it. For the second time that night she crossed the room to stand over Jack, and again, as she walked, he watched the movement of her thighs, brushing against each other as she walked. Polly again took the glass out of Jack’s hand and put it down.

“No more talking,” she said.

“Polly. I mustn’t,” Jack replied, but his eyes were filled with a misty longing.

Polly shushed him again, this time putting a soft finger to his lips. His tongue momentarily brushed the tip. Then she cupped her hands around Jack’s face and gently pulled him to his feet. Then they kissed again, long and passionately.

“No, Polly, we mustn’t. That’s not what I came here for.” Jack spoke almost into Polly’s mouth as she continued to kiss him. Again he succumbed to her embrace. For the time being his passion for her was stronger than the guilt he felt.

Polly unbuttoned her shirt. She did it herself this time, purposefully and quickly. Having done so, she broke off their embrace and stood back, her mouth shining. Then she opened her shirt fully in order to show Jack her body. It was what he had longed for all evening, a proper sight of her, her breasts and her stomach and her neck, her navel and her legs, clear and unencumbered, with only the crimson triangle of her knickers still to be removed.

Jack felt weak with longing. “We can’t do this, Polly,” he heard himself say.

Polly did not reply. She had done with conversation. He could say what he liked, but she was now controlling the agenda. She could feel his desire even in the air between them. She knew just how much he wanted her. She took his hand. For a moment there was the faintest tug of resistance, but after a moment Jack allowed himself to be led to her bed, as Polly had known he would.

She lay down on the bed beneath Jack’s gaze, and spread her shirt wide open on the sheet. Looking up into Jack’s eyes, she could see that they were glistening and wet. He was crying! Not much, hardly at all, there were no actual tears, but she was sure he was crying. She had never seen him cry before. Reaching down to her hips, Polly raised her knees for a moment and slipping her thumbs under the elastic of her knickers took them off. Relaxing her legs again, she lay entirely naked save for the shirt at her arms and shoulders.

“Make love to me now,” she said firmly.

“I can’t, Polly,” Jack replied, his voice cracking.

Polly reached up and took his hand. “Jack. Stop this nonsense. I said make love to me now!”

“I… I… can’t.” Still Jack resisted, although he could scarcely find the words to deny her.

“Yes, you can, Jack. It’s why you came.”

Jack closed his eyes to shut out her beauty, to shut out the magnet of eroticism that lay inches from him. As his eyes closed tears formed at the corners.

“It’s not why I came, Polly.” He said it firmly, dragging the sentence from deep within him. Then he pulled his hand from hers and returned to his chair and drink.

Peter’s mother picked up the phone.

“Camden Police,” said a voice at the other end.

Peter’s mother had anguished long and hard about informing on her son. She was absolutely loath to do it and shuddered to imagine how he would react when he found out. However, she felt that she had no choice. He had been hanging around that woman’s street all night, he was wet through and not himself, and he was messing about with that dreadful knife.

She knew the terrible things her son had written to the girl after she had rejected him. They’d been read out in court. Many times he had threatened to stick a knife in her and worse; sometimes he’d been specific in his threats, talking about cutting bits off her, all sorts of horrible stuff she felt sure he’d got from videos.

He wouldn’t do it, of course. She knew that, she was certain of that. On the other hand, he’d looked so very desperate. But Peter’s mother would rather have her son arrested for breaking a court order than for murder, which was why she had decided to call the police.

“He’s been told not to go there but he couldn’t resist it, I’m afraid,” she said to the duty officer at the police station. “He’s just hanging about in her street in the rain… and… well, I know he’s taken his knife with him… Just against yobs and muggers, you understand! I mean, he wouldn’t actually harm anyone with it… not her, I’m sure, but perhaps you could send someone down to talk to him anyway – tell him to come home.”

The duty officer promised that they would send a car round.

“Thank you, officer. Thank you. He’s a good boy, you know.”

For perhaps a minute afterwards Polly lay staring at the ceiling. She had pulled her shirt around her but apart from that she had not moved. The only sound in the room was the milkman’s radio and a faint clatter as he made his breakfast in the room below. Polly felt foolish, angry. She had stripped herself naked in front of Jack. She had practically begged him to make love to her. He had let her do it, too. Oh, there’d been no doubting the way he’d looked at her. Jack had certainly allowed Polly to undress for him, and then he’d walked away.

She got up and put her knickers back on, buttoned up her shirt and put on the plastic mac again. Up to this point she had not looked at Jack once. When she finally did so she found that he was not looking at her but had returned to his old habit of staring into his glass.

“I think you should go now,” she said.

Jack did not move. “I can’t go,” he said.

“I don’t care what you can and can’t do, Jack.” Polly’s voice was cold with hurt. “I want you to leave.”

Still Jack did not face her. “I can’t leave, Polly.”

“You rejected me before, Jack. I got over it. Now you come back and reject me again. I’m not strong enough for this.”

Jack attempted to explain, but he could not. “It wouldn’t have been right for us to-”

“Is it your wife? Is that what’s stopping you?” Polly asked. She had not intended to discuss it any further, but she knew that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She could see it in the despondent way in which he sat.

“No.”

Polly felt she had no more dignity to lose. “I’m lonely, Jack.”

Jack did not respond.

“I’m lonely,” Polly repeated.

Again he did not respond, except perhaps for the smallest of shrugs. Polly finally decided that she really had had enough. Loneliness was better than this. The evening was over.

“I want you to leave. Now, Jack,” she said. “And this time don’t come back. Not after sixteen years, not ever.”

Polly walked over to the door and opened it.

Outside the door Peter froze. Terror and excitement in equal proportions deprived him of the means to move. He’d returned to Polly’s floor and had been trying to listen, not very successfully what with that damn radio music, his ear pressed to Polly’s door. Then suddenly, more quickly than he would have thought possible, he had heard her footsteps approach, her hand on the latch, and the door had opened.