Echoes From A Distant Land Part 41

He shrugged.

'Then what are you, if I may ask?'

'I'm an artist.'

'Really? What kind of artist?'

'A photographer.'

'Hmmph, I'm not sure photography qualifies as art.'

Fiona joined them and whisked Emerald away to help her make tea.

During the course of the afternoon, Emerald caught sight of Raph in deep discussion with others among Laurence's group of friends. He seemed very intense. He didn't seek her out and she certainly had no intention of renewing her conversation with him.

Fiona came to her late in the afternoon to excitedly whisper that a young man named Lance had invited her to a nearby pub to listen to some music. She asked Emerald to go with her.

'What about Michael?' Emerald asked.

'It's only an outing,' she said defensively. 'Anyway, it's not as if Michael and I are engaged or anything. Won't you come?' she pleaded.

Emerald didn't want to be left alone with the crowd of Cambridge men, and agreed.

She went inside to collect her coat.

Raph stopped her in the hall.

'It is art, you know,' he said. 'Photography, I mean.'

He surprised her by his conciliatory tone, but she wasn't about to drop her guard. 'If you say so,' she said.

'I'd like to prove it to you.'

'Oh? How is that possible?'

'I'll take you to an exhibition by one of England's best photographers.'

'You must be joking,' she said, and continued out of the house with her coat over her arm.

Fiona was in the garden, gaining the necessary a.s.surances from her brother that he would say not a word to her parents about her outing. While she waited in the garden, a few of the young Cambridge men pa.s.sed. They were leaving. Raph was among them.

'Day after tomorrow,' he said, barely pausing as he walked past her to the gate.

'I beg your pardon?' Emerald said.

'You heard. Day after tomorrow. Friday.'

'If you think I would go anywhere with you, after what -'

'Around four,' he added, then was gone.

Fiona and Lance led Emerald and four of the Cambridge men across the Hart Street Bridge to the Red Lion Hotel - a solid brick building of three storeys with several racy little sports cars parked outside its red-brick portico. From the street they could hear the sound of drums and some kind of reedy flute. It wasn't jazz or jitterbug music, but it had a compelling, almost savage rhythm.

They followed the sound down a long hall. The hotel's dining room had tables packed together around a tiny dance floor and a small bandstand where two black men were pounding large drums and another was playing the flute. A fourth black man, bare-chested and wearing a short leather skirt, was leaping high in the air, his black and white fur leggings flailing with every kick. His female partner was wearing a colourful loose-fitting cotton blouse and a thick gra.s.s skirt, which bounced as she gyrated her hips in time with the beat.

Emerald sat with Fiona and Lance while the others either stood against the wall or found what seats remained. She was fascinated by the spectacle. She'd been to many dances and loved the jitterbug and the bop, but this was like nothing she'd ever seen or heard before. The drums, which she now noted had two different tones, beat a constant accompaniment to the flute, which carried the melody. At first it was the melody that carried her along with the dancers as they leaped and gyrated, until she realised it was the unremitting drums that drove them. As when she heard the compelling beat of train wheels on a track, her heart, her mind, fell into tempo with the incessant rhythm of the drums. The more she listened to their beat, the more she was spirited away to whatever dark country they'd come from.

Suddenly, and with a final booming crescendo of drums, the music stopped.

A stunned silence fell over the crowd before a roar of applause went up. Cheering and whistling, the crowd demanded more, Emerald as much a part of it as anyone.

The sweating dancers smiled; and the drums began again.

This time the beat was slower, like a heartbeat, and sensual. The dancers came together with snaking arms and swaying movements like trees in the wind. The flute played in and around them, vying with the drums.

As the dance progressed it was obvious it was a story of seduction. The black man thrust his hips forwards and the woman retreated. He tried again and again with the same result until a subtle s.h.i.+ft in the beat changed their rhythm and now they were synchronised: he thrusting and she receiving him. The couple were almost making love on the dance floor.

The air was thick with smoke in the crowded room. Emerald's lips were dry. She couldn't swallow. Someone should open a window, she thought. She needed a drink, but couldn't take her eyes from the performers. It was the most thrilling and exciting dance spectacle she'd ever seen.

When the group headed home across the bridge an hour later, they hardly spoke.

The drums had ended, but they remained inside Emerald's head; even while looking down into the swift dark waters of the Thames, she could feel their surge moving the blood through her veins in the same beat.

'Where do the dancers come from?' someone asked.

'I think it's the Belgian Congo,' another answered.

Emerald had no idea where the Belgian Congo was. She'd never been interested in Africa and, although her mother had told her she'd been born there, it seldom came up in conversation. On one of her weekend visits she'd asked her father about his life in Africa and he became annoyed. She never raised it again.

She decided she should know more about her country of birth. The dancers and their music had sparked something within her that needed to be explored.

CHAPTER 46.

On Thursday, Peter and Michael arrived from Oxford. They were staying in a guest house rented by the rowing club, but Fiona and Emerald had invited them to dinner. The cook had done most of the work and gone home, and Laurence was out with his friends, leaving the house to the two girls.

They took the boys, who had brought two bottles of lager and a bottle of Riesling for the occasion, into the sitting room. The drinks were opened and Fiona pa.s.sed the gla.s.ses around.

'Are you sure you won't have a gla.s.s of wine, Em?' Fiona asked her. 'It's really quite refres.h.i.+ng.'

'Go on,' Michael said. 'You only live once.'

'Just a half then,' Emerald conceded.

Fiona poured. It tasted awful, but she said it was nice.

Over dinner, talk turned to the boat races. The two young men would be in training on the following day, but the girls said they would go to watch them in their race on Sat.u.r.day.

The dinner proceeded well. While the men drank the beer, Fiona poured herself a third gla.s.s of wine. Emerald sat on her half-gla.s.s and declined any refills.

Michael and Fiona, who had begun to giggle, went searching for a bottle of port, while Peter suggested he and Emerald go out into the garden.

The evening was warm. They strolled to the little vine-covered rotunda at the bottom of the garden. She still had most of the half-gla.s.s of Riesling in her hand. A cricket chirped from the shrubbery.

'Are you still angry with me?' he asked when they'd taken a seat.

The night air was still and the half-moon ambled among the drifting clouds. She placed her gla.s.s on the seat beside her.

'No.'

'I'm pleased,' he said, and turned towards her to slide an arm over her shoulders. His breath was warm and beery on her cheek.

Another cricket chimed in.

He s.h.i.+fted his position and slipped his arm further around her shoulders until his hand rested gently on her breast. 'You're a wonderful girl, Emma,' he whispered. 'A beautiful girl.'

After an initial rush of alarm at his incursion, she examined her feelings more calmly. It was a curious and pleasant sensation. There was something flattering about his interest in her, quite aside from the warm glow emanating from the pit of her stomach to where his hand now lay more resolutely on her breast. She could no longer pretend not to notice.

'Emerald,' he whispered. His fingers fumbled with the b.u.t.tons on her cotton blouse.

He covered her mouth with his and thrust his tongue between her lips. The beer taste flooded into her mouth; she pushed him away. She had an almost unbearable urge to spit.

'Stop that!' she said.

'But you say I don't show you how I feel, and now, when I do -'

All she wanted was a tumbler of water to freshen her mouth. 'I think we should go in.'

'But Emma ...'

'I just want to go,' she said.

Emerald got to her feet and walked briskly to the back door. Peter followed.

'Emma,' he said. 'I think we should wait.'

Fiona was not in the kitchen where she'd left her.

'Fiona?'

They were not in the sitting room either.

She heard a loud thud from their shared bedroom. Alarmed, she went to the door and flung it open.

'Fiona!' Emerald said, looking from her to Michael and back again. The blood rushed to her face.

Fiona was in one of the single beds, the covers drawn up to her nose. Michael was sitting on the side of the bed, searching on the floor for his trousers.

'Emma,' Peter said, touching her on the arm. 'Come on. Let's wait outside.'

Outside in the kitchen, Emerald sat, stunned. She and Fiona had often talked about what they wanted to do with their boyfriends, but it had always been just talk. She had no idea Fiona was prepared to go all the way.

Peter tried to calm her by taking her hand and patting it, but she withdrew it. She wanted nothing to do with him or anyone else at that moment. She was mortified.

Fiona came into the kitchen, but Michael stayed in the doorway.

'C'mon, Pete,' he said. 'Let's go.'

Peter looked helplessly at Emerald. 'See you Sat.u.r.day?' he asked.

Emerald didn't answer, and he followed Michael to the door.

Tears welled in Emerald's eyes. She didn't know why - surely her mother couldn't be right about her not being old enough to handle s.e.x. But she certainly felt a ludicrously childish longing for her own room and her own bed.

After a few minutes Fiona asked if there was anything she needed.

'I'm quite all right,' she said, and took the gla.s.ses to the sink and began was.h.i.+ng them.

'Em,' Fiona said. 'I thought you wanted to do it too. I thought that was why you went out into the garden with Peter.'

In spite of her discomfort, Emerald had an urge to know what had happened, but she couldn't form the question without appearing voyeuristic. It wasn't the details she needed, but the process of seduction that interested her. How did Fiona get to the situation where she could allow Michael to do ... that?

She turned from the sink. 'What happened, Fiona?' she asked.

'Oh, that Michael. He's never satisfied.' Her voice was harsh, but she was smiling.

'Did he ... Did you do it?'

'For goodness' sake, Em,' she said. 'There's more than one way to please a boy.'

Several thoughts ran through Emerald's mind. She'd heard things whispered among her friends about what boys liked. She felt a guilty fascination. 'I don't understand.'

Fiona sighed. 'Look,' she said. 'At first we'd play around a little and I used my hand, and it was all done. But that time when we left you at the flower show, he wanted to go all the way.' She shrugged. 'So it's been like that.'

Emerald swallowed: her kiss with Peter had been such an innocent act in comparison. She felt foolishly juvenile. Even his fumbling in the rotunda tonight had hardly been seductive. She tried to imagine what might have happened if she had allowed things to progress. She had enjoyed his hand on her for a time before the smell and taste of the beer spoiled it. She wondered how she might feel about Peter doing it at another time. Or how would she feel if it happened with someone else? Someone more interesting, and without beer breath.

Someone like Raph.

It was Friday.

Emerald hadn't really forgotten Raph's promise to take her to the photographic exhibition, but when he arrived just after four, she feigned surprise and indifference.

He looked at her, sucked the inside of his cheek and nodded.