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  ‘Is that how you met your wife? In the theatre?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was looking at him that way again. ‘On tour,’ he said, taking a sip from his glass and staring out the window, again by way of distraction. ‘She thought it was just one of those flings you have when you’re on the road, but it wasn’t. I avoid that sort of thing.’ A total lie, he thought. He’d had affairs during every production he’d managed. Until he’d met Melaney three years ago and, as a result, their marriage had been based on mistrust. ‘Why can’t you stay in London?’ she’d insisted. ‘You’d get work freelancing.’ ‘Because I have a career with Vermont Productions,’ he’d told her. ‘They pay me good money, I’m their top company manager, there’s talk of a partnership.’ Good God, he’d thought, didn’t the woman realise that if they were going to plan a family, as they’d discussed, they needed a reliable bloody income? And then he’d come home to find she’d had an affair of her own.

  He looked at the girl. She was desirable certainly, but he’d resisted temptation on numerous occasions since he’d met Melaney. Was that why he so wanted Sam now? To get back at his wife?

  ‘I’d better go.’ He stood abruptly.

  ‘Yes.’ She also rose, and a silence that spoke multitudes rested uneasily between them. ‘Thanks for Christmas dinner,’ she said finally.

  ‘Sorry there’s no brandy butter to go with the pudding.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘Susan wanted to put some in a jar but I got sick of waiting around while she tried to find the right sized one.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, Pete.’ She put her hands on his chest as she kissed him on the cheek. It wasn’t a conscious act of seduction, she only knew that she wanted to touch him, but it was all that was necessary. Suddenly they were kissing, deeply and longingly.

  His arms were around her, feeling the supple young body against his, her hands on the back of his neck, then her fingers, first tracing the outlines of his cheekbones, then running through his hair, her breathing becoming more feverish. He’d fantasised about such a moment for days, but he’d never thought it possible. It was madness. Sunlight streamed through the huge open stable doors, at any moment someone might pass by. But he didn’t care.

  Sam’s sense of abandon was so sudden it shocked her. She’d felt a similar passion before, six months previously, after a party at the channel when one of the show’s directors had driven her home. She’d never been attracted to the young male members of the cast, although she’d received overtures on many an occasion, but the director was in his early thirties and, to Sam, charismatic. She obviously fancied older men, she’d decided, and it was high time she lost her virginity. She’d been embarrassed at still being a virgin, unable to admit the fact to her friends. Whether it was her middle-class Perth upbringing or not, this was the nineties and she was eighteen years old. So she’d been not only willing to succumb to the passion she’d felt in the embrace of the director, she’d welcomed it. But the experience had proved unpleasant. It hurt, it was over before she knew it, and the director, who’d obviously been taken aback to discover she was a virgin, couldn’t wait to get out of her flat.

  Now, as warmth enveloped her body and she felt her passion mounting, Sam hoped she was about to discover the secret.

  She desperately wanted him to make love to her. Right here in the stables on this summer’s afternoon. She ground herself against him. Her mouth against his, her groin against his. She wanted to discover the secret, she needed to know. She could feel the sun hot on her back and a shred of commonsense took over. ‘Let’s go up to the loft,’ she whispered.

  It was Pete who broke free. The girl was only eighteen, he told himself, and obviously inexperienced, perhaps even a virgin, he could sense it in her desperation. He’d be taking advantage of her. He had to get out. It was his wife he wanted, not this girl.

  ‘I’m going, Sam.’ He grabbed his coat from the back of the armchair. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, turning back to her as he opened the door.

  ‘I’m not.’ She marvelled at her own bravado as she looked him directly in the eye.

  ‘I’ll see you at the theatre tomorrow,’ he said.

  As Sam lay in her bed in the loft that night, a soft snow falling outside, she felt hot and restless. Her hand wandered between her thighs and she brought herself to orgasm. It eased her frustration and helped her to sleep, but it wasn’t like the real thing. It couldn’t be. Surely it couldn’t.

  ‘G’day, Sam.’

  Pete was the first person she bumped into when she arrived at the theatre for the two o’clock matinee the following day, and she was relieved to discover there was no tension between them.

  ‘How was the plum pudding?’ he asked. ‘Susan’s bound to want a report.’

  ‘Tell her it was great. I had it for lunch today. Along with the cold chook,’ she grinned.

  ‘That’s a terrible word.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s the half,’ he said. ‘Where the hell are Garry and Vic?’ He went off to announce the half-hour call through the tannoy system and Sam scampered upstairs to the dressing room where Flora, always early, was halfway through her makeup.

  Garry and Vic arrived ten minutes before curtain up, the traffic had been a nightmare, they said, and Pete gave them the standard lecture about unprofessionalism and said if it wasn’t Boxing Day they’d be fined out of their wages. But at the Red Lion after the show, it was camaraderie as usual and Garry and Vic had them all in stitches about their hideous Christmas in Manchester.

  Flora Robbie, holding hands fondly with husband Dougie, asked about Brighton, a subject which Sam had assiduously avoided in the dressing room. ‘Great,’ she’d simply said, pretending she was running behind time with her makeup. ‘Gosh, I’ll never be ready in time.’

  ‘Where do your friends live in Brighton?’ Flora now asked, making polite conversation, as she always did.

  ‘Oh,’ Sam pretended she couldn’t quite remember, ‘somewhere on the front, um …’

  ‘Arundel Terrace, didn’t you say?’ Pete prompted.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She smiled at him gratefully.

  ‘Arundel Terrace, what a coincidence, a dear friend of mine lives there. Stephen Churchett. Actor-writer, very successful, I’m sure your friends would …’

  But before Flora could continue the interrogation, Pete embarked on a hideous Christmas story to match Garry and Vic’s, about monster children and the full family catastrophe. In his own dour way, he was every bit as funny as the stand-up comics and Sam watched him admiringly. She couldn’t help herself; she was infatuated, and she knew it.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ she asked him six days later during the morning matinee. It was New Year’s Eve and, with the following day off, the actors were once again going their separate ways after the two o’clock performance, mostly to London. She hoped he wouldn’t think she was trying to seduce him. But then who was she kidding? She probably was. She told herself she simply wanted to spend some time in his company, away from the gang.

  ‘Another monster family gathering at Susan’s,’ he said. ‘How about you? Wallowing in loneliness?’

  ‘Actually, no. There’s a gathering at Chisolm House. Mrs M’s putting on a bit of a party for the guests to see in the New Year. “A supper and a singalong”, she called it.’ Sam looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know what it’ll be like, but she said I could invite any members of the company who were staying in town and I thought …’

  ‘Love to. You’ve saved my life.’

  Mrs M’s daughter, Betty, and her family had come up from Portsmouth and were staying the night. The three young children were raucous and Sam cast an apologetic glance at Pete as the proceedings got underway. It appeared he’d swapped one monster family night for another. But Pete gave her a reassuring smile. She’d obviously taken his ‘monster family’ stories literally, but they were strictly for laughs. They were also a defence mechanism against the fact that Susan’s happy household reminded him of the pl
ans he and Melaney had discussed. He was thirty-four years old, he’d have liked to have had kids. Sam watched in amazement as he horsed around with Betty’s children, relaxed and evidently enjoying himself.

  The house guests were a pleasant lot. Three navy cadets, a middle-aged couple, and two young women who were on holiday together and held hands a lot. They ate informally in the downstairs drawing room, everyone gorging themselves on Mrs M’s spread, which could have fed a small army, and, after the children were put to bed, they gathered around the piano upstairs.

  Betty was the musician for the night, as she always was at the ‘singalongs’, and she played with an unapologetic vigour which defied anyone to notice her mistakes. Furthermore, her repertoire was extensive. She thumped out everything from the latest pop songs to old wartime favourites and she knew the lyrics to each and every one.

  ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when …’

  They’d just finished the Vera Lynn bracket when it was time to start the countdown.

  ‘Twelve, eleven, ten …’ Mrs M had turned the radio on to the BBC. They raised their champagne flutes as they chanted. ‘… three, two, one. Happy New Year!’ Then, to the chimes of Big Ben, they hugged each other and clinked glasses, and thirty seconds later Betty was back at the piano.

  ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot …’ They sang as raucously as Betty played.

  ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind …’ Alice Chisolm was a skilful pianist, but tonight she played with a verve she didn’t really feel. 1939 had not been a good year, why should 1940 be any better? As the voices rang out she looked at them all. Phoebe and Jane and their gathering of friends. Young people. Happy. As if there wasn’t a war at all. And her husband, Arthur, singing loudest of all. When would it end? she wondered. Some said they’d have Hitler beaten within the year, but Alice didn’t believe the optimists. This would be a long and wretched war.

  Sam looked about fondly at the assembled company singing their lungs out so tunelessly. This was undoubtedly one of the best New Year’s Eves she’d ever had, she thought.

  An hour later, the party started to break up. The middle-aged couple had already retired, the two young women trotted off to their bedroom hand in hand, and only the navy cadets and the indefatigable Betty showed no signs of tiring.

  Pete gave Mrs M a hug and yelled his thanks above Betty’s thumping. Sam also made her retreat.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs M, it’s been a fantastic night.’

  ‘Happy New Year, Sam.’ Mrs M enveloped her in a huge motherly embrace and then rejoined her daughter and the singalong, Betty waving a farewell to Sam, losing the beat, and then getting back into her stride. Betty was a mini-Mrs M, Sam thought with affection as Pete shepherded her to the front door.

  They stood on the gravel driveway outside. ‘Happy New Year,’ they said in unison, and they kissed, both knowing it was not a goodnight kiss. And when she said, ‘Do you want a coffee?’ they both knew that the invitation meant a great deal more.

  Inside the stables, she didn’t even make the pretence of turning on the electric jug. They were in each other’s arms in a second, and then they were upstairs, in bed, their naked bodies setting each other on fire.

  Pete tried not to think of Melaney as he made love to Sam. He didn’t want to use the girl, and despite the intensity of his desire, he made love to her gently. He ran his lips down her throat and kissed her breasts, feeling her nipples respond to his mouth, his hands caressing her body, her belly, the curve of her hipbone, then her thighs, then the secret place between. All the while touching her, arousing her, and when he finally entered her she was warm and pulsating and meeting his every thrust.

  He could feel the power of her flesh undulating around him, drawing him further and further inside.

  ‘Show me, James. Teach me,’ she was whispering over and over.

  He fought to maintain control, but by now she was moaning and thrusting and unwittingly driving him towards his own climax.

  Then, suddenly, the rhythm stopped and she clung to him, her whole body quivering, a tiny gasp caught in her throat, as if she’d stopped breathing, as if time had stopped still.

  In her wildest imaginings, Sam had never thought that it could be like this. Fulfilment flooded through her, and with it a sense of ecstasy. Her body was behaving in a way she had never known possible.

  Pete could hold on no longer and he groaned as he thrust himself even deeper inside her, giving in to his own release.

  They lay together, exhausted, on the hard wooden floors of the loft. He’d been astounded by the force of her passion and she knew it. She laughed gently. ‘So that’s what it’s like,’ she whispered, and she kissed him as she straightened her skirts.

  They lay side by side on the narrow bed, her head in the crook of his shoulder. ‘That was fantastic,’ she whispered. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Pretty good from my point of view too,’ he said as he kissed the top of her head.

  ‘I’ve only done it once before.’ She leaned up on her elbow and looked at him. ‘And it certainly wasn’t like that.’

  She looked so incredibly young, he thought fondly as he stroked a lock of her hair, damp with perspiration, back from her face. He’d been thankful to discover she wasn’t a virgin; she was in love with him and that was responsibility enough, he realised with a sense of guilt.

  His concern must have shown, because she laughed lightly. ‘Don’t worry, Pete, it’s just one of those flings you have on the road.’ She knew it was what he needed to hear.

  He was grateful to her for saying it, and overwhelmed with affection, perhaps even love, as he drew her to him and kissed her.

  He stayed the night and they made love again in the morning. Then she cooked them scrambled eggs and bacon.

  ‘Do you eat like this every morning?’ he asked as she piled the plates high.

  ‘Nope, I’m strictly a fruit and cereal girl – this is part of my seduction campaign.’ He obviously believed her. ‘Not true,’ she admitted. ‘It was my special treat for a lonely New Year’s Day.’ But she wondered at the fact that she’d laid in supplies for two; had she been hoping?

  Sam checked that the coast was clear and Pete ducked down the driveway with an anxious eye on the side windows. Any moment Mrs M might appear in the kitchen, but fortunately the breakfast rush was over and the lunchtime preparation hadn’t yet begun.

  He collected his car from the theatre car park where he’d left it and, twenty minutes later, he drove up to Chisolm House where he and Sam greeted each other conspicuously and set off for the day. She wanted to go to Southampton, she said, to look at the docks.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. And she didn’t, she realised, the impulse seemed to have come from nowhere. ‘But isn’t that where the big ocean liners go from?’

  ‘Once upon a time,’ he said. ‘Well, the pleasure cruisers still do,’ he admitted, ‘but I can show you some prettier tourist spots.’ He took her there anyway, but only after they’d visited the village of Netley, nestled amongst the trees on the shores of Southampton Water, a few miles from the town of Southampton itself. Set in beautiful grounds nearby, the white domed chapel was the only remaining evidence of the once magnificent Royal Victoria Hospital which had been built in the nineteenth century.

  ‘It served as a military hospital during both World Wars,’ he explained, ‘a huge place – they say it was a mile long.’

  Not far away rose the stone battlements of Netley Castle, which Sam insisted they visit.

  ‘Incredible,’ she repeated time and again as she ran her hands over stonework which had stood for centuries. ‘Just incredible.’ Pete delighted in her amazement. ‘Well, you don’t get stuff like this in Australia,’ she said, which only delighted him more.

  She wasn’t disappointed in Southampton either, she found the quayside romantic. She could see it all, she said, the glamour of
the thirties and the trans-Atlantic ocean liners setting off for New York …

  Pete gazed out over the sprawling industrial port at the vast grey dockyards and railway lines, the barges and tugboats and cargo vessels gathered upon the murky waters. It didn’t look particularly romantic to him.

  ‘When I go to America I’m going to live in New York,’ Phoebe said.

  Jane nodded, but she didn’t bother replying – Phoebe said it every time they watched the liners depart. It was a regular outing of theirs; every few weeks they’d catch the train to Southampton and trek down to the docks. Jane’s father used to accompany them, but now they were thirteen they were allowed to make the trip on their own.

  ‘Right in the very middle of Manhattan,’ Phoebe added, and Jane nodded again. Phoebe always said that too, and Jane believed her – once Phoebe had set her mind on something she usually accomplished it.

  They stood on the visitors’ balcony and watched the Mauretania being slowly pulled out to sea by the tugs, passengers still waving from her crowded decks, streamers still fluttering from her railings.

  Standing at the forefront of the hordes gathered on the balcony, Phoebe and Jane had the very best view; they always made sure that they did. Having checked the newspapers, they’d arrive shortly before the liner’s departure and they’d stay for only a while, watching the last of the passengers boarding, pointing out the wealthiest and those travelling steerage. Then they’d sprint to the seaward end of the huge Ocean Terminal building, over 1,200 feet long, to take up their position by the railings before others, farewelling friends and family, had the same idea.

  Phoebe not only fantasised about the ship’s destination, but the romance that lay in life on board. ‘We’d have morning tea on the promenade deck,’ she’d say, ‘and we’d have dinner at the Captain’s table, and we’d have a state-room, with a private balcony.’

  ‘But of course,’ Jane would agree, ‘we’d be travelling posh.’ They’d read that the wealthiest passengers always travelled ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’, the favoured cabins gaining the morning sun and costing a great deal more. They knew each ship and whether it was of the Cunard or the White Star line and they fed each other’s fantasies as best friends do. The great liners had gradually replaced Maude Cookson’s pony in the scheme of things.