Missing Joseph Part 6

He was grinning more widely. "Great. Excellent. Come on, Mag. Let me in."

She swallowed past a raw spot in her throat. "I can't. I can't see you alone. I promised."

"Why?"

"Because...Nick, you know."

His hand was against the window gla.s.s, and he dropped it to his side. "But I just wanted to show you...Oh what the h.e.l.l."

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget it. Never mind."

"Nick, tell me."

He turned his head away. He wore his hair bobbed, overlong on the top the way the rest of the boys did, but it never looked trendy on him. It looked right, as if he'd been the style's inventor.

"Nick."

"Just a letter," he said. "It doesn't matter. Forget it."

"A letter? From who?"

"It isn't important."

"But if you've come all this way-" Then she remembered. "Nick, you've not heard from Lester Piggott? Is that it? Has he answered your letter?" It was hard to believe. But Nick wrote to jockeys as a matter of course, always adding to his collection of letters. He'd heard from Pat Eddery, Graham Starkey, Eddie Hide. But Lester Piggott was a plum, to be sure.

She flung up the sash. The cold wind gusted like a cloud into the room.

"Is that it?" she asked.

From his ancient leather jacket-long claimed to be a gift to his great-uncle from an American bombardier during World War II- Nick took an envelope. "It isn't much," he said. "Just 'nice to hear from you, lad.' But he signed it real clear. No one thought he'd answer, remember, Mag? I wanted you to know."

It seemed mean-spirited to leave him outside when he'd come on such an innocent errand. Even Mummy couldn't object to this. Maggie said, "Come in."

"Not if it'll make trouble with your mum."

"It's all right."

He squeezed his lanky frame through the window and made a deliberate point of not closing it behind him. "I thought you'd gone to bed. I was looking in the windows."

"I thought you were a prowler."

"Why'n't you turn on the lights?"

She dropped her eyes. "I get scared. Alone." She took the envelope from him and admired the address. Mr. Nick Ware, Esq., Skelshaw Farm was written clearly in a firm, bold hand. She returned it to Nick. "I'm glad he wrote back. I thought he would."

"I remembered. That's why I wanted you to see." He flipped his hair off his face and looked round the room. Maggie watched, in dread. He'd be noticing all the stuffed animals and her dolls sitting upright in the wicker chair. He'd go to the bookshelves and see The Railway Children along with the other favourite t.i.tles from her childhood. He'd realise what a baby she was. He wouldn't want to take her about then, would he. He probably wouldn't want to know her at all. Why hadn't she thought before letting him in?

He said, "I've never been in your bedroom before. It's real nice, Mag."

She felt dread dissolve. She smiled. "Ta."

"Dimple," he said and touched his index finger to the small depression in her cheek. "I like it when you smile." Tentatively, he dropped his hand to her arm. She could feel his cold fingers, even through her pullover.

"You're ice," she said.

"Cold outside."

She was acutely aware of being in the dark in forbidden territory. The room seemed smaller with him standing in it, and she knew the proper thing to do was to take him downstairs and let him out by the door. Except that now he was here, she didn't want him to go, not without giving her some kind of sign that he was still hers in spite of everything that had happened in their lives since last October. It wasn't enough to know that he liked it when she smiled and he could touch the dimple in her cheek. People liked babies' smiles, they said so all the time. She wasn't a baby.

"When's your mum coming home?" he asked.

Any minute was the truth. It was after nine. But if she told the truth, he'd be gone in an instant. Perhaps he'd do it for her sake, to keep her from trouble, but he'd do it all the same. So she said, "I don't know. She went off with Mr. Shepherd."

Nick knew about Mummy and Mr. Shepherd, so he knew what that meant. The rest was up to him.

She made a move to close the window, but his hand was still on her arm, so it was easy enough for him to stop her. He wasn't rough. He didn't need to be. He merely kissed her, flicking his tongue like a promise against her lips, and she welcomed him.

"She'll be a while then." His mouth moved to her neck. He gave her the s.h.i.+vers. "She's been getting hers regular enough."

Her conscience told her to defend her mummy from Nick's interpretation of the village gossip, but the s.h.i.+vers were running along her arms and her legs each time he kissed her and they kept her from thinking as straight as she'd like. Still, she was in the process of gathering her wits to make a firm reply when his hand moved to her breast and his fingers began to play with her nipple. He rolled it gently back and forth until she gasped with the hurt and the tingling heat and he relinquished the pressure and started the process all over again. It felt so good. It felt beyond good.

She knew she ought to talk about Mummy, she ought to explain. But she couldn't seem to hold on to that thought for longer than the instant in which Nick's fingers released her. Once they began to tease her again, she could think only of the fact that she didn't want to risk any discussion standing in the way of the sign that things were right between them. So she finally said from somewhere outside of herself, "We've got an understanding now, my mum and I," and she felt him smiling against her mouth. He was a clever boy, Nick. He probably didn't believe her for a moment.

"Missed you," he whispered and pulled her tight to him. "G.o.d, Mag. Give me some hard."

She knew what he wanted. She wanted to do it. She wanted to feel It through his blue jeans again, going rigid and big because of her. She pressed her hand against It. He moved her fingers up and down and around.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Jesus. Mag."

He slid her fingers along Its length to the tip. He circled them round It. He felt heavy against her. She squeezed It gently, then harder when he groaned.

"Maggie," he said. "Mag."

His breathing was loud. He tugged her pullover off. She felt the night wind against her skin. And then she felt only his hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And then only his mouth as he kissed them.

She was liquid. She was floating. The fingers on his blue jeans weren't even hers. She wasn't the one easing down the zip. She wasn't the one making him naked.

He said, "Wait. Mag. If your mum comes home-"

She stopped him with her kiss. She groped blindly for the sweet full weight of him, and he helped her fingers stroke down and round his globes of flesh. He groaned, his hands went under her skirt, his fingers rubbed hot circles between her legs.

And then they were on the bed together, Nick's body a pale sapling above her, her own body ready, hips lifted, legs spread. Nothing else mattered.

"Tell me when to stop," he said. "Maggie, all right? We won't do it this time. Just tell me when to stop." He put It against her. He rubbed It against her. The tip of It, the length of It. "Tell me when to stop."

Just once more. Just this once. It couldn't be such a horrible sin. She pulled him closer, wanting him near.

"Maggie. Mag, don't you think we ought to stop?"

She pressed It closer and closer with her hand.

"Mag, really. I can't hold off."

She lifted her mouth to kiss him.

"If your mum comes home-"

Slowly, deeply, she rotated her hips.

"Maggie. We can't." He plunged It inside.

Scrubber, she thought. Scrubber, s.l.u.t, tart. She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Her vision blurred as tears slid from her eyes, forking across her temples and down into her ears.

I'm nothing, she thought. I'm a s.l.u.t. I'm a tart. I'll do it with anyone. Right now it's only Nick. But if some other bloke wants to stick It in me tomorrow, I'll probably let him. I'm a scrubber. A tart.

She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked across the room. Bozo the elephant wore his usual expression of pachydermatous bemus.e.m.e.nt, but there seemed to be something else in his face tonight. Disappointment, no doubt. She'd let Bozo down. But that was nothing compared to what she'd done to herself.

She eased off the bed and onto the floor where she knelt, feeling the ridges of the worn rag rug pressing into her knees. She clasped her hands together in the att.i.tude of prayer and tried to think of the words that would lead to forgiveness.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean it to happen, G.o.d. I just thought to myself: If only he'll kiss me then I'll know things're still right between us, no matter what I promised Mummy. Except when he kisses me that way I don't want him to stop and then he does other things and I want him to do them and then I want more. I don't want it to end. And I know it's wrong. I know it. I do. But I can't help how I feel. I'm sorry. G.o.d, I'm sorry. Don't let bad come out of this please. It won't happen again. I won't let him. I'm sorry."

But how many times could G.o.d forgive when she knew it was wrong and He knew she knew it and she did it anyway because she wanted Nick close? One couldn't make endless bargains with G.o.d without Him wondering about the nature of the deal He was striking. She was going to pay for her sins in a very big way, and it was only a matter of time before G.o.d decided that an accounting was due.

"G.o.d doesn't work that way, my dear. He doesn't keep score. He's capable of endless acts of forgiveness. This is why He's our Supreme Being, the standard after which we model ourselves. We can't hope to reach His level of perfection, of course, and He doesn't expect us to. He merely asks that we keep trying to better ourselves, to learn from our mistakes, and to understand others."

How simple Mr. Sage had made it all sound when he'd come upon her in the church that evening last October. She'd been kneeling in the second pew, in front of the rood screen, with her forehead resting on her two clenched fists. Her prayer had been much the same as tonight's, only it had been the first time then, on a mound of paint-stiffened wrinkled tarpaulins in a corner of the Cotes Hall scullery. With Nick easing her clothes off, easing her to the floor, easing easing easing her ready. "We won't actually do it," he'd said, just like tonight. "Tell me when to stop, Mag." And he kept repeating tell me when to stop Maggie tell me tell me while his mouth covered hers and his fingers worked magic between her legs and she pressed and pressed herself against his hand. She wanted heat and closeness. She needed to be held. She longed to be part of something more than herself. He was the living promise of all she desired, there in the scullery. She merely had to accept.

It was the aftermath that she hadn't expected, that moment when all the nice girls don't's came rus.h.i.+ng through her conscience like Noah's flood: boys don't respect girls who...they tell all their mates...just say no, you can do that...who steals my purse...they only want one thing, they only think of one thing... do you want a disease...what if he gets you pregnant, do you think he'll be so hot for you then...you've given in once, you've crossed a line with him, he'll be after you now again and again...he doesn't love you, if he did, he wouldn't...

And so she had come to St. John the Baptist's for evensong. She'd half-listened to the reading. She'd half-heard the hymns. Mostly, she'd looked at the intricate rood screen and the altar beyond it. There, the Ten Commandments-etched into looming, individual bronze tablets-comprised the reredos, and she found her attention helplessly riveted on commandment number seven. It was harvest festival. The altar steps were spread with an array of offerings. Sheaves of corn, marrows of yellow and green, new potatoes in baskets, and several bushels of beans filled the church air with the fertile scent of autumn. But Maggie was only imperfectly aware of this, as she was only imperfectly aware of the prayers being said and the organ being played. The light from the main chandelier in the chancel seemed to glitter directly onto the bronze reredos, and the word adultery quivered in her vision. It seemed to grow larger, seemed to point and accuse.

She tried to tell herself that committing adultery meant that at least one of the parties had to be in possession of wedding vows to break. But she knew that an entire school of loathsome behaviours rested beneath the awning of that single word, and she was guilty of most of them: impure thoughts about Nick, infernal desire, s.e.xual fantasies, and now fornication, the worst sin of all. She was black and corrupt, headed straight for d.a.m.nation.

If only she could recoil from her behaviour, writhing in disgust over the act itself or how it made her feel, G.o.d might forgive her. If only the act had made her feel unclean, He might overlook this one small lapse. If only she didn't want it-and Nick and the indescribable warmth of their bodies' connection-all over again, now, right here in the church.

Sin, sin, sin. She lowered her head to her fists and kept it there, oblivious of the rest of the service. She began to pray, making fervent supplications for G.o.d's forgiveness, with her eyes squeezed shut so tight she saw stars.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered. "Don't let bad happen to me. I won't do it again. I promise. I promise. I'm sorry."

It was the only prayer that she could devise, and she repeated it mindlessly, caught up in her need for direct communication with the supernatural. She heard nothing of the vicar's approach, and she didn't even know the service was over and the church empty until she felt a hand curving firmly round her shoulder. She looked up with a cry. All of the chandeliers had been extinguished. The only light remaining came in a greenish glow from an altar lamp. It touched one side of the vicar's face and cast long, crescent shadows from the bags beneath his eyes.

"He is forgiveness itself," the vicar said quietly. His voice was soothing, just like a warm bath. "Never doubt that. He exists to forgive."

The serenity of his tone and the kindness of his words brought tears to her eyes. "Not this," she said. "I don't see how He can."

His hand squeezed her shoulder, then dropped. He joined her in the pew, sitting not kneeling, and she slid back onto the bench herself. He indicated the rood atop its screen. "If the Lord's last words were, 'Forgive them, Father,' and if His Father did indeed forgive- which we may be a.s.sured that He did-then why wouldn't He forgive you as well? Whatever your sin may be, my dear, it cannot equal the evil of putting to death the Son of G.o.d, can it?"

"No," she whispered, although she had begun to cry. "But I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway because I wanted to do it."

He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. "That's the nature of sin. We face a temptation, we have a choice to make, we choose unwisely. You aren't alone in this. But if you're resolved in your heart not to sin again, then G.o.d forgives. Seventy times seven. You may rely upon that."

Possessing resolution in her heart was the problem. She wanted to promise. She wanted as much to believe in her promise. Unfortunately she wanted Nick more. "That's just it," she said. And she told the vicar everything.

"Mummy knows," she finished, plaiting his handkerchief back and forth through her fingers. "Mummy's so angry."

The vicar dropped his head and seemed to be examining the faded needlework fleur-delis on the kneeler. "How old are you, my dear?"

"Thirteen," she said.

He sighed. "Dear G.o.d."

More tears rose in her eyes. She blotted them away and hiccupped as she spoke. "I'm bad. I know it. I know it. So does G.o.d."

"No. It isn't that." He covered her hand briefly. "It's the rush to adulthood that disturbs me. It's taking on such troubles when you're still so young."

"It's not a trouble to me."

He smiled gently. "No?"

"I love him. He loves me."

"And that's generally where the trouble starts, isn't it?"

"You're making fun," she said stiffly.

"I'm speaking the truth." He moved his gaze from her to the altar. His hands were on his knees, and Maggie saw his fingers tense as he gripped them more firmly. "Your name is?"

"Maggie Spence."

"I've not seen you in church before tonight, have I?"

"No. We...Mummy isn't taken much with going to church."

"I see." Still he held the grip on his knees. "Well, you've come upon one of mankind's biggest challenges at a fairly young age, Maggie Spence. How to cope with the sins of the flesh. Even before the time of our Lord, the ancient Greeks recommended moderation in everything. They knew, you see, the sort of consequences one faces through giving in to one's appet.i.tes."

She frowned, confused.

He caught the look and went on with, "s.e.x is an appet.i.te as well, Maggie. Something like hunger. It begins with mild curiosity rather than a rumble in the stomach, to be sure. But it quickly becomes a demanding taste. And unfortunately, it isn't like overeating or intoxication from drink, both of which provide a rather immediate physical discomfort that can later act as a reminder of the fruits of impetuous indulgence. Instead, it provides a sense of well-being and release, one that we come to wish to experience again and again."

"Like a drug?" she asked.

"Very much like a drug. And just like many drugs, its harmful properties aren't immediately apparent. Even if we know what they are-intellectually-the promise of pleasure is often too seductive for us to abstain when we should. That's when we must turn to the Lord. We must ask Him to infuse us with the strength to resist. He faced His own temptations, you know. He understands what it is to be human."

"Mummy doesn't talk about G.o.d," Maggie said. "She talks about AIDS and herpes and warts and getting pregnant. She thinks I won't do it if I'm scared enough."

"You're being harsh on her, my dear. These are far from unrealistic concerns on her part. Cruel facts are a.s.sociated with s.e.xuality these days. Your mother is wise-and kind-to share them with you."