Now I really did have a question to ask myself. Was that deliberate? I lay in bed that night asking the question, I awoke the next morning still asking the question, and continued to ask it for the next several months, during which I did not see her. It had to be, didn’t it? Would a woman accidentally do that? Surely not.
You will not be surprised to learn that some years later, when we were at last together, I asked her the question. I didn’t expect her even to remember the occasion, let alone what happened, so I began at the beginning, as it were, by reminding her we had arrived a little early and I was standing reading the news journal. ‘And I said John all dishy in blue,’ she interrupted. ‘Yes, and when we left at the end of the evening…’, ‘I kissed you on the lips,’ she said.
My parents were totally out of the picture. Not totally out of my mind, but Moya didn’t know that. I had successfully sublimated the guilt, so that as far as she was concerned my life revolved exclusively round my ‘new’ family.
There were jolts. I was crossing a footbridge at South Kensington tube station one day, and there was a huge poster that said, ‘Honour thy Father and Mother’. I swallowed hard and cursed the interfering group of religious bigots that had put it up. I would dream of Mum and Dad, and wake with a leaden feeling of guilt in my head. Then, at a social gathering one Christmas at the home of a mutual friend who lived in the same road, Bonnie and I were engaged in polite conversation. I think we were talking about Watergate, President Ford’s outrageous pardon of his predecessor, something like that anyway, when—clearly intending no more than a continuation of chat—unwittingly Bonnie rocked me to the foundations. She asked me about my family, my parents. Nothing abnormal about that, except to someone in my situation. I tried to think quickly of something appropriate to say, something that would sound fine and lead to no further questioning. But what came out was ‘I, er, I don’t see my parents.’ I prayed she would simply move the conversation on, but she was appalled. She repeated what I had said, pausing between each word.
‘But that’s awful,’ she said, ‘really awful. Oh, I am so sad for you.’
I felt tears well up in me. Unwittingly she had broken through the defensive wall I had so carefully constructed around me. I knew it was wrong, she knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do about it. This particular boat most certainly did not need rocking. It would sink, and I would sink with it.
October 1980. Bonnie’s husband, an economist, was away on a business trip. Moya and I invited her down to ours for the evening so she wouldn’t be on her own. I offered Bonnie a pre-dinner drink and replenished it despite her protestations. She and her husband had recently returned from a trip to Sri Lanka. Bon said she had found the atmosphere there almost erotic. The sultry heat, she said, and the people walking so languidly, their hips swaying and their loose clothing swaying too, men and women alike.
I don’t know about bloody Sri Lanka, but hearing Bonnie talk like that was pretty damn erotic for me. My imagination soared and the thought of Bonnie becoming aroused, combined most certainly with a strong scotch and soda, brought a crimson heat to my face which I made no attempt to conceal. I probably spent the rest of the evening grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. After all, I was in close proximity to a calm, softly spoken, gentle woman who had begun to fill my waking thoughts, and most of my nightly ones as well.
Some time around the middle of the evening, the heavens opened and the rain came bucketing down. It pounded on the roof and we could hear it splashing off the pavement outside. Throughout the evening, I made sure Bon’s wine glass was never empty, although I noticed she wised up to this quickly and never had more than a sip or two before I wielded the bottle again. Finally she said she ought to get back home and relieve the babysitter, who was looking after her two children. My wife nodded. Then she said, and these were her exact words, ‘John, you’re not going to let Bonnie walk home alone, are you, in this pouring rain? You must go with her.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Of course,’ I said, as a thousand butterflies suddenly took flight in my stomach. I remember the feeling. If this had been a movie, the camera would have caught the smug smile of satisfaction as I realised this was the moment I had waited for for so long. In fact, the feeling that filled me was closer to panic. What should I do? How should I behave? What if, in the next few minutes, it became transparently clear to me that Bonnie had no more feeling for me than any other bloke she had come into contact with? The illusion, the fictional edifice I had built, would be fatally breached and come tumbling down.
Oh Lordy, oh God, oh Hell, I thought as I took the umbrella my wife handed to me. We stepped outside, the two of us, making small exclamatory noises as the rain hit us. Bonnie took a hurried couple of steps to the gate before I could get the umbrella up. Rejection. Obvious. Fool. I hurried after her and onto the pavement. She waited for me to catch up. Ha! Good sign. Or not. The street lamp lit up her face as she half turned, the rain soaking her and drops rolling down her cheeks. She was smiling a wide smile.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘come under the umbrella.’ I raised it over her head and in a move that seemed as natural as breathing, I put my arm round her. She allowed me to draw her body closer to me. We walked that way up the slope to her house, in step with each other and laughing like teenagers. We reached the back door of her house. A dim light came from inside, but apart from that we were in darkness. The overhanging roof gave us slight shelter from the rain, but not much.
I put down the umbrella and reached out to her. Her arms reached out to me. We took a step towards each other and our lips locked in a moment of the most intense passion I had ever felt. We kissed as though our lives depended on it. I parted her lips with my tongue, she responded and she pressed herself fully against me. I tasted her, inhaled her scent. I stroked her body with my hands, feeling up and down her back, the indent of her waist, then, gently, the contours of her front. She made small gasping sounds, seeming to crave me as much as I craved her. I felt her hands on my back, my neck, my head.
I don’t know how long that immortal first kiss lasted. Minutes, certainly. In the movie I would have told her how I loved her, how I had longed for her, how I had waited for this moment. She would have sighed ecstatically, returned my ardent words, probably to the strains of Rachmaninov. In fact, we said nothing. Our eyes held each other for a few moments. I picked up the umbrella and walked back down the slope.
I have thought about this moment a million times in the more than 30 years since it happened. Bonnie and I have talked about it, laughed over it. It has always led to a repeat performance. Today, as I write about it for the first time, it only brings tears to my eyes.
Bonnie is pacing round the house and I want to tell her what I am remembering, but I don’t. Why talk of something that will mean nothing to her now, and might make her regret that she can’t remember it?
But can I really be sure it will mean nothing to her? What if I am wrong, and she does remember it? If she does, it will bring her a lot of pleasure. I decide to test it in as gentle a way as I can.
I go out onto the terrace, and of course Bon follows me out there. We stroll around for a few moments, then I lean against the table and say, ‘Come here, darling, come here a moment.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I want to ask you something.’
She walks towards me and stands facing me.
‘Do you remember our first kiss?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘When was it?’
‘Er…I don’t know.’
‘Take a guess.’
‘Five years ago?’
‘Yeah!’ I say, raising my arms in triumph. She smiles with satisfaction.
So what did it all mean? It seemed impossible that she might actually be interested in me. Let’s look at the facts. She—a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant born and educated in America. Moi—a rather dark-skinned (olive,