A Family Affair. Nancy Carson

his name, she saw him standing in front of a fermenting vessel, his back toward her, as naked as the day he was born, dripping with water. Her heart went to her mouth and she was suddenly stricken with a strange inertia. His lean, supple, military back looked hard, rippling with masculinity as a shaft of slanting sunlight glinted off the droplets of water that clung jealously to him. The cheeks of his backside were small and tight and muscular and she imagined cupping them in her hands, like she did Sammy’s, to feel how hard and firm they really were. She was mesmerised. Water lapped against the side of the bath tub as he leaned forward to grab the towel that was hanging over one of the water pipes. She beheld, with a healthy womanly curiosity, his scrotum dangling loose between his legs as he bent over, like two eggs hanging from a nest but still attached to it. Slowly, as she watched, becoming reconciled to this unexpected vision, the ability to move returned. As he began towelling himself dry, she slid silently to one side to conceal herself behind a pile of stacked beer barrels. Through the gap caused by the curvature of the barrels she continued to gawp unbelieving at her Uncle Elijah. He turned around, presenting himself in profile and she gasped when she saw how well-blessed he was – and standing up so hard and so proud, all ready for action.

      Maybe, naked in the bath, he’d been thinking of all the things he liked to do with Dorcas when they were alone, she thought. No doubt Dorcas was very accommodating in bed. No doubt he was very active there too.

      Ramona watched, transfixed as he took the towel and dried his hard, extended rod with gentle care and attention; understandably, for it was such a handsome piece of equipment. But he must not see her watching him. She waited for him to turn away, hardly able to divert her eyes from his very excellent tackle. Deftly, but with great reluctance, she silently side-stepped back through the open door and back onto the yard.

      ‘God!’ she murmured to herself and smiled impishly as a wayward thought flashed through her mind. ‘Oh, my God! Uncle Elijah! You’re magnificent.’

      Back in the scullery the others had all sat down to their meal. Elijah’s was placed in the oven to keep warm. They had been eating for five minutes or so when he returned, his hair plastered down where it was still wet, a sheen of perspiration seeping from his forehead.

      ‘Your dinner’s in the oven, Elijah,’ Clover said, trimming a piece of fat from her meat.

      He grabbed a cloth and pulled the plates, one upturned over the other to keep in the moisture, out of the oven and placed them on the table.

      ‘You’ve been a while,’ Mary Ann commented as he put the covering plate into the sink.

      ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise I’d been so long.’

      ‘I sent Ramona into the brewery to look for you,’ Clover added innocently.

      ‘Oh?’ Elijah turned and looked from one to the other, a light of realisation brightening slowly in his eyes at Ramona’s refusal to meet his.

      Her face was already rubescent. ‘But I couldn’t find him,’ she was quick to blurt out with a brief but guilty glimpse at her uncle.

      ‘Well, you didn’t look very bloody hard,’ he said, wilfully catching her glance and evidently finding it amusing.

      No, but you did, she wanted to say and lowered her eyes as she ate.

       Chapter 7

      Next day, Sunday, Tom Doubleday called after dinner for Clover, as he did every Sunday. By this time they had been stepping out together for two months and love was blossoming. Sometimes, they went for a walk around the fields of Oakham, sometimes, a tram ride into Birmingham where they enjoyed window shopping in New Street and Corporation Street. Today, they intended to take a leisurely walk through the Castle Grounds. The weather was settled, although typically humid for August, and they decided they might find some cooling breeze in the shade of the trees that covered the elevated paths to the castle keep. On the way, it was necessary to pass Tom’s studio.

      ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Tom said, stopping outside it.

      Still holding his hand, Clover turned to him in a swirl of sleeveless summer dress with a scalloped neck. ‘What?’

      ‘You look so beautiful – so fresh and breezy…I feel inspired to take a photograph of you. It’s time I did a really nice one.’

      She smiled at his compliment. ‘I don’t mind. If you want to take my picture…’

      ‘Well, we’ve been courting for ages now, Clover, and it’s a sin that I haven’t got a studio photo of you. And the light is perfect, look. Bright and hazy. No hard shadows.’

      ‘All right,’ she agreed easily. ‘As long as I can take one of you as well.’

      He laughed at that and said she could as he took the key from his pocket and opened the front door. They entered into a small foyer, with examples of his best work hanging in frames from a picture rail, and a small carved counter facing the door where transactions were concluded. Plush velvet curtains hung from a brass rail along the side wall and similar drapes, tied back, adorned the deep window. Tom led her through the door into his studio which was, by now, familiar in any case, since she’d called on him a few times while he was working. Tom had had the room extended in the fashion of a conservatory to make best use of the soft north light, with a glass roof and vertical windows that stretched to the floor. Roller blinds had been fitted to the roof windows to adjust the intensity of light, and rich floral curtains hung from floor to ceiling. Two of the solid walls of the studio were decorated to look like the drawing-room of some stately home, even with a false, but very ornate door and frame let into one wall. Odd pieces of furniture stood randomly; props that could be included in a photo as required. A mahogany whatnot stood with a shiningly healthy aspidistra sitting on top in a brass pot. There was a screen, several armchairs in various styles, all ornate, a variety of occasional tables that subjects might rest their backsides on for a jaunty pose, a music stool, a chaise-longue that looked soft and comfortable, and a soft bearskin rug on the floor.

      ‘How do you want me to pose?’

      ‘Oh, all ways.’

      She thought she detected a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. ‘No, you must tell me, Tom. I’ve never had my picture taken in a studio before. You’ll have to suggest something.’

      He was fiddling with his plate camera. ‘Well, we can have one of you reclining, one sitting, one standing, full length, three-quarter or just head and shoulders. Personally, I’d like one full length and a head and shoulders. You choose the pose, Clover. Just be yourself.’

      She stood with her hands on the whatnot, partially hidden by the aspidistra.

      ‘No, stand to the side of it, my love. The damned plant’s hiding you…Yes, that’s better.’ He bent down to look through the class screen and pulled the dark cloth over his head. ‘Thrust your bosom out a bit, Clover…Ooh, lovely.’ He focused the image and emerged from under the black cloth. He smiled as he inserted a plate into the rear of the camera. ‘That looks good. Now…A nice smile…Smiling is a part of your nature, Clover, so I want to see a smile.’

      She smiled.

      ‘Don’t forget to thrust your chest out a little…That’s good. Hold that.’ He pressed the shutter release bulb and Clover stood perfectly still.

      The next was a head and shoulders portrait, three-quarter face, which captured her exquisite nose to perfection, although Tom deliberately did not say so for fear of protest.

      ‘I think I’d like one of you reclining like some Greek goddess now,’ he suggested. ‘Like those girls in paintings by Alma-Tadema in diaphanous dresses, lounging on animal skins draped over marble. Have you seen them?’

      She laughed dismissively. ‘Not that I can recall.’

      ‘As lifelike as any photograph, except they’re in colour.’