affairs and beach stones

I - II

WHEN I LOOK over the fields to the sea, on these autumn days when the grass moves in the wind and the waves sound like excited breath, I remember that I once felt intense and secret things, just like you, Patrick. I hope you will understand that, and I hope you can forgive it.

Spring 1957. Having finished his National Service, Tom was still away, training to become a policeman. I often thought with excitement of him joining the force. It seemed such a brave, grown-up thing to do. I didn't know anyone else who'd do such a thing. At home, the police were rather suspect – not the enemy, exactly, but an unknown quantity. I knew that as a policeman Tom would have a different life to our parents, one that was more daring, more powerful.

I was attending teacher training college in Chichester but still saw Sylvie quite a bit, even though she was becoming more involved with Roy. Once she asked me to go with her to the roller rink, but when I got there she turned up with Roy and another boy called Tony, who worked with Roy at the garage. Tony didn't seem to be able to speak much. Not to me, anyway. Occasionally he'd shout a comment to Roy as we skated round, but Roy didn't always look back. That was because his eyes were caught up with Sylvie's. It was like they couldn't look anywhere else, not even where they were going. Tony didn't hold my arm as we skated round, and I managed to get ahead of him several times. As I skated I thought of the smile Tom had given me the day he'd announced he was joining the Catering Corps, how his top lip had disappeared above his teeth and his eyes had slanted. When we stopped for a Coke, Tony didn't smile at me. He asked me when I was leaving school, and I said, 'Never – I'm going to be a teacher,' and he looked at the door like he wanted to skate right through it.

One sunny afternoon not long after that, Sylvie and I went to Preston Park and sat on the bench beneath the elms, which were lovely and rustly, and she announced her engagement to Roy. 'We're very happy,' she declared, with a secretive little

smile. I asked her if Roy had taken advantage of her, but she shook her head and there was that smile again.

For a long time we just watched the people going by with their dogs and their children in the sunshine. Some of them had cones from the Rotunda. Neither Sylvie nor I had money for ice cream and Sylvie was still silent, so I asked her: 'How far have you gone, then?'

Sylvie looked over the park, swinging her right leg back and forth impatiently. 'I told you,' she said.

'No. You didn't.'

'I'm in love with him,' she stated, stretching out her arms and closing her eyes. 'Really in love.'

This I found hard to believe. Roy wasn't bad looking, but he talked too much about absolutely nothing. He was also slight. His shoulders didn't look as though they could bear any weight at all.

'You don't know what it's like,' Sylvie said, blinking at me. 'I love Roy and we're going to be married.'

I gazed at the grass beneath my feet. Of course I couldn't say to Sylvie, 'I know exactly what it's like. I'm in love with your brother.' I know that I would've ridiculed anyone who was in love with one of my brothers, and why should Sylvie have been any different?

'I mean,' she said, looking straight at me, 'I know you've got a crush on Tom. But it's not the same.'

Blood crawled up my neck and around my ears.

'Tom's not like that, Marion,' said Sylvie.

For a moment I thought of standing up and walking away. But my legs were shaking, and my mouth had frozen in a smile.

Sylvie nodded towards a lad passing by with a large cornet in his hand. 'Wish I had one of those,' she said, loudly. The boy twisted his head and gave her a quick glance, but she