The Guest Who Stayed

Chapter 5 - Summer 1920

As late spring turned into early summer and the weather settled into a cycle of hot days and warm, sultry evenings, Jed's friendship with Alice and Flora began to blossom. They would meet up two or three evenings a week to walk along the farm lanes surrounding Frampton and occasionally to picnic on the heath where the fair had been held. For Jed, these were happy times. He had very little experience of being in female company and found himself relaxing and enjoying the gentle banter and innuendo that was part of their emerging sexuality.

"So do you have feelings about girls then, Jed?" asked Flora one evening as they lay sprawled on a blanket beneath the shade of an old elm tree.

"What sort of feelings?"

"What makes you want a girl?"

Jed paused, realising that he was rapidly leaving his comfort zone.

"I dunno really. How she looks, how she smiles, how she talks to me."

"But what things turn you on?" persisted Alice. "Do you ever have thoughts about what it's like to lay with a girl?"

"Course I have thoughts about it, yes. It's only natural? I imagine things like any man."

"Do you imagine things about us?" asked Flora, trying hard to suppress an embarrassed grin.

"I suppose I do, yes."

"What sort of things?"

"I'm embarrassed to say. You're friends."

"But we're women too, Jed. Don't forget that," added Alice.

Jed pondered Alice's words and turned them over in his mind for some days after that. He knew he was attracted to both girls in different ways. Alice was self assured and confident. Her neat good looks gave her an aura of efficiency. When he was with her, he felt safe and at ease. With Flora it was different. She lacked Alice's simple sophistication but she radiated warmth. Her looks were often dishevelled but her face was illuminated by a broad smile which highlighted her full red lips. Her contours were more rounded than Alice's and Jed began to realise that his 'imaginings' were mostly centred on Flora.

"It's the same old routine, day after day," complained Alice one evening as they strolled along country lanes bathed in the warm glow of an evening sun. "We work all day then boast each evening about how we're going to change everything, then we go back to work the next day and do exactly the same. Nothing changes - ever. We're trapped in this endless cycle of grind. It's like the world only consists of Frampton. What goes on outside of here? Don't you two ever wonder?"

"Hey, what's got into you then?" demanded Jed, grabbing Alice playfully by the wrists and trying to look her straight in the eyes. Alice grumpily shook herself free.

"It's the difference between saying you're going to do something and meaning it," replied Alice in a quiet but assertive voice that reduced the other two to silence. "Are we just like everyone else - like the old men in the market square, like the old women in the wash house, like the drunks in the Fox and Hounds - full of big ideas but not the slightest chance of doing any thing about them. Will that be us in thirty years time?" Alice visibly shook at the thought. The three of them walked along in silence for the next few minutes, unable to decide how best to break the awkward impasse. Flora took the plunge.

"We could have an outing."

"An outing?" shrieked Alice, incomprehension emblazoned across her face. "I'm talking about changing our lives and you suggest an outing."

"Don't be hard on her," replied Jed, coming quickly to Flora's help. "Every journey's got to start somewhere. You just said nothing ever changes. Well, an outing's a first step. Let's do that. Let's make a little change then we can move on to bigger ones." Alice sighed with resignation but reluctantly agreed.