The Swan, West Wickham
A woman will sometimes forgive the man who tries to seduce her, but never the man who misses an opportunity when offered.
— Talleyrand
— Talleyrand
One Saturday
night in April I found myself with McClain again in his local pub, where I met a
girl called Denise. I confess she did not set my heart on fire, but it was plain
she’d marked me out for her own, and I was painfully aware of my need for
sexual experience. After closing time I escorted her home and kissed her
several times on her doorstep before she opened the door and invited me in for
a coffee.
In the kitchen
she made our drinks, and then we settled on stools with our cups at our elbows.
Urged on by the sight of her mini-skirt draping the tops of her full thighs, I
began kissing her again and she made no attempt to stop my hand as it ran up
her side to grasp her breast. This was a bit too easy, I thought. How far would
she let me go? And was I ready for the adventure yet? Now I dropped my hand to
her knee and ran it along the stretched nylon that enveloped the flesh on the
inside of her thigh. At that she pressed her legs together, trapping my hand,
and said her parents would be home soon.
The following Saturday evening we were together again, but this time when we returned to her door she didn’t invite me inside, as her parents were at home, she said. I cast a glance about the street, asking if there was somewhere else a bit more private where we could go. She then led me along the street a little way and turned into a little passageway that led to a back alley behind the houses. Just as we passed what looked like a pile of rubbish or leaves in the dim yellow light cast from the street, the mound moved and two silhouettes sat up like a pair of leprechauns. We stopped and stared.
“Oh, it’s only
mi sister,” she said, and passed on.
Only her sister?
What sort of girls were they?
Certainly girls who
could teach a repressed young man a thing or two about matters of lovemaking, I
mused, and I only wanted a chance to become a pupil! But when we got round to
the back of her house I said, “Where?”
“Here,” she
said, glancing at the ground.
The night was
cold and the ground was, well – dirty. I wanted to make love all right, but I
did not want to that badly. Also, I
was not at all confident about my ability to perform correctly, even in the
best of conditions. I declined.
However, we
continued to meet regularly now, although I was somewhat disgruntled
that no better opportunity was offered to foster the bond between us. Since a
cold back alleyway grew no more enticing with time, we set our minds to the problem
of finding some private place where we could make love. Eventually we
came up with the plan of travelling down to Eastbourne for a ‘dirty weekend’, as the English expression had it.
Thus it was that
one Saturday afternoon we took a train down to that seaside resort and booked
into a Bed and Breakfast establishment as Mr and Mrs Wingfield, for in those
days people would have been outraged at the idea of an unmarried couple sharing
a room. Upstairs Denise drew from her suitcase a black negligee she’d bought
for the occasion and previously teased me with talk of. Now she escaped to
the bathroom and returned several moments later with shadowy folds falling
softly over veiled breasts. That aroused some passion in me, all right. Perched
on the edge of the bed, I encircled her shoulders with my arms and tried to draw her down
beside me. But she wouldn’t consent – yet. I would have to wait for the fall of night.
When she was fully clothed again, we left our B&B for a stroll around the town and then a hike up to Beachy Head .
Beachy Head, 1960s
We then got a bite to eat somewhere before finding a pub in the evening to have a drink or too. But as time went by a wave of anxiety invaded my brain. In a little while I would be going to bed with a woman and making love to her. Making love? How did you do that anyway? I’d had so little practice! I didn’t know how to! Certainly I’d bungled the undertaking badly with Suzanne and failed completely with Rita. It was now getting on for three years since that short-lived calamitous affair with my first girlfriend, but how much further on was I really in the art of making love?
Still, things
would surely be different with Denise. Owing to the real affection I sensed she
had for me, I felt she would meet any difficulty with sympathy and
understanding, rather than impatience. And we had the whole night to solve any
problems! All would surely be well. As I sipped my pint with outward calm, I tried
to kindle the flames of love with visions of how – soon, so very soon –
she would disappear again and reappear once more in that dusky negligee that disclosed
hazy contours of bare breasts. But then again I was filled with dread that I
couldn't manage the act successfully. What was wrong with me? That perennial question again!
I had a
suspicion of the truth. It was that I had a deep-seated fear of women. That’s a
fear not at all uncommon in our culture, I believe. It is probably the
experience of most young men who grow up under the hand (literally in my case) of a dominating
mother. And my dilemma was compounded by a common illusion about the act of love, to wit, that a
man should know how to make love, just as an animal does. I did not stop to
think that a man has to learn how to swim, whereas animals do it instinctively. In addition, I did not at all realize how the whole subject of lovemaking is repressed in our excessively competitive society, which is sex-mad, but essentially loveless. Just look at the way that women are portrayed in the media as mere sex objects and made to feel ashamed of their feminine qualities, like compassion, sympathy and sensitivity, because such attributes are useless in a grasping acquisitive social order.
We did not stay,
as was my wont, for last orders, for beer wasn’t of any great interest to me
that night. Back in our room, I undressed, turned out the light and got into
bed, while Denise slipped into the bathroom. Several moments later she sailed
through the muted luminosity of the room in veiled nakedness and slid between
the sheets beside me. I rolled into her open arms, enclosing in mine the
unresisting body, pale as marble beneath its lacy drapery, and smothered her
lips and face and neck with kisses. Passion surged in me now, and I was swept away
in a torrent of desire, a steamy lava stream that would breach all barriers and
inhibitions.
Or so I solemnly hoped it
would.
But thus far I
had not yet grappled with the actual mechanics of sex. Just exactly how did a
man manoeuvre his hips tightly enough into the angle of a woman’s widened thighs to
penetrate her vagina effectively? That was the question. For ten minutes or more
I strained against the spatial limitations and then slumped on my back,
defeated in soul and deflated in body – or at least that part of it germane to
any success in the enterprise I was attempting here. It was time to confess again.
I told Denise I’d never been to bed with a girl before.
I told Denise I’d never been to bed with a girl before.
That was a lie
and the truth at the same time!
She was
sympathetic and suggested she take the lead by climbing on top of me. In my sexual
innocence I’d never even heard of such a thing! But get on top of me she did,
and managed to couple us together. Now she gently began a rocking motion with
her hips, forward and back, forward and back, while her alabaster breasts rose
and fell behind the dusky folds of her negligee. She rode me faster and faster
through waves of hot and painful pleasure to the burning climax and beyond, to
serene pools of relief and hushed caverns of profound peace.
In the aftermath
I was somewhat ashamed that I had failed to ‘be a man’ in abdicating the
leading role. I could hardly think that any of my friends would have proved so
wanting in a province so dominating male conversation! Still, before the night was out,
I reawakened my bed mate, wishing to be ridden again!
When morning came,
Denise said she wanted no breakfast, so I trudged downstairs alone and took a place at
a table in a dining room peopled with middle-aged, ruddy-faced couples who
would have masticated their bacon more fiercely, I suspected, if they’d known what unredeemed
debauchery had taken place in a neighbouring room between a young man and woman
ununited in holy matrimony.
When the
landlady appeared, she glanced at the empty seat opposite me and asked, “Will Mrs
Wingfield be coming down for breakfast?”
“No.” I replied passively,
“She doesn’t usually have breakfast.”
---------------------------
Time moved on.
May came, magically transforming the landscape with sprays of blossom, and the
anniversary of my coming to England
“Well, I can’t
go next week,” I replied. “I’ve got a
job, after all.”
“Quit it.”
“But I’ve got a
bedsitter. I can’t just leave.”
“Why not? Just
give notice.”
My efforts to
angle for time fell flat. It was annoying because I’d not been
thinking of going anywhere just then. Why was he? And why the blunt behaviour? I didn’t know, but I knew that if
I ever wished to visit Europe , it had to be now.
I complied. The next step was to tell Denise.
I complied. The next step was to tell Denise.
She was
devastated. Why did I have to go?
Well, it was
something McClain and I planned to do a long time ago.
“Don’t go,” she
pleaded. “Why don’t we take a coach trip around Britain
With black
negligee in her suitcase too, I imagined wistfully.
“I’m sorry,” I
said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you when I get back.”
I was lying through my teeth. I felt sorry for her, very sorry, for I knew what it meant to be rejected, but I could see no future for us. I had no interest in marriage, because I was not ready for it. Even if I’d been ready, it’s unlikely I would have chosen her. She had chosen me in ‘The Swan’ and she meant to keep me too if she could. I felt I had to get free, and my previous agreement with McClain supplied the pretext for it.
I gave notice of departure at the bakery and at my residence. I bought a Hallwag map of Europe and a grey canvas
rucksack buttressed with a steel spine, and a blue nylon sleeping bag. Now I
withdrew from the bank my meagre savings – some ninety pounds – and exchanged the
sum for several American Express travellers' cheques. My preparations were complete
when I travelled up to London Western Europe .
My old Youth Hostel Card
On the day of departure I stuffed a few clothes into my rucksack, along with the old army raincoat I’d brought from
On Monday, 14th June,
1965 , I rode my motorbike down to West Wickham and parked it
under cover in McClain’s grandparent's back garden, as we’d agreed. Then we caught a
bus to somewhere on the A20,
A20, 1960s
where we got off, strapped our packs to our backs, lugged them to a spot where the traffic was halted and just stuck out our thumbs.
At Dover we boarded a ferry for Calais. The long-awaited adventure had finally begun.
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