Malcolm and Juliet by Bernard Beckett Read Free Book Online

Flooding his mind with technical details, Malcolm found it was just possible to relax.
    ‘Do you want me to speak directly to the camera?’ Charlotte eventually asked. ‘You know, as if I am addressing the audience, or were you thinking of something more oblique and voyeuristic?’
    It was a good question, a clever question, and the possibilities of her intellect made Malcolm’s mouth go dry.
    ‘Um, straight at the camera please, so a passerby would be forced to stop and listen. Don’t so much talk to them as drag them in. Do you know what I mean?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ Charlotte replied, with a sudden intensity that only made Malcolm more nervous.
    ‘Well then, as you know,’ he stammered, breathing deeply in the hope of slowing himself down, but achieving only a new level of light-headedness. ‘I’m mostly interested in finding out about people’s first sexual experiences, so, ah, fire away.’
    ‘Right, well the thing is I haven’t actually had sex yet, but I know exactly how I want it to be. Would that be useful?’
    ‘Absolutely.’ And Malcolm nodded so vigorously it hurt.
    ‘Okay, it happens like this. It’s midsummer, late January, at the hut my family have in the Marlborough Sounds. I’m staying there, with my best friend Mandy, but she’s had to go back early so it’s just me, and the birds and the bush, the beautiful clear water and the setting sun.
    ‘The hut is at the head of its own private inlet and when I walk down to the water I notice a yacht has come in and moored twenty metres from shore. It’s perfectly still, so the water’s inky and the boat’s reflection reaches across the water.
    ‘It’s cooler now but I’ve been lying out all afternoon and my skin is still warm with the memory of sun. I’m wearing a bikini, black, new for Christmas, and I wade out into the water. There’s nothing more peaceful than an evening swim, hearing the water break at the surface, feeling it fold back around your body as you move.
    ‘At first I don’t even see him. The boat is just something to swim to. But then he’s there, right in front of me, sitting on the deck in the day’s last rays, reading a book, an unopened bottle of wine by his side. There’s music too, soft enough that I have to swim right up to the boat to work out what it is. He notices me, and says “hi” before I do. Then he smiles, and it’s the smile that does it.
    ‘I climb up on board without being asked and he offers me some wine. We sit there together and my skin is dry before the sun disappears. We don’t talk about any of the things strangers talk about, not what our names are or what we’re doing there. Instead he tells me about the book he’s reading and I tell him it was better as a movie.
    ‘Then somehow the air between us has been pushed aside. Our skin is touching and then he is kissing me. From there on it’s a blur, like being underwater without having to hold your breath. He knows exactly what I want, even before I do, so there’s no leading and no following, just like there’s no beginning and no end. And the most wonderful part of all is the feeling of absolute freedom, out on the deck, alone on the bay, in a moment when the whole world has chosen to look away.
    ‘Then it’s dark and we’re still naked, still connected, as we tell our stories. He’s not surprised when I tell him my age and I’m not surprised when he tells me the yacht belongs to his fiancée’s father, and that she will be arriving the next afternoon.
    ‘It is a small window that has opened and then closed, and I don’t even turn to say goodbye as I swim back through the darkness. I have the memory. Anything else would only weigh it down.’
    Charlotte stopped talking but her stare didn’t let go of the camera. Her eyes shone bright with the pictures still rolling inside her head.
    ‘Cue final credits,’ Malcolm said.
    ‘Oh good, so you do understand. I knew you would.’
    But the only thing Malcolm understood just then was