The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page A

on the spot it shouldn’t be! Oh God, what if I come? I have to get her off my lap!
    I pushed gently at her shoulders. ‘Anna, I… ’ But suddenly her bottom started to press downwards and her lips closed over mine, her tongue inside my mouth. ‘Oh, Jesus!’ I cried. It was too late! I was gone! All over, red rover! I was no longer in control. It was simply marvellous! I had never, of course, done the real thing, but every young bloke ‘took himself in hand’ from time to time, yet this was different, quite different; if doing it was even better I couldn’t imagine how. I had disgraced myself. The next few minutes were going to be hell. There would be a wet patch the size of a football at the front of my khaki shorts. Oh shit! What do I do next?
    Anna withdrew her lips from mine and kissed me lightly on the forehead.
    ‘Anna, I’m… ’
    ‘Sssh! Now you are feeling better, Nicholas. That is good, ja , I think so.’ She rose from my lap, her hands placed on my shoulders, smiling down at me. ‘I love you, Mr Butterfly,’ she said softly.
    ‘I’m sorry, Anna.’ I looked down into my lap, shaking my head ruefully. I could feel the hot blush infusing my face. If the damp patch wasn’t quite the size of a football, it certainly wasn’t possible to conceal in the lamplight.
    ‘You have some other?’ Anna asked, her voice suddenly practical as she pointed to my shorts. ‘I can wash, in the morning they are already dry.’
    ‘Yes, no, I’ll do it, wash them, excuse me,’ I mumbled, panicking, then pointed in the direction of the door. ‘The washroom, it’s outside.’ I reached to the end of the cot and took the towel hanging from the iron rail that made up part of the foot of the iron bedstead.
    Anna touched me lightly on the shoulder and I turned to face her, the towel held to my front. She looked at me, her face serious. ‘Nicholas, I want to make love to you very much. But we cannot. We must not make a baby.’
    ‘Oh, Anna, of course, I understand. I never thought… I can wait… I… I want to wait!’ I added with some emphasis, giving her a sincere look. I loved her and although I don’t deny that I’d fantasised about making love to her from the first day, I was still a virgin. My father was an Anglican minister. I’d always known I’d have to do the right thing. Wanted in my heart to do the right thing. God says you must. It’s just that nature is such a bastard sometimes. I took a fresh pair of shorts from my knapsack and prepared to go to the outside shower-cum-washroom and laundry.
    ‘Nicholas, I must go home now,’ Anna said, moving forward to embrace me.
    ‘Anna, no, please, can you wait until I get back? I’ll run home with you. But first there is something I need to say to you.’
    I filled the three-feet-deep concrete tub that was set on the floor with water and washed my pants and underpants, then emptied it, refilled it, stepped in and ladled the water over me, the cold water refreshing in the humidity. I placed the offending garments over a line in the yard to dry. In all, I guess I couldn’t have been gone much more than ten minutes. Anna was sitting on the three-legged stool as pretty as a picture, her basket packed. So much had happened between us, including my disgrace, that she seemed suddenly like a different person, a part of me, a loving, familiar part from which I felt I couldn’t ever be separated.
    I kissed her. That was a part of the new feeling. I could kiss her whenever I wanted. My mother had died when I was five when we’d lived in Japan. My father, always a pretty stern man, wasn’t big on affection and had consequentially turned from being the headmaster of the International School in Tokyo to become an Anglican missionary in New Britain, where, at the age of eleven, I’d moved with him and then been sent to boarding school in Australia. He was a solitary man and I don’t know whether it was the grief over my mother’s death or what, but he never