The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life by William Nicholson Read Free Book Online

surprised you ever come out. It sounds perfect.’
    ‘Almost perfect. But not quite.’
    ‘What’s the snag?’
    ‘It’s a very famous snag.’
    He got up and took one of the framed pictures off the wall. It was the engraving of the group of classical figures round a tomb.
    ‘Et in Arcadia ego.’ He handed her the picture. ‘It’s an engraving of a well-known Poussin painting. You see, the words are carved on the tomb. Et in Arcadia ego . “Even in Arcadia am I.” The “I”, the “ego”, is death. Death is the snag.’
    Laura gazed at the picture. The tomb was immense, it dominated the scene.
    ‘This is the picture you have as your bookmark.’
    He was silent, surprised. Laura realized he was unaware that she had studied him on the train, which could only mean he did not study her. She had blundered. Now he knew she was more interested in him than he was in her.
    She lowered her head as if to study the picture in more detail, but really to hide her sudden blush.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘The train. You’re very observant.’
    ‘That’s me. Snoopy.’
    She looked up and met his eyes through the curls of cigarette smoke. She spoke about the picture to remove attention from herself.
    ‘There seems to be a lot more death than paradise.’
    ‘Yes. All we get is some token trees. It’s one of those paintings that presumes knowledge of the whole tradition that comes before it.’
    ‘Is that why it’s special for you?’
    ‘Is it special for me?’
    ‘Well, you have it as your bookmark.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ He frowned. It seemed not to have struck him before. ‘I wonder why. I suppose I must have a morbid streak in me. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Unless you take the view that meditation on death makes one all the more inclined to live life to the full. Carpe diem and so forth.’
    Laura was drunk on red wine and dizzy on French cigarettes. Everything Nick said impressed her. He was so utterly unlike any boy she’d known before. Not a boy, a grown-up. She herself still a girl. She felt her inferiority, but she didn’t mind it. She wanted to sit at his feet. She wanted to learn from him.
    ‘Seize the day,’ she murmured.
    ‘And the night.’
    That was when she knew he desired her. At once a new confidence flowed through her and she was able to meet his smiling gaze. He was older, wiser, more sophisticated in every way, but now she had something he wanted, something she could give him in return. Her gift had very little merit in her eyes, but if he wanted it, there was a deal to be done. He would give her his maturity and his prestige. She would give him herself.
    ‘I’ve drunk too much. I should go.’
    There followed a long silence, in which their eyes remained locked. The silence told as much as the single word that ended it, but it was the word she remembered ever after.
    ‘Stay,’ he said.
    She stayed. He was in control. She surrendered. Before he had even touched her the surrender was total, and in the act of surrender itself she found an intoxicating freedom. That and the wine.
    Ask anything of me. Do what you want. I want to please you more than I want to live. Through you I live. My only beloved lover.
    All this without words and before the first true touch. Her whole body shivered with an anxiety that was both delicious and painful.
    Will I be good enough for him?
    He kissed her. She put her arms round him as she had been longing to do since she had watched him in the train window. She held him and felt his arms hold her, tasted his lips smoky on her lips, and slowly the shivering of her body fell still.
    Taking off her clothes in the little bedroom she caught her jeans on her feet and stumbled. The bed was so narrow they had to hold each other close. Light from the main room fell through the open door, but there was no light here. Her naked body a secret except to his touch. No words. She spoke to him with her hands, her mouth, her body, saying: I am