They were still a little early for Ben’s booking, but the restaurant had no trouble fitting them in at one of the close-packed tables, lined up with their neat white tablecloths. They’d only glanced at the menu briefly when a waiter asked them what they’d like to drink. Marcie asked for a glass of house white, and Ben followed her example.
As the waiter retreated, she remarked, “We could have got a bottle, if you’re on the wine too.”
“I don’t know. Half a bottle then a couple of pints may be more of a session than I’d expected,” Ben said cautiously.
“Maybe, but it is our first proper night out. Hey, they do more than pizza here,” she added, studying her menu more closely. However they still ended up both choosing pizzas when the waiter returned with their wine a few moments later.
Once they’d been left alone again, Marcie raised her glass, making her bangles clink musically against each other on her wrist. “Well, this is it, Ben. Our first date, but we’re already officially unofficially living together. Slàinte mhath!”
“Saħħa! To our shared magical future!” Ben responded, chinking their glasses together.
They both took a good mouthful, then Marcie remarked, “It’s nice and chilled, at least. Oh, Ben. Thank you. Thank you for a night out, thank you for falling into my life, thank you for being you. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do, and you know I love you too. You lift me into the open air, you’ve made fire with me, remember?”
“I do remember,” Marcie said tenderly they lowered their glasses, then went on, “But after that otherworldly air and fire, I wanted to check what else I remembered seeing on your list when we looked at it together at the doctor’s. I think you’d written ‘Lucy’s trap’ down. I know we’ve been talking about CS Lewis, but I don’t think we really mentioned that. I’m curious, because I love Narnia and I’m really pleased that it’s hooked you too, but have I gone on too long about it already?”
“No,” Ben reassured her, “I like talking to you about your special book. I know it might sound odd, but it is sexy, it’s like it’s inside you, like when we were in the kitchen. Your Vixen was the way into a secret magical world, and a new life for me, one that I’ve discovered at the same time as Narnia, pushing through the fur.”
“Ben! You said that before, but you’re making me blush now,” Marcie chastised him, batting at his hand lightly, though she had a sly grin too.
“But my thought about Lucy wasn’t about any of that,” Ben explained, “It was when she realised the faun wasn’t being kind, that he had a secret agenda. It had seemed so nice, his cosy home, their shared tea, his stories about parties with the dryads. But then I really felt for her, when it dawned on her that she was in a trap, as she tried to calmly plead with her predator, appealing to his conscience. It moved me powerfully, I guess. I felt profound sympathy for her, and I wondered,” he paused, concerned about touching a sensitive topic, but carried on, “Well, I wondered if Richard had deceived you like that, if you’d felt like Lucy in his trap. So my deep sympathy was for you too.”
“Wow,” Marcie said, blowing out a big breath, “That’s a really keen observation. Maybe you’re right, maybe that’s exactly what it was, but I didn’t even notice it for myself. And thank you for your sympathy, but I’m free now, aren’t I? You freed me.”
Suddenly her face fell and it almost seemed as if the blood was draining from her face. Ben felt a spike of panic as she said quietly, “Oh, Holy Mary! It’s you. You’re Lucy, not me. I’m the faun, I’m Mister Tumnus. I’ve lured you into my den and given you sensuous treats and you think it’s all cosy, but somewhere deep down an alarm is sounding. Damn, I even made a cage around you with my own body, back in the kitchen. Your unconscious mind sees that it’s a trap, and you zoned right in on Lucy’s plight because your gut feelings are telling you that you’re the same, you know that you are like her!”
Ben urgently reached across the table to clutch her hand, vigorously denying everything she’d just said, “No! That’s just not true at all. You saved me, you give me strength, the power to be positive about the future. We’ve agreed we’re in synch, we are truly a couple, true lovers.” Remembering fondly how she’d clung to him when they’d made love, making that cage, he added, “And in the kitchen, well, I felt like you were pulling me as close to you as you possibly could. It was wonderful, like we were merged, in one being, together.”
Marcie gave a shy smile as she seemed to calm down a little, “Okay, if you’re sure. We’re probably reading way too much into this, you know. Oh, I think these might be ours.”
She’d interrupted herself as a waiter was indeed approaching their table with two large plates. Their conversation paused as they both tried their pizzas. They were as good as Ben remembered, for all their greasy topping, and Marcie seemed pleased too. After taking a slurp from her wine, she went on, “Hmm, back to Narnia, I was going to say Lewis was probably just writing for his times. I think Mister Tumnus was meant to be the everyman who finds himself in an evil regime. That scene where he’s trying to trap Lucy, it’s the dilemma that Lewis might have imagined many people facing under the Nazi regime in World War Two just a few years earlier. There was probably something about Christian duties and free will in his mind too.” Ben admitted he’d not thought of that, as Marcie took another forkful then went on eagerly, “And he does the right thing anyway, doesn’t he? He does free Lucy from the trap he was weaving, then helps her escape to safety, but as you’ll find out, he’s punished for it by the regime, by the White Witch.”
“Then Aslan, the true king, turns up and defeats her, with Lucy’s help, liberating the oppressed animal-people of Narnia?” Ben guessed.
“Hmm,” Marcie agreed, nodding as she swallowed her mouth full, “That’s pretty much it. But Aslan maybe isn’t the ruler in that way. You don’t mind me sort of telling you the ending, do you? It’s the children who become the new kings and queens of Narnia, in his name. He’s more like the benevolent spirit of the land, I guess, immortal and omniscient, but not always immanent, not always there in the flesh.”
“So if I’m finding a shining new world through you, through our love and our intimacy, then you’re its Aslan,” Ben confidently stated.
“No, I can’t be Aslan!” Marcie contradicted, saying, “You’re Aslan. You’re the great big blonde lion, treading his gentle paws on my luscious meadows, lapping at the secret pool of my trickling spring water!”
Ben chuckled, privately pleased at the suggestive images that she was conjuring up, “Well maybe you’re the witchy queen then, the magical goddess of the land. Maybe Lewis got it wrong. She isn’t an evil queen of winter, she’s the natural balance to Aslan, to his summer sun. Her magic isn’t in killing things, it’s in keeping them alive under the snow. She holds the precious life close to her body, so it’s ready to re-emerge and flourish on his return, bursting from her fertile earth when spring comes. What did the book say? ‘Always winter but never Christmas.’ But if Lewis was such a Christian, he must have known that Christmas is about a woman’s magic, about birthing new life, right at the heart of winter. Even the Christian god needed help with that. The White Witch could also be your Holy Mary, a kind of goddess herself.”
Marcie had been listening with seeming fascination, eating while he’d been speaking. As he wound down, she leant forwards to clutch his hand as she eagerly agreed, “Hey, that all sounds so right! You’ve got such good insight. Lewis didn’t know women, and maybe he didn’t understand the passion of sexuality at all, but you do. You might not be able to spin it into such a best selling children’s story, but your version makes so much more sense.”
She leant back, draining her glass, before taking a mouthful of pizza. As she chewed thoughtfully, she said, “So you’re saying I’m the witch, and maybe I could get used to that kind of power. But I’m sorry to say that I can’t see myself playing her if they made a film of the book. Who would they cast, I wonder? One of your big screen heartthrobs? I imagine her about seven foot tall, spikey and ash blonde, silver-haired even.”
Ben had noticed her empty glass and caught a waiter’s eye. After quickly conferring with Marcie, who remarked that they should have got a bottle after all, he ordered two more glasses, then tried to gather his thoughts about Marcie’s question. “Well, Cate Blanchett did that for Lord of the Rings, pretty much nailing it perfectly, I reckon. I remember Helen Mirren in Excalibur too, from the eighties, but she was a different sort of enchantress maybe. Does the Britishness or the age matter? I don’t know. Uma Thurman maybe?” he hazarded, vaguely remembering that he’d mentioned her name to Marcie before.
“You know some couples play this game where they have a list of famous names?” Marcie asked with a playful smile on her lips, seemingly changing the subject. She explained, “They nominate people for whom the couple’s fidelity or their vows would be waived, like they’d get a hall pass if that person actually walked into their lives. I mean, if they had the opportunity to have sex with that celebrity, they could take it and it wouldn’t count as being unfaithful.” Ben said he understood, then she slyly asked, “Would Uma make your list?”
“No I don’t think of her like that, sexually, nor those other actresses, those names that pop into my mind,” Ben tried to reassure her, speaking honestly, “They’re not really real, are they? But what about you? Who makes your list?”
“Oh, it’s Daniel Craig, from Our Friends in the North,” she said immediately, and Ben laughed at her certainty. She teased, “If he walked in now, I’m off. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. But there isn’t anyone like that for you? If they came up to you and said, ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me, and I like what I’m seeing too, so how about it? Just a quick ride, old Marcie need never know.’ You can tell me. I know it’s just make-believe, it’s not what you’d really do. Maybe she’s not a screen goddess, maybe she’s a pin-up model, or a pop star, like Emma Bunton.”
“No, definitely not! Don’t tease. No, I can’t think of anyone,” Ben reaffirmed, thinking of who he might actually daydream about whilst masturbating, if it wasn’t just some anonymous porn model. He suspected Marcie wasn’t asking and wouldn’t want to know if he privately had a crush on a woman like that. But in his own mind he knew that his fantasies would more likely find someone from his real life. He knew that in his arousal he’d previously enjoyed visualising ex-girlfriends or merely his latest date, maybe a woman who’d danced enthusiastically with him, or even someone he’d seen in the gym, thinking guiltily of how he met Marcie.
Perhaps Marcie realised this may be the case, maybe knowing it to be true of men in general, when she asked, “What about someone closer to home? What about Shona, the girl next door? Isn’t that every man’s fantasy? Wouldn’t you want to try losing yourself in her big hips, her soft belly, her milky breasts, her soulful blue eyes?”
“No!” Ben firmly said, wondering at Marcie’s imagination, “You keep bringing her up though. Are you actually a bit suspicious, deep down, after what I saw this morning?”
“No, it’s just,” Marcie paused, anxiety suddenly creasing her brow, then went on in a rush, “She saw us, Ben. In the kitchen, when we were at it, when we were making love. I saw her face appear at the window, Fiona in her arms, while you were inside me, and I caught her eye. She gave such a perfect comic expression of surprise, her eyebrows shooting up and her mouth making a big round ‘Oh’. Then her face broke into this huge cheeky grin of pure wicked glee, and she just gave me just this tiny wink before she disappeared. It all happened in a second, a fraction of a second. But I guess we both knew that neither of us could unsee something like that, that we couldn’t just forget or ignore what we’d just shared.”
Ben had felt a sudden nauseous wave of panic as Marcie spoke, as if he’d just realised that he’d accidentally committed a genuine crime. What they’d done could be called public indecency, perhaps even counting as a sexual offence. That subsided into mere profound embarrassment as he recognised that the worst had already happened, and that Shona and Marcie had already patched up any damage. A lot of things that Marcie had been saying, about his exhibitionism and so on, were suddenly falling into place in his mind. He thought of what happened at the time too, asking, “So that’s why there was a moment when you asked me to stop, and that’s why she came down to see you, a little bit after we’d finished?” he queried cautiously.
“Yes,” Marcie explained, blushing herself now as she sipped her wine, “She’d heard me. I was too loud, wasn’t I? I couldn’t help myself. But she’d thought I was in distress. It’s only forty-eight hours since I was screaming at a threatening bully called Richard, after all. She’d quickly popped the boys down in front of the tele and come down to check up on me. When she spoke to me, she was profoundly apologetic, but it was me who really wanted to apologise to her. Well, that was at first, when we both felt a bit ashamed, I guess. But then she said that she’d not really seen that much, just your bottom, and then she told me that she thought it looked nice, your bum, I mean. We both started giggling then, seeing the funny side of it. She told me some other things too, and we had a proper laugh, which really helped. Oh, I wasn’t supposed to tell you any of this!” Marcie wailed in distress, “I agreed with Shona that it would be our secret. You won’t tell her, will you, or anyone else?”
“No, I promise, Marcie, you have my word,” Ben said seriously, feeling relief, glad that it seemed there wouldn’t be worse consequences for his indiscretion.
They’d finished their pizzas now, Marcie leaving some of her crusts, though they still had some wine in their glasses. The waiter came to clear their plates, and they confirmed they’d just have the bill, not coffee or deserts. They sat back and slowly finished their drinks, perhaps both deliberately changing the subject as they spoke a little more casually about where they were going next, and about other venues in the centre.
Ben still felt a little odd though, knowing now how much of an exhibitionist he’d been, especially after his earnest repudiation of sexualised displays of nudity. He also felt somewhat worried about meeting Shona now, for the morning coffee that Marcie had already arranged on the very next day. Would he be able to meet her eye? Would she be more awkward about breastfeeding in front of him? Would she even come down to the yard with the boys anymore? But by the time they rose to leave the restaurant, he’d decided that worrying wouldn’t help, that they’d just have to cross those bridges as they came to them. He’d remembered that he wasn’t supposed to know she’d seen anything anyway, which would perhaps make it easier.
Now that darkness had fallen, the clear spring evening seemed cooler as they left the restaurant. Despite that, the streets were busier as more people gathered for the night’s delights, hanging around outside the bars and takeaways. Ben knew though, there was still nothing like the bustle that there would be tomorrow night or for the rest of the weekend.
It was only a short walk to their rendezvous with Geoff and Sofie, Marcie remarking that it was hardly worth her putting her cardigan on again. As they pushed their way into the noise and smoke of the high-ceilinged bar, Ben saw Geoff almost immediately, sitting on a high stool at a small table next to Sofie, overshadowing her smaller slim figure. Waving, Ben made his way towards them through clumps of other people who were standing or drifting about with drinks in hand. No one was dancing to the tunes, which Ben judged were on the dull R&B fringes of house music, but the raised voices of their chatter almost drowned it out anyway.
Ben noticed that Geoff was in a casual shirt too, open wide at the neck, revealing a thick silvery chain that Ben knew was actually white gold. Sofie was wearing a simple velvet choker around her neck, and a short cocktail dress that left her shoulders and collarbones bare, along with quite a lot of her upper chest, Ben guiltily noticed. He was pleased though they had made an effort to dress up for the night out too, as Geoff stood up to give him a quick hug. Ben gave Sofie a peck on the cheek before properly introducing them both to Marcie, leaning in close to make himself heard over background noise. Geoff shook her hand quite formally, whilst Sofie rose to clasp her arms as she kissed both her cheeks in a friendly and natural way, before patting Geoff’s vacated stool beside her, inviting Marcie to sit down with her.
Geoff suggested he go to the bar with Ben, draining the last of his pint, and when Ben asked, Sofie suggested Marcie have a lime Breezer like hers. As Ben left Marcie alone with Sofie, he smiled encouragingly and gave her a subtle thumbs up as she gave him a slightly anxious little wave, perched on the stool, her other hand folded around the cardigan on her knees.
As they waited at the bar, trying to get attention, Geoff asked him more about his lungs, and about how work had reacted to his news. Ben told him about the possible workplace injury claim, which Geoff thought sounded serious, then he asked Geoff about his own work, which Geoff brushed over quickly. He seemed more interested in how Ben had met Marcie, and congratulated him on deciding to move in with her properly. Ben felt pleased by his reaction as they claimed their drinks, realising now that Geoff was the first person who he’d told clearly and honestly that he was genuinely living with Marcie now.
As they got back to the two women, Ben was surprised to see them clinging to each other’s bare arms, deep in animated conversation, grinning and gossiping as if they’d been in each other’s confidence for years. There was no chance of overhearing them or joining in, so Ben kept talking to Geoff, asking about his plans for sailing that summer, and mentioning that Marcie’s family were from Malta. Unlike Ben, it turned out that Geoff had sailed with crews there, but as he started telling Ben his stories of those expeditions, a familiar figure approached their table. She glided towards them with a dazzling yet brittle smile, a champagne flute in hand, wearing a satin dress that wasn’t much more than a slip.