Elle goes everywhere barefoot, her hair uncombed. She has a wide mouth, an easy smile, and when at rest usually stands with her tough little heels pointing outwards.
Today, at the top of the ladder in her garden, she is wearing her blue cotton bikini. She must push out her bottom and press her knees against the ladder-sides as she leans backwards and reaches up to pick the apples. Mitch, below, has been told to catch her if she falls.
Mitch has on his baggy brown trousers which billow and hang loose at the front; he had been given no warning of her visit; she simply arrived; what's more he hardly knows her - she lives across the road but it was only yesterday that he first spoke to her.
The straw basket by Mitch's feet widens and sags. Elle leans out, reaches twists and pulls the fruit. She transfers from left hand to right; she bends her knees looks down at Mitch and drops the apples. Mitch catches in both hands. Mitch holds his arms up. He sees Elle in profile: Elle sees him full-faced and moon-round.
Perching high up, she plucks down two fruit, lifts her swim-suit top and, moving aside her small breasts, installs the apples. She turns on the ladder, vigorously palming the apples together and laughing at her boosted curves and at Mitch's moon face down below.
Elle tugs at her lower lip. She kicks her toes against the ladder rungs. Her eyes gaze upwards. She sighs. Plucking a small unripe apple, she darts her eyes from side to side - and drops it neatly onto Mitch's bended head. Tomorrow he will be in love.
After school Elle likes to rush home across the pavements, lob her satchel into the front garden, and scamper across the road to see Mitch. Sometimes, still wearing her school hat, she jumps on his back and rides him pig-e-back - with one arm hooked tightly round his neck, the other pressing down on his shoulder, she rides Mitch's horsey trots, bending and straightening her legs. One time she brings her lips close to his ear, then kisses his neck.
About to leave (Mitch's hand is already half raised in farewell) she spins back on her heel. It's her birthday tomorrow. There will be a party. Will Mitch come? Oh! And yes; can he invite his younger brother to come also? She would invite him herself but she must hurry. Mitch is kind.
Girls are dancing upon the lawn. Music jumps from a player which lies at an angle upon the grass, a flex running into the house through a window. The girls bend to the music and giggle to one another.
Elle, amongst her girlfriends, is the only one wearing a bikini.
She gambols towards Mitch on tip-toe, but stops short, looking around. No, Mitch's brother could not attend; he is dancing elsewhere; Mitch's brother is, after all, engaged to that girl of his.
Elle colours and races across to her mother by the music player. There she asks questions of her mother, the answers to which she does not attend.
Mitch knows the slap of her feet on the front path. He grows restless, unable to fix his mind, a full hour before she is released to him. Her racing feet amongst the others walking, a distant cry which tails off in a laugh, the thud of her satchel on the lawn, the squeak of his front gate, slap! slap! slap!, the ringing bell throughout the house - sounds which freeze him with something akin to cold fear. He must not answer the bell himself. Ha! No. Others must do that; then she can leap the stairs two at a time and burst into his place, into his place where she has come to see him and no-one else. Mitch is under the tyranny of expecting.
Today something is wrong. The doorbell has been rung (it sounded half an hour ago) and she has not come up. There are voices below: his brother and she together.
There are three in the kitchen now. Elle, tilting her head far back, hangs her face from the lips of Mitch's brother. Mitch standing there and trembling: "Listen! Listen! Hey! Elle? I am afraid of you. Do you hear this? I am afraid of you. Are you listening? I cower beneath the table in your presence now. I realise that from now on, all my life long, I shall crouch in ludicrous corners far away from you, my arms tight clenched about my knees. Do you imagine what that means?"
Elle opens the door to the only cupboard in the room, draws Mitch's brother inside and closes it behind them. In darkness she presses her back against the door and raises her knees.
"Listen! Listen! No ordinary fear this; no! don't think that. Not common at all. Did you assume that, my love?"
(Laughter from within) "I bet you did. Eh? This fear is known to none but an uncommon . . . an unfortunate type."
Mitch hears her nails scratching, searching against the wood, and hears the deliberate, measured, thuds inside the cupboard, and imagines her closed eyes.
For months Mitch watches the house across the road. He steps from the high small window at the top of his domain, and settles back into the shadows. From the window he sees her abandon the satchel, clench her tongue between her teeth, and eagerly leaning forward, race across the road pumping her arms to someone else now. In the shadows he always patiently awaits her departure, and at the gate where she waves her arms, it seems like it's to him and not to the other.
Then today there is a change. Perhaps he is done with thrill sex; he is engaged after all; everyone knew that. She stays scarcely a moment. She's at the gate early and there is no wave. Mitch starts forward in surprise. He sees the beginnings of her tears. She hurries back across the road, jerking her straight arms, wavering between a fast walk and a trot. Elle will not be ringing the front bell any longer.
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