It was sickening to me at the time, on so many levels.
Firstly, as you know, I found Birdie physically repellent. The thought of her hard little lips against David’s big generous mouth, his hands on her bony hips, her gross tongue chasing his around inside the dank cave made from their mouths. Ouf.
Secondly, I was something of a traditionalist and found the sight of adultery shocking to my core.
And thirdly: well, the third awful thing didn’t strike me immediately. It couldn’t have really, because the implications of what I’d unwittingly seen were not entirely obvious. But I certainly felt something like dread pass through me at the sight of David and Birdie coming together, an innate sense that they might bring things out of each other that were better left buried away.
It happened on a Saturday morning. Sally was away taking photos on a film set somewhere. Justin had gone to set up a stall at a market to sell his herbal remedies. My mother and father were sitting in the garden in their dressing gowns reading the papers and drinking tea out of mugs. I’d slept until eight thirty, late for me. I’ve always been an early riser; I rarely slept later than nine even during my teenage years. I’d barely rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I emerged from my room when I saw them, clinging to each other in the doorway of David’s room. She wore a muslin nightdress. He wore a black cotton robe with a belted waist. Her leg was jammed between his knees. Their groins were forced together. He had a hand to her pale, moley throat. She had a hand on his left buttock.
I immediately retreated into my bedroom, my heart pumping hard, my stomach well and truly turned. I put both my hands to my throat, trying to quell the nausea and the horror. I said the word fuck silently under my breath. Then I said it again, properly. I opened my door a crack a moment later and they had gone. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to tell someone; I needed to tell Phin.
Phin flicked his blond curtains away from his face. He was, ludicrously, growing even more handsome as he passed through puberty. He was only fourteen and already six foot tall. He had never, as far as I was aware, had so much as a pimple. And if he had one, I would have noticed it, as studying Phin’s face was virtually my hobby.
‘I need to talk to you,’ I hissed urgently into his face. ‘It’s really, really important.’
We walked to the end of the garden where a curved bench caught the morning sun. With the trees in blossom and full leaf we could not be seen from the house. We turned to face each other.
‘I just saw something,’ I said. ‘Something really, really bad.’
Phin narrowed his eyes at me. I could tell he thought I was going to say that I’d seen the cat eating out of the butter dish or something equally babyish and banal. I could tell he had no faith in my ability to impart genuinely shocking news.
‘I saw your dad. And Birdie …’
The expression of indulgent impatience shifted, and he looked at me in alarm.
‘They were coming out of Birdie and Justin’s room. And they were kissing.’
He jolted slightly at these words. I’d made my impact. Finally, after two years, Phin was really looking at me.
I saw a muscle in Phin’s jaw twitch. ‘Are you fucking lying to me?’ he asked, almost growling.
I shook my head. ‘I swear,’ I said. ‘I saw it. Just now. About twenty minutes ago. I swear.’
I saw Phin’s eyes fill very quickly with tears and then I saw him trying very hard to force them to go away. Some people tell me I lack empathy. This might be true. It hadn’t occurred to me for a moment that Phin might be upset. Shocked. Yes. Scandalised. Disgusted. But not upset.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just …’
He shook his head. His beautiful blond hair fell across his face and then parted again to reveal an expression of grim, heart-breaking bravery. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you told me.’
There was a beat of silence. I couldn’t work out what to do. I had Phin’s full attention. But I’d hurt him. I looked at his big, suntanned hands twisted together in his lap and I wanted to pick them up, caress them, hold them to my lips, kiss the pain away. I felt a terrible surge of physical desire rising through me, from the very roots of me, an agonising longing. I turned my gaze quickly from his hands to the ground between my bare feet.
‘Will you tell your mum?’ I said eventually.
He shook his head. The hair fell again and hid his face from me.
‘It would kill her,’ he said very simply.
I nodded, as though I knew what he meant. But really, I didn’t. I was only thirteen. And I was a young thirteen. I knew that I’d found the sight of Birdie and David kissing passionately in their nightclothes disgusting. I knew that it was wrong that a married man should be kissing a woman who was not his wife. But I couldn’t quite extrapolate those feelings beyond me. I could not imagine how that might make another person feel. I did not really understand why Sally would want to die because her husband had kissed Birdie.
‘Will you tell your sister?’
‘I’m not fucking telling anybody,’ he snapped. ‘Christ. And you mustn’t either. Seriously. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to. OK?’
I nodded again. I was out of my depth and glad to follow Phin’s lead.
The moment was falling away from me; I could feel it. I could tell Phin was about to stand up and go indoors and that he wasn’t going to invite me to go in with him and that I would be left here on the bench staring at the back of the house with it all still blowing about inside me, all the wanting and the needing and the red raw desiring. And I knew that despite what had just happened, we’d go back to normal, back to the place of mutual polite reserve.
‘Let’s go out today,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Let’s do something.’