The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan Page A

that he remembered now from the night before, questioned her about one or two details (were the geranium pots in the picture? – yes; which way did the shadows fall? – she could not remember) but likewise indulged in no general remarks. He had nodded and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Mary had gone to place her hand on his arm and had knocked over the milk jug with her elbow. Upstairs as they changed for the beach she had pulled him on to the bed and hugged him hard. She had kissed his face and cradled his head against her breasts, and told him over and over again how she loved him, how she adored his body. She placed her hand on his bare, tight backside and squeezed. He nursed at her breast and sank his forefinger deep into her. He drew hisknees up, sucked and burrowed while Mary rocked back-wards and forwards, repeating his name; then, half-crying, half-laughing she had said, ‘Why is it so frightening to love someone this hard? Why is it so scary?’ But they did not remain on the bed. They reminded each other of their promise to go to the beach and pulled apart to pack the towels.
    Colin lay on his stomach while Mary sat astride his buttocks and rubbed oil on his back. Eyes closed, he rested his face sideways on the backs of his hands, and told Mary for the first time of how Robert had hit him in the stomach. He recounted, without embellishment or reference to his own feelings, then or now; simply the conversation as he could recall it, the physical positions, the exact sequence of events. As he spoke Mary massaged his back, upwards from the base of his spine, working the small, firm muscles with convergent movements of her thumbs till she came to the unyielding tendons at the back of his neck. ‘That hurts,’ Colin said. Mary said, ‘Go on. Finish the story.’ He was telling her now what Caroline had whispered as they were leaving. Behind them the murmur of the young men’s voices rose steadily in volume till they erupted in general laughter, nervous but good-natured; then the young women spoke to each other softly and rapidly, and there was general laughter again, less nervous, more subdued. From behind these people came the lulling sound of waves breaking at near-regular intervals, and waves yet more soporific when they suggested unfathomable complexities of motion by breaking, as they occasionally did, in rapid succession. The sun blared like loud music. Colin’s words slurred a little, Mary’s movements were less earnest, more rhythmic. ‘I heard her,’ she said when Colin had finished.
    ‘She’s a kind of prisoner,’ Colin said, and then, more certainly, ‘She is a prisoner.’
    ‘I know,’ Mary said. She kept her hands in one place, looped loosely round Colin’s neck, and described her conversation with Caroline on the balcony.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me about that before?’ he said at the end.
    Mary hesitated. ‘Why didn’t you tell me ?’ She climbed off him and they sat on their own towels once more facing the sea.
    After a prolonged silence Colin said, ‘Perhaps he beats her up.’ Mary nodded. ‘And yet …’ He lifted a handful of sand and let it trickle on to his toes. ‘… and yet she seemed to be quite …’ He trailed away vaguely.
    ‘Quite content?’ Mary said sourly. ‘Everyone knows how much women enjoy being beaten up.’
    ‘Don’t be so bloody self-righteous.’ Colin’s vehemence surprised them both. ‘What I was going to say was that … she seemed to be, well, thriving on something.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ Mary said. ‘Pain.’
    Colin sighed and rolled back on to his stomach.
    Mary pursed her lips and watched some children playing in the shallow water. ‘Those postcards,’ she murmured.
    They remained sitting for half an hour, by their slight frowns in private versions of an argument that would have been difficult to define. They were inhibited by a feeling that these past few days had been nothing more than a form of parasitism, an unacknowledged conspiracy of silence