6 August 1959
Thursdays were for laundry. Jean had a well-established routine, and she followed it each week like clockwork, comforted somewhat by knowing what to expect. In a previous life laundry had been reserved for Saturdays, when the week's work was through and she could gather up all of Christopher's dirty things, hang them out on the line in fine weather and make sure he had something nice to wear to church come Sunday. Life was different, in the Lock and Key; Saturdays were working days, and everyone was too tired from Friday night's exertion to fuss over clothes. Thursdays were better, for laundry, and Jean could make sure each of her girls had everything they needed for the busy nights ahead.
It was a chill grey day, and with the threat of rain hanging in the air Jean didn't dare hang the girls' fine dresses out on the line in the carpark. The kitchen would have to do; it had served in a pinch many times before, and would many times again. There was a length of twine strung up for just this purpose on the wall opposite the sinks, and the heat from the ovens churning out bread and pies for the evening's customers would help to dry the clothes all the faster. Sometimes one or another of the girls would help her, but on this particular day Jean was alone, and glad of it. Friday was rapidly approaching, and with it the return of Major Alderton, come to see if she would accept his proposal.
In truth Jean had not yet decided which course she intended to take. You can always say no, that was rule number one, and the income from the food and drinks she served along with the rent she collected from her girls meant that she could decline more easily than she had ever done before she took over the pub. Jean earned her money in other ways, now, and was not so desperate for a few pounds to spare that she was willing to contradict her own desires. Oh, she had dreams for her future, dreams that would require funds, but those funds were trickling in steadily, and she wanted for nothing. She had not accepted Lucien for the sake of the money he offered her; she had accepted him because she wanted to. A few more meetings with Lucien would earn her just as much money as Major Alderton had offered, and would do so - she thought - in much more entertaining fashion.
But Lucien had not come home, had not sent word to her, had been gone over a month, now. And when he did make his way home, as he had promised to do, there was no guarantee he could afford to pay such a price; she could not count on his being able to pay for her services six more times. Major Alderton, however, had offered her six hundred pounds for one single evening. One night, and she could move to Adelaide before the year was out, rather than having to wait another two or three or five years to save up a comparable sum. One night seemed a small price to pay to release her from her bonds. And Major Alderton was a nice enough looking fellow, and he had spoken to her softly, but…
But she did not want him, and somewhere deep within her heart she feared him. She feared what he knew, feared his motivations in coming to her, feared the bald-headed man who'd come with him, and taken Maureen to bed. Maureen had come to Jean, after, with a strange look on her face, and said that while the chap had been perfectly polite he had been silent to the point of strangeness, and left her feeling uncomfortable, and even alarmed. No, he didn't hurt me, Maureen had said, but that man isn't right, Mrs. Beazley. I'll not take him on again, not even if he offered me fifty pounds. What sort of man could trouble Maureen so, Jean had asked herself, Maureen who was thick-skinned and unafraid of anything or anyone? And Major Alderton, as nice as he had seemed, had brought that man to Jean's door.
I'll decide tomorrow, Jean told herself as she worked, hanging the girls' dresses on the line. I'll decide in the morning, and by the time he comes I'll have made up my mind.
Things would be no clearer tomorrow than they were right now, she knew, but she was not yet ready to choose, was not yet ready to close the door on the possibility of earning six hundred pounds so easily and leaving this life behind for the warmth of Adelaide. Putting the decision off earned her a moment's peace, however, and Jean hummed as she worked, nearing the bottom of the day's laundry basket. A few more minutes spent here, and then she could go and have a cup of tea, and then she'd see about getting the girls' supper started, and then...well. Then she'd see what the night might bring.
Everything was as it should be, utterly unremarkable in every way, and so Jean was surprised to hear the sound of a heavy foot fall from the kitchen doorway. The girls were lighter on their feet, and would have no cause to join her here in any case, and she was not expecting visitors of any sort. She spun to look, to see who had interrupted her quiet afternoon, and promptly dropped the shirt she was holding, stunned to her core at what she found.
It was Lucien.
Lucien, his hat in his hands, wearing his sharp grey coat in deference to the chill. His face was drawn, and sad, but he smiled when he saw her, a warm, grateful sort of smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up in that way she loved so well. Lucien, home at last; she had not expected this, had not looked for him, had not prepared herself in any way for the surge of emotion that overwhelmed her at the sight of his face, and suddenly tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. She had missed him, had missed him so much, had spent so long trying to pretend that she didn't, that she was getting by quite all right with him, and all that missing crashed into her at once, left her weak in the knees and all but speechless.
For his part Lucien did not linger in the doorway; he was marching towards her, full of purpose. She could see it in his eyes, could see how they darkened, could see how the longing within her heart was matched in his own, and she could do no more than stand, and wait, and breathe his name.
"Lucien," she whispered, but in the next heartbeat he was beside her, reaching for her. One of his hands found her hip and the other reached to cradle her cheek, and she leaned into that touch as a single tear spilled down her cheek. Oh, but she had worried for him, had wondered whether he would be safe, whether he would be well, whether he would find joy, whether he would come back to her at all, and now there was no more cause for worry, not when he stood before her, touching her gently. He was safe, and here.
"I missed you, Jean," he answered, his eyes searching her face, that smile still gracing his features, though there was a sadness in him that Jean could not understand.
He had missed her, as she had missed him; it was all too much, in that moment. The worry she'd carried for him, the grief she'd felt at knowing she must prepare herself to let him go, the fear Major Alderton's arrival had stirred within her, all her longing for a better life; the tension of it wound so tight she could not bear it another second longer, and with a gasp she broke, flung her arms around his neck and clung to him fiercely.
Lucien returned her embrace at once, seeming as eager, as desperate as she for this contact between them. His strong arms held her fast and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathed him and tried to still the riotous clamoring of her heart. He had come home, but one day soon she must let him go. She wanted him, but he was not hers to claim. He had come to her, but she knew she could not allow him to take the liberties she so longed to indulge in. In the moment what Jean wanted, more than anything else, was to take him to her room, for them both to burrow beneath her bedsheets and cling to one another. She wanted to hear everything about his trip to China, wanted to know what he had found, how his daughter was faring. She wanted him to promise her that everything was going to be all right, and she wanted to believe him.
"Christ, I missed you," he repeated as he held her tight. She could feel the tension in him, heavy muscles drawn taut for reasons she did not entirely understand. In her embrace he was warm, and solid, and real, and a single thought coalesced in her mind; she would not accept Major Alderton, not now. For the first time in a decade Jean had let a man touch her, and that man now meant so much to her that thought of sharing herself with anyone else seemed somehow obscene. It wasn't the way things were done in her business, and might well have been the height of folly, but her mind was made up. It was Lucien she wanted, and no other.
"I'm so glad you're home," she whispered against his neck, still holding him, unwilling to even consider letting him go.
"As am I, my darling," he said. The sound of those words from his lips - my darling - set off a fresh wave of tears; she wanted to be his, wanted to be his darling, wanted to believe that they stood a chance, that they could belong together. She wanted to believe that the peace she felt, holding him, could be preserved for more than just one hour. Rationally she knew better, but it was her heart, and not her head, that guided her in that moment.
And so when Lucien's hands shifted, when he caught hold of her bum and lifted her, she went with him easily, let her skirt bunch up around her hips, locked her legs tight around his waist and tilted her chin so that she could look into his eyes. Those blue eyes, beautiful and warm, focused on her, so full of want; Jean lost herself in those eyes. Lucien's hands held her tight against him with a strength that would not let her fall, and he let his head drop, let his forehead rest against her own, their noses slotting into place, close enough for her to feel the brush of his beard against her lips.
And she wanted, oh, how she wanted, to kiss him. To press her lips to his, and drink him in, to let them both be carried away by this affection they felt for one another, right here in the kitchen. She wanted to taste him, wanted to share this with him without thought of payment or an eye on the clock, wanted him to know how much he meant to her, how completely he had shaken up her world, how grateful, how relieved she was to have him back in her arms once more. One second passed, and then another, both of them with their eyes closed, barely breathing, their lips almost touching and yet not quite closing the distance. Jean shivered in his arms, eager, desperate, dancing on the very precipice of disaster, her restraint fraying with each of her heaving breaths. It would be easy, so easy, to give in now, to let herself have what she so dearly longed for, consequences be damned.
"I don't have a hundred pounds," Lucien growled at her. His voice was ragged, yearning; she could not tell whether it was disappointment or hope, that led him to say such a thing, whether he knew that without funds he could not have her and was resigned to that fact, or if he was trying to press his luck any way.
"How much do you have?" she asked him breathlessly. The heat and the hardness of him between her legs, the dizzying taste of his breath on her lips, the way his hands clenched tighter against her bum sent her careening towards the edge of madness.
"Twenty," he said.
Jean grinned, and planted her lips at the corner of his mouth, trying to calm her racing heart.
"I'll take fifteen," she said.