London - Edward Rutherfurd [31]
It was then that his infatuation began. He started to think about Martina. As he unloaded the boats, her smoky eyes seemed to hover in the rigging. In his mind’s eye, he saw her rhythmic walk and it appeared infinitely seductive to him. He knew that Sextus was closing in on her, but the mariner had been at home until recently and he was almost sure his friend had not succeeded with her yet. He imagined himself instead of Sextus slipping into her house under cover of darkness. And the more he brooded, the more this infatuation developed a life of its own. That wonderful musky scent – was it something she put on, or did it emanate naturally from her body? Her feet had seemed a little large to him at first, but now he found them sensual. He longed to feel her short hair, to take her head in his hands. And more than anything, he thought of that long, lean, flowing body. Yes, he would like to discover that.
“But would you want her if she didn’t run away? That’s the question to ask yourself about a woman.” Julius had never mentioned the girl to his parents, but this was the remark his father had suddenly made the other day. “I can see some woman’s leading you a dance,” he had continued. “I hope she’s worth it.” Julius had laughed. He didn’t know. But he meant to find out.
And Sextus’s warning? It was not in his nature to make cold calculations. Julius was too full of life to weigh the risks of all his actions. Besides, he was an incurable optimist. It’ll all work out, he decided.
The fat girl sat by the street corner. She did not want to sit there, but they had told her she must. She had brought two folding stools with her, upon which she had slowly let herself down. They had given her a loaf of bread, some cheese and a bag of figs. Now she sat, placidly enough, in the warm sun. A little dust had collected on her. By her feet, a litter of crumbs and fig skins suggested that she had consumed the bread and cheese and five of the figs.
She was eighteen, but had already grown to a size that would have been impressive in an older woman. Her first two chins were well developed and a third was taking its place beneath them. Her mouth was wide and turned down at the sides, where a little juice from the figs had gathered. She sat with her legs apart, her dress falling loosely over her bosom.
It always seemed to Julius that there was something mysterious about people who were very fat. How did they come to be that way? Why were they usually so content to remain so? To such a fit young fellow it seemed very strange. Indeed, when he looked at the fat girl he occasionally used to wonder whether behind her massive passivity, there might lurk a secret rage. Or could the mystery be deeper yet? At times it was almost as though, knowing something about the universe that was hidden from the rest of mankind, the fat girl was content. To sit, eat, and wait. In expectation of what? Who knew? Yet perhaps the greatest mystery of all was this: how did the fat girl come to be his sister?
For sister she was. From the age of about nine, though, she had gradually grown bigger and bigger, retreating from the busy world of sports and games that Julius and his friends enjoyed in a way that baffled her family. “I don’t know how she got like that,” his father would say in puzzlement. Though round and rubicund now, he had never been fat; nor had Julius’s mother. “My father always said he had an aunt that was very big,” he would remark. “Maybe the girl gets it from there.” Wherever it came from, it was clear that her condition was there to stay. She and Julius had had little to say to each other as the years progressed; indeed, she seldom spoke to anyone, though she was amenable enough to do things like keep watch without asking questions, as long as she was given something to eat.
Now, therefore, as the afternoon wore slowly on, she sat eyeing the empty street and dipping into the bag