Chapter Two

May 1974

Early morning light was just filtering through the trees. He was up, going and coming from outside on bare feet, Then standing at the kitchen table, watching the deer while waiting for kettle to boil. Straight and tall, clad in a pair of loose climbing shorts, his softly curling hair awry. Getting up, I went over and he put a finger to his lips, and then an arm about me. He nodded at the deer which was perhaps ten feet away. Behind us the water was boiling in the kettle, a pleasant hushed rushing-water noise. At last, when the deer moved along, he turned to me with a kiss.

'What a marvellous place,' he said in wonder, and then grinned. 'Except the facilities. We shall have to build a privy. I don't mind when out climbing, but it's rather primitive for everyday use.'
I laughed. 'Sometimes you can tell that you went to public school. I won't let on that you are fastidious.'
'Naughty girl,' he bent his head to rub noses. 'Come have some tea.' He went to make the tea, measuring out spoonfuls into the pot.
'Oh, that reminds me; we shall need a bathtub. One of those zinc ones probably. We'll look at the general.'
'We'll have to fill it in here, ' I said, 'or outdoors in summer.'
He smiled. 'I have no problem with that. One of the good things about this place is that we don't need curtains. Yet.'

We spent the day arranging things further, playing music and reading, and in the afternoon took the jeep to town to meander through the general for a bathtub. It was full of tourists, buying toffee apples instead of ice cream in this weather. The general was genuinely old, built in the 1870s, with goods on shelves behind the counter and on few tables in the centre. Everything from garden tools to chairs and medicines. There was a corner of camping and climbing gear, and George examined the screwgate karabiners with interest.

'You climb?' The proprietor asked, noticing his interest.' George smiled. 'Yes. But I'm new here. '
The man brightened. 'Oh you're the new people who took the cabin up by the old golf course! I saw you last night at the saloon.' He held out his hand. 'James Fischer. I do a bit of climbing myself.'
'George Gregory. My wife Claire is over there. I'd appreciate coming out with you sometime, to see the rock routes.'
'You bet,' James said with enthusiasm.' The rock-climbing is great.'
George was over the moon. He laughed. 'But you make me forget what we came for!'
"What can I get you?'
'Not krabs! A bathtub, if you please.'
There were zinc ones as well as copper and tin.
'Claire,' I left the pile of handmade soaps and went over. 'Would you like a copper bath? It would look so well with the decor.'
'Can we afford it?'
'It's no more expensive.'
'There are copper mines near here,' James offered. 'That's why it's so cheap.'
'Lucky us,' George said.

In addition to the copper bathtub, we got a few more garden seeds, and some supplies for basic soap making. It was our plan to live as self-sufficiently as possible – but not all at once.
In the jeep, I said to George,
‘I noticed that you placed some emphasis on the word “wife” with James. What’s up?’
He glanced at me quickly, and then grimaced a little ruefully. ‘You are quick.’ He sighed. ‘Last night, I heard Joe refer to Maggie as “my old lady” at least four times. I wanted to forestall that sort of language. I wanted them to know that you are my legal wife, not just my squeeze, or common-law by virtue of some mumbo-jumbo of Peter’s.’ That would be Peter Caddy at Findhorn, who had presided over more than one handfasting, in the old Scottish manner. I smiled.

‘That’s very sweet, but why do you care what they call each other?’
He shook his head at me. ‘Not them! Us!’ He drove for a bit, over the jouncing rutted road. ‘The truth is,’ he said at last, ‘I want to rid them of the impression that we’re into free love. I’m not sharing you with anybody.’
‘Ah. The jealous type,’ I teased.
‘Damn right.’ This quirk of conventionality in this otherwise unconventional man of a mere 23 was curious, and could be perplexing I suppose to the rest of the community, who, I suspected, didn’t care a jot about our legal status, or orgies either for that matter. But for him, it had been all or nothing from the beginning. The beginning was some eight months before, when I had gone into his shop in Covent Garden for some sheet music.

Meeting Monday 10 September 1973
I was standing looking through the catalogue which was open on a large stand, when he came up before me, all six feet of him, in a white ruffled shirt and tuxedo pants, looking rather like an irresolute nob just getting in from a night out.
‘May I help you, Miss?’ His eyes were the colour of a rainy day sky, riveting as a thunderclap.
‘You work here?’
He made a little bow. ‘At your service.’ His hair fell in his eyes, a mop of loose dark curls that fell to his shoulders.
‘Vivaldi’s guitar concerto in D major, please.’
He blinked. ‘For mandolin or guitar?’
I smiled. ‘Guitar. I can transpose it.’
‘Brava!’ he said. ‘Just a moment.’ He fetched the music and handed it over thoughtfully.
‘Do you play professionally?’
I shook my head. ‘I am a student at the Royal College. I do play for weddings and such.’
‘Are you? Hmm... I’m an intern at the Phil,’ he confessed. He laughed, ‘so I’m not professional either.’
‘Are you? Wow.’ I said. ‘What do you play?’
“Violin, oboe. At home I play the recorder and other things,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes with our early music consort.’
‘The Royal Phil has an early music consort?’
He smiled. ‘No. Some friends of mine.’ He looked up at the clock. ‘I say, I have a break due, would you like to go for a coffee?’
I had never been asked for an instant date before, but this young man was intriguing.
‘I can’t,’ I teased. ‘I don’t know your name.’
He shook his hair from his face. ‘That’s all right. I don’t know yours either.’
‘Claire Walter.’
“George Gregory.’
‘I should love to go for a coffee, George.’
He grinned all over. ‘Great.’ He called to the man in glasses and bow tie at the other end of the counter. ‘Hey Roger, I’m gone for a break. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.’

We went to a cafe down the street and sat for his twenty minutes, talking about music, discovering that we both were keen folkies – which I might have guessed from his ‘early music consort’ and dress, and he by mine as well. There was an exchange of telephone numbers and addresses, and at the last minute, as we were leaving our small table outside, he asked me to go with him to the Lake District at the weekend.
‘Whatever for?’
‘Climbing. Rambling. Whatever.’ He climbed as well! Oh God....
He tossed his hair back. I had no idea then how nervous he really was. I looked up at him, and he seemed so full of charm and confidence.
‘Yes.’

Tuesday 11 Sep
It was raining the next day and poured buckets in the afternoon. I was lucky to have got in at my shared house in the Fulham Road before the downpour. Not so George. The phone in the hall rang, and Hazel, one of my flatmates – also a student at the Royal – called out,
'Claire! For you!'
All my town friends were at the school and I had seen most of them that morning, everyone was planning to snug in and so was I – I was reading The Silmarillion under a quilt rather than studying theory. So I went downstairs in great curiosity. Perhaps someone wanted to crib my unwritten theory notes. I felt guilty now.
'Hello, this is Claire.'
'Claire! Thank God you're there!' It was George, and by the sound –he was shouting over the rain – he was in a phone box.
'George, where are you?'
'Outside the tube station in Covent Garden, ' he said matter of factly. 'I was about to go home and ---'
His voice trailed off and I was afraid I'd lost the connection. All I could hear was rain, here and down the line.
'Hello?'
'Yes, I'm here.' A note of something like desperation crept into his voice. 'I was about to go home and, suddenly I --- Claire! Will you come out with me?'
"What, now? It's pouring!"
'I know, I'm soaked –' he said distractedly. 'Look, I have to see you! I... have to ...know...'
I was clueless and baffled. 'Know what?'
His next words came out all in a rush, agonised, 'I think I'm falling in love with you and I have to know if it's real or not.' There was a huge thunderclap then that rattled the windows. That wasn't all that was rattled. My God.
'I don't have a car, or even a bicycle.' I said lamely.
"I'll get a cab,' he said quickly, taking my lame response for consent. 'I'll be there as soon as I can. Thank you, dear girl.'

He rang off and I was left standing staring at the phone in bafflement, completely overwhelmed. It was the weirdest conversation I'd ever had, next to his asking me for coffee out of the blue.
Disturbed, I trudged upstairs for warm clothes. Having pulled on a couple of extra petticoats, one wool, and a brown Aran, I went downstairs again to the mudroom for my waterproof and wellies.
Mark came by, book in hand, going from his room in the old front parlour to the kitchen. 'You're going out?'
I grimaced. 'Yes.'
'Some powerful charisma, I'd say,' he noted dryly and continued down the hall. I'd told Hazel about George, and now it was house news. Oh well.

The bell rang, and I went to the door to find George soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his head and neck, his skin a shade of pale blue.
'For God's sake, come in!'
'No, there's the cab waiting.' He reached out for my hand. 'Come on,'
I went with him and we hurried to the waiting black cab and tumbled into the capacious back.
'Where are we going?'
He tangled his fingers in mine, strongly. 'We can go to the Tate, or my flat.'
The cab driver, who was Welsh, said 'The Tate closes at half-past five. We won't make it.'
George nodded. 'Right. 46 Gordon Square then.' He turned to me, staring intensely, and took my other hand. 'You are so beautiful.' His eyes roved over all my person. 'Thank you for coming.'
I nodded slowly, unsure of what was going to happen now.
I turned to her as the sun went down. All my senses reeled....

'I don't mean to freak you out,' he said,' his eyes roving over my face and hair, 'but I couldn’t get you out of my mind. All day, at the Phil, at the shop, all I could see was your face, and the sound of your laughter in my ears...' He smiled ruefully, and ran a hand through his dripping hair. 'I'm sure I gave everyone too many pencils and cream in their tea and more grant money than they asked for.' I smiled now. He wasn't a loony, just a young man, perhaps really in love.
I spoke not a word on the cart to the farm, but my heart beat in my throat.

'That's better. You looked a bit shocked before.' He reached up and touched my face, with such a thoughtful, tender look. 'I do so want this to be right, Claire.'
I took a breath and drew back a little. 'You're still not sure?'
He grinned.' No, not that. I am sure, now.' He ran the back of his fingers down my cheek. 'No I mean I want to go about this in the right way... I guess I am a romantic –'
'No!' I was laughing at him, yes, teasing, and he took it.
'...And I want everything to be perfect. So much hasn't been, up to now... I'll tell you what I mean when we're home.' He looked up, out the window. We were nearing Gordon Square, as our houses were not very far apart, within walking distance if the weather was fine.
The cab stopped before his house, and we got out. I ran up to the overhang before the door while he paid the driver, for it was still pouring. While I was standing there, I noticed the plaque above my head:

'1904-1946'
'Vanessa Bell and her sister Virginia Woolf, daughters of Sir Leslie Stephen, lived in this house from 1904-1916. It was afterwards occupied by Sir John Maynard Keynes until his death.'

I shuddered. Bloomsbury was born in this house. George came up just then and nodded, pulling out the key to the basement flat.
'You live here?'
He smiled. 'The rest is rented out to U College London students. There's a caf upstairs in the parlour. Handy. Come on, wee girlie, where it's dry.' He took my hand and pulled me inside. We were greeted at the door by a large collie.
'This is Fergus.' He ruffled the dog's jowls affectionately.
'This is the Lady Claire, Ferg.' The dog came over and put his nose in my hand. I petted his head, and he licked my hand, so we were friends.

Dry it may have been, but spartan. In George's room, an old Victorian iron bed, a wardrobe and a desk and chair were all the furniture. There were books and scores and sheet music everywhere, a bust of Beethoven in cheap plaster was on the desk. On the desk were his fiddle and oboe; on the music stand was a recorder; in the corner a mandolin; beside it an English guitar. There were heavy curtains, still open, obviously Victorian leftovers got on the cheap from the Oxfam shop. But the bed was made, and there were no clothes lying about.
'I'll show you the lav,' he said, 'you'll want to dry off.' I followed him down the narrow hallway past the parlour and several closed doors to the lav and bath on the right, the kitchen was on the left, at the back.
'Who else lives here?' I asked.
He opened the door to the bath and pulled out several towels from the cupboard. 'Guys at the School of Art.' He said shortly, handing me the towels. 'Pardon me.' He pulled his sodden coat, jumper and shirt off at one go and went into the bath, flinging them with a thud over the shower rail. He stood there, all gooseflesh. I noticed the sinewy climber's biceps and forearms. His skin was olive even where the summer tan fell away. I felt breathless.
I'd watch her carry water or drive cows from the byre,
And the heat from the sun made the corn grow strong, and with it my desire.

'Won't be a tick,' he said suddenly, and sprinted off down the hall, coming back in a football jersey with a shirt for me.
'I'll make us some tea,' he said, colouring. '...how do you take it?'
I smiled. No question that I drank tea, not coffee like every other Yank. 'Just milk. Thank you.'
I went into the lav to examine the damage. I was much less wet than George was, thanks to layers of wool and not having stood out in the rain. I picked up his shirt. It was pressed and smelled of ironing, but had been worn because it smelled of him also. I came out in my dry stockings, two petticoats and long-sleeved top, and the shirt as a jacket because the flat was cold. I hung my skirt and wool petticoat and jumper in the bath and went into the kitchen where George was collecting tea things on the tray. He had dried his hair somewhat; the towel was still lying on the table. The dog was sprawled in front of the range.

'Ah, there you are,' he said. ' Could you bring the bikkies?' he nodded at a packet of Ginger Nuts.
I nodded and followed him into the bedroom. He had turned on the radiator when he went to get his jersey, and the room smelled of it, but feeble heat was steaming from beneath the windows.
He set the tray down on the bed and pulled a woollen blanket out from beneath it.
'I won't be a tick. I just want to put the wet things in front of the range.' He went out again and came back a few minutes later.
'There now. All cosy. Come sit.'
I sat, and he poured out the tea into mugs.
He handed me one and sighed. 'I'm glad, actually, that we couldn't go to the Tate. I want to tell you some things, and I don't want eavesdroppers.' He tossed his hair out of his eyes.
'I'm sorry just there, in the bath. It was too easy to make that an invitation. It could have been, and that's the wrong way to begin.' His glance flickered up. 'I want you to know that I'm not a cold fish or offish –'
'I don't think that.'
'-But I didn't bring you here to seduce you either.' He drank some tea, wincing. 'I used to live in Soho, and I sowed my wild oats. I know one end of a girl from another,' he smiled ruefully.' But I don't want that, not with you.... There's something pure and holy about you, Claire, and I want to be worthy of that.'
It was an extraordinary thing to say. Soho was drug den and red-light district all in one. And 'pure and holy' sounded like something out of chivalric romance. Had I not just been reading Tolkien?
Then Maeglin bowed low and took Turgon for lord and king to do all his will...for the bliss and splendour of Gondolin surpassed all that he had imagined from the tales of his mother...yet to none were his eyes more often drawn than to Idrill, the King's daughter who sat beside him, for she was golden as the Vanyar....

The rain pattered outside in the silence. To my chagrin, I actually spoke the words, instead of just thinking it, and when I looked at George, his breath was caught and he was staring at me intensely again.
'I was reading that when you rang.' I felt myself blushing.
'You have no need to apologise,' he smiled. He nodded. ' So you understand.'
'Chivalry? Yes. This? Not at all.' My throat closed and eyes burned with sudden tears. I felt helpless with the unexpected strange emotion. I drew a shaky breath and drank some tea. It was still much too hot.
'If it's any help to you,' George said, smiling a little, 'I'm new to this too.'
'But you said you had a wild life in Soho.'
'But I was never in love with anyone.'
The words hung in the air, and the meaning of them echoed: he had carried on a reckless life of dissipation for its own sake, purely carnal, but his romantic's soul yearned for love, and now.... I looked up.
'How do you know this is real? How do you know this is it?' I asked.
He shook his head slowly. 'Because I have never felt this way before. I know what lust is.' He nodded towards the hall. 'I won't deny, I wanted to make you, standing there in the hall. And I can't deny that I'm half scared to death, feeling my way in this. I know what chivalry says I must do, lady. I know what my heart says I want. But a man's mind, coarse and stupid, balks.'
It was more than a pretty speech out of Henry II or wherever it was from – it rang bells in my mind, anyhow, and they weren't warning ones. It was deep psychology, and soul-baring honesty. I could respect that. Whatever this was, it was no game.
'Well, you're better off than me,' I smile a little. 'I have no clue ether way.'
'I would be disappointed if you said otherwise. If the promise were a fireship, I'd have to pack it in.'
I stopped drinking tea in astonishment, and stared at him.
'What?'
'You!' I exclaimed. 'Sea chanteys! My God! Where did you come from?'
He smiled. 'I've been asking myself the same question all day, little one....' He took a biscuit. 'I have to tell you,' he said, munching on Ginger Nut, 'that it thrills me like nothing else ever did that you are completely innocent. I'd like you to stay that way.'
I could laugh now, at that. 'Doesn't that strike you as chauvinistic?'
' I cry you mercy, lady. I didn't mean it to be proprietary...' He paused, thinking. 'On second thoughts, yes I did. Do you mind awfully?'
'You assume that I'm falling in with this...whatever it is.' It was meant to be teasing, for why should I not? But it took him aback.
'Aren't you? Don't you?' He asked in sudden earnest. 'But you’re here.'
I shook my head. 'I've never known anyone like you, in all my sheltered life. 'I live with five other people, two of them boys. And they're not like you. No one has been like you. If they had been, perhaps we'd be more evenly scored....' I drank some tea.


'I did think of you today, too. I thought you were magical and enchanting. But I figured what would be, would be... And then you rang up, and I was scared to death. And just then, before. I don't know what that was – blubbing like that. Is that what love is? It felt so very intense... I feel very drawn to you, very strange in your presence. In the hall I – is that desire? I guess it must be. You are beautiful and I wanted to touch you. If you had begun anything I suppose I'd have gone along, carried away by that feeling. I just don't know how to make sense of what I'm feeling, what to call it. I've never been in love, or attracted to anyone before. Forgive me. I went to convent school.' I smiled a little.
'Did you?' He smiled in delight.
'...So you'll have to show me everything.' There, I said it. I was giving this a go. His response was overwhelming. His stormy grey eyes filled with tears.
'Oh, baby. Oh Claire! You have made me the happiest man alive!' He put down his cup, took mine away, and took my hands. Rising, he gathered me in his arms and held me there, shaking.
'Thank you, darling.'

She was safely gathered in my arms when from the barn
Drifted the sound of a violin and we hurried back to the farm.
And all were dancing in the lantern light and music filled the air,
And I thanked my stars for the harvest moon and the girl from the hiring fair.

We sat again, and he ate more of the biscuits – I rather got the impression that he was the type who had to eat frequently – and began the second part of the conversation. 'I have something else to tell you about Soho,' he said. He pulled up his sleeve. 'See that?' he pointed out some marks. 'Do you know what these are?'
'You give blood?'
He smiled. 'No. They won't take me now.' He cocked his head. 'I did a lot of drugs in Soho. Grass, mescaline, acid. Heroin.' He shook the hair from his face. ' I got out of that scene because of heroin. Everyone tells themselves they're not an addict, and I've heard tell that you can use without becoming one, but I was, even though I didn't like to admit it. So no more. I'm off all that as a general rule.... I'm very lucky. I've never had a VD or hepatitis or anything that goes along with that life. But you should know. I am clean. But I have a past.'

I suppose that anyone else would be freaked out to hear that a potential lover used to be a dope fiend, and maybe I was just naïve or slow-witted, but it didn't bother me, because it was past. He was freely admitting it all and it was past. And what if he had herpes or hepatitis or something? Would it matter to me? If he were getting some treatment for it, no. I wasn't actually turned off by drug use or uptight about people's sexual experiences. What they did was their own business.
I said so.
'I have smoked grass,' I admitted, 'with my sister and brother and at school. But it was always somebody else's stash. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to get it. But that's it. Girls at school used to take valium, but they were always so out of it, just stupid, that it was never a temptation.'
'Why do you smoke it?' His tone was neutral, merely curious.
'Curiosity, first, then the expansion of reality,' I said. 'But it's only for recreation. I couldn't take it if I had to play,' I smiled a little. 'It would be very surreal.... What about you?'
'Escape. Rebellion. Expansion of consciousness. Heroin is instant bliss. Better than sex. But psychedelics blew my mind, and I found the "more" I was seeking.'
'And you still gave it all up.'
He smiled gently, blissfully, like a baby. 'Yeah. Because I found something better.'
'What?'
'Meditation. Nature spirits. A permanent way to the kind of high only climbing gives.'
'Wow.'
He nodded, smiling again blissfully. 'I'll show you. I'll show it all to you.'

He got up to put on more tea and feed the dog. It was growing dark when he came back and he lit some candles and pulled up the English guitar from its resting place. Tuning it minutely, he played a familiar song,

Follow me where I go what I do and who I know
Make it part of you to be a part of me
Follow me up and down all the way and all around
Take my hand and say you'll follow me
You see I'd like to share my life with you
And show you things I've seen
Places that I'm going to places where I've been
To have you there beside me and never be alone
And all the time that you're with me
We will be at home

He had such a beautiful voice. A lovely baritone, perfect for folksongs. In addition to all his other attractions. That strange, intense, teary feeling welled again. If this were love, I'd be crazy not to follow it, follow him. Let it unfold, I told the benign God of all. Let it unfold.
'Thank you, good my lord,' I murmured.
He walked me home later, as it had stopped raining. At the door, he took my hands and kissed the palms.

'Goodnight sweetheart. Thank you for hearing all my story. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for the beautiful soul of you.'
I smiled. 'Now, what am I to say to that with any hope of modesty? Thank you for being extraordinary, George. Thank you for your honesty, and chivalry. Thank you for showing me what real love is.'
He kissed my forehead. 'I'll phone you tomorrow, lady. Sweet dreams.... Oh. Will you come to my early music consort tomorrow? Bring your guitar and mandolin.'
I smiled. 'What time?'
'Early. We'll have dinner.'
I nodded.
So it was begun.