The Lady Volunteer

After we'd finished I said goodbye to her in the courtyard at the front of the house and she headed for the staff carpark and I went back to my little office and looked at the list of volunteers and wondered again who the lady in the library was.

I didn't find out for another three weeks, until after Christmas, in fact. In the lead up to the holiday I visited the house regularly and spoke to the volunteers and I have to say that as a group they were some of the friendliest and most pleasant mannered people I had ever met. They were unfailingly polite and well-informed and generous in the giving of their time; if I needed emergency cover they stepped up to the plate and provided it. My one minor criticism was that some of them could talk for Britain and I lost count of the hours I spent in the house or gardens or in my office, listening to the tales of their grandchildren and the woes and tribulations in their lives. But I saw it as a critical part of my job to listen and to empathise and offer support and encouragement, where I could.

The first Monday after the Christmas holiday was a brilliant, cloudless day although the temperature never climbed above zero. At about one o'clock I was in my little cubbyhole of an office when there was a tap at the door and the lady from the library walked in, dressed in another trouser-suit, this one dark-blue, over a white satin blouse. She brought a trace of floral scent into the office with her.

I hadn't forgotten about her but I had more or less resigned myself to the fact that I would never see her again and now here she was in my office. I stared up at her for a couple of seconds, noting the peerless mouth, red with lipstick, the pale, flawless complexion, the clear blue-grey eyes and the wonderful honey-grey hair. I felt myself blushing and made an effort to pull myself together.

'Hi,' I said.

'Hello,' she smiled. 'You must be Patrick, the new VC.'

'VC?' I asked, stupidly. I wasn't functioning on all cylinders after the sensory onslaught of her sudden appearance in front of me.

'Sorry, Volunteer Coordinator. I've been away for a while and I can't find my copy of the volunteer roster and something tells me I'm on locking up duties this afternoon. I'm Hilary,' she added, 'Hilary Stewart.'

Feeling embarrassed at my confusion and my gauche behaviour I accessed the appropriate spreadsheet.

'Yes,' I said, briskly, 'you're down for this afternoon.'

'Thanks.' She gave me another smile, showing even, white teeth. 'I'd better get off to the library. I'll see you at half-past three.' And she was gone, just a trace of her scent lingering in the room.

It took me a few minutes to fully regain my equilibrium, and even then my stomach was in knots at the thought of spending time in her company this afternoon. I suppose I was worried that I'd make a twat of myself in front of her. Who was this lady, to have such an effect upon me? I'd had plenty of girlfriends over the past ten years and I was a confident and proficient escort, and lover, I told myself. I'd certainly never had a reaction like this.

I met Hilary in the entrance hall at three-thirty and we went through the locking up procedure, starting on the first floor, in the library.

'There's something familiar about you,' she said as I pulled the big door shut and turned the key in the lock - I was carrying a huge iron key ring like an old-fashioned gaoler. 'Have we met before?'

'I visited the house a couple of days before my interview in November,' I told her. We had a bit of a chat about Dickens's first editions.'

'Of course! I remember.'

As we went through the locking up routine I began to settle down in her presence and we chatted companionably as we went from room to room. Eventually, but all too soon, we were back in the entrance hall and I was setting the alarm while Hilary fetched her coat from the Volunteers' cloak cupboard.

I watched her slip the heavy and expensive-looking black wool coat on and then pull black leather gloves over her slender hands. Then the alarm was bleeping and I was locking the outer door and we were standing in the courtyard, alone.

It was nearly dark by this time but there was a three-quarters moon and it bathed the deserted courtyard and the surrounding parkland in a magical silver light. We stood together in silence for a few seconds.

'It's so beautiful,' I said, so primal.'

'Yes,' said Hilary, quietly. 'Primal is a good word.'

I glanced round. Her face was tilted to the moon, her hair a shining halo above her black coat, her face in sharp relief in the moonlight. I thought I had never seen a more beautiful sight and it was all I could do to restrain myself from reaching for her.

'What's that bright star, near to the moon?' she asked, pointing with a gloved finger.

'It's Jupiter,' I told her.

'Really,' she breathed. 'I don't think I've ever knowingly seen it before. How do you know it's Jupiter?' she asked.

'It's the brightest thing in the sky at the moment,' I replied, 'apart from the moon. I do a bit of stargazing,' I added. 'Jupiter's so beautiful through a decent sized telescope.'

'Do you have one?' she asked.

'I've got an eight-inch reflector,' I said. 'It's not bad.'

'Sounds very interesting,' she smiled and I blushed at the double entendre.

'You do know there's a little observatory in the grounds of the Hall, don't you?' she asked.

'No,' I said. 'I had no idea. Where is it?'

'The other side of the sculpture park. It belongs to the house. The local astronomical society uses it sometimes, especially at weekends, but at other times you can get the key from Kate and go and use it yourself, I believe.'

We stood looking at Jupiter for a few more seconds then Hilary said she needed to be going and we said our goodbyes and she headed for the carpark and I went back to my office. Well, the general manager's office, actually, where Kate was typing away at her keyboard.

'I understand there's an observatory here, Kate. Can anyone use it?'

She looked up from her monitor. 'If the Cropton Village Astronomical Society aren't using it then yes. There's a booking sheet and the key's on the board. Just make sure you don't leave the electric heater on all night, like the bloody Cropton lot do with monotonous regularity.'

I signed out the key the next day, during my lunchbreak. I found the observatory easily enough, the other side of the sculpture park, as Hilary had said. It was a small, brick-built affair with a rotating hemispherical roof made of plastic sections. I undid the padlock and went in.

It was bigger inside than it appeared from the outside. There was a padded bench running around the wall and in the centre a pretty impressive reflecting telescope with an observing chair and a desk with a laptop and sheets of instructions. There was also a cupboard with a set of optic filters and eyepieces. I meddled around for an hour, reading the instructions, firing up the laptop and familiarising myself with the control program. I was planning on going back after work, when it would be dark, but it clouded over during the afternoon and it was gently sleeting as I left my office.

The next day the cloud cover had moved away and it was a day of brilliant sunshine. I popped into Kate's office at midday and booked the observatory between five and seven that evening. If the skies stayed clear I'd have a real treat. After that I wandered into the cafeteria to get a coffee to have with my sandwiches.

To my surprise (and stomach-churning delight) Hilary was there, sitting in a corner of the room, her lunchbox and a coffee on the table next to her. I walked over, feeling my guts go cold with anticipation.

'Do you mind if I join you?'

She looked up and smiled and I melted inside. 'Yes, please do. I usually sit outside to have my lunch but it's so cold today.'

I sat down opposite her. She was wearing her woollen coat and the dark-blue trouser suit over an electric blue satin blouse. Her hair and make-up were perfect and I felt a sudden longing for her, almost an ache.

'I found the observatory,' I began. 'It's got a computer controlled fourteen-inch reflector.'

'Is that good?' she asked.

'It's pretty impressive for an amateur set up. I've booked it for a couple of hours this evening after work. If it stays clear there should be some fantastic views of Jupiter, and maybe Saturn, too.'

'That sounds lovely,' said Hilary. She paused, looking at me. 'I'd love to see the moon and the planets through a telescope, actually look at them rather than just look at photographs. Would I be too much of a nuisance if I came with you this evening?'

The room seemed to spin and stay still at the same time, as though I was drunk. 'No of course not. I'd be delighted to show you.'

'Thank you,' she said, sounding really pleased. 'I may as well do the locking up with you then. I'll swap with whoever's on the roster.'

Which is how I ended up doing the locking up with Hilary Stewart again that evening and straight afterwards we went over to the observatory. It was very dark and the path wasn't great but I'd brought a flashlight from my office and after Hilary had stumbled the second time I offered her my arm and she grasped the crook of my elbow in her gloved hand and I felt a thrill of electricity.

'Thank you,' she said. 'Heels aren't ideal for this sort of terrain.'

Inside the observatory I switched on the heater and the reading light above the desk and opened the roof aperture. Hilary sat on the circular bench while I fired up the control system and typed in "Jupiter". The servos driving the telescope started up with a satisfying whine and tracked round the sky. I sat in the viewing chair and looked through the eyepiece and there she was, hanging in the sky, a big, banded disc of muted reds and oranges and shades of cream. I tried different eyepieces and filters until I'd got the best view then I stood up and invited Hilary to look.

She sat down and applied her eye to the eyepiece and then she gasped. 'My goodness! It's so beautiful!' She was motionless and silent for long minutes then she said, 'What's that red bit that looks like an eye.'

'That's the Great Red Spot,' I told her. 'It's a storm that's been raging for centuries, the biggest storm in the solar system. Nobody really knows why it's red. Can you see some tiny dots either side of the planet?' I asked. 'There should be four.'

'I can see three. No, four. What are they?'

'They're the Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europa, Callisto and Io.'

'So I'm actually looking at the moons of Jupiter?' she squealed in delight.

After she'd spent another ten minutes looking at Jupiter we found Saturn, where she was thrilled to see the rings and even the Cassini Division between them. We moved on to the moon, where she gasped at the definition of the craters and the mountain ranges highlighted by the day/night divide. After that it was Pleiades and M42, the great nebula in Orion and we were looking for elusive Neptune when the door to the observatory opened and a man walked in.

'Sorry to interrupt,' he began. 'We've booked the 'scope from seven till ten.'

I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that it was after seven. The time had flown, possibly because it had been a couple of the most satisfying hours I had ever spent. Alone with a beautiful lady who had expressed astonishment and delight at the things I had shown her through the telescope.

I handed the key to the newcomer and we made our way back to the staff carpark where we stopped by Hilary's car, a late-model BMW saloon. She turned to me.

'Are you in a hurry to get home, Patrick? I mean is your dinner waiting?'

'No, I'm not in any hurry. I'm living with my parents temporarily,' I added, reluctantly.

'Well I don't fancy cooking anything this evening. It'll be nearly eight by the time I get home. Would you like to go for a pub meal? My treat for giving me such a wonderful time.'

Ten minutes later we were in the little dining area of the Cropton Arms, a mile or so down the road from the Hall and on the outskirts of the village of Cropton. I was in a state of euphoria, a hundred questions burning my tongue, like was there anybody waiting for Hilary at home.

But I needn't have worried. We talked for a long time over dinner and afterwards we took coffee into the bar and sat at a table.

I told Hilary about my job in the City and my breakdown and my move back to my parents' house and she was kind and understanding and gentle and expressed her sorrow at my experiences. In return she told me that she was a widow of two years whose husband had been more than ten years older than her and had died of a heart attack on the golf course one Sunday morning in spring. She had a son and a daughter, both only a few years younger than me. The son was in Canada - she'd been visiting him before Christmas which was why I hadn't seen her - and her daughter lived in Glascow.

'You have a slight Scottish burr yourself, if I'm not mistaken,' I said.

She laughed. 'Born and raised in Edinburgh. Stewart's my maiden name.'

I could have sat and talked to her all night but the pub shut at ten pm on weekday evenings. It was nearly empty by that time anyway and the carpark was almost deserted. I had been asking myself all evening if I should try and kiss her, especially after I found out she was a widow. As it turned out, she took the matter out of my hands.

We stood by her car and she put her hands on my shoulders. In her heels she was about the same height as me. Her face, lit by a nearby streetlamp, was a foot from mine.

'Thank you Patrick! I have had the best time this evening. It was wonderful looking through the telescope and you brought it to life with your descriptions. It was so kind of you to do that for me.' Then she leaned forward and kissed me, on my lips, and kept on kissing me.

It wasn't a movie-style passionate kiss with mouths opening wide and tongues seeking tongues, at least, not to begin with, but it went on for about twenty seconds, taking it beyond a goodbye kiss and into the realms of intimacy. At one point she put her hand on the back of my head and pressed her mouth onto mine and I responded by opening my mouth and she opened hers and we worked our lips together for about five seconds before breaking suddenly apart as though we'd been caught in the act of something.

We looked at each other, our breath misty in the night air. 'Thank you for dinner,' I said, softly. 'I had a great time too. Would you like to have another look through the telescope sometime?' I asked.

'I'd love to. Whenever suits you. I'll make the time for it.'

And then we were kissing again and this time it was full-on mouths open, tongues darting and I was smelling her scent and feeling the softness of her lips and tasting her saliva and my cock was rigid in my trousers and the blood was thundering through my veins and I thought I might pass out with the emotional and sensory overload. Then some more people were coming into the car park and we were saying a hurried goodbye and getting into our cars.

I watched her taillights disappear down the road and sat back in the driver's seat of my car, the engine idling. What had happened tonight? Well, for starters, I'd spend an enchanting two hours in an observatory with one of the most attractive and elegant ladies I had ever met. Then she had invited me for dinner and afterwards we'd kissed like lovers in the car park. I was in heaven! The question that kept nagging at me was what the hell did she see in me?

Thick cloud lingered over East Anglia for the next seven or eight days so star-gazing was out of the question. I lurked in my office quite a lot of the time, running the events of the previous Wednesday round and round in my head like an endless loop on a tape deck. When I did visit the house I generally avoided the library. Somehow I didn't want to be seen round there by Hilary, as though I was stalking her.

I saw her once, as I was talking to one of the volunteers in the entrance hall. 'Hello, Patrick,' she smiled at me as she tripped past, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. I felt the customary deliquescence in my bowels and I gave her a weak smile. 'Hi, Hilary.'

On Sunday a high-pressure system moved in from continental Europe and pushed the cloud base away, bringing clear skies and icy temperatures to the whole of the UK. At lunchtime on Monday I sent my first text to Hilary; her number was in the contact spreadsheet.

Hi, Hilary. The forecast is good for this week. Shall I book the observatory one evening? Patrick.

I forbore from adding a kiss. Her reply came an hour later.

'Hi, Patrick. Tomorrow would suit me very well. I'll swap with the locker-upper again! Shall we have dinner at the pub again? Hilary xx

I replied that that would be great and I booked the observatory and then I went for a walk around the grounds of the Hall to try and settle my brain. It was all very well to spend my time fantasising about Hilary and the fairytale turn that my life seemed to be taking, but I was actually paid to do a job.

Still, it seemed a long time until three-thirty the next day when I met her in the library with my mediaeval-looking bunch of keys. She was standing next to the pearl inlaid table, where I'd first spoken to her. And for the first time she was wearing a suit with a skirt, a dark-grey, well-tailored two-piece. Her legs were clad in black stockings and they were slender and shapely and slim-ankled and I felt suddenly short of breath. When would I ever be able to maintain my composure in front of this lady?

We didn't kiss on meeting; there were still a couple of visitors hanging about. But even if the place had been deserted I don't think we would have done. There was a tiny awkwardness between us, a tiny distance. Hilary was distinctly more subdued than she had been.

We talked about astronomy as we cleared the house and locked up, about what we might see and what there was to see at this time of year. Afterwards we walked the path through the sculpture park to the observatory and, once inside, with the heater on, I busied myself with the set-up and selected objects for us both to look at.

As before, Hilary was brimming with excitement as she looked upon Jupiter and Saturn again and the area of the first Apollo landing site in the Sea of Tranquillity. I was in a state of semi-nervousness and semi-arousal, wondering whether I should make a pass at Hilary and not quite daring to. And as before, the time passed too quickly and at five to seven the Astronomical Society turned up to claim possession.

We ate in the Cropton Arms, at the same table we'd had the last time, but the conversation didn't quite flow as it had done. I attributed it to my companion wishing to cool things down, perhaps coming to the realisation that I was little more than a callow youth. After we'd finished the meal we took our drinks into the saloon bar, where we were the only customers. Even the landlord seemed to have deserted the place.

'Thank you again, Patrick,' said Hilary, raising her glass to me. 'You've given me another lovely treat and I'm sorry if I've seemed a bit quiet this evening.'

'Is everything alright?' I asked.

'You'll think I'm very silly,' she replied, quietly, 'but I've felt a little bit shy this evening.'

'Shy?'

'Yes, shy. I'm really not a particularly confident person, Patrick. I put on a good front and I probably fool most people but underneath I'm really rather insecure. And after that lovely time we had last week, and the kissing in the carpark and everything, I was a bit shy about seeing you this evening. I'm sorry.'

I reached across the table and took her hand; she'd painted her nails a dark red.

'It's me that should be apologising. If I hadn't been tied up with my own lack of confidence I might have noticed.'