40 A Problem with Lips
They passed each other at the door, she going out, and he returning from work. Unselfconsciously she put one hand up to his left cheek and, in passing, kissed him on the other.
He was astonished, and, by the time that she reached the entrance to the yard, so was she, because it was not until then that she suddenly realised what she had done. She stopped dead, as though having walked straight into a metaphysical but palpable stone wall. She felt her blood rising to the roots of her hair, and realised that she did not dare look back at him. Undoubtedly he too would be rooted to the spot. She could almost feel his eyes travelling from her feet to her head, finally settling upon the back of her head in the expectation that she would turn around. He called out, as she knew he would, 'Kyria Pelagia.'
`What?' she demanded curtly, as though an effort to be short with him could cancel out the hideously simple way in which she had betrayed her affection without even thinking about it.
`What's for dinner?'
`Don't tease me.'
'Would I tease you?'
`Don't make anything of it. I thought you were my father. I always kiss him like that when he comes in.'
`Very understandable. We are both old and small.'
`If you are going to tease me, I shall never speak to you again.'
He came up behind her and around her, and threw himself upon his knees before her. 'O no,' he cried, `anything but that.'
He bowed his head to the ground and moaned piteously, `Have mercy. Shoot me, flog me, but don't say you'll never speak to me.'
He grasped her about the knees and pretended to weep.
'The whole village is looking,' she protested, `stop it at once. You are so embarrassing, get off me.'
'My heart is broken,' he wailed, and he grasped her hand and began to smatter it with kisses.
`Stupid goat, you are deranged.'
'I am tormented, I am burning, I am broken into pieces, my eyes spout forth with tears.'
He leaned back and gestured poetically with his fingers to portray the extraordinary cascade of invisible tears that he intended her to envisage. `Don't laugh at me,' he continued, having struck upon a new tack. 'O, light of my eyes, do not mock poor Antonio in his affliction.'
`Are you drunk again?'
`Drank with sorrow, drunk with agony. Speak to me.'
`Did your battery win another football match?'
Corelli leapt to his feet and spread his arms with delight, `Yes. We beat Gunter's company by four goals to one, and we injured three of them, and then I came in and you kissed me. A glorious day for Italy.'
`It was a mistake.'
`A significant mistake.'
`An insignificant mistake. I am very sorry.'
`Come inside,' he said, `I've got something very interesting to show you.'
Relieved by this abrupt change of subject, she followed him through the door, only to find that he was passing her on his way out again. He clamped his hands upon either side of her head, kissed her lingeringly and flamboyantly on the forehead, exclaimed, 'Mi scusi, I thought it was the doctor, don't make anything of it,' and then sprinted away across the yard and down the street. She put her hands on her hips and stared after him in amazement, shaking her head and making every effort not to laugh or smile.