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It is early April, and Cherry Tree Lane still hasn’t seen a single cherry blossom, when Mary Poppins begins presenting her with cups of tea she never asked for. She is used to being served, of course. George often repeats her that she should be, that she always struggles with the most natural expectations and that, even though their upbringings could or should never be called similar, their fathers had shaken hands like gentlemen. One should command in his own home, and never look sorry about it, he says, before taking his leave.
The nanny is just another member of the staff, but in this family they know better by now than to ask anything of the person occupying that post, anything other than to coerce the children into acting normally. And she would never say a word about it, but she isn’t certain Mary Poppins is fulfilling her contract as well as they had hoped.
“Come along, children. The boat race won’t wait for you, Michael, I’m afraid. Spit spot! That cut does marvels on you, Mrs Banks, it is quite becoming. Jane, this is not what I call a proper hat, now quit fooling around and help your brother.”
By the time she manages to formulate an uncertain “oh, thank you”, they are all long gone. George has dedicated three full minutes of his morning speech to the undignified shape of her dress, which she supposes coincides more with the undignified shape of her body than what she usually wears. The uncertainty hasn’t died down after forty-eight hours, and Tuesday is Mary Poppins’ day off, but when Wednesday comes and the children are due for a trip to the zoo, she wears the dress again and learns that it is right for her eyes’ colour. Each comment is delivered in a matter-of-fact tone that shines through the nanny’s every gesture. Which is a problem so obvious she seems to be the only one to see it.
There was a set way those things were supposed to be done: it was what it was all about, being the help, and making you body bend at the right angle, keeping your eyes low, erasing yourself graciously as you place the cup or the plate or the newspapers in front of your master, stifling every part of your flesh that could get in the way of good service, noises, smells, breathing, anything endangering the received pattern of the ritual, risking to disturb the peace. You didn’t want to be noticed. You worked to fade in the drawing room’s background.
But she couldn’t recognize any of those traits whenever Mary Poppins leaned over her and her hand manifested in front of her face, lowering down her favourite china until a distinctive “clink” echoed in the empty room and she had to look up, to meet her eyes. That was what she struggled to make sense of. Mary Poppins was waiting for her. As if making sure that she was present, forcing her into her own body as she stood on the tasteful Persian rug, her posture beyond reproach and yet impossible to ignore.
George believed that a functioning household should appear to be governed by invisible forces.
“Authority,” he would say, “is like the never-ending flow of money irrigating our economy. It orders the lives of many, but needs to remain without any identifiable origin to operate without interference.”
One morning, as she’s preparing to go out for a meeting with the Union, she almost runs into Mary Poppins between two doors, and before she can do as much as apologize, or more rationally wait for an apology, Mary is holding a stray lock of hair between two fingers, thumb brushing against her forehead. She doesn’t put it back in place in the safe knot-work of pins.
Instead she says: “A sensible choice. There is little point in opposing the wind,” swiftly turns around and walks away.
It is indeed windy that day, and when she comes home, late and rather dishevelled, George turns his eyes away in shame.
She kisses her children more regularly, although that was always something she would do during the day, unseen. Exhaustion is still getting in her way, though. It’s not that she doesn’t love them, never that, but it’s… She never knows how to find the anger in herself, whenever they run away. From her. Or at least from a house where it’s forbidden to play. With Mary Poppins they are always out but never lost, which should make all the difference, and sometimes does. It’s the relief that comes with getting help. A help. There are occasions on which she stops and wonders how much, exactly, they are paying her.
“I’m thinking about disposing of our nanny, her attitude is becoming unseemly. The airs she gives herself! You would think she’s doing us a favour. And the children are always clinging to her, one has to wonder how she handles them, really. You’ll have to tell me where you found yours.”
Winifred smiles demurely, and stays silent.
One night, she goes down to the kitchen, as she always does when she’s unable to sleep, which is most nights, and finds Mary Poppins standing there in a thick embroidered dressing gown, hair in a plait, uncannily ordinary.
“Can I help you, Mrs Banks,” she asks so primly one would think Winifred is intruding in her own kitchen, being only tolerated here as a guest, someone Mary, in all her benevolence, is willing to indulge.
“I…,” she stutters, unable to reconcile this new image of the nanny with her usual bearing, though it is, indisputably, the same person that takes care of her children in her place and always gets her husband to agree with her without realising it. Yes, Mary Poppins sleeps in their house. This is nothing to dwell upon. She owns five sets of day dresses, two coats, three aprons, a toilet set that is neat and proper, just like her, but contains some items, like that delicate ivory comb, too luxurious for what she does, who she’s supposed to be. She know this, of course, because an employer should always know about those things, to make sure everything is in order. The fabric of her clothes was almost heavy under her palm, starched, so clean she was afraid, for a second, that it wouldn’t retain the scent, but when she pressed her face against the collar it engulfed her completely, as it had with the soap, carefully stored in its little blue box, and the bed sheets. She had found a single hair on the pillow, which had left her with a sense of satisfaction that she still struggled to explain.
“Mrs Banks, are you quite alright?”
“I… I just wanted to...”
There is a rush of cold air on her hot cheeks, and Mary is standing very close all of a sudden, so close she can feel the tip of her plait brushing her wrist and see the tender lines of sleep in the corner of her eyes. She is so tired. So tired to know that Mary Poppins sleeps in their house, and that she doesn’t. And now Mary knows it, for she knows everything, and that is the problem, isn’t it, the obvious problem that nobody else can see, her unsolvable problem, the fact that Mary Poppins is her nanny, and yet can look at her in that way.
“If you don’t tell me what I can do for you, we’ll never go anywhere.”
What she finds, in the warm light of the kitchen’s lamp, at this hour of the night, is that she never expected Mary Poppins to have such a real, human body, breathing and solid and flushed. She feels like crying, all of a sudden.
But Mary’s fingers have found the hem of her nightgown, found the hole that has been there for longer than she can remember, and are now tugging at it, while Winifred tries to swallow the scorching feelings accumulating in her chest.
“A nasty tear, but nothing than can’t be fixed, I’m sure. It is very late, Mrs Banks. I don’t think I’m expected to be working at such a time, now, am I?”
This is a strange question, and Winifred opens and closes her mouth a few times until she can find an answer that is suitable and makes her a reasonable employer.
“Of course Mary Poppins, you don’t have to...”
“I wish you would find it in you to rest. I will mend this in no time, if I could just find...”
It is only when she lets go of her dress that she notices the pouch sitting on the table. It is carpeted, just like her bag, but fits in her hand as she rummages through it with three fingers, talking to herself under her breath:
“No, that’s not it… I would have sworn I left it somewhere near… a shame, so untidy...”
Though she has often doubted her own judgement, in the years of her marriage, she’s quite sure such noises shouldn’t come from a small object like this, that cannot contains more than a handkerchief and a powder compact. Seemingly losing faith in the pouch, Mary, to her shock, begins to search her gown, gliding her hand into her sleeve impatiently.
“Now where have I put it?”
From where she stands, Winifred can see a portion of her throat, slightly pink with all this agitation, and the idea of a pulse beating there, low and regular, makes her feel quite faint.
Sighing in exasperation, the nanny turns to the pouch again and takes out a piece of chalk. Before she can say anything, she’s drawing a large rectangle on the flowery wall-paper, reaching above her head and all the way down to the ground, as if nothing was more natural. It’s a door, the drawing of a door. But the second she adds a small, round knob to it, there it is, shining in her hand like freshly polished brass. Mary smiles, gives her a conniving look and pushes it open as Winifred approaches, astonished, to see what’s inside.
The kitchen now looks out onto a very large room, fully parqueted in light wood and brightly lit with numerous glass lamps. Bookcases aligned against the walls, the coloured spines glowing faintly as she tried to decide if she’s ever seen such types of binding before. The few paintings are nothing she can recognise either, all angles and spheres and primary tints, and sometimes a canvas that seems to be the result of a traffic accident, only stains and underneath, the vague lines of a human body. Scattered across the room in no discernible order are plants of all kinds, familiar parlour pals and loud exotic flowers, bushes of roses that make no sense indoors. In the centre stands an enormous bed, covered in thick pillows and layers of clear linen, that looks so comfortable Winifred almost winces in envy. But before she can step in, Mary shakes her head in annoyance and closes the door. In the blink of an eye, they are both facing a perfectly immaculate wall again.
“Wrong door. I’m sorry, it seems it won’t be for tonight. A shame, of course, but those things cannot be forced.”
Now that Winifred knows she is dreaming, probably asleep beside George as she should be, at last, she wonders why she doesn’t do more than stare, as Mary Poppins touches her hand in a commiserate gesture that isn’t at all what it should be, considering who they are.
“Try to rest, Mrs Banks. It will be easier now.”
And then, she moves closer and presses her lips to hers, briefly, as if she had done it a thousand times, and for a fleeting moment, meeting her eyes as she pulls away, Winifred thinks she probably has.
She sleeps like a stone. When she wakes up, George is long gone, and the bed is cold and too narrow.
It doesn’t mean the tiredness goes away, because she suspects than even Mary Poppins, with her unusual demeanour and the way she sometimes talks as if there were no such things as households and husbands and distinctions with an air of detachment she cannot understand, even Mary Poppins cannot magically fix the weight in her chest, the diversion in her will. Of course most days, when she has talked to Emily or Aeta or Elsie and sung the Union song, when she has listened to Christabel Pankhurst speak about detention, she doesn’t think there is anything particularly wrong with her. That belief persists all the way down Cherry Tree Lane, past the flowerless trees and the admiral’s ship, overcome any polite salutation from this or that respectable widow and her dog. As soon as the door closes behind her, thought, she is left with a gap in her being that clings to her until the next meeting.
Comes a day when she cannot bring herself to care about the untimely hour, the havoc about to be wreaked as usual under the admiral’s orders, regular and faithful. Everyone else is holding their position, everyone but her. Cannon shots shake the walls, the furniture glides by and she continues to stand, unmoved, feeling the house has been sunk. Cook and Helen are running around in mad circles, trying to compensate her apathy and salvage the most expensive vases. The menial tasks that went unseen. She could think of little else, lately. The invisible arms that carry the house’s foundations. Every detail counts, of course. From the knots of her corset to the ties of Helen’s cap, that George makes sure to discretely inspect every morning. “You have to make more noise than anybody else,” Emmeline Pankhurst had said to the crowd, after telling the tale of two babies to fed, one patient and one impatient. There would be no progress made in silence, no liberation for the mutes. But it seems to her that the carpeting in the house is absorbing every word she says.
Before she can drown, though, a hand lands on her forearm, shaking her back to the world.
“Mrs Banks? Would you care for a walk?”
Snapping out of the daze, she looks at the composed face of her nanny, cheeks impossibly pink and dressed for an outing.
“Well… Isn’t it your day off, Mary Poppins?”
“Yes,” she says, heading for the door and grabbing Winifred’s coat on her way. “I thought perhaps it was yours too.”
There is so much to answer to such a declaration, and she should take offence, snaps at Mary and reminds her of all the difference there is between them, but before she knows it she’s walking up the street, her arm in the crook of Mary’s elbow and the April sun kisses her skin.
“Look, the flowers have bloomed,” Mary points out, and sure enough, when she turns her head to look, there they are, fresh and lovely, lazily quivering in the breeze until a sudden gush of wind engulf them both in a wave of petals and she realises, feeling her intricate bun loosening, that neither of them is wearing a hat.
“I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t left the house these past few weeks, Mrs Banks. Have the Union meetings been adjourned?”
She’s so transfigured by the petals that have caught in Mary’s hair that it doesn’t strike her as inappropriate her nanny should monitor her comings and goings.
“There has been a big arrest, and we voted a temporary suspension. It was in the papers.”
Her own voice sounds foreign to her ears.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know, I make a point of never reading anything that has been printed in cheap ink.”
After a pause, she states, as if the fact was obvious to everyone:
“You are a modern woman, Mrs Banks.”
Rather than asking incredulously if that is what she really thinks, Winifred eyes her from head to toe, trying to imagine her in a dance hall or cheering at the races, and never quite managing it. There is something unashamedly Victorian about the nanny, but somehow she is left with the peculiar impression that the distance in her eyes isn’t a remnant of the pas but rather something she would have all the trouble in the world attaching a date to.
“I’m sure George wouldn’t approve of the term. But I have… I have heard it before, yes. What about you, Mary Poppins?”
“Oh, not in the literal sense, I’m afraid. Things move so fast these days and yet I always find them dilly-dallying like dodos at a caucus race. But I digress. Since we both agree about your condition, I must ask. How would you like to go on an adventure? I thought a trip to the beach would be in order: I’m still indecisive about the details of the bathing costumes, but I’ve never taken you anywhere, and the children have been spoiled enough as it is. Measures should be taken. I’m sure you’ll do splendidly, especially with that complexion.”
It is all said in the same no-nonsense tone the nanny uses for everything, from hurrying Jane and Michael to turning George’s opinions on their head, and she is beginning to hear an underlying current of self-satisfaction under the words.
“And here comes our tram, right in time.”
There is, of course, no tram stop in the middle of Cherry Tree Lane, or at least there wasn’t before this very minute, but as she opens her mouth to react to the astonishing proposal, a characteristic ding echoes right from the other side of the street.
“We do not gape, Winifred,” Mary murmures playfully as she helps her into the lower deck and is greeted by loud cheers from all the passengers.
“Mary Poppins!” the driver, an old, bald man sporting an impressive moustache exclaims. “Always a pleasure to drive for you. Where are we heading to, today? It’s on the house.”
“Why thank you Robert,” Mary smiles, hooking her umbrella in the ceiling bar to stabilize herself as the tram starts again. “We’d like to visit Briny Beach. It’s lovely at this time of the year.”
A general rustle of approval goes through the carriage, as Winifred confusedly looks for a seat. She has never seen such an unusual display of colours: the passengers are all dressed in pastel tones, and the leather-covered walls give way to shades of lilac, lemon yellow, tender green and baby blue, as if they had all been painted there by a patient artist with a fondness for flower arrangement. The crowd opens for Mary Poppins, people going out of their way to clear a path for her, before closing again as necks stretch to get a glimpse of the nanny and appreciative comments are whispered behind hands. She suddenly has the feeling she is on a public outing with the late Queen. But Mary immediately turns in her seat and puts her hand on top of hers, somewhat eagerly.
“I’d like to hear about the work you do with the Union. Tell me everything. One gets the feeling it can become dangerous rather quickly, doesn’t it? But when the cause is just, then it is just.”
She wants to say it would never get dangerous for her, not truly, because she couldn’t let it, for George would never forgive her, would never look her in the eyes again if the headlines of his morning papers one day amounted to “Banker’s wife jailed for breaking into Parliament”. She could never, no matter what Emily or Elsie says. Once, just once, when nobody was looking and she was standing near a group of prominent suffragettes, those who were braver, who were true to their cause and weren’t afraid of much, least of all of honesty, she had thrown a cobblestone at a Minister’s carriage. It had entirely missed the car and ended up breaking a pub’s window, but it had felt… She would rather not tell. Not when Mary Poppins is looking at her as if she already knows. And what does she understand of petty sacrifices and small shames, of being the unskilled, obscure, activist in a group of women so extraordinary Winifred sometimes falls asleep thinking about the way Doreen Allen said she would rather die of hunger than being fed contemptuous lies any more and false promises by men? She’s only the woman to whom she pays wages, who eats in her kitchen, maybe. She has never seen Mary Poppins eat before, and for some reason that fact angers her even more than her attentive expression, than her eyes telling her she’s only here to listen. Suddenly the urge to feel the scent she chased around her bedroom has never been stronger, and she has to stop herself from leaning in. Instead she asks briskly:
“Are you a feminist, Mary Poppins?”
“I don’t even think it should be a question, Mrs Banks. But alas, we live in this world, most of the time, and so it should always be answered proudly. I’m not under the habit of hiding my opinions.”
And Winifred almost wants to slap her for a brief second, to erase that confidence from her gaze, because this is such a lie, such a damned lie from the woman who never answers any question straight, who teaches her children that exactitude and neatness are the cardinal values in life, who is perfect, so perfect it makes her want to scream until the mask crackles, until Mary trips at last, does the wrong thing and gets recognised for the false money she is. A spell of dizziness is getting to her head, and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath that could pass for some momentary travel-sickness, as the tram comes to a brief stop.
“Have you got any sister?” she asks before she knows what she’s saying.
The whole carriage falls silent. When she opens her eyes again, she catches a glimpse in Mary’s eyes she has never seen before, a hint of sadness maybe, a longing, a snag. The nanny turns away from her to look at the window, opening on a landscape she doesn’t recognise. They aren't in London any more, that much is certain, but those painted houses aren’t even from Brighton: they barely look real, closer to children’s toys than to lived-in places. She wants to press on, to force an answer out of Mary, but a sound of rumpled fabric catches her attention. Someone near her is smoothing the creases of her dress, and as she looks around to identify the source, she realises that all the passengers in the tram are women. Young, old, fat, tall, women of all colours and of all bearing. Some are obviously upper-class, in slightly old-fashioned crinolines. Others wear the blue cotton skirts of the factory workers, or a shirtwaist, or even tennis dresses. They are all looking at her. It is a spectacle she has never been able to witness, not in real life, not in a real tram. None of these women are at home now, she distantly thinks. And she would give anything, really anything, to know where they are all going.
“I’m afraid I don’t. But I suspect it wasn’t the thrust of your question.”
Maybe it’s seeing all these women together, or the weight of their gaze on her, but Mary Poppins’s face strikes her as so normal, so vulnerable when she meets her eyes again that she lets go of the burning rock of resentment in her chest, and begins to tell her about the suffragettes. She tells her of the rousing speeches, and the stampedes, of how funny Emily Davidson can be when she talks back to an old conservative MP, how she enjoyed her small parts in suffrage plays and how she could never agree with Sylvia Pankhurst’s extreme political stance, of the brilliance of Ethel Smyth, of Constance Bryer, of Kate Williams Evans. Every now and then the tram comes to a stop, some passengers get in and others get out, and she talks about the violence and the love she discovered in the WSPU, about police brutality and friendly support, about women telling her she was worth something, telling her she was worth all of it. And when Mary finally pulls the cord, signalling for their stop, she is still talking, on the verge of getting carried away as she leans on Mary’s hand again to get off the footboard and lands closer to her than she expected, stopping in the middle of a sentence:
“...and of course one hears all sort of scandalous talks about Mary Blathwayt and Ethel Smyth, or even one or the other of the Pankhurst sisters, but I’ve always thought... »
She stops breathing altogether, because Mary Poppins’s face is closer to hers than it has ever been before, closer than that surreal night in the kitchen, closer than when she offers her cups of tea.
“I’ve always failed to understand what sort of scandal people found in shared happiness,” Mary says in a low voice. And just like that, Winifred closes the distance between them, and kisses her. It’s more pressing than last time, demanding, probably because she is the one to ask, but soon enough the nanny pulls away. She is a bit breathless, though, when she states:
“But then again I suppose there is a lot of things I don’t understand.”
Preparing herself to fight tears, Winifred wants to feel hurt, rejected, but doesn’t, not quite, because it is obvious that Mary’s comment was only directed at herself. That light in her eyes is back, trembling a bit under the fogged sun that shines over the beach.
“It’s a pleasure to hear you share your interests,” she adds without an ounce of emotion, and to Winifred’s trained ears it sounds like something Mary has said a thousand times before, to a thousand Mrs Smith or Mrs Johns, or Mrs Simpson who lives down the street, the colonel’s widow alone with her four little devils, nice woman, yes, very...dignified. A wave of sadness washes over her, though she understands this isn’t rejection, not exactly, rather a cold touch on her arm, almost dutiful, which doesn’t mean it’s any more bearable. Mary Poppins is her nanny, her employee, her servant, a dozen other terms she repeats to herself almost as often as George does, but for the first time, it dawns on her that she wants to understand the way she looks at the world, and how she feels. If she feels. It should strike her as ironic since service is an emotionless task, and yet none of them has ever managed to escape Helen’s fits of nerves unscathed. But Mary… It is possible, and entirely terrifying, that there are in this world sets of rules she has never heard of, constraints she doesn’t feel. How would one know, then? Can she ever learn to close that gap, or at least to map it? Certainly, she doesn’t believe it is impossible to talk to Mary Poppins. It may be harder to hear her right.
With a strangled sigh, Winifred presses her lips together and look around.
It is not the ideal spring day that is was back in Cherry Tree Lane, that impossible whirlwind of petals and colourful dresses, and it looks nothing like a painting either. Clouds are stretching out in the sky over longs strides of granular sand, the light coming through in yellow fingers, and sometimes catches in the lonely trees, interspersed with patches of weeds and heath as the slope softly rises up to greener pastures. From where they stand, she can see some wooden cabins, whose subdued tones are peeling in the breeze, and a single parasol, planted some hundred yards away, but they are the only persons around. And she feels incredible gratitude toward Mary, since it’s somehow her doing, because the beach looks real, and not like a childhood fantasy. Something tells her that is a special gift, not quite the regular adventure that was offered to her in the first place. She is glad. She doesn’t think she could do with any more dreams. Grabbing Mary’s hand, she presses it warmly, and on a whim quickly kisses her palm.
“Walk with me? This place reminds me of Pembrokeshire. Have you been there?”
Mary nods distractedly, looking at their interlaced fingers. For a while, they walk in silence, listening to the sounds of the waves slowly crashing and spilling languidly on the sand, reaching for their feet.
“Why are you doing this for me,” she finally manages to ask, her eyes never letting go of the red parasol that looks like a fragile poppy, tired fabric trembling at every gush of wind.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
After a moment, she tries again. She would never be so bold, or even so honest with herself, in a different setting, but she hopes that feeling is entirely hers this time.
“When I first saw you, I thought the children had been right. You are… you’re very beautiful. I probably shouldn’t say...”
“Of course,” Mary cuts her short. “I’m practically perfect.”
Here it is again, that matter-of-fact tone, but this time it comes out slightly bitter, although she may be imagining it, guiltily hoping for it as she tries to make herself heard.
“You don’t understand.”
“I assure you I do, Mrs Banks. When I answer an ad, I always do so with a full command of the situation.”
Winifred can’t repress a long sigh, even when Mary’s hand is soft in hers, hanging back. She notices that there are a couple of petals still stuck in her hair, but before she can reach for them, she hears a prim:
“We do not sigh, it’s unbecoming.”
It is so uncalled for, so ridiculously proper that she cannot do anything but burst into laughter, as her fingers catch in Mary’s bun. While she laughs, she sees her expression melts slowly until her face is caring again.
“What would you like to do,” she asks, and Winifred knows that if she decides on flying over the clouds or riding a unicorn, she will have it, without a doubt.
“I’d like to swim, I think. Didn’t you say something about bathing costumes, when we left?”
“I have,” Mary pauses, looking at her so intently that for a moment she wonders if that’s what it feels like, having someone’s undivided attention. But it is what Mary Poppins does, isn’t it. It is what being a nanny entails. Or so she used to think.
“But I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh.”
They have reached the parasol, and she is now holding the two petals that made Mary’s hairdo less and more than perfect for the last hours. It is as if the sky, heavy with its low clouds, is weighting down on her, expecting. Patiently, she listens, as her heartbeat gathers speed.
“Well I suppose… We’re the only ones here, aren’t we? It is warm enough, and I could always, I mean if you don’t mind...”
“I’ll help you out of your dress.”
Have Mary’s cheeks always been so pink? They may have, after all it had been a specific requirement, when they hired her. She only nods, sitting in the protective shadow of the parasol, and waits. Cold fingers begin to undo the buttons in her back, until the collar gets wide enough to glide on her arms, revealing freckled shoulders and the top of her corset. She can feel Mary untying the knots, pulling on the strings and slowly breathing life into her lungs as the pressure goes away
“Awful invention,” she hears her mutter as she struggles with a tangle that got stuck in an eyelet.
“Don’t you wear one?”
Corsets are disappearing. Last month she heard someone at the Union said that hopefully they would become the stuff of legend in a few years, and no one would ever believe women used to tame their body in such a way.
“I refuse that my good posture should be dictated to me. I owe it only to myself. The mere idea of being straightened up by force… Here. It should be better.”
And as the last knot goes, she leans in and place her mouth on Winifred’s shoulder. It’s not even a kiss, rather a point of contact, warm and hard, real. Mary’s breathing caress her skin as she shivers, not moving an inch, letting her, waiting for her. They stay like that a long moment, before the mouth begins to glide in the direction of her neck, testing the flesh, pressing a bit more, and there’s the ghost of a tongue against her pulse, not hesitant in the least but almost curious. As Mary follows her jaw with solid, solemn kisses, she reaches for her hair blindly, trying with unease to caress the soft locks, to ruin the neat bun, missing and scratching an ear, getting hold of a neck that is stretched toward her. An inquisitive hand is sliding in the space between her loose corset and her naked skin. When Mary’s finger find her breasts, she moaned without shame and closes her eyes. There is something, red and dark, pulsating against her eyelids, on her retina, and the edge of a nail against one of her nipple, caressing in an oblique way so that it rubs on the harsh boning every time she takes a breath. She feels her fingers opening like a talon on Mary’s throat, clutching, growing more desperate. Her mouth is in her hair now, biting into locks, murmuring words she cannot hear against her scalp.
“Oh you… God, this is very wrong, isn’t it?” Winifred can’t help but say plaintively, as the heat accumulates, drips, engulfs her. Mary sucks on her earlobe, and she cries out.
“It certainly isn’t, Mrs Banks,” comes the husky reply, low in her ear and sending one more shiver down her spine. “Have I ever been known to partake in anything that wasn’t respectable?”
It is quite a bold thing to say, considering she is palming Winifred's breast and pulling her down, down until she’s all but lying on the sand, her back pressed to Mary’s body, captive between her hands, her legs, and almost weeping in desire, unable to reach.
There is another hand under her skirt now, pushing away layers and layers of silk and cotton, making its way up along her leg, Mary’s index brushing the inside of her knee. She jerks forward, contained by the nanny’s strong grip, whimpering, and catches the thumb that was scratching her neck between her lips. She sucks on it, long and hard, keeping the nail between her teeth for as long as she can manages, before the other hand reaches her thigh and she is forced to let go in a sharp intake of breath.
“Mary...”
“What do you want? Just tell me what I can do.”
Her head is nothing but a swirl of desire and frustration, but somewhere in the mist invading her mind she knows her skin is moist under Mary’s touch, knows that the lies have been abandoned long ago at the stop of a tram, knows that nobody but Mary Poppins can hear her or see her here. Opening her mouth, she tries to turn for the nanny’s face again, somewhere above her shoulder. Under her coat, under the perfectly starched clothes, she feel her chest against her back, feels the way Mary presses forward, the way her legs move under hers to open them. As she grope around clumsily, she hears Mary’s voice tut on her collarbone.
“I’m waiting for you to use words, Mrs Banks. And I’m not particularly adept at waiting.”
When she finally speaks, she doesn’t recognise her own voice.
“Please… Please, I want you...”
“That’s better,” Mary smiles, as she reaches between her legs. The tips of her fingers find their way between the folds and she begins to run slow, wet circles as she inclines her head toward her mouth, listening to her breathing. The rhythm is languorous but unforgiving, sleek rubs coming and going like the waves, until she asks, begs for more. And Mary’s fingers are long and thin, hard inside her, hooking upward, tugging. Her thumb is still out to tease and squeeze, not letting her a moment of respite. She’s never made love like this before, and she isn’t even sure she has any right to use the word but hopes, for it must be it, otherwise what would be the point, what would she be doing, half-naked on this beach, trembling against her fully-clothed nanny, calling her name.
“I… Yes, there,” she lets out as one more finger twitches the way she was hoping it would, her hips moving against Mary’s phalanxes, against her palm.
“You’re not a child, Winifred,” the other woman whispers, quickening her pace until it’s so much her perceptions shrink to the limits of her body, to the pleasure concentrating in her lower stomach.
“You can make your own rules.”
She tenses, nerves on fire, her feet contracting in an effort to touch something she cannot name. Mary Poppins is there, against her, moving with her. She can smell her scent imprinted on her naked skin, and as the pulse of her fingers reaches its peak between her legs, she cries, her vision blackening, and comes loudly, fully, her whole body clinging to Mary again and again until everything fades and she can breathe again.
When she opens her eyes, minutes or hours later, they are in the same posture, Mary’s arm heavy on her chest. She feels numb and more relaxed she has ever been in her life. In the background, the grey sea is still following its inevitable course, but the tide is lower, further away. Lazily she turns around, and as soon as she senses her move, Mary Poppins tries to disentangle herself. Despite her drowsiness, she is quicker, and grabs her wrist, pulling her in one swift move and crushing their lips together. For the first time in a long, long while, she knows exactly what she wants. The question that remains, the inevitable question that weights more than even this other body on hers, is one she cannot answer alone. The kiss lingers, heavy, hungry. With a sense of satisfaction, she notices that in her frenzy she managed to get the pins out of the nanny’s hair: it is now running free under her hand. Kissing Mary Poppins is like kissing the tide. There is an element of eternity to it that she wishes she would forever feel on her tongue, a tang of salt and melancholy. Taking advantage of Mary’s distraction, she has unbuttoned her coat, untucked her shirt and found the soft curve of her waist. Her surprised gasp is so sharp she feels the need to reassure her, redirecting her kisses to her cleavage, hoping to reveal more, to see. It is the same desire that ultimately brings her down, her body laid out between Mary’s legs as she kisses her calves. They have rolled together away from the circular, pink shade of the parasol, and are now lost under the sun, the clouds dispersing in the distance. Soon enough, there’s a hand on her wrist, stopping her.
“It is really not necessary.”
Her laugh echoes along the empty coast, for this has nothing to do with necessity.
“I’d love to,” she says huskily, stroking Mary’s thigh over her skirt. “But if you don’t...”
“I...”
There are absurd sights, unexpected ones, and there is Mary Poppins’s face, caught in hesitation with a hunted look in her eyes. The sadness returns, more visible, excruciating, like she is contemplating the situation from afar, asserting the angle of their bodies, the curve of their necks bowing under a nameless force. It seems that she is out of rehearsed lines, this time.
“I’m here for you,” she manages, but her voice is shaky as Winifred runs her thumb against her cheek.
“No,” she whispers. “You don’t have to. Please don’t do this. You are worth so much more.”
Mary opens her mouth again and she can just read on her lips that she’s going to tell her she’s not supposed to, that it was all for her. But then she’s nodding, barely, tiredly.
“Yes?” Winifred asks, needing to be certain, although she will probably never know without a doubt since Mary Poppins, being herself, will always keep a part of her mind in the shadows.
“Yes,” she murmurs, voice breaking slightly, but her eyes are shining so blue it’s all she can do not to kiss her again, letting herself glide back and pushing the skirts aside until she can kiss across Mary’s skin, pressing her tongue against her flesh, marvelling at the fact that, again, Mary Poppins does have a real body, slick with sweat and want. At first she lets her mouth explore, following an instinct she never thought she would have. Her fingers grab onto Mary’s thighs for dear life and trace patterns there in the tender flesh, brushing against a hipbone.
The other woman is laying still under her, not making a sound, and after a moment she stops and looks up in concern, thinking she’s probably doing everything wrong and hoping against all hope Mary will help her, tell her what she needs. But instead she catches sight of the nanny’s face, eyes tightly shut: she's pressing a hand over her mouth, biting her lips. Time stands still for Winifred. It’s only for a brief moment, but as she’s contemplating that image, her heart flailing and aching in her chest like a wounded animal, a sense of wisdom descends on her. She brings her left hand to Mary’s cheek, her right one still caressing her, and finds it wet with tears. It’s almost too much. She would cry herself if she didn’t understand as well as she did.
“Do you want me to stop?” she whispers, taking her hand away.
“No!” Mary chokes, grabbing her arm, pulling her back to her frantically. Her eyes are lost, ans she's panting now that she’s letting herself breathe.
“No, please...”
The inflexion in those words is one she can recognise. Kneeling between Mary’s legs, she reaches again, testing with her tongue, applying more pressure. At first she feels Mary’s muscles tense, sees her nails press into her palms as she traces her way again and again, tormenting her until she moans, until she cries. Her hips are moving against her, and there is no order there, no propriety, nothing but the two of them panting hard and Mary’s fingers buried in the sand, opening and closing as she gets closer, turning her head on the side, perhaps afraid to see. Her palm is entirely covered in thick grains when she comes, almost against herself, reluctant to let go. Her cry echoes in Winifred’s ears, and there’s something like a flash of electricity as her body gives way, tingling and strange. But she has no time to wonder, because Mary is crashing her mouth to her, kissing her so hard they roll away together, and her lips are thanking her, humble and delirious, again and again.
Later on, she takes a swim in the sea, letting the waves engulf her naked body, as Mary Poppins naps.
In the empty tram, on their way back, Mary rests her head on her lap. She quietly hums something calming, perhaps one of the Union’s songs.
“You won’t be leaving us, won’t you Mary Poppins,” Winifred suddenly asks, unable to contain herself any longer. She could only think of this in the last hour.
Opening her eyes, Mary takes her time to answer, watching her closely, taking note of her too-rapid blink and the twitch in the corner of her mouth.
“This was my day off,” she points out in a low voice, gazing at her.
It is a reassurance, but it may not be enough.
“No,” she eventually adds softly, her voice slightly higher than usual, fragile. “Besides, I still have to mend that gown of yours. Such dreadful tears should not be tolerated.”
And with those simple words, Mary Poppins is back. It doesn’t mean she cannot stroke her hair until they reach Cherry Tree Lane, hoping a lock might escape the freshly made bun.
Before they get to the house’s door, Mary stops her.
“You still have trouble sleeping, don’t you?”
She nods, and she continues.
“I, well, I have a room of my own, but I don’t use it regularly. It’s not far. You would be very welcome when it’s empty: one sleeps there like a charm. And,” she hesitates, closes her eyes briefly and when she opens them again she’s determined, “you would be very welcome too when it’s not.”
Winifred says nothing at first, only smiles. The bright lights and the light wood, the extravagant bed. Yes.
“Thank you.”
“No,” Mary says, putting her hand on her wrist, shaking her head. “No.”
For once her face is like an open book to Winifred. She knows. Necessity has nothing to do with it. And with that knowledge, she pushes the door open.