All I See Is You

by Lily Hammond

  ‘Why are you thanking me for coming home early?’

  Libby stopped walking and looked at Clemency, trying to quash the nervousness she felt. She didn’t want to be nervous – after all, this was an unusual situation, and she was justified in making it clear it was also a personal afront.

  She cleared her throat. ‘It’s very good of you to come and clear up this misunderstanding. I know you and Maxine had important things to do.’

  Clemency sighed inwardly. So she was going to have this conversation first thing, after all. She may as well have had Libby pick her up from the station.

  ‘I’m unclear as to what you think the misunderstanding is,’ Clemency said, Hetty’s words of the night before running on a loop through her mind. Well, she thought to herself. Two could play at that game. And then she sighed and shook her head. She wasn’t much for games.

  Libby stared at her, feeling her cheeks heat with a slow, burning mortification. When she spoke, her voice was ragged. ‘I understood – from you – that your previous affair was behind you, and that you were free, on a personal level, and available.’

  ‘My recollection of our conversation on the subject is that I simply said that Eliza was leaving town. I don’t believe I said whether I was available.’

  Libby’s voice was low. ‘We went to dinner. We have intimate conversation. We kissed.’ The last words were hissed.

  Clemency inclined her head. ‘We did kiss,’ she admitted, suddenly tired of the whole thing. ‘And I stopped it from going further, if you’ll also recall.’ She sighed audibly and rubbed at her temples. ‘Look, Libby, I know you’re hoping something will come to pass between us – and if I were in your situation, I would feel the same way. On the face of it, we’re a good match.’

  The muscles in Libby’s face froze. She spoke through lips that had gone numb. ‘On the face of it?’

  ‘On the face of it, yes. We have interests in common, friends in common.’

  Libby blinked at Clemency, waiting for her to add to the list. There were many more things between them that would make them a fine couple. She licked her lips. ‘We are both lonely,’ she said, voice cracking.

  Clemency’s heart gave a pang. Here was the first, genuinely truthful thing she had heard Libby say. It made her step up to Libby and put an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice, near Libby’s ear. And she was sorry, too. Things may have been different – she couldn’t guarantee it, but they may have been, that much was true – if she hadn’t first met Eliza. She thought she and Libby probably would have begun an intimate relationship, but deep down, where it mattered, where the body and heart spoke only the truth, she feared it would have been a dusty old facsimile of an affair. They would have been companions, friends, and a month ago, that could possibly have been enough.

  But now, her heart had heard the music of another that beat in tune with it, and her inner gaze was turned towards that other’s siren call. She hadn’t known this until the last day, but she knew it now. And once something is known, it can never be perfectly ignored again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I am drawn to Eliza in a way I cannot put aside.’

  Libby looked at her, then shrugged out of the casual embrace. ‘But who is she?’ she asked. ‘She cannot speak – she has no skills beyond that of a laundress, I’m told.’ Her voice rose. ‘No education, no prospects. She is nobody special at all!’

  Clemency looked at her and knew it was disappointment that made Libby’s words vicious. Disappointed ambition, as well as that loneliness she’d admitted to in that moment of weakness. It was Libby’s loneliness that made Clemency check her answer, keep her own voice low, compassionate.

  ‘So Eliza might appear,’ Clemency said. ‘But it is far from the truth of who she is…’

  ‘What rubbish!’ Libby exploded, shaking her head so that strands of her blonde hair caught on her lips and she pushed them impatiently away. ‘She is a scheming little nothing who saw an easy mark in you – that’s what she is.’

  She fell silent and they looked at each other, Libby panting slightly, then swallowing. ‘If you continue with her – I shall not be able to work for you. I will be unable to take over the management of your studio.’

  Libby closed her mouth, snapping it shut on her last words, a dim voice in the back of her mind whispering at her that she probably should have considered things more wisely before saying that. She blocked her ears to it and shook her head, her heart thumping madly in her chest. She looked at Clemency’s case in her hands and put it down on the path.

  ‘I am glad you’ve said that now, if that is indeed so,’ Clemency said at last. ‘When we go inside, you can return the studio key and make arrangements to stay elsewhere tomorrow.’ She picked up her case. ‘I am sorry, Libby,’ she said. ‘We could perhaps have made good friends.’

  But Libby, still shaking, whipped her head from side to side. ‘I don’t think so, Clemency,’ she said, injecting as much formality and dignity as possible into the words. ‘I believe we suffer from irreconcilable differences of temperament.’

  She made to turn around, then changed her mind and returned to look at Clemency. ‘In fact,’ she said. ‘I believe it would never have worked out between us. I believe I seriously misjudged you. I am only able to feel fortunate I discovered this now, rather than at some later point when our lives and fortunes were entwined with each other’s.’ She paused. ‘I will take supper in my room tonight, and then catch a bus for Dunedin in the morning, if that would be all right.’

  ‘I can drive you to town tomorrow, Libby,’ Clemency said.

  But Libby shook her head. ‘That will not be necessary. I have been burden enough on your hospitality.’ She turned again, and this time kept walking, around the house and out of sight.

  Clemency stood still on the pathway, giving Libby enough time to enter the house and make her way upstairs to her room. She decided she’d tell Riley to make up a generous tray for Libby, to save her any more embarrassment.

  ‘What a mess,’ she said out loud, and tightened her hand on her case. As if the day were in agreement with her, fat splashes of rain fell from thickening clouds. Clemency glanced up for a moment, then hurried to go inside.

  Put the case down, take off coat and hat. Then check on Eliza.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Eliza swam to the surface of her dreams at the touch to her hand. She emerged blinking on the wave of them, washing up in a bed that was soft and warm around her. She turned slightly and groaned inside her head. Every part of her body ached.

  Then she realised that someone was holding her hand, and she turned her face towards them, blinking in the dimness of the watery light from the window.

  ‘Eliza, darling,’ the owner of the hand said, and Eliza wondered if she were dreaming still. But her dreams had been great tangles of deep water and seaweed and rough hands that grabbed at her, tore her clothes, pulled her under so that she couldn’t breathe.

  But here she was, in the soft bed, and for a moment, she thought she’d swum the whole way around the harbour to Clemency’s house, and that was why she’d been so wet when she got there, so wet and tired and sore.

  ‘Eliza? Can you hear me?’

  She blinked again, trying to clear the murk from her vision. She sighed, feeling hollowed out, floating on the mattress under her. But someone had her hand, anchoring her, stopping her from drifting off again into the deep green of her dreams. She smiled and her lips cracked.

  ‘Here, let me give you some water.’

  The hand let go of hers, and lifted her head gently instead, and pressed cool glass to her lips. She opened her mouth and gulped at the water.

  ‘That’s good. You were so thirsty.’

  The water woke her properly and she stared at Clemency sitting at the bed, then squinted and stared some more. She’d wished to see Clemency sitting there so often, she didn’t trust her vision anymore.

  As if reading her mind
, Clemency stroked the hair back from Eliza’s head and leaned forward. ‘It’s really me,’ she smiled. ‘Just in case you were wondering.’ She went to sit back, and Eliza grabbed her, held her from moving. ‘I just got home,’ Clemency said. ‘Riley tells me you’ve had a fever but it’s going down now. You’re going to be just fine.’

  She was going to be just fine, but Eliza didn’t know about any fever. She guessed that was why she felt light and hollow inside. But she was going to be all right because Clemency was here. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘You’re smiling,’ Clemency said. ‘Are you glad to see me?’

  Eliza opened her eyes again and reached for Clemency, touching unsteady fingers to her hair, to her cheekbones, dribbling them down Clemency’s jaw to touch her neck and then to pull her closer.

  Their lips met. Clemency’s were cool and sweet, Eliza thought. Like a breeze through an orchard. She tasted of cherries and crisp apples and white flowers with the sun slanting down on them. The taste bloomed like a picture in her mind, and she wished she could tell Clemency about it, tell her how she tasted and how beautiful it was.

  ‘I’m glad to see you too,’ Clemency whispered, her breath soft against Eliza’s lips. ‘Although surprised.’

  Eliza pushed Clemency back a little so she could look at her, brows raised. Clemency picked up Eliza’s hand and kissed the fingers.

  ‘And very pleased you’re all right. We all looked for you yesterday, when you were supposed to come on the train with us.’

  Eliza shook her head. No train. No Greymouth. Clemency wasn’t going to make her go to Greymouth, was she? Then Clemency kissed her fingers again and Eliza relaxed.

  ‘Riley told me a man hurt you, when you left Maxine and Ruth’s place.’

  Eliza shook her head. Not hurt bad, she thought. Although she ached everywhere. And she had a dull memory of shivering for a long time like she was still in the water trying to swim to Clemency’s house.

  ‘She also told me that you escaped with only bruises, for which I am very grateful,’ Clemency continued. ‘How are you feeling now, darling?’ She laid the back of her hand against Eliza’s forehead, the way that Riley had done to her when she was a small girl not feeling well. Eliza’s forehead was warm, but what fever there had been had broken. Eliza’s eyes were clear, and when Clemency listened, Eliza’s breathing was even and strong.

  ‘Your fever is gone,’ she said, stroking Eliza’s hair. ‘I think you might be a very lucky young woman. You don’t sound chesty, so I think we don’t have to worry about complications.’ She bent closer and leaned her forehead against Eliza’s, looking seriously into Eliza’s deep blue eyes. ‘But we shall have to keep a close eye on you,’ she said, her lips curved in a smile.

  Eliza smiled back, then wriggled her arms free of the blankets and wrapped them around Clemency’s neck, pulling her closer, seeking out her lips with her own.

  Clemency closed her eyes as they kissed, giving herself over to the sensation which swept through her whole body like a ripple of fluid pleasure. ‘You are a mermaid indeed,’ she said, her lips still against Eliza’s passing the words to her by touch as well as sound. ‘I was trying to think what you were – maybe a butterfly – but I think you’re a mermaid, a beautiful woman brought to me by the ocean.’

  When she sat back, Eliza stared at her with eyes the colour of blue water. Eliza shook her head and pointed to her mouth, to her throat. I have no song, she told Clemency.

  And maybe Clemency had understood her, because she leaned forward again and whispered. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘You can sing. When you pull me deep under the waves with you, I hear your song and it makes everything else in the world fall away.’

  They looked at each other then, for a very long time, examining each other’s faces, taking in each angle and shadow and warm blush and coloured eye. Then, with a coy smile, Eliza, who felt suddenly so very much better, patted the bed next to her in an unmistakeable invitation.

  But Clemency shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, and put her hand on Eliza’s cheek when Eliza snatched her hand back. ‘But only because I must go and get you something to eat.’ She caught up Eliza’s hand and held it in her own. ‘I will do that now, and we will eat, and then we will see how you feel.’

  Eliza gazed at her, knowing that it didn’t matter how she felt, she wanted the warm presence of Clemency’s body stretched out beside her. She wanted Clemency’s whispering breath in her ear, wanted to listen as Clemency talked to her, wanted to set her hands wandering over the dips and shallows of Clemency’s body, feeling the skin like silk, like running water under her palms. She closed her eyes, lips smiling, as she drifted away into her dreams

  Clemency watched until she was sure Eliza was sleeping again, then sat back and simply looked at her, at the way Eliza’s hair spread over the pillow, long red waves. She looked at Eliza’s heart-shaped face, at the sandy red eyelashes shadowing skin that had a sprinkling of pale freckles over it now, and she looked at Eliza’s lips, their generous fullness pursed in sleep. She looked at the sleeping woman and tried not to think. Instead, she pressed a hand over her ribs, moving it slightly so that she could feel her heart, and she felt it beating against her palm, and she felt it and listened to it, and to what her body had to tell her.

  A wave of protectiveness flowed through her as she looked at Eliza and listened to her own heart. And fringing the protectiveness, was an excitement that swept through her veins and made her skin shiver under her clothes. It wasn’t just sexual excitement – although it was that too – and the fact that it seemed to be far more, was what had Clemency taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. She’d been excited by women before – often. She loved women, the way their backs curved down to the roundness of their bottoms, the way the nape of their necks was so vulnerable and tender; she loved the feel of their skin, always silky, always smooth, always soft. That was what she liked most, she thought – a woman’s softness. Even on the leanest body, there were still softness. Soft breasts, stomachs, soft lips, eyes, soft sighs, soft breaths, soft words.

  She smiled, opening her eyes to look at Eliza again. Of course, there was another thing she liked so much about women – they were soft, and yet she’d never met anyone so resilient as a woman. Women, she thought, were made to bend, like reeds on a riverbank, buffeted but rarely broken by the wind.

  Of course, a woman was strongest of all when she was nurtured. This was also something Clemency grasped almost without thought. She leaned forward and picked up a curl of Eliza’s hair. Behind her, the wind rattled at the window, but she smiled without knowing she did so. Eliza was resilient, and strong, and brave, but she was also vulnerable. Clemency swallowed and followed that thought through to an acknowledgement she needed to make.

  She shouldn’t have taken Eliza to her bed. Eliza wasn’t like other women, Clemency knew, bending her head now and touching the strand of Eliza’s hair to her lips where it was a whisper of silk against her skin. Eliza was wide awake and eager, but not being able to speak, or read, and having grown up the way she had, living what Clemency was sure had been a narrow little life, meant that she was still an innocent in ways that Clemency thought she was only just comprehending.

  The fact that Eliza had arrived here, at this house, on the doorstep, said so. An ordinary woman would not, Clemency knew, make the assumption that someone she had slept with once was someone who would take her in and protect and nurture her. The knowledge of this made Clemency tremble with responsibility. She stood up and leaned over the bed, pressing her lips lightly to Eliza’s forehead in a gentle kiss.

  The door to Libby’s room was firmly closed, and Clemency hesitated a moment in front of it, then sighed. Libby and she had probably said all there was for them to say to each other. It simply came down to the fact that they desired different things.

  The wind gusted against the stained-glass window as though marking her point, and she glanced at the glass where the mermaid sat on her rock. The gathering g
loaming made her look stormy and mysterious, her red hair and her blue eyes glowing in the dimness of the hallway. Clemency smiled at her and turned to go downstairs.

  ‘There you are,’ Riley said, standing over the stove, wiping her forehead with her apron. It was warm in the kitchen, steam from the boiling pots on the stove making the air wet and heavy. ‘I’m glad you came back.’

  Clemency leaned against the table and sighed, lifting both hands to run her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Riley turned and looked at her. ‘For what?’ A smile pulled at her lips. ‘For this fine mess you’ve got yourself into?’

  Clemency barked a laugh. ‘Something like that, I guess.’

  Riley stirred something in one of the pots. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Now that we have the apology out of the way – what are you going to do to resolve this fine mess?’

  ‘I thought this would be an excellent time to take a tour of Europe,’ Clemency said. ‘It ought to have resolved itself one way or the other by the time I get back.’ She pinched at the bridge of her nose, a wave of weariness overtaking her.

  ‘I’m being serious,’ Riley said, pointing the wooden spoon in her hand at Clemency. ‘Now you be serious too, young lady. This is a fine fix you have yourself in, and since it involves more than the usual number of people this time, I’m keen to know what you plan to do about it.’

  Despite herself, and despite the serious tone of Riley’s voice, Clemency laughed. ‘I haven’t got in any sort of scrape like this for years,’ she said. ‘So pop that wooden spoon back into that pot of whatever smells so good and don’t go waving it at me.’ She got up and went to the pantry to get some plates for them all.

  ‘Libby is leaving in the morning,’ Clemency said, laying the plates out on the kitchen table, three of them. She went to where the cutlery was kept and took out knives and forks. It was easier to talk while she was busy. ‘She and I have had a discussion about recent events and come to an understanding. She will also not be taking over management of the studio.’