Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  She looked up at him, then away just as quickly. Too quickly. He was certain her disinterest was considered. There was a tension in her bare shoulders. He felt a beat of triumph, observing it.

  She flicked another glance in his direction; he arched his eyebrow. She flushed, appearing to fight a smile, losing. She dropped her head, brown curls bouncing. Enjoyment pulled on his cheeks; he’d known that he’d like her smile.

  He was almost at her table before she saw him coming. Her eyes, that were neither blue nor grey nor green, widened in surprise. He noticed that the neck of her gown was loose, as though she had recently lost weight. For some reason, the idea unsettled him.

  ‘Are you sitting down?’ she asked as he pulled out the chair opposite her. ‘You can’t. I’m meeting my sister.’

  ‘Yet here I am.’ He smiled across at her, willing her to smile back again. ‘And it’s not really improper at all, because I’m almost certain I know you. I’ve been trying to work it out.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Oh.’ She nodded; she appeared to be thinking about what to say next. Her eyes moved over him, taking in his evening dress. ‘You’re ever so smartly dressed for a man with your accent.’

  He burst out laughing.

  So did she.

  He liked her more.

  ‘My da runs a textile business in Derbyshire,’ he said. ‘We’re new money. I have five older sisters who all refused to marry a title.’

  ‘A shame.’

  ‘Yes, for me. I got put into Sandhurst as a result. An army officer in the family’s the second best thing to a lord.’ He grinned, held out his hand. ‘I’m Captain Edward Bertram.’

  What happened next, happened very slowly. Her expression remained fixed, but the light in her features, the one he’d been so enjoying, ebbed from her. It was like watching someone fall. He didn’t immediately understand what was happening, but he reached for water, poured her a glass, asked if she was all right.

  ‘I’ve just remembered who I am,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten there for a moment.’ She stared over at him. ‘You’re not in uniform. I might have guessed you were you if you had been.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He was baffled by her speaking so strangely, but sure already that whatever she said next, it couldn’t be enough to put him off.

  ‘I’m Olivia Sheldon.’

  It should have been enough to put him off.

  They looked at one another mutely. He realised that neither of them was trying to pretend it didn’t matter. She picked up her glass of water and then set it down again. She frowned, eyes lowered so her lashes shadowed her cheeks. It was then that he realised why she’d seemed so familiar. She looked like Clara, of course. A slighter version, different colouring, but unmistakably her sister.

  She said, ‘So you’re moving back into the house.’

  ‘Yes.’ He should tell her now that he’d be leaving Egypt within months. ‘I’m sorry to have been away.’ Look up at me, please. ‘How have you found it here, in Alex?’

  Her face moved in a twisted kind of smile; she raised her head, met his stare. And the hopelessness in her gaze made him wish, as he felt he’d never wished for anything before, that Alistair Sheldon, who had so infamously courted and been rejected by Clara for his business partner all those years ago, had just left her younger sister alone.

  Everyone arrived all at once. Clara, exclaiming in delight (‘Livvy, you never said Teddy was on his way’), and the Carters, all smiles at Olivia and Clara being in the restaurant. (‘What a treat,’ said Imogen, her face alight with a happiness that made her look much younger than her forty-odd years. She was always so delighted to see them; an old friend of their mother’s, she had known them both too as babes. ‘Let’s sit together, why don’t we?’) Olivia felt at once present and strangely removed. She must have stood as the tables were shifted, chairs arranged, because she found herself standing. She kept looking at him, distracted by his face. His skin, so dark above the collar of his evening shirt; a hint of golden stubble. His brown hair had flecks of light in it. The sun, of course. And his eyes; they didn’t dance any more, not at all. But they were weighted with something she’d never seen in Alistair’s blue stare: warmth; compassion.

  She’d known him less than fifteen minutes, and she felt safer than she had in months.

  She thought, So this is what it’s like.

  And then, What a shame.

  Menus were brought, handed out. Wine ordered. (‘Champagne I think,’ said Tom.) Olivia tried to keep her gaze on the table, her cutlery, the grains in the wood… But it kept moving to Edward’s leg, just inches from her own. She could feel him in her skin, her muscles. You are married. Married. He’ll kill you before he lets you go.

  She picked up her menu, thought how impossible it would be to eat, and without knowing she was going to, stood.

  He did too.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Clara and Imogen spoke together, all concern. They too were on their feet.

  ‘You look hot,’ said Clara. ‘Are you faint?’

  ‘She’s very flushed,’ said Imogen. ‘Tom, get her water.’

  ‘Please,’ she said. He took a step towards her. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She looked to the restaurant door, her carriage beneath the trees in the street beyond; the horses that would take her home, the last place she wanted to be and the only place she could go. She picked up her bag, turning.

  ‘I’ll take you,’ said Edward.

  ‘Yes,’ said Imogen, ‘that’s a good idea.’

  It was an awful idea.

  ‘No,’ said Clara, already gathering her things, ‘I’ll see Livvy home.’

  It was almost as bad an alternative. Olivia needed to be alone, make sense of her own mind before she saw Alistair. You are married. Married. She told Clara to stay, she’d be fine by herself. Really. No need for such fuss, for goodness’ sake.

  She made to leave. Clara protested again, but Olivia insisted. As she passed through the restaurant door, hand shaking as she pushed it wide, she felt his eyes on her. Heat spread up her neck.

  Out on the pavement, she forced herself to exhale. She tipped back her head, looking to the now starry sky, and attempted relief at being out of the crowded dining room, away. She refused to feel despondent. She wasn’t. No. Not that.

  She set off for her carriage. She didn’t look back at the restaurant window behind her, she didn’t try to glimpse him at the table. Enough, she told herself, that must be that.

  Alistair was home when she got there. A candle burned in their bedroom, she could see it from the driveway; a disjointed flicker of light, taunting her. She pursed her lips, blowing her breath out slowly. Alistair would be angry. He hated her going out without him, especially with Clara. It had felt easier to pretend his rage didn’t matter earlier, when Clara had suggested the meal and night was still hours away.

  She placed her hand to her silken waist, feeling the bruises – fresh from the night before. Her punishment for not being Clara. And that slight to Alistair’s ego, perhaps his heart too, that Clara had so carelessly inflicted on him back when she chose Jeremy instead.

  Alistair’s shadow moved behind the glass panes of the window; waiting, always watching. Olivia took another deep breath, bracing herself for what was to come. Strange how it seemed harder than ever tonight. She reminded herself that she’d fight, she always did. She wouldn’t just give in. She had that at least.

  He’d win in the end of course. She knew that too.

  But since there was nothing else for her to do, she took a step forward on the gravel, went into the house and walked slowly up the stairs.

  She didn’t swim the next morning. Alistair left for the office, a smile thinning his lips. I didn’t not go because of you, she wanted to scream.

  She stayed in her room for breakfast, picking at a loose thread on the armchair, listening to Edward in the dining room below. His deep voice travelled up; she thought he might be speaking in Ar
abic, even though Alistair had banned it in the house, and found she liked that idea. No, don’t like it. You can’t. You know what Alistair will do to you if he suspects. There was a laugh, more words, the scrape of a chair, footsteps in the hallway.

  A pause.

  She held her breath.

  No sound.

  She pictured him, waiting there, at the foot of the stairs, sun-darkened face looking up. Her legs itched to run to the landing to see. She pulled herself further into the armchair.

  Footsteps on the tiles, the front door opened, closed. And this time she couldn’t stop herself standing, crossing to the window, craning her neck to see him go around to the stables, come back out again with his horse. She watched the easy way he swung into the saddle, then rode away down the driveway, reins in one hand, the other resting by his side. She noticed his navy uniform, how it made him look taller somehow than the night before, full of lean strength. He paused at the gate. She found herself gripping the window sill. Then he turned, looked up, met her eyes with his brown ones and tipped his hand in a small salute.

  And even as she told herself that she was married, married, she raised her hand and waved back.

  ‘You’re still looking sickly,’ Clara said as they sat down to morning tea on the terrace. ‘Did you not sleep? I’ve been worried.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I don’t think you are.’

  ‘I’m just under the weather, that’s all. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re…’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Olivia shuddered, distracted momentarily from thoughts of Edward by the hideous idea of carrying Alistair’s flesh and blood within her for anything longer than the seven to nine minutes he forced on her each night. She’d gone to see a gynaecologist before she left England; she had a contraption that she used secretly to make sure it never happened. God only knew what Alistair would do if he discovered her using it. She grew hot, just thinking about it.

  Clara said, ‘It might help things, you know, if you were.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Children, they make things worth it.’

  ‘Clara.’

  ‘Without Ralph and Gus I’m not sure what I’d do.’

  ‘Clara!’ Olivia shouted it. ‘I don’t want to have Alistair’s child. I couldn’t stand it.’ She raised her hand to her mouth, shocked at herself for speaking so openly.

  Clara stared. ‘Oh, Livvy.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it.’

  ‘I think we should.’ Clara reached out, took her hand. ‘You might feel better.’

  Olivia instinctively opened her mouth to say, no, she wouldn’t, but hesitated, feeling the warmth of Clara’s touch, the temptation to let go some of what she’d been bottling up. Why did it have to be so hard? She’d been told by Clara that she’d been such a gabbler as a child, impossible to keep quiet. Always, always, your little heart on your sleeve. She couldn’t imagine now what it must have felt like to be so free. To not keep a barrier within you, one which caught every urge to talk, censoring, checking. How happy the nuns would be to know the barrier was still with her; they’d worked so hard to instil it. Allergic to tears, they’d patrolled the dormitory at night, smacking girls who cried, anyone fool enough to hug another. No touching. (‘Suck on your fist,’ Olivia’s best friend, Beatrice, had told her that first awful night. ‘They’ll be even crosser if they come back and you’re still crying…’) The fist hadn’t worked for Olivia (and the nuns had been crosser, very much so). Over time, she supposed she’d taught herself to pretend none of the awfulness was real, not speak of it… Refuse to accept it was there. It had helped her live with it. In a way.

  It had been helping here.

  Until last night. Now she simply couldn’t go on pretending. She didn’t want to. Not any more.

  ‘Livvy…’

  ‘I can’t escape him,’ she said, and just like that, the words were out. Free. They left a hollow in her chest. ‘I hate him for that, but me even more…’

  ‘Don’t hate yourself, Livvy. Not that.’ Clara held her hand tighter. ‘I simply won’t allow it. Hate him, just him.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Clara.’

  Clara continued to stare. ‘Livvy,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s just words, the way he is, isn’t it? You’d tell me if it was more.’

  Olivia swallowed, gave a nod, unable still, even with Clara, to admit the mortifying truth. ‘Just words.’

  The look of relief on Clara’s face made her glad she had lied. ‘Hard enough though,’ Clara said. ‘I want to help you, tell me how I can.’

  ‘I don’t know what you can do. I married him. I made that choice.’

  ‘It wasn’t much of a choice.’

  ‘But I did make it. I should have been stronger. Found another way.’

  ‘What other way? Where would you have gone? With what money?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Olivia’s brow creased as she searched for the umpteenth time for an escape she might have taken. She and Beatrice had turned it over and over between them; Olivia had been staying with her and her aunt when Alistair came. Beatrice had been about to leave England herself, for her parents’ home in India; missionaries, they had little money, but Olivia had been planning to use her own allowance to travel out too, live there. Until Mildred put a stop to it. She’d threatened to alert the ports if Olivia tried to borrow the fare and defy her. She’d said she’d inform them Olivia was her ward, travelling without permission, take her direct to the convent, sign her over and good riddance. Desperate, Olivia had visited solicitors, several of them, determined to discover that Mildred had less power than she claimed. But they all told her the same thing – that the terms of Mildred’s guardianship were beyond dispute; so long as a court deemed Mildred to be acting in Olivia’s best interest, Mildred could do with Olivia as she pleased. Best to accept it, my dear. You are so young, a woman without independent means. No judge will take you seriously. Even if we could find one who would, you cannot afford the legal fees. ‘I tried to tell myself I could make the best of it,’ she said now. ‘I didn’t know Alistair, I thought… I don’t know, that perhaps I could try to like him. And then he told me, well, that you were living here. That I’d see you again.’ She fixed her eyes on Clara’s pained gaze. ‘That made things feel easier.’

  ‘Oh, Livvy.’

  ‘It’s done,’ Olivia said, ‘and I’m his. He reminds me all the time. He’ll never give me a divorce.’

  Clara flinched. ‘Would you want that?’ Her voice was hushed, as though the words themselves were dangerous. ‘Think what it would do to you. No one does it.’

  ‘No,’ said Olivia, ‘I don’t suppose they do.’

  ‘Where would you even live? I’m not sure Jeremy would… Well, that he’d have you with us. The boys, the scandal.’

  ‘Really, Clara. I wouldn’t ask that of you.’

  ‘You could, Livvy, if it was in my power to give it. But,’ she widened her eyes helplessly, ‘your life, it would be…’

  ‘Over. Yes.’ Olivia bowed her head. It is anyway. ‘As I said, it’s pointless talking about it. Alistair would need to grant it, and he never will.’ She sighed. ‘Let’s leave this, shall we? I’d rather leave it.’

  Clara hesitated.

  ‘Please, Clara.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But I’m here, Livvy. I want you to remember that. I always will be. You aren’t alone.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was something.

  Clara let go of her hand, reached up, touched her cheek. ‘You need to eat more.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘Let’s start with cake.’

  She turned her attention to the currant loaf in front of them. As she pushed the blade down, crumbs spilling on the plate, her smile dropped. Olivia, noticing the shadows beneath her eyes, a pallor just beneath the surface of her skin, was reminded of the way she’d been as she watched Ralph the day before.

  She asked her if she was thinking about him.

  Clara looked up, clearly sta
rtled by the question, said, ‘No, no.’

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  ‘With me, Livvy? Nothing. I’m top-drawer.’

  It was the ‘top-drawer’. A strangled kind of laugh burst from Olivia. She didn’t know where it had come from. She was very upset – about a great deal. But it came again, cutting through the tension in the air. She couldn’t stop it.

  And Clara, knife in hand, laughed too. Her eyes sparkled with it. She didn’t seem able to stop either. The more she laughed, the more Olivia did. She had no idea what they were both still laughing about.

  At length, Clara wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘Oh, Livvy,’ she said, catching her breath, ‘what’s wrong with us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Olivia, ‘I really don’t.’

  Clara sighed, and shook her head. ‘I’m glad that Teddy’s back at any rate,’ she said, reminding Olivia that he was. ‘I feel better knowing he’s here, giving you some company too. I met him not long after he moved to Alex, three years ago now. I found myself chatting to him one night at a party, and he’s been a great friend to me ever since. I rather count on him these days. You’ll like him, once you get to know him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olivia, ‘yes.’ She picked up the pot in front of her. ‘Tea?’

  ‘That’s the milk.’

  Olivia looked down at the container in her hand. So it was.

  For the next three days, Clara was Olivia’s only company. They stayed in. Clara tried to drag Olivia out, but she resisted; it wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave. She did. Normally she relied on getting out somewhere – if not to the city, at least to the Sporting Club for a drink, or to Ramleh’s public beach, Stanley Bay, for a walk. Even the suburb’s shops – that cluster of delicatessen, baker and grocer that all the British residents in Ramleh frequented – were a welcome change of scene. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. After the way Alistair had been that night she’d gone to Sabia’s, she was shamefully afraid of angering him again. She’d gird her loins eventually, she was sure, but not just yet.