Onwards Flows the River

by Caroline Windsor

  “Of course not, it would never have occurred to me.”

  Tim nodded. “No, I don’t think you’re capable of being so malevolent. So…” he sighed briefly, “in the absence of any more patients I’d better get on with re-dictating it now.”

  Kate fetched the pile of files from her office and set them down in front of him.

  “Thanks for being so understanding. I’ll get going with the fourth tape unless there’s anything else you want me to do.”

  Tim glanced at his watch. “It’s after six – are you sure you wouldn’t rather leave it till tomorrow?”

  Kate shook her head. “I’d rather make a start on it now – it’d make me feel less guilty.”

  “It was a very human mistake, Kate. Nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Just over an hour later he popped his head around her door again.

  “I’m going to get myself a sandwich at The Cat and Fiddle – can I get one for you at the same time?”

  “Thanks – that would be great. I was beginning to feel a bit hungry.”

  “And you’ll have missed supper at the hostel again, I imagine?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Then I’ll get you something nice and filling.”

  The beef and salad sandwich, crisps and bottle of orange juice which Tim brought her revived her somewhat and she completed the fourth tape without any further mishap.

  Leaving her office, she paused outside Tim’s door and could hear his deep voice dictating in his usual slow and deliberate manner. Running downstairs, she made them both a fresh cup of coffee and knocked gently on his door.

  “Wonderful!” he greeted her. “Have a seat – I’ve nearly finished.”

  Kate sank down into one of the two comfortable armchairs opposite his desk and sipped her coffee. She felt tired, but also relieved that Tim had forgiven her stupid mistake so willingly.

  A few minutes later Tim closed the file and leaned back in his chair.

  “I’ll drive you back to Harrison House, of course.” Kate began to protest. “It’s not out of my way at all – I try to drop in on my mother for an hour most evenings if I can and she’s only a couple of miles further on.”

  “I’m sure she appreciates it.” Kate thought for a moment of her own parents and felt a tinge of regret that their relationship had never been a close one.

  Tim nodded. “She’s in a residential home now and, apart from me, she doesn’t get too many visitors. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago, so she decided to give up her flat before she became too ill to deal with all the hassles of moving.”

  Kate gave him a sympathetic look. “What about your father? Is he still alive?”

  “Alive and well and far away. I was born in London, but my parents moved to Australia for my father’s work when I was ten. Three years later they split up and my mother came back to London. I was well settled in my secondary school by then and didn’t want to leave my friends – so I stayed in Melbourne to finish my education, coming back to London for the long summer holidays every year.”

  “It can’t have been easy for you – or for your parents come to that.”

  “Well, I think we all made the best of it. Maybe if I’d been a girl, I’d have come back to London with my mother. But I was keen on sports – and Australia was great for the outdoor life – so my mother understood why I stayed. I think they just wanted what was best for me.”

  “Did you go to medical school out there?”

  “No – I thought it was a good opportunity to spend more time with my mother, so I came over here and trained at Guy’s. Then, after I qualified, I was offered a post back in Melbourne – so I went back there for a few years. I was just about to apply for a post as consultant out there when I heard my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. We’d always been close, so it wasn’t difficult to make the decision to come back to England.”

  “So, you’ll be staying here now until…”

  “Until she dies – which could be several years away – or not as the case may be. It all depends… it’s not as if I’ve got a wife and children to take into consideration.”

  Kate nodded. “That would complicate matters,” she agreed.

  Tim hesitated. “Actually, I was engaged to be married at the time my mother was diagnosed. Diana came over here with me and we lived together for a while, but it didn’t work out. She was an Aussie through and through – couldn’t stand the weather here and couldn’t cope with the English always being too polite to say what they really meant.” He laughed. “We were both glad we’d decided to live together rather than get married straight away – it meant that we were able to part with no hard feelings and no complications over property and so forth. We still keep in touch now and then – she’s living with someone else now – a chap I used to know in Melbourne. In fact, it was me who introduced them. I expect they’ll get married eventually.”

  He looked quite happy at the prospect and Kate wished that she, too, had the ability to detach herself from her emotions and regard the world around her more objectively. Maybe it was a man-thing – this ability to compartmentalise your life and not allow one part of it to intrude messily upon another.

  “Now,” Tim stood up, “I think it’s time we made a move or it’ll be too late for me to call upon my mother.”

  Kate gathered up the dirty coffee cups and headed for the door. “Thanks for sharing all that with me – I knew very little about you really.”

  “And you must tell me all about yourself on another occasion.” Tim locked the door behind them. “Meanwhile I’ll run you back home.”

  o0o

  Hannah slammed her statistics textbook shut and thrust it back on the shelf. It would, she reflected, be a miracle if she ever managed to finish the book – let alone pass the exam. The subject was a complete mystery to her.

  She looked at her watch. It was eleven o’clock. Leigh, as was their habit of a Saturday, was due to give her an art lesson at two. Briefly she contemplated making a start on her social policy essay, due in the following week, but the prospect failed to enthuse her. Perhaps she would just pop up to her studio and put in a couple of hours’ practice before he came.

  Her painting, since Esme had agreed to her using the second studio upstairs, had progressed in leaps and bounds. No longer did her work look like that of an amateurish, though talented schoolgirl. Some of it had begun to take on a distinctly professional look.

  Leigh’s help had proved invaluable. As a teacher, he was both enthusiastic and exacting, constantly driving her to achieve the best of which she was capable. Though his criticism sometimes reduced her to tears of frustration, she was grateful for it, and not least for the tender lovemaking with which he restored her confidence afterwards.

  On days when her work had pleased him and his praise had sent her spirits soaring, their sexual relationship would strike a livelier note. Then, driven by an ecstasy of enthusiasm, she would throw herself into his arms and they would tumble, laughing, onto the couch, eagerly wrestling the clothes from each other’s bodies to assuage their mutual desire.

  It was at these times that he would lead her down the more exotic highways and byways of intimacy, teaching her the hidden secrets of her own body and making her a connoisseur of his.

  She pushed her social policy notes aside, slipped out of her room and headed down the corridor. Hearing footsteps coming down the narrow staircase from the studio, she waited at the bottom.

  It was the legs that she saw first – long, slender, and with a neat turn to the ankle that sent her wild with envy. She recognised them instantly, the svelte figure in the sheath-like minidress which followed them, coming as no surprise. It was the glorious Isla – the model with brains as well as looks – of whom she had felt so jealous on her first visit to the studio. In her jeans and tee shirt H
annah felt like an ill-groomed carthorse.

  “Ah – the latest recruit to the gallery I see!” A pair of teasing brown eyes examined her with interest.

  “The gallery?”

  “Leigh’s gallery. I saw his paintings of you on the wall.”

  Hannah blushed, remembering one particularly frank full frontal which Leigh had painted only the previous week. It made her, she had complained bitterly, look like an Amazon.

  “He’s good, isn’t he?” Her eyes were alight with laughter.

  “He’s a very gifted artist,” she replied stiffly.

  “It wasn’t his painting I had in mind.”

  Her blush deepened.

  “There’s no need to be embarrassed. He always does his best paintings of the women he’s made love to as well.” She laughed. “Most of the artists I model for pay me for my work. With Leigh, I always feel it should be the other way around. That man does me more good than a health farm.”

  Hannah remembered Jo’s scornful description of the procession of women who emerged from Leigh’s studio. She looked at Isla more closely. With her lazy, seductive eyes and tousled hair she did indeed have the look of a woman who had emerged from a long, and eminently satisfying session in the bedroom.

  “Excuse me!” Hannah brushed past her. In a torrent of rage and jealousy she dashed upstairs to her studio.

  o0o

  At two o’clock exactly she heard his studio door close. He tapped on her door. She ignored him, her brush continuing to execute its wild, slashing strokes across the canvas. She heard her own door open.

  “It’s good to see you engrossed in your work to the exclusion of all else.”

  He crossed the room. Arms folded he stood beside her, observing the progress of the painting.

  “A bit of a change from your usual style, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged.

  He observed it more closely. “With all those reds and greens

  it looks to me like the work of someone who’s extremely angry. More an act of catharsis than a work of art.”

  “How dare you criticise me!” She rounded on him angrily.

  His eyebrows shot up. “I was under the impression that you wanted an art lesson. Criticism, as you well know, comes with the territory.”

  Her furious stab of the paintbrush into the jam jar of water beside her knocked it flying.

  Leigh fetched a towel from beside the sink.

  “An apology would be nice.” He rubbed his dripping shirt with vigour. “I’m not accustomed to such petulant behaviour from my students – especially the ones I teach for love, rather than money.”

  “Love!” Hannah flung down her brush. “What would you know about love? It’s just a game to you.” She could feel the angry tears welling up behind her eyes.

  He observed her in silence for a moment.

  “Is this about Isla?”

  “What do you think?” She brushed away an angry tear. “You spend half the morning making love to her, then, no doubt, you’ll expect to spend half the afternoon making love to me.”

  He roared with laughter.

  “I’m forty, Hannah! I’m flattered that you think me capable of the romantic ardour of a twenty-year-old, but sadly, I have to confess, I’m simply not up to it. I have, it’s true, made love to Isla many times in the past, but this morning wasn’t one of them.”

  “You’re lying – I could tell by the look in her eyes!”

  “Come and sit down.” He took her by the arm and led her to the old studio couch in the corner.

  Reluctantly she sat down beside him.

  “Now, I don’t owe you any explanations whatsoever – but just for the record, Isla got married last week. She came to show me a photograph of her husband. He is, she tells me, an excellent lover – which no doubt accounts for the look you saw in her eyes.”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “But you have made love to her in the past – you admitted it. And to your other models no doubt.” Even to her own ears she sounded like a sulky schoolgirl.

  “To some of them, yes.” She heard the impatience in his voice. “What is this, Hannah – the Spanish Inquisition?”

  “It’s immoral!”

  He gave her an amused look. “You mean it was immoral when I made love to the others, but not immoral when I made love to you?”

  She flushed.

  “As I recall, I didn’t exactly have to force you, Hannah. In fact, if anything, it was the other way around.”

  She seethed inwardly, though she could hardly deny the truth of what he said. A dignified silence seemed the most appropriate response.

  “There are two things I do well in this life – painting and making love. Since I assume that we’re put on this earth to make the most of our talents, I do my best to oblige the Almighty by working hard at both.”

  She refused to smile.

  He sighed. “I never told you I was in love with you, Hannah – any more than I told any of the others that I was in love with them. It’s true that I may feel love for them when I’m with them – as indeed I do for you – but I’m not in love with them, and I have no intention of marrying them. I love my painting and I enjoy my freedom – it’s just the way I am.”

  “It’s wrong to use people like that,” she said sulkily. “It’s as if we’re all pawns in your own personal game of chess.”

  “You were eager enough to use me to relieve you of your virginity – which is more than your long-suffering boyfriend was obviously prepared to do.”

  Furiously she leapt to her feet.

  “Get out of my studio!”

  He rose and she saw the anger in his eyes. “I’ll go with pleasure. You sound just like a spoilt schoolgirl, Hannah. I thought you were more mature. And if your bourgeois mentality can’t cope with the way I live, it’s better that we don’t see one another again. I have no wish to hurt you – but neither have I any intention of changing my ways. The choice is yours.”

  He closed her studio door firmly behind him and she heard him banging about next door.

  Tearing the canvas from her easel she kicked it viciously across the room, wishing it was Leigh, rather than her unfortunate painting, that was on the receiving end. Ripping off her overall, she flung it on the floor and slammed out of the studio.

  Back in the sanctuary of her own room she threw herself on the bed and abandoned herself to her misery. God, how she hated the man! He picked up women and cast them aside as if they were no more than pretty shells upon a beach. She was well rid of him.

  Eventually, her tears spent, she dragged herself over to the washbasin. The splash of the cold water on her hot cheeks revived her somewhat. She glanced at the social policy notes sitting on her desk and sighed. Maybe they would make more sense if she had a bath first. She stripped off her clothes and reached for her dressing gown. Grabbing her towel and washbag she marched down the corridor to the bathroom.

  An hour later, sweet smelling and freshly scrubbed, she pulled on a pearl-buttoned black top, fastened a full-length green wrap-around skirt about her waist, and sat down at her desk. If she didn’t make a start on her essay now, she’d never get it done in time.

  She frowned at her notes, wishing that she’d made more of an effort to concentrate in the lecture. Her thoughts, she recalled, had been more taken up with the lecturer himself – a tall, bearded man of about thirty, whose gravitas was laced with wicked shafts of humour. He was, unfortunately, well and truly married with a couple of children to boot. With a sigh, she picked up her pen and looked down at her writing pad. Not a single coherent sentence about social policy graced the page. It was, however, adorned with a series of extraordinarily lifelike sketches of a bearded man in every pose imaginable. Just to look at them made her blush.

  She flung down
her pen and shifted restlessly in her seat. In the normal course of events she would be with Leigh now – drinking tea or making love in his studio. She crossed her legs and gazed out of the window. A pair of lovers, their heads close together, their arms entwined, were crossing the square.

  It was too much. She picked up her pen again, gripping it as if her life depended upon it, but the words eluded her. Once more she looked out of the window. The lovers, she noted with disgust, had come to a halt beneath a lilac tree in the middle of the square and were fondling one another with an enthusiasm not often seen in public.

  Unable to control herself any longer, she ran out of her room, hitched up her long skirt, and dashed upstairs to his studio. Once there her nerve failed her and she turned away. The thought of the two lovers strengthened her resolve, however, and she turned back. Tentatively she tapped on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Hannah sidled around the door.

  He was standing with his back to her, washing his brushes in the sink. He looked over his shoulder but there was no welcoming smile on his face.

  “If you’ve changed your mind about a painting lesson, you’re too late I’m afraid. I’m going home shortly.”

  She shook her head.

  “So, you’ve not come about a lesson?” His face brightened slightly. “I know! You’ve come to apologise for your somewhat childish behaviour this afternoon.” He smiled at her encouragingly.

  Hannah seethed. The temptation to flee from the room was almost overwhelming, but the mere sight of his rolled-up sleeves and rumpled shirt had sent her body into a state of sexual overdrive. If she left now she felt she might explode.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Apology accepted. We’ll say no more about it.” He turned back to his brushes.

  She remained rooted to the spot.

  Eventually he turned off the tap and reached for a towel. At the sight of her still standing there he raised a quizzical eyebrow.