Dearest Enemy

by Alexandra Sellers

  “Is that when you had it valued for the insurance?”

  Vinnie sighed. “I’m afraid so. I never thought of its having increased in value. The estate agent who advised me during the sale simply passed over it.”

  “Quite a coup for Math,” Elain observed drily.

  “Yes, no one was more surprised than Math. He’d not done more than glance into that room, you know, when he was looking the place over. He was delighted when he finally saw the tapestry. He’s very keen on Welsh myth. We agreed then that he would pay me half the price if he ever sold it, but of course he never meant to.”

  “It was the depiction of ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy,’ wasn’t it? Do you know the story?”

  “My dear, I have read it long ago, but I don’t remember it at all, I’m afraid. Math has an English translation of the Mabinogion. You might borrow it.”

  “But you could describe the scene to me?” Elain pressed. She felt torn. She had never before in an investigation got so close to people she was spying on, and she hated what she was doing. On the other hand, she was genuinely interested in delving into her own ancestral background. She wasn’t lying about what she planned: she did want to paint ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy.’

  The original artist had been a woman, she knew, working in the only medium available to her. Had her artistic soul been frustrated by the slow progress of her needle? And now all those years of work were lost. But perhaps Elain could make it live again.

  “If you like, I can try,” said Vinnie. “Perhaps if you were to draw it as we talked, it might come to me. It was done in a rather primitive style, I know. The colours had originally been very bold. And the perspective was—”

  She broke off because the dog was barking loudly in the hall, and there were voices. The long inactivity of the afternoon made both Elain and Vinnie get up to investigate.

  Rosemary and Davina had come in from the storm and were standing just inside the door, calling for Jan. The sight of them, covered in large macs and hats and mud-caked wellies, and dripping with water, had apparently set off Bill. He was barking ferociously at them, as if they were strangers.

  “Oh, Elain! Vinnie! There you are!” said Rosemary gratefully. “I wonder if you could just find Jan and ask her to bring us something to wipe off the worst of this? We don’t want to be tracking mud all over her floors.”

  “What a day! We got caught in a dreadful squall. Invigorating, of course, but we’re rather wet,” Davina explained. “And then Rosemary fell.”

  Bill was barking loudly over all this, beside himself with excitement. “Quiet, Bill!” Elain commanded, but without much hope of being obeyed, and she wasn’t.

  “He hasn’t much sense of smell any more,” Vinnie said apologetically. “And you look rather strange.”

  Rosemary’s yellow mac was covered with black mud; Elain could see why the sisters didn’t want to move inside. “I’ll find Jan,” she said.

  Jan was in the kitchen, and she and Elain returned with a bucket and mop and a few old towels. Math had come downstairs. “Impossible to eat our picnic, of course,” Rosemary was saying. “There hasn’t been a dry moment since we left the house.”

  Bill could not be silenced, even when the macs had been wiped down and the women had taken off all their outer gear. He was a dog who had seen the Enemy, and his triumph in having driven the enemy away and leaving Rosemary and Davina in its place knew no bounds. In the end, they all stopped trying to shout him down. He was getting more excited the more he was told to be quiet.

  Vinnie shook her head sadly at Math. “I suppose he’s approaching senility.”

  Rosemary was dirtier and wetter than Davina. She stood looking damp and limp in her socks and sweatpants, wisps of her hair plastered to her head as she continued to wipe her muddy hands. “Well!” she said. “I think next time—”

  She got no further. Bill, his excitement at a peak, dashed against her legs in an excess of friendliness, and then suddenly his excitement was too much for his control, and he emptied his bladder all over Rosemary’s foot.

  Rosemary was, much as she tried to disguise it, a rigid person at heart, with too much self-consequence to allow room for a true sense of humour. She was not capable of laughing at herself in this predicament, and the fact that Elain had let out an involuntary cackle of amusement did not help.

  “Good God!” she cried, lifting her left foot, encased in its newly sodden sock, and regarding it with astonished outrage. “What on earth—!”

  Vinnie and Math both had better self-control than Elain. Math dived on the hapless dog, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, opened the nearest door, which happened to be to the lounge, and thrust him inside, ruthlessly shutting the door on him. Bill, who had momentarily stopped barking, now began again, quite hysterically.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Rosemary,” Math began. “I don’t know what—”

  Vinnie clutched his arm. “Math,” she said urgently.

  Elain caught the smell in the same moment. “Smoke,” she said, frowning. “Something’s burning.” And then, as the smell triggered that old memory, she turned, sniffing. “Oh, my God, fire!”

  Bill was throwing himself against the door of the sitting room, barking and whining as if he’d been locked up with a ghost. Math whirled and opened the door, and the odour of smoke wafted out into the hall. They all dashed wildly into the room, including Bill, who had clearly not been leaping at the door in a desire to get out, but to bring them in.

  In the centre of the carpet that lay just in front of the fireplace, a cloud of smoke was rising from a sullen blue-and-red flame. “My bucket!” cried Jan, whirling for the door. But her bucket wasn’t necessary. Bill, leaping and barking, suddenly squatted down, his hind legs spread, and sniffed at the burning carpet. Then, as if making up his mind what sort of object this thing was, he straightened up, lifted his leg and peed again.

  His aim was extremely good; the small burning area was extinguished before Jan had returned. A high, pungent odour spiralled up from the burn—a mixture of smouldering wool, burning dust and cooked dog’s urine.

  They were all laughing in hysterical relief. Davina, who had moved close to the scene, got a lungful of the damp smoke, coughed and backed away hastily.

  “Well, Bill!” said Vinnie admiringly. The black dog sat on the other side of the mess looking at them, quiet now, his tail thumping the floor and his mouth open in a broad grin.

  “Woof!” he remarked happily.

  Math was looking at him, one eyebrow raised. “We won’t be calling you senile again, will we, boy?” he said with a grin.

  “No, indeed!” Vinnie agreed. “And to think we thought he’d lost his sense of smell!”

  “But what happened?” Elain asked. “How did it start? Was somebody smoking?”

  But only Jeremy smoked, and Jeremy was in London. Math crouched down over the burnt carpet, waving the acrid smoke away with one hand. There was a blackened patch about a foot in diameter. At its epicentre there was a small, ashy lump. Math raised his eyes to Jan.

  “When did you lay the fire in here, Jan?”

  “About an hour ago. Just after lunch. You told me to do it when you went upstairs, because it was such a wet day, didn’t you? I did it right after that.” She bridled. “And I didn’t drop any burning coal on the carpet.”

  Math shook his head. “No, this hasn’t been burning for more than fifteen minutes, I’d say. Anybody been in and out of this room in the last hour?”

  Elain shook her head. “Vinnie and I have been sitting over our coffee in the dining room. We’d have noticed anybody, I think.” Because they had been only three at lunch, Jan hadn’t set the residents’ usual table in the niche, but a small table for four by the window overlooking the valley. There was a clear view into the hall and the doorway of the sitting room.

  Vinnie nodded. “It’s all been so quiet. Jan came out of here and along the hall to offer us more coffee—about an hour ago, so I suppose that was when you lit the fire, m
y dear—and there’s been no one since.”

  Davina closed her eyes. “I feel the Presence,” she said in soft, thrilling tones. She opened her eyes and looked at Math. “I’m afraid this is—Jess’s work.”

  Math grinned and got to his feet. He eyed the fire in the fireplace, well burnt down now, its glowing coals giving off a very pleasant warmth. “Much more likely that a coal leaped from the fire,” he said calmly. As if in confirmation, the fire suddenly shifted, and several small glowing coals fell off the grate.

  “Yes, I expect you’re right,” Vinnie agreed.

  Rosemary shook her head. “You would do well to heed my sister’s warnings,” she said.

  Elain said suddenly, “Don’t forget Bill.”

  “What has Bill got to—” Rosemary began.

  “What set him off?” Elain demanded. “You’ve always said he’s lost his sense of smell, and it wasn’t the sitting-room door he was barking at, was it?”

  “Well, perhaps...” Vinnie began.

  “No, don’t you see? Something excited the dog, but it wasn’t the fire, was it? He was just generally—spooked. And if he hadn’t peed on Rosemary—” Elain choked, coughed and continued “—Math wouldn’t have opened this door, would he? Maybe no one would have come in here for another hour.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Math.

  “Well, just that—” She broke off as her train of thought died. “I don’t know,” said Elain, shrugging.

  But there was something. She would have to think.

  Chapter 8

  The mist nestled between the hills like a smoky sea. It shrouded the valley, giving the rounded green-covered slopes that rose above it an air of mystery and enchantment, even under the bright summer morning sun.

  I might sail to Avalon across that sea, Elain thought dreamily. Or if I stare long enough, the sword Excalibur will appear.

  It did appear, white and grey and shrouded in mist, slowly forming itself under the delicate strokes of her brush, another reality imposing itself on the image of the world beneath, for those who dared to see. There was a smile on Elain’s face as she worked, though she was unaware of it, the smile that meant the painting had taken over from the painter and would be what it wished to be. She had not meant to put Excalibur in the simple landscape, but then she had not meant most of her best paintings. To resist such inspiration as intrusion would be to kill the painting.

  Excalibur had apparently had a gleaming emerald embedded in its hilt, engraved with runic letters. She realized this as it took shape under her hand and, slipping her tongue between her lips, she bent to the task of making the emerald glitter. The inspiration came from elsewhere. The technical delivery was all up to her.

  A little white underneath a facet or two added lustre...and there was something within the emerald, too...some image.... Her hand picked up a number one brush and trailed it in carmine...a rose, perhaps...a rose, or a pair of ruby lips...or something that was both...and behind...

  “Oh, I say! How extremely interesting! I should imagine that’s Excalibur, isn’t it?”

  Elain’s hand jerked, sending a red thread across the grey-blue sky. The vision shattered and fell into the mists and the world returned with the curious sense of loss that always accompanied such a rupture. She turned to look over her shoulder, blinking. A woman was standing there, and for a moment, still between two worlds, Elain saw a complete stranger.

  “Oh, Rosemary...hello,” she said at last.

  “Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry!” said Rosemary. “I had no idea I would startle you! I thought you’d heard me coming!”

  “I don’t hear much when I’m painting,” Elain said. She laid her brush down. She might recapture the image, but not just at this moment.

  “And I’ve spoiled your painting! But I just didn’t think, you see. In fact, I thought you were chatting.”

  Elain frowned in puzzlement, then felt the belated prickle along her spine that should have told her long ago that she was not alone. She turned on her seat, and he was there, lying loosely propped on one elbow in the long grass, chewing on a stem of it, the sun burning on his black head, and another light altogether burning in his dark eyes.

  She had been avoiding him for days, but if she had hoped to reduce the impact of his presence on her, that had not been the way to do it.

  Math smiled and shrugged, saying nothing. For a moment, her flesh going hot and cold at once, she could not break the look between them. Then she lowered her eyes and bent to lock her palette onto the little hooks inside her paintbox.

  Rosemary’s laughter trilled in light remorse. “Oh, I’ve stopped you working! I am so sorry. Oh, I do hope you will be able to fix it.” Undeterred by what she had already done, she came closer and bent to examine the painting and the thin red line. “Do say you’ll be able to fix that!”

  “Yes, of course,” Elain said softly. She was glad of the diversion, taking her mind off those eyes taking in the thin cotton of her summer dress, the curve of the sweat-damp flesh of her shoulders and arms, the tendrils of escaped hair on forehead and neck, her paint-smudged, capable hands. “It won’t be difficult.”

  It was true: painting out the carmine was a simple technical matter. What had been in the emerald, however, might be a more serious loss.

  In the silence that fell then, Elain lifted a cloth from the depths of her box and idly wiped the brushes she had been using. “How long have you been watching me?” she asked over her shoulder, looking down at her task.

  “Since a few minutes before the birth of Excalibur,” he said. Curious that he should put it that way, as though he had an intuitive understanding of the creative process. “Where do you get your ideas?” was more the kind of thing she was used to hearing, as though she went off and bought them at a market. As if ideas were a commodity instead of the richness of the universe. Elain couldn’t help smiling at this, and turned to look at him. Once her gaze met his, he held it so that she could not break away. Held it with a look so full of unconscious promise and intent she could scarcely breathe.

  Rosemary was staring out over the scene, where the mist was lifting under the increasing heat of the sun and the valley was again becoming visible down between the hills. Elain had come out early to catch the mist several mornings running, scrambling with all her paraphernalia over the wall, where she was hidden from view from the hotel and might hope for an uninterrupted couple of hours.

  “I might have looked at that scene forever and never thought of hanging a sword in the sky!” she said brightly. “Where do you get your ideas?”

  There was the faintest sound of disapproval in the voice, reminding Elain of an art teacher she had had as a teenager, who had been one of the natural enemies of art. She tried to suppress a grin, but what she saw in those dark eyes when she glanced irresistibly towards Math again made her laugh, as though the air were champagne.

  “It just came to me,” she said, because there was no way to explain. Idly she found herself entertaining the thought that the sword had apparently “come to her” not long after Math had come up behind her. Was there something Freudian in that? Had she unconsciously felt his presence and painted not a mystical, but a plainly phallic symbol over the breastlike hills?

  But of course to the ancients it wouldn’t have been a cold and shallow question of “phallic symbol” at all, but the deep mystery of sexuality. So perhaps the answer was one and the same, only that modern theory robbed sexuality, as it robbed the world, of mystery.

  With a twinkling wave, Rosemary climbed over the stile to the path and wandered off down the hillside towards Pontdewi, leaving Elain in silence with the dark man behind her. She busied herself packing away her painting and easel, and he lay there in the sun against the green grass, waiting. At last she was forced to turn and look at him again.

  He looked as though he understood all that she had not said, smiling at her with a lazy smile and a tenderness that brought a lump to her throat. Leaning on one elbow in the summer-sc
ented grass, he lifted his other hand to her. He did it casually, simply, as though they both knew she belonged beside him, and she would come to him because he asked.

  She stood for a moment, gazing at him, resisting the pull of his eyes, his presence, and that extended hand. At last she mutely shook her head, and he dropped his hand. “No takers?” he asked softly.

  Elain shook her head again and turned back to look over the valley. “The mist’s gone,” she said. “It’ll have to wait for another day.” She bent to pick up her equipment, and Math got lazily to his feet and came to help her. At the wall he took everything from her and leaned over to set it down beside the ruined tower. Then he caught Elain by the waist and lifted her to sit on the wall before climbing over himself.

  Balch was tethered outside the fortress, where he munched grass. “Have you been riding? I didn’t hear you!” Elain exclaimed.

  “No, you were completely immersed,” Math agreed. He took the horse’s reins. “You’ve been keeping out of sight.”

  She felt her cheeks grow hot. “I’ve been working,” she said. It was true enough, but it was also true that for the past couple of days she had been hiding from Math. She had even eaten at the pub twice.

  “So have I. Feel like a break? It’s market day in a village not too far away—Machynlleth—and I’ve got a long list from Myfanwy.”

  The sun was already hot, and she couldn’t go on forever ignoring Raymond’s instructions. “All right,” Elain said. After a moment, she added guiltily, “Thank you.”

  Math laughed.

  * * *

  The country market was beautiful in the summer sun. They strolled along the village street between the stalls, where the vegetables lay, bright red and green and yellow and brown, sometimes coated with a crust of rich earth, reminding one that all this was the bounty of the Earth Mother. There were stalls of eggs and Welsh butter, of the local cheeses and imported ones; stalls where silver-coloured pots and pans glittered, where brightly coloured shirts and skirts hung in the breeze; stalls that sold farm equipment and hardware, teacups and long knives.