“Well, I, for one, wish it hadn’t,” said Sian, her expression taut, as she pulled on a pair of shorts. “It’s a nuisance and a problem, and God only knows what he thinks of it all.”
“If appearances are anything to go by, he probably can’t wait to get you alone, so that he can do it again!” Jane exclaimed with a laugh, but she sobered quickly enough under Sian’s furious glare and asked sympathetically, “What’s the matter, love, did you like it too much?”
Her hand crept up to cover her mouth as she went a vivid, tell-tale red. She whispered, “Oh, Jane. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said her friend quietly. “It doesn’t exactly fit into your plans, does it?”
“Not in the least bit.” She bowed her head, her hair swinging forward, and she said, “Maybe I’ll go ahead and stay home for the weekend anyway.”
“Oh, Sian, but you can’t! Everybody’s expecting you to come along, now that your father can’t come to visit!” Jane said in dismay. “Don’t you think you’re over-reacting a bit?”
“I know I’m a coward. And maybe I’m being ridiculous, but—I don’t know what else to do.” Then she burst out in frustration, “Why can’t we just be friends, like everybody else?”
“Darling, you might as well ask for the earth to stop revolving around the sun.” Jane reached forward and took hold of her clenched hands. “Listen, is it such a bad thing, finding yourself attracted to a man as wonderful as Matt? So what if he changes a few of your concepts? It happens to everybody at some time in their lives. Maybe you should have a wild affair with him; at the very least it would teach you what you want in a husband.”
“I already know what I want in a husband,” she said stubbornly, her green eyes hunted. “Faithfulness, constancy and stability.”
“And what man is going to give that to you, and still remain uninvolved?” Jane retorted. “Even marriages of convenience have to be built on some kind of give and take, and it would certainly help if you could enjoy going to bed with your partner! Take your heart out of that safety deposit box you keep it locked in, and expose it to a few risks. It might get broken, but it’ll mend. It might grow and expand to find the world a larger and better place than it was before—I don’t know. But I do know one thing, Sian—if you don’t learn how to break out of the shell you’ve built around yourself, you’ll be in real danger of playing Solitaire for the rest of your life.”
Then Jane let her go to pick up the clothes in the corner, wisely giving her time to assess what she had said. Sian sank on to her bed and just sat in whirling silence, her thinking patterns all in tatters.
Had she really been cloistering herself off from the real world, under the pretext of waiting for the right man to come along? She dated, didn’t she? She’d had loads of boyfriends!
And, with a sharp, chill change in perception, she looked back at them all, those earnest young men, and realised that any one of them would have given her what she’d always said she’d been looking for in a husband. None of them had been the type to stray from home, or enact the kind of subterfuge necessary for infidelity. So why hadn’t she picked one and married him? What was she really looking for?
If anything, she had envisaged a relationship of equals, but when two people were real partners in strength and character, neither one was in complete control. She realised then that she could not have what she wanted without an element of trust, and she could not trust without caring. Otherwise she might as well marry somebody like Joshua, and resign herself to the sterile existence Matt had described.
Was the only other alternative to live out her life as Jane had said, playing Solitaire? Why couldn’t she simply accept with good grace what fate put in her path, instead of trying to consign everything into neat, tidy little cubicles? She was a big girl now; she should be able to look after herself reasonably well. And Matt had done nothing to her that she did not want to happen.
She rubbed her eyes and sighed. Jane came up beside her and met her newly calm gaze. “Well, what’s the verdict?”
“All right,” she said. “I can accept what you’re saying. I haven’t necessarily changed my thinking about a lot of things, but at least I’m willing to keep an open mind. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“And the weekend?” asked her friend with bright eyes.
“I’ll come,” she said in a rush.
“That’s my girl! Besides,” added Jane drily, “there probably won’t be any privacy for anything to happen even if you wanted it to.”
Sian had recovered enough of her equilibrium to smile wryly. “Too true. Well, I’ve finished with reacting for one day. We’d better get back to the others.”
“Sian—”
She paused with her hand on the doorknob and looked at the other woman, who continued thoughtfully, “Maybe you’d better keep an eye on Joshua. He’s been watching the way you act around Matt, and I think he might be jealous.”
“Jealous!” she exclaimed with a frown. “What’s he got to be jealous about?”
“He did want to marry you, remember?” pointed out her friend.
“Yes, but he wasn’t really in love with me. It was just infatuation. He certainly took it well enough when I turned him down.”
Jane gave a careless shrug. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but just because he can accept that you don’t want to marry him, it doesn’t mean that he wants to see you fall into his older brother’s arms. Very dog-in-the-manger of him, I’ll admit, but how like a man!”
Sian snapped, “And who said anything about falling into Matt’s arms? All I said was that I’d keep an open mind!”
Jane managed to get in a final parting shot in her ear, as she jerked open the door, “But darling, it’s already happened a few times now, hasn’t it?”
That was, of course, unanswerable. Sian shook her head as they walked back into the kitchen where the three men were discussing the weekend plans. She settled into her chair again, and pretended she hadn’t seen the slow, private smile on Matt’s face as he looked down her long exposed legs.
The group discussed various possibilities of what to see at the theatre. Not surprisingly, Matt was well informed about many of the latest plays and musicals, and a few well-timed, pithy quotes from some of the more scathing reviews soon sent the others into fits of laughter.
“What fun it will be,” said Jane with immense satisfaction. “I’ll have to pack something civilised, I suppose—maybe my black dress, with pearls. Do you know what you’re taking yet, Sian?”
She didn’t know what devil came over her, but she found herself saying sweetly, as she toyed with her coffee-cup, “I haven’t made up my mind, but I have it on good authority that it should be silk, and lace—with maybe a touch of leather.”
The hazel gaze beside her lifted in quick surprise, and flared bright and hot. She raised one slim eyebrow in mocking response. Remember what I told you, Matt? Every time you turn your back, I’ll be jumping out of my circle.
Sian turned her head and broke the searing contact. Her gaze wandered across the table.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Jane had warned her.
Joshua was watching them, with jealous eyes.
Sian took care on Thursday to give Joshua plenty of attention, and went to the movies with him that night, making sure throughout the evening that she acted just as warm and friendly towards him as she ever had, without suggesting her feelings towards him had changed to that of a more romantic nature.
At first it was very awkward. Joshua arrived on the doorstep sharp and prickly around the edges, and Sian was braced for any accusing comments and questions he might make about his older brother. But Matt remained conspicuously absent from the conversation, and, during the course of the film, all the negative nuances melted away. They were both science fiction fans, and the movie thundered with dazzling special effects, a rousing adven
ture plot and tongue-in-cheek humorous dialogue that had them both laughing aloud. Afterwards they went out for pizza, still chuckling and snorting like a pair of kids, and everything seemed as if it had gone back to normal.
Perhaps the jealousy she had seen in Joshua’s face had been nothing more than insecurity, Sian thought as she kissed him goodnight on the cheek and ran lightly up the path to her apartment. After all, Joshua had known her first and he might have felt that their friendship was being threatened by the emergence of Matt on the scene. Matt, who represented authority and discipline, and who was that much older and self-assured and successful in his career, must be quite a formidable figure to a young man, someone to be idolised and yet resented.
In fact, Sian suspected that she wasn’t actually the person Joshua was jealous of at all, but Matt might be. She had begun to notice tiny characteristics of speech and mannerisms that Joshua affected, which before she had attributed to his own personality but could now see were copies of Matthew’s drawling quick-witted humour, and shrewd observances.
Joshua so wanted to be like his sophisticated, confident brother without realising that thirteen extra years of experience could not be bridged by simply acting the part. He needed to discover loss, tragedy and recovery for himself to gain wisdom, struggle through battles of his own to win true self-confidence. Some day, she was sure, he would grow to be the kind of man he admired—both he and Matt were moulded from the same thoroughbred stamp—but until then he was much as he must have been as a very young boy, watching with adoring eyes as his idol flew off to magnificent horizons he could only imagine.
Sian would have liked to test her hypothesis on Jane, but the other girl was already in bed, so she trailed through the silent apartment and turned off the lights. Everywhere she went, the tidy kitchen, the comfortable living-room, even her bedroom: all whispered with the shadow of Matt’s lingering ghost. His was the type of presence that left vibrations.
She smiled wryly as she remembered Jane’s suggestion to have a wild affair with him. As if an affair with him could be anything else! It would be thunder and lightning, and the occasional black howling tornado, but where in all that would be the still serenity of the eye of the storm? Where could she take shelter, bedraggled and feather-blown, from the raging elements?
Even if she accepted that her life could not be based on placidity alone and that everything worthwhile contained a certain amount of risk, she still needed the calm oasis in which to reflect and lick her wounds. She did not want to be swept off her feet to unbearable heights only to crash; she wanted a slow and graceful waltz to a classical tune, each partner’s steps in harmony with the other’s.
Self-knowledge was a dangerous thing. When she had not known before the breadth and depth of her desires, she had indeed been blithely content to play her introspective game of Solitaire. Now her eyes had been opened to a shimmering possibility, and it was so hauntingly beautiful that it could only make her ache.
Uncharacteristically, she overslept the next morning and woke around eleven feeling heavy-eyed and disgruntled. She managed to finish her chores, pack and be ready on time, however, and dozed fitfully in the back seat, occasionally surfacing to listen to the other three converse. They hit the Chicago rush hour and spent forty-five minutes creeping along at a snail’s pace, so it was six in the evening by the time they pulled into a car park reserved for residents and guests of a luxury block of condominiums off fashionable Lakeshore Drive.
Everybody piled out, staring in fascination as they retrieved their luggage from the car. Lake Michigan lay panoramic to their right, dark azure overlaid with silver sparkles. “Get this place!” said Steven, overacting his awe. “Jane, my love, it’s been swell, but I think I’m leaving you for another man.”
“It is nice, isn’t it?” said Joshua, with a pretence to offhandedness that could not conceal a sense of pride. “Matt designed the condos himself. Wait’ll you see the rest. It’s got security videoscreens at the doors.”
They followed him to the door; Joshua pressed Matt’s button on the display panel, and Matt’s voice came over the intercom. “Oh, good, you’re here. Come on up.”
The lock on the door buzzed, and they entered the cool, quiet foyer to take the lift up to his floor. When the doors opened, Matthew was waiting in the hall, and Sian’s heart gave a great, ridiculous leap when she saw him.
He must have gone to work, for he was still dressed for the office, in a tan suit several shades lighter than the bronzed outdoor hue of his complexion. Its severe formality, combined with the carelessness of his unbuttoned collar and loosened tie, produced the strangest reaction in the pit of her stomach, a kind of sinking sensation of rabid hunger, and in her mind, uncontrollably, she imagined completing the act of pulling off his tie.
His gaze, light and brilliant, met hers briefly, then he said with a white smile, “‘Welcome to my parlour,’ said the spider. How was your drive?”
“Fine, until we hit Chicago traffic,” said Joshua.
“Never mind, you’re here now. Cold drinks are on offer to any takers, but first let’s get the sleeping arrangements portioned off, so you know where to put your things. Jane and Sian, you two get the pick of my study and bedroom, Josh and Steven, you get to share the guest-room, and I’ll bunk down in the living-room.”
Sian’s first impression of his home was an enjoyable sense of light and space. The living-room had huge, ceiling-high windows with an unobstructed view of the shore. Sleeping in Matthew’s bedroom was far too much a temptation, and before the other girl could speak up she said hastily, “I’ll take the study, thanks.”
He sent her a mocking glance, but merely said, “Fine. Jane, your room is the next door down on the right. Sian, this is yours.”
He led her into the study and stood to one side while she looked around in curiosity and pleasure.
In front of another spacious window was an angled drawing table and high stool. The table was piled high with sheets and scrolls of papers, pens and pencils, business correspondence and a calculator. Next to one wall was a desktop computer by two tall filing cabinets, and against the third, by the door, was a short leather-bound settee where, judging by its softened and worn appearance, he obviously relaxed quite often.
There wasn’t any furniture against the fourth wall, for in pride of place and covering most of the space was a huge, colourful print that she recognised as coming from the Louvre museum. “Oh, it’s lovely!” she exclaimed, stepping as close to it as she could, for on the floor underneath was a neatly made airbed.
“Thank you,” said Matt as he strolled over. “I picked it up when I studied for a year in Paris. I’m sorry about the mess—I meant to straighten things up a bit, but didn’t have the time.”
“Don’t apologise, I like it.” Sian dropped her case on the foot of the temporary bed and, because she was so hypersensitive to his warm presence at her shoulder, she turned away to the drawing table and let her hand hover, eager but hesitant, over the papers. “May I? I promise I’ll be careful.”
“Help yourself.” He watched as she pored with fascination over the drawings. Painstaking and meticulous, delicately precise, and complex, they revealed a side of him that before she had only wondered at: a love of pattern, symmetry and order, and a striking flair for design. “Some of them look rather like a rat’s maze, don’t they?”
“I think they’re magnificent,” she breathed, rapt. “We studied architecture in some of my design classes. Nothing in depth, mind you, but just enough to show how much training and talent goes into something like this. Look at this drawing, it’s breathtaking!”
He glanced indifferently at the line-drawing of an office tower she held, and said, “It pays the bills. That kind of project is a challenge to incorporate zoning restrictions, building codes and the specifications of the consumer, but personally I prefer designing homes for people to live in. Then the drawing seems to take
on life, and breathe with all kinds of possibilities.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Joshua said that you designed this block.”
He smiled crookedly into her green eyes. “That paid the bills as well, especially as I was able to strike a deal with the developers for some cheap accommodation.”
“It’s a beautiful place.”
“It’s convenient for work, and certainly comfortable enough, but it’s only home for now. I don’t plan on living here for the rest of my life. You couldn’t raise a family here, or in all conscience keep pets. You need space, and greenery, and plenty of room for them to play and explore in safety.”
Matthew held her gaze. His smile had faded away, and in its place was an intent, searching expression. She looked back at the drawing she held, struggling to hide how powerfully his words struck her. He described so perfectly the kind of quiet, spacious life that she herself desired; they could almost be picturing the same thing. In an effort to lighten the mood, she said teasingly, “For whom to play—the kids or the pets?”
“Why not both?” he returned, strolling over to reach with a long finger to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. The finger remained, tracing the perfect shell, while she stood rooted to the floor and shivered. “I must confess to a secret desire to have a dog some day. Say one about, oh, knee-height, with bright, intelligent eyes and a frantic wagging tail, gentle with little children but with a great ferocious bark that would scare away any potential intruders and keep my precious wife safe when I would have to go away on a business trip. I wouldn’t want to leave her too often, you see, so it would comfort me to know she was protected. You know the kind of dog.”
Her head bent forward. His fingers explored the edge of her cheek-bone, and very lightly curled against her skin. She said huskily, “Most likely it would chew up all your shoes.”
“I’d forgive it,” he said quietly, in her ear. “For all those other things, I’d forgive it that.”
A Solitary Heart Page 10