The fox loomed like a ghost, an exquisite sculpture in the middle of the road. Her muzzle pointed straight at him, her nose and pale chin catching the shine from the headlights. One front paw was raised, her brush low and motionless. Angus gasped, wrenched the wheel to the left, felt a massive jolt. The bonnet rose and a tearing noise ripped along the side of the car.
The fox put her paw down and her nose lifted to sniff the air. Then she trotted to the side of the road where shuddering bushes bracketed a gap in the hedge that hid the steep rocky drop on the other side. She looked over the edge, her nose quivering. With a couple of sharp snuffles into the air, she turned her back and trotted across the road. She slid into the undergrowth, the white tip of her brush vanishing like a snuffed candle.
David sat cross-legged on the floor and looked at Robyn. He felt courage drain out of him, leaching into the night and making him want to crawl away, away to some peaceful haven where nothing would be asked of him ever again. He could not cope with this. He was not equipped for this. He was mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically near the end of his endurance.
It was only for a moment. He banished the weakness and stretched out instead for the wisdom that he was going to need. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his mind cleared to a crystal calmness.
Her head was a mass of stubble, some longer tufts still poking from behind her ear. In one place he could see that she had hacked into the skin surface. Blood was oozing from the wound. He could not tell if she knew he was there. He heard some noises from the landing and immediately shut them out of his mind.
“Hey,” he said to her, “I can break windows too.”
No response. She continued to rock to and fro. He reached out a hand and gently touched her shoulder. Her head came up and her hand lifted towards him, a hand which wielded a pair of scissors, held like a dagger. There was an ugly gash on her cheek. Recovering fast, he trapped her eyes with his own and willed her not to look away.
“Robyn, Angus has gone. He’s gone. It’s over. I’m here now. And you trust me.”
Holding her gaze, he poured all of himself into those dark pools of fear. “You told me once you weren’t afraid of me. You told me you weren’t afraid of me at all.” He held out a hand, but didn’t touch her this time. “Trust me now.”
She was beginning to listen. He could sense a slight change, as if the tide of panic had been halted, even if it had not turned. Her face looked smaller, vulnerable, like a familiar picture that has been ripped from its frame.
“Remember the day you told me you trusted me? I’ll never forget it, Robyn. Not as long as I live. It was a big thing for me to hear. But it was an even bigger thing for you to say. Wasn’t it? Is there any reason why you would stop trusting me now? Is there?”
He waited to see if she would answer. Her body had stopped rocking, relaxed a little. The hand with the scissors had drooped between her knees, and still she watched him, her eyes starting to blink, to flicker.
David started to talk again, gently, softly, talking about things they had done, conversations they had had, things they had discovered about each other. As he watched, blood trickled down her ravaged head and began to creep across her shoulder to drop down her back, visible through the torn material. His throat choked with all that he really wanted to say and yet instinct told him to hold back, wait. Not now, not yet.
He unfolded his legs. “Robyn, you might want to stay here forever, but I’m going to want out some time. I don’t want to have to go back the way I came. You did a good job of barricading the door.” He rose to his feet slowly. “I’m going to move the bed out of the way.” Her eyes were following him. That was good. “I’m not going away. OK? In fact I’m not leaving here unless you come with me. I’ll be straight back.”
The bed was old fashioned and heavy. There was a clump of hair on the quilt. Briefly he brushed it with his fingertips, then lifted it to set on the bedside table. He put her bag on the floor, one end of the unused alarm he had given her visible beneath a red purse. Then, as quietly as he could, he turned the key in the door to open the lock. When he turned back, she had moved and was sitting with her feet on the floor between the doors of the wardrobe. She had put down the scissors, but her arms were back round her knees, her eyes still huge above the cheekbones accentuated in her frameless face.
David went down on his heels in front of her. For a long minute he held her gaze, unable to say any more, moved beyond words by what he was seeing, what he was feeling. Then slowly he lifted up his hand, palm open towards her.
“Shalom, Robyn Daniels,” he whispered.
It all happened in one swift second. She flew into his arms. He caught her and stood, scooping her up in both arms onto his shoulder as her own arms went tightly round his neck. Jesus! he breathed, holding her, rocking her, relief making him weak.
When he could speak his voice was shaky. “Well, hello. I thought I was going to have to get in there with you. And I don’t think I would have fitted somehow.”
He tried to look down at her but her face was buried against his neck, her arms pulling herself closer, tighter. Blood was streaked across his shirt where her cheek had brushed his chest as she reached for him.
His head began to spin. The sea. He heard the sea as if it was raging at his feet, pounding, wild, brutal. Clear as a descant above the waves was the sound of crying, slowly diminishing, desolate weeping, fading away, draining into the sounds of the sea, until only the storm remained. David closed his eyes and staggered slightly. Not now! No, not now! With rigid determination, he pulled himself back to the present.
“You need that head fixed.” He hugged her and chuckled slightly. “You always did, my darling.” To his delight, she responded with a little movement against his neck. He put her down on the bed, gently disentangling her arms, and pulled the quilt round her. He stooped to picked her up again and with a struggle managed to reach for the handle and open the door. Duncan Maguire stood on the landing.
“I’m taking her to hospital. I’ll phone you.”
Duncan nodded. “The police may want to talk to her there.”
David swung Robyn to his side and started down the stairs. “They can wait,” he said.
It was a long drive through dark countryside and he took his time, making no sudden movements. The headlights slewed along the hedges as he negotiated the bends down the hillside. Not far from the hostel, the lights jumped across a gap. David noticed it but gave it little thought.
The next hours were a blur. Amongst all the questions, tests, doctors, nurses, wheel chairs, trolleys, swishing curtains and rattling needles, one bright, electric moment stood out for David. When she was asked for the name of a contact person, she gave his name. She was confused. She must be. But he said nothing.
For some time he was banished to a chair in the waiting area. He rang the hostel and checked in with Duncan. The reception was poor and broken. He was about to hang up when Duncan asked, “David, is Robyn Daniels the reason you’ve left the school? There have been rumours.”
“I’m done with rumours,” he replied, too tired to think. He thumbed the call to an end. Then there was nothing more to endure but the interminable waiting.
Later in the night he stood beside Robyn’s bed in one of the wards. She was asleep, under sedation. The doctor didn’t think any lasting physical damage had been done. He confirmed that, although she had been violently assaulted, she had not been raped. Her hair would grow again, except perhaps for one small area near the crown of her head.
As for her mental condition, the doctor would not make an assessment. David looked at her cleaned and bandaged head, the doctor’s words etched on his memory, pieces of a puzzle slotting into place.
“I see she has marks on her lower arms.” He had looked at David questioningly. David nodded and the doctor continued: “Taking that into account, and bearing in mind the way she has responded to questions we have asked, her reaction to this attack reminds me of another case I
saw some years ago. In that case, the woman had a history of sexual abuse in her childhood.” He touched David’s arm sympathetically. “Terrible thing. She’s lucky to have you, young man. Much will depend on you.” Overworked, he had left wearily to see to his next patient.
A nurse pushed through the curtains and checked Robyn’s pulse. She looked at David. “She’s going to sleep for a while. Why don’t you get some rest? The day room’s just down the corridor.” She smiled. “Not many people use it in the middle of the night.”
“Are you sure she won’t wake?”
“Not for quite a while.”
With all his soul, David craved solitude. He was running on empty, his mind, body and spirit sapped of strength. Along a corridor lit by dim night lights, he pushed open the door of the quiet room. Inside, he stood still in the darkness, feeling the silence falling over him like a blessing. Then he sank into one of the chairs and leaned his head back. As he relaxed, he felt for the first time the bruising on his right hand.
He closed his eyes, stilled himself, settled. His mind opened, desperate to find and draw on a reservoir of love and peace and strength that he needed so badly.
Robyn woke some time in the early morning. Soft light filtered round from the nurses’ station. She could just see it by shadows on the ceiling and through a tiny gap in the curtains that were pulled around her bed. She knew there were other beds around her, could feel the presence of other bodies. There was a rustling as someone turned over, muttering.
She seemed to be filled with a total calmness, floating in airy comfort on the pillows piled behind her. Her memory was clear; she had forgotten nothing of what had happened, but it was far away, nothing to do with the tranquillity that enveloped her now.
She moved her head slightly, feeling it scrape and bump on the pillow, jagging painfully. Tentatively she explored her scalp. Tufts alternated with stubble and in one place, a sorer place, she felt strips of bandage holding the skin. She felt her right cheek. It was covered with a pad of gauze.
No regrets, none. Peace draped itself around her, tucking itself between her fingers and toes so that she felt cradled, rocked, innocent as she had never been as a child.
A man was seated beside her bed. She sensed this slowly and without alarm. His body was thrown forward, cheek resting on his arms crooked on the covers. His face was turned away from her, but even in the dim light she knew who he was. She would know that wavy black hair anywhere, recognise the curls licking the pale glimmer of his neck.
Softly her hand stole forward and, light as a kitten’s paw, brushed the springy waves. His right hand was flat on the sheet near her, emerging from beneath his sleeping head. His knuckles were bruised and cut.
Her hand settled on top of his. She remembered how he had reached through the terror, the panic. This time it would have been the end. She could not have coped, could not have fought it without him. And he was still here. She smiled. Something nibbled at the edge of her memory. Slowly she tried to grasp it, turning after it as it slipped away.
She saw David’s head rise slowly and turn towards her. Her mouth was still curved in a smile but he didn’t answer it. Instead, he looked down and, very deliberately, placed a slow, gentle kiss on her hand where it lay on his. It was the first kiss he had ever touched to her skin.
He raised his head again and she saw his deep eyes fix on her face. He spoke softly. “I love you, Robyn”.
“Yes,” she said, her eyelids closing. “Yes, I remember now.” Her voice began to trail away. “I wanted to talk to you.”
David twisted his hand to hold hers and was still keeping watch as she drifted away into sleep once more.
30
ROBYN WOKE WITH a start. Someone was poking something cold into her ear. Immediately she tensed and knocked the hand away, pushing herself to the far edge of the bed. “It’s OK, pet. You’re in hospital. I’m just taking your temperature.” A nurse with a worn but kindly face smiled at her.
Memory came flooding back. Robyn put her hand to her head, her cheek, ran her fingers over her shoulders. They felt rough where grazes had been cleaned and left open to the air. She lifted the bed cover. She was wearing a nightdress that didn’t belong to her.
The nurse lifted the chart from the end of the bed and wrote on it. “You took a pretty good hammering from some bastard. I think they’ll want to watch you for twenty-four hours anyway.” She snagged the chart back in its place and tucked the pen behind her ear. “Did you know the guy who did this?”
There wasn’t a trace of sedation left in Robyn’s system. The shock of returning memory was being replaced by a jumble of emotions. Anger, fear, amazement, relief. And a dim recollection of dreaming about David.
“Yes, I knew him.”
The nurse pulled her forward and thumped the pillows behind her with some force. “They ought to cut the balls off him when they catch him.” Then she grinned. “Maybe give you the scissors, eh? You look as if you can use them.”
“I must look a sight.”
“It can be tidied a bit. You’ve been lucky. No lasting harm done. And you’ve the bones for a short hairdo. Maybe you’ve done yourself a favour.” She ran a practised hand over the covers, smoothing, tucking. “Look on the bright side. The beast could have done worse.” She leaned her knuckles on the side of the bed. “And if ever you get tired of that boyfriend, there’s a queue here already.” She bustled away, chuckling.
Where was he? Her bed was in a corner next to the corridor, and the curtain was still partially pulled round it. She swung her legs out. She was shakier than she realised. She wanted a shower. There was a ridiculous thick, striped bath robe across the low chair next to her locker. She had no soap, nothing of her own with her. But that was not going to stop her from standing under clean, fresh, warm running water. She could dry herself on the bath robe. It looked like a towel anyway.
She stood carefully. Her head felt odd, light. She felt exposed. There was nothing to swing across her face when she wanted to hide. She must have been doing that all her life. She put her head up in a little movement of defiance. Time to get used to a new view on the world. She pulled on the bath robe and walked barefoot with careful steps into the corridor to find the showers. Then she stopped.
David was coming through the swing doors. He had a carrier bag in his hand. When he saw her, he slowed. Then he smiled slightly, his eyebrows raised in a cautious question. Her expression must have satisfied him because he dropped the bag and opened his arms. Without hesitation, she walked into them.
Back in the ward, she sat on her bed and pretended to criticise everything he had brought. It was a way to cope with the electricity of the emotions that sparked between them, an odd jumble of the familiar and the unexplored. Something had changed, pivoted, altering the future, realigning the past. Combined with the residual shock in her system, it was making her jumpy, looking for ways to be normal, everyday, mundane, until she could tunnel through to a time when she would look at him and listen and talk and work this thing out once and for all.
“A blue toothbrush! Didn’t they have any pink ones?”
“So?” he said. “Blue ones clean your teeth just as well as pink ones.”
“And that’s not mint toothpaste.”
“I’ll remember in future. Mint it is.”
She rummaged further down the bag. “Hmm. The facecloth’s OK.”
“One out of three ain’t bad,” he said.
She held up a bar of soap. “No shower gel then?”
She squealed as both his hands went round her neck. He brought his mouth close to her ear.
“You,” he said very low, “are being a little bitch.” He shook her slightly as his face moved across her vision and his mouth arrived at her other ear. “And I take that to be a very good sign.”
He released her and she stood up, lifting the bag. She tossed her head but there was no hair to toss. “Well, seeing you didn’t get me a toilet bag, this” – she rustled the bag – “will have to d
o.”
He sat in the chair and leaned back, stretching out his legs and putting his hands behind his head. “Are you going to have a shower or are you going to scold all day?”
Suddenly she felt weak, strength going from her legs and she sat again. “David, do you think they’ve found …?”
His expression hardened. “I haven’t heard anything overnight. My phone battery’s done. But I’ll find out later.” He reached for her hand. “They’ll get him. Don’t worry. They’ll get him. What’s left of him.”
She was quiet for a minute, looking at the floor. Then she lifted the carrier bag a little. “David, you’re the most thoughtful person I’ve ever known.”
He leaned forward. “That’ll do for now.” He sat back again and looked around. “Now scram. I’ll probably get thrown out of here soon. If you’re not back by the time the breakfasts are brought round, I’ll eat yours.”
Robyn washed her bruised body with care, removing the gauze on her cheek to examine the gash which was still raw and angry. Would there be a scar? It wasn’t a long cut, but it was quite deep. The memory of Angus Fraser’s brutal hands was fresh and horrible. And yet… and yet… Also strong was the brush of David’s breath on her uncovered ears, the timbre of his voice, low and close.
She raised her face to the falling water. How was it that, the morning after being attacked, she was standing in a shower recognising as never before the goodness in another man?
Something decisive had happened to her yesterday. Something unexpected, even perverse. Her mind was sorting, shifting, clearing out old concepts, old fears. She wasn’t a worthless person. Someone would fight for her! She knew now about goodness and integrity and unconditional love. It was new and glorious and breathtaking, shining in magnificent relief against the ugliness of its opposite.
She stepped out of the shower and looked down the length of her body, right to her toes. She took the bathrobe and rubbed the condensation from the mirror. Raising her hands high above her head, she turned slowly, looking at every part of herself. She was bruised certainly. Her head looked very peculiar.
Healer of My Heart Page 24