The Heart of the Matter

by Lindsay Armstrong

  'Then what he doesn't know can't hurt him,' Clarissa said ruefully, but she felt her heart lurch at the irony of her words.

  Fortunately, perhaps, the doctor arrived then, early, which was something else that didn't please Mrs. Jacobs for some reason, but it took her mind off Clarissa at least. And by the time he'd left, she seemed

  to have shrugged off the worst of her ill-humour.

  She and Evonne were waiting in the kitchen.

  'It's a type of 'flu,' Clarissa told them, having seen the doctor off. 'Complicated by the fact that he's been walking around with it for a couple of days not realising what it was—thinking he was just tired. Because he is tired and needs a break,' she added with a little catch in her voice. She turned to Evonne. 'The doctor says he needs at least a week off, but Rob seems to have other ideas, so I'm going to have to enlist your help, Evonne. He brought home a bulging briefcase, which he wants to see later, he says. I want you to take it back to the office. There must be someone else at Randall's who can handle things, but if anything is really vital, they can ring him—in a couple of days. Evonne, you must have a fair idea what it's all about, anyway. You've helped him before.'

  'Yes,' Evonne said slowly. 'I ... actually I know quite a lot about it. I also know,' she paused and looked at Clarissa searchingly, 'that there are some in top management who have always resented Mr. Randall and obstructed him in various ways.'

  'What do you mean? He told me some people resented him, but .. .'

  'I mean that they've actually fostered trouble with the unions.'

  'Does Rob know this?' asked Clarissa.

  Evonne smiled slightly. 'Oh yes. He's too clever not to. But it's also extremely difficult to handle.'

  'I can imagine,' Clarissa said drily. She stared at Evonne. 'Would you,' she began, and stopped, then started again. 'Would you be able to sort of—keep a watchful eye over things for the next few days? I know it's asking a lot and you might not be in a position to...’

  'Spy on top management?' Evonne said softly. 'Is that what you mean?'

  ‘Is it?' Clarissa grimaced, then said baldly, 'Yes.'

  'Oh, I think I could do that. Remember the Spanish Ambassadress?'

  Clarissa caught her breath. 'Yes!'

  'So if I feel that things are going the way Mr. Randall might not like, I'll get in touch. You can rely on me, Clarry.'

  Clarissa went over to her and hugged her. 'Thanks,' she said huskily. 'I know he's not going to be well enough to worry about it for a while, but I also know how much it means to him. I have to thank you for so much else too. You've been the best friend I've ever had, apart from

  Evonne looked deep into Clarissa's affectionate and genuinely touched blue-grey eyes, then looked away. 'The same here,' she said gruffly. 'I'll get going.'

  Rob slept for most of the day and Clarissa had a sleep herself, then she went for a walk with Mem in the afternoon. They came across Holly Kingston and Clarissa spent some time handling her still gawky latest foal.

  'She's a beauty,' she said to the grey mare. 'Going to be just like her mum, I reckon, and by the time Sophie's ready for a pony, she should be ready for Sophie, don't you think?'

  But finally mother and foal wandered off and Clarissa leant against a gate with Mem at her feet, and found she could no longer not think about what had happened to her during the night.

  'So it's happened,' she whispered, and found that her hands were shaking as she fiddled with a splinter of wood. 'How strange! Not to know yesterday, and today to know everything. To be transformed overnight. What triggered it, I wonder? Because he was ill and helpless? That must have been part of it, but I think it's been coming for some time. Since we were married? No...’

  A bird soared overhead and she watched it with her hand shading her eyes. The afternoon sunlight was warm because there was no wind, and the sodden paddocks were steaming gently.

  Winter might be on its last legs, she mused, then thought, no ... it was quite a pure way that I loved him then. I mean I was happy to please him, but I would have been content just to be with him. I never wondered what it would be like to be made love to in a blaze of passion, in fact I was petrified to think of it. I never longed to hold him, only to be held. I was never possessed by this kind of hunger, this ache, this need, this special kind of tenderness ... I really was a child then, in all but years, wasn't I?

  The bird swooped again and she saw the white tips of its pin feathers. And she thought of her painful confusion lately and the odd sensations that had affected her. Yes. It's been coming for some time, she decided. Only /could have misunderstood it. I thought I wanted to get away from him and I set out to prove to him that I was capable of it. Then I found out that I was doing it for him, but I still didn't understand.

  She sighed, and Mem stirred and looked up at her. But Clarissa didn't move. I might as well have it all out with myself, she thought wryly, and blinked away a tear. So I've grown up overnight, but what does that change? All this might have happened to me in the normal course of events and much sooner, but it didn't. And the reason it didn't—the reason why I went on deluding myself for so long—still stands.

  Forget about my mother, she doesn't seem to matter any more. But will Rob ever see me as anything other than ... Clarry Kingston? A little girl he found he couldn't abandon.

  She laid her head on her arms on the gate suddenly, and Mem stood up and looked wistful.

  'Mem, Mem,' Clarissa said brokenly. 'Oh, Mem! Nothing's changed. Only me, and I might have been better off the way I was. Can you imagine Rob ever looking at me the way David Marchmont looked at...' She stopped and caught her breath as she discovered another mystery revealed to her. That was why the Marchmonts had made such an impression on her. It hurt to think that she and Rob didn't have what they had. Then she was struck by another thought. The Marchmonts had obviously had their problems, hadn't they? Was she being cowardly to ... give up without a fight? Was there some way she could make Rob love her ... as a woman?

  She trembled and closed her eyes, going hot and cold, and knowing that understanding herself had not solved one other problem. It was all very well to feel desire, it was another thing, for her, to communicate that.

  Then she straightened up, suddenly determined to try. After all, she had conquered other mountains for him, hadn't she?

  'I've brought you a visitor, Rob,' she said three days later, from the doorway.

  He was lying in her bed, staring at nothing in particular, but he turned and smiled at her, and her heart turned over as it had a habit of doing these days.

  'Oh? That sounds mysterious,' he said.

  'Not really,' she replied. 'But very, very impatient.'

  She opened the door wider and Sophie tiptoed into the room, then raced across to the bed.

  'Well, if it isn't Sophie Randall!' smiled Rob as she climbed on to the bed and he gathered her into his arms. 'How are you, sweetheart?'

  Sophie was fine, she said. Sophie had missed him, she said, and hadn't wanted him to be sick so she couldn't even come and see him ... She broke off her excited stream of chatter to glance reproachfully at Clarissa, causing her father to grimace sympathetically at her mother over her blonde curls.

  And to say, some time later, when Mrs. Jacobs had managed to entice Sophie away for supper, 'My poor Clarry, you've had a hard time of it these past days, I imagine.'

  'Well, it wasn't easy keeping her away,' Clarissa said with a grin. 'Thank God for Clover, but I think even his ingenuity has been severely tested. Any special preferences for supper yourself?'

  'No—-Clarry, sit down and talk to me for a while.'

  She had been absently tidying up after Sophie and she hesitated, then sat down obediently beside the bed.

  ‘I didn't only mean Sophie,' said Rob after a moment. 'You've been such a dedicated nurse too. You've been terrific. Thank you,' he said quietly.

  'It was the least I could do. And I'm so pleased to see you looking better at last,' she said lightly.

&
nbsp; 'I must say I'm relieved to be feeling better at last,' he said ruefully. 'I'm normally never sick, so it's come as a bit of a shock to the system.'

  'Rob' she began abruptly, then stopped.

  'Go on.'

  She looked at him and managed to say wryly, 'I was going to read you the riot act, that's all. But I think I'll

  leave it until ...'

  'No, don't,’ he interrupted with a quizzical look.

  ·'Well, the reason you felt so truly awful was because you've been overdoing things far too much for ages! Even the doctor said so. You need a break, a real break. I thought,' Clarissa paused and swallowed, 'I thought we might take a holiday. Would you ... like that?' She'd said most of this to her hands, but she glanced up now and found that her heart was beating swiftly.

  Rob said nothing as their gazes caught and held, and she found she was holding her breath.

  'Clarry' he stopped and sighed suddenly, and

  she looked away miserably, knowing what was coming, 'I can't, not just at present. Which doesn't mean to say I wouldn't like to very much. Look at me, Clarry.'

  'It's all right,' she murmured. 'I understand. But I still think you should take one soon. And if you think I'm letting you leave Mirrabilla one day before the doctor decides you should, you're mistaken!' She stood up and—how, she wasn't sure afterwards—laughed down at him teasingly. 'I can also be a very bossy nurse, you know!'

  For a second she saw an expression she didn't understand. Then Rob laughed himself, but said, 'Unfortunately there are some things I have to attend to now, Clarry. I was going to ask you to bring a phone in. Tomorrow I'll get up, but...’

  'Rob,' she sat down again and stared at him nervously, 'there's something I have to tell you. You don't need to worry about work for the moment, honestly. It's all taken care of—well, so far, that is...' She tailed off lamely.

  'Oh,' he said slowly. 'How?'

  She told him, and to her amazement and then relief, Rob looked totally stunned and then genuinely amused. But what he said jolted her. 'Well, well! I do believe I should have you on my board.'

  'Not me,' she said hastily. 'Maybe Evonne because she's very clever, I think, and I know she has your interests at heart

  'But it was your idea?'

  'Well, yes. But I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, whereas Evonne...’

  'Is very clever,' Rob interrupted. 'So you said.'

  'Don't you agree?'

  Yes.'

  'And she's rung me every day. Of course I know she can't hold the fort forever, but... oh, Rob, you must spend a few more days recuperating,' Clarissa finished with an odd little break in her voice.

  'You're very concerned for me, Clarry, aren't you?' he said at last.

  She got up and walked over to the window. 'There's no reason why I shouldn't be, is there?' she mumbled, but in her mind she was saying to herself, tell him— say it now, it's the perfect opportunity! But the words wouldn't come. In fact it was worse, for she found herself adopting a falsely bright expression then and swinging around with a glance at her watch to tell him it was time to take the pills the doctor had prescribed.

  He did, without comment, and she left him for a while, but with her heart as heavy as lead.

  Altogether Rob stayed home for just over a week, though, to Sophie's great and Clarissa's secret joy. Nor did he seem restless, and they spent some time with Cory Kessels inspecting the sheep and the improvements that had been recently finished on the shearing

  shed.

  'It's good to be home’ Rob said idly one afternoon as they walked their horses back towards the homestead. It was a week to the day since he had arrived home so ill.

  'It's good to have you home,' she said huskily. 'Almost like old times.'

  ‘Clarry...’

  'But we're having an early dinner tonight,' she interrupted, not knowing what he had been going to say but afraid for some reason.

  'I'm quite all right now,' he observed.

  'It's not that. It's a surprise,' she said mysteriously.

  He frowned. 'Company?'

  'No. Oh no! But I'm not going to tell you any more. You'll just have to wait and see!'

  They had arrived back at the stables. Rob slid off his horse and before Clarissa got a chance to do likewise, he reached up and lifted her down with his hands about her waist. 'I could make you, you know,' he said softly, still holding her. 'Tell me, I mean.'

  'No, you couldn't,' she whispered.

  'That's really tempting me!'

  'You ... you ' she stammered, colouring and

  looking up at him uncertainly, 'I'd rather you didn't. I mean, I'd really like it to be a surprise ...' She tailed off, biting her lip, and Rob stared down into her eyes, then let her go rather abruptly. But he said mildly, 'Okay, so be it,' and turned away to his horse.

  Clarissa cursed herself inwardly through the rest of the afternoon, and through dinner, for having let another opportunity slip through her fingers.

  The surprise was Horizons, and Clarissa hadn't even told Mrs. Jacobs that she'd received a note from Moira

  Stapleton telling her about the screening date, although she had mentioned it to Evonne on the phone.

  But she knew she had puzzled Mrs. Jacobs with a request for an early dinner, and it took some artful manoeuvring to have her in the den as she switched the television on, right on time.

  Rob was already there with Sophie on his knee clutching a story book, and with his coffee beside him.

  The screen lit up to the sound of the clip-clop of horses' hooves, and a lone horseman came into view, shadowed against a brilliant backdrop of sky and tall, waving golden winter grass. Then the horse stopped and the rider turned back and a dog hove into view and another camera focused on the rider so that you could see it was a girl with long hair, but still there was no sound apart from the dog panting, and it came to a halt and looked up at the rider. The frame was frozen for a moment and Clarissa remembered with a curious prickling of her skin how it had happened. How Mem had played her part so well as if she'd known she was on camera ...

  Then the screen came alive with swirling dust and a river of sheep, and Clarissa and Cory riding as if they were part of their horses, Mem leaping and barking, and crawling on her belly, sheep bleating and turning and looking as they always did, comically bewildered, then bunching ... A close-up of Clarissa whistling, then a startling cut to Clarissa seated in the drawing-room with Sophie on her lap and from then on a montage of Clarissa, sheep, the shearing shed, Mirrabilla and in the background, while the titles came on, Click go the shears, boys, click, click, click . . . that old song being sung and played in the background.

  While Sophie stared at the screen, her blue eyes round with wonder, Rob sat up alertly and Mrs. Jacobs sank down into a chair open-mouthed.

  And as Moira Stapleton's cultured voice came on, they all turned accusingly to Clarissa and she smiled feebly. 'Thought I'd surprise you,' she said.

  'You have,' Mrs. Jacobs said. Then, 'Shh ... I don't want to miss a word!'

  Rob winked across at Clarissa over Sophie's head and reached out to take her hand.

  It was a curious business, Clarissa decided, seeing yourself on television. It was like looking at a stranger in a way, because your mannerisms, that you knew you possessed but were largely unconscious of, were suddenly there. Like the way she often chewed the corner of her lip before she spoke. But the biggest surprise of all was how poised she had been, and how natural.

  In fact that was what Mrs. Jacobs said as the last shots were fading and Sophie was standing excitedly in front of the television saying, 'Sophie!' as she had for each of her appearances ... 'A born natural, I reckon you are, Mrs. Randall—a born natural! Why haven't we got one of those new-fangled videos? We should have taped that!'

  'She said she was sending me a tape,' Clarissa murmured, still staring at the screen, at the three of them, herself, Rob and Sophie, standing on the verandah. Then the screen was blank, and Clarissa slowly tur
ned her head to Rob, to find him already looking at her.

  'That was very well done, Mrs. Randall,' he said.

  'Well, I thought the camera work was wonderful!' Clarissa rushed into speech. ‘And...’

  'No, you were, Clarry. Without you, they wouldn't have had a programme.'

  Clarissa blushed. 'Do you think so?' she asked tremulously.

  'I know so. I...' Rob stopped as if choosing his words with care, 'I hope that demonstrates to you that you're capable of so much now, Clarry.'

  'I... it surprises me,' she whispered, and neither of them noticed that Mrs. Jacobs had removed Sophie to the kitchen with the promise of milk and a bedtime snack. 'It's as if the ... inner the outer one, and me' she shrugged, 'don't know each other very well sometimes, don't match. Does that make sense?'

  He smiled faintly. 'We all have our inner fears and insecurities,' he said. 'But if you weren't coping with them, you wouldn't have been able to do that so well, and so much more these days. I'm really proud of you, my Clarry,' he said.

  Clarissa looked down and thought with breathtaking suddenness of the times, most of her life in fact, when to hear him say that had meant more to her than the world. But now it didn't do that, it chilled her slightly, and she knew exactly why. Because it implied so much that she was still in essence a child to him. still growing up, still in need of praise and encouragement, still perhaps an emotional invalid— maybe coming out of it, but fragile and delicate ... If only he'd said I love you, Clarry, she thought, if only ... But then isn't it up to me now to let him know that's what I want to hear? What's holding me back like this? Why can't I just say the words? Because I'm afraid to find out he doesn't love me...

  'Clarry, what is it?'

  She took a breath. 'Rob, I...' But the phone that was switched through to the den rang shrilly and they both jumped.

  'I'll get it,' she said, and got up.

  It was Evonne, sounding urgent. 'Clarry, is that you? Can I speak to...’

  'Yes, he's here, Evonne,' Clarissa cut in. 'Has something come up?'

  'Yes, that only he can handle now. Clarry, I didn't get to watch the programme, but I set my video to record it. How was it?'