House of Mirrors

by Yvonne Whittal

  A week passed with agonising slowness, and yet another was drawing to its close before Liz heard from Joe.

  “You can expect Grant out at the farm some time late tomorrow afternoon,” he told her over the telephone. “It was a bit tricky, but between Alan Bishop and myself we managed to convince him that the fresh country air was exactly what he needed.”

  Nervous excitement quickened her pulse rate. “You don’t think he suspects that I might have something to do with it?”

  “He has no idea that you’re in any way involved with this,” Joe laughed conspiratorially. “There’s one problem, though. How are you going to get into the cottage, or do you plan on arriving there after Grant has settled in?”

  “I think I would prefer to be there when he arrives,” Liz replied. “And getting hold of a key is no problem at all. Sam Muller keeps on spare on the farm.”

  “That’s a relief,” Joe sighed. “All I can say to you now is, ‘best of luck’.”

  “I think I’m going to need it,” Liz laughed nervously.

  When she put the receiver down a few moments later her legs felt like jelly, and she leaned heavily against the wall for support.

  “I gather Grant is coming,” Stacy remarked shrewdly as she came down the stairs into the hall.

  “He’ll be at High Ridges some time late tomorrow afternoon,” Liz confirmed, chewing nervously at her bottom lip.

  “What if that fails?” Stacy voiced Liz’s fears. “What if you simply get a flea in your ear for your trouble?”

  “Then I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried, in some way, to help him.”

  “And what about yourself? Stacy asked sharply. “What will you get out of it except more heartache?”

  Liz sank her teeth into her lip once more. “I shall have to take that risk.”

  For many reasons it was a risk which she knew she had to take. Grant would not come to her, not after she had been so adamant about not seeing him or speaking to him, and knowing that he had not instigated divorce proceedings made her entertain the vague hope that there was a slight possibility of their marriage being saved. On the strength of that vague hope she would take the chance, and risk the consequences.

  Liz slept very badly that night, and she was up long before sunrise to draw up a list of the items she would require. Now that her plan was reaching its climax she found herself caught between nervousness and fear. There were so many things which could go wrong, and they were all too frightening to contemplate.

  She sat down to breakfast with Stacy and Angus, but she was barely conscious of what she ate.

  “Can we expect you back this evening?” Stacy broke the strained silence around the table.

  “That depends,” Liz tried to smile. “I’m taking an overnight bag with me, and if he wants me to I’ll stay, but if I’m not welcome then you may expect me back before dinner this evening.”

  “If I were Grant, then I’d be too ashamed to face you,” said Stacy, putting Liz’s thoughts into words. “That’s exactly how I imagine Grant must feel,” Liz replied thoughtfully after all that everything might work out for the best.”

  “Don’t build your hopes too high, lass,” Angus intervened, his rugged face showing concern. “We wouldn’t want to see you hurt all over again.”

  “I’m not hoping for very much at the moment,” Liz sighed, pushing her plate aside. “All I want is to talk to him, and to know once and for all where I stand. If it’s only guilt he feels, then I want to know, but if it’s more than that…”

  Her voice trailed off into silence. There was no need to put into words what she was hoping and praying for, and before sunset that evening sunset that evening she would know whether she had simply been clinging once again to futile hopes and dreams.

  Liz left the house a few minutes later to buy the supplies she wanted to take with her. It did not take her more than half an hour to do her shopping, and then she was driving out to High Ridges for the first time in many months.

  Chapter 10

  Tall trees shaded the High Ridges homestead from the blazing November sun, and Sam Muller came out on to the wide step when he heard Liz’s Mini come up the drive towards the house. She parked her car in the shade and got out quickly when she saw him coming towards her. Stockily built, and with a wide-brimmed hat shading his rugged, creviced face from the piercing rays of the sun, Liz discovered that he was only slightly taller than herself, and she hoped for some inexplicable reason that he was not going to make matters difficult for her.

  Pale, watery grey eyes observed her with a touch of insolence from beneath the brim of his felt hat when she asked for the key to the cottage, and she experienced an unpleasant, crawling sensation beneath her skin.

  “Dr. Battersby will be here some time this afternoon,” he stalled.

  “I know,” she said, curing her impatience.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “No,” she confessed, “and I’m hoping that if he does touch on here you won’t tell him that I’m at the cottage.”

  “I don’t know whether I should give you the key.”

  “Why not?” she demanded sharply, annoyance sparkling in her eyes.

  He stalled again, flicking that insolent glance over her, then he smiled nastily and drawled, “Well, everybody knows that you and Dr. Battersby haven’t been living together these past months, and—”

  “You’re a good manager, Sam,” she interrupted him with a cold anger, “but it appears you have an ear for anything that remotely resembles a scandal, and you obviously have a loose tongue to go with it. Now give me that key, or do I have to smash a window to get into my husband’s cottage?”

  His watery eyes widened. “Dr. Battersby wouldn’t like that.”

  “He’ll like it even less if I should tell him that you refused me the key,” she added with a threatening note in her voice.

  He glared at her and growled, “There’s no need to get nasty, Mrs. Battersby. I’ll get the key.”

  That was not a good start, Liz thought unhappily when she drove away a few minutes later with the key to the cottage safely in her handbag. She hoped the day would end on a more favourable note. Please, God, I pray that it does!

  Liz parked her Mini a little distance from the cottage where it would be carefully hidden among the trees, and she walked the rest of the way with her parcels.

  She felt a quick stab of pain when she glimpsed the cottage through the trees. There were so many memories locked up in that small cottage that she found herself pausing for a moment, hesitant to go farther, but she squared her shoulders almost at once, and walked on. Sam Muller had at least seen to it that the garden had been kept neat, and that was one more point in his favour.

  She unlocked the door and went inside. A layer of dust coated the furniture, but everything else was exactly as they had left it. It was a matter of months, but it seemed as if endless years had passed in between. They had been happy here in this tiny cottage and, if Grant was willing, they could be happy here again, but Liz was faced with too much uncertainty to contemplate the future just yet.

  She switched on the refrigerator and stacked the perishable food into it. After that she lost track of time while she dusted, swept, and polished. She stopped for a sandwich and a cup of coffee somewhere after twelve, then she aired the rooms and put clean linen on the bed, and when she finally had the opportunity to look at the time again she discovered that it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. She made herself a quick cup of tea, and started the dinner. There had been no time to think, she had been too busy, but suddenly her doubts and fears returned with a vengeance, and she felt tense and jumpy at the least little sound.

  The afternoon sun slanted in through the kitchen window, above called to its mate in the tree outside, and somewhere in the distance Liz could hear the cattle lowing in the fields. There was a peaceful tranquillity in the air, but there was nothing peaceful or tranquil about the way Liz felt as she moved about the kitc
hen preparing dinner while the clock relentlessly ticked away the minutes and the hours.

  Four…five…five-thirty! How much longer could she stand the torture of not knowing?

  At last she heard a car approaching the cottage. It stopped, a door slammed, and heavy footsteps crunched up the path towards the door. A key was inserted in the lock, and Liz felt her insides shaking uncontrollably. Grant was here!

  Her hand fluttered to her hair, and she realised, to her horror, that her nose must be shining. It was too late to do anything about it now, she told herself ruefully and, pulling herself together with an effort, she tried to concentrate on the salad she was making, but every nerve in her body vibrated alarmingly when she heard Grant approach the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, she felt his eyes on her, and only then did she turn.

  Shock coursed through her when she looked at the man who stood there staring at her. He looked haggard and drawn, the steel-grey eyes sunk deep into their sockets, and a grimness about his mouth that made her want to weep. He stared at her as if he thought he were seeing a ghost, and the tension in the air seemed to climb higher with every second that passed before he put down his suitcase and took a few steps into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice so harsh that it scraped uncomfortably along her nerve ends.

  Play it cool, she warned herself and, in a voice that belied the turmoil inside her, she said: “I decided that the cottage needed an airing, and I planned on spending the night, that’s all.”

  “Am I expected to believe that you happen to be here quite by chance at the very time I was advised to indulge in a brief holiday?” he questioned her cynically, his eyes never leaving her face for a moment.

  “I don’t expect you to believe anything, but if you want me to leave, then you only have to say so.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I believe you really mean that.”

  “I do mean it.” Her heart was beating so hard and fast that it almost choked her when he lessened the distance between them to tower over her. The kitchen was all at once not big enough for both of them, but she raised her head with a touch of the old defiance to meet the onslaught of his eyes. “If my presence here displeases you, then I’ll leave at once, and taking into consideration that there’s only one bedroom in this cottage, I’ll have to leave after dinner anyway.”

  His mouth twitched. “I could always sleep on the sofa in the lounge and, considering that we’re still married, no one will turn a hair.”

  Liz turned away from the mockery in his eyes and glanced at the clock.

  “There’s time for you to shower and change into something comfortable before dinner.”

  She picked up a tomato and sliced into it, praying that Grant would not notice how her hands were shaking. She felt him behind her. Felt his eyes burning directly into her back, and then he was walking away from her. She sighed inwardly with relief when she heard him walk towards the bedroom, then she closed her eyes for a moment and leaned against the cupboard in an attempt to steady herself.

  Liz had never seen Grant looking so dreadful before. She could not ignore the signs of suffering that lined his handsome face, and neither could she shut her mind to his sallow complexion. Could she be the cause of it, or was it Myra?

  She heard him in the shower while she turned the steak and prepared the mushroom sauce. Everything else was ready, and she set out two glasses before she opened the bottle of wine she had chilled. All that remained was to spread a colourful cloth over the table and lay out the silver.

  When Grant walked into the kitchen a half hour later he was dressed in blue denims and a red checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to above his elbows. He looked refreshed, but no less haggard, she decided, finding it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes off him.

  “Would you like a glass of wine before dinner?” she asked as casually as she could make it.

  “I wouldn’t mind a stiff whisky, but wine will do, thanks,” said Grant, his eyes following her when she turned away to pour the wine, and her nostrils quivered with the familiar smell of his masculine cologne when she handed him his glass. Their fingers touched briefly, sending something similar to a current of electricity up the length of her arm, and she almost snatched her hand away before he had the glass firmly in his clasp. “Did you plan on wining and dining here alone?” he questioned her in a derisive voice.

  “If I’d been expecting someone then they would have been here by now,” she replied stiffly, her trembling fingers tightening about the stem of the glass she raised to her lips.

  “Or they might have gone back the way they came when they saw my car outside.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “Unless, of course, you were expecting me.”

  “That’s possible too.” He was getting much too close to the truth for comfort and, putting down her glass, Liz gestured towards the table. “If you will sit down over there then we can have our dinner.”

  Liz dished up quickly, and they sat down to a silent meal. She could not eat, she was too conscious of Grant sitting at the opposite end of the small table, and neither did he appear to have a ravenous appetite. They sampled everything and drank their wine, but most of the dinner, which she had taken such pains to prepare, remained on their plates. She would have been content to simply sit there staring at him, but she forced herself not to, and neither did she dare voice the questions which she longed to have answered.

  When she got up from the table to wash the dishes he picked up a towel and helped her to dry them. It was like old times, working silently side by side, only this time the silence was strained and filled with conflicting emotions.

  “How often have you been here these past months?” he asked when everything was neatly packed away and the kitchen tidied.

  “This is the first time,” she said nervously. “And you?”

  “First time.” His mouth tightened. “I didn’t want to come before this.”

  “Neither did I,” she confessed, and their eyes met and held.

  “Too many memories.”

  Liz swallowed convulsively. “For me too.”

  She caught a glimpse of something in his eyes, but it was gone before she could analyse it.

  “You never cashed the cheques I sent you,” he accused.

  “I tore them to pieces and threw them away.”

  “Why?”

  “I have my pride too, Grant,” she told him with calm dignity.

  “I’ve sold the house and moved back into my flat,” he said after an awkward silence had prevailed and, putting a cigarette between his lips, he cupped his hand around the flame of his lighter.

  “I see,” she murmured, her heart lifting.

  “I’m thinking of buying something else; something which could be converted into a real home.”

  “That’s nice,” she remarked with false casualness while everything within her rejoiced at the knowledge that the house of mirrors was no longer in his possession.

  Grant was silent for a long time, but she was conscious once again of his eyes following her about while she made coffee and poured it into mugs. It was almost dark outside, and she switched on the light in the kitchen before she joined him at the table. She raised her mug to her lips and their eyes met across the table. There was something in those steel-grey depths that made her catch her breath, and her heart jolted wildly in her breast before it raced on at a frantic pace.

  “I’ve made a mess of everything haven’t I?”

  He spoke quietly and without his usual mockery, and her compassionate heart went out to him. “Every storm leaves a little damage in its wake, but the damage is seldom irreparable.”

  His eyes burned into hers, and his mouth twisted with something which resembled self-derision. “Would you say there’s anything left to salvage?”

  “That depends entirely on you.”

  Grant’s hand moved towards hers across the checkered tablecloth, but instead of touching her, he pushed back his c
hair and rose to his feet with an angry exclamation on his lips. He stood staring out of the window at the inky blackness of night shifting across the veld, and his thumbs were hooked into the broad belt that hugged his denims to his lean hips.

  “I forfeited the right to expect anything when I threw away a precious jewel for a paste diamond with a false glitter,” he said harshly without turning to face her, but she saw the muscles jutting out along the side of his jaw, and she knew that he was struggling with a fierce emotion that was finding an echo in her. “I’d give anything now to possess again what I so callously discarded, but one can never go back in time to correct one’s mistakes.”

  “We have gone back in time,” she argued softly, but there was a note of urgency in her voice as she rose quickly to join him there beside the window. The longing to touch him was so intense at that moment that she had to clench her hands at her sides, and the flame of hope in her heart was being fanned into a blazing fire.

  “We’re here,” she heard herself say unsteadily. “Just the two of us…and we could start again, if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s not what I want, Liz.” He swung round to face her, and his face bore such a tortured expression that she had to restrain herself with the greatest difficulty from flinging her arms about his neck and comforting him. “For the first time in my selfish life I find myself considering someone else’s needs before my own, and that’s the only reason why I stopped short of coming up here to Pietersburg and demanding that you see me when I knew that you had no wish to do so.”

  A joyous warmth invaded her heart and spilled over until it seemed to fill her entire body. Grant was, in his own peculiar way, saying that he cared, but that invisible barrier was still there between them.

  “Tell me about Myra,” she came right to the core of the problem, and Grant flinched as if she had struck him.

  “I think I must have been mad, but for six years she had an almost physical hold on me which I couldn’t break. After the accident I felt bitter towards her and the whole human race, then you came along and life became bearable once more. I thought I’d got over Myra, but when I saw her in that restaurant I knew I’d imagined it. I was hooked again, and there appeared to be nothing I could do about it, but that only lasted until Myra came to see me the day after you’d gone. I looked at her then and discovered to my dismay that I felt absolutely nothing for her. Heaven help me, Liz!” he groaned, his voice hoarse and almost unrecognisable. “It was like waking up from one nightmare and plunging straight into another, and it was sheer hell! All I could see was a beautiful body, and quite suddenly I was no longer blind to the rest of her. She possessed none of the qualities I could admire in a woman, and that was when I was hit with the stunning realisation of what I’d done. I wanted your warmth, and your sweet, generous soul, and… I’d sent you away in the most brutally callous manner.”