by C F Dunn
I waited for the inevitable consequence of such an admission – the questions, possibly the accusations that I’d withheld information.
“I see.”
He said nothing more, eyeing me for a minute from beneath his shrubby eyebrows before picking up the paper again and disappearing behind it as Mum came in carrying a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of toast-and-cheese soldiers in the other.
“Elena’s a lovely girl, isn’t she?”
She put them on the low coffee table in front of me, steam curling like smoke from a chimney on a still day. I agreed wholeheartedly.
“Yes, she is.”
“I had to cut the mouldy bits off the cheese. You’re not looking after yourself – there’s barely any food in the fridge; no wonder you’ve lost weight.”
“Have I?” I looked down again as a growl of thunder rolled from inside me as if to confirm it. “Well, I haven’t been able to shop for the last week, so it’s not surprising, and I don’t think Matthew’s used the fridge; he orders things in for me.”
I trapped a piece of toast unsteadily between my fingers and nibbled down its warm, savoury length. The action made the fracture ache a bit, but I was too hungry to take much notice. I started on the next piece and almost missed the exchange of looks between my parents. “Now what?” I chewed, swallowed and reached for the third.
“Don’t be angry, darling, but we booked a ticket for a seat home on the plane for you.” She held up a hand as I began to speak. “I know you have certain ties here but you have to admit, you can’t look after yourself and it’s not right to expect others who are not your family to do so, even if they say they are willing.”
Putting the piece of toast back down on the plate, I carefully wiped my fingers on the paper towel that stood in place of a napkin. I spoke slowly and deliberately, making each word count.
“I’m very sorry that you have incurred additional expense on my behalf and I will, of course, reimburse you, but I am not leaving. I have no intention of leaving either now, or at Christmas. Matthew has asked me to stay with his family over the holiday and, as for looking after myself until then, he’s done a pretty good job of it so far and I don’t think he intends me to starve. I am staying. End of discussion.”
I sat back in my chair feeling like my stubborn teenage self, but it clarified one thing: I would accept Matthew’s invitation, despite my doubts about my welcome from his family; I would stay and cement the relationship we had begun, one way or the other.
“But darling, Nanna…” my mother began.
“But nothing, Mum.”
Her face fell, and she looked at my father for support but, unusually, he remained silent. I leaned forward and picked up the abandoned toast and started eating again, a casual action meant to disguise my thudding heart. They had never appreciated how hard I always found it to oppose them – especially my mother. Dad made it easier with his head-on and bellicose approach, but Mum had long understood that the only way to get me to do what she wanted was to appeal to my sense of fair play and, failing that, guilt. It hadn’t worked this time because I fought someone else’s corner and not just my own. Last night, Matthew said I made him happy – no, more than that – I gave him hope, and I needed no further inducement to stand my ground. More to the point, with Sam playing little games around the edges, I wanted to be close at hand to field any sticky questions the police might throw up.
My father leaned forwards and swapped the main newspaper for the gardening section and started to read as if nothing had happened. I picked up the scalding mug of tea, balancing it between my two sets of fingers, and sipped it – making a point.
Outside, the sun settled below the horizon, its orange fire throwing the world into hot pinks and salmon, reminding me that we were now in the second week of November. Although the frost had lifted from the morning, the clear sky promised a repeat performance if the weather held. My eyes fell on the long window seat and, with a sudden jolt, I remembered that, concealed within the innocuous velvet, lay the evidence of my theft. I would have to return it as soon as possible before its loss was discovered, or rue the consequences and my conscience. Once it was back in place and I was recovered and back to work – probably not for another couple of weeks – I would seek out the little black journal in the library where it belonged, and pick apart its history. Then, perhaps at last, I would be able to place it on a shelf of my life and get on with the rest of it.
Time to move on – new world, new story.
Chapter 23
Beyond Reason
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself, so thou again art free.
HENRY KING (1592–1669)
BY THE TIME MY PARENTS ARRIVED, I was up, washed and dressed – determined to declare my independence. I didn’t tell them how long it had taken, nor how much discomfort I had endured to get to that state of readiness.
Awkwardly brushing my teeth after breakfast, I knew of Matthew’s arrival by the sudden silence that fell between my parents, followed by polite but restrained conversation. I finished my ablutions, all the while listening to the tone of the dialogue. By the time I left the bathroom, I had collected my thoughts and readied myself to greet him. He smiled when he saw me, his eyes reacting slightly in surprise when I stretched up to kiss him in front of my parents, all pretence gone.
“Well, good morning! Are you ready?”
“Uh huh – where are we going?”
“You’ll all just have to wait and see.” He imparted an unvoiced message in the steady look he gave me.
“All?”
He saw my disappointment as my parents picked up their coats and put them on.
“Let’s get your coat.”
He led me through to my bedroom, his lips stilling my protestations as soon as we were beyond their line of sight.
“It’s politic, my love, let it go – we’ll have other days together.”
In my wardrobe he found a quilted coat I didn’t recognize and helped me put it on over my mummified arms. The soft fabric belied its warmth and quality. He smiled at my bewilderment.
“It’s nearly winter and you’ll need something warm to wear,” he said as he ran the zip up to just under my chin, before guiding me back to where my parents waited by the door.
He took us down and across the quad, where the hoarfrost lay thick on the grass, an anonymous whitening of the world under the overcast sky. The ice gave way under my first footstep in a delicious reminiscence of childhood winters on the Lincolnshire fens.
“Do you like the frost?” he asked and I nodded, feeling free of the confines of the centrally heated world from which I had emerged like a grub from the soil in spring.
Only a few vehicles waited in the staff car park at this early hour. To one side, a dark-red car – the colour of metallic mulled wine – sat low to the ground, fast and dangerous-looking. I remembered seeing it before, drawn up behind the police car at the site of the crash. Ahead of us by a dozen yards, Dad admired it from the top of the steps, running his eyes appreciatively along its sleek lines.
“Yours?” I asked Matthew.
“Mm.”
“It looks fast; now, why doesn’t that surprise me? And you have me tagging along and holding you up; a snail would move quicker than I can.”
“True,” he admitted, grinning sideways at me, “but snails are poor conversationalists at the best of times, and I have an aversion to slime.”
Cars held little interest for me but even I admitted this looked impressive. My father already peered through the windows.
“Isn’t this an Aston Martin DB9? Is it yours?” he said, turning as we approached, hardly containing his excitement like a ten-year-old and looking years younger than his seventy-odd.
The car unlocked in answer.
“Mrs D’Eresby, please…” Matthew opened the passenger door and pulled the front seat forward so that my mother could climb in. He held out his hand to help her and she went to take i
t, but then paused, looking up at him with a little smile. She called to my father as he admired the high-tech fascia behind the steering wheel.
“Hugh, darling, I believe I’m really too tired for an outing today; I think I’ll give it a miss. It was so kind of you to invite us, Dr Lynes; I’m sure a day out will do Emma the world of good.”
Matthew bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment of her sacrifice, and she smiled sweetly in return.
“I don’t know, Penny…” Dad began to bluster, looking longingly at the leather seats and the glossy instrument panel.
“Yes, but I do, darling. Help me up these steps, will you; everything is so slippery.”
I put my arms around her the best I could and hugged her.
“Thank you,” I whispered. She held me as close as she dared, rubbed noses Eskimo-fashion as we had always done, and sealed it with a kiss on my forehead.
“Enjoy yourself,” she instructed, taking a step away from me with a smile.
Matthew put the low seat back in position and eased me into it before leaning across to do my seat-belt up. For a second, as he tugged at it lightly to make sure it was secure, I had a horrible image of his wife’s body in the mangled wreck of her car, her life torn from her by metal and speed. I wondered if he thought the same thing every time he drove this beautiful, lethal machine. If he did so this morning, he didn’t let it show. He went around to the other side.
“Colonel?”
My father still admired the controls from the driver’s side.
“Yes, sorry, of course.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I heard Dad apologize for anything. He stood back and Matthew slid into the driver’s seat in a movement as alluring as his car. Mum watched from the bottom of the steps with the same look she wore on the day I left home for university, almost wistful, as if releasing a bird she had nursed back to liberty.
The sense of freedom when we reached the main road was immense.
“How fast does this thing go?” I asked.
He glanced at a panel glowing demurely on the dashboard, the speed creeping rapidly upwards.
“Does speed worry you?”
The surge of adrenaline as the car accelerated, pulling me back against the seat, felt as physically exhilarating as that of our family’s small yacht sailing before a summer storm, splitting the waves on Rutland Water, or of a bullet hitting its mark. I revelled in it, I lapped it up, I savoured every skin-tingling second of it until he took his foot off the accelerator and the car slowed.
“No, I love it.”
He raised both eyebrows in a gratifying show of surprise. The car had reached the State limit without effort, and I settled back into leather upholstery still smelling brand new, with not a hint of a crisp or a crumb in sight and certainly no chocolate.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked me.
“Yes, thanks.”
I managed to unzip my coat and loosen the scarf around my neck.
“That was very gracious of your mother,” he remarked.
I remembered Dad’s face. “My father was gutted.”
“Since we’re being politic, I think I’d better take him out to make up for the disappointment.”
He tried to control a smile but I burst out laughing and he grinned, his eyes dancing a vivid, exuberant blue. He took my hand and kissed my bandage-swathed palm, holding it to his face.
“It’s good to hear you laugh, Emma,” he said softly. “I’ve missed the radiance you bring.” He continued to hold my hand and I let myself bathe in the warmth of the moment – in this peace we had both found – each content in the other’s company.
The road wound on a steady incline towards the mountain range I saw on my taxi journey to the college that first dripping day and which had been a constant companion to me through the weeks since. As we climbed, frost was joined by pockets of snow lingering in the shadow of rocky outcrops and along the side of the road where trees whipped past the windows. He broke the silence first.
“Is that always how it’s been with you and your parents?”
“Yes, pretty much. Do you get on with yours?”
He considered my question.
“My father was always very supportive when I was growing up; I don’t remember having the conflict you seem to have with yours; it must make it difficult for all of you.”
A surreal mist clung to the branches of the frost-laden trees, drooping boughs hanging heavy. I stared glumly out of the window; I couldn’t remember a time when we weren’t at loggerheads.
“Matthew, why do you always speak of your father in the past tense?”
“Do I? My mistake.” He accelerated out of a bend and slowed down again before I could comment. “It must be force of habit; I referred to my youth.”
“Mmm, so very long ago,” I said, probably more sardonically than I meant because Matthew opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, then said simply, “Indeed,” and left it at that.
We drove for a little over an hour before crossing a bridge over the river and the road branched left into a narrow track bordered by trees. Tips of branches crowded, almost touching the car, thinning as we emerged into a flat expanse of ground. Spreading beyond a parking area interspersed with trees, mist hung suspended above the cold, grey waters of a lake. Roots reached out towards the water’s edge, gnarled like snakes, branches inches from the eerily tranquil plane. The car drew to a standstill by a series of picnic benches a hundred yards from the shore. Nearer than I had ever seen them, the mountains rose steeply, summits obscured by low cloud.
The engine stilled and the silence of the waters reached inside the car until Matthew opened the door for me, and I intruded upon it. Cold air bit my nose and throat, sharp and clean with not a taint of humanity in the air. He helped me out of the car, zipped me up again snugly, and pulled the lined and quilted hood over my head.
“What do you think – do you like it?”
“It’s wonderful,” I breathed, lost for words, and he relaxed into a broad smile.
“It’s the furthest I can take you today by car; it’s usually busy in the summer – families and hikers use it a lot – but not so much in the winter, and not on a day like today.”
“Do you come up here often?” I asked.
“Mostly in the winter and, even so, we prefer to go up there if we have the time.” He looked up at the mountains with a voice full of a hunger I had sensed before. “And that’s where I’ll take you, when you’re better, as I promised.”
The mountains seemed a very long way away.
“We’ll walk?” I asked, doubtfully.
“Probably not, no, although it’s not as far as it looks – if you take a direct route.”
It looked bleak, cold and inhospitable.
“What’s up there?” I asked.
“Nothing – just rocks and snow, trees… wildlife. Nothing. Everything.”
I gazed at the mountains; the thought of just the two of us alone in the wilderness was another world I could only dream of.
“It sounds perfect.”
He searched my face but found nothing but sincerity there, and smiled quizzically.
“You strange girl.” He leaned forward and kissed me gently. He must have thought the resulting tremor the fault of the glacial air because – taking my hands between his – he rubbed the tips of my fingers lightly.
“You’re cold; I should have brought you big fur mittens.” His hands were neither warm nor cold, but sort of tepid. He turned back to the car. “But instead I’ve brought tea.”
He went to the boot, coming back with a heavy-looking woven basket which he put on one of the picnic tables, unpacking a flask and some cups. I laughed.
“You brought a picnic!”
“I thought you might get hungry and thirsty,” he explained, looking a little awkward.
“It’s a brilliant idea; we always used to have picnics at home when Grandpa was alive,” I said with genuine enthusiasm. I felt a smidgen hypocritica
l as I tried not to remember the last picnic I’d been invited on; after Sam’s performance yesterday, he didn’t deserve my sympathy.
“There should be everything you need in there.” Matthew’s fair head gleamed in the low winter light as he peered in and reached for a flask.
“Do you get bears up here?” I asked, reading a sign by the table depicting a bear, with items of food scored through with a line.
“In spring and summer mostly – sometimes early fall – but food’s been abundant recently so they’re not a problem now; they’ll be in their dens.”
He twisted the lid off the flask and poured a half-mug of tea, waiting until I held it securely before taking his hand away. I perched on the edge of the table, sipping the hot liquid, studying the lake with the mountains and trees behind.
“This is beautiful – Maine is so beautiful – what I’ve seen of it,” I began tentatively. He waited, the line of his mouth tight, sensing a “but”. “Matthew, my parents have booked a flight home for me.”
He looked pensive. “And?”
“And I would very much like to come and spend Christmas with you – and your family – if the offer’s still open.”
A wide grin replaced the frown. “Do your parents know?”
I nodded. “I told them. The only thing is, I’m not convinced I will be entirely welcomed by everybody in your family, and I don’t want to be the cause of any friction between you – especially at Christmas – but not ever.”
My tea cooled rapidly in the open air, and I drank it before it lost its heat.
“My family, Emma…” he seemed to be choosing his words with care. “My family will accept my decision.”
I suppose that at the end of the day, it was his decision; in the same way that I was free to choose what I did with my life; but he knew as well as I did, that none of us has an entirely free choice where family is concerned.
“That’s not quite what I’m saying. Will they be happy for me to be there?”
“Is their happiness important to you?”
I considered for a moment, then slowly, as I thought it through, said, “Yes, I think that it must be, because they are important to you.”