by Flora Kidd
The door was pulled out of her hand and swung back. Alun eyes, bright with mockery, met her anxious gaze.
'Are you coming into the house?' he asked. 'Or are you going to sit out here and wait for me to come back to you after I've bathed, changed and eaten?'
'I'd like to come in,' she said. 'But I'm not going to step into that mud. Couldn't you have parked somewhere else? Somewhere drier and nearer the door?'
'No, I couldn't,' he retorted. 'There's no driveway to the front door and it doesn't open anyway. Come on, I'll carry you.'
He presented his back to her and she realised he was going to carry her piggyback. After a moment's hesitation she placed her hands on his shoulders and knelt on the seat.
'Ready?' he asked.
'Yes,' she whispered, and nudged her knees against his waist. His arms came back, his hands slid under her knees and he lifted her on to his back, straightening up as he did. Her hands slipped forward over his shoulder, she linked them under his chin and he stepped forward through the mud towards the porch over the back door.
His hair, still thick and curly, tickled her chin and her nose and she had to control a desire to sneeze. The glints of silver in its silky blackness had increased during the past two years. In fact there was an quite a broad streak of silver twisting back from his brow, she noticed as he set her down just inside the porch door.
He opened the plain black-painted back door of the house and gestured to her to step inside.
'Welcome to Whitewalls, Jess,' he drawled.
'Thank you,' she said, and walked into the kitchen, a big room with a low-beamed ceiling.
'Have you had your dinner yet?' he asked, stepping past her and going over to an electric cooker that was set beside an old fireplace built from blocks of grey granite.
'No, not yet.'
He took the lid off a big saucepan and looked in it.
'I made some lamb stew yesterday. There's a lot left. You could warm it up. And there's plenty of bread and cheese in the pantry. Just help yourself while I go upstairs and get out of these wet clothes.' He gestured to his heavy jeans that he wore tucked into thick climbing socks and began to unzip the lightweight but warm quilted jacket he was wearing over a crew necked sweater.
'Alun ... I can't stay long,' she began.
On his way to a door which led no doubt into a hallway he turned back to look at her, his eyebrows slanting upwards in a satirical expression that she remembered well.
'A pity,' he remarked softly, his eyes glinting as their glance roved over her, and then he was gone and she heard his climbing boots that he was still wearing clumping on uncarpeted stairs as he made his way up to the floor above.
Jessica sighed and looked around the plain homely room. It looked as if Alun was going to be as enigmatic as ever and she would be lucky if she managed to get any straight answers to her questions and requests.
Very old and rather shabby, was her assessment of the kitchen with its stone-flagged floor, its square table, the surface scrubbed almost white and its dark Welsh dresser pushed against one wall and gleaming with blue and white china. Horses brasses winked against the dark beams and also against the rough stone of the mantelpiece over the hearth, and the chairs were pure Windsor, their seats worn and shiny where many people had sat. The only modern touches were the gleaming electric stove and the stainless steel double sink.
The sink was piled high with dishes. It looked as if Alun hadn't washed up for a month. Taking off her raincoat and scarf, Jessica hung them on a hook behind the back door. Then she took off her suit jacket, pushed up her blouse sleeves and advanced to the sink, her housewifely instincts taking over, unbidden. She couldn't possibly sit down to eat a meal unless she washed up first. Anyway, she doubted if there would be any clean plates on which to dish up the stew if she didn't wash up, she thought wryly.
She turned the taps, but no water came out. Then she realised water was being run upstairs. Alun was taking a bath, so she would have to wait until he had stopped running water. Presumably there wasn't enough pressure in the system to serve both kitchen and bathroom at the same time.
She went over to the stove and inspected the stew. Although pale and cold it looked good, with succulent pieces of pink meat and plenty of vegetables. Jessica turned on a burner to a low setting and placed the pan on it to warm up.
Once the water came through the taps it didn't take her long to wash up and dry the dishes. Then she set the table for two and checked the stew. It was bubbling, so she turned down the heat.
There was no sign of Alun, so she decided to explore the ground floor of the house, going out into the narrow dark hallway. There seemed to be only two rooms at the front. One was obviously the parlour, a stiff-looking place still furnished with big Victorian furniture; a shiny mahogany sideboard that took up the whole of one wall; a neat corner cabinet with a latticed glass door behind which pieces of china and glass winked; several armchairs, stuffed she guessed with horsehair and covered in dark grey cloth probably woven from horsehair too, their backs decorated with intricately carved wood and a huge sofa covered in printed cotton. There were small carved mahogany occasional tables with curved legs, each one bearing a collection of porcelain figures and china floral arrangements. The whole room was an antique collector's delight and a housekeeper's nightmare, and it looked as if it hadn't been used for years.
The other room across the hall was much more simply furnished. A rough table set in front of the plain window was scattered with papers and at one end there was a very new-looking electric typewriter. A bookcase was crammed with books, many of them looking well used. There were only two chairs, one an ordinary kitchen chair, the other an old ladderback, its straw seat in need of repair. Screwed-up pieces of typing paper lay on the floor just short of the wastepaper basket where they had been thrown. Some snapshots had been pinned to the wall above the bookcase. There was one of Margian, one of Huw Gower with a small dark-haired woman who had presumably been his wife, one of a tall dark-haired woman and surprisingly one of herself taken when she was younger. She was in riding clothes but without her hat. Her hair shone brightly.
The view from the window was almost blotted out by mist, but she could see the land sloping down to the gleam of the lake. It was serene yet mysterious, green yet smoky with mist and grey rocks. And silent too. Jessica became suddenly very aware of the silence. There was no movement in the house, no footsteps on the stairs. Alun hadn't come down yet.
She looked at her watch and was surprised to see it was almost two o'clock. If she didn't wake Alun soon she would have to stay the night in Dolgellau. She hurried out into the hall and went to the foot of the stairs.
'Alun, dinner is ready,' she called. 'Please hurry up. I can't stay much longer—I have to go back home tomorrow and I have to get petrol for my car.'
There was no reply, but she didn't wait for one. She went into the kitchen and turned off the burner on the stove, then dished up some stew on to one of the plates she had warmed. Sitting at the table, she ate stew and bread. By the time she had finished eating Alun hadn't appeared so she left the kitchen and climbed the narrow staircase. He was in a bedroom at the front of the house, lying on a double bed that had old-fashioned brass ends, wearing a woollen dressing gown. He was fast asleep.
'Oh, Alun!' she whispered.
The sight of him sprawled on the bed, sunk in deep and apparently peaceful slumber, brought back memories of the time she had lived with him in the small flat in London. Often when he had returned from some assignment she had found him like this, catching up on the sleep he had lost while he had been away.
Quietly she approached the bed. Yes, he was really asleep, thick black lashes spread like fans, the line of his mouth relaxed.
Jessica sat down on the edge of the bed and touched his shoulder.
'Alun, please wake up. We have to talk. Oh, please wake up,' she murmured, and shook his shoulder.
He wakened at once, as she knew he would, as he had trained himsel
f to wake, coming alert immediately, opening his eyes and looking right at her.
'Alun, I can't stay much longer,' she said.
'Why not?' he asked.
'I have to go back to work. Since Daddy died Mother and I have been managing the business . . . or at least trying to manage it. . . .' Her voice faded away as she realised he wasn't listening to her. She could tell by the way he was looking at her, the expression in his eyes dark and sultry. Oh, she knew that look. She knew it meant he had one thing on his mind—making love. And the trouble was she could feel the heat of sexual desire flooding through her in answer to it; wanted nothing more than to lie down beside him and lay her hands on his bared chest and feel his hands on her breasts, his lips hot against hers.
She shifted uneasily and started to get to her feet.
'I've had my dinner,' she was saying, when Alun grabbed her, taking hold of her arms with hands that gripped hard, and pulled her down on top of him. 'Alun, no!' She tried to push away from him.
'I'm glad you've come. I've been needing some comfort,' he whispered as with long hard fingers at her nape he forced her face down to his and kissed her hungrily and mercilessly.
Always when they had made love he had been tender and reverent. But he wasn't now. His kiss blistered her lips and his fingers sought and ripped open her blouse and curved about her breast, pinching and probing until her body arched involuntarily against his in response.
Frantically she tore her lips away from the domination of his.
'No, no!' she cried. 'I don't want to! This isn't why I've come to see you.'
'Isn't it?' he hissed, asserting his superior strength and heaving her off him on to her back, preventing her escape by leaning over her, one leg across both of hers, his hand on her left shoulder. His eyes blazed with yellow fire and there was a cruel twist to his mouth. 'Then you're going to get a bonus, aren't you?' he mocked, and his head dipped down to her breast from which he had stroked away her blouse.
His hair, damp and tangled, filled her nostrils with its scents and her body, untouched for so long, throbbed and tingled, yet still she struggled to escape from the exquisite torment of his visiting lips, his tantalising fingers, rolling away again until she fell off the bed with a thud.
She scrambled to her feet and ran around the end of the bed towards the door.
'I'll see you in the kitchen when you . . . when you've come to your senses,' she gasped, and fled as Alun advanced on her again, with long strides his eyes blazing with golden fire in his dark face.
In the kitchen she fastened her blouse with shaking hands then sat down quickly at the table because her legs no longer seemed to want to support her. Hands cooling her hot cheeks, she tried to control the passion that was pulsing through her, searching for escape. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe that Alun had behaved in such a way, with a wild wantonness that had excited even while it had frightened her.
She was still sitting at the table when he came into the kitchen fully dressed in clean but faded and patched jeans and a plain white shirt, open at the neck and part-way down the front, its starkness emphasising the darkness of his skin that had been tanned berry-brown by some tropical sun. His hair was brushed but not subdued. Nothing ever subdued those closely-coiled springy curls. Without looking at her he went over to the stove, ladled some stew on to a plate. Sitting opposite to her, he began to eat.
'So here I am, come to my senses,' he drawled with a mocking twist to his lips. 'And I'm wondering what it was that got into me, making a pass like that at you, like I did. After all, you're only my wife. I ought to have had more sense than to expect you to co-operate in something as unimportant as making love.'
The bitterness in his voice seared her, and she flinched and gave him a reproachful glance. But he wasn't looking at her; he was too busy eating. She was conscious of the clock ticking away behind her. Time was going by and she hadn't said what she had come to say.
'I have to go in a few minutes,' she said. 'Alun, we've got to do something. About us. We ... we can't go on living apart the way we have been living.'
'I agree,' he said coolly. 'So what do you suggest?'
'I wondered if ... well, if you would agree to a divorce,' she whispered.
Still he didn't look up. He went on scooping up stew from his plate and the minutes ticked by. When he had finished he pushed the empty plate away from him, drank some water, then folding his arms leaned them on the table in front of him. He looked across at her with eyes as wide and as blank as an eagle's.
'Why?' he asked. 'Why have you come all the way from Buckinghamshire just to ask me that?'
The direct question disconcerted her and she looked away from him.
'Someone had to make the first move,' she said defensively.
'True. A move had to be made by you,' he retorted coldly. 'But for a divorce it could have been made by a lawyer instructed by you. You didn't have to come here.'
'I couldn't be sure you'd answer any letter that was sent to you,' said Jessica, suddenly angry because he seemed to be playing with her. 'It seemed quicker to come and ask you.' She paused, then asked again, 'Alun, why haven't you kept in touch with me? Why haven't you been to see me?'
It was his turn to look away. Lips twisting in a grimace, he looked away to the small window above the sink.
'I thought you didn't want me to,' he said in a low voice. 'Our marriage had served its purpose for you. It had helped you to avoid marriage with a man you dislike, so there was no need for it to continue. I fully expected you to divorce me after you left me.'
'I didn't leave you,' she retorted. 'You left me. You slammed out of the flat in a temper and went to New York to see that woman, Ashley King!'
'I didn't go to see only her,' he retorted, his quick Welsh temper rising and showing itself in the glare of his eyes. 'I went to see the whole editorial board of the magazine.'
'And you didn't come back' she persisted.
'Yes, I did. And you weren't at the flat. You'd moved out, taken all your things with you. That told me more than anything how you felt about being married to me. You'd gone while I'd been away. You weren't there to welcome me back.'
'You must have guessed I hadn't gone far. You must have known I'd gone to my parents' house. Sally would have told you that. Or Bill,' she retorted.
'Sally did,' Alun admitted, his mouth twisting again. 'She told me you didn't want to see me. As it happened, I wasn't able to get down to see you anyway. My father died and I had to come here to bury him.'
Jessica looked around the kitchen, wondering why Sally had told him she didn't want to see him.
She couldn't remember ever having said such a thing to Sally. In fact she was sure she had never said it.
'Have you been here ever since your father died?' she asked.
'Not all the time,' he replied. 'Only since I began writing his biography about ten months ago. It seemed right to do it here where he had lived and where he had been born, surrounded by his books and looking out at the view he loved so much.'
'How is it going?'
'I'm working on the last chapter, tying all the threads together. Then there'll only be the footnotes and index to do.' He pushed away from the table and rose to his feet. 'I think I'll go and do some writing now. I know just what to write next, thought it up when I was on the mountain this morning. ...' Muttering to himself, he strode towards the door that led into the hallway, and Jessica recognised the signs. He had forgotten her. He'd gone off into that private world of a writer where she could never follow him.
She sprang to her feet and tried following him, tried to drag him back into the real world where she was waiting for an answer, and she caught up with him in the hallway, her hand on his forearm, stopping him.
'Alun, wait! What about us? You haven't said what it is you want?'
He turned to her, eyes flashing angrily, and shook off her hand from his arm.
'Do whatever it is you want. Divorce me if that's what you want,' he snar
led. 'God knows you've not been much use as a wife these past two years, so I might as well be without you!'
'Oh, you're not . . . not very nice!' she gasped, stepping back from him.
'I never was,' he retorted, and went on into the writing room, slamming the door behind him. Jessica went after him, opening the door and looking in. Already he was sitting at the table putting paper in the typewriter.
'But how am I going to get petrol for my car so that I can leave?' she asked.
'Take the Land Rover, drive in and then drive back,' Alun said coldly, not turning to look at her. 'You can leave it down the lane where your car is when you've finished with it. I can walk down to get it when I want it.' He looked over his shoulder. 'Now get out and leave me in peace,' he muttered between set teeth.
'Oh, I will, I will,' she flared, and turning, she slammed the door to, seeming to make the old house shake.
Seething with anger, she stamped up the stairs to the bedroom to find her shoes and then stamped down again. In the kitchen she pulled on her jacket, slung her raincoat over her shoulders and snatching up her handbag marched out into the yard, forgetful of the mud until she felt it, cold and wet, slithering over the edges of her shoes and into them.
'Oh!' she gasped. 'Oh!' and added as she swung round and shook a raised fist at the porch behind her, 'Beast, pig, mean chauvinistic beast!'
Having relieved herself of some of her anger, she sloshed through the mud to the Land Rover and got into it. As she had hoped, Alun had left the keys in the ignition.
It took her a while to get used to the vehicle and there was a lot of noisy crashing of gears as she manoeuvred it back and forth, trying to turn it so that she could leave the yard, but at last she was able to swing it round and set off along the rutted driveway towards the five-barred gate that she could hardly see until she was right up to it, so thick was the drizzling mist.