‘Oh, no? Try me – why do you think I’m a solicitor and not a brain surgeon? – blast it, missed again!’
‘What are you afraid of?’ Jane asked softly. ‘Why shouldn’t he be attracted to you? What else could he possibly want? He’s obviously not short of money, so it can’t be that. He’s a very attractive man…’
‘The most attractive I’ve ever met.’ Annie’s eyes went to the window; there were more shouts of laughter from the garden.
‘He gets on well with Davie and Davie with him.’
‘Yes.’
Jane came to her, rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Then just enjoy yourself. And give it time. You don’t have to rush into anything. I suppose that’s the answer to your question; if you’re falling in love, time will tell. Infatuation doesn’t last. You like him very much, don’t you?’
Annie lifted her head and her face broke into a dazzling smile. ‘Yes. I do.’
Her mother dropped a quick kiss on the top of her dark head. ‘And so do I, if that helps at all.’ She grinned impishly. ‘I could quite fancy him myself, as a matter of fact.’
‘Mother!’ They were still laughing at that when Richard and Davie appeared in the doorway. The man’s arm was resting across the boy’s shoulders in an easily companionable way, and they were both smiling; Richard’s eyes were warm on Annie’s. ‘Time to go,’ he said.
‘I’ll get my things.’
A few minutes later Jane and Davie stood at the door waving as the big green and black car pulled away. Annie’s shining bob blew in the wind as she leaned from the window to wave back. ‘I expect Richard will look after Mother while I’m away,’ Davie said.
Jane looked down at him affectionately. ‘Oh, I’m sure of it,’ she said, smiling. ‘Now – what do you say to toasted buns for tea?’
* * *
The big Wolseley purred along the quiet country lanes towards the main London road. For a long time neither Richard nor Annie spoke. She sat with head averted, watching the passing countryside, apparently absorbed but actually taking little in. She could feel – physically feel – the man’s presence beside her. Without the protection of Davie’s relentless and distracting chatter she was suddenly stricken by an odd and confusing combination of excitement, apprehension and an almost paralysing self-consciousness. She could think of absolutely nothing to say.
Richard sat easily, hands relaxed on the wheel, humming quietly to himself as he drove. They turned a corner, came up behind an ambling horse and cart. Richard slowed the car to a patient crawl, glanced at her with a smile. ‘Penny for them?’
At that moment she had been wondering if he would stay for the evening. If he would kiss her again. Her cheeks warm, she shook her head quickly. ‘They aren’t worth it.’
The lane widened. Richard swung the car carefully out to overtake, lifting an acknowledging hand to the cart driver, who nodded, unsmiling, lifting his ancient whip. The car surged forward again, Richard settled back in his seat. ‘May I ask you something?’ he said, after a moment.
She looked at him enquiringly.
‘Will you truly never go back to Paris?’
The question took her entirely by surprise. She thought about it for a moment, then gave a small shrug. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. There’s no real reason why I should.’
‘It seems such a pity. I know she holds unhappy memories for you, but I truly believe she is the loveliest and most romantic city in the world. Hasn’t enough time passed for you to forgive her?’
Annie said nothing, but gave the tiniest, stubborn shake of her head.
Richard glanced at her again. ‘Davie was born there. Won’t you take him back to see his birthplace?’
‘We’ve already discussed that,’ she said evenly. ‘Davie understands. He knows how I feel about the city and he knows how I feel about crossing deep water. He’ll go eventually, when he’s grown up. It doesn’t seem to bother him at the moment.’
‘Paris in June,’ he said musingly. ‘Coffee and croissants at a pavement cafe. Shuttered windows on a hot afternoon. The sun shining on the river. Sacré Coeur gleaming on top of her hill…’ He shook his head as he pulled out onto the main road and headed south. ‘I don’t see how you can resist going back, I really don’t.’
Annie’s fingers were clasped in her lap and she had dropped her head a little, her eyes fixed upon them. Her mouth, suddenly, was set in an obstinate and unhappy line.
Richard did not appear to notice her silence. ‘Think of Paris at night.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘Was there ever such a combination of fairytale and madhouse? Grand opera. Grand passion. Pretty girls in feathers and spangled tights. The Champs Élysées glittering like a string of diamonds. Bars packed with destitute artists and writers wrecking themselves with cheap absinthe, falling in love, falling out of love, putting the world to rights. The rich and the fashionable promenading on the boulevards, the down-and-outs clutching their bottles and bedding down under the bridges…’ He stopped speaking for a moment as he negotiated a tight corner. Annie turned her head to stare again sightlessly out of the window. ‘You knew Paris before the war,’ he said quietly. ‘You grew up there. You were young – beautiful—’
She turned, startled, to look at him, but his face, like his words, was matter-of-fact. His eyes were on the road, his voice was quiet. ‘I know it ended in tragedy. As it did for so many. But you must, surely, remember the good times? The beauty, the life, the love? It was ten years ago, Annie. A war, and a lifetime, away. Wouldn’t you think of coming back to Paris? With me?’
‘I…’ For a fraction of a second she hesitated. Then, ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, her heavy hair swinging about her face. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’
She struggled for a moment. ‘You’ll never understand,’ she said at last, flatly. ‘In fact I don’t even want you to try.’
There was a small silence. Then, ‘Fair enough,’ he said lightly.
They motored on. The sun, moving westward, lit the underside of suddenly gathering clouds to a picturesquely lurid glow in the wide East Anglian sky.
‘Tell me something?’ Richard asked.
She turned her head.
He smiled, not looking at her. ‘Am I invited to supper?’
Her heart lurched. ‘Yes. If you’d like.’
He glanced at his watch, then at her, eyes glinting. ‘Then when we get to town, best I find a sensible off-licence, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Sensible?’
He grinned. ‘One of the kind that sells Champagne,’ he said.
* * *
‘That was splendid. Thank you.’ Richard laid his knife and fork on his plate and pushed it a little away from him.
Annie shook her head. ‘It wasn’t exactly the Savoy.’ Richard leaned back in his chair and lifted his glass. ‘Who needs it? Suffolk ham, new-laid eggs and Champagne. A feast, no less!’
She smiled. ‘The Champagne certainly adds a certain something, doesn’t it? I seem to have run right out of lobster and asparagus. Perhaps next time?’ Despite her barely acknowledged apprehensions, the evening had been a delightful one. Richard had been an easy, entertaining and attentive companion. She felt light-hearted and not a little light-headed; they were already on their second bottle of Champagne. It was, she reflected wryly, becoming something of a habit.
Richard grinned. ‘Perhaps.’
The candles on the table flickered a little. In the darkness beyond the dining-room window rain had begun to fall, steadily and heavily.
Annie started to collect the plates. ‘There’s fruit if you’d like some?’
He shook his head, still smiling. As she reached for his plate he caught her wrist lightly. ‘Leave it,’ he said, ‘for now. We’ll do it later.’
There was a small, somehow slightly precarious silence. In the dancing light of the candles Richard’s eyes were very steady on hers. Her skin tingled beneath his light touch; she nibbled her lip. He smiled, a sudden flash of mischief in his face. ‘Anyway,’ he said,
letting go of her wrist, ‘you can’t use the sink yet. There’s another bottle of Champagne in it. It wouldn’t do to waste that, would it?’
Annie sat down again, leaned her elbows on the table and her chin on her cupped hands, watching him, eyebrows raised a little. ‘Are you trying to get me tiddly?’ she asked.
He laughed, shook his head. ‘That’s the last thing I’m trying to do.’
She surveyed him for a long moment, then reached for her glass and held it up to the candlelight, studying the glittering effect with apparently absorbed interest. Then her eyes flickered back to his. ‘Oh?’ she asked innocently. And with a daring touch of no doubt Champagne-induced impudence, ‘So, what’s the first thing?’
His eyes gleamed appreciatively. ‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
He reached across the table for her hand again. ‘First this,’ he said, turning her hand and kissing the palm gently. ‘Next – with your permission – a cigarette and a drop of your excellent whisky. Then I should like to turn on the wireless and dance with you.’ He stood up. ‘You bring the Champagne,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring the candles.’
She had lit the fire in the sitting room earlier, against the chill of the damp evening. Whilst Richard set the candles on the little table and went to fiddle with the radio, Annie poked the embers into life and tossed on a small log. Flames leapt and flickered. She straightened to find that he had come up quietly behind her. Before she could move he had slipped his arms about her, drawing her towards him, burying his face in her neck. She tipped her head back onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. They stood for a moment, swaying to the quiet sound of the music that did not drown out the thunder of the rain. Then, perfectly naturally and entirely without thought, she turned around in his arms and put her own arms about his neck.
Later she thought that, whatever had gone before, that kiss was her undoing. Perhaps she had willed it to be so. Perhaps after the years of sober responsibility, straitlaced respectability and stubborn self-denial, it was inevitable that the genie, once released from the bottle, could not be reconfined. They did not dance. They made love, on the floor in front of the fire, a thing she had never done in her life before.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, smiling down at her when she told him so. He had sat up, propped his back against an armchair, a cigarette in one hand and the other stroking her hair in a shining fan across his thigh. She was lying naked upon her back, arms outstretched, her head in his lap, watching him. The firelight flickered upon her skin. It was still raining.
‘I’ve never made love on the floor before.’ She lifted a hand, ran a finger down the sharp-angled curve of his cheek. ‘Only ever in bed.’
He drew once more on his cigarette, tossed it in the fire. Smiled down at her. ‘You like making love in bed?’ he asked softly, tugging at her hair a little. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go to bed.’
This time, at his gentle insistence, their lovemaking was more leisurely. ‘Wait, my darling,’ he whispered, tongue and fingers rousing and teasing. ‘We have… all… the time… in the world—’ He had turned on the bedside lamp. Helpless, she watched the play of light on his face and could have wept in the wonder of what she saw there. Indeed, in the end, weep she did. He leaned above her, resting on an elbow, bent to kiss her wet cheek. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’
Smiling, she shook her head, tears still welling. ‘No. Far from it.’
He watched her carefully for a moment longer, then he too smiled. ‘Time for that other bottle of Champagne, I think?’
* * *
Beyond the drawn curtains of the window the rain still fell in sheets. The room, lit by its single lamp, was an intimate cocoon enclosing them. Annie put her tall glass on the bedside table, threw her head forward so that her heavy hair covered her face, and teased at it with her fingers. ‘I must look an absolute mess!’
He shook his head, smiling, but said nothing. The smoke from his cigarette coiled in the air. He sipped his whisky.
Annie threw back the sheet, reached for the silk robe that was draped on the chair next to the bed.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Cover yourself. Hide from me. You don’t need to. You’re beautiful.’
A fiery colour rose in her cheeks. She hesitated.
‘Please?’
She nibbled her lip; then slipped from the bed and walked, naked, to the dressing table, perched on the stool and reached for a hairbrush.
Outside, a wind was lifting. The rain was being driven in gusts against the window.
He watched her. ‘Annie?’ he said quietly.
The slow, lazy brush strokes ceased; she turned her head a little, her face bright, to look at him in the mirror. ‘Yes?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Shock froze her. She looked at him in complete incomprehension. ‘What?’
‘I said – will you marry me?’ His voice was gentle. ‘I would have thought it a simple – and time-honoured – question?’
‘Marry you?’ she repeated blankly.
‘I do believe that’s what I said.’ His voice was patient.
‘But – Richard – I… we can’t! Not just like that! We hardly know each other!’
He lifted his eyebrows, glanced around the disordered room.
She flushed, swung the stool round to face him, looked at him for a long time, her arms suddenly and defensively crossed over her bare breasts. ‘Don’t you think this is just a little… premature?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘We’ve only met half a dozen times. Oh – I know—’ She shook her head sharply at his significantly lifted brows. ‘I know we’ve made love. And it was wonderful. But – marriage?’ Suddenly she was fighting something very close to panic. She walked to the bed and, forcing herself not to fumble, slipped on her silk dressing robe and belted it firmly before turning to face him.
Richard was watching her calmly. ‘I could have asked you the very first day I met you,’ he said, with tranquil certainty. ‘That, I agree, would certainly have been “a little premature”.’ He smiled. ‘If you ask me, I think I’ve been very forbearing.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, leaned forward and held out both hands to her, his smile disarming. ‘I love you,’ he said simply.
She shook her head again in confusion, desperately – and belatedly – wishing that she had not drunk so much Champagne. Of all the things she had hoped for – expected, even – this was the very last. ‘I—’
‘Yes?’
‘Richard, it isn’t that easy! You must know that. We can’t simply get married! Not just like that! It isn’t reasonable. It—wouldn’t be right!’ She was all too aware of the sudden narrowing of his eyes, the tightening of his long mouth, but stumbled on stubbornly, the words tumbling over each other. ‘We need time to get to know each other. There are… things that you don’t know about me. Things that I don’t know about you. We can’t just ignore that.’
‘Why not?’ The words were cool and quiet. Then, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked, in the same tone.
‘It isn’t that!’ she said quickly.
‘Then what is it?’ He was implacable.
She stared at him helplessly.
‘I’ve told you. I love you. I want you to marry me. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?’
‘Simple!’ Faintly hysterical laughter rose; she fought it down. ‘Look, Richard, I’m flattered and—and delighted that you feel…’ she trailed off.
‘I don’t want you to feel flattered and delighted,’ he said flatly. ‘I want you to say “Yes”. You may not have thought about this, but I have. I don’t want us snatching time together like this when Davie’s away—’
‘Davie,’ she said, snatching gratefully at that straw. ‘We do have to think of Davie. We can’t just—’
‘I’ve thought of Davie. He won’t mind. You know it.’ The quiet words were all but lost in a sudden squally blast of rain and wind against the window.
She said
nothing for a moment.
‘Annie?’ he asked.
She stood up, walked over to the window and drew back the curtains a little, looking sightlessly out into the drenched night.
‘One of the things you don’t know,’ she said, almost steadily, ‘is that I… can’t have any more children.’
‘I don’t want children,’ he said, immediately and with no pause for thought. ‘I want you. And Davie.’
She swung round, hands outstretched. ‘Richard, please! Don’t be so unreasonable! At least give me time – time to think, time to—’
‘Time to find excuses?’ he interrupted. He stood up, reached for his shirt. ‘I’m sorry to have upset you. I’m sorry to have… embarrassed you so. I should have known. You’ve made your opinion of marriage quite clear—’ His movements as he dressed were sharp and fierce. ‘I’m sorry if you find this’ – he made a curt gesture at the tumbled bed – ‘so much more romantic, more desirable.’ He hesitated. When he spoke again his voice was stiff and held the faintest edge of bitterness. ‘I’ve made a fool of myself. Again. I should have recognised the likeness—’ He stopped abruptly.
She swung to face him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked fiercely. ‘Likeness? To whom?’
‘Never mind.’ He picked up his tie, cracked it like a whip to smooth the creases, stalked to the mirror.
‘I do mind. Likeness to whom?’ Her own temper was beginning to slip.
‘I said never mind.’ Stone-faced, he fixed and straightened his tie, then reached for his jacket. He stood looking at her for a long moment. ‘The fact is, as I said, you don’t trust me. You want me. But you don’t trust me.’
‘That isn’t fair! It isn’t so!’
‘Isn’t it?’ He took one long step towards her, caught her shoulders in his hands and jerked her roughly to him. ‘Think about it,’ he said, and kissed her, hard, and with not the faintest trace of tenderness, before striding to the door. There he paused. ‘Think about it!’ he said again, and was gone, running fleetly down the stairs, his very footsteps sounding angry.
Treacherous Waters Page 9