It was eleven before Dane left the restaurant. He stood in the doorway for a couple of minutes, looking around him as if making up his mind which way to go, then he turned to the right, making for the park which was the centre of the carnival celebrations. The square was absolutely crowded with people, nearly all of them in some sort of fancy dress. Even some of the tourists were wearing funny hats and masks. In the centre of the square was a raised stage where a band of men all dressed as Roman soldiers were playing, surrounded by costumed people who danced or stood around and clapped and sang to the music.
Because of the crowds, Minta had to move to within only a few yards of Dane, but he was moving only slowly through the throng and she didn't have too much difficulty. He stood on the edge of the crowd around the bandstand for a short while, then moved across to sit at a vacant table outside one of the cafes. Minta stood hesitantly in the deep shadow of a tree trunk for a while and then, the success of her disguise giving her confidence, did the same. Her feet ached and she was dying for a cup of coffee, the smell of which had drifted to her on the breeze.
They sat only a few tables apart, Minta trying not to make it too obvious that she was watching him, but her eyes, behind the sad clown's face, going often towards Dane, unable to keep away. Seeing him again had brought all the old emotions flooding back: love, need, desire. It had been so long since he had last held her in his arms and told her he loved her. So long since they had made love. Her body ached for him. Minta picked up her cup of coffee, lifting the mask a little so that she could drink its bitter hotness. Looking up, she was shocked to find Dane apparently watching her, but his eyes moved on, resting on someone else in carnival costume, and she breathed again. She shouldn't have come. It had been a stupid, masochistic thing to do. It had brought back all the torments that she had tried so hard to smother in the last two months. She would drink this and then go, make a vow with herself never to be so stupid again.
She raised her cup—and suddenly felt her left wrist taken in a vicelike grip. With a gasp of surprise, she looked up and saw Dane staring down at her hand. Her eyes followed his. Her rings! God, she'd forgotten to take off her rings and he'd recognised them! Her horrified eyes rose to meet his. Dane, too, seemed unable to believe the evidence of his own eyes. But then he gave a strangled sound and reached up to tear the mask from her face, snapping the elastic and throwing it onto the ground.
'Minta!'
The name came out as a gasping cry. Dane was staring into her face, his own white with shock in the lamplight.
Her surprise at being discovered somewhat less than Dane's at finding her, Minta recovered more quickly and reacted quite instinctively, throwing the cup she was holding and its contents into his face. He automatically recoiled and put up a hand to protect his eyes which gave Minta a chance to pull her wrist free from his hold. Desperately wiping some of the coffee from his eyes, Dane reached for her again, but she overturned the table so that he stumbled over it. Then Minta turned and ran, diving into the darkness of the trees, dodging through the crowds, and jumping over the low fences round the flower beds, in a mad panic in case he caught her. She pushed and battled her way out of the square, bumping into a mob of people who were following a new band in her mad haste, once almost being knocked down by a man who got annoyed when she cannoned into him. But she somehow managed to keep her balance and bolted out of the square, running up one of the main roads leading back into the centre of town. The street was still crowded, but it had been closed to traffic because of the carnival, so she was able to run up the centre of the road, her feet flying as if the devil was after her. And he was. When she reached the corner, Minta glanced back—and gave a cry of horror as she saw Dane running up the road a couple of hundred yards behind her.
Too late she realised that the brightly coloured wig must have given her away, acting like a beacon for him to follow. As soon as she rounded the corner, she tore it from her head and threw it into an open doorway, her hair tumbling loose on her shoulders, then she ran on, heading for the back streets where there were dark alleys and places where she could hide. But he must have guessed her intention, because she could hear him pelting after her. The silly plastic shirt-front came loose and flapped in front of her face, so she tore it off and threw it aside, her breath coming in ragged gasps now. She reached the next corner, went on for only a few yards, then plunged down a narrow lane between older houses, came out into a small square and ran down one of several alleys that gave off it, her footsteps and loud, panting breaths echoing against the walls. At the other end she paused for a moment to get her breath, hardly able to see. The stitch in her side had come back, tearing at her with every step she took, and she knew she couldn't keep going much longer. Then the brightly lit sign of a disco swam into focus not far down the road and she ran towards it, giving a last look back to make sure Dane wasn't in sight before plunging into the doorway.
The place was full of young people, most of them in grotesque carnival costumes, reminding her momentarily of the club she had gone to in London on the first night she had met Dane. It was full of smoke which hung on the still, hot air and lit only by flashing psychedelic lights which battered the eyes as the loud irregular beat of the music battered the ears. Minta pushed her way deep into the back of the room like a thief trying to hide in a crowd. But then she saw a door with the universal sign of a little man and woman over it and went through, with some vague idea of locking herself in the ladies' loo. Luck, however, was with her, because at the end of the corridor leading past the loos there was another door which, when she tried it, opened into a yard at the back of the disco. Cautiously she went through. The yard was surrounded on all sides by a high wall, but she managed to stack up some boxes and climbed it, dropping to the ground on the other side with a thump that knocked the wind out of her.
Staggering to her feet, Minta hurried on, forever looking back over her shoulder in case Dane should happen to find her. Only when she had covered a couple of miles and knew for sure that Dane wasn't following her did she start to relax a little. By now she was completely exhausted and gratefully lay down on a bench in a small park to rest. She had no real idea where she was, but guessed that she was near the old town and the cathedral; not that it really mattered; in Las Palmas you were never far from the sea, and once it was light and she knew in which direction it lay, she would easily be able to get her bearings. Pulling her jacket more tightly around her, she prepared to settle down for the night, giving up her earlier intention of finding a small hotel in which to spend the night. Now all she wanted to do was get off this island as soon as possible and back to the safety of Tenerife.
Sometimes she dozed a little, but mostly lay awake, thinking of Dane, of how he had looked—and wondering why. At first light she washed her face in a nearby fountain, her body stiff and cramped from the hard bench. There were few people about as Minta made her way back to the jet-foil. The first one left at eight, so she had a long time to wait, but at least she would be sure of getting a seat; it often got quite full of holidaymakers going to spend the day on the other island. Eight came at last and Minta hurried on board, grateful to have an end to her stupid escapade.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She should never have gone back. Life resumed on Tenerife much as before, but now Minta felt completely unsettled again, and it was hard to take. Never having done a full-time job before, she found the long hours and hard work were beginning to tell on her and she lost weight, which ordinarily wouldn't have done her any harm but was all wrong now. In some ways, of course, it was fortunate, because no one at the restaurant or the hotel suspected she was pregnant. She wanted to hang on to both her room and her job as long as possible. But the cooking, too, started to become repetitious, the manager refusing to vary the menu from week to week as Minta wanted, saying that the tourists would only order dishes they recognised. Depression and tiredness settled on her like a black cloak, and she would gladly have gone to bed and just stayed there.
But thinking about the baby helped, and gradually, over the next two or three weeks, Minta managed to take hold of life again. She bought some wool and needles, and although she hadn't done any knitting since she was at school, determinedly set about making the baby a little coat, although she seemed to spend quite a time unpicking the thing. One morning, she sat in her room, wrestling with the knitting pattern and deciding that she would have to give birth to a giant if this was going to fit. She sighed, realising that she was going to have to unpick it and start again; she must have gone fundamentally wrong somewhere. At this rate her poor baby would have to go around naked! There was a knock on her door and she thankfully put the knitting aside, tucking the pattern out of sight, knowing that it was Beatriz, one of the hotel maids, who always came to change the sheets and towels at this time on Wednesdays and usually stayed to have a chat, their conversation a mixture of broken English and Spanish.
Pulling the door wide, she said, 'Come in, Beatriz. I…' then stopped dead.
She ought to have known that Dane would find her. That having seen her again he wouldn't give up until he tracked her down. He stood in the doorway, his face set into a grim mask, his grey eyes ice-cold and menacing.
Without thinking, Minta immediately tried to shut the door against him, but he kicked it open with his foot, knocking it out of her hands and sending it crashing back on its hinges. Then he strode into the room and slammed the door, shutting her in with him in a room that suddenly seemed as small as a cupboard.
They stood staring at each other, Minta too stunned and afraid to speak, Dane too angry. His eyes were on her face, devouring it, and it seemed to cost him a great effort before he ordered, through gritted teeth, 'Get your things together. I'm taking you back with me.'
'No!' Minta backed away from him. 'I won't go with you!'
'You'll come. You'll come if I have to drag you.' He glared at her, his jaw thrust forward threateningly.
'No, I won't. Get out of here! You have no right to…'
'No right?' He strode furiously towards her and pushed her roughly back against the wall when she tried to move away. 'I have a perfect right to do anything I damn well want to you. Do you know how I've searched for you? Do you?' He gripped her arms. 'Why the hell did you run out on me?'
'You know why.' The old bitterness came flooding back as she finally accused him. 'You lied and cheated from the first day we met. You never loved me—it was always Delia Nelson. You kept on seeing her and making love to her even after I found out. All you ever wanted me for was to get financial security from my father. You just…'
'That isn't true! Not one word of it. For God's sake, why can't you believe me?'
'Believe you?' Minta laughed harshly. 'You must be joking! I proved that you lied. I phoned someone in my father's firm and he told me that you'd got the bank's backing. But you denied it, you said it was some syndicate.'
'Because I'd promised your father that I wouldn't tell you. He didn't want you to know.'
'Which suited you very well,' Minta retorted scornfully. 'You're a fool if you expect me to believe that. Why the hell wouldn't he want me to know?'
'Possibly because he's as stubborn as you are and didn't want you to know that he'd had to climb down. That he'd lost the battle. He was as jealous as hell of you marrying me—of you marrying any man, if it comes to that.'
'That's a perfectly idiotic thing to say!'
'Is it?' Dane asked jeeringly. 'The relationship you two had was closer than that of any other father and daughter I've ever known. When you turned up at my hotel room in London that night it was more in defiance of your father than because you wanted to go to bed with me.'
'That isn't true!' Minta's pale cheeks flushed red with anger. 'I was in love with you.'
'Love! What the hell do you know about love? Oh, you said it often enough, but you didn't have the least idea what it means. You're just a spoilt brat who's always been given everything you wanted. As soon as someone threw the slightest suspicion on me, you took off, convinced that I'm every kind of a scoundrel. And that after everything we had together,' he added with bitter revulsion.
'For God's sake!' Minta broke from his hold and turned to glare at him. 'Do you call confirmed lies and adultery suspicion? She told me! I went to see your damn mistress and she told me—how you'd used me, and even how you'd made her prostitute herself for you. And how you intended to get rid of me when the baby was born and you didn't need me any more.' Her voice rose hysterically. 'Do you really think I was going to hang around after that?'
Dane's face had gone very pale. He stood with his hands clenched at his sides, his mouth set into a thin, bitter line. 'You really believed that poison? She was a jealous, spiteful woman and you believed her?' He shook his head as if to clear it. 'Even that she'd prostituted herself for me? Okay, she went to bed with the owner of that land, but because she wanted to, because she's that kind of woman. But if you believed her then that proves you never really loved me. If you had you'd have trusted me, no matter what she'd said. You would at least have faced me with it instead of running off and letting me go through hell trying to find you. Not knowing where you were or what had happened to you.' Painfully he added, 'It must take some special form of sadism to inflict that kind of cruelty on anyone!'
Minta bit her lip. True or false! Always the same question. He would behave the same either way, say the same words. And nothing had changed. Even though she still loved him she couldn't give him the benefit of the doubt, not when she had so much at stake. 'Why shouldn't I believe her? She knew everything about me: that I was pregnant, that I couldn't swim very well, about my father backing you; only you could have told her those things—and after you said that you'd never see her again.'
'I admit I told Delia that I'd got financial backing from your father's bank when we first came to the Canaries. But as I never expected her to meet you it hardly seemed to matter that she knew. I certainly never expected her to use it as a weapon against us,' Dane exclaimed bitterly. 'As for your swimming—she came to our hotel soon after we arrived here; to get a look at you, I suppose. I saw her up at the pool one day—and had the hell of a row with her about it afterwards.'
'And the baby? How are you going to explain away the fact that she knew about that?' Minta asked sarcastically.
He shrugged. 'I can't. I certainly never told her. Maybe she guessed when she saw you.'
'You make it sound so plausible.' Dane looked up quickly at that, a speculative light in his eyes. 'But then liars always do,' she added with relentless punishment.
'What the hell do I have to do to convince you?' he demanded grimly.
'Nothing. There's nothing you can say or do that will ever make me change my mind. The fact still remains that you're completely dependent on my father's backing. And for that you need me—or my child. And if you lay a hand on me again, I'll scream the place down!' Her voice rose in alarm as he took an angry stride towards her.
'Don't worry,' he sneered, his voice ice-cold. 'I have no desire to touch you. And for your information, I no longer have the backing of your father's bank. I don't need it. My brother died last month, of natural causes, as it happens, and it seemed that he had taken out a big insurance policy when he was flush some years ago. It was enough to clear the rest of his debts that I've been struggling to pay off and to make me independent, especially as the time-share project has really taken off and is starting to show a profit.'
Minta stared at him, then said dully, 'I don't believe you.'
His mouth twisted in disgust. 'Somehow I thought you'd say that! Well, believe it or not, that's up to you. It makes no difference; I'm still taking you back home with me. So start packing.'
'Like hell I will!' Minta snapped back. 'If you don't need my father's money, then you don't need me. Or have you forgotten that?' she demanded with mock sweetness.
'I don't have to remember because it never came into it. I'm taking you back because you're going to have my child. When it's born we can w
ork things out, but until then you're going to live with me and be taken care of, whether you like it or not. It's my kid and I'm not going to let you endanger it because of your stupid pride and blindness. Besides,' he added scornfully, 'a child needs love, and you can't even recognise it, let alone give it!'
Minta glared at him, that last knife thrust hurting more than he could possibly have guessed. If he'd loved her he would have known how much she cared, that she had only left him because she loved him so much. And she still didn't know whether to believe him; he could be making up the story about the insurance policy just to get her to go back with him. Cold anger filled her, and a desire to hit back and hurt as he had hurt her. 'You're wasting your time,' she said shortly. 'There isn't going to be any baby.'
He stared at her. 'What do you mean?'
'You heard me,' she jeered. 'Do you really think that I'd go through with having your child after what you did to me? No way. I got rid of it. I had an abortion. Now do you understand? There isn't going to be any baby!'
Dane stood as if turned to stone, completely frozen, his eyes staring into her face. Then, after what seemed an eternity, his eyes travelled slowly down her body, seeing her thinness, her prominent hipbones emphasising the flatness of her stomach. 'You bitch!' He spat the words at her in a groan of mingled pain, anger and despair. 'Oh, God—you cruel, sadistic little bitch!' Then he started towards her, with such a look of rage on his face that Minta instinctively backed quickly away, but she stumbled against a small table that came down, with its contents, on top of her.
Dark Awakening Page 15