Passage of the Night

by Amanda Carpenter

  Kirstie watched as he punched the button to summon a lift, then turned to her. 'I've never known anyone regain their composure quite as fast as you,' he said. As she met his intent green eyes, she sincerely hoped it didn't show how her composure was badly shaken when he slid his hand smoothly over hers, intertwining her fingers in a close clasp. 'Even when you're thrown off balance and reacting to a given situation, some inner ballast seems to take a shift and you're on your feet in no time. Louise doesn't have the trait.'

  'Come on, Francis,' she said quietly. 'You and I both know that Louise is no match for you.'

  His gaze flickered, but with what, she couldn't tell. 'Another reason for you to take up her battles?' he replied, returning insight for insight. 'Which will be the last battle? When does she start to fight for herself, and stand on her own two feet?'

  Kirstie looked away. The lift doors slid open, and they stepped inside.

  She kept silent on the ride up, but that was mainly because she had the most bizarre overriding desire to stop the lift, unbutton Francis's shirt and explore his bare chest. His fingers still retained a hold of sorts, sliding against her skin in what seemed to be a preoccupied, unconscious caress. If she moved very nonchalantly, her shoulder came into contact with his warm, solid bicep.

  That arm would be quite a mouthful to sink her teeth into. Tenderly, of course. She bit her lip hard instead. If there was one thing she found it difficult to forgive Francis for above all else, it was the way he had made her so physically aware of him. He had got his facts twisted around earlier. He was the one who had flipped her switches, and she had to find a way to turn them off again for good. Cold, hard sanity alone had brought her down to earth in the ravine.

  She didn't even want to want the man. Not him, not that charming exterior that could make her heart do delightful, agitated somersaults. Even if—if—Louise had been mistaken about him, she couldn't afford to get involved with someone who had such ease in twisting her thinking and destroying her peace of mind. There would be no joy in a budding relationship, no lovemaking, no trust building, no allegiance. Sex with Francis would be just sex. If she wanted mere physical exercise she could always double up on aerobics classes.

  They stepped out of the lift into a spacious corridor with intermittent double doors bordered on either side by great pottery vases filled with ferns. A woman in her early forties dressed in a white and black outfit that looked like something straight out of Dynasty came out of one set of doors just ahead of them, a Pekinese dog under one arm.

  She had a smile for Francis as they passed her, but all warmth faded from those peacock-blue painted eyes when they scrutinised Kirstie's undeniably scruffy appearance. 'Maybe she just didn't care for my Nikes, but they were new when I bought them,' whispered Kirstie when they stopped.

  Francis laughed as he unlocked the door to his apartment and thrust it open. 'Speak up. Anyone would think you were in church by the way you were acting.'

  'I was just wishing I had my camera with me.' Kirstie entered his apartment and looked around with appreciation. The living-room was a large sunken area lined with pale blue couches. The opposite wall was entirely glass, the corner of a metal table and chairs visible through a crack in the curtains. If her sense of direction was right, there would be an excellent view of Central Park from the patio. 'Very trendy. Remind me to be kidnapped more often.'

  His mouth twitched wryly, but he didn't comment as he turned away. 'Make yourself at home. I have a few calls to make.'

  'You mean I can have the run of the place?'

  He looked over his shoulder. Overt delight beamed from Kirstie's face, but the sparkle in her eyes was too sharp for his liking.

  He frowned. 'Of course. If you'll excuse me.'

  Kirstie wandered through the spacious apartment and grew more and more troubled. In addition to the living-room there were four bedrooms, two with en suite bathrooms, and a study. The kitchen would be a chef's dream, and she'd bet there was a separate dining-room or at the very least a breakfast-nook.

  To Kirstie the place was rather like a trip to Disneyland, but Francis hadn't given any of it a second glance. He took it so much for granted that he didn't even show any pride of possession. The whole situation, already tangled past unravelling, had taken another slide away from her. It was beyond all understanding.

  After about twenty minutes, Kirstie poked her head around the corner of the kitchen. Francis leaned against the counter and scribbled into a black diary, a phone receiver pinned between his left shoulder and ear. His black hair fell into his eyes and he swiped it back impatiently. He was tousled, casually, attired in another of Paul's outfits from the cabin, but nevertheless looked part of the picture. He darted her a quick glance and held up a finger.

  '. . .Right. That's fine. Thanks a lot, Mrs Callihan. I probably won't see you tomorrow as I'll be working late, but I'll leave a grocery list on the counter.'

  Kirstie said as he hung up, 'An IBM computer in the study, an Austrian crystal chess-set on an ivory and mahogany board, televisions and videos in each of the bedrooms—did you know that you have over fifty of those handmade suits hanging in your closet? And that's some jacuzzi in your bathroom. Can I try it before I leave?'

  Francis stared at her very hard, eyes narrowed. 'That's some inventory check you've conducted. Get to the point.'

  Her brow wrinkled as she lifted herself to a sitting position on the counter opposite him and idly swung her legs. 'You see, Francis, the more I look around, the more things don't add up.'

  'You know about my position at Amalgamated Trust.' He folded his arms and tilted his head back. 'Do you have any idea what that job entails?'

  'Simplistically, you make money make money.' She hunched her shoulders. 'I knew you were successful, but after looking at this, my estimate is that you have to be on a seven-figure income.'

  'My kind of expertise is well paid for. As it happens, the apartment is rented by the corporation, but the furnishings are mine and in any case I could afford to pay the rent if I had to. Why doesn't that add up?'

  'It's not in the possessions, but what they imply. We've got a bit of money in the family, but a lot of it is sunk into the aircraft and radar equipment. We're lucky; the business is solvent, we have good contracts for regional shipping, and the tourist sideline that I handle brings in a tidy amount of change. I suppose it's rather despotic to say we're well capable of providing for our own. But we're nowhere near your league.'

  Francis considered her as if he'd never seen her before. 'I didn't realise you were so materialistic.'

  'I'm not!' she said impatiently. 'You're not getting the point. Look at yourself objectively. You move among the cream of New York. A lot of your associates are probably old money. You could and probably have dated world-class models, debutantes, women novelists, even English aristocracy. Like all of us, Louise has had her chance at a good education and the choice of whether or not to help out in the business, but she teaches high-school chemistry, for God's sake. Francis, why her after all these years?'

  'I'm no sexual athlete, Kirstie,' he told her quietly. 'A seventy-to eighty-hour working week is not conducive to the kind of life you're building up in your mind.'

  She made a quick gesture with one hand. 'You wouldn't have to be. Louise is lovely, but, if you don't mind my saying so, you're one hell of a catch. All I'm getting at is that you must have your pick of dozens of attractive women if you're that way inclined. Are you in love with my sister? It can't be simple sexuality. I just don't understand, that's all.'

  'Yet you were the one who shed the most honest light on the situation, however flippantly you meant it,' he replied. Her gaze was locked with his. Those green eyes of his were most beautiful with expression. 'Perhaps when I looked her up I did want to make a trip down memory lane. Life tasted different with a little suspense. We didn't know what the future would hold for us, but we were eager to find out. Tedium played no part in our dreams. I wanted to remember what spring was like again.'


  'But spring comes every year. It shouldn't be just a memory,' she said, and for the first time since he had known her there was uncomplicated compassion in Kirstie's expression. He saw it and smiled. She came down off her counter perch, and without thinking reached for both of his hands. 'Francis, could you have made some mistake? Could you have somehow pressurised Louise without realising it?'

  She was begging for some kind of explanation to ease her nagging doubt; she knew it and didn't care. His eyes darkened as he looked down at her upturned face. He cupped her cheek in what looked like sorrow, and gave her own words back to her. 'I can't, Kirstie. It's too much to ask of me.'

  She bent her head and turned away.

  Francis stirred and became brisk. 'Are you hungry? I'm starving.'

  It was a deliberate move on his part, another extension of the olive-branch, and with an effort she took the distraction he offered. 'I could eat. What have you got?'

  'Probably nothing edible after five days away.' He picked up a Yellow Pages directory that was by the phone. 'Why don't I get a pizza delivered?'

  'Fine, anything.'

  She was staring at the floor. She didn't see his sympathetic glance. 'You can raid my wine-rack if you like.' With one finger on the page, he picked up the receiver.

  Kirstie shook off her worries, opened the refrigerator door and stuck her head inside. 'Got any beer?'

  They ate the pizza straight from the box outside on the balcony, washing it down with Miller Lite. By some strange miracle they managed to preserve the companionable atmosphere begun so briefly in Vermont.

  Francis had changed into some of his own clothes, casual steel-grey trousers and a pale pink shirt. Kirstie decided that pink suited him. His black hair looked more glossy, his eyes even more vivid. After all that wood-chopping, his face had acquired a brown tan which also suited him.

  'By the way,' he told her, propping his feet in an empty chair, 'you're kidnapped until Louise gets here at nine.'

  She was silent for a moment, brooding. So this was the way it would be handled, then? A myriad emotions swirled inside like dustdevils raised by a storm, every one of them aching. There would be no winner in the confrontation, but all she said was, 'At least I can get a ride home with her.'

  The night sky was purple while below them the street lights glowed. The concrete floor of the balcony still retained much of the daytime heat, contrasting with gusts of cooling breeze.

  'You have a most atypical attitude towards all this. I don't know why it should surprise me,' he said abruptly.

  Kirstie saw no reason why she shouldn't be honest with him. 'What other way is there to be? I haven't so much as a wooden nickel in these jeans, so unless you provided either transportation or let me use your phone I didn't have a great deal of choice, did I?'

  'Didn't you mind being kidnapped and forced into this against your will?'

  'Didn't I deserve it?' Their gazes clashed. She asked, deliberately indifferent, 'Are you still sore about yours?'

  'Oh, no,' he said comfortably. 'I'm still miffed about that middle-class crack, though.'

  'You're not,' she said, and laughed. She couldn't help herself.

  'I am.' He sent her a level look and the skin along Kirstie's upper arms tingled. 'You don't know me at all, do you?'

  Her smile faded. Unbidden, an electric image of the gully burned her retina. 'Should I?' she whispered.

  Through the open glass door, they both heard the buzz of the intercom from across the living-room. Francis rose to his feet leisurely. 'That will be Louise downstairs.'

  He went inside, and Kirstie's mind threw her into rollercoaster loops. What was it she didn't understand about Francis? Which man did she believe in? Of course he was charming, but the devil himself was said to be a gentleman. Yes, indeed he knew how to fit himself to one's mood, which could be as comforting as a well-loved slipper. But wasn't that in itself a manipulation?

  It was a rocky ride she was on. If she went any faster or was thrown on any more loops, she felt as if she might crash off the beaten track, and there was a hell of a drop to the ground.

  It didn't bear thinking about. She was tearing herself into pieces. Kirstie slammed the cardboard lid back on the left-over pizza savagely.

  Francis had waited by the front door. She twisted in her seat when she heard a light, impatient knock. What had he said to her sister in order to make her come? She saw Francis hesitate and look towards the balcony. He opened the door. And Kirstie saw Louise step inside and throw her arms around his neck.

  This was the loop in the ride.

  The blood left Kirstie's face. She couldn't breathe. She rose very carefully. Put one foot in front of another. Touched the door-handle to see if it was real. She looked down at her hand. Force the fingers apart. Let go, Kirstie.

  '—and your secretary just kept putting me off,' her sister was saying. Abundant golden hair tumbled down her back, unlike Kirstie's untidy wisps. Louise raised a hand to Francis's face—he hadn't moved since opening the door. 'Why didn't you call if you couldn't make our date on Friday? I've been half out of my mind.'

  And Kirstie went too fast on that ride.

  'Louise,' said Francis. He put both hands to her upper arms and gently pushed her away.

  And Kirstie went over the edge, and fell.

  'Hello, Louise,' she said quietly. Francis looked at her. With a startled gasp, the other woman whirled. 'I cancelled the date for you after we talked on Thursday night. I see I don't know what is going on after all.'

  'Oh, God,' said Louise, too high and much too fast. 'What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on a business trip! Do you two know each other? How do you two know each other? Kirstie, you must believe me, it isn't what you think. Damn you, I told you to stay away!'

  'I see,' she said. She took a seat at one end of the couch. Francis had never seen Kirstie's face so blank, her eyes such a bottomless black.

  'I think you don't,' said Francis.

  Louise was as slight as Kirstie, with velvet blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. She looked nowhere near her age at the best of times. Now she seemed no more than a wretched child as she twisted her fingers through the strap of her bag. Though there was nine years' difference between them, Kirstie felt ancient at the sight of her.

  'Did you honestly think I could stay away, after your superbly heartwrenching cry for help?' she asked, her voice a harsh scrape of sound. 'Why, Louise? I've never known you to lie to me before.'

  'I don't know. I didn't mean to, but you were so close to finding out. It's just—I'm thirty-five years old. Seeing him made me feel as if I were twenty again. I never wanted to hurt anyone, or cause so much trouble. It's just that I'm so confused,' Louise whispered. Her blue eyes clung to Kirstie and begged.

  Kirstie looked down at the knees of her jeans. She smoothed slow fingers over the material. She thought of last Friday, and Francis's anger. She thought of the helicopter and the cabin, and fresh-water trout. She thought of Louise staring at herself in a mirror, being frightened of the wrinkles she saw beginning to line her face. A new pain hit her hard in the chest.

  At first it was difficult to speak. She asked, 'Are you going to marry Neil on Saturday?'

  For a long moment Louise's gaze darted back and forth between her younger sister and Francis. All his attention was on Kirstie and he was silent. 'I—I don't ' Louise said.

  'Are you, or aren't you, Louise?' Francis asked. His face was hard, a closed book, giving nothing to either of them.

  Louise searched his face, but he looked almost bored, and her lips tightened until she was an ugly sight. 'Yes,' she said, and the single uttered word was cold.

  Patience fought the pain and disillusionment inside Kirstie and won. She stood, walked over to Louise and put one arm around her. 'Then we should be finished with this business. It's gone too far. Let's go home.'

  Louise bowed her head and nodded. Kirstie walked with her to the door, then turned back to look at Francis. From a statuesque stillness,
he had come to life with the most strange expression. How odd it must be for him to say goodbye a second time to his past.

  'Kirstie ' He took two rapid steps forward, held out one hand.

  'I'm so sorry. For everything,' she told him. The pain rose in her eyes, now grey as a rain-filled summer day.

  'It doesn't have to be like this, you know.'

  'I know of no other way it can be.' He had been the victim in all ways, in this messy cauldron of mixed emotions. She could give him one more thing; she had that much left in her. She smiled just a little, saw the sight of it hit him like a blow and said, 'Goodbye, Francis. Be happy.'

  Kirstie's trip with her sister down the lift to the lobby of the apartment building was made in utter silence.

  Victor the doorman was kept rather occupied as they passed him, for he held the leashes of three excitable afghan hounds who had run around him enough times to effectively truss him like a turkey. As Kirstie stared at the scene without really taking it in, Louise led the way to her parked car.

  Although the older woman still looked shell-shocked, the colour was beginning to flood back to her cheeks in two red spots and her eyes regained their bright diamond glitter. When Kirstie had climbed into the passenger seat, it was to confront her sister lounging comfortably, one slim arm over the top of the steering-wheel, the blue eyes vivid.

  After a moment, Louise said, softly, 'Whoever would have thought it?'

  Kirstie closed her eyes. God, if it was one thing she wasn't in the mood for, it was a post mortem. 'What do you mean?' she asked tiredly, although she knew full well.

  'You,' said Louise. Her fingernails tapped a gentle rhythm against the wheel. 'Braving the lion in his den, so to speak. You must have broken all sorts of records in returning from your trip. Have you even been home yet?'

  She raised one hand to run it through her short-cropped hair, making the wispy ends even more wild. Then she turned her head, met Louise's curious stare and said flatly, 'I never went. There was no business trip. I took the helicopter, took Francis and flew to Vermont for the weekend.'