Crescendo

by Charlotte Lamb

  'She seemed very disturbed,' she offered, aware that she was trying to get him to talk about it and ashamed of her curiosity but unable to stop her­self.

  Gideon didn't answer, though. He drove with his eyes intent on the road ahead and the dark anger was visible in his face again. After a moment, he said, 'I'm sorry I spoke to you like that, though.'

  It was her turn not to answer. She was suddenly invaded by anger, guessing that he was patronising her, regretting that he had spoken to her in anger because ever since they met he had been very care­ful of her. He had treated her like a child and he was treating her like one now.

  She knew that he was watching her obliquely and she turned her head away because she did not want him to know that she resented his attitude to her.

  The rest of the drive was accomplished in silence. As he stopped the car, he turned and put a hand over hers. 'Are you angry with me?' His tone pleaded gently and she had to look at him.

  'Of course not,' she said politely. 'Why should I be?'

  'I can't explain,' he broke out roughly. 'Will you forgive me for speaking to you like that?'

  'I said I did,' Marina reminded quietly, and pulled her hand out from under his before she got out of the car.

  She did not turn towards the cottage. She moved away towards the cliff and Gideon came after her in his long stride, catching her arm.

  'Where are you going?' There was that odd hoarse anxiety in his voice and she saw sweat on his forehead.

  Frowning, puzzled, she said, 'For a walk.'

  'We should get back to Grandie,' Gideon told her, his hand tightening round her arm.

  'You go,' said Marina in an uneven voice. 'I want to walk.'

  As she turned he came with her and she looked at him levelly. 'Alone, please,' she told him without anger or rudeness. 'I like walking alone.'

  She walked away and Gideon stood there watch­ing her for a long time. She went down the cliff path and heard the free shriek of the gulls on the warm air, their soaring swooping flight all round her. The sea lay glittering at her feet and the turf had a sundrenched sweetness which filled her nostrils. She lay down and breathed quietly. For some reason she had felt claustrophobic on the way back in the car. She had wanted—no, she had needed, to get away from Gideon. Something in him oppressed her. She could not put her finger on what it was—an emotion, a pressure within him of which she was ignorant but of which she could not be un­aware. Although she did not know what it was, she did know she had to get away from it. It was a pres­sure on her, too, and the fact that she did not un­derstand what it was made the pressure greater.

  She heard a stone rattle past and the slither of feet. Gideon? She tensed, turning her head, but it was not him. It was a young man in a striped T- shirt and jeans with binoculars round his neck. The sun had caught his skin, turning him a rough pink, and his short fair hair prickled across his forehead, perspiration making it clear he had been walking for a long time.

  He paused, seeing her. 'Oh!' The exclamation was surprised and not displeased. He smiled. 'Sorry if I'm disturbing you.'

  'You're not.' Marina half moved to get up and he sat down beside her, his eyes on her.

  'Don't go. Please. I'd hate to think I've driven you away.'

  She half laughed. 'You haven't. I was just going.'

  'Not yet,' he pleaded, his hand on her arm. 'Tell me, how far is it to the nearest village?'

  She sat down again, her arms propping her up. 'Basslea is a short walk from here.'

  He got out a map from the rucksack on his back and she pointed it out to him, their heads close together. 'Would you like a drink?' He produced a plastic bottle of orange squash from the clustered contents of the rucksack and then a small plastic mug. They each drank a little. The young man ex­tended his hand after packing the bottle and mug away again.

  'I'm Tom Hutton.'

  Marina told him her name and saw his face re­flect interest and surprise. 'What a gorgeous name! And apt.' He glanced at the sea and sighed. 'Are you on holiday too?'

  'I live here.'

  'Even more apt, then,' he agreed. 'I'm on holiday, a walking tour. I work in Birmingham all through the year and it's heavenly to get out of the place.'

  'What sort of work?' she asked.

  'I'm a draughtsman. It's work that needs a lot of concentration and it can be deadly dull.' He stared at her hair, blowing in the faint sea breeze. 'What fantastic hair you've got! I don't think I've ever seen hair that colour before. Is it genuine?'

  Marina laughed. 'You suspect I've dyed it? No, it's mine all right. It was even lighter when I was little.'

  'That must be impossible,' said Tom Hutton, fingering a strand of it. 'I can't imagine it.'

  A sound behind them made them both turn. Gideon stood on the edge of the cliff with his black eyes fixed on them and a harsh frown running be­tween his brows.

  'Marina!' he spoke tersely. 'Your grandfather wants you.'

  Tom's hand dropped away from her hair and she turned to smile at him. 'It was nice to meet you.'

  'Maybe we'll bump into each other again,' he said with a hopeful inflection. 'I might stay in the village for a few days. I want to take a look at these birds.' He indicated his binoculars.

  'You're a birdwatcher?' She laughed, sym­pathetically. 'Not much chance of that in Birming­ham, I suppose.'

  'Marina!' Gideon's voice had a biting sound. 'Are you coming?'

  She rose, slightly flushed, and Tom glanced round at Gideon with a faintly irritated expression. 'Is that your father?'

  Marina laughed and then stopped laughing as she felt Gideon's rage coming towards them. He had heard the question and he was not pleased.

  'No,' she said, and started to walk back up the cliff. 'Goodbye, Tom.'

  'See you later,' said Tom.

  As she reached the cliff top Gideon's arm shot Out and jerked her on to the path. She sensed that lie was in a black temper. There was violence in him and although he did not do so she suspected i hat he would like to shake her. All the tenderness and gentleness had gone from his face. This was mother man, a cold hard man with eyes which held no warmth.

  'How did you pick him up?' he demanded.

  'He's on a walking tour and he's going to stay in the village.' She turned her head to look at him, frowning. 'Why?'

  'You shouldn't talk to strangers. You don't know anything about him.'

  'I don't know anything about you,' she pointed our. 'You're a stranger.' In many ways he was far more of a stranger than Tom Hutton, whose kind honesty lay written in his- flushed, fair face. Tom was a straightforward young man; one only had to look at him to see that. He did not have Gideon Firth's complexity or dark side.

  'You know what I mean,' he brushed aside with an irritable shrug.

  'No,' she contradicted, 'I don't.' She had thought she knew him by now, but that incident when he spoke with such cold ferocity to the woman with sunglasses had altered her whole view of him. She did not know the reasons for it, but she did know this—the woman had been distressed and emotional and Gideon had treated her with icy indifference. Marina found that disturbing.

  Gideon halted and turned towards her, his face tense. 'I wouldn't hurt you, Marina, but you can't be sure about other people.'

  'Tom wouldn't hurt anybody.' She knew that even after five minutes with him. It had been written in his open friendly face.

  Gideon drew a strange, impeded breath. 'You can't be certain of that. Stay away from him. I didn't like the way he looked at you.'

  Her eyes rounded in disbelief and surprise. 'What on earth do you mean?' Tom? she thought.

  What nonsense! Gideon is talking nonsense.

  Gideon seemed lost for words. He was frowning, his mouth straight, his jaw stiff, and she could feel a turmoil inside him, as though he were searching for a way of saying whatever it was he wanted to say, and not finding it. The frustration and im­patience came out in what he did say which was curt and irrelevant. 'What did he mean—was I your father? For
God's sake, do I look as if I've got a child your age?'

  Marina laughed because his fury was out of pro­portion, it amused and softened her towards him because it indicated such vulnerability, a personal sense of insult.

  'Poor Gideon!'

  He caught the teasing amusement in her voice and swung towards her with a glint in the dark eyes.

  'Don't laugh at me, damn you!'

  'I'm sorry.' She couldn't help it, he looked so furious. Was that what had made him detest Tom on sight? Was Gideon sensitive to his age? 'I don't suppose Tom really noticed you much.'

  His face changed. 'No,' he agreed. 'He was too damned busy looking at you.'

  She felt herself colour and a faint quiver ran over her. Their eyes met and Gideon touched her arm, his fingertips caressing.

  'Marina.' There was something in his voice which made her prickle with awareness of him. He glanced sideways along the path and then he suddenly lowered his head and kissed her hard, holding her with both hands locked on her slender shoulders, pulling her against him.

  For a moment she was too surprised and shaken by his probing kiss to be aware of anything else, then she heard the quiet tread of feet somewhere close beside them. Gideon slowly drew back his head and Marina looked past him to see Tom Hut- ton's fair head vanishing towards the village.

  Flushed, she looked at Gideon and saw a wilful satisfaction in his face.

  'You did that deliberately!' she accused.

  He grinned, pleased with himself. 'Did what?'

  'Why?' she demanded.

  'I don't know what you mean,' said Gideon, and turned and walked towards the cottage, pulling her after him like a child, his fingers tight around her wrist.

  Marina was angry with him for kissing her like that for Tom to see. She knew he had done it de­liberately. He had been warning Tom off—that was too obvious to miss. But why? What right did he think he had to do such a thing?

  As they entered the cottage Grandie looked round with that curious anxiety in his face and the anxiety grew as he took in Marina's hot, angry face and the way Gideon was dragging her after him.

  'What's wrong?' he asked hoarsely.

  'Ask him,' Marina said crossly, freeing herself with a yank of her arm.

  Grandie turned his head slowly and Marina knew she was not imagining the dread in his pale face.

  She looked at Gideon and caught the silent warn­ing glittering in those black eyes as he stared at Grandie in reply.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MARINA played to Gideon again after their meal. Grandie came into the room and sat in his sagging old armchair with his head back, listening, a slight frown occasionally touching his face whenever he thought she had not played a passage particularly well- Grandie was a hard taskmaster. From an early age he had made her work. 'Music is nothing but work,' he said to her. 'Work hard and let the feel­ing come later. Without a solid base of technique, feeling floats around uselessly. Anyone can sit and feel soulful. You have to be able to translate that emotion into sound, and to do that you must reach as near perfection as you can. Practice is the only way.'

  Although Gideon was silent while she played she felt him there all the time. He sat behind her where she could not see his face without turning, yet his eyes were on her and she was aware of them.

  When she had ended she turned, her hands in her lap, palms upward, her eyes flying to his face in search of response. Stranger though he was, she was eager to know how he felt about her playing. He sat looking back at her with a little smile, the black eyes brilliant. For a long moment they stared at each other. Gideon was saying nothing, yet Marina felt the warm flow of communication between them, a silent exchange which held all the response she needed.

  'There was some blurring in the scherzo,' Grandie said. 'You took it too fast. I heard some slide.'

  Marina turned back to the piano. 'Here,' she said wryly, and played the passage again, with a more careful attention this time, picking out the notes with clarity. Turning her head with her hair flicking in a loose silver wave, she smiled at Grandie. 'Better?'

  'Better,' he said, and smiled back. He would never accept second best from her. He had never accepted it from himself. He had been a world- famous name in his profession, travelling from con­cert hall to concert hall around the globe, feted and admired. That international acclaim had not meant as much to Grandie as knowing inside himself that he had performed a piece of music as he felt it was meant to be performed. For that he had worked and struggled. The by-product of fame had been irrelevant to him, although no doubt he had found it pleasant.

  His son Peter had never shown any aptitude for music. 'Too lazy,' Grandie said with contempt. Marina was not sure what her father had done. Grandie was not forthcoming on that. He was a secretive man.

  He got up, yawning. 'Bed,' he muttered. His hands were stiff and blue, thickly veined. Marina watched them fumble with the door, handle, her heart heavy. How cruel of fate to strike at Grandie through his most precious possessions, she thought sadly.

  Gideon came over to the piano and drew her to her feet. He was so much taller, the black head towering over her. She had to put back her head to look at him when they were so close and when she did she found him looking at her mouth with narrowed eyes.

  In any other man she might have decided by now that he was a flirt. Now and then Marina had come up against summer visitors who imagined that a girl living alone with an old man in a remote sea­side village must be eager for experience. Marina had had no trouble in fending them off. None of them had ever attracted her in the slightest. She had learnt, though, to recognise the slightly insolent look which came before they tried to kiss her.

  That was not the look Gideon was giving her. He was looking at her mouth with the lids half down over his eyes and his face was intent, as though it gave him deep pleasure to look at her like that.

  It began softly, his lips coaxing hers, brushing them lightly. Then his hands went to her waist and drew her closer, enclosing her hands against his chest. His mouth moved delicately and she found her own parting. Gideon breathed faster. One hand moved up and down her back, fingering the fine bones, shaping her body against him. He was kissing her in a new way now. His other hand gripped the back of her head, tilting it backward, and he began to kiss her hungrily, the hard mouth demanding response.

  She gasped at the change, a restless fluttering deep inside her, as though her nerves were going wild with pleasure. Her hands wriggled to free themselves and then slid round his neck, her finger­tips touching the smooth skin, feeling his neck muscles tautening under her touch.

  Gideon lifted his mouth to look at her. She leaned against him, flushed and trembling, her blue eyes shyly meeting his gaze. There was something of a question in his look, as though he were waiting for an answer to an unspoken question. Marina did not know what the question was and could not answer, but it seemed that her submissive look was the answer Gideon wanted, because after a moment he brought his mouth down again with a hunger which tore through her body with the shock of a blow.

  He sat down in Grandie's armchair with her on his lap and kissed her deeply, one hand running over her relaxed body. It never even entered her head to be horrified or alarmed by the fondling movement of that hand. Gideon was caressing her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, and she was not protesting or finding anything novel or terrifying in what he was doing. She clasped her arms behind his dark head and sighed with pleasure.

  The door opened suddenly. Gideon's hand lay on her breast, his fingers splayed sensually, the tips stroking her. He lifted his black head and slowly took his hand away. Marina felt hot colour rush­ing into her face. She tried to sit up on Gideon's lap, throwing a horrified look at the door, but Gideon restrained her firmly.

  'Goodnight,' Grandie said brusquely. The door shut.

  Marina stared at it and turned her incredulous eyes on Gideon. He lay back, in the chair, watching her.

  She was sensitive to every tiny mood of her grand­father.
She had lived alone with him for too long not to catch each flicker of feeling or thought in him. She had felt just now that Grandie was angry, that he was shocked. He had not said a word, yet she had heard his unspoken protest at what he had seen. Yet he had gone without saying anything. She probed Gideon's glittering black eyes for a clue. Why had Grandie said nothing? Why had he merely gone out silently?

  Gideon revealed nothing to her questioning eyes. He gave her a strange little smile. 'Bedtime, I think,' he said, and she could not fail to hear the reluctance in his voice, the deep tone which held an aroused passion.

  In her own room she undressed and got into her bed, listening to the movements from Gideon's room, the creak of the ancient floorboards, the tiny sound of him winding his watch. She had her curtains drawn back. Moonlight streamed into the room like silent dust settling on all the furniture and silvering it. The sea was running softly tonight, a slow sad whisper far away as it began to with­draw once more.

  Emma and Meg sat upright at the end of the bed. In the moonlight their faces had a listening awareness. 'Is he blackmailing Grandie?' Marina asked them. Her toes made little bumps under the bed clothes and she wiggled them thoughtfully. 'If he was, wouldn't Grandie hate him? And he doesn't. Tonight he smiled at Gideon several times as though he liked him. But although he likes him he seems bothered by him. It isn't as if Grandie is afraid of him, more as if he's worried by something about him.'

  Her cheeks went pink as she remembered the way Gideon had kissed and caressed her. It had seemed so natural and right, as though it had happened many times before. Those long fingers had known their way around her body and her body had known their touch.

  'It's creepy,' she said with a shiver. 'It must be reincarnation.' She felt the silent laughter of the dolls and made a face at them. 'Well, there has to be some explanation.'