Icon of Gold

by Teresa Crane

  Cathy bowed her head, picking absently with her fingernail at the rough, oily stitching of the fisherman’s jersey she wore.

  ‘As long as we love each other,’ he repeated, very firmly, ‘then nothing else matters. The world can’t touch us.’

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ she said softly, ‘you are so very —’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘What? What am I?’

  Cathy lifted her wind-tangled head and smiled. ‘— fierce,’ she said.

  ‘That wasn’t what you were going to say.’ His jaw had set stubbornly.

  She looked back down at the jersey.

  ‘Was it?’

  She jumped from the boat, brushing sand off her trousers.

  ‘You were going to say “young”. Weren’t you?’

  She reached for his hand. ‘I suppose I was, yes.’ Her voice was gentle.

  He turned her to face him, holding her by the shoulders. ‘Well, I can’t deny it. I am young. That doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve told you before and I tell you again; you are the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only one I ever will. I won’t - I can’t live without you. Age doesn’t come into it. I’m yours. I’m going to love you for ever. I want to look after you. I’d die rather than see anyone hurt you —’ He stopped. ‘Cathy? What is it? You’re crying?’

  She pulled free, laid her head on his shoulder. ‘No. Of course I’m not. It’s just the wind. Let’s go home.’

  *

  The world, inevitably, and despite Nikos’ fierce confidence that it would not, caught up with them three days later. It had been an idyllic few days; even Cathy had come to believe that for a week or so at least they might be left alone; in the event it was Bert who was the unwitting messenger of possible disaster, and their equally unwitting saviour. He had borrowed Cathy’s bicycle to go to the shop. An hour or so later he was banging on the door again. ‘Cath? Letter for you.’

  Cathy opened the door. ‘Hello again. Come in. Cup of tea?’

  The dishevelled old head shook. ‘Best get on.’

  ‘OK.’ Cathy knew better than to try to persuade him. She held up the envelope. ‘Thanks.’ She turned from the door, looking at the letter. Adam’s writing. She tore it open as she went into the kitchen.

  Nikos was sitting at the table, leafing through some of her sketches. ‘These really are —’ He lifted his head ‘What’s that? Cathy, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Damn it! Damn and blast it!’

  ‘What?’

  She passed the note to him, dropped on to a chair, put her head into her hands.

  He read it. Read it again. Laid it down on the table and looked at her. ‘Ring him. Tell him he can’t come.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t. How can I? What possible excuse could I give?’ She picked up the letter and glanced at it again. ‘Thank God Bert went down into the village! Adam wrote this nearly a week ago. It’s been waiting at the post office for days. I can’t just ring him now and say no, can I? It would look very peculiar.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Nikos said, calmly. ‘Why shouldn’t I? I’ve as much right here as he has.’

  ‘No!’ She flung herself from her chair. ‘No,’ she repeated more quietly. ‘Oh, Nikos, think! You’re supposed to be in the Lake District with Lois. Adam knows that. It would mean more lies. More deception.’

  It would mean seeing the two of you together, and that, at the moment, I could not bear. She knew better than to speak the words.

  She turned, leaning against the stove. ‘I’m sorry, my darling. You’ll have to leave. You mustn’t be here when he comes.’

  ‘You want me to go.’ His young face was mutinous.

  ‘No! Of course I don’t! But we don’t have a choice. Oh, Nikos, please — don’t quarrel about it. Not again. I couldn’t bear it.‘ She came-to him, bent to lay her face on his hair. ‘You can’t be any more disappointed than I am. But Adam will be here tomorrow, and you mustn’t be here when he comes. Nikos - we have to be careful —’

  ‘I know.’ He turned his head, his voice muffled in the folds of her jumper. His hand cradled her breast. ‘I know. I just hate it.’

  ‘You can’t hate it any more than I do.’

  ‘Don’t make me go now. Let me stay till the morning. Please.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  *

  That night, for the first time, his lovemaking was so fiercely unrestrained that he hurt her. Afterwards he lay heavily upon her, his face buried in her shoulder, his fingers still tangled into her hair. ‘Cathy — please — please! — don’t make me go.’ His breathing was heavy, his voice a whisper.

  Cathy stroked his hair and said nothing.

  The next morning she walked with him up the track to where the black Austin stood in the lane. He kissed her gently, touched her bruised lip with his finger. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  The cold March wind whispered around them. The scrubby trees were budding palely green. ‘I’ll write,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And we’ll see each other again soon.‘

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We must.’

  She kissed him again. ‘Yes.’

  He drove away blindly, tears blurring his eyes, the pain of leaving her so acute that he could barely breathe.

  And Cathy, as she watched the car out of sight, felt the now familiar flood of guilt, fear and an unhappiness that came close to despair that inevitably filled the vacuum left by his going.

  Heavy-hearted she went back to the cottage to prepare herself to face her son.

  *

  ‘Thanks, that was great.’ Adam put down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair, replete. ‘I don’t know how you manage it on that old thing.’

  His mother reached for his empty plate. ‘Don’t be rude to my stove. It’s my best friend,’ she said, mildly. ‘Would you like a piece of pie?‘

  ‘Yes, please.’ He watched as she busied herself with the pie, reached for the jug of custard. ‘Ma?’

  Cathy laid the plate in front of him. ‘Mm?’

  He picked up his spoon, tinkered with it. Small rivers of custard enclosed the islands of crisp pastry. ‘You do know you can’t go on like this for ever, don’t you?’

  Her face suddenly expressionless she straightened. ‘I don’t think I understand what you mean,’ she said at last, carefully.

  He jerked his head, indicating his surroundings. ‘Living here. Like this.‘

  Cathy rested both hands flat upon the table and leaned to him. ‘As I believe you well know,’ she said, her voice dangerously quiet, ‘I like living here. Like this.’

  He could not meet her eyes. He applied himself to the pie. Cathy turned to the sink.

  ‘Leon’s found an apartment,’ Adam said after a moment. ‘Not far from Nikos’. In Kensington High Street.’ He waited for her to speak. The silence was ominous. He ploughed on.

  ‘In one of those big old mansion blocks. It’s very nice -’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ The words were clipped.

  ‘Ma –’

  She turned. ‘Adam, you worry me when you call me that. It almost invariably means you want something.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ She eyed him repressively. Slow colour rose in his face.

  ‘It’s only that Leon wants you to come up to London to look at it, that’s all. It doesn’t seem much to ask.’

  Cathy sucked her lower lip for a moment, looking at him. ‘There’s no point,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’ve quite made up my mind. I’m staying here. If Leon wants an apartment I’m sure he’s quite capable of finding one —’

  Adam’s spoon clattered into his plate and he pushed it from him, his face tight and bright with anger. ‘You can’t do that! You’re married to Leon —’

  ‘Adam. It is none of your business!’ She articulated the words with a ferocious clarity. ‘You are my s
on. And I love you. But that doesn’t give you any right whatever to interfere so —’

  ‘I’m not interfering!’

  ‘I think that’s exactly what you’re doing. I’m a grown woman. I will not have you telling me what I should or should not do! I will not have you conniving with Leon to make me do something that I don’t want to do, that I have never pretended I wanted to do. It’s my business, and Leon’s. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘And if Leon has made it my business?’ he snapped. And could have bitten his tongue off the moment the words were out.

  She eyed him in sudden, caustic understanding, leaned back on the stove, arms crossed. ‘I see.’

  ‘No. You don’t.’

  She gave not an inch. ‘Then explain.’

  With a quick, almost violent movement he pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. ‘I can’t. You wouldn’t understand.’

  She stayed silent, watching him.

  ‘Look —’ He spread his hands appealingly. ‘All he asks is that you come to see it —’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That isn’t all. And you know it.’

  Two days before, Adam had met a man, by arrangement, in a bar. A man who had informed him in brutal detail what might befall him if the rest of his debt were not paid off in very short order. A muscle twitched, irritatingly uncontrollable, in his cheek. ‘You’re not being fair,’ he said. ‘Leon works bloody hard. He’s making money. He wants you with him —’

  ‘To help him spend it?’ she interrupted, drily. ‘Oh, I think not, Adam. Yes, I know Leon works bloody hard. Something tells me he plays bloody hard, too. And I’m sure one of his — playmates —’ the word was acid ‘— will help him spend his money if that’s what he wants. I will not be treated like a chattel. I will not sit twiddling my thumbs in bloody London while he disappears for hours — days — weeks at a time with- out telling me where he is or what he’s doing. I will not be the ornament he so fondly thinks I could be.’ The emphasis on the word was savage. ‘I will not dance to his every whim. And I will not have him use my son as a messenger boy to bring me to heel!’

  Once again Adam flushed furiously. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘You think so? Well, I think not. If you want to take a message back to Leon then you can take one; and it’s this. He knows where I am. If he wants to talk to me then we do it here. I’ve heard not a word from him for nearly two weeks. The last I heard from or of him was a slammed door. Well, now it’s up to him. No, Adam, I am not going back with you to London. And that’s flat.’

  Adam stood for a moment in silence, breathing heavily. Then, very precisely, he tucked the chair on which he had been sitting neatly back under the table. ‘This is absolutely silly,’ he said, his voice very controlled and very reasonable. ‘There’s no reason in the world for us to quarrel.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look - the pubs are open. I’ll pop down to the village for a pint. Give us both a chance to cool down. Ma — I promise you — the last thing 1 want is for this to come between us —’

  The taut line of her shoulders softened a little. She took a long breath.

  Adam reached for his coat from the hook behind the door, slung it over his shoulder, turned wide, blue, beguiling eyes upon her. ‘lust think about it. That’s all I ask.’ He crossed the room and kissed her lightly. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He covered the short distance from the house to the lane where he had parked the car in long, angry strides, threw open the car door, flung himself into the driving seat and reached for his cigarettes. He had to cup one hand with the other to keep the flame steady. He drew on the cigarette deeply, tilting his head, screwing up his eyes. ‘Shit!’ he said aloud. ‘Oh, shit!’

  Cathy heard the roar of the car’s engine, the spin of its wheels as it pulled away, too fast. The quiet of the house closed about her, broken only by the peaceful ticking of the clock. It was a long time before she moved.

  *

  The public bar of the Lion and Lamb was quiet. A couple of scruffily dressed old men sat at a corner table silently engaged in a game of dominoes, their pints in front of them, and a grizzle-haired man in corduroys and boots leaned at the bar. He nodded and grunted a greeting as Adam entered.

  ‘Hello, love.’ The landlady was plump and dark-haired. Her eyes brightened at this unusual break in routine. ‘What can I get you?‘

  ‘Pint of bitter, please.‘ Adam fished in his pocket for change. Fool! What a fool he’d been to anger his mother so. He had to mend his fences. He couldn’t afford to antagonise her. On the other hand the last thing he could afford was to fail to persuade her at least to go up to London to look at the apartment. Once there it was surely up to Leon to control his own wife? ‘Thanks.’ Absently he accepted the proffered, dripping glass. The dominoes clicked in the corner.

  ‘Lovely day.’ The woman took his money, the till tinkled.

  ‘Yes.’ How to do it, that was the problem. He knew Cathy too well to imagine she could be moved easily. It must have been one hell of a quarrel.

  ‘Spring’s just round the corner. Bulbs’ll be up any minute.’

  ‘Sorry? Oh — yes. Thank you.’ He took his change, moved away from the bar, lit a cigarette, stood brooding, looking out of the window into the breezy, sunny day.

  The door opened again. Heavy boots clattered on the flagged floor. ‘Afternoon, Bill. All right?’

  ‘Fine, Iris, just fine.’

  ‘The usual?’

  ‘Aye. Thanks.’

  ‘The wife all right?’

  Adam detached himself from his surroundings and thought, ferociously. There were two alternatives. Either he succeeded in the task Leon had set him and he was home and dry, or he failed and would have to trust to Leon’s good nature to bail him out of the bloody mess he found himself in. The more he thought about the second option the less he liked it. His recent contacts with his stepfather had not encouraged any belief in Leon as a Good Samaritan. He drove a hard bargain, and expected always to gain by it. So Adam, in order to make certain of his own salvation, had to change his mother’s mind. He took a long swallow of the warm, bitter beer. There was one way. Not a comfortable way, but surely a way? If his mother knew how desperate the situation was, then surely she couldn’t refuse? If he spoke to her — explained honestly the bargain he had had to strike with Leon?

  ‘Afternoon. It’s Mr Sinclair, isn’t it?’

  The friendly voice at his shoulder made him jump. He turned. A vaguely familiar figure had joined him at the window, a tankard of ale in his huge fist. The man smiled widely, seaman’s eyes crinkling, when he saw the startled expression on Adam’s face. ‘Bill Becket,’ he reminded him. ‘Coastguard. We’ve met a couple of times over the years.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

  ‘Down for a holiday, are we, sir?’

  ‘Sort of, yes. A bit of a break, that’s all.’

  ‘You’ll be stayin’ up at Sandlin’s with your mother o’ course —’ The man settled himself foursquare on his booted feet, rocking a little. Adam’s heart sank. Conversation with a stranger, however pleasant or well meaning, was the last thing he needed at the moment. ‘She’s a lady an’ a half, your mother.’ The big man chuckled a little. ‘Well, you’d know that, 0’ course. There’s many a one in this village had cause to thank her for her work after the storm. She was lucky, mind you, that the water didn’t reach the cottage.’ He laughed again. ‘Not that it would have made a ha’p’orth of difference if it had. She made it clear that afternoon that she wasn’t goin’ to leave. Adamant she was, an’ the young man too —’

  Half listening Adam let the man run on, smiling an automatically charming smile, struggling with his own demons. How much danger was there in telling his mother of the scrape he’d got himself into? She’d been mad before, but she’d always helped him in the end;

  ‘— well, they were snug enough. An’ at the time we didn’t realise how bad it was goin’ to be, or p’raps I’d have tried
harder to persuade them to leave, Bert an’ all. It was a mercy the tide missed them. I’ve often thought I should ‘ave made ’em leave, but that early in the day I couldn’t ’ave known, now could I?’

  He’d have to risk it. He’d try once more to persuade her, but if she wouldn’t budge he’d have to explain. She wouldn’t let him down. She couldn’t.

  ‘That was a night and a half that was.’ The man nodded his head ruminatively, ‘Oh, yes. A night an’ a half.’

  ‘I’m sure it was.’ Adam tilted his head and poured the rest of his beer down his throat almost without swallowing it. The decision made, he wanted to implement it. Putting it off wouldn’t make it any easier. He put the glass down on a stained table, extended his hand. ‘I have to go, I’m afraid. Nice to meet you again, Mr Becket.’

  The man’s own hand was huge and rough as sandpaper. ‘And you, Mr Sinclair. You’ll give my regards to your mother.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Adam drove slowly back to the cottage, sat in the car for a few minutes marshalling his thoughts. When he let himself quietly in the back door Cathy was sitting at the table reading a book. She looked up, unsmiling. He slipped his coat off and hung it on the back of the door, crossed the room to drop a kiss on to the top of her head.

  ‘I thought you’d be longer,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘I only had a pint.’

  There was a small and slightly strained silence. Then both spoke at once.

  ‘Adam —’

  ‘Ma –’

  Both stopped. Adam smiled, reached for his cigarette case. ‘After you.’

  She closed the book, folded her hands upon it. ‘Darling, I don’t want to quarrel with you. It’s the last thing I want. But — you must understand — what’s happening, or not happening, between Leon and me is our business. We have to work it out ourselves. Now, I don’t know what he’s said or done to make you so partisan —’

  ‘Ma!’

  ‘No. Listen. As I say, I don’t know why you so much take his side, but I have to tell you this: if you keep on interfering then it is going to come between you and me. And I don’t want that.’ She paused for a moment, choosing her words carefully ‘I don’t want to leave Sandlings. I don’t want the life that Leon wants. You have no right to try to force me into it.’ Obdurately she ignored the cutting blade of conscience. She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t! Nikos had nothing to do with this. Nothing.