by Jessica Ayre
'Lynda, Lynda!' she heard a voice at her side and turned to face David. 'You looked right through us and walked past.' He eyed her curiously.
'Sorry, I was daydreaming,' she forced a smile. 'I guess I'm tired.'
'Would you like to go?'
Lynda looked at him a little blankly, then shook her head. She wasn't ready to face David on his own just yet.
He guided her back towards Tricia, who was talking to the painter and to Robert.
'Hello, gorgeous.' Robert planted a firm kiss on either side of her cheeks. 'Enjoying yourself?' Lynda nodded. 'I like your friend,' he smiled warmly at David and winked at her.
'And I like yours,' David parried, giving Tricia an exaggerated ogle. They all laughed warmly and Lynda tried to lose herself in their cheerful banter. But Tricia motioned her aside and they walked a few steps away from the men towards a large abstract canvas covered with black and red patches.
'I just wanted your opinion on this,' Tricia said in a loud voice by way of explanation. Then more softly, 'What's up between you and Paul Overton? I saw the two of you dancing and I thought if you got any closer you'd melt into each other.' She looked at Lynda ruefully. 'Are you falling for him?'
Lynda shook her head vigorously, but she could feel her cheeks burning. Tricia's look was sceptical.
'Well, be careful. He's been around, you know, and I imagine he's hard to resist. Incidentally, I kept David occupied so he wouldn't notice. I thought he might be hurt.'
Lynda mumbled vague thanks. 'God, I'm so tired I'd like to be in bed right now. Perhaps David could stay on with you. I don't want to drag him away.'
But David would have none of it. He too was quite ready to leave. Tricia called a taxi for them and they set off into the cool night air, Lynda keeping her eyes well lowered all the while, terrified that she might yet again have to confront Paul. David was silent until they were snugly seated in the back of the taxi, then, in a voice which brought back all her childhood in a flash, he asked softly, 'What is it, Lynda, what's wrong?'
She could feel the tears pouring out of her, the sobs building up uncontrollably. He put his arm round her shoulders and drew her close, holding her there until the tears died down.
Finally she found a quavering voice. 'I don't know, David, but I think—I think I'd like to go home with you. If only I can.'
CHAPTER SIX
The lush green of fertile Shropshire hills stretched out below them as David's car slowly climbed a steep incline. Lynda opened her window wide and let the soft rain moisten her face. She breathed deeply, giving out a slow luxurious sigh. The rough-hewn grey stone houses, the brown and white dots of cows, gave her an enormous sense of wellbeing.
'Oh, David, I'm so happy to be here! It feels as if I've been away for ever.'
She could see the smile on his face, but he said nothing as he concentrated on the twists and bends in the narrow road.
Lynda relaxed deeply into the car seat and gazed out along the side of the road. Each break in the trees, each bend, provided a new perspective. She could feel the tensions of the last few months gradually leaving her body and she felt like leaping up and running out on one of those smooth green fields.
It had been very kind of Mr Dunlop to let her take the time off. Days seemed to have passed since she had confronted him with her demand for a holiday, but it was only a little over twenty-four hours. She had finished all the drawings to do with the first two houses and walked into his office early on the Tuesday morning, hoping beyond hope that Paul would not yet be in.
'Oh, good, Lynda,' he'd said, 'I've been looking forward to seeing these. Paul told me on Friday how well the work was going and how pleased he was with you.' He had given her just a hint of a wink.
'He even managed to say that I'd been right about you.'
Lynda had felt herself flushing and before she could lose her nerve, had blurted out, 'Mr Dunlop, I'm exhausted. Do you think I could have a little time off now to go home for a bit of a rest?'
Mr Dunlop had eyed her kindly. 'You do look a little peaked. Yes, yes, why not… though it's slightly irregular. Still, if Paul is pleased with you, then yes. Take the rest of the week, a little more if you feel you need it.'
She had murmured her thanks and gone away somewhat ungraciously, still afraid if she spent too much time in the office she would bump into Paul. And as she emerged from Mr Dunlop's room, sure enough, there he was. Luckily, he had been deep in conversation with one of the other architects and had only nodded absentmindedly in her direction. She had hurried out of the office, without even saying a word to Tricia, extravagantly taken a taxi to the flat, packed a few things and left a note. Then David had come to pick her up and they were off, slowly, almost like tourists, planning an attractive route, stopping overnight in a small inn.
Now, as she sat looking out of the car window, Lynda felt a little ashamed of her own cowardice. She had not breathed a word to Mr Dunlop about perhaps not continuing with the stately homes project. And running away from Paul like that was silly. Still—she shuddered a little—she couldn't have faced him in cool daylight with the memory of her most recent humiliation, the imprint of his body still etched on hers. No wonder he thought her brazen if each time he touched her, she simply succumbed!
'Dreaming again?' David's voice intruded on her thoughts. 'We're almost there.'
She looked at him in profile, the strong jaw, the shock of unruly sandy hair, his large hands on the steering wheel, and felt strangely safe. He turned in response to her gaze and seeing her look, reached for her hand and grasped it firmly.
The rain had cleared and the setting sun enveloped everything about them in a rosy haze. At the bottom of the winding road, Lynda could make out the cluster of small buildings which made up the farm. How lovely it all looked, like something out of a children's storybook. Her heart beat faster.
As they drove slowly closer, she could see the two brown horses peacefully grazing in the field above the house, the tall oaks sheltering the garden in which they had played hide and seek, the murky green of the tiny pond where she had always expected the frogs to turn into princes.
David pulled the car up behind the barn and they stepped out. Lynda took a deep breath, revelling in the rich aroma of hay and cows and moist earth. It felt like a recurring dream, intensely familiar yet strangely unreal. So much had happened since she had last been here, yet there were her mother's bright yellow roses climbing busily all over the front of the house, the worn, colourful curtains framing the small kitchen window, the slightly crooked front door made of deeply grained oak. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she was really here.
A man she didn't recognise suddenly appeared as if from nowhere, and David greeted him warmly and made introductions. It was the new hand he had hired, who now lived in the tiny cottage at the far end of the cluster of buildings. While he and David exchanged information about work, Lynda let herself into the house.
The kitchen was unchanged, except perhaps for something less of a clutter on tables and shelves, but the old, slightly chipped blue and white vase was there, full of bright garden dahlias. Mrs Wood, who came in to help with the housework, must have seen to that. Nothing had been altered in the beamed drawing-room either, except that there was a new stereo and a mass of records, neatly stacked. Of course, David was now living in the house. Lynda had known it, though she hadn't quite taken it in as a reality.' The thought disturbed her slightly, but she put it away as she climbed up the narrow staircase towards her room.
There it was, tucked under an eave, the small bed neatly covered with the comforter she herself had made a cover for at the age of fourteen—tiny mauve and white flowers that had made her feel she was sleeping in the garden. Her bedraggled Teddy was perched on top of it, looking at her with eyes slightly askew. She gave him a friendly poke and sat down on the bed. On the walls hung the drawings and watercolours she had done throughout the years: random, unframed, attached with drawing pins, simply her favourites at various p
oints in time. Between the table and small bookcase were more, stacked in folders.
She lay down, letting her eyes wander round the room, taking in details. At least Paul's presence couldn't follow her here. But as soon as she framed the thought, an aching sensation flooded her limbs, a pit seemed to yawn at the base of her stomach. She trembled; the sense of Paul standing over her was so acute that he invaded the room, making its atmosphere impossible to breathe.
Lynda got off the bed and walked briskly downstairs. She could hear David moving round in the kitchen and the strains of Sibelius filling the house.
She felt like turning it off, but didn't dare.
David was looking into the oven when she walked in.
'Mrs Wood has left us some stew. I rang her to say we'd be coming tonight.' He looked at her questioningly, 'Are you all right? Would you like a drink?'
Lynda nodded. 'It feels odd having you offer me a drink rather than the other way round.' She had said it without thinking and she could see hurt registering in his kind face.
'I'm sorry, I hadn't thought.' He looked deeply into her eyes. 'You know, I live here now, most of the time anyway, except when I go home to help Father out and keep him company. It makes the work easier… I thought you'd realised.'
She smiled, 'I did know, David. I just hadn't quite taken it in. And I'm glad. It would be awful to think of the house empty.'
He handed her a glass of sherry, grazing her hand as he did so. They both seemed to have the same thought simultaneously.
'I could go back to Father's tonight,' he said. 'I had thought of it.'
She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head vigorously, touching the locket round her neck. 'No, I'd be terrified of being here all alone.'
The last time Lynda had been home after her mother's death, both her sisters had been in the house. Together they had sorted out her mother's belongings, given her clothes away, arranged her room so she wasn't altogether absent nor too depressingly present. But now Caroline was back with her husband and two children in York, and Sarah, the middle sister, was working as a solicitor's secretary in the county town some forty miles away. They would see each other at the weekend, she hoped.
'Which room are you using?' Lynda asked.
'Come, I'll show you.' David drained his sherry and she followed him upstairs. He had taken over the guestroom and had made it very much his own, replacing the flowery curtains with a brown blind and painting the walls a matt white. His books and magazines were scattered everywhere and she recognised the old armchair he had brought from home. She went to sit in it.
'It feels good, all this,' she commented, 'like the old days.'
He beamed a smile at her. 'I'm glad you approve. I must say I was just a little worried.' He sat on the bed quietly for a few moments, then said, 'I'm off to pay the cows a visit. Would you like to come?'
'Oh yes.'
They went downstairs and Lynda pulled on a pair of old Wellingtons which still stood in a box by the side door, as if waiting for her return. The thick woolly sweater her mother had knitted ages ago was there too, hanging on a hook, and she put it on. Then she laughed gaily at David, 'I'm ready.'
Looking at her, he laughed back, 'Quite a change from London!' And as they walked out of the door, he put his arm tenderly round her shoulder.
The next few days passed in a haze of near-perfect wellbeing. Lynda rode her mare, sometimes alone, sometimes with David, over all the familiar haunts, reappropriating each lane, each tree. She visited David's father, happy to see him again. She let her hair go wild and wavy in the moist windy air and she never seemed to emerge from her jeans and old sweater.
While David worked, she walked off alone and explored, taking her watercolours and pad with her and sketching for hours on end. She helped him with the cows, wondering whether her fingers would remember how to milk them gently and feeling thrilled when they did. Her cheeks grew pink from the exercise, her eyes brighter than they had been for months. In the evenings, she and David sat on the rug in front of the blazing fire, eating their food there, listening to music and talking, until they were both almost asleep. Then David would kiss her gently on the forehead and wish her goodnight.
But beneath it all there was a sense of expectation, almost of trepidation. Lynda felt that David wanted to speak to her about her plans, about them, but whenever he led up to anything of the kind, she turned the conversation elsewhere, forestalled him. He was patient, but she knew the moment would have to come and she had no idea what she would say. At night, when she lay down in her girlhood bed and closed her eyes, she would immediately feel Paul's arms around her, his charged presence almost suffocating her. And her dreams were full of him, agonising dreams in which he held her tightly, breathlessly, only to vanish suddenly into the arms of another woman.
One day, too, she had decided to walk to the local village to greet old acquaintances and pick up some extra food. Invariably, they had all treated her kindly, but invariably too, they had all treated her as if she were something of a foreigner, suspicious that she might judge them; ready, too, to judge her and condemn or congratulate her on her successes and failures. When Mrs Peabody had said to her, 'Home to stay, then?' she had baulked, 'No, just a visit.'
'Managing well in London, are you?' Mrs Peabody had asked mistrustfully.
'Oh yes, rather,' Lynda had said definitively, expressing an assurance she didn't altogether feel in an accent- not altogether her own. She remembered then how her mother had always kept her distance from the villagers, unwilling to let her family become material for their tongues.
On Saturday David had said to her, 'Let's have a meal out this evening. They've opened a French restaurant in one of the pubs not too far away. It will make a change.'
Lynda had nodded agreement and in anticipation of a night out she had washed her hair, ironed a dress and polished her shoes.
'I'd forgotten you had legs,' David smiled as she came into the drawing room. She lifted her skirt demurely above her knees and twirled round. 'Two,' she bantered back.
He came towards her and enveloped her in his strong arms. She raised her face to his and for the first time since her arrival he kissed her long and hard. She let him, and found her arms moving up to embrace him, her lips returning his kiss. They stood like that for a long time, then letting her go, David said lightly, only his eyes betraying the intensity of his emotion, 'I should have done that before.'
Lynda lowered her eyes, wanting to hide from him a little. She had enjoyed his kiss, its warmth. Yet behind it there had been the memory of Paul. It had frightened her. Would she ever be able to erase it from her mind?
David was looking at her quizzically now, as if he wanted to say something more. But instead he simply took her arm and with a mock threat in his voice said, 'To be continued after dinner.'
They went out to the car and drove silently for a while. Then in a strangely muted voice David said:
'Lynda, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about for a while now, but I don't know quite how to begin.'
She braced herself for it, wishing all the while that he wouldn't speak, that he would wait. But she said nothing.
'It's difficult,' he continued, waiting for her to make a sign.
But she only made herself small in the corner of the seat and waited. They drove along a little farther and finally he said, 'It's about your mother and father.'
Lynda gasped, thoroughly astonished, all attention now.
'What is it, David?'
He chuckled wryly, 'Not what you were expecting, is it?'
She could feel herself flushing in the dark, 'I'm sorry David, I…'
'It's all right,' he took her hand and squeezed it hard, 'we'll get to that too. But this first, and I really don't know where to begin. I've been thinking it over for months.'
'Please, David, begin anywhere!'
He pulled off the main road into a small drive which led to the pub. 'Let's have a drink first and order dinner. It
will loosen my tongue.'
Lynda was filled with a dire premonition. She let him lead her to a table, drank down a gin and tonic quickly and paid no attention to the menu. When the first course arrived, she couldn't bear any more small talk.
'Please, David, tell me!' she begged.
He looked at her steadily and poured each of them a glass of red wine. Then he took a large gulp.
'Right—no tears, no hysterics. That's one of the reasons I wanted to tell you outside the house.'
Lynda gripped the arms of her chair and listened tensely.
'Just before your mother died—you remember the two of us were very close in those days, since all of you were away—she called me in one evening after work, made me sit down with a drink and announced that she had something important to tell me. It was to be a secret between us until at least a year after her death. She knew by then that she would go quite soon. I don't know why she stipulated at least a year—perhaps she thought you would judge her less harshly with time. In any case, I vowed secrecy. It's now well over a year, but I wanted to get you in the right frame of mind, in the right place.'
He took a bite of food and drank a little more wine. 'And I've been a little cowardly. What she told me was that your father hadn't been dead all those years. Only as good as, as far as she was concerned.'
Lynda gasped outright. 'But where is he?'
'He's dead now,' David said quietly. 'I think that's why she talked to me. She'd just had news of his death from America.' He paused, watching Lynda's face, her air of utter disbelief.
'I know you're thinking how could she have, she who was so honest, so upright. Well, it must have been very hard for her and I think she probably never stopped tormenting herself with it. You were probably about one year old when it all happened.'
He paused. 'This is all going to sound terribly blunt, but we can fill in what details I know later. Your mother was pregnant. She knew, somehow, that it was for the last time, and she desperately wanted a male child. Your father already felt burdened with the three of you—there wasn't much money about—so there was friction between them. One night he came home in a terrible temper—he'd had too much to drink, something had gone wrong with banking arrangements. In any case, they had a row, and he hit her. She tripped over a rug and fell down the stairs. Miraculously, she didn't break anything, but she did miscarry.'