Desperate Desire

by Flora Kidd

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE dog growled softly and bared its teeth.

  ‘Shut up, Caesar!’ ordered Adam Jonson, and peered out into the darkness of the verandah. ‘Is anyone there?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It ... it’s me,’ croaked Lenore. ‘I . . . I’m Lenore Parini and . . . oh, please don’t close the door! Don’t go away. Please! I . . . I’ve hurt my knee and I can’t walk very well. Please, Mr Jonson, can I come in and use your phone?’

  Slowly, reluctantly, the door swung wide again and he stepped out.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘I ... I’ve been for a walk as far as the lighthouse, and coming back, since it was snowing hard, I thought I’d take the short cut through the woods to the road,’ she explained, still sitting on the floor and looking up at him. In the faint light coming from the hallway the cream-coloured wool of his Aran-style sweater gleamed softly. But he seemed huge to her, a giant living in the derelict ruin of her gothic fantasy.

  ‘You were trespassing,’ he accused. ‘You have no right to come this way. Why didn’t you keep to the public pathway?’

  ‘I couldn’t find it, that’s why,’ she retorted. ‘The woods are a mess now, with fallen trees and tangled undergrowth. I was lucky to find my way out of them. They used to be beautiful when Martin Jonson was alive. He knew how to take care of his land!’

  He let her caustic and critical remarks go straight past him and continued to stare down at her as if trying to see her.

  ‘You’re the woman who walked into me outside the supermarket, aren’t you?’ he drawled.

  ‘Yes, I am. And I’ve wanted to say I’m sorry about that,’ she said, forgetful of Blythe’s warning about him being proud and touchy about his incapacity. ‘You see, I didn’t know that . . . that you can’t see too well or I wouldn’t have said what I did.’

  ‘Who told you I don’t see too well?’ he rapped.

  ‘My sister Blythe did—she owns the Northport Inn. On the other hand,’ she went on, refusing to be intimidated by the hint of menace in his attitude, ‘you had no right to swear at me the way you did that day.’

  He said nothing but went on staring at her, seemingly finding nothing strange about the situation, her lying on the floor at his feet and, beyond the verandah, the snow swirling, the wind howling.

  ‘Oh, this is crazy,’ Lenore muttered. ‘Please let me come in and use your phone to call my sister and ask her to drive out here and pick me up. I can’t possibly walk all the way back to the Inn. My knee is very swollen and I’m afraid of damaging it if I go on.’

  ‘Which knee?’ he demanded, advancing on her.

  ‘The right one,’ she whispered, sensing a threat in the way he approached her but unable to move away.

  He squatted suddenly beside her and his big hands reached out searchingly, touched her thighs and slid over them. Surprised and alarmed by his touch, Lenore stiffened all over. His hands stopped moving and he turned his head as if to look at her, his lips thinning in exasperation, his jaw taut.

  ‘Okay, okay, take it easy. I’ve nothing else in mind right now except to make sure your knee really is swollen before I let you into my house,’ he drawled. ‘Not being able to see too well, I’m suspicious of strangers—particularly women. Since I was blinded more than one has tried to take advantage of me.’

  ‘Well, I’m not like that,’ retorted Lenore, seething with fury. ‘Oh, I wish I’d never come this way . . . aah!’ she cried out as, ignoring her protest, he found her right knee and pressed the swelling.

  ‘Mmm, it does seem swollen,’ he murmured. ‘Okay, you can come in and make your phone call.’

  Standing up straight, he held out a hand to her. Lenore grasped it and managed to stand up. Then suddenly without warning his arms went about her and he lifted her as easily as if she had been made of straw and carried her into the house.

  ‘Please put me down,’ she said rather weakly, while secretly admitting to herself that she was enjoying being carried in such a masterful way.

  Ignoring her again, he carried her across a high-ceilinged dimly lit panelled hallway into a big room, with three long windows through which grey light slanted, and set her down on an enormous high-backed, brocade-covered sofa that was set at right angles to a cavernous fireplace where a log fire blazed.

  ‘I suggest you put your legs up,’ he said coolly. ‘It won’t do your knee any good sitting with it bent. I’ll get you the phone.’

  He walked away from her out of her sight and she did what he had suggested, stretching her legs along the cushioned sofa and thinking she should really take off her boots. She was unzipping them when he returned with the phone. He plugged it into a jack near the fireplace, then set the instrument down on the dust-filmed newspaper and magazine-cluttered long coffee table that was beside the sofa. Then he went away again, through the doorway into the hall, the dog padding at his heels, and as she drew off her boots she heard him shutting the front door.

  Picking up the phone, she rested it on her thighs and lifting the receiver held it to her ear. There didn’t seem to be any dialling tone, but she dialled the number of the Inn anyway. There were some clicking sounds followed by a swishing sound. Replacing the receiver, she waited a moment, then lifted it again. No dialling tone.

  Adam Jonson came back into the room.

  ‘Your phone seems to be out of order. There’s no dialling tone,’ she said.

  ‘Did you dial the number you want?’ he asked, pushing aside some of the clutter on the table and sitting down on it right opposite to her so that he was on a level with her.

  ‘Yes, but nothing happened. Here.’ She handed him the instrument and his hands found it unerringly. He could see it, that was obvious, but then he was very close to it and to her.

  ‘It was okay this morning when I made a call to Boston,’ he muttered, frowning. He lifted the receiver and listened to it. ‘What number do you want?’

  She told him, and watched him dial with a big blunt-ended forefinger. Again he didn’t hesitate. He could see what he was doing. After a few moments he set the receiver down on its rest and put the phone down on the table.

  ‘You’re right—it’s out of order. The wind must have brought the wires down. We had this trouble in the winter.’ The dark glasses were staring at her face. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Do you have a car?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘No. What would be the use of a car to me? I can’t see well enough to get a driving licence.’

  ‘Not even with glasses on?’

  ‘Not even with glasses on,’ he repeated dryly.

  ‘But you walked into the house and into this room as if you could see where you were going, and just now you dialled as if you could see the numbers,’ she remarked suspiciously.

  ‘I can walk into and out of the house, I can walk about it because it’s familiar territory,’ he replied. ‘And I can see things if I’m close to them.’

  ‘How close? Can you see me now?’

  ‘Sure I can. I can see the shape of your face, where your eyes are and where your mouth is.’ He leaned towards her so near to her that through the dark brown lenses of the glasses she could see the shape of his eyes, the gleam of their whites; so near she could see the golden blur of bristles on his square jaw and above the shapely curve of his long upper lip and under the bristles tiny scars as if the skin had been cut and sewn up again. Yet in spite of the scars, the bristles and the untidiness of his hair, drying now and beginning to glint with golden lights, he was handsome in a rough-hewn way. ‘Your eyes are golden-brown and they’re big and round and wide open and looking at me very suspiciously,’ he murmured softly. His lips tilted in a faint tantalising smile. ‘You’re not bad looking, but you’d be better looking if your face wasn’t so haggard.’

  ‘It’s not haggard!’ she flared, moving away from him and leaning back against the high back of the sofa. He could see too much, she decided.

  ‘Okay. Fas
hionably hollow-cheeked, then.’ His smile widened into a wide white grin and she felt her heart do a funny little flip as she reluctantly acknowledged that she was physically attracted to him. Strange, because she had never been attracted by the rugged outdoor type of man before. She had always been more interested in the cultured type of man; in the mind rather than in the actual outward appearance. ‘Like most women, you don’t care to be told the truth about how you look,’ he added jibingly, with a cynical twist to his lips.

  ‘Well, how would you like it if ... if I told you the truth about how you look right now?’ she retorted spiritedly. ‘With your hair unbrushed, a day’s growth of beard on your face and with those dark glasses you look . . . well, you look disreputable and dissipated.’

  ‘Ha!’ Again his short gruff laugh disconcerted her. ‘A woman of spirit, with a good command of language.’ His face hardened. The curve to his lips was bitter. ‘I am disreputable and dissipated,’ he drawled. ‘I’ve been drinking too much rye whisky.’

  ‘Sorry for yourself?’ Lenore couldn’t help taunting, although she was surprised that he would indulge in self-pity.

  ‘You bet I am,’ he replied shortly. ‘You would be too if you’d been told that your eyesight isn’t going to get any better than it is and that you might as well give up all hope of ever seeing well enough to do the things you like doing!’ His voice rasped harshly. ‘And that there’ll always be days when you’ll walk into people ... or objects because you don’t see them.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Lenore whispered, feeling sympathy for him uncoiling within her. Big and obviously strong—she remembered how easily he had carried her—he had probably led a very physical life before he had been hurt and blinded, and now, having recovered his strength, he was suffering from frustration.

  ‘An ophthalmic surgeon, one of the best.’

  ‘When did he tell you?’

  ‘Last week, in New York. I went there for a check-up.’

  ‘But lots of people who are blind—really blind, I mean—are able to lead useful and productive lives. Some of them have even become well-known performers.’

  ‘Performers?’ he queried, frowning in puzzlement.

  ‘I was thinking of George Shearing the jazz pianist. And then there’s Stevie Wonder,’ she said.

  ‘Both musicians. They don’t have to be able to see to do what they like doing,’ he said dryly. ‘I do. I have to be able to see to use a camera.’

  ‘You’re a photographer?’

  ‘Cameraman. TV,’ he said curtly. ‘I worked for a national broadcasting corporation—overseas news. Frank Carson and I were reporting on the fighting in a Central American country—actually covering a street battle between guerillas and government forces—when someone took exception to our presence there and threw a hand grenade right at us. Frank was killed.’ He broke off, his lips twisting bitterly again. ‘I wish to God I had been,’ he added in a low voice, and lunging to his feet he walked round the end of the table and over to the winged chair. With his back to Lenore he picked up the half-full glass on the occasional table and drank off the liquor that was in it.

  ‘When? When did it happen?’ whispered Lenore, her sensitive soul seared by what he had just told her. Violence of any sort always appalled her.

  ‘Must be about two years ago,’ he replied indifferently, shrugging his broad shoulders. He poured more whisky into the glass and sat down in the armchair, facing her, although she supposed he couldn’t see her very well, because the room was growing dim now as daylight faded completely. ‘Since then I’ve been fighting to come back to life,’ he continued dryly. ‘Learning to stand, learning to walk. All of it wasted effort.’ He hit the arm of the chair with one fist and swore bitterly. Both Lenore and the dog were startled by his movement and by the bitter harshness of his voice, and they both jumped. The dog, which had been lying on the rug in front of the fire, sat up straight, its ears quivering, its head tilted to one side as it looked at its master. ‘What earthly good am I if I can’t see to do what I want to do?’ grated Adam Jonson, and drank more whisky.

  ‘Isn’t that a rather defeatist attitude to take?’ asked Lenore, sharply for her, aware of compassion for him flooding through her but wanting to hide it as she realised he would only reject any show of pity on her part.

  ‘And what other attitude do you suggest I should take?’ he replied jeeringly. ‘You can’t even begin to understand how I feel.’

  ‘I can guess,’ she retorted.

  He was silent, and the room grew darker, the only light being the orange blaze of the fire. Music—she recognised it as a guitar concerto by the Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos—came faintly from a radio which she guessed was on the bookshelves built into the wall on one side of the fireplace behind the winged chair.

  The logs crackled as they were consumed by flames. The wind moaned eerily in the chimney. Lenore shifted uneasily. Adam Jonson’s silence was unnerving and he seemed to have forgotten she was there. Next minute she jumped nervously when he spoke suddenly.

  ‘Is your name really Lenore?’

  ‘Would I say it was if it wasn’t?’ she countered lightly.

  ‘I guess not. It’s not a common name,’ he murmured, and there was another short silence. Then: ‘Lenore,’ he said again, his voice deep yet strangely resonant. ‘ “A dirge for her, the doubly dead,” ’ he continued softly, and she felt the hairs prick the back of her neck. ‘ “In that she died so young.” ’ You know Edgar Allan Poe’s poem entitled Lenore?’ he added.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘That’s all I can remember of the poem. He seemed to have had a fixation about a woman of that name, because she appears in another of his poems The Raven. Surely you know that one?’ ‘No, I ... I don’t think so.’

  ‘The way you came here this evening reminded me of it, even though it’s a different time of day. This house, its remoteness and the wildness of the weather right now would have appealed to Edgar Allan. Could be he was in a similar situation when he wrote the poem. Listen:

  “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

  While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

  As of someone gently rapping.”’

  He stopped quoting and laughed softly, and again Lenore felt a shiver go down her spine.

  ‘When you knocked on the door I was sitting here, half asleep by the fire,’ he said, ‘so I went to the door and,

  “Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream. . . .”’

  ‘Oh, stop it!’ exclaimed Lenore. ‘Stop trying to scare me!’ She swung her legs off the sofa, found her boots and began to pull them on.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded sharply.

  ‘Putting on my boots.’ Groping, she found her woollen hat and crammed it down on her head, then zipped up her parka and pulling on her wet mitts she stood up, putting all her weight on her left leg. ‘I . . . I . . . my knee feels much better now, so I think I’ll try to get to Pickering Lane and the first house and phone my sister from there. She must be getting anxious about me. Thank you for letting me stay and rest for a while.’

  She began to limp towards the doorway and the dimly lit hall, wincing at every step. Behind her she heard Adam say something, then heard him coming after her. By the time she reached the door he was beside her and the dog was with him.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he said autocratically, stepping between her and the hall. ‘You’ll never make it to Pickering Lane in this blizzard—not now, not limping the way you are. You’ll have to stay the night here.’

  ‘But I don’t want to stay the night. And you don’t want me to stay,’ she retorted. ‘Not really. You didn’t want me to come into the house and you’ve just done your best to scare me away. You don’t want me here, so I’ll leave.’

  She stepped s
ideways to go around him and towards the door, but somehow the dog was under her feet. Lurching wildly, she went crashing down on the floor, banging her right knee again, this time against the hard oak frame of the doorway. The pain was sharp, excruciating, and she cried out gaspingly. The dog growled at her fiercely.

  ‘What the hell?’ exclaimed Adam Jonson. ‘Lenore, where are you?’

  ‘Here on the floor, by the living room door,’ she moaned. ‘I ... I tripped over the dog and I’ve hurt my knee again. Oh, what am I going to do?’

  He ordered the dog away from her and crouched down beside her. Again his hands reached out to her. His fingers brushed against her cheek, lingered for a moment as if they liked the feel of it before flinching away suddenly, curling into the palm of his hand as it balled into a fist.

  ‘Have you no sense?’ he snapped, his lips curving back from his set white teeth in the now familiar snarl. ‘Are you always like this, taking offence and rushing off without thinking?’

  He was so near to her that she felt the warmth of his breath on her face and smelt the tang of whisky on it. She could feel too the warmth of his body radiating out to her, heard the strong beat of his heart. Suddenly she felt an urge to touch his face as he had inadvertently touched hers, to run the tips of her fingers over the stubble of his beard, trace the line of his lips or raise her hand even higher and stroke back the fronds of dusty-blond hair from his brow.

  Amazed at herself, because never before had she experienced such a spontaneous urge to reach out and touch a person, to offer the sort of comfort to a man that she knew only a woman could offer, she also clenched her hands as if preventing them from reaching out to him. ‘Why?’ she repeated huskily. ‘Why did you want to stop me from leaving?’

  He didn’t answer right away but stared at her through the dark lenses. Then he shrugged and smiled rather twistedly.