by Flora Kidd
‘I can find out,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Albert Smith—he’ll know.’
She made a point of going to see Albert the next day. As usual he wasn’t very communicative, but he told her that Adam was still unable to see properly and that he was still at the rehabilitation clinic outside New York.
After much discussion the music group composed a letter and it was signed by Isaac and Jack and sent to Adam, then all their energies were applied to the planning of the third concert for the first week in August and the fourth concert at the end of August, just before all the summer visitors departed.
Lenore at last received a letter from the hiring committee of the orchestra in Caracas to say she had not been appointed to play in the woodwind section after all. With disappointment at being rejected came a certain relief. At last she knew where she stood and could start making other plans for her future. She told Isaac what had happened and asked if she could use his name as a reference when she applied for other auditions with other orchestras.
‘Sure you can use my name,’ he said. ‘I’ll be delighted to give you a letter of reference. But couldn’t you stay here? The group needs you, Lenore, and if we can only get going on this music festival we would very much like you to be the executive director of it.’
‘I’d like to stay. And I’d like to direct the festival. But I have to eat,’ she replied. ‘I can’t sponge for ever on Blythe.’
‘I understand. But you still have the small job of producing the next two concerts for TV, and I have this feeling the network might want you to do more. Why not wait and see what September brings, my dear? Much can happen between then and now.’
‘I guess so,’ agreed Lenore with a sigh. ‘Has there been any reply to the letter you sent to Adam Jonson?’
‘No, not yet. But it will come. It will come,’ he said. ‘He will not ignore us—I’m sure of that.’ The third concert was performed and rehearsals started for the fourth one. The hot days of August passed by, golden and blue, sometimes bright and windy, with the bay and the estuary dotted with the sails of many yachts; sometimes still and heavy, deteriorating into violent thunderstorms with tropical-style rainstorms and brilliant displays of lightning.
The last day of the month, a Sunday, was perfect. The sunset was spectacular, the sky flushed with crimson light and the sea looking as if it had been set on fire. The hills were darkest purple.
At the Jonson house the sound of music, classical, modem and contemporary, flowed out from the open windows of the long wide room. The audience sat entranced. And Lenore, who was not performing that night but was introducing each piece before it was played and so was seated behind the piano where she couldn’t be seen by the audience, was sure that the spirit of Martin Jonson must have been smiling and nodding in approval of what was happening in the room where he had so often played the piano.
It was when she was ending her introduction to the final piece of music and was standing in front of the piano that she saw Adam. At least, she thought she saw him. The sight of him jarred her so much that she stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence and had to take a deep breath before going on.
Before she went back to her seat behind the piano she glanced quickly again at the open window where she thought she had seen him standing. But he wasn’t there, and she was convinced then that her imagination was playing tricks on her. She wanted so much to see him that perhaps her mind had flipped and she had begun to hallucinate.
The concert ended. The audience applauded. The performers made several bows. Slowly the chattering excited crowd left the house to drive away in cars or to walk through the soft starlit darkness.
After arranging to meet at Isaac’s house during the next week the performers also left. Lenore said goodnight to Jim Lorway and the other cameraman and they went off in their van. She had come alone in Blythe’s car, and as she opened the door on the driver’s side she looked hopefully back at the dark bulk of the house, remembering the night of the first concert and the light shining out from an upstairs window.
But there was no light upstairs and no light downstairs either, yet she could see the front door was still open. She looked around. Albert Smith’s truck had gone, and there was only one other car parked in front of the house, far away from hers. She could just make out the gleam of its hub-caps and windows.
She slammed the door of the car shut and hurried up the front steps and into the hallway. Darkness surged around her. She stepped into the music room. Faint light trickling in through the windows glinted on the piano keys, on the rows of chairs, on the clock on the marble shelf above the fireplace. At the open windows the velvet curtains stirred in the evening breeze.
A sound from the hallway made her whirl round. She looked out of the music room. The front door was closed. Still in darkness, she went towards it, turned the knob and pulled. The door was locked. Albert must have been in the house and now he had left, locking the door after him. The back door was probably locked too. She was locked in the house.
No, she wasn’t. The windows in the music room were still open—careless of Albert to forget them. Lenore went back into the room and began to edge around the rows of chairs in the direction of the nearest window. Behind her someone called her name.
‘Lenore!’
She half turned towards the doorway of the room. She couldn’t see anyone. Was she imagining the voice? Had someone spoken her name? Or was this room haunted?
‘Lenore.’ Soft yet hollow, the voice spoke again. Goosebumps prickled her skin. Fear of the unknown took over and she began to hurry towards the window, walking into chairs and pushing them away from her violently so that they crashed noisily into each other. She reached the window and was going to step outside when from behind her a well-known, longed-for voice roared,
‘Lenore, what the hell are you doing here?’
Her skin clammy with sweat, her heart thudding against her ribs, her eyes wide with terror, she glanced back. Light flooded the room. A man was standing just inside the door, his right hand dropping away from the switch on the wall. A man she knew yet didn’t know. A big tough-looking man, looking even tougher because his hair was very short, looking as if it was growing again after it had been shaved off. He was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved blue T-shirt. The thin material clung to his muscular chest and the short sleeves showed off his tanned sinewy arms. He wasn’t wearing dark glasses and across the room Lenore could see the blue sparkle of his eyes.
‘Adam,’ she whispered, feeling joy rushing up within her. ‘Are you . . . I mean . . . oh, Adam!’ Again she banged into chairs, bruising her knees and shins as she tried to hurry across the room towards him. He was coming towards her, also pushing chairs out of his way. They met, stared at each other for a second. Then their arms reached out and went around each other. They hugged and squeezed each other, laughing breathlessly. Then they kissed hotly, greedily and, swaying under the onslaught of passion, collapsed on to two nearby chairs, still holding each other.
‘When did you come?’ Lenore asked.
‘This evening. I arrived just before the end of the concert. I stepped inside from the terrace to hear the last movement of the second piece—and thought I was seeing things when at the end of it you stepped from behind the piano to announce the third item.’
‘You didn’t know I’d be here?’ she exclaimed.
‘No. I remembered you telling Valerie Baker in this room that you’d be leaving Northport after the first concert, going to Caracas maybe, and I had no reason to believe you’d changed your mind.’
‘But didn’t Albert ever tell you I was still living in Northport?’
‘Why would he? I never asked him about you when I phoned him to ask how things were at the house. And he never talked about you.’ Adam’s crooked grin mocked himself as well as Albert. ‘Neither of us is very communicative, you know.’
‘Mmm, I had noticed,’ she retorted, giving him a disdainful glare. ‘You don’t write letters either. You didn’t repl
y to my note. Did you get it?’
He was silent for a moment, looking down at their two hands that were elapsed together and resting on his knee. Then suddenly he looked up and straight into her eyes, and she felt for the first time the sense-thrilling impact of his intensely blue stare.
‘I couldn’t,’ he said quietly. ‘My feelings about you were too deep for any words I could write. Besides, I thought you’d left Northport, gone away somewhere, and that I’d never find you again.’ He raised both hands and held her head between them, still staring down at her. ‘It’s good to see you, Lenore, at last. It’s so good to see you,’ he whispered.
They kissed again deeply and sweetly, and it was as if the months they had been apart had never been.
‘I guess the operation was a success,’ Lenore said somewhat breathlessly when they came up for air.
‘I can see almost perfectly. I need glasses to read small print, that’s all.’
‘But you can use a camera again.’
‘I sure can,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Thank God! That’s why I’m here. I’m going away on an assignment and I want to make arrangements about the house.’
She withdrew from him slightly.
‘An assignment?’ she repeated faintly, fear flooding her mind; fear of the future, his future. ‘For the same TV network you’d worked for?’ ‘That’s right.’ Adam sounded enthusiastic. She had the impression he could hardly wait to be on his way.
‘Where?’ she whispered. ‘Where will you be going?’
‘El Salvador again. Nicaragua. The wars there still go on.’
‘But . . . but that’s where you. ...’ she began, and broke off with a shudder.
‘Where Frank got blown to pieces and I was injured,’ he finished for her grimly. ‘I know. But I have to go back.’
‘Why? Why do you have to go?’ she exclaimed, turning to him urgently. ‘Isn’t there something else you could do? Something less violent?’
‘I have to go back,’ he said again, quietly. ‘I have to go back to prove to myself that I haven’t lost my nerve; that I’m not afraid to go among the flying bullets, the mortar bombs, and take pictures of the reality and the pathos of civil war, because that’s what it is that’s going on down there.’
‘But . . . but what about us?’ she asked, her head bent and her eyes filling with tears, her hands twisting together on her lap.
‘Us?’ he repeated queryingly.
‘Yes, you and me.’ She looked up at him, shaking her hair back from her face. ‘Doesn’t our . . . our relationship . . . our friendship, whatever you like to call it, matter to you? Does dashing about a war-torn country, filming death and destruction, mean more to you than . . . than I do?’
Adam studied her upturned face and slowly the hardness left his eyes and gave way to a warm sensual glow. He touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers.
‘No. Nothing means more to me than you do,’ he admitted slowly.
‘Then don’t go on that assignment,’ she cried, throwing her arms about him, holding him closely her cheek pressed against his rough one. ‘Don’t go, Adam. Stay here with me and make films about music. Oh, please don’t go away. You could be hurt again—you could be killed!’
He didn’t say anything but held her for a while, quietly stroking her hair until, comforted, she calmed down, resting her head against his shoulder, feeling the warmth of him spreading through her. Then he said firmly,
‘I have to go, Lenore. I’ll never be at peace with myself unless I go back and finish what Frank and I were trying to do.’ He paused, then added softly, ‘If you love me you’ll try to understand how I feel about going back and why I have to do it.’
Lenore was silent then, thinking about what he had said and acknowledging reluctantly that he was right.
‘When? When will you go?’ she asked at last in a lifeless voice.
‘The beginning of October.’
A month. They had a whole month to be together.
‘Did you get a letter from Isaac and Jack?’ she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and pushing away from him. Leaning against him, feeling the life-force pulsing through him, was having its usual weakening effect on her. If she stayed in his arms much longer she would succumb to desire and begin to make love to him, and she wasn’t going to do that. Not yet, anyway.
‘Yes, I did,’ he replied. ‘I’m hoping to meet with them some time next week.’
‘You could have seen them tonight and discussed the matter,’ she pointed out.
‘I could, but once I’d seen you I didn’t want to talk with them until I’d talked with you first. I’d have come to the Inn tomorrow if you hadn’t come back into the house.’ Adam slanted her a curious glance. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘I thought Albert had gone and had left the front door open, so I came in to shut it.’ She decided to say nothing of having felt his presence in the house, so she had returned to it, hoping to find him. ‘How did you know I’d come in?’
‘I saw you. I was in the study and was just coming to shut the front door. When you stepped into this room I shut the door and locked it. You came into the hallway and I stayed hidden in the shadows?’
‘Why? Why didn’t you speak to me then?’
‘To tease you a little, I guess.’
‘You scared the life out of me when you did speak,’ she retorted. ‘I thought I was imagining things.’ She glanced at the open windows. ‘I must go, Blythe will be wondering where I am.’ ‘Call her and tell her you won’t be back tonight,’ said Adam autocratically, getting to his feet. Taking hold of one of her hands, he pulled her to her feet. ‘The phone is in the study. Come on.’
‘But . . . I. . . .’
‘No buts,’ he interrupted her curtly. ‘You’re staying the night here. With me.’ Making for the door, he pulled her after him and in the darkness of the hall he stopped, swinging her round and against him. Her breasts tingled as they were crushed against his hard chest. His hands pressed urgently against the sides of her breasts, before sweeping down to her waist, her hips. Fingers digging into her buttocks, he dragged the lower part of her body against his hips so that she felt his arousal. Her legs shook and she seemed to melt against him.
‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,’ he whispered into the softness of her hair. ‘I’ve been wanting you a hell of a long time, ever since I left you here in my bed that morning. It took all my will power to leave you, but I had to do it. I had to have that operation.’ He paused, breathing heavily and shakily as he tried to control the desire that was throbbing through him. ‘There’s been no one else these past three months,’ he continued. ‘No one else but you, in my mind, in my body, haunting me, tormenting me.’
‘It’s been like that for me too,’ whispered Lenore, helpless now and clinging to him.
‘Then what are we standing here for? Let’s go to bed,’ he growled roughly, and taking her hand again began to pull her towards the stairs.
‘But what about Blythe?’ she protested, holding back, trying to pull her hand free of his.
‘Later. You can call her later,’ he said, tugging on her hand so hard she went towards him in a little involuntary rush, colliding with him. Dropping her hand, he swept her up into his arms and started up the stairs, and she didn’t protest any more.
In the bedroom, on the wide bed, they entered their own secret world; a world of soft sensuous caresses and tender titillating kisses. Slowly and reverently it began, like the beginning of a piece of music, and gradually the rhythm increased as the beat of their hearts grew faster and the blood boiled in their veins. Faster and faster, louder and louder, until suddenly they were united in a single thunderous chord that seemed to split the darkness. And then slowly, beautifully, it ended—a quiet unwinding of tension to the accompaniment of whispered endearments and the low-voiced mutual confession of love.
This time neither left the other. They loved together, they slept together and they woke together, turning to each o
ther to kiss and fondle lazily in the mellow golden light of the September morning.
‘Why didn’t you leave Northport after that first concert?’ asked Adam. ‘Why didn’t you go to Caracas?’
‘I wasn’t appointed to the orchestra there,’ she explained. ‘I’m going to stay here. I’ve been producing the concerts for the public TV network since Valerie left.’ She gave him a cautious sidelong glance. ‘You knew she’d left, and went back to New York?’ she asked.
‘I know,’ he replied coolly. ‘Go on about this producing you’ve been doing. Are you any good at it?’
‘Jim Lorway thinks so, and the manager of the network thinks so too. They’ve asked me to produce more programmes for them. And then . . . next summer . . . if somewhere can be found where it can be held the music group wants me to organise the music and arts festival.’ She laid a hand tentatively on his bare arm and let her fingers slide over the warm hairy skin. ‘Adam, have you decided? Are you going to allow the festival to take place here in this house?’
‘I might,’ he drawled. His eyes were closed, the heavy lids fringed by thick bronze-coloured lashes. ‘A lot depends on you.’
‘We seem to have had this conversation before,’ she murmured, her heart beginning to thump excitedly. Slowly Adam’s eyelids lifted. Half closed, his eyes laughed at her.
‘We have,’ he replied. ‘Marry me, Lenore, and live here, and you can have all the music groups in the world to play here whenever you like. I think that’s what I said to you, and you accused me of not being normal.’ His mouth twisted bitterly.
‘Oh, will you ever forgive me for saying that?’ she wailed, burying her face against the hardness of his shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t marry you because you were half blind. I meant that I couldn’t accept your proposal because I felt you wouldn’t have asked me to marry you if you hadn’t been half blind—would you?’ She raised her head to look at him challengingly.