by Maxine Barry
The weeping willows were almost yellow, as their tightly furled buds began to uncurl. A soft bellowing from one of the cows in the meadows echoed peacefully across the river. It was hard to believe there was traffic, and a thriving modern city, going about its business all around them. St Hilda’s came and went on their right, and Jared, spotting a bend in the river, nestling amongst a stand of weeping willows, instinctively steered the punt towards it.
Because she was travelling with her back to where they were going, the first Alicia knew of his proposed landing place, was when a strand of leafy weeping willow brushed past her cheek. She caught it then let it trail out of her hand, entranced. Soon they were nudging their way through a whole curtain of weeping willow branches, to the steep, green bank beyond. The punt nudged into the bank, coming to rest with a gentle bump. Jared poled them into a parallel position to the bank, then looped the mooring rope into the air, over one of the thicker branches, and tied it off.
With the high bank on one side, and the screen of trailing, weeping willow branches on the other, they found themselves cocooned in their own, green, secret world. ‘It’s like a fairytale,’ Alicia breathed, as a Jenny Wren suddenly trilled from the gnarled roots of a nearby willow.
‘I know,’ Jared said, overawed as much as she. He’d wanted to spend the day with her, away from College and their friends and work and the play. He’d wanted to make it romantic, and peaceful and special. But not even he could have hoped for something as perfect as this. He carefully laid the pole inside the punt, then reached for the picnic hamper. He moved towards her, the punt rocking gently with his sure-footed movements, and sat down on the middle strut, the picnic hamper between them. The noon sun, beating down through the canopy of willow, cast dappled light across her. One diamond of sunlight was lying across her left eye, turning the china blue into a brilliant, Ceylon sapphire.
She blinked lazily.
‘You look beautiful,’ Jared said hoarsely.
Alicia blinked again, this time feeling anything but lazy.
‘I do?’ she blurted.
Jared nodded, then quickly ducked his head to unfasten the hamper. He felt suddenly nervous. Shy, almost.
Alicia stared at the bent head, a warm rush of tenderness flooding over her. Underneath all that banter and laughter, he was as nervous and unsure of himself as she was.
‘Let’s see—we have pâté, with fresh crusty bread. A knife.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We have Brie . . . hope you like Brie.’
‘I love Brie.’
‘Peaches.’
‘I love peaches.’
‘And . . . ta-dah!’ he held up a battered blue thermos.
‘Coffee?’ Alicia hazarded blankly.
‘Coffee?’ Jared growled, looking scandalised. ‘I’ll have you know, peasant, that whilst you were tucked up in bed, snoring happily away, I was slaving over a hot blender, just to make you some Buck’s Fizz.’
‘I don’t snore!’
Jared reached into the picnic hamper and extracted a pair of cut crystal glasses. He’d borrowed them from the same chap who had the hamper, under dire threats of disembowelment if he should break either of them. Now he placed the sparkling Waterford crystal flutes on the floor of the punt and carefully poured out the sparkling champagne and orange juice from the flask. Solemnly he handed a glass to her.
‘To you,’ he said softly. Alicia felt her hand shaking slightly as she accepted the glass from him.
‘To the director,’ she whispered. They clinked glasses even more solemnly and drank. It was perfect—the champagne was dry, but the orange juice was sweet. ‘Hum . . ., wonderful.’
Jared busied himself with breaking the bread into chunks and layering on the pâté. Alicia watched him, wanting to say something, something that would honour this wonderful day and this wonderful setting, but she couldn’t think what.
She wanted to blurt out ‘I love you’ but of course she didn’t. She might not know much about men, but even she knew that saying something like that was bound to scare a bloke out of his wits. But she rather thought . . . she rather feared . . . that she did love him.
Jared looked up, caught that look, and froze.
For a second he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d been dreaming of seeing just that look in those stunning blue eyes, ever since the first day Emily had introduced them. Slowly, cautiously, he leaned forward, as if expecting any moment to see her jump up and run away. But as he leaned over her, carefully placing his knees either side of her on the flat bottom of the punt, she began to lean towards him, not away. Her lips fell slightly open. He could hear her take in a sudden, deep breath. The air around them seemed to quiver, sigh, and then still into utter tranquillity as his lips dipped towards her. His hand came up to cup her cheek, and discovered that her skin was so soft against his fingers that it felt like padded satin.
He caught a waft of the scent from her hair—fresh violets.
She swayed further towards him, her heartbeat suspended. When their lips finally met, he felt a jolt go through him, as if he’d been hit by an invisible bolt of lightning.
She tasted sweet, of champagne and oranges and something more . . . something so utterly feminine, so totally Alicia, that he had to hold himself back from dragging her into his arms and trying to absorb the very essence of her.
Alicia’s eyes feathered closed, the image of his melting-chocolate eyes and waves of nut-brown hair remaining imprinted on the back of her retinas. With her eyes closed, she was in a world of sound, smell, taste and darkness. She could feel the cold and warm patches on her hands and face, where sunlight and shadow took it in turns to caress her. She could feel his fingers on her cheek, four tiny points of heat radiating through her, and the heat from his thumb under her chin. She could smell him—the scent of soap and aftershave, new shirt and man.
The water lapped at the punt, causing the tiniest waves of movement in the water beneath them. She felt, quite literally, as if she were floating . . . And, over and above all of that, superseding everything, the touch of his lips on hers. Cool but warm. Firm but gentle. Simple, but meaning everything. A kiss that seemed to go on for ever.
Her own hand came out to cup his head, her fingers smoothing a path through the thick mass of cool hair, to the warm scalp beneath. She opened her mouth wider, inviting deeper, greater intimacies. Jared groaned. It was such a sudden, unexpected, primitive sound, that it startled her.
Jared felt her instinctive surprised withdrawal immediately. And, before Alicia could stop him, he lifted his lips, leaning back, hoping he didn’t look as completely shattered as he felt. He’d kissed women before. Had done more, much more, than that. But nothing had ever prepared him for the perfection of such a moment; a moment that now was gone for ever. It left a bittersweet taste in his soul.
Alicia sighed. She wanted him back where he’d been. Wanted to tell him that she’d been caught unawares, that was all, and that she wasn’t scared, wasn’t . . .
But he was already leaning back on his heels. His hands falling away from her face. And although she loved his smile, she hated the smile he gave her now, because it meant he was moving further away from her.
Dragging them back to that other place called reality.
As if to prove her right, Jared, telling himself it would be disaster to rush her, struggled for something to say, and managed to shrug one shoulder nonchalantly.
‘We’d better finish the Bucks Fizz, before it gets warm.’
A drake mallard, discovering their hideaway, swam beneath the canopy of willow and quacked hopefully for a piece of the feast. The comical sound finally snapped Alicia out of her dream-like trance. She looked at the duck, at his glossy emerald head and curly tail, and smiled tremulously. ‘I don’t think this chap is in danger of sinking us,’ she laughed determinedly, and tossed him a piece of bread, fiercely telling herself that she could be as adult about all this as Jared.
She must get rid of this stupi
d idea that a single kiss meant something. In this day and age, it really meant nothing. Nothing at all. Jared must have kissed a lot of girls, and probably didn’t even remember their names now.
She thought about Emily, who changed her boyfriends as casually as her father changed his socks, and sternly told herself to pull herself together. She accepted a plate of crusty bread and pâté and ate it, and then talked about the play and fed the duck, and all the time while she was crying inside, she told herself that, really, she was having a great time.
Jared, fighting off an almost overwhelming urge to rush across the punt and ravish her, told himself to be satisfied with his progress. After today, she couldn’t possibly see him as just the director of the play, one of the lads, a mere friend. After this magical picnic, that earth-shattering kiss, she must know that she was very special to him . . .
The most special thing in the world, in fact.
* * *
Davina raised an eyebrow as Gareth led her through the dark and deserted car park towards a white Jaguar XJS. Dinner was long over, and when he’d invited her to go with him to a local night club that had a jazz evening every Tuesday, she’d quickly accepted.
‘I wouldn’t have guessed you were a sports car driver,’ she said over the roof of the low-slung car, as he delved into his pocket for the keys. ‘I have an E-type myself.’
Gareth looked at her over the expanse of white roof, thinking about that classic, curvaceous, serious car. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘It suits you.’
Davina felt again that pang of connection, that sensation of souls meeting. Damn him, what right did he have to know how she felt about her car? He opened the passenger door and she slid in angrily, dropping her scuffed leather handbag at her feet as Gareth unlocked his own door and climbed in behind the wheel. Ever since they’d made love on the desk, she’d found it impossible to get him out of her mind.
A week spent working furiously on the anthology hadn’t helped distract her. Nor had hiring a private detective to find a pupil at the King Canute College to fit her bill.
She knew that he was taking it for granted that they were ‘an item’ now. As was the rest of the College. Nobody, from disgruntled female students to highly interested dons, had failed to note their intense closeness. And as he drove them towards Holywell, and a small, smoky club that had the meanest sax player Davina had ever heard, she knew that that suited her just fine. She’d spun her web and caught her fly.
But soon, now, he was going to want a repeat performance of that mind-blowing evening on his desk. And she was going to have to make up her mind whether or not she could afford to go through with it again. Already her body was beginning to feel more his than hers. As he slipped off her coat in the tiny cramped cloakroom, and led her on to the packed dance floor, she could feel herself melt against him, no matter what furious directions to the contrary her mind gave to her wayward flesh and blood. Her arms felt languorous as they slipped over his shoulders. Her hips, moving against his as they swayed to the slow, blues beat of the music, seemed boneless. The pale red and blue lights gleamed on the dark wings of his hair. Reflected in the grey of his eyes. He kissed her hard, moulding her lips to his, his mouth insistent and hungry on hers.
She kissed him back, as hard, as angry, and hungry. But then, deliberately, determinedly, she drew back from him. More out of a desire to prove to herself that she could, than as a punishment for him.
‘Let’s find a table and a drink,’ she murmured, annoyed to find her voice coming out so huskily.
They found a tiny round table over by the back door. A cold draught was blowing through from under it, as the night outside turned progressively more frosty.
‘What do you want?’ Gareth asked, and for a moment she felt like laughing. What did she want? Then she reminded herself that all she wanted was revenge for David. And to see this man broken. This man who could set her blood burning with just a touch. This man who could touch her soul with his understanding of her poetry.
‘Vodka. Neat,’ she said tensely.
He nodded and fought his way to the bar. By the time he came back, Davina was in no mood to merciful.
‘Well, I’ve made twenty choices for the anthology so far,’ she said briskly, accepting the drink and taking a good gulp without so much as a wince. ‘But I don’t know how strong my conviction is going to be when I’ve picked out a hundred and twenty, and some poems have to go.’
Gareth nodded. ‘I don’t envy you. It’s at times like these that I’m glad I’m just a simple teacher.’
Davina smiled grimly. How modest. ‘But even teaching is not always such plain sailing is it?’ she said in a dulcet tone, by not a flicker of an eyelash giving him warning of what was to come. ‘I heard from Rex this morning that you lost one of your pupils last term. A boy, he said. He implied a great tragedy.’
It was difficult to tell, in the dim light, but she was sure that he suddenly paled. ‘What happened?’ she pressed. She suddenly wanted, more than anything, to hear his pathetic excuses. But Gareth shook his head. ‘I don’t talk about it,’ he said flatly.
Davina felt a wave of screaming rage swamp her. For one insane moment she wanted to reach across the table and attack him, beating him with her fists, telling him that her brother was more important than that. That he should talk about nothing else but that gentle, funny, wonderful boy who’d wanted to teach as well. And who now lay in his grave.
‘I see,’ she said flatly. ‘Sorry that I’m not worthy to be trusted with your secrets,’ she flashed, and got to her feet.
Gareth opened his mouth, then firmly closed it again. If Davina was in no mood to be merciful, he was in no mood to respond to emotional blackmail.
They were silent as they drove back to College. Silent as he walked her to the door of Wolsey. Silent as she walked to her own door within the building and opened it. When she turned he already knew she was not going to invite him in. He was becoming adept at reading her mercurial moods. Instead of exasperating him, they satisfied him. She had the soul of a poet after all—she was a woman unlike any other; she was entitled to be capricious. Having given him a taste of heaven, she was now determined to starve him.
Well, that was all right with him too.
For a while, anyway.
When she turned, her lips already opening to give him words of dismissal, he reached for her, dragging her into his arms. She struggled wildly for the briefest of seconds, but then his lips were on hers, and all the fight went out of her. His arms around her waist felt like wonderful chains.
The kiss was hard, angry, brief, but satisfied something in both their psyches. When he pulled back and looked down into glowing green eyes, flashing viciousness and desire in equal measures, he slowly nodded.
‘I’m not giving up on you Davina,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not ever going to let you chase me away. Try as hard as you like. I’m the man who’s yours for ever.’
A strange, almost feral look, crossed her face. A look that was not frightened, not challenging, not disbelieving, but somehow . . . ironically amused . . .
‘Good,’ Davina said softly. ‘Because I have plans for you, too.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jared reached for Alicia’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. ‘Relax—it’ll be fine.’ They were sitting in the front row of the theatre, and the cast were about to do their first run-through of the complete play.
She wished she had Jared’s laid back attitude. She wished . . . She wished Jared would kiss her, as he had on the punt.
The door at the back opened, and Davina Granger approached them. ‘Hello, I heard there was a rehearsal going on.’
‘That’s right. I’m Jared Cowan, the director. You’re welcome to watch, but I warn you, there’ll be plenty of mistakes to be ironed out. Generally, I suspect it’ll be very messy.’
Although he was speaking to Davina, he was talking more for Alicia’s benefit. He wanted her to be prepared for the chaos that the first run-through always
produced.
Davina laughed. ‘Ah, but that’s where all the fun’s to be had,’ she pointed out.
Jared believed her. ‘Miss Granger, I’d like to introduce you to the author of the play . . .’ Behind him, Alicia went hot then cold. As he turned, and Davina glanced across him towards her, she quickly rose from the chair, spilling her script, notes and pen around her. Confused she made a made a mad dip to pick them up, then thought how silly she must look and stood upright again, then didn’t know what to do with her hands and stuck them behind her back, then thought how silly that must look and let them drop to her sides. Finally she managed what felt to her like an inane grin.
Davina watched this shy, awkward, endearingly touching scene, and suddenly St Agnes snapped into her mind. This woman was so child-like. And those huge blue eyes . . . all that medieval long dark hair . . . ‘Hello,’ Davina said, reaching forward to shake the woman’s hand. ‘It takes courage to take on a big project like this. Admire your nerve.’
Alicia took the hand nervously. According to her aunt, Davina was pioneering the art of twenty-first century poetry for women almost single-handed.
‘She’s written a wonderful play,’ Jared said staunchly, and Davina smiled. It was not hard to interpret the look in the wide blue eyes of her St Agnes. Young love. There was nothing quite like it.
Behind them the door opened once again, and Davina recognised Neville Norman. ‘Miss Granger,’ he gushed, ‘I was hoping to run into you again. Alicia,’ Neville turned to his sister. ‘How’s the play coming?’ he asked politely.
Alicia wished she knew.
‘We’re about to have our first run-through,’ Jared said. ‘I’m sure you know what they’re like. If you’d like to meet up with us later . . .’
Neville smiled. ‘Oh, but I love watching the bare bones of a play being padded out,’ he contradicted, and very deliberately moved to one of the front row seats. Davina tried not to smile as Jared glowered at his elegant back. Then the smile faded as she noticed the agonised look on the beautiful face of her St Agnes. Of course, she thought, as she made the connection. Neville Norman was the big brother, and famous theatre critic, here to watch her play. No wonder the poor girl looked as if she’d rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else . . . like on the bridge of the Titanic for instance.