by Janet Tanner
‘Let’s go home.’ There was something claustrophobic about the bistro suddenly and Juliet had no appetite whatsoever for her zabaglione. She did not understand the change in Dan’s attitude, nor why when he was puzzling and annoying her she should still find him so devastatingly attractive. When she fell out with Sean she didn’t want him near her, couldn’t bear the thought of him touching her. Yet even now a glance at Dan’s face, shadowed because it was just out of the circle of light cast by the candle, was making her weak at the knees.
‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘Is there something wrong with your sweet?’
‘No, it’s fine. A bit rich that’s all …’ She put her spoon down. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t really think I want it after all.’
‘Don’t look so worried! Leave it!’ He finished his cassata very quickly and put down his spoon. ‘ Let’s go then, shall we?’
He paid the bill and they climbed the winding staircase to street level. It had been a pleasantly warm day and Juliet had decided not to wear a coat over her soft cotton jersey trousers-and-tunic. Now the evening air struck cool after the mugginess of the cellar histro and she shivered.
‘Cold?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m fine.’ She said it impatiently to cover her confused emotions.
‘Would you like my jacket?’
‘No, really. Honestly I’m all right.’
He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Come here.’
She wanted to protest, wanted to pull away and make her annoyance doubly plain but somehow she could not. His arm felt good around her and suddenly all the awareness was sparking again, powerful as an unexpected electric storm. She turned her head slightly towards him and as she did so he pulled her close, kissing her. As their lips touched she felt her knees go weak so that she stopped walking for a moment, the whole of her body sensitised, wanting nothing but to cling to him.
Crazy! How could it happen so instantly? With Sean she had to work at it, but with Dan one kiss, one touch, could affect her so rapidly it was like bare wires crossing. His mouth was hard yet at the same time deliciously malleable. When he lifted it from hers she felt bereft.
‘You are cold.’ He slipped out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She snuggled her face into it as if it were him. A minute or two ago she had wanted to punish him for suggesting her grandmother might after all have been guilty, now, quite suddenly and almost against her will, she wanted nothing but to be close to him.
He had his arm around her again, holding his jacket in place. She leaned against him lightly as they walked a little haltingly up the hill towards the Fort Regent car park, but he did not kiss her again until they were inside the echoing concrete framework and there was no one else to see.
His car was parked on one of the upper storeys; it took them some time to reach it and by the time they did Juliet was not thinking about Sophia or Louis any more.
His car was an old but beautifully restored soft-topped TR6. The low slung bucket seats made it impossible for him to do anything but concentrate on driving, but the electricity was still there sparking between them so violently that she could almost feel his touch on her skin and she held his jacket around her, enjoying the faint male smell of it. The journey was accomplished in minutes but time had lost all meaning for Juliet. She felt deliciously unreal and it was almost a shock to see her car parked outside Dan’s house where she had left it. But the shock was not enough to return her to reality.
Dan parked and she stood beside him waiting while he unlocked the door. The spell almost broke as she followed him into the house, then, as he kicked the door shut and pulled her into his arms again it surrounded her once more, powerful as ever.
‘You want that coffee?’ he whispered against her ear.
She shook her head. There was nothing she wanted but him.
I’ve taken leave of my senses, she thought. And I don’t care. It’s wonderful!
He was kissing her there in the hallway over and over again, and his jacket slid off her shoulders and fell to the floor. Freed, she wriggled closer, her own hands exploring the hard lines of his shoulder blades, the muscular ridges and lean hollows beneath the crisp cool cotton of his shirt. His nearness was intoxicating – she had drunk very little this evening yet she felt as if she had indulged in a whole bottle of champagne which was now bubbling on her tongue and effervescing in her veins.
He ran a line of kisses from her mouth down her throat and her inner thighs tingled, spreading a weakness through her legs. Then just as she thought she was going to collapse on to the floor she felt his arm go behind her knees and he swept her up into his arms as easily as if she were a child, carrying her into the living-room.
The curtains had not been drawn as it had still been daylight when he had gone out. Now the glow of the streetlamps bathed the room in soft illumination lending a muzzy romance to the worn leather suite and the plain functional furnishings. He left the curtains open, setting her down on the sofa and leaning over to kiss her again. She wound her arms round his neck, pulling him down, and a moment later they were undressing one another with urgency and tenderness. She shuddered at the touch of his body on hers, arching towards him. This was the moment when everything began to fall apart when making love with Sean, the moment when what desire she had seemed to drain away leaving her cold and disinterested yet vaguely yearning for what she had lost. For a brief moment she was afraid it would be the same – if it were she would die of disappointment and despair, she thought. But she need not have worried; with Dan it was quite different. The ebbs and flows were exhilarating, each one lifting her to a higher plane, and when at last it was over there was no feeling of terrible let down or frustration. Instead she felt totally relaxed, confident and happier than she could ever remember.
The irritation she had felt for him earlier had all gone now and for practically the first time since she had come to Jersey she was not sparing a single thought for the long shadow of the past.
‘How about that coffee?’ Dan said, untangling himself and getting up.
She nodded. ‘ Sounds lovely.’
But to be honest anything he suggested would have sounded lovely to her in her present mood. It was as rare as it was beautiful and Juliet wished it could last forever.
It was well past midnight when she arrived home. Dan had tried to persuade her to stay the night but she had refused.
‘I don’t know what you must think of me now, letting you make love to me the very first time we go out together properly!’
‘What do I think? I think you are a very special lady. We share a very special something. Whatever happens I want you to remember that.’
For a moment she had sensed something unsaid, something he was perhaps on the point of saying, but she refused to allow it to spoil the happiness that was glowing in her.
‘I can’t possibly stay the night, Dan. The family will wonder what has become of me.’
‘I thought you said Deborah was away.’
‘She is. Until tomorrow anyway. But David is there. And Grandma.’
‘They’d never know you weren’t in. Stay, Juliet.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Really, I can’t. It would be the most appalling bad manners.’
‘Let me take you home then. I can’t let you just drive off into the night all alone.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘It doesn’t seem a very chivalrous thing to do.’ He did not add that he was terrified of losing her.
She laughed, not with scorn but with pleasure. ‘Oh, you do know how to make a girl feel wanted! But I’m going to refuse, Dan. I don’t want to leave my car parked outside your house all night. I’ll be all right, really I will.’
Reluctantly he had given in and as she turned into the drive of La Grange Juliet was glad she had insisted – there was a light burning in Sophia’s window. It would have been embarrassing as well as inconsiderate if she had stayed out all night and Sophia had known about it.
The hou
se was very quiet. In the stillness the tick of the long case grandfather clock in the hall sounded very loud and the light over the door crept in through the stained glass fanlight and made shadows on the polished floor. Juliet crossed the hall stealthily, then stopped abruptly, gasping in shock.
There was a dark shape on the floor in the doorway to the drawing-room. A dark shape in the very place Louis had died. Juliet’s blood seemed to turn to ice and her first thought was that she was seeing a ghost. For a moment she could not move, she stood quite still, heart pounding, then common sense came rushing in and she reached out and snapped on the hall light.
It was Sophia lying there in a crumpled heap. Juliet dropped to her knees, turning Sophia over and feeling for her pulse. In her panic she could not find one. Then Sophia moaned, low in her throat. ‘Grandma!’ Juliet called. ‘Grandma – can you hear me?’
Again Sophia moaned softly. Juliet ran into the room, snatched up a brocade cushion and placed it under Sophia’s head. Her grandmother was wearing a housecoat over her nightdress but she felt quite cold and Juliet grabbed a Burberry that was hanging on the hall stand and tucked it around her.
‘Stay there, Grandma. I’ll fetch David.’
Sophia’s eyelids flickered. ‘No … no … not David!’ Her voice was slurred but urgent.
‘Deborah is away, Grandma. David will know what to do.’
Sophia’s eyes were wide open now, though their usually sparkling amethyst looked oddly faded and Juliet was not sure her grandmother was hearing what she was saying.
‘Not David!’ Sophia repeated. Then, after a pause when Juliet hesitated, unnerved by her insistence: ‘I couldn’t let him take the blame! I couldn’t … I couldn’t …’
‘It’s all right, Grandma. Just lie still. I’ll be right back.’ Juliet ran up the stairs on shaking legs, then up again to David and Deborah’s apartment on the top floor. All very well for Sophia to insist she did not want David bothered – there really was no alternative. Juliet banged frantically on the bedroom door and after a moment David opened it, rumpled from sleep, wearing nothing but a pair of pyjama trousers.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Grandma has collapsed in the hall.’
‘Oh my God!’ Stopping only to pull on a silk dressing gown David tore downstairs, Juliet following. ‘ Get her bag!’ he shouted to Juliet over his shoulder. ‘Her tablets should be in it.’
By the time Juliet had located Sophia’s bag and found the little pillbox she had seen Deborah use in the restaurant David was on the telephone to Dr Clavell.
‘Put one under her tongue,’ he instructed Juliet, tucking the receiver beneath his chin and raising Sophia’s head as he waited for the doctor to answer. ‘Hurry! I wonder how long she’s been here.’
‘I don’t know. I only just got in.’
David looked at her strangely, taking in the fact that she was fully dressed, but before he could comment the doctor, finally awakened from a deep sleep, came on the line.
To Juliet’s relief the tablet seemed to have an almost instantaneous effect. Sophia could not have been lying there for very long, she imagined – and thanked her lucky stars she had come home when she did. By the time Dr Clavell scorched up the drive in his high powered GTI they had managed to make her comfortable on the sofa, covered by a blanket which David fetched from her room, and she was almost back to normal.
‘What happened, Sophia?’ Dr Clavell asked her, checking her pulse against his watch.
Sophia shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Another of my attacks. You know what they’re like, Damon. A terrible pressure in my chest so I feel I can’t breathe and then everything seems to get dark.’
‘What happened to bring it on?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Did something upset you?’
‘Upset me?’ She laughed, rather bitterly. ‘No.’
‘Then why were you wandering about down here at this time of night?’
‘Oh. ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t sleep. Does it matter? I had an attack, that’s all …’ But her eyes were opaque and the doctor knew he was not going to get any more out of her.
‘I’m going to give you something to help you sleep, Sophia. But I think it might be wise if you avoided using the stairs tonight. Can you sleep down here?’
‘Nonsense! I want to be in my own bed.’
‘If you had been in your bed, Mother, and not wandering about none of this would have happened,’ David said sternly. Their eyes met and briefly Juliet saw some kind of clash of wills flare between them. David broke away first, shrugging helplessly.
‘You see the problem. Doctor? My mother is a very stubborn woman.’
‘And it’s lucky for some that I am!’ Sophia’s voice was sharp.
‘We’ll have to get a lift installed,’ David said, ignoring her. ‘The staircase is quite big enough to take one.’
‘I don’t want a lift!’ Sophia snapped. ‘You’d make me an invalid, David, if you had your way.’
‘It might be a sensible idea, Sophia, but let’s not worry about that tonight.’ Dr Clavell turned to Juliet. ‘Can you make up a bed down here?’
‘For the last time, I don’t want a bed down here! If you help me and I take it steadily I can get back to my own room.’
The doctor exchanged glances with David. We are doing more harm than good by getting her excited, that look seemed to say.
‘Very well, Sophia, on your own head be it. But don’t blame me if you collapse again.’
‘When, Damon, have I ever blamed you for anything?’
‘I think she is feeling better,’ David said drily.
Between them he and Damon Clavell helped Sophia up the broad staircase and into bed while Juliet looked on anxiously.
‘I’ll come in and see if you are asleep in a minute, Grandma,’ she promised before switching the light out.
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t fuss!’ Sophia returned with asperity but she sounded a little muzzy. Obviously Dr Clavell’s pills were beginning to work.
‘What I want to know is why she was wandering about downstairs at this hour,’ David said when the doctor had gone and Juliet was wanning some milk to make cups of Ovaltine.
Juliet coloured a little. ‘I think I might be to blame. I was very late home. I wonder if Grandma was worried about me.’
‘I doubt it. Your grandmother was never one for keeping tabs. She may react differently with you, I suppose, than she did with us. We were boys, you are a girl. And she may feel responsible for you in a different way. But it’s not really like her. And there’s one very odd thing and I don’t like it at all.’ He hesitated. ‘The place where she was lying is practically the exact same spot where Louis was shot.’
Juliet shivered – and not just because of the spooky coincidence. She had known it without being told! Well, perhaps she had been told and not remembered, and certainly the totally different style of floor covering in the drawing-room had indicated it had been changed in the not-too-distant past and probably chosen by a different person to the one who had been responsible for the furnishings in the rest of the house – Deborah, possibly. Juliet could imagine that she might have preferred wall-to-wall fitted carpeting to rugs, however rich and beautiful they might be. But the doorway! Juliet thought. How did I know it was the doorway? She shivered again. Weird!
‘I can’t help feeling this whole thing has been playing on her mind lately,’ David said. ‘Why suddenly it should I don’t understand. God knows it was a terrible business but she always seemed to cope with it so well. Mother has always been expert at hiding her feelings, of course. But perhaps as she grows older they are beginning to surface. I don’t know. But she has certainly been behaving very oddly.’ He unhooked two mugs from the dresser and set them down. ‘Two attacks in as many weeks and we know stress is one of the things that brings them on. What have you been doing to her, Juliet?’
His tone told her he was teasing but it hit home anyway, a huge hot
wave of guilt.
‘Me? Nothing!’ she replied quickly, but she was glad she was busy with the milk pan and David had not been able to see her face.
Was it possible that she was the cause of her grandmother’s attacks? Had she somehow managed to resurrect something Sophia desperately wanted buried? She had done it with the best of intentions in the beginning but Viv’s reaction had shown her in no uncertain way that she was playing with fire and Catherine had issued a stern warning to leave well alone. Now it seemed there was a possibility Sophia too was being upset by her interest.
For goodness’ sake I have to stop this, Juliet thought, disturbed. Perhaps Grandma really did shoot Louis accidentally and she just wants to forget. Or perhaps she had a reason for taking the blame and she sees it as being just as valid today as it was twenty years ago.
‘I think I’ll take my Ovaltine to bed with me and try to get back to sleep,’ David said. ‘I have a couple of very important meetings tomorrow.’
‘I’ll look in on Grandma once more and then get to bed myself,’ Juliet agreed.
The shock of finding Sophia collapsed had totally dispelled the lovely warm glow she had brought back with her from her evening with Dan. Perhaps, she thought, tucked up in bed with her Ovaltine she would be able to resurrect it. She certainly hoped so! Goodness knows this relationship itself would cause enough problems if it became serious – and she rather thought it was going to. For the moment she wanted to savour its special magic for just a little longer.
Sophia was sleeping peacefully. In repose her face looked very young – far too young for someone who had experienced all the traumas she had experienced, Juliet thought. But she knew it was only an illusion. Without a doubt all that had happened to Sophia had taken its toll on her health and strength.
‘Goodnight, Grandma,’ Juliet whispered. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t upset you any more.’
In the half-light it seemed Sophia smiled.
Juliet was almost asleep when it came to her. What the hell had Sophia meant by what she had said when she was lying in a state of semi-consciousness in the hall. ‘I couldn’t let him take the blame … I couldn’t …’ Who was it she had not been prepared to allow to take the blame?