The weathered red brick of the walls of the main house were attractive, and were complemented by the aged yellow brickwork and darkened timbers of the smaller outbuildings where various farm machinery and motor vehicles were kept, unless habit had been changed dramatically since she had been away. The grounds immediately surrounding the house were of pristine gravel, neatly tailored flowerbeds, and carefully maintained lawn. She had been allocated one of the guest suites in one of the outbuildings.
Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she looked for its source. It was some moments before she saw him, walking, long legs striding purposefully through the wheat field. He looked as if he had spent the night there, his ivory coloured shirt and trousers crumpled and stained, and yet he still looked as magnificent as the first time she had met him.
It was ten years ago, and she was on the brink of leaving University for a career in something vaguely artistic. He had been in and around a group at her art classes, yet whenever she tried to get near to him, to speak to him, he was gone. Of course Kim got to know him, ‘very well’ as she once boasted, but then Kim always had to have whatever was considered favourite, or the trend of the moment. Sad - though Sarah had considered it poetic justice at the time - that Kim had lost her ability to translate her talent for painting when the road crash left her paralysed.
The exhibition was Kim’s great, and as it transpired only, moment of artistic triumph. Easily the best creative talent in her year, she had been granted a one-person show at a small gallery in central London, quite a coup even then. As Sarah wandered around, gazing enviously at the canvasses, bold colours and abstract patterns being the basis of most of them, she couldn’t help wishing she possessed just a modicum of the freedom of expression to commit her feelings to public view.
‘It’s merely a case of conquering your natural inhibitions.’ It was him, the man she had seen but never met.
She smiled enigmatically; even then able to cloak her emotions with words. ‘Am I inhibited?’
His smile was more restrained, as if it was a physical reflex he was still learning. ‘Kim isn’t though, is she? Or at least that’s what her paintings suggest.’
They were standing in front of a huge abstract nude in purple and yellow. ‘You’ll be telling me next this is Kim.’
He turned away as if to leave her. She was amazed at the stab of pain that simple action caused her. Then he turned and beckoned to her. ‘No actually it’s me. Stylised to an extent of course. Kim was naked as well, she painted it after we made love.’
Sarah blushed, which made her angry, and with her anger came a sudden rush of resentment. ‘Is she uninhibited in bed as well?’ She tried to sound blasé but failed.
His hand on her bare arm felt warm, and the warmth seemed to flow into her veins, causing her head to spin a little. ‘No, her true openness she shares with her canvasses. You, however…’
The hotel was not quite seedy, but would never be considered upmarket. The room was clean, and the bed freshly made. If lack of inhibition was the subject, they both passed with flying colours. Sarah felt his hands on parts of her body she had yet to speak openly about. She lavished positions of wild display upon him. Their nakedness was natural and without a mask of coyness; but it also lacked true passion. He was athletic and demanding, yet his ardour seemed as if it had been learned, and was still being tested. It was something acquired rather than an emotion to be experienced.
Sarah shivered and pulled the window closed. The field was empty now, David Moore had disappeared from sight just as he had disappeared from her life ten years ago, their one afternoon of delights repeated, it seemed move for move and never a position deviated from, on six more occasions over the next year, and then nothing. They stayed in touch, and she was able to follow his progress, but there was nothing more intimate between them. He never explained, apart from one grudging ‘We are both still growing. You need to find who you really are.’ ‘What about you? I suppose the in control David Moore knows who he is?’ ‘I know what I am going to be, and what I need to get there. Who isn’t important? We are all the sum of many different parts. Don’t you agree?’
It was a glorious day outside. The sun shone through the curtains of her room, making shadows play and dance on the wall behind her. She owed Mary Moreton an explanation for her sudden appearance last night, and a thank you for the grace with which she was unquestionably given a room. She dressed quickly after a shower and went down into the courtyard.
She had known the Moretons for years. They had been friends of her parents, both running small farms in the Devon heartland, and after her parents’ death in a boating accident off the Salcombe coast she had been as welcome to stay at the Manor as she had been at her own family home. Mary and her husband Bill were old-fashioned in many ways but they had helped and guided her through many difficult decisions, not least of which was her setting up home with Amanda. Sarah knew her parents wouldn’t have been so stoical about it. Yet Mary and Bill had calmly discussed the good and bad side of setting up home with anyone, and the social and emotional issues they handled rationally.
The flowerbeds were crammed with roses, fuchsia, clumps of perennials, spreading cotoneaster, whilst the walls of the buildings overflowed with clematis and vines. The edges of the lawns were neatly clipped, meeting the gravel paths with almost military precision. Obviously Bill’s work and Sarah smiled; Mary would always aspire to a more informal approach.
She opened and went through the main front door, knowing she had no need of the formalities of knocking or ringing the bell. The predominant smell was of rich furniture polish. Fresh flowers were collected in crystal vases on an oak refectory table in the centre of the main hall. From the hall, the floor a lake of polished wood panelling, doors led to the rooms of the house. It was from one of these that Mary Moreton appeared.
‘Sarah!’ She exclaimed with genuine delight, and hugged the younger woman to her in a display of what, Sarah realised later, was a desperate plea for help.
A trifle breathless from the embrace Sarah held Mary’s shoulders in her hands to enable her to look at her old friend. She had barely had time to see her properly last night, exhausted as she was from the drive. Mary had lost weight, and the years seemed to be hanging heavily upon her. In fact, Sarah was quite shocked at the difference in Mary’s appearance since her last visit, only six months or so ago.
Mary sensed the effect her appearance had on Sarah, and she tried to make light of it. ‘Now don’t fuss dear. After all, it’s you we need to attend to, sort out whatever it is has brought you home in the middle of the night.’
Strange that even now Sarah thought of Moreton Manor as her home. In a way, even when her own family home was somewhere she could visit, before the accident and the farm was sold off, she would still naturally gravitate here. The reason was Mary Moreton herself, and her refreshing lack of disapproval at the events that struck Sarah’s life.
‘You don’t look well, Mary. Is everything all right?’
Mary turned away, a trickle of a tear in the corner of one eye. Involuntarily she glanced at a photograph, framed and hanging on the wall. It was of a middle-aged man seated astride a huge hunter, the pair in unison as they leapt a hedge and ditch combination at the county fair.
Sarah saw the glance and knew at once that the trouble concerned Bill Moreton. ‘What’s happened?’
Mary sighed. ‘He’s not been right for a while now. The fall from the horse seems to have knocked the stuffing out of him. You know Bill, always falling off the blasted animals, but always getting back on and riding off.’
Sarah laughed. ‘He once said he felt more comfortable in a saddle than in an armchair.’
‘Well, he won’t be riding again.’
Sarah was shocked. To a man like Bill Moreton that was the last thing he would concede. ‘What happened?’
Mary recited it as if it was a liturgy learned at school. ‘He was showing David some moves, they were both on horseb
ack, they galloped out of my sight and I got on with potting the bedding plants. Then David came back, and Bill didn’t. He had fallen at the entrance to the woods, where the field narrows and there’s that gully, you know the one. The ambulance men said he needed to get to hospital, and the tests showed it was his back. Broken and twisted in a way that means…well he may walk in time, but not for a while.’
The full impact of what Mary was saying wouldn’t hit Sarah until later and for now all she could say was inane. ‘When I saw the gardens I smiled. It’s all so neat, just like Bill likes. I assumed he had done it.’
‘No, David has helped out. He’s been a blessing.’
The name was stabbing at Sarah in a way she had never quite been free from. Although she had seen him earlier in the field, and was somehow not surprised at seeing him, she hadn’t known he would be here. Why should he be? His presence was fate in a kind of way. She was running from one relationship and here he was, the man she had never really recovered from.
Before she could ask Mary about him, Mary was saying, ‘David has helped with the horses as well. He’s as good a rider as Bill now, so at least Bill taught his last pupil well.’
Apparently Bill Moreton had suffered a bad night and was still sleeping, so Mary and Sarah breakfasted together in the west conservatory, and the conversation skirted any important issues as they both seemed to want to cosset themselves with some warm safety for a while.
Eventually Sarah grew restless and as ever Mary picked up on her mood. ‘He’s in the stable barn, we converted it into a studio for him in the winter. The light is perfect so he says.’
‘How long has he been here then?’ Sarah couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. She had imagined that like her, David was just passing through.
Mary drank some tea, which from the look on her face was cold, or bitter. ‘Oh, forever, my dear.’ A sigh. ‘Forever.’
As she got nearer to the old stable barn, Sarah could see that the recent renovations that Mary had mentioned had turned it into a far grander building than she remembered. The roof had been completely removed and replaced by glass panels through which the early morning sun was shining as though on the righteous. The glass panels were held in place by metal struts that seemed to be stainless steel. One whole side of the barn was now glass too, although a blind had been drawn across it, for privacy or protection from the sun’s rays, Sarah couldn’t tell. The remaining walls had been improved so that the crumbling brickwork was repaired but still looked aged, and the wood had clearly been enhanced so that it retained its appearance of age, but was solid resistance now against the elements.
Though they had not enjoyed a conventional relationship since their early years, Sarah had maintained contact with David to the extent that she entered the barn comfortably enough without knocking. He stood by a washbasin, naked; water that she knew would be ice cold flowing over his shoulders. She watched as he, unaware so she thought of her presence, moved his hands swiftly and economically over the muscles of his back and legs. When his hands moved to the front of his body she coughed, a smile playing on her lips.
He turned then and in the rays of light reflected through the glass ceiling, and with dust motes, and the thin smoke from incense sticks on a table, it seemed for an instant as if his body was covered in fine downy fur, rather than skin. The hard musculature that she had seen on his back was less pronounced on his chest, where, obscured by the movement of his body and her unclear vision, the impression was of a pale white smoothness.
As soon as the impression was registered it was gone again as he casually folded a towel around his waist and approached her. He kissed her cheek, offering a quick embrace, and the skin of his chest, and the rest of his body, was as she remembered it, but more so.
If he was surprised to see her he gave no indication. He seemed to revel in her uninhibited survey of his body, turning in different positions to her, even forming a mock model’s pose on a couple of occasions, a smile on his face. That too seemed different from her memory. The face was his but there seemed to be softer lines in it, a slightly less hooked nose, hair that flopped down on the forehead in an easier style than before. There were features of his face that reminded her of someone else. It was as if he had the best bits from two different faces, his own and…
‘So, Sarah, has the little liaison petered out?’ He always mocked her relationships with women, and the one serious one, with Amanda, he allowed full range of sarcasm and amused pity.
Sarah tried to be as casual as she could but it was an act. It was never easy maintaining her composure in his presence. In equal measure she wanted to slap him and sleep with him. There was an arrogance about him that offended her but attracted her. His words were cruel but alluring, and she knew why she had stayed within striking distance of his life for so long, seeking out mention of him in newspapers and from friends and acquaintances.
She picked up a sketchpad, its pages turned and dog-eared. ‘Is this why you’re here? For the inspiration?’
He pulled the towel from his waist and used it to ruffle his hair. ‘Her style lasted for a while, but it got a little repetitive; all those colours and patterns, so eighties. One has to expand one’s talent, darling.’ He affected a mock critical tone and even though her name wasn’t mentioned Sarah knew whom he meant.
‘Do you ever see her?’
‘Whatever for? No, I have no need to see her these days. She gave me what I wanted. Oh, don’t look so shocked, I gave her what she needed at the time, and I don’t mean just a hot few hours in a sleazy hotel.’
The anger flashed in her eyes before it found voice in words. ‘At least I never gave you anything of mine, at least nothing lasting. Not like Kim.’
He smiled and pulled on a pair of linen trousers. ‘Time is infinite Sarah my love.’ He poured some water into a kettle and lit a match under the gas. Then he busied himself with cups and saucers.
She flicked over some canvasses leaning against a dresser. The style was instantly recognisable as the firm direction he had taken Kim’s earlier ideas, although he had woven from them a mood of his own, which had gained him international applause.
‘What are you doing here, David? Mary tells me you’ve been staying a while.’
The kettle boiled noisily and he poured it into a large pot. ‘They’ve been wonderful. They are wonderful, but then you know that of course. I can’t thank you enough for introducing them to me all those years ago. Your surrogate parents, weren’t they? I can see why you’d think that.’
He handed her a cup filled with sweet smelling tea. ‘A Chinese blend. I get it from London.’
‘Did you have anything to do with Bill’s accident?’ The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and once loose it filled the whole room.
If he felt any emotion it might have shown itself in the slight rattle his cup made in his saucer but that was all. ‘My dear, either you have come to know me too well, or your ability for the ingenuous has not progressed over the years.’
‘Never mind about me. Did you hurt Bill?’
The smile was a fox smile, a predator’s smirk before the kill. ‘The farm was getting too much for him, for both of them. I think they welcomed the opportunity to sign it over to me. The accident was merely the catalyst.’
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing; the farm, her safety net, signed over to David? It was unfair, she knew she was being selfish, but she had always imagined she would be the one to inherit, when the childless Moretons retired.
‘You bastard!’ She said quietly to him. She deliberately dropped the cup on the floor, the hot liquid scorching her ankle.
He placed his own cup and saucer neatly onto a table. ‘We all have something to give, Sarah, and all in return something to take.’
The silence in the barn seemed total, the air suddenly motionless. Sunlight streamed in through the ceiling illuminating two people as he tore at her clothing, his mouth pressed desperately to hers, their bodies linke
d in an uneven tumult of taking.
Thrown back onto the bed, Sarah opened her eyes for a moment as David loomed over her. At that moment he wasn’t David. She didn’t know who he was, or what he was, but he was not the David she knew, not even the self-centred, arrogant man she knew him to be. Then she knew whose face his had reminded her of earlier. She had read in one of the columns about David Moore, renowned artist, and his alliance with Frankie Parker, the actor. Frankie was not often complimented about his acting abilities but his good looks had kept him in employment since RADA with television, theatre and then films. As always with his relationships, David was modest and unassuming in his comments, praising his new friend. If Sarah recalled it correctly, David wasn’t in the country when the fire ransacked the studio where Frankie was rehearsing. The burns unit saved his life but there wasn’t a great deal of his face left.
Sarah felt the thrust of David’s body upon her but she screamed out and pushed him away. He fell back onto the bed, as she stood awkwardly, brushing down her skirt.
‘Do you ever see Frankie Parker these days, David?’
‘What the hell? Have you had him as well, is that it? Something I did remind you of him?’
Sarah smiled with more confidence than she felt inside. ‘You look like him, don’t you? Not completely, you still have your own face, but he’s in there, isn’t he? I don’t know how you did it – plastic surgery of some kind. I…’
She rushed from the barn and as she ran to the Manor she could hear his laughter echoing behind her.
Bill Moreton was sitting up in bed, Sarah seated on a chair by his side. Mary had fussed over her husband, and to a lesser extent over Sarah as well, conscious that a visit to David would have upset her. Now she had left them alone and the conversation was stagnant.
Eventually Bill said, ‘I know we’ve let you down Sarah, don’t think badly of us.’
Incantations Page 17