Older Man

by Bright, Laurey;

  "They tell me you stayed with me on the way to the hospital,” she said. “I don't remember, but thank you."

  "I only wish I'd realised sooner what was going on,” he said tautly. “If I'd looked out the window before it happened..."

  "Even if you had been watching,” she said, “there was nothing anyone could have done. I've had enough guilt to deal with from Shane and Amanda. Don't you start."

  His smile was strained. “They got off lightly."

  "I was the unlucky one,” she agreed. “I must have been a mess."

  His mouth compressed as he nodded. He said, his voice hoarse, “You were, rather. I've never seen so much blood in my life."

  Rennie looked down at the blue hospital coverlet. “I'm sorry if I gave you a fright."

  "I was scared out of my mind."

  "Maybe it's just as well I was unconscious."

  "Rennie—why didn't you want to see me?"

  "Don't take it personally. I'm not exactly pretty just now. I guess I was just self-conscious."

  "You looked much worse in the ambulance. Compared to then, you're a raving beauty now, bandages and all!” He smiled, but not with his eyes, which were anxious.

  "Yes, I s'pose. How is Lorna?” she asked. “And the children?"

  "Lorna's well,” he said shortly. “The children...” He hesitated. “They wanted to visit, but ... oh, I forgot. They made cards for you.” He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it over. Her bandaged hand fumbled with the opening of it and he had to help her.

  Looking at the childish drawings, and the painstakingly printed messages, she blinked back tears. “Thank them for me,” she said. “I can't write to them with this—” She moved her bandaged hand. “And you're right, it's probably better if they don't visit."

  "Rennie—” He stretched out his hand to hers, and she said sharply, “Please don't touch me, Grant!"

  He sat back, looking at her strangely. She thought he had paled.

  "It hurts,” she explained, and tried to smile. “I have cuts and bruises all over. “I just—don't want to be touched. Nothing personal."

  "No,” he said woodenly. “Of course, nothing personal."

  "It was kind of you to come,” she said.

  "I came because I—because I wanted to."

  "Thank you,” she said. “Give my love to Ellen and Toby. And Lorna,” she added with an effort.

  His mouth was wry. “Are you dismissing me?"

  She said, “I am rather tired. I'm sorry."

  "Don't apologise,” he said. “I should be doing that."

  She didn't know what for. She didn't ask.

  He looked at her for a few moments, rather helplessly. Then he said, “Get well, Rennie.” He leaned over and very gently kissed a spot on her forehead that wasn't bandaged, turned abruptly and left the room.

  She had to make a statement to the police. But there was no need to appear in court. Kevin had decided to plead guilty, they said, so the case would be wrapped up quite quickly.

  Shane came to tell her about the verdict.

  "Is he going to jail?” she asked him.

  "He got a suspended sentence, on condition that he remains under supervision and gets some treatment,” Shane said. “And Amanda has taken out a court order against him molesting her. So if he goes near her he'll be rearrested and have to serve his sentence."

  "I see.” So he wasn't to be locked up. Rennie shivered. Her left arm had been freed of its dressings, the right one was lightly bandaged and in a sling. There had been damage to the tendons of her right hand. She was having physiotherapy, but a certain amount of stiffness would probably remain. The dressings on her face were lighter and smaller than they had been. She'd had further surgery and would need more in a few months’ time.

  She was allowed home in time for Christmas. The bandages and dressings came off, and she nerved herself to look in a mirror. The smaller cuts were healing nicely and would soon disappear, but there was a nasty purple scar on her temple, which she could comb her hair over, and another on her right cheek, jagged and uneven.

  On Christmas Day only relatives were invited. Rennie knew her mother was being tactful. She forced herself to appear at lunch, but afterwards pleaded tiredness and said she wanted to rest. No one dared suggest a birthday party to her. Her mother told her that Grant was asking to see her. She said no. She knew her family was worried.

  When visitors came she fled to her room. One day Ethan and Celeste's car drew up outside, and she retreated from the window muttering an excuse as her mother went to let them in. From her bedroom, she heard Ethan's footsteps in the passageway, and then he knocked on the door, calling her name.

  She didn't answer, but he came in anyway, bringing her scrambling resentfully off the bed, facing him with angry eyes.

  "Rennie,” he said gently, putting both arms around her. “Your parents are worried sick. You do realise you're suffering from depression?"

  Rennie nodded. She wanted to tell him it was more than that, but that name would do for now.

  "We know something about that, Celeste and I. Sheerwind is a good place to be when you need emotional healing. We want you to come back with us."

  "Sheerwind?” The magical island she had dreamed of visiting. A place where no one would know her. A thousand miles across the Pacific, a thousand miles from Kevin. And from Grant.

  "We'll check with your GP and the hospital,” Ethan said, “but we have a semi-retired doctor almost next door on the island. Henry will be glad to keep an eye on you. The only other near neighbour is a writer, and he's away just now researching a new book in New Guinea.” He was telling her there would be almost no one she had to meet.

  Her mother helped her to pack, and arranged her hair to fall across the scarred cheek so that it wasn't so obvious. Rennie didn't have the heart to tell her that really it didn't matter.

  The flight was quite short and uneventful. Celeste and Ethan fussed over her unobtrusively, and when they arrived on the island Celeste insisted that Rennie should take the front seat next to Ethan so that she could see the scenery. There was only one town, Conneston. They soon passed through it, and followed a road bordered by tall rubber trees with glossy leaves, a few palms waving above everything else, and lots of shrubby scarlet and yellow hibiscus.

  The road eventually rounded a hillside to a small bay where the water was enclosed by a steep, tree-covered slope. Ethan's house was nestled on the slope, a magnificent wall of glass giving the maximum impact from the spacious living room. The sea opened out from the bay and stretched away limitless to the horizon. Today it looked very calm, a great spread of crinkled dark blue with sequin glints sparking off it.

  "It's just as you described it,” Rennie said, turning to him as he carried in her case. “I feel better already."

  The days went by, then weeks. Rennie swam and sunbathed, and watched Celeste painting silks in her studio, trying to show a normal amount of enthusiasm. But she overheard Celeste and Ethan discussing her once, when they were sitting on the terrace outside the house, unaware that their voices carried in the evening air, all the way to the trees where Rennie was climbing the path from the beach after a quick swim.

  "...a vivacious girl. It's not like her to be this quiet,” came Celeste's voice. “Is it?"

  "She certainly isn't herself. Better, though, than when she arrived here. Give her time,” Ethan said easily.

  That night she dreamed. Saw a face behind her, reflected in glass, distorted by hatred. And then she fell and the face disintegrated into a thousand pieces, and pain sliced into her.

  She woke with a scream, and found strong arms around her, pulling her close, and a deep voice saying, “Shh. It's all right, Rennie, it's only a dream."

  "Grant!” she gasped, and clutched at him, shuddering with relief. “Oh, Grant!"

  "No, not Grant,” Ethan said in a strange voice. He turned his head, and Rennie, lifting her hot forehead from his comforting chest, saw Celeste was standing by the bed.
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  Celeste took her hand. “Did you want Grant?” she asked quietly.

  "Yes! No, I just thought ... I was asleep. I thought he..."

  "He was in your dream?"

  "I don't know. Sometimes it's him. First it's Kevin, and then it's him. It changes. That's why it's so frightening."

  "But you weren't frightened when you thought I was him,” Ethan pointed out.

  "Oh no! I knew I'd been dreaming then, and I thought...” She moved back onto the pillows. “I'm sorry, I woke you both. It's just a silly dream."

  "A recurring one?” Ethan asked, standing up. He was wearing a short dark robe. Celeste was in her nightdress.

  "Yes,” Rennie said. “But it hasn't come so often since I've been here. I dream about ... about going through the glass. The odd thing about it is, I don't actually remember that part at all. Kevin had knocked me out before it happened."

  "Would you like a drink or something to help you go back to sleep?” Celeste asked.

  "No. I'll be fine now."

  A few days later she was helping Celeste to mix some paints in the studio when the other woman said casually, “Did you mention your bad dreams to Henry?"

  "I haven't had any since that night I woke you."

  Celeste said, in the same casual tone, “Grant's not a man who would want to hurt someone on purpose."

  "What makes you think that he did?"

  "That dream isn't so hard to figure out, Rennie,” Celeste said. “Kevin injured you quite deliberately. In the dream the man sometimes changes from Kevin to Grant."

  Rennie said, her hands stilling, “I saw Grant just before—the other thing happened. I suppose that's why they've got muddled in my mind."

  "I see."

  Rennie looked up, and saw that she did. Celeste didn't need to know the details. But she knew about the pain. Rennie blinked, trying to hold back the tears, but Celeste put down the paintbrush in her hand and said, “Oh, my dear.” And held out her arms.

  Rennie went into them and cried her heart out.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rennie had received letters from her family and sent back brief, cheerful replies in a slightly wavering hand. She was feeling better, the island was beautiful, Celeste and Ethan were being very kind, Henry was keeping an eye on her health...

  She wrote to Toby and Ellen too, telling them she was having a holiday on a lovely Pacific island, and thanked them again for their card. She didn't want them to think that like their mother she had disappeared from their lives. Folding the page into an envelope, she brushed away tears. She had a sudden longing to hold Ellen's warm little body close, to be the privileged recipient of one of Toby's rare hugs.

  She borrowed a bicycle that Janice Palmer, the doctor's wife, had stored in her garage. “I used to ride it,” Janice told her, “but the old bones are a bit creaky now. You're welcome to it as long as you're here."

  She found beaches, and a deserted bay where the waves crashed around jagged black rocks and there was no beach to speak of, only a small shelf of black pebbles that rolled and drifted under the receding water and made little clicking noises. There were spiky spiral shells and spotted cowries and other more ordinary shells among the stones. And she picked some of the tropical flowers from the trees and took them home to put in vases. But they didn't last.

  The local people were friendly, and though sometimes her scars drew curious looks, but nobody stared or asked questions.

  She went into town one day with Ethan to collect the mail. When they got back Celeste was on the terrace. Ethan kissed her and tossed a pile of letters into her lap.

  Rennie was sitting on the steps reading a letter from Shane when Celeste said, “I've a message for you, Rennie."

  Rennie looked up, meeting Celeste's slightly troubled eyes.

  "From Grant. He sends you his love."

  Rennie felt a quiver of expression cross her face. “Thank you,” she said distantly.

  She wished he had not sent that careless, conventional greeting, crass in the circumstances, and strangely unlike him.

  She examined her feelings, probing as one might probe a tooth that had a tendency to ache, trying to find the spot that hurt.

  Nothing. She felt nothing. Just a strangely numb blankness. It had stopped hurting.

  That was good, wasn't it? This hollow emptiness had to be better than the seesaw emotions that had plagued her ever since meeting Grant Morrison. She was really on the way to healing now.

  "Are you all right, Rennie?” Ethan was looking at her piercingly.

  She smiled at him. “Yes, of course. Would you two like me to cook tonight? I know a great chilli con carne recipe, and we could eat it out here on the terrace. It's going to be a beautiful evening."

  They sat on the terrace after dinner until the stars came out and the sea lost its sunset glow and turned to dark pewter.

  Ethan said, “How about a swim?"

  Celeste smiled at him. “Lovely idea."

  "And you, Rennie?"

  "I'll go and change,” she said promptly. Then paused as the other two exchanged a glance of secret amusement. She looked at them, and guessed, “You don't wear swimsuits?"

  "Not always. It's accepted here,” Ethan said.

  "It's okay, Rennie,” Celeste told her as she hesitated “It took me a while to get used to it. I'm coming in to change, too."

  The water was incredibly warm, and seemed to caress her body as she entered it, following Ethan and Celeste. They swam close to each other, and Ethan warned her, “Don't go out too far. You can lose your bearings at night."

  Rennie splashed about lazily, then turned on her back, looking at the stars flung prodigally across the dark sky. The water lapped at her shoulders, and her hair floated on its surface. From the land came a faint perfume of flowers that she had never noticed in the daytime.

  When Ethan said, “We're going in,” she went with them reluctantly. Her limbs felt pleasantly relaxed. She felt she could have stayed floating out there for hours.

  Ethan had his arm about his wife's shoulders as they left the water, and he picked up a towel and put it round her. “Warm enough?” he asked.

  "Yes. It isn't cold. I love the beach in moonlight."

  Rennie rubbed at her hair, and wiped her arms and legs. She saw the look that Ethan gave Celeste, and her suddenly lowered lids, before he slowly picked up his towel, wrapping it about his waist. Celeste lifted a corner of hers and bent her head to dry her hair.

  "I can find my own way back,” Rennie said, “if you two want to stay here for a while and enjoy the moonlight."

  "Take the torch,” Ethan said. “We know our way in the dark."

  "Ethan,” Celeste remonstrated, “We can't let Rennie—"

  "It's okay,” Rennie assured her. “It's lovely here, but I'm tired."

  She heard Celeste's low, laughing reproaches as she climbed the path with the torchlight bobbing ahead. Ethan's deep, teasing voice answered, and then there was silence. She smiled, a little sadly. Glad for them, in their obvious contentment with each other. Sad for herself. But one day, perhaps there would be someone for her, too. Someone who would make her feel again. Even make her feel the way she had when Grant kissed her and held her. And who would feel the same way about her.

  "Do you think I could get a job here?” she asked Ethan and Celeste.

  Surprised, Ethan said, “What about your bar exams? You need to take them in a few months don't you?"

  Rennie shrugged. “I thought I might take a year off. I've missed out on the job I was hoping for, anyway. I don't want to outstay my welcome, but if you can put up with me a little longer, once I'm working I'll find board in Conneston."

  They protested that of course she was welcome to stay as long as she liked.

  In a few months she was scheduled for more plastic surgery, but she would think about that when it was time.

  She was drowsing in the shade after a swim, her wet hair drying on her shoulders, when she became aware of someone else on
the beach. She lifted her head, expecting to see Ethan or Celeste, or perhaps the Palmers. They usually took a stroll at low tide, or in the late afternoon.

  The newcomer was wearing grey slacks and a short-sleeved blue shirt. Perhaps the other neighbour had returned, the writer who had been away. Celeste had taken her to see his house, perched among the trees on the side of the steep slope.

  But this man was standing at the foot of the path to Ethan and Celeste's house, shading his eyes with a hand, looking along the beach away from her. Then he turned, and she gasped with shock as his eyes found her, and he started to walk in her direction.

  Her heart began pounding like a jackhammer. What was Grant doing here? She jack-knifed into a sitting position, then scrambled to her feet, casting round wildly for some sanctuary. She took two steps back, then turned and ran.

  "Rennie!” He called twice, but she took no notice. Her feet raced along the sand, her breath sobbing. There was a path ahead, winding into the trees and uphill. The path to the writer's house. There wasn't anywhere else to go. She took it.

  "Rennie!"

  She ran up the slope, slowing as she reached some steps. She tripped on one, fell and scrambled to her feet again. She could hear Grant's footfalls on the path.

  She was at the top of the steps before he caught her, swinging her round to face him with a hand on her arm, his face incredulous .

  "Rennie, what the hell is all this about? You're not frightened of me?"

  Not hearing the pain in his voice, she tried to push him away, panting, flinging her head back and turning from him, her damp hair swinging into her eyes and across her face.

  He grabbed her other arm, gave her a little shake. “Rennie, for God's sake! Stop it!"

  He wasn't letting her go. She went still, her head averted from him, trying to take in the fact of him being here. Trying not to think what it meant.

  His voice suddenly gentle, he said, “Is it the scar?"

  She didn't answer, and he lifted one hand and pushed the hair back from her face, and turned it so that he could inspect the ugly mark.