Читать книгу Encounters - Barbara Erskine - Страница 11

‘Would you like some more wine?’

Under the low ceiling with its criss-cross of darkened beams a curl of smoke levelled and drifted up from the log fire, from the cigarettes of the loudly talking guests, and from his pipe.

Annette stood watching, eyes half shut, her contact lenses not liking the atmosphere, as she clutched the empty wine glass in her hand. She was thinking about the church.

The baby had cried – a high wail, echoing up under the roof of the nave, the sound curling like the smoke around the rose window. A lonely sound which had made her drag her eyes back down to the font, which someone had decorated with threads of white daisies, as she blinked back sudden stupid tears.

Celia’s child. Duncan’s child. The child which might have been hers …

‘Some more wine?’

She was beautiful; exquisite. Tiny hands waving indignantly over the pale lace. Natasha Anne. Her hair as golden as her father’s; her eyes already the same blue. Or were all babies’ eyes that colour?

‘Wine?’

The pleasant face was smiling at her; the green eyes quirky and humorous as they watched her. ‘If I could deliver it to your planet, I would.’

‘Planet?’ She turned her full attention to him at last, bewildered.

‘You are on another planet?’

‘Oh, I see!’ Embarrassed, Annette looked back at Celia, still standing near the door, the child in the crook of her arm. Then she laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I was thinking about the baby.’

‘Very appropriate at a christening.’ He smiled again. ‘I’m Rick Jefferson; your colleague in the godparent stakes.’ He captured her empty wine glass and filled it from the bottle in his hand, expertly fielding the slopping liquid as someone jostled him from behind.

Suddenly she felt more cheerful; she smiled. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I’m being very rude, I’m Annette.’

He grinned again. ‘Can I fetch you something to eat? Say yes. Then I can put down this bottle and pick up a glass of my own when I go to the table.’

He wasn’t very tall; not much taller than she. But his shoulders were broad and his frame solid. She found herself giggling at his pantomime of self starvation. ‘I’d love something to eat. Thank you.’

‘And you won’t fly back to Mars or Venus or wherever?’

‘Promise.’

She watched him thread his way across the room towards the long table. He paused near Celia and she saw him smile and touch the baby’s hand – then he moved on. He collected a glass and two plates of food, and she saw him turning back in her direction.

‘All alone?’

Suddenly Duncan was standing in front of her. She felt her throat contract a little as she looked up at his face. Could she have so soon forgotten how tall he was?

‘Rick is fetching me something to eat. She’s a lovely baby, Duncan.’

He was looking down at her intently. ‘Annette. You really didn’t mind us asking you to be godmother? It was Celia’s idea –’

‘Of course not.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘I’m honoured.’ And she turned to Rick, reaching with relief for the plate he offered her. For a moment the three of them stood there in silence. Then Duncan smiled and shrugged and walked away …

Later, as she and Rick let themselves out of the French window, there was a breath of summer in the garden and a soft evening shimmer in the air.

Annette shivered, her coat around her shoulders as they slipped out of the hot noisy room.

Rick grinned at her. ‘Are you sure you want to go out?’

Nodding she sipped her wine and stepped onto the grass. ‘I get claustrophobia at parties.’

‘Me too.’ He followed her, leaving his glass balanced carefully on the head of a lichen-covered statue at the edge of the steps. ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’

‘What?’

‘You and Duncan. There was a “you and Duncan” wasn’t there?’

She nodded, suddenly not minding his knowing. ‘Oh yes. There was a me and Duncan.’

The scent of flowers was almost overwhelming. It had been summer then too. The first time she had come to this house …

Her office door was permanently open, so people walked through it. That was the idea, Annette’s boss said with a laugh and Duncan was the third person to walk through it that morning. By mistake.

He was tall, lean and untidy, wearing a cotton sweatshirt and jeans and quite obviously not in the right place.

He leaned on her desk, towering over her, his hair tousled. He was grinning broadly.

‘I’m on the wrong floor, right?’

She found herself smiling back, drawn irresistibly by the smile.

‘Right. Wrong floor. You’ll be wanting …’ She hesitated, looking him up and down, her head on one side. ‘The architect upstairs?’

He grinned. ‘Try again.’

‘The accountant?’

‘No.’

‘Then it must be the Inland Revenue.’

‘As a humble supplicant and blood donor? No.’

‘But that only leaves the dress designer.’ She collapsed in sudden irreverent giggles.

‘At last, you guessed my secret.’ His solemn expression was belied by the laughing eyes. ‘Don’t I look like a potential customer for a dress designer?’

She shook her head, intrigued and disbelieving. But he did not explain. Not then. He did that over lunch.

‘Black sheep?’ She put down her knife and fork, her voice sliding up into a squeak.

‘Five hundred of them.’

‘And Kevin Spiggs uses your wool?’

‘That’s right. His dusky dream range!’

She was very late back to the office.

‘Can you believe it, Meg? He breeds black sheep. And Kevin upstairs is going to take all his wool for a season to make sweaters and dresses and sell them for hundreds of pounds each!’

Meg raised her eyes to the concealed lighting of the low ceiling above the desk. ‘Only you, Annette, could meet a sheep breeder here in St James’s! And I suppose you are going to see him again?’

She was.

Two weeks later he took her to the farm. It was a long drive and she was tired but the countryside enchanted her. Soft rolling hills, stands of oak and birch, green and silver in the sunlight and then the sheep – not black so much as chocolate and mocha in the soft meadows.

‘I can’t get involved, Annette. I’m sorry.’ The boyish grin, the rumpled hair as he strode at her side through the mud beneath the trees cushioned the words and made them light and easy to ignore. They laughed together so much, finished sentences for each other without even realizing it, liked the same music in the evening as they sat together on the sofa hearing the distant fluting of an owl above the soft notes of the woodwind.

His arm was around her shoulders, drawing her to him; he was solid and warm and reassuring and she was already half-way to being in love. Later, upstairs on the landing, he kissed her goodnight outside her bedroom door, then placed his finger against her lips as she tried to speak. ‘No, Annette. I told you. Sleep well, my love.’ And he was gone, leaving her lonely and disappointed as she let herself into the dark room and groped for the unaccustomed light switch.

They began to make it a pattern. Duncan would come up to Kevin’s office on a Friday, fill in time until five o’clock then together they would climb into his car and wend the long agonizing route through the heavy traffic towards the west. Sometimes they bought chips on the way; sometimes she made sandwiches. Once in a while they listened to the car radio but more often they talked. They talked about everything. Life. Work. Holidays; and sheep. But never about love.

Yet she knew he loved her. It showed in his eyes; in his hesitant glances when he thought she wasn’t looking. In the deep, lasting kisses when they lay together on the sofa, listening to the records they had brought with them from town, and finally and ecstatically in his tender lovemaking when at last he followed her into the now familiar bedroom and took her in his arms …

Next morning when she woke he had gone from the bed. She stretched happily and lay gazing at the faint light behind the curtains, listening to the plaintive whistling of a blackbird.

Duncan had gone out to the sheep; later he would come back with the papers and some coffee and perhaps climb into bed, his hair damp from the shower as he laid his head on her breast. Lying in his arms then, clinging to him, her heart full of love, she knew something was still very wrong. But she no longer cared what it was. It was enough that he was there and that she was with him.

Then he went away. ‘Only for a couple of weeks, Annette. On business to Switzerland. I wish you could come too, my love.’

She’d known instantly, by the way he lowered his eyes and mumbled, unable to look at her, that he had lied. But which was the lie? That he was going on business, or that he wanted her to come too?

She swallowed her misery and worked extra hours at the office, trying not to think of what he might be doing in Switzerland, of what business a sheep farmer could possibly have in Geneva or the high mountains beyond.

When he returned she knew she had lost him again. Oh, he was pleased to see her; and his warmth when he drew her to him was real, but something had changed. His reserve had returned and she knew that, if she asked, he would say again, ‘We must not get involved, Annette,’ and that for him it would be true.

She cried a lot that summer, unhappy in her love, seeking comfort in the arms which were the source of her unhappiness, but unable to tear herself away.

It was his mother who told her. His parents lived not far away, watching their son’s farming efforts with tolerant amusement – but they were less amused by Annette.

She was a little in awe of his mother. Janet was so capable and hearty, so unruffled by anything. So it was a shock one morning to come down into the kitchen wearing Duncan’s bathrobe to find Janet standing there, her coat still on, staring out of the window at the garden. The woman turned and looked at Annette, her face full of compassion. The expression hit Annette like a hammer. Her veins iced over as she guessed instinctively something of what was to come.

‘Annette dear, Duncan tells me that you and he are not involved. That yours is an open relationship, whatever that means.’ Janet’s face had become unusually pink and shiny. ‘I don’t believe him altogether. I think you are more involved than he realizes and I don’t want you to get hurt.’

It was suddenly so cold in the room.

‘I won’t get hurt,’ Annette said cheerfully. ‘Duncan’s quite right. It is an open relationship.’

‘And so you know about Celia?’

There was a lump of something in her throat, pressing down on her windpipe, stopping her breathing properly.

‘Celia?’ She had to pretend. She had to say she didn’t care.

‘His fiancée, Annette.’ Janet’s voice was unusually gentle. ‘She will be coming back you know.’

‘Where is she?’ Her voice sounded strange in her own ears, thin and high, like a bird screaming in a storm.

‘She’s still in Switzerland, at the clinic. But she will be completely cured. And Duncan swore he’d wait for her, my dear. He swore.’

‘Of course he did.’ She sounded light and carefree now as she pulled the belt of the robe more tightly round her slim waist. ‘You don’t have to worry, Janet. Really.’

Oh God, why hadn’t he told her? How could he have let her go on imagining that it would all have been all right in the end.

The words echoed round her brain as she dressed and pulled on her light jacket. Duncan was out with a sick ewe. His mother had left the house, spinning the wheels of the car in her agitation. The house was silent and deserted; the house she had secretly, in her heart, thought of already as home.

She walked across the bare garden, hands in pockets and looked out across the fields. There were no sheep there now; they were desolate, like her.

Then he was there beside her, his face glowing, his eyes laughing, his warmth and humour reaching out to her. ‘What about breakfast? I’m starving.’

‘How’s the ewe?’ The steady cheerfulness of her voice amazed her.

‘She’ll be OK. Crisis is over. Was that ma’s car I saw?’

Annette nodded. ‘She couldn’t wait. Just looked in to say hello.’

And goodbye. Because, of course, Annette could never come to the farm again. She didn’t say anything in the end. What was the point of screaming and ranting at him? He had made no promises, held out no hope of the future. He had assumed they were still working from the first blueprint. ‘No involvement, Annette my love. Just a good time while we’re both at a loose end, OK?’

In the house, as she made the coffee with absolute concentration, Duncan said, ‘Paula and Tony have asked us to dinner next weekend to see how their extension is progressing.’ He did not look up. His face was buried in the newspaper.

‘Oh what a shame. I’d love to have gone.’ She was pouring the coffee, not looking at him, but she heard the rustle of the paper as he put it down.

‘Why can’t you?’ Amazed. Even slightly hurt.

‘I can’t come down next weekend, Duncan, I’m sorry. In fact not for several weeks. I’m tied up.’ She put the cup on the table without raising her eyes to his. ‘It’s nearly Christmas after all. I’ve so much to do. I’m ashamed I’ve allowed myself to come down here so much!’ That was it. Bright and brittle. Don’t ever show how much you are hurting inside.

She could feel him looking at her; imagine the thoughtful puzzlement with which he was watching. And she knew she would not be fooling him for an instant. She looked up at last and met his gaze, smiling. ‘You’ll have to do without me, Duncan. I think it’s best.’ She could not fight a sick enemy, one she had never seen. Another flesh and blood woman, yes, with nails bared and teeth set, but not this pale consumptive image, with her overtones of tragedy.

Duncan stood up and came round the table. ‘Annette …’

‘No, please. Don’t say anything. Make my apologies to Paula. Perhaps I’ll come back after …’

After what? Christmas? His marriage? His birthday? After it stopped hurting?

In the afternoon she packed slowly not waiting to read the Sunday papers with him by the fire, taking from the kitchen a couple of carrier bags to put all the extras in. The things which she had grown used to leaving behind week after week. Her records, her boots, a couple of books, the heavy Aran sweater she never wore in town. She piled them by the front door and took the old duffle coat off the hook. That, too, must go back. When she looked round he was standing in the doorway watching her.

‘My mother did this.’

‘No, Duncan. I always knew it wouldn’t last. I just didn’t know how long I’d got.’

He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘Supposing I told you I’d change. I’ve grown so fond of you, Annette. I don’t know that I can live without you. Not now.’

She felt her throat constrict. ‘You must,’ she whispered.

He took her to the train at last and found her a corner seat with her bags, then he jumped off as the train was already moving – no time for any goodbyes. But there was no one sitting opposite her to shame her into holding back her tears and she felt them run scalding down her cheeks as she turned her face to the window and saw the countryside gathering speed until it blurred and faded behind the dirty glass.

On Friday, in case he came, she rang the office and told them she had a migraine. The following week she went in as usual, thinking she felt more able to cope, but she did not have to. He did not appear.

She did not know whether he came up to see Kevin Spiggs again. She suspected he had never really needed to anyway, after that first time. He had come only to see her.

It was three months before she heard from him again. He phoned her at the office. ‘How are you, Annette?’

Her heart, cured, distracted, no longer his, turned upside down at the sound of his voice.

‘I’m fine. How are you?’

She thought she managed to sound casual. She fixed her mind determinedly on Robert, the new man in her life, who would be taking her out later that evening; Robert who had three times asked her to marry him.

‘Can I take you out to lunch tomorrow?’ Duncan sounded uncomfortable and quite suddenly she forgot her own unhappiness in a wave of sympathy for him.

‘That would be nice. But it will have to be fairly brief I’m afraid. We’re very busy at the office at the moment.’

‘Fine. I’ll pick you up around 12.30.’

She got up an hour early the next day to dress with special care and put on some make up, and one look at his face told her that there had been no point. His love for her, if that was what it had been, had gone. Rising from her desk she picked up her bag and followed him out into the street.

‘I wanted to tell you myself that I’m getting married.’ He said it at once, before they had even ordered.

‘I’m glad for you.’

She realized as she said it that she meant it. For herself she was desolate, but the shining happiness she had seen on his face was so special she could not grudge him. Not that. That was what love did to a man, or a woman. ‘To Celia, I take it?’

He nodded and grinned. ‘So you did know. Afterwards I was so angry with myself. I thought perhaps I’d misled you. I couldn’t have borne it if I’d hurt you, Annette.’ His hand was on hers on the table. ‘You’re very special to me, you know. You always will be.’

‘And you to me, Duncan.’ She drew her hand away gently. Had he really never guessed how much she loved him? Had he really believed they were both just passing the time? She looked up at his face and then sadly she looked away.

They saw each other twice more after that. Once by accident in the foyer of the office building and once for coffee in the lunch hour two weeks before his wedding. He had a brown paper parcel under his arm.

‘This is for you. From Celia and me. A wedding present for you.’

It was an exquisite sweater in soft chocolate-coloured wool.

She did not tell him she had given Robert back his ring. If you did not love someone with the all-consuming joy with which Duncan loved his Celia, there could be no future. She was sure of that.

She had not heard from Duncan again for two years. Then had come the letter asking her to be godmother to his first child.

At first she was angry; then she cried. Then she laughed, and after writing two indignant letters of refusal tore them up and rang the farm. Duncan answered.

‘Are you serious?’ she asked.

‘Perfectly. I want my daughter to grow up with humour and understanding. Who better to teach it to her than you?’

Was that really the way she had reacted?

‘What happened to Robert?’ he asked after a pause.

‘No sense of humour and no understanding!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

Behind the half drawn curtains the christening party was in full swing. But in the garden it was very quiet. Rick was watching her.

‘You’re telling the story against yourself,’ he said gently. ‘I think Duncan was a bastard.’

She shook her head. ‘When you think about it, he displayed all the virtues. It just happens they were not directed at me.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘Shall we go back inside. I expect they’re going to cut the cake or whatever they do at christenings. Did you go to their wedding?’

He shook his head, ‘Did you?’

‘I wasn’t asked.’

Suddenly Rick laughed. ‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No. Should I?’

‘I’m the man who asked Celia to marry him in Switzerland. And she nearly said yes. The only reason she didn’t was this mysterious man she’d left in England who, she said, would wait for her no matter what. I told her she was mad.’ He took Annette’s hand and she found herself enjoying his warm grasp. ‘So we’re in the same boat, you and I. Rejected lovers.’

He grinned, looking anything but sad about it and suddenly she found herself laughing with him. ‘You mean if I’d stayed with Duncan and fought, you’d have married Celia? She wouldn’t have been left alone to fade away after all?’

That’s right.’

Annette was speechless for a moment. ‘But she does love Duncan?’ she asked hesitantly, after a long pause.

‘Oh yes, she loves him again now.’

‘And are you still sorry you lost her?’ She looked at him squarely. He was staring up the steps towards the house, his expression enigmatic, his eyes narrowed in the dusk.

Slowly he shook his head. ‘Not in the least. They deserve each other. After all, theirs is the classic love story. The happy ending against all odds.’ He was still holding her hand as he led the way back into the house.

‘And we were the odds?’

‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you?’ He turned and winked at her as they slipped into the crowded room. Surreptitiously she looked at Duncan. He had grown stouter in the last two years and his hair was already thinning slightly. Perhaps, after all, she had not been as much in love with him as she had thought. She glanced up at Rick and found he was watching her.

‘Do you think being godparents was the consolation prize?’ she asked solemnly.

‘It is often the custom, I believe.’ He took two glasses of champagne from a tray and handed her one. ‘Let’s drink to Natasha Anne who introduced us!’