Читать книгу Memories of You - Margot Dalton - Страница 9

SOMEHOW, CAMILLA MANAGED to get through the remainder of the first day in a blur of classes, meetings and seminars. By the time she finished her office work and sent her reading lists to the library to be posted, it was twilight.

The campus was peaceful in the slanting rays of light, with small groups of students strolling and talking quietly. Thunderheads were beginning to mass beyond the snowcapped mountains and the sky was vivid with sunset colors—streaks of orange and dusty pink and violet.

Though it was still early in September, the air already carried a hint of frost, and some of the trees were beginning to wither. A few leaves drifted to the sidewalk in front of her, crunching underfoot as she walked toward her apartment.

Camilla looked down at the fallen leaves, lost in a deepening melancholy.

Madonna and Elton were both at the door when she entered her apartment They welcomed her with enthusiasm, mewing and rubbing frantically against her legs, which only happened when they wanted something. Camilla soon determined that Elton was hungry, while Madonna was eager to go outside.

Camilla opened the glass balcony door to let Madonna escape into the branches of the adjacent poplar, then set her pile of books on the kitchen table and filled Elton’s bowl with dry cat food.

While-he was eating, Camilla went into the bathroom and ran the tub, adding a liberal dash of scented bubbles. She stood at the counter to take out her contact lenses, then stored them in their little plastic case. She rubbed her eyes with relief as she looked at herself in the mirror.

The change was always so dramatic, because her eyes weren’t blue at all. They were actually a clear, pale gray, like the sky on a cloudy day.

She’d chosen the tinted lenses mostly for practical reasons, because they were easier to find if she dropped or misplaced one of them. But tonight she was gratified to see again how much the lenses altered her appearance.

When Jon Campbell had seen her all those years ago, she’d had gray eyes….

Camilla touched the bridge of her nose, then picked up a hand mirror to study her profile critically. The plastic surgeon had repaired the cartilage in her nose skillfully. But back in that long-ago summer, her nose had been freshly broken and wasn’t healing properly. It had been noticeably crooked, and somewhat thicker at the bridge.

And her hair, too, had darkened a lot over the last two decades. Twenty years ago, her long braid had been pale blond, almost silver, hanging all the way to her waist.

Camilla put the mirror aside, stripped off her clothes, turned off the faucet and stepped into the tub, settling with a weary sigh among the fragrant mounds of bubbles.

Perhaps the man wasn’t lying, after all. It seemed quite possible that he didn’t recognize her, and he’d only arrived in her classroom by some kind of ghastly coincidence.

When their eyes first met, he’d looked puzzled by her own shocked reaction. There’d been no answering spark of recognition from him, no meaningful smirk or veiled threat. Just a look of good humour, masculine admiration and a readiness to smile and respond if she gave him any encouragement.

Jon Campbell seemed too blunt and forthright to carry off some kind of sinister deception. Still, she could hardly dare to hope that the man truly had forgotten what happened between them twenty years ago in that dirty motel room.

Camilla lowered herself among the bubbles so the water came to her chin. She lifted a slim foot and touched the faucet with her toe, idly tracing the outlines of the gleaming brass.

Maybe, for once in her life, she was going to be lucky. Perhaps the tinted contact lenses, her nose surgery, darkened hair and a few more inches of height were going to be enough to disguise her real identity from Jon Campbell.

Briefly she wondered what the man was like, how he’d turned out after all these years.

He seemed similar in some ways to the boy she remembered, but there were subtle differences, as well. Jonathan Campbell now had a look of wealth and power, despite the casual air. He was obviously a man with a privileged background and enough money to do anything he wanted—even go back to college full-time if he chose.

In fact, he seemed to be everything the campus myths claimed her to be. Camilla smiled grimly at the irony, then sobered and reached out to run more hot water into the tub.

Regardless of what he’d become, he was a threat to Camilla, and she knew she had to get the man out of her life quickly to preserve her own safety.

Elton wandered into the room, licking his whiskered chops with satisfaction. He stood erect, with his front paws resting on the edge of the tub, and stared at her solemnly. Camilla blew a couple of soap bubbles into his face, making him blink.

She smiled sadly. “Too bad a professor can’t just walk out of a class the way her students do. Should I drop that creative-writing class, Elton?”

The cat watched her with his usual inscrutable expression.

“Oh, I know. You’re right, of course,” Camilla said. “Dr. Pritchard can hardly drop a class simply because…”

Because the professor happens to share some unpleasant and embarrassing sexual history with one of her students.

Camilla’s throat tightened with anxiety. Of course, she had the power to remove a student from her class, but in order to do that she’d need a good reason.

Maybe if the work was hard enough, the man would quit of his own accord. After all, he’d probably been away from college for more than twenty years, presumably doing a lot of rugged, outdoor work, if his callused hands were any indication. No doubt he was going to find it difficult to adjust to the daily grind of classes and homework.

Camilla’s spirits lifted a bit.

Maybe she could give out the individual research assignments a couple of weeks early, and find some way to make Campbell work harder than anybody else. But she’d have to do it soon—before he had a lot more opportunities to sit at the back of that room and study every detail of her face and body.

Camilla climbed from the tub, dried herself on a big green towel and slipped into a terry-cloth robe and slippers, then made her way to the kitchen with Elton at her heels. She brewed a pot of herbal tea, put a small frozen entrée into the microwave and spread her books out on the glass-topped table.

What assignment could she give Jon Campbell? It had to be something tedious enough to convince the poor man that he wasn’t really interested in completing a senior writing class.

Camilla put on her reading glasses and began to work. After a few minutes, the microwave beeped and she got up, carried the tray to the table, picked up a fork and ate without tasting the food.

A short while later Camilla returned to her problem.

Maybe an analysis of character development in Chaucer?

How about a comparison of editorial styles of seven major newspapers, or a definitive look at the American novel from Hawthorne to Updike…

The pages blurred in front of her eyes. Camilla took off her glasses and dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her temples wearily.

It was beginning to rain. She could hear the heavy drops flowing down the windowpanes, pattering on the floor of the balcony. The sound was seductive, almost mesmerizing, carrying her back through the years.

Back to 1977, and the terrible events of that early summer…

July 1977

IT’S RAINING AGAIN, but I’m so cold and dirty that I don’t care anymore. It’s weird how people are always so afraid of being caught in the rain, as if getting wet is the worst thing that can happen to them. I’ve spent the last three nights out in the rain, sitting in the ditch by the highway with a jacket over my head. My clothes are filthy, my hair’s all stringy and I haven’t eaten since…I can’t remember the last time I had anything to eat.

It’s been a couple of days at least, but the hunger pangs have mostly passed. I’m dizzy a lot of the time and I still feel like throwing up whenever I remember what happened.

My knife didn’t help me a bit when he finally came to my room. He just laughed and snatched it from me like it was some kind of toy. When I tried to fight back, he hit me so hard that I could feel my nose breaking. The taste of blood in my throat sickened me almost as much as the things he was doing to me.

I can’t bear to think about the things he did. I won’t think about it. I won’t…

After he was finished, he rolled over and fell asleep. I got up, found the knife on the floor and jammed it as far as I could into his chest. He shouted and thrashed around, clutching at the knife handle. I don’t know if I killed him, but I hope so. I didn’t stay long enough to find out, I just grabbed some clothes and money and ran away.

My mother was passed out in the living room when I left. She never even knew what happened.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. After what he did to me, nothing matters anymore. It doesn’t matter what I do.

But I have to eat if I want to stay alive, so I’ll probably get to the city and start selling myself on the street. I’ll have to find some way to get cleaned up first, though. Nobody would pay to have sex with a girl who looks the way I do right now. It’s been two weeks since I ran away, and I haven’t seen a mirror for a long time so I don’t know if my nose has started to heal. It doesn’t hurt quite so much anymore, but I think it’s still pretty swollen.

I’m kind of scared at the thought of being a prostitute. Until he did what he did, I’d never even… nobody had ever touched me before. But now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I just have to find some way to get a little money. I have to clean myself up and wash my hair, and find some clothes somewhere.

The sky is starting to lighten, and the sun will be rising soon. Meadowlarks are singing on the prairie all around me. They sound almost crazed with happiness. It’s amazing how the dawn can still be so clean and beautiful when it shines down on a world as ugly as this.

I’m sitting on a piece of cardboard in a wide, grassy ditch, and I’m stiff and cold, sore all over. I’d give anything to have a hot meal and a bath. A hot bath would be the most wonderful thing in the world.

Maybe I can flag down one of the semitrailers that keep passing on the highway, and get to the city that way. But people are such busybodies. The driver will want to know where I came from. He’ll take me to the police and they’ll either put me in jail for murder or send me back home.

Home.

God, what a laugh. I’ll die before I go back there. But I don’t know what else to do, and I’m so scared. I’m really scared. The mist is clearing and I can see for a little way down the ditch. There’s a man over there by the intersection. He must have stopped sometime during the night. He’s got his motorcycle pulled off the highway, and he’s been camping in a little tent. Now he’s up and moving around. He’s got a portable stove set up on some rocks. I can smell bacon frying.

Oh, Lord, it smells so good! I think he’s brewing coffee, too. Maybe a guy on a motorcycle won’t be so likely to call the cops.

Before I can lose my nerve, I get up and begin walking down the ditch toward him. It’s funny, I’m putting one foot in front of the other but I’m not sure if I’m still upright. The world is spinning, and all of a sudden there’s sky where the ground is supposed to be.

I feel somebody kneeling beside me, lifting me. Now I can see a face. It’s not really a man at all, just a boy not much older than me. He’s got blue eyes and thick brown hair, and he looks so nice….

SHE LOOKED BLANKLY at the streaming window. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with the back of her hand, then fumbled in her pocket for a wad of tissues.

Finally, she pushed the books aside, stumbled into her living room and curled on the couch, hugging her knees. She switched on the television and let waves of brightly coloured images wash over her, drowning the painful memories in gusts of canned laughter.

NEXT MORNING, Camilla crossed the campus and went into the arts building. She bypassed her office and headed straight for the large theater where she taught freshman English.

Ninety-six students were registered this term, practically an impossible number. She sighed when she looked up at the tiered rows of seats filled with anxious young people.

While they stared down at her in hushed stillness, she moved across the front of the room, set her books on the desk and found the class list.

“Good morning. My name is Dr. Pritchard.”

There was a nervous murmur of greeting.

“When I read your name,” Camilla went on, “please indicate your presence with the word here and a raised hand so I’m able to check you off on the list. Regular attendance in class is vital because we’ll be moving rather quickly through a very large body of material. Anybody who skips more than two sessions without a valid excuse will receive a grade of incomplete on the term. Is that understood?”

The students nodded.

Camilla looked down at her alphabetized class list. “Aaronson?”

“Here.”

“Anders?”

“Here.”

“Appleby?”

“Yo, Doc!”

Camilla glanced up sharply. Appleby, who wore a bandanna and a couple of earrings, gave her a cherubic smile and waved. Camilla ignored him and went on reading names.

The sixth name was Campbell, and Camilla looked up at the speaker.

My God, it’s Jon! she thought in confusion. But how can it possibly…that was twenty years ago, and I saw the man yesterday in my…

She struggled to get her thoughts under control while the students watched her curiously.

Of course. This had to be Jon Campbell’s son.

He was no more than eighteen or nineteen, but he looked exactly like Jon as a young man. This boy had the same clean-cut good looks and direct blue eyes, the thick brown hair highlighted by streaks of gold after long days in the summer sun…

Camilla took herself firmly in hand and continued to call off the students’ names, stealing a couple of glances at Steven Campbell as she read.

Despite the physical resemblance, he certainly didn’t have the same open, pleasant look that Jon used to have. This boy seemed sullen and morose, coldly withdrawn.

Still, the unexpected appearance of him in her class was unnerving. And yet, deep down, there was a warm and unsettling feeling of excitement, too, when she looked up at the boy and remembered…

Twenty years ago, she told herself. Long ago, lost in the past.

Not even Jon Campbell remembered.

She shoved the thoughts out of her mind and finished taking attendance, then spoke to the students.

“Open your notebooks and write me a two-page essay about your goals in life,” she said amid a chorus of groans.

“What if I don’t have any?” Appleby inquired, grinning around at his fellow students.

Camilla gave the boy a thoughtful glance. “Goals don’t necessarily have to be personal, Mr. Appleby. If you have no goals for yourself, perhaps you have some for the human race, or for the planet. At any rate, I want a two-page essay on goals, and I want it to be accompanied by your full name, and your class and student number so I can begin to get to know each of you.”

Steven Campbell glared into the distance for a while, concentrating, then began to write. Although she was still badly shaken by the boy’s presence, Camilla found herself looking forward to reading his essay.

She moved around the room, up and down the tiers of seats while her students worked, and passed the time answering questions, offering advice on punctuation and style.

She paused briefly by Steven Campbell’s desk, looking down at his thick, gold-streaked hair and his broad shoulders. Even his hands were shaped like Jon’s, lean and strong, with square fingernails.

Camilla remembered those hands…

“Is your father by any chance a student here on campus, Mr. Campbell?” she murmured, wanting to hear his voice.

The boy gave her a noncommittal glance. “Yeah,” he said. “My dad’s taking some classes. My little brother and sister are here, too,” he added grudgingly, looking down at his paper.

“I beg your pardon?” Camilla asked.

“My twin brother and sister,” the boy repeated. “They’re seven years old. They’re in some kind of special class for egghead kids.”

“That’s our accelerated study group. In fact, I think I’ll probably be meeting your brother and sister later this afternoon.”

The boy nodded without interest as she moved away.

A couple of tiers higher, Camilla noticed a darkhaired girl laboring over her paper. Tears glittered in the young woman’s eyes. Camilla mounted the stairs unobtrusively to stand next to her.

“Is something the matter?” she whispered.

The girl looked up at her in anguish. “I can’t do this!”

“It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece,” Camilla said. “Just a few words about yourself and your goals.”

The student shook her head. “I mean this whole college thing. I’ve been out of school for four years, working and saving to come here. Now I’m in a panic. It’s all so hard, and there’s a ton of reading to do, and I—” Her voice broke.

Camilla knelt beside the girl’s desk and put an arm around her shoulders. “I know it feels pretty overwhelming at this stage,” she murmured, “but it’ll all fall into place within a week or two. Trust me, you’re going to feel a whole lot better after a few more classes. In the meantime,” she added, “drop by my office anytime and I’ll do what I can to help out.”

The girl looked up, her face clearing a little. “Really, Dr. Pritchard?”

Camilla got to her feet, one hand still resting on the student’s shoulder. “I was a freshman once, too,” she said. “And I was even more terrified than you are. I’ll be glad to help.”

The girl managed a trembling smile. Camilla smiled back, then moved up the steps to watch as the others toiled away at their essays.

They’re my children, Camilla thought. All these young people are the children I’ve never had.

Involuntarily, she glanced at Steven Campbell’s bent head and felt a deep wave of sadness.

CONSIDERING ALL the bizarre things that were happening to her this term, it took a lot of courage for Camilla to head over to Gwen’s classroom after lunch and keep her appointment with the study group.

She went down the hall and knocked on the door of a comfortable suite of rooms where the gifted children learned everything from chemistry to judo.

“Come in,” Gwen called, and Camilla entered to find a lively session in progress.

The students, about a dozen of them ranging from six to ten years old, were constructing a solar system out of papier-måché, hanging their planets in proper scale from a sunlamp in the center of the room.

“Children, this is Dr. Pritchard,” Gwen told the students. “She’s going to be dropping in to play games with us and ask some of you a whole lot of questions. Say hello, class.”

“Hello,” Camilla said, smiling at them.

“Hello, Dr. Pritchard,” the children chorused, then went back to their project.

Gwen drew Camilla aside. “Look, I don’t know how you were planning to begin your study, but could you possibly take the twins for a few hours?” she whispered. “I need to work out a special program for them, but I haven’t had time yet.”

She indicated a corner of the room where two curly-haired children lay on their stomachs near the aquarium, sharing a book.

“What are they reading?” Camilla whispered back.

“A. A. Milne. They like to memorize stories.”

Camilla chuckled. “Definitely children after my own heart. Why aren’t they making planets like the others?”

“They’ve already done this same project at home with their father, working out the orbits and distances all by themselves. They’re bored with the whole idea by now. The thing is, I still haven’t had time to work out something that’s going to challenge them properly. So if you could…”

“Would I be able to include both of them in my study, do you think?” Camilla asked.

“Kiddo, if you can take those kids off my hands for a few hours a week, I’ll be eternally grateful,” Gwen murmured.

“Would it be okay if I took them down to my office? I need some time to get to know them properly before I start testing.”

“Sure. But you’ll find they’re pretty tense little kids,” Gwen warned. “It’s hard to get them to relax and open up, unless…Jason,” she called to the group, “I think we need to move Neptune a little farther out. You’d better check the book, okay?”

She turned back to Camilla who was frowning thoughtfully.

“How about my apartment? They might be more comfortable if they could sit around in a homey setting and play with my cats.”

“That’s a good idea,” the teacher said. “Just tell me before you take them out of the building, okay? I need to know where they are.”

“Of course.” Camilla moved closer to the two children, accompanied by their teacher.

“Ari and Amy, listen to me.” Gwen stood above their prone figures. “This is Dr. Pritchard. She’s a very, very nice lady who’s going to be working with us quite a bit over the next few months.”

Two pairs of wide eyes looked up at them, green and gray, quietly watchful. Camilla was relieved to find that these children, at least, looked nothing at all like Jon Campbell.

She knelt beside the twins, then sat next to them on the carpeted floor while Gwen returned to the rest of the group.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

“Stories about Pooh and Piglet,” Ari said. “We like to memorize them.”

“Why?” Camilla asked.

“So we can say them to each other when we don’t have the book.” He pointed at one of the pictures. “See? Pooh’s got his head stuck in the honey pot and he can’t get out.”

“Piglet’s coming to help,” Amy chimed in. “But Pooh keeps getting lost.”

“Eeyore is my favorite,” Camilla said. “I like his cheerful outlook on life.”

Ari and Amy exchanged a glance. Camilla could see the silent message passing between them and sensed to her relief that for some reason they’d decided to trust her. Ari giggled, then moved closer to lean against her. “I like Baby Roo. It’s neat the way his mother takes such good care of him.”

Camilla touched the little boy’s rounded cheek, “I like that, too.”

Amy smiled and edged toward them, pressing against Camilla’s other side. Together they finished reading the story, speaking quietly to avoid disturbing the others, and laughed over the whimsical illustrations.

At last she got up, drawing the twins along with her. “Let’s go somewhere to talk, okay?” she said. “I want you kids to help me with something I’m working on.”

Ari began to look anxious again. “We’re not supposed to go anywhere with strangers. Daddy says…”

“It’s all right, dear.” Gwen came back across the room. “Dr. Pritchard is a teacher, too, and you can go anywhere she wants to take you.”

“Does Daddy know we’re going?” Amy asked.

“I told your daddy that Dr. Pritchard will be working with you and he knows we’re all taking very good care of you,” Gwen replied. “Now, Dr. Pritchard wants to take you to her office and play some games with you, that’s all.”

“What kind of games?” Ari asked.

“The kind of games that are your very favorite, dear. Flash cards and films, memory games, things like that.”

Ari brightened and turned to Camilla with a questioning glance.

“That’s right,” she told him. “Lots of games.”

“Better have them back here by four, okay?” Gwen called. “That’s when their housekeeper comes to pick them up.”

“We’ll be back,” Camilla promised.

She walked down the hallway, enjoying the feeling of a little warm hand in each of hers. “What’s your housekeeper’s name?” she asked.

“Sixty-four,” Ari muttered, apparently counting the tiles under his feet. “Amy, what’s the square root? Quick!”

“Eight,” the little girl said absently. “Margaret,” she added with a smile for Camilla.

“The housekeeper’s name is Margaret?” she asked.

Ari nodded. “Eighty-one.”

“Nine,” Amy said.

“Margaret has a boyfriend,” Ari said. “His name’s Eddie. He works way up north on the oil rigs. And Tom has a girlfriend, but Margaret says they’ll never get married.”

“Who’s Tom?” Camilla asked.

“He’s the foreman at the ranch.”

“Your father’s ranch?”

Amy giggled. “Once, Ari put Tom’s brand-new cowboy boots into the rain barrel.”

“They were made out of alligator skin,” Ari said. “I wanted to see if they’d float.”

Camilla laughed. “And did they float?”

Ari shook his head, looking glum. “Tom was real mad at us. He wouldn’t let me ride my pony for a whole week. But after that, he said it didn’t matter because those boots needed to shrink a bit anyhow.”

Something in the child’s voice made Camilla stop and kneel beside him again.

“Do you miss the ranch, dear?”

Ari looked away from her while Amy waited silently nearby.

After a moment, Camilla got to her feet again. “I’ll tell you what,” she said with sudden decision. “Let’s forget about those tests for now, okay? Let’s go down to the cafeteria and get some ice-cream cones.”

They spent a long time in the cafeteria choosing the flavors of their cones. Finally Ari selected pistachio and Amy took raspberry.

“What kind should I get?” Camilla asked.

The twins exchanged a glance. “Butterscotch ripple,” Amy said firmly.

“Why?” Camilla said, intrigued.

“Because you’re all white and gold,” Ari said.

“I see,” she sad, smiling.

“How long has Margaret been your housekeeper?” Camilla asked idly while they were sitting on a rock ledge outside the cafeteria.

“A long time. Since we were babies. Look,” Amy said, pointing to a black bird worrying a scrap of bread on the grass. “That’s a raven.”

“Nevermore,” Ari croaked, then laughed. “It’s not a raven, it’s a crow. Ravens are bigger. Did you know that our daddy goes to this college?” he asked Camilla with one of the lightning changes of subject she was becoming accustomed to.

“I certainly do. He’s in one of my classes, and so is your brother, Steven.”

The twins considered this. Camilla took advantage of their brief silence to return to the topic of Jon Campbell’s household.

“Does Margaret help your mother with the cooking and everything?”

“Our mother lives in Switzerland,” Amy said, “where all the mountains are.”

“There’s mountains here, too,” Ari said. “Look, you can see them from here.” He waved his hand toward the western horizon.

Camilla felt guilty about pumping small children for personal information, but the temptation was too great. “When did your mother go to Switzerland?”

“When we were born.” Ari pulled off some bits of the cone and tossed them toward the crow.

“You mean she took you away to Switzerland?”

“No, she left us here and went by herself because she didn’t love Daddy anymore. She says he’s a selfish pig who only cares about himself, so she went away.”

The child’s tone was flat and unemotional as he stared at the big bird.

Camilla thought about Ari’s words. The accusation against Jon Campbell seemed extreme, especially coming from a woman who’d apparently abandoned her own children. But perhaps Jon Campbell wasn’t the man she’d always thought. Maybe he was actually the kind of person who’d use his wealth and power to separate a woman from her newborn babies.

“When are we going to play games?” Ari was asking, tugging at her arm.

“Right away.” Camilla got to her feet and brushed at her skirt. “Let’s go to my office and see how much fun we can have.”

They went inside the building again. In the crowded hallway, the twins moved to each side of her and reached for her hands. The three of them walked along the corridor, swinging their arms, and in spite of her nagging fears, Camilla felt a wholly unexpected surge of happiness.