Circles of Fate (18 page)

He grimaced.

“Drink it up,” she said.

He took a dutiful sip. “She used to say that.”

“Who?”

“Monica. She made me drink black coffee when she thought I'd had a drop too much.”

“How long were you married?”

“Fifteen years.”

“You can't expect to forget in five minutes,” she said gently.

“It's been six months.”

“Time is comparative. Six months is nothing against fifteen years.”

He looked at her. His expression gave no indication of what he was going to say and do.

“Come with me.” In a single movement he put down his coffee, shot to his feet and roughly clasped her elbow, dragging her to her feet. He made no allowance for the cup in her hand. It tilted into the saucer, ejecting the scalding liquid. She cried out as it splashed down her dress and seeped through to her skin. He didn't notice, so intent was he on hauling her the length of the room, flinging open doors to comment on the colour scheme or describe some aspect of the view.

“Yes, Claude,” she said almost in desperation, “you have a lovely home.”

He gave her hand an urgent tug and jerked her up the open-plan staircase, throwing open more doors along the wide passage to reveal a blue guest-room and a peach-gold bathroom that was a sunburst of colour and undreamt-of luxury. Now they were in the master bedroom, with fitted cupboards and a dressing-table unit panelling the walls. The bed, with its head at the window wall and a blanket chest at its foot, was lost in spaciousness.

“It's ... lovely, Claude. You've planned with good taste and enormous insight.”

His madness abated, he crumpled.

“Have I? I've got all this and yet I've got nothing. Look.” He pushed aside one of the sliding door panels, adding a whole new dimension of colour to the room's conservative peach and cream colour scheme. Blues and greens, hot pinks and pinks as bashful and delicate as the dawn. Silks and velvets, shiny material and dull material, stiff and soft, transparent and opaque. Never had she seen so many dresses in such a variety of materials and colours. He pushed back another panel to reveal a soft sigh of fur capes and stoles that swayed gently as he ran his finger the length of the unit to touch each garment in turn.

“You'd think a woman who owned a wardrobe like this would be satisfied, wouldn't you? Take out anything that catches your eye,” he said. “Try anything against yourself.” He noticed the coffee stain on her dress.

“Oh, dear, you have been a clumsy girl! Never mind, we should be able to find you something to wear among this lot. Let me see.” After a moment's gentle consideration, he drew out a long black velvet skirt with a narrow, belted waist, and a white lace blouse with enormous sleeves which tapered into deep wristbands. “This should suit you. Monica only wore this once,” he persuaded.

She thought it was considerate of him to offer her Monica's least used outfit. But the thought of putting on any of the dead woman's clothes filled her with revulsion.

“It's nothing,” she said, patting the still slightly steaming wetness of her ruined dress. “It's drying already.”

“All this could be yours,” he said. There was something mesmeric about his pale dry-sherry eyes.

“What do you mean, Claude?”

“I'd marry you.”

She swallowed hard. “Thank you, Claude. That's a wonderful compliment and if it was genuine I might be tempted to accept,” she said, trying to let him down lightly.

“What do you mean? It is genuine. I want to marry you.”

“Yes, Claude. But not for the right reason.” She was struggling for words. They were all there in her head, but she wasn't old enough or wise enough to call them up without a tremendous effort. “For some reason fate has seen fit to tangle our lines. Because I was with Monica when she died, because prior to that she'd chosen to open her heart to me, in your eyes I link strongly with her. I wasn't introduced to you and left to form my own opinion. I was given a living picture of her Claude Perryman, the gleanings of fifteen years of marriage. I know you, I know your gentleness and your strength, your good points and your faults. I know you so well that I could slip into Monica's shoes and they wouldn't hurt one bit because I'd know what to expect.”

“You make it sound like a bad bargain.”

“It would be, from your point of view. At the moment you feel keenly that you have betrayed Monica. You have to make it up to someone and you've convinced yourself that fate has sent me along for that specific purpose.”

“And hasn't it?”

“No. We are two crossed lines. That's all.”

“But I feel comfortable with you.”

“Of course. But in the same way as you would feel comfortable with your mother or your sister. I know you so well. You can't sadden me or shock me. Look, Claude, work your repentance off on somebody else, then marry for the right reason. Because you are so crazy about the girl that you can't bear to let her out of your sight for a second. She's there somewhere, that girl. A line that's drifting with the tide, but getting ready to rush in with the current. Now, how about telling me the surprise development.”

“This morning Monica's jewellery was anonymously returned to the insurance company's London office.”

“That is a surprise development,” she said, but she didn't look surprised.

“No it isn't,” he said. “We both know who sent it back.”

“What will you do?”

“Do?” He looked mildly perplexed. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? No conciliatory gesture?”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven't you taken in a word I've said? You can do someone some good and work off your guilt complex at the same time. Send Monica's sister and her husband the air fare and invite them here for a long all-expenses-paid holiday.”

“I don't know ... could I ...?”

She left him debating the point. She walked out of the house, out of his life. He didn't even know she'd gone.

She felt relieved, free, disentangled. She'd drifted with the tide, uncrossed her crossed lines. Tomorrow Felipe would be here and she couldn't wait to rush with the current of her emotions.

She was happy because she didn't know about the circumstances that had taken root before she was born. They had lain deep within untilled soil. Her coming had turned the earth, giving air and ventilation, imbibing new life into the plant that was at this moment raising invidious tentacles.

The circles of fate were turning ... turning ...

She walked out of Claude's house without any clear idea of how she was going to get back to her hotel. Not only was it too far to walk, it was dangerous. The road was without a footpath and, because the moon was in hiding, it was villainously dark.

The light from a tavern shone out like a beacon and she floated towards it with a sense of relief. She asked the innkeeper if she may use his telephone and, with his blessing, telephoned for a taxi. She felt aimless waiting for its appearance, so she did what Cathy would have done and ordered herself a gin and tonic. Unlike Cathy, she didn't gulp it down when her taxi arrived. A sense of urgency, as if her presence was demanded elsewhere, made her leave it on the table practically untouched and run out to the black cab.

The moon, in coquettish mood, came out from behind her cloud at the first cross-road. A fast-approaching car had the right of way, and the taxi driver waited patiently. As it flashed past, a motorised white chariot carried on a breath of wind, her heart contracted painfully as she glimpsed the dark fascination of a well-remembered profile. And yet, in her emotional state, she dare not trust the evidence of her own eyes and could not believe until the
chófer
said: “I see the brave one is back.”

“Was it Felipe Sanchez?”

“You know him?”

Her heart gave an excited kick. “I know him.” She also knew the reason for her earlier feeling of urgency. She strained forward.

“Follow him. If you catch him up I'll pay you double fare and double tip.”

“
Sí,
señorita,” said the
chófer,
slamming down on the accelerator.

Felipe's car was the worthier vehicle, but he didn't have the incentive of double fare and double tip. Neither did he have six hungry mouths to feed and every peseta accounted for before it was even earned. Anita, meanwhile, was regretting her hasty promise, as the taxi took corners on two wheels and regarded the slightest incline as a take-off point. She hoped she would be alive to keep her part of the bargain.

Miraculously they were catching up, more miraculously still they were passing Felipe on a warning blast of horn, swerving from side to side in front of him to slow him down, and then stopping at an angle to form a road block. Anita paid off the driver. Felipe leapt out of his car, black thunder on his face. They met halfway.

Surprise crumpled his dark expression and for one giddy moment she thought he was going to sweep her into his arms and smother her with a welcoming warmth of kisses. He took one vital step forward, then stopped. His expression froze into indifferent politeness.

“Well, what was that about?” Immediately reducing her to the ranks of a not very bright child.

“I don't know, really. A silly impulse, I suppose.”

“One which has left you stranded. It would serve you right if I didn't give you a lift back to your hotel, or wherever you are staying.”

“I'm staying at the same hotel as before. But I'm not begging a lift.”

“Silly child.” He ruffled her hair, handsomely forgiving her childish prank. “Get in.”

She obeyed, swallowing back a lump of tears. His light-handed, faintly exasperated treatment of her was so unexpected that she was momentarily thrown off balance. It were as if the tenderness and the intimacy they had previously shared had never been. For one ludicrous moment she wondered whether she'd imagined the embraces, the hugs, the kisses, the wonder of reciprocal love. As shock abated, as the impact of surprise lost its strength, anger took its place. It flicked a raw nerve and stiffened her spine.

“No, Felipe Sanchez. It will not do.”

She saw then that his mild tolerance was to mask the strained expression that lurked beneath. A nervous tick slammed under his left eye, a convulsive beat that was at odds with this man whose fearlessness in the bull-ring was little short of insanity.

“You must tell me.” She pursued the only line she knew. “Is it because of your work?”

“Don't persist,
chica.
I cannot lie to you and it is better that you do not know.”

“Is it your work?” she demanded relentlessly. “Is it because I ran away last time? If it is, then please forget my cowardice and remember only that I'm back, older and stronger and I will try to be –”

His finger came up to seal her mouth. “Don't, Anita. You must not degrade yourself.” He sighed heavily. “And I see there is no way round it. I must tell you.” His shoulders pressed back against his seat. He began: “Do you see fate as a line or a circle?”

“A line,” she answered promptly, “to be cast into a vast ocean which is sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent. Sometimes there are obstacles, other times there are none.”

“Prettily described, but wrong. Fate is a continuous circle, without beginning, without end. It starts long before you are born and goes on after your death, through your children and your children's children. It turns at will and stops at random, and you can never be certain what secret of your past or your parents' past it is going to reveal. Your line theory suggests that each of us has an independent fate, but it is not like that. A man can only be king if he is born of royal blood. He is just one turn of the circle.”

“I don't see what this has got to do with us.”

“You will, shortly. Please listen and promise not to interrupt, even if at first it seems irrelevant.” He waited for her promise and then continued: “You know that my mother served your grandparents for many years. But I think I am right in assuming that you did not know them at all.”

“No, I didn't know my grandparents. You did, of course, growing up in the same house. Oh! Is that an interruption?”

“I'll forgive you. Yes, I knew them.”

“Tell me about them.”

“I'm trying to, if you'll only shut up. Enrique Cortez was a fine man, a man of high principles, warmth, humour, strength and weakness.”

“And my grandmother?” she interrupted unrepentantly.

“A bit of a martinet. A strong, unforgiving woman. A cold companion, I used to think even before I properly understood such things, for my beloved señor. She had the one child, your mother, and could have no more. Perhaps nature's denial made her feel less of a woman. She lost her warmth overnight, it has been said, and withdrew completely from your grandfather. This, of course, all happened long before I was born and for my part must be pure guesswork. I knew him as a patient man, so I imagine he was very patient, very gentle with his wife, hoping time would ease the situation. It didn't. Eventually he found someone else.”

“Your mother?”

“That was one interruption I was hoping for. Thank you for sparing me.”

“How long have you known that Enrique Cortez was your father?”

“I never for one moment suspected that he might be. In company, my mother and he were never blatant in their affection for each other. The warmth that existed between them was no more and no less than that of any long-term employer-employee relationship. I didn't know it was otherwise until just before I went to Madrid. Something cropped up that made it necessary for my mother to tell me.”

“The house-purchase money?”

“Yes, but I'll tell you about that later. My mother came to Casa Esmeralda as a young girl. She has always had a cheerful disposition and it must have pleased him to watch her happily absorbed with her daily tasks. Cooking, cleaning, tidying, bringing a breath of life to a listless, unhappy house. They wouldn't have meant it to happen. They were two people who would have preferred to step gently through life. They wouldn't have deliberately set out to hurt anyone.”