Love (18 page)

Karen remained silent. She didn
’t know what to say to him or what to think. It was irritating that Morgan should be so very familiar with Adam’s house, she even had a key apparently.

Adam continued,
“Look, why don’t I come and get you for dinner later on? I’ll sort out all this business with Morgan and then we can all have a nice meal together.”

Karen said,
“I’m feeling terribly tired. I think I might just have a bath and get into bed.”

Adam looked closely at her She had gone quite white.
“Damn,” he said mistaking her misery for tiredness. “I’m afraid I’ve exhausted you. On your first day out and we’ve overdone it. It’s my fault. I’ll come round tomorrow morning instead and we’ll take Humphrey out. There are so many things I want to say to you and I thought we had all the time in the world.”

Karen let him think she was tired. She couldn
’t face an evening with Morgan. Even bed on her own seemed preferable. Adam saw her into the cottage where they were greeted by an ecstatic Humphrey. Adam kissed Karen gently on the forehead.

“Ta
ke good care of yourself,” he said fondly. “Don’t forget your pills. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Karen closed the door behind Adam. It had been such an amazing day. Well, except for the end. She had not thought it p
ossible to feel so let down and disappointed as she had when Morgan had come running out of Adam’s house like the wicked witch. She and Morgan seemed to have some instinctive antagonism for each other. She felt that the woman really hated her. It was as though she had organised this tour purposefully to take Adam away from her. Humphrey licked her hand. She had forgotten to give him his dinner. She dragged herself from her well of unhappiness and busied herself with her and Humphrey’s suppers.

A long hot soak in the bath was some comfort and she found she was really quite exhausted. It had been a tiring day after all, both physically and emotionally. She took her medicine and went to bed.

Adam was as good as his word. He appeared at the
very civilised hour of eleven to walk Humphrey. She was pleased to see that Morgan had not come along.

“
Good morning, darling,” said Adam cheerfully, planting a kiss on her nose.

Karen
’s heart lifted. Things might not be so bad after all.

“
Hello,” she replied. “Where’s Morgan?”

“M
organ is just surfacing. We had quite a long night of it. Sorting out the various permutations of this tour. It’s not that I mind doing it, it’s good publicity for my books in the States. It’s just the timing is so wrong.”

Karen was pleased to have Adam to herself and they set off for the beach.

“When do you actually have to leave?” she asked.

“
Well, that’s the worst thing about it all. Friday.”

“
What? This Friday?” Karen was horrified.

“
Yes. This Friday,” said Adam. “From Heathrow. It means I’ll have to go back up to London with Morgan tomorrow to pack and get ready. I have to see my publishers on Thursday. I suppose we’ll have to set off tomorrow about lunchtime. I hope you’re a good letter writer.”

“
I suppose this means that you won’t be back until March,” said Karen sadly.

“
No. Not even then. I’m going to spend a few weeks in L.A., watching the filming of my book, so I’ll be on hand for re-writes and consultation. Are you going to miss me? I was thinking about us last night in bed and, in some ways, this will be a good thing because you have your show in April. You’re going to need this time to concentrate on your painting. I would have had to find some pretext to go away if this hadn’t come up.”

Karen felt absurdly reassured by his calm reasoning, on the one hand. On the other, she couldn
’t help feeling devastated that he hadn’t begged her to give up her painting and come with him. She wondered if Morgan would be going on the tour and she couldn’t help asking, it just slipped out before she could stop herself.

“
Is Morgan going with you?”

Adam raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Good Lord, no!” he said. “Morgan has a business to run. She can’t just up and go whenever she wants.”

Karen wasn
’t fully convinced. He hadn’t said that he didn’t want Morgan to come either. For that matter he still hadn’t said what his relationship was with Morgan, though he had said they were old friends. Friends covered such a broad range of relationships.

It had rained overnight but it was a warm still morning. Karen loved the browny-green colours of the gorse and heather. The sea mirrored the blue-grey of the sky and if Adam had not been going away tomorrow it would have been a perfect morning. The tide was coming in and so they walked along the dunes throwing sticks for Humphrey to chase.

“
I’ll miss this when I am sleeping in some hotel in the States,” said Adam. “Those big hotels are all the same. Once you’ve stayed in one they all blur into the same thing. They’re comfortable though. Speaking of comfort, I thought that we’ll each have our own king-size bed when we’re married. Otherwise, one person ends up clinging on to the edge of the bed while the other person steals the whole duvet. What do you think?”

Adam
’s abrupt change of subject took Karen aback but she replied in the spirit of the conversation, “Are we having separate rooms as well?”

“
I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind. We could have one enormous room or separate bedrooms like the French aristocracy? Of course, we could have a bathroom in between. We could meet in the middle and arrange rendezvous in one or other of our bedrooms. Do you think that would keep the mystery in our marriage?”

Karen laughed,
“I don’t know. I can see advantages to both. Though, it might depend on the size of the house. There wouldn’t be room for separate bedrooms in my tiny London flat. Anyway, I didn’t realise that we were getting married.”

“
But you agreed yesterday, in the gardens,” said Adam feigning indignation. “You even ate the engagement ring and everything. I thought that signified you had accepted my proposal. If you don’t want to marry me, then I insist you give me back the ring!”

“
I never know when you’re serious,” complained Karen.

“
I’m totally serious. I proposed. You accepted. We’ll get married. Humphrey can be best man, certainly best dog.”

“
You’re so funny,” Karen threw a lump of seaweed at him.

Adam ducked and ran down the beach calling Humphrey to follow him. Karen sat down on the sand to watch them. If only things could stay this way. She wished that time would stand still encapsulating Adam and her in this moment of
easy happiness. She did not want to go back up to the house and start making decisions and worrying about her real life.

Karen watched as Adam and Humphrey reached the rocks, turned and started back towards her. Adam flung himself down on the sand beside her. She looked at him as though to imprint his face on her memory for the long months ahead. She would keep this image of him; his dark curls tousled by the wind, his eyes shining blue in his glowing tanned face, his skin taut on his high cheekbones. As her eyes returned to his lips he reached up, pulled her to him, and kissed her. His lips tasted faintly of salt.

As he ran his tongue gently over her lips he whispered, “You taste of the sea.”

“
I wish,” said Karen, “That you didn’t have to go so soon.” She pushed the hair back off his forehead. That same lock that always fell across his face.

“Me
too,” he answered. “I’d like for things to go on the way they are now. But I’m going to wait for you, Karen. Something that has taken this long to grow is not going to disappear overnight. I think I’ve loved you since that night when I saw that girl in the white dress, standing on the veranda, in the moonlight. You’ll never know how hard it was to walk away from you. It’s not going to be any easier this time. But if you don’t do your best for this show you’ll regret it for the rest of your life and I won’t be able to live with that. So, paint like crazy and I’ll lecture like crazy and the time will pass more quickly.”

Adam seemed so sure that things would be all right in the end that Karen couldn
’t help believing him. It seemed absurd on the face of it, but then she had nothing to lose waiting for him, except her heart and soul.

He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug.
“Now, I must go and put my life in order,” he said. “Do you want to come up to my house?”

“
You’ll probably get on faster without me.”

“Th
en I shall expect you promptly for tea at four. That way I’ll have a goal to work towards and something to look forward to.”

Minutes passed as slowly as hours as Karen waited for four o’clock. She couldn’t settle enough to do anything. She went to the studio but found that she didn’t want to draw or paint. She was caught in a dreadful limbo. She hoped that it was not going to last. This was exactly why she had steered clear of relationships so skilfully in the past. Now, here she was behaving like a love-sick teenager, mooning around waiting to see the beloved. What’s more, the beloved was going to have his ex-something hanging on his arm. She really had lost her last shred of dignity.

Eventually, she settled for a long soak in the bath with a
thriller about a girl with a tattoo of a dragon. She became so absorbed in the mystery that she found with horror that it was already after four. She quickly got dressed in a pair of jeans and a black polo neck. She pulled on her brown leather boots, gave Humphrey a dog biscuit and set off for Adam’s. She was in such a rush that she did not notice that Adam’s Range Rover was not parked in the driveway. She rang the bell. She waited a few minutes and then rang the bell again. This time she heard footsteps.

“
Oh, it’s you,” said Morgan opening the door. “Adam has had to dash into Penzance for some photos. He won’t be long. Come in and wait.”

Why was it that Karen felt a little like she was the fly entering the spider
’s lair? Morgan seemed unusually friendly as she led the way into the sitting room and offered to bring Karen a cup of tea. She returned some minutes later with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits.

“
You don’t take sugar, do you?” she said. “I didn’t bring through. I don’t like it myself.” She gave Karen an appraising look.

Karen did, but she didn
’t feel like telling Morgan. It seemed so unsophisticated to ask for sugar. In any case, the tea was particularly nasty. She suspected that Morgan had simply run water from the hot tap over a tea bag. She hoped that Adam would hurry up and get back. She did not relish the prospect of an intimate chat with Morgan.

“So
, I gather you two have been renewing an old acquaintance,” began Morgan. “Adam tells me you’ve been quite sick, too. I gather he’s been playing doctor. He’s such a sweetie. When I have one of my migraines, he just can’t do enough for me. I think a part of him would have liked to have been a doctor.”

“
Yes, we always thought he was going to become a vet when we were little,” said Karen. “He was always nursing some injured bird or hedgehog back to health.”

Morgan agreed,
“He’s collect the waifs and strays of the world. I remember this whole family he practically adopted in Nicaragua. A whole bunch of wide-eyed children, really gorgeous little kids. I think he still sends them money.”

This was a side of Adam that Karen hadn
’t heard about. She wasn’t surprised by it. He had certainly been very good to her when she had been sick. In fact, she had an awful thought, perhaps she was just another one of his waifs and strays.

“
Yes even in London,” continued Morgan. “We were coming home from the theatre and we practically tripped over this homeless girl at the tube station. Adam, of course, could not leave her there. So we had to take her, in a taxi, to a hotel where Adam paid for her to spend the night. The next day he went round and fixed her up at a hostel. Would you believe he even organised a job for her at his publishers? Save one life and save the world. That’s his philosophy.”

Karen looked at her tea thoughtfully and then took a biscuit instead. Morgan seemed happy to do most of the talking. It was a very one-sided sort of conversation, but Morgan didn
’t seem to care. She kept looking at Karen in a way that made Karen feel most uncomfortably scrutinised.

“
I don’t know whether I should really tell you this, Karen, but I like you. I do feel I should warn you about Adam. He is a wonderful human being but he does get carried away with his little projects sometimes. He doesn’t always realise that other people may get the wrong idea. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“
No, not really,” answered Karen shaking her head.

“
Well, for example, there was this guide in China. They spent a lot of time together on trains, riverboats, that kind of thing. I think she got pretty attached to Adam. Of course, he wasn’t impervious to her charms. So, to cut a long story short, there was some talk of marriage and of her coming to England but some family problems on her side. Anyway, long story short, it didn’t happen. I’ve had to sort ta lot of these things out and clear up the… difficulties, shall we say.”