Unknown (18 page)

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Hardly anyone knew. Duncan knew, though. He was very upset, very angry.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Pattie, and Jennifer’s eyes flew open.

‘I don’t think you can imagine how much he hated you.’

Pattie winced and heard herself protesting, ‘That wasn’t fair! Why put all the blame on me? He was as much to blame himself. Nigel was as much to blame.’ And so, of course, was Jennifer.

‘But I’m not blaming you,’ said Jennifer in a soft rush of words. ‘Not at all, that’s what I’m telling you. But Duncan’s taken up with you now and he’ll hurt you in the end. He’ll reject you.’

Pattie knew that he would tire of her because he did not love her, but surely he would never reject her for the savage satisfaction of revenge. ‘Did he sleep with you up at the lodge?’ asked Jennifer, and Pattie’s betraying blush answered her, and she said, ‘He’s a wonderful lover, isn’t, he?’ as though they were discussing his writing or his skill as an after-dinner speaker, and Pattie felt sick.

‘Duncan never takes his women seriously,’ said Jennifer. ‘He’d never put one of them before his work for a minute. I’m sure you found that out up at the lodge, and right now I’m sure he’s fond of you.’ She stood up and stroked the fur of her coat with little grey-kid hands. ‘But deep down,’ she said, ‘there’s all this anger, and as soon as the novelty wears off he’s going to dump you quite brutally, and I don’t think you deserve that, so I think you should be warned.’

‘Thank you,’ said Pattie. As Jennifer walked towards the door she added, ‘But don’t worry about me,’ and Jennifer shook her head.

‘Poor Pattie,’ she said. ‘Poor, poor Pattie.’

It
was a long time before Pattie could stop shivering. She couldn’t believe it was gratitude that had brought Jennifer Stanley here, but if things had been as bad as that for her last year Duncan might still have this rankling resentment against Pattie. She wondered if Jennifer had been the pretty little fair-haired girl up at the lodge last summer, and the pictures that came into her mind corroded her with jealousy.

Jennifer knew all about Duncan as a lover, she knew that he didn’t take his affairs seriously. But for Pattie the affair was serious already. If she let it get a tighter hold it would take over her life. Right now Duncan had temporarily forgotten that a girl had tried to kill herself because of something Pattie had written, but Pattie could never be more than a passing fancy for him because deep down he did not like her, so the foundations of any relationship would be rotten.

I wish he wasn’t coming tonight, she thought. I wish I hadn’t gone looking for him, because sure enough he would never have come searching for me.

She might have phoned even at this late stage, and pleaded a headache or a last-minute business appointment, but she convinced herself that wasn’t a good idea. Why make such a fuss? So long as she kept her cool and got in no deeper, there was no reason why she shouldn’t enjoy Duncan’s company.

She had never taken such care, getting ready for a date. She slipped into the new dress and dabbed on a new perfume. This one was sharper than the perfume Michael bought for her, that she had always thought was her favourite. She had changed and if Duncan had loved her she would have really blossomed, but he didn’t and he wouldn’t. Jennifer had made her see that. It had been bad enough when her father never came back, but she could become so dependent on Duncan that losing him would finish her. So she must watch her every word and every move, and keep the relationship casual and easy.

She was standing at the window when his car drew up in a space across the road, and the pull that drew her towards him was so strong that she looked around for something to hold on to. She wanted to run downstairs and be at the front door before he reached it. But she stood by the sideboard, gripping the edge, until the ring came on her own bell, and then she called, ‘Come in.’

He was immaculately dressed, in a dark suit and a dark coat, grey shirt and tie. Pattie said, ‘Hi,’ as he came towards her, and his smile made her catch her breath, and when he kissed her she felt herself go spiralling down and down. All she wanted to do was stop fighting and stop thinking, but that was the way to so much pain and anyway the kiss was light, just a ‘Hello’ greeting.

As he loosed her she said, ‘Could you help me get a cat out of a box?’

They scooped out more straw, Duncan broke down more of the packing case, and finally dragged the rock cat clear and asked, ‘Where do you want him?’

‘There isn’t a fireplace, he’d have looked good by a fire. In the corner maybe.’

Pushing and shoving left a deep trail across the carpet. ‘He weighs a ton,’ said Duncan.

‘Michael’s mother was worried about the floorboards.’

‘Michael’s mother could have a point.’

The crouching cat’s eyes seemed to follow Pattie as she moved. She said, ‘He does watch you, doesn’t he?’

‘That’s the idea.’ Duncan began gathering up straw and tossing it back into the packing case, his grin quick and infectious. ‘If I’m not watching you something is,’ he said, and she laughed.

‘Now what do you imagine I could be up to?’

‘Looking like that,’ he said, ‘there are no limits,’ joking because he wouldn’t really care. She sat down beside the stone cat, stroking its head, and thought how splendid it would have looked up at the lodge, in the big inglenook fireplace with the log fire crackling.

She said, ‘Michael and his mother were here when he arrived.’ She picked up a few pieces of straw that had been trailed right across the carpet. ‘It was the last straw,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ He waited to hear how and she grimaced, ‘I started to giggle. I’d had a hard time not laughing before because Mrs Ames kept asking questions and Michael was rabbiting about everything under the sun to try to shut her up. She thought it was very stupid of me to get myself snowed in with somebody like you.’

Duncan’s grin was slow this time, and the devilish gleam was in his eyes. ‘Not a fan?’ he said.

‘Oh no.’

‘Did Michael think it was stupid?’

‘Oh yes.’ She shrugged. ‘But he didn’t really want to know. He’d have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear until I started to laugh, then he came the nearest to blowing his top I’ve ever seen him.’

‘Was it an eye-opener?’ The light was still dancing in Duncan’s dark eyes. •

‘Not very dramatic,’ she said. ‘He turned pale purple and spluttered. And left his mother to carry her own parcels.’

Duncan feigned astonishment, ‘The big gesture!’ Then he changed the subject. ‘You saw the photograph this morning, in that bloody column?’

‘Mmm.’ So would Michael and Mrs. Ames.

‘At least it was a good one of you.’ He didn’t sound as though she had made a fool of herself looking like an adoring teenager, so perhaps it wasn’t as bad as she thought. She had known how she felt, but the people who had teased her today had only said she looked happy, not in love. Happiness was all right.

She probably wasn’t in love, but she was almost overwhelmingly attracted to him. If they stayed here much longer he would surely kiss her again, properly this time, and she would go up in flames. ‘Shall we go?’ she said. She hurried to wash her hands from the dust of the rock and get into her coat. Duncan looked around the room as he waited for her. ‘It smells new,’ he said. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘I papered those walls, and gave the others a fresh coat of paint.’ There were closed doors, into the kitchenette and her bedroom, and if she showed him round the small apartment she would have to open the bedroom door. She daren’t do that because what she really wanted was for Duncan to pick her up and carry her to the bed. ‘I’m starving,’ she said, ‘I’m really starving. Where are we going to have our dinner?’

He took her to a restaurant that was new to her. Outside it didn’t look much, but inside lamps glowed and a woman came to meet them with a smile as warm as the lamplight. She was middle-aged, with fair hair plaited around her head, wearing a long bibbed apron over her dress. She spoke in a language Pattie didn’t recognise while a man, heavily built with heavy features, gave Duncan a welcoming bear-hug. Old friends, thought Pattie, as they were guided to their table and Duncan was hailed by several of the other diners.

They were taken down into the cellars to select the wine. The cellars seemed bigger than the restaurant, racks and racks of bottles, some of them thick-coated with dust. Joe, the proprietor, and Duncan walked ahead of Pattie between the rows discussing vintages, sometimes in English, sometimes in what was probably Joe’s native tongue. Duncan seemed as fluent as Joe, and afterwards at the table Pattie asked, ‘How many languages can you speak?’

‘A few,’ said Duncan.

‘That wasn’t mentioned in the articles I’ve read about you.’

‘I don’t think anybody ever asked me before.’ He poured wine for her. ‘But if you roam around as much as I do you’re bound to pick up another language or two eventually.’

Joe and his wife hovered, providing impeccable service for a valued guest. ‘Where did you meet them?’ Pattie asked.

‘In Hungary,’ said Duncan, and she thought, I could have such adventures with you. Your life is so full and exciting. But you’re never going to ask me to share it, except perhaps for a little while, then it would be a goodbye that would hurt more than death.

She hadn’t told him that Jennifer had been waiting for her when she returned from the office, but warmed and encouraged by the wine, she began, ‘Jennifer Stanley ’ and Duncan said curtly, ‘I’d prefer not to discuss Jennifer.’

A moment before he had been smiling, but at the mention of Jennifer’s name he was suddenly unapproachable, and she thought, it’s true, he still blames me for that newspaper story. Deep down, like Jennifer said, there is still the anger.

Then he leaned across and ran his fingers down her arm, and it was like a trail of fire to her so that she had to hold back a cry. There was still the anger, but overlying it was this tremendous charge of sexuality. She watched his fingers, long and strong, wrists showing brown against the pale grey cuffs of his shirt, and she wanted to reach for his hands and press them hard to her fast beating heart. She was aching for him.

Then he smiled again. Forget Jennifer, his smile said, let’s just enjoy the meal and the moment and later ourselves. So she ate and drank and smiled too, and talked quite a lot, and when most of the tables cleared Joe and his wife joined them over coffee and brandy and there was more talk and laughter.

Pattie was sorry when their evening here ended and she and Duncan drove away. She was tinglingly aware of him sitting close beside her, the movements of his driving. When they reached her home and he took her in his arms how was she going to hold him away while every nerve in her was crying for him? But how could she let him make love to her when all it would mean to him was satisfying an appetite? I’d be like another piece of Stilton, she thought wryly, or a good cigar.

He would expect to be invited in to stay a while, because he found her desirable and he knew that she wanted him.. She only hoped he didn’t suspect how badly. His attraction for her was almost irresistible but not quite. The night was not going to end with her lying in Duncan’s arms, but she was not at all sure how she was going to avert that.

She might try, ‘I’ve got a busy day tomorrow and it’s late.’ She could hardly say, ‘No, because you fancy me but you don’t like me, while I could go crazy for you. I could run whimpering after you next time you go aroaming to the other side of the world and you wouldn’t like that, would you? and neither would I.’

She said, ‘This isn't the road,’ suddenly realising he was driving her the wrong way home.

‘I thought you might like to see my place,’ he said, and she hesitated.

‘It’s late, but—yes, all right.’

She would like to see how he lived in London, compare it with the lodge. He looked a different man in town, suave, sophisticated, tough, still, but there wasn’t much sign of Heathcliff’s roughness.

His apartment was the top floor and attics of a large converted Victorian house overlooking one of the parks. The main room was vast, and warm although no fire burned in the Adam fireplace. In daytime light would stream through the three tall windows with their pointed tops, and there were ceiling lights, but now the room was shadowy with diffused lighting.

Books lined almost the whole of one wall. On the other walls were pictures, modern ones, some bright in barbaric colours, some of intricate workmanship. There was a lot to see in this room. One of the rock carvings sat on a low shelf. Pattie crossed to it and it seemed to be just rock—about a third the size of her cat—then she saw the eyes, sleepy, drowsing in the sun.

The furniture was mostly modern, big comfortable chairs, pieces in beautiful gleaming wood. Duncan might have brought some of these things back with him from his travels, the Spanish rugs, the Aztec figurines. It was luxurious, and interesting, and when he asked, ‘What’s the matter?’ she blinked,

‘Nothing—you’ve got quite a place here.’

‘Then why are you frowning?’

She hadn’t realised she was, then she realised why and said slowly, ‘I suppose I was thinking how different it is from the lodge. The lodge is stark. You don’t have any furniture at all in the big upstairs room. Why don’t you take some of this up there?’

‘Because I like the lodge how it is,’ he said, and after a moment Pattie agreed, ‘Yes,’ and smiled, ‘It wouldn’t do, would it?’

The lodge was his escape. He wasn’t a rich man there, but because he was strong and self-sufficient he was at home in the loneliness and the wildness of the moors. So could I be, she thought, if you would take me back; but you couldn’t get rid of me fast enough when the snowplough got through. I might get invited to the lodge in summertime, when your friends drift up there. But not when you go alone because nobody is welcome then, and come summer we might not even be friends.

Gently he turned her towards him and she thought, this is all there is for him. He wants me physically, and God knows she wanted him too. When he started to kiss her she could have clung to him like a drowner to a rescuer. It was that hard to pull back. It was like letting go of life, but she held her arms tight to her sides, fists clenched. ‘No,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘No!
'