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Oh God, she thought, outside! I went to the woodpile how many times? I walked around. I could have dropped it in the snow. The chain was so fragile, I must have weakened a link. Last night I nearly jerked it off.

It had been snowing again since she brought in the wood. It would be covered and it was getting dark: she would have to wait till morning, although it could still be in the house. She had been in the kitchen, to the loo, earlier she had walked around looking for something to read, opening a cupboard and finding the magazines. She was by the cupboard, peering in corners, when he came back into the room and said, ‘Will you stop prowling around like a caged cat?’

She said jerkily, ‘I’ve lost my charm.’

‘What?’

‘My good luck charm. It’s Chinese. My father gave it to me.’ It wasn’t here. He had left the lamp on the table, it threw shadows, but she would have seen the moon-pale glimmer of white onyx.

‘Well, ask Daddy to buy you another,’ he drawled.

‘I can’t. He can’t.’ The muscles in her jaws tightened. After all these years she could still hardly bring herself to say it. ‘He’s—dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she spat at him,

‘No, you’re not. Why should you be? It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘When?’

‘A long time ago. Years.’ She went to hold the charm again and her fingers closed on nothing, and she felt the tears burning her eyes and choked, ‘I’ve kept it for years and now I’ve lost it, up here, maybe in the snow where I’ll never find it, and you stand there saying you’re sorry. You
hypocrite!'
Disgust and rage rose in her, pounding in her temples so that she thought her head would burst. She would have killed him if she could. It was an insensate fury, mindless as a child’s or a madwoman’s, that could only be appeased by violence. ‘To hell with you!’ she screamed, ‘and your beastly rotten stupid work!’

It was sheer luck she didn’t sweep the lamp off the table. She swept papers away, she would have liked to tear them to pieces. She wanted to hurl the typewriter against the wall because it was a symbol of him being all right, busy, well fed, while she was in pieces because she had just lost the last thing her father ever gave her.

But he reached her before she could lift it, and she shrieked at him that if somebody didn’t get her out of here right
now
she would go crazy. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t bear it any longer, and keep away from her and don’t touch her, or she would claw his eyes out.

He hit her across the face, and she was so hysterical that at first she hardly felt the pain. Something jerked her head back and, cut off the babble of words, then she felt her cheek smarting and lifted a hand to cover it, and heard herself whisper, ‘Now you’ve blacked my eye. Just like Willie’s.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not like Willie’s.’

It was like a douche of cold water. Pattie gasped and choked and shook her head as though she was being held under a shower, then the hot anger drained away, her skin turned cold and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

She had never before made such a spectacle of herself. As a child she had had tantrums, what child doesn’t, but never like this and never since she was a child. She had been proud of her self-control, but just now she had been like somebody possessed; and she was still acting out of character because now she couldn’t stop crying and it was years since she had wept.

She hiccupped, ‘Excuse me’, and thought how ridiculous that sounded. Her head was still throbbing, the tears were still flowing, and the only handkerchief she had was in her jacket pocket over there by the fire. She could hardly see her way for tears. She gulped and said, ‘That’s the first time I was ever hysterical. I do—apologise.’

Duncan Keld put a handkerchief into her hand that was soft and smelt clean and fresh and she said, ‘Oh, thank you,’ and buried her face in it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled through the folds of cambric. ‘I don’t ever cry and now I can’t stop.’

‘You will,' he said. ‘The crying always stops.' This was when she would have expected him to rage at her or cut her down with bitter taunts, but his voice was gentle and when she looked at him he drew her to him and held her, and it was inexpressibly comforting.

She had never wept in any man’s arms but her father’s, and that had only been for childish things. She felt weak as a child now. She stumbled as he led her back to the fire, and she curled up in the huge lumpy armchair, which was big enough for two because he sat down in it too, and she was curled up against him, with his arms around her.

‘It was the last thing he gave me,’ she sobbed, ‘before he went away for the last time. He said when he came back he wanted to see me wearing it, and I think I used to believe that as long as I wore it he might come back.’

‘We’ll find it,’ he promised. ‘If you dropped it in here we’ll find it tomorrow.’

‘It could be outside.’

‘Then that will take a little longer.’ The beard was dark now, but she thought, it’s quite a face. Not handsome. Not smooth, regular features like Michael’s. But rugged and strong and in a way beautiful.

‘I’ll pick your papers up in a minute,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened to me. My mind seemed to snap when I saw I’d lost my charm. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t been eating.’

‘You
what
?’ The dark brows came together.

‘You told me to leave the food alone.’

He stared at her. ‘And you
did?'

‘I wasn’t hungry.’

‘Wait a minute, let me get this straight.’ He sounded incredulous. ‘You’ve not been eating for the last two days? Are you anorexic?’

‘No. You said leave it alone.’

‘Sure I did. I said leave everything alone. I said sit down there and don’t make a move. But I didn’t expect you to do it, you stupid woman.’

Of course it was stupid. She said, ‘I know, I know. It was stupid coming here. It was stupid running my car off the road. I was nearly killed and I was scared to death and I thought I’d rather starve than touch your food. I’ve felt sick ever since I got here, I haven’t
wanted
any food. I still don’t. I just want to find my amulet.’

Duncan Keld said, ‘Tomorrow we find the amulet. Tonight we eat.’ He stood up. ‘Stay right where you are.’

Pattie wasn’t hungry, but when he brought two bowls of soup she swallowed a little and soon found herself scraping the bottom of the bowl. Duncan was watching her as he drank his soup. She had the big chair to herself now, he was seated in a wooden armchair. ‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thank you. May I put on another log?’

He placed two logs on the embers, and she heard herself say, ‘Would you come and sit here, please?’ because she needed somebody to be close to her. She said, ‘If you would just hold me,’ and when he did she tensed for a moment, then relaxed and said, ‘I’m sorry I barged in on you.’

He grinned. Pattie had never seen him smile like this before. When the smile reached his eyes she had to smile back. ‘I wasn’t planning on company,’ he explained. ‘I’m a psycho-case about being alone every so often,’ and then, changing the subject, ‘Tell me about your father,’ and she knew it was what she wanted to do.

That was strange, because she never talked about her past. Her friends knew that her only relative was her mother, they knew her background, but she started to tell Duncan Keld what kind of man her father had been, how kind and clever and funny. She told him about life in the old house, things that she thought she had forgotten: the way her bedroom looked out over the apple orchard, the names of old friends and neighbours, the great tree that stood in the entrance hall each Christmas and how her father always managed to get home for Christmas. ‘More than once he arrived on Christmas Eve and sometimes he had to go away again early in the new year, but he always came, we always knew he would.’

He was flying home on Christmas Eve when his plane hit a mountainside. Pattie had heard the news flash when she was alone in the house. Her mother had been at a carol service, Pattie had stayed behind because they only knew her father was coming, they had no definite time, and she had stayed home to welcome him.

‘I knew as soon as I heard them say it that it was his flight.’ She sounded very young and very sad. ‘They give you a number you can ring and I kept trying to ring it and I couldn’t get through, and then my mother came home with a crowd of friends, and they were laughing and joking and it was ages before I could get one of them to listen to me.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Fifteen.’ Her face was smudged, a pointed elfin face, with hair falling lankly, and Duncan lifted a strand and tucked it gently behind her ear. ‘I never cried. Not at all.' She sounded as though that still surprised her. ‘I suppose it was because my mother broke down and I had her to look after and I daren’t let go. And maybe I didn’t believe it.’

His hand warmed her, around her shoulder, and she felt as though she could fall asleep and there would be no nightmares. ‘I always missed him,’ she said. ‘When he gave me the charm he said, “When you wear this I’ll know and I’ll be thinking of you,” and I used to pretend he still could. I used to tell myself that one day when I was wearing it he would come back. I will find it again, won’t I?’

‘Of course you will.’

She had never been cuddled since her father died. It took her back over the years, and her lids drooped heavily. She was very tired, but when Duncan said, ‘Come to bed,’ she bit her lip and started to stammer,

‘No, I ’

‘I know what you need,’ he said.

He might be right, she didn’t want to be alone again tonight. But he looked down at her with an expression that only held kindness and said, ‘Sleep and warmth,’ then he picked her up and carried her as easily as if she was still a child. She linked her hands around his neck and her head dropped against him, and when he put her in the bed the sheets were cold for a moment, but he lay down beside her, still dressed, still holding her.

It was her first untroubled sleep in this house, and it was deep and dreamless. She half woke once, and wriggled out of her skirt and jumper. She knew Duncan was there. Or rather she knew that somebody was with her with whom she was safe, and she yawned and snuggled down and slipped back into slumber . . .

The next time she woke it was morning. The bed was empty, she was alone, and she lay there, her mind clear, feeling as though she had come out of a dark tunnel into the light. She thought wryly, a psychiatrist would have charged me a fortune to have released all those inhibitions; because last night she had done her weeping for her father’s death. Tears that had been held back for years had been shed.

There was an indentation in the pillow where Duncan’s head had rested and she sat up, knees hunched, looking at it. ‘Thank you, doctor,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to have met you. You did me a power of good last night. You’re a super man.’

‘Tea or coffee?’ he called from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Either,’ she called back. ‘Whatever’s least trouble,’ and her voice seemed to have a singing note.

‘They’re both hot water poured on a bag.’

‘Coffee, then, please.’

You couldn’t tell if it was still snowing, the windows were still white, but today she must search outside for her amulet, and if she didn’t find it right away—;well, nobody else was going to. It would wait for her, wherever it was.

When she heard him coming up the stairs her heart gave a funny little jump and she watched the open doorway half smiling, her heart beating fast. Duncan was dressed, she couldn’t remember if he had been dressed all night, but his face looked damp and clean and she said, ‘You shaved. Oh,
lovely!'

He grinned, ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’

She felt warm and happy and crazy. ‘It’s an improvement all right, but I wasn’t talking about you. What I meant was it has to mean there’s a mirror around here some place. I could do with a mirror.’ She pulled a lock of her hair and squinted sidewards at it. It looked like seaweed. And her hands and her face were grubby and she was a mess.

‘You look all right,’ he said, and gave her the mug of hot coffee.

‘You’re lying.’ But Pattie no longer felt degraded by her scruffiness. She could laugh about it, and he shook his head, ‘No, I’m not,’ and she knew that he thought she was pretty.

He went to a chest of drawers and opened one, and she sipped her coffee and watched. He was tall, broad-shouldered. His black hair curled slightly over the polo-neck of his sweater and she had a sudden urge to get out of bed and go across and stand behind him and put her hands over his eyes and say, ‘Guess who?’ because she wanted to touch him. Like she had touched the amulet, for luck and security? But she smiled wryly at that idea, because it was not at all the same. She said, ‘I’m sorry about last night, making such a fool of myself.’

‘You didn’t.’

Anyone else would have thought she had. She went on, ‘And for landing myself on you.’

Duncan turned from the chest of drawers, putting a brown and white checked shirt on top. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was a shaker.’

‘You could put it stronger.’

‘That I could.’ They both laughed and he went on, ‘It was pretty galling being observed by a journalist who’d come to write about me, and every time I looked up there you were, brooding in the chimney piece, looking downright malevolent.'

She grimaced, ‘I thought you were horrible.'

‘I am,' he agreed cheerfully. 'I'm so bloody horrible that I'm not fit to be let loose full time among my fellow human beings, especially when a book gets to the nitty-gritty. That’s when I come up here and shut myself in and hope for something to keep the rest of them out. Like snow. But I’m not often this lucky with the weather.’

He was a man who had to be alone, she could understand that. No man is an island, the poet said, but Duncan was pretty nearly one. Pattie sat with her chin on her knees, hands clasped around her ankles, surveying him with wide dark eyes. ‘This makes it like a little island, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Only you’ve got a castaway. Or a stowaway. Are you going to throw me out?’