The War Widow. Lorna Gray

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СКАЧАТЬ and ensconced in any kind of bland office tedium. Somehow I really could not.

      I watched as he lifted out the first neat triangle of his lunch, declining the tilt of a hand that offered another to me. The close walls of the gorge towered above us. Even now, eight days on, there were signs of the recent heavy rain. Truly sizeable branches and bits of rubbish had jammed themselves on this the lowest of the various steps of the waterfall’s descent and just beyond the little bridge I could see where a green furred boulder had been crudely thrust aside to reveal fresh stone underneath. For a moment something red flickered beneath the current and my heart turned over. It wasn’t his body. It was a fragment of different coloured stone and that was all.

      That was all. It made me wonder how far down the treacherous course of this river the rescue team had dared to climb. And how much danger they must have encountered working hastily beside a river in spate purely because some hope still remained. This rough terrain would continue for some miles before the river widened into the easier floodplains that led to the sea. It seemed clear to me now that perhaps the buzzards might find him, but no one else would.

      “Are you catching the train back later?” Jim Bristol’s voice was jarringly cheerful. I must have been hiding the desolation in my heart very well because he was oblivious. He had moved his bag to one side and was now leaning comfortably against the flat plane of the towering rock. He was about five yards away.

      “The train?” I had to moisten my lips.

      “I saw you on it this morning. I was wondering which one you would be taking back.”

      “The last one,” I said smoothly, stepping onto the bridge. “I want to explore a little first.”

      “Ah. I might see you on it.” He moved to take a bite from his last sandwich, seeming pleased with the information, and then paused with it inches from his mouth. “I’d like to talk more, if you don’t mind?”

      That sense of alarm intensified sharply. He seemed innocently intent on enjoying his lunch but the quick glance I saw him cast before taking that next bite seemed to my heightened senses to contain far more than purely casual interest. And I was sure he couldn’t possibly have missed the fact that I couldn’t wait to get away from him. It suddenly occurred to me that if I didn’t hurry up and take my leave, he’d have finished his lunch and I’d find myself accepting his company for the ascent.

      “I’ll look forward to it,” I lied.

      He let me go. “Excellent. Enjoy the rest of your day.” The smile he gave was simply one of open friendliness but I must have climbed about two hundred steps before I allowed myself to slow down.

      ---

      At least that’s what it felt like. The ascent rose in short aggressive bursts from pool to pool with the black cliffs of the narrow gorge towering above. My heart was pounding and my leg muscles were complaining to the point of nausea, but I almost enjoyed the sensation as a relief from the panic I was experiencing because a man from the hotel had drawn me into conversation. Because that, after all, was all it had been.

      Now I was free of him, I even had time to feel the irony; I knew full well that I wouldn’t have felt the need to break into a run just as soon as I had climbed out of his sight, had my companion been a woman from the hotel instead.

      It was all very predictable, of course, that the divorcee should have developed an aversion to men, but that didn’t diminish the inner debate that was roaring away in my head. The one that didn’t care about my romantic history and was simply waiting to find proof, either in this man’s favour or against it; and all the while knowing with a grim sort of certainty that with the usual pattern of this thing I never would.

      I finally faltered at the viewpoint that jutted out over the largest of the swirling steps in the waterfall. I was very hot. I knew I should feel tired too, I knew I must, but adrenalin held it at a determined distance. It held foresight at a stubborn distance too. I removed my coat simply for the sake of doing something that might bring some relief and laid it over the cool metal barrier that was designed to protect the unwary from the drop. And unfortunately that, perfectly predictably, led me to look down at the rushing water crashing into the pool below. The sight did me no good at all.

      That chattering herd of holidaymakers finally laboured into view; the pack that had driven me on from my lonely examination of the head of the waterfall but lagged too far behind to save me from the distress of a private interview with Jim Bristol. Their breathless voices were filled with the excitement of the view. A family with a teenage girl and a younger brother in short trousers leaned over the barrier beside me, exclaiming and pointing as the whirlpool sucked and dragged at a few small branches caught in the flow. The girl was teasing the boy and threatening to throw him in, or worse still, leave him there as a test for whether the devil really did stalk the bridge at night. His half-laughing half-fearful pleas for help as she tugged on his arm made my mind flinch. They crashed carelessly past me, wrestling and completely ignoring the routine complaint from their mother and the boy, laughing giddily, pretended to fall.

      I found that I had turned quickly away to the comparative safety of the path and then had to turn back again when I remembered my coat. I was flustered now and angry with myself and with Jim Bristol, and other people were coming so I pushed myself onwards. I was determined to keep ahead of them, I don’t know why. The steps were crude and very steep, and I had to concentrate hard on simply keeping my footing. And all the while I was focussing on the vision of the hotel at the top, the refreshing tea I would take, and the time I would find there to adjust to the realisation that now I almost craved the company of a crowd more than I dreaded it.

      “Careful!”

      A hand flashed out. I stumbled clumsily against it. I flinched as it steadied me. No jacket at all on this one; only the practical woollen jumper of a hiker and my eyes travelled from the hand to his face as I was thinking I shouldn’t have come here. I really shouldn’t have come.

      I had the horrible impression I might have said that out loud.

      Adam Hitchen released me and I made to hurry on only to discover that he had changed his mind and put out his hand again. His grip was warm through my clothing. My frock was a handmade belted affair in red that wrapped around with a tie above my left hip – my treasured coupons always went on fabric – and the thick winter sleeves were no barrier to the sense of his touch. I was suddenly very conscious indeed of how close we were to the lip of the drop; how easy it would be to have a little slip, an unfortunate accident. To go tumbling over the edge to the same inevitable end that had met my husband…

      I found myself falling again into the trap of that first line of defence by apologising hastily: “So sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Then, brittle, “I must get on. Goodbye.”

      If only I didn’t keep thinking politeness would save me. He didn’t let me go. He didn’t acknowledge my distress either. But at least the first words that interrupted the pounding of my heart were not unnaturally admiring. When he spoke, it was not pitched to match the visions that stalked my dreams, but in his distinctive tone that was perfectly level. “I’ve found something you might find interesting, do you want to see?”

      I stopped trying to work out how I would force my way past for a moment and blinked up at him. If anything he seemed to be fighting a private battle with his own embarrassment. “That came out sounding a little strange, didn’t it? It really is nothing untoward, I promise you. Are you prepared to take a chance?”

      Quite frankly, no I thought fiercely but didn’t say it. Instead I waited for his odd manner to run to an explanation. It didn’t come and he simply СКАЧАТЬ