Encounters. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ where he was. She wished he would come. He had been there: through the fear and resentment; he knew how to cope with pain.

      The house on this side was smartly painted. She frowned. Several windows stood open and from somewhere she could hear the sound of music – a band playing on a scratchy record. Staring up at the windows, hoping to see Robert, she glimpsed a shimmer of white at a window. Her exclamation of surprise brought the young man’s attention back to her.

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘I thought I saw someone up there. Someone in white.’

      He gave a strained smile. ‘Probably one of the nurses.’

      ‘One of the nurses?’ She stared at him. ‘Do you have nurses to look after you?’ Her eyes were wide with sympathy.

      ‘Of course.’ His eyes were clear grey, his face handsome, tanned. He glanced down at his arm ruefully. ‘They’re threatening to take this off.’ Just for a moment she could hear the fear in his voice.

      She didn’t know what to say.

      Visibly pulling himself together he stared at her. ‘You were right. We do know each other, don’t we?’

      ‘I thought so.’ She forced herself to smile.

      ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Yes,’ he repeated with conviction.

      She frowned. Her emotions were sending her conflicting signals. There was something achingly familiar about his eyes, his mouth, his hands; something so familiar that, she realised suddenly, she knew what it was like to have been held in his arms and yet he was a stranger. She turned away abruptly. ‘Perhaps we met when we were children or something.’

      ‘Perhaps.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘Who did you come to visit? It obviously wasn’t me.’ There was a trace of wistfulness in his tone.

      ‘We came to look at the house.’

      ‘Oh?’ He stopped, gazing down at the grass. ‘Interested in history, are you? It must have been lovely here, before they moved us in.’

      Victoria smiled. ‘Your family have lived here for a long time, have they?’

      ‘My family?’ He looked at her in amusement. ‘No, my family don’t come from here.’ He stepped down onto the soft soil of the flower bed and picked a scarlet rose bud. ‘Here. For you. It goes with your dress.’ He held it out to her. As she took it their fingers touched and the electricity which passed between them left them both for a moment confused. She slipped it behind the pin of the brooch she was wearing.

      ‘Thank you.’

      He was frowning. ‘You’re wearing a wedding ring.’

      She looked down at her hand, startled. ‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘My husband is here. He was looking round upstairs. I ought to go and join him, really.’ She hesitated. She couldn’t bear the anguish in his eyes. ‘He was injured too – in the Falklands. He’s out of the army now.’ There was another long silence. ‘I can’t remember your name,’ she said at last.

      ‘It’s Stephen.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly, ‘Stephen Cheney.’

      The name meant nothing to her. Nothing.

      ‘May I go and bring Robert to meet you?’ she asked after a moment.

      He was staring at her again, leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes intense. The silence between them was tangible. It stretched out agonizingly. Then at last he spoke. ‘You and I were lovers once,’ he whispered, ‘in a land, long ago.’

      She went cold.

      For a moment they were both silent, stunned by what he had said, then he laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s a quotation. At least, I think it is. If not it ought to be. Perhaps I’ll write it myself. Yes, go and fetch your husband. I’d like to meet him.’

      Victoria turned and walked slowly back across the grass towards the door into the house. She stopped as she put her hand on the handle and turned to look back over her shoulder. He was standing watching her. Jauntily he raised his stick in salute.

      She let herself into the cold corridor with a shiver and ran to the stairs. ‘Robert? Are you up there?’

      ‘Here. Come and see this.’ His voice was distant. ‘This place is really weird,’ he went on as she found him in the end room. ‘Look at these –’ He broke off. ‘Victoria, darling, what is it?’

      For a fraction of a second she hesitated, then she threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Robert!’ She buried her face in his shirt, clinging to him. ‘Robert. Where have you been?’

      ‘Only up here.’ He steadied himself with difficulty and pushed her gently away from him. ‘Victoria, what’s the matter?’

      ‘Nothing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I was suddenly so afraid I was going to lose you.’ She could feel it again; the terror; the pain; the dread. It spun around them in the air.

      He laughed. ‘No such luck, Mrs Holland. You’re stuck with me. How was the garden?’

      ‘It’s beautiful.’ She had to be outside again. She couldn’t bear to be inside another minute. ‘You must come down and see it. I met one of Lady Penelope’s guests. He said he’d like to meet you.’ She knew she was gabbling.

      ‘I thought what’s-his-name said the house was empty.’

      ‘He obviously didn’t realize. It doesn’t matter.’ She glanced round again, at the long empty corridor and the silent rooms leading off it and she closed her eyes, trying to stave off the overpowering feeling of unhappiness which swept around her. ‘I saw Stephen’s nurse up here from the garden. Did you meet her?’ The air was stuffy; no windows were open. There was no music. The upper floor echoed with emptiness.

      ‘A nurse?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No, there’s been no one up here. No one at all.’

      They both glanced over their shoulders.

      ‘That’s strange.’ She bit her lip, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘When I was out there, I could hear music. The windows were open …’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You must have been looking at another part of the house. Come on, I’ve seen enough.’

      ‘We’re not going to buy it, are we?’ Suddenly she minded terribly. Irrationally, she wanted the house. She wanted it as she had never wanted anything before.

      He shook his head. ‘It needs too much money spending on it, I’m afraid and it is far too large for us, you must see that. Sad, though. It’s a lovely place.’

      She bit her lip. ‘I want to live here, Robert. I must live here.’

      He stared at her and something in her eyes alarmed him. He was swamped by a sudden sense of foreboding; he could feel the cold coming at him from the walls, threatening to overpower him. Somehow he forced himself to smile; somehow he kept his voice calm. ‘Well, let’s see the rest of the place, then we can talk СКАЧАТЬ