Castles Of Sand. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ table and four chairs. It had taken her three years to graduate to this standard of living, from a room in a boarding house, via a bedsitter, to this two-bedroomed apartment, with kitchen and bath. With care, and careful saving, she had finally succeeded in furnishing it to her liking, and she looked round now at the green velvet chairs and yellow-patterned carpet, in a desperate search for reassurance. But all she could see was a boy’s smiling face, framed by straight dark hair, and a man’s grim, forbidding countenance.

      In an effort to escape the futility of her thoughts, she hurried into her bedroom, unbuttoning the skirt and blouse she had worn to. go to school and donning instead a pair of yellow baggy pants and a brown and green striped smock. Then she loosened her hair from its confining knot so that it spilled like honey-coloured silk below her shoulders. As she brushed its silken length, she realised it was an unnecessary vanity. It would be far more sensible to have it cut, and keep it in one of the short modern styles, which were so flattering to the girls of her acquaintance. But somehow it was a link with the past, an unconscious one to be sure, and only now did she realise that Alain’s influence still reached out to her.

      The percolator was bubbling merrily when she went back into the kitchen, and after pouring herself a cup of coffee she carried it into the living room. It was after two o’clock, she realised with a pang, but she wasn’t hungry, and she determinedly picked up the daily paper and tried to interest herself in the national news. But the events of the morning persisted in intruding, and eventually she gave it up to recapture those moments when Andrew had smiled at her. She allowed herself the pleasure of wondering what he would have done if she had taken him in her arms and told him who she was. How would he have reacted? Would he have been pleased or apprehensive, glad or sorry? Would he have believed her? Or would he have thought she was some crazy lady, claiming a relationship that was totally alien to him? He had been brought up by the Gauthiers. It was a predominantly Moslem household. How could he ever identify with her, particularly after all this time?

      Her coffee cooled as the realities of the situation dispelled her momentary euphoria. They were from different cultures, different civilisations. From an early age he would have been taught to regard women as secondary beings, created for man’s enjoyment and little else, expected always to defer to their masters, and obedient to their wishes. He would know that his grandfather had two wives, and even if Alain’s beliefs had been in opposition to his father’s, who was to say what those beliefs were now, or whether he too had not adopted the sexual morals of the rest of his family …

      Her temples began to throb as she remained there on the couch, her knees drawn up under her, her head resting wearily against the soft cushions. Who would have dreamed when she awakened that morning that by lunchtime she would have suffered such a dramatic upheaval? She had made her life here, such as it was. She had made friends, she had a good job. Yet in the space of a morning it had all been destroyed, and she was left without peace or tranquillity, or hope.

      She thrust the still full coffee cup on to the low table beside her and stretched her legs. Somehow she had to forget what had happened, she told herself severely. She had lived seven years without seeing her son; she might have to live another fifty years without doing so. Of course, there was always the chance that when Andrew got older he might start asking questions his grandfather and his uncle would not be able to answer, and then he might come looking for her himself. But that was an unlikely expectation to say the least, when for all she knew, Alain might have told him she was dead.

      She closed her eyes against such a final denigration, then opened them again when someone knocked at her door. It was a peremptory tattoo, unlike her neighbour’s usual tap, but she couldn’t think of anyone other than Mrs Forest who might call at this time of day.

      ‘Coming,’ she called, sliding off the couch, and padding barefoot to the door. ‘You startled me,’ she was adding, as she lifted the latch, and then fell back in dismay when she recognised her visitor. ‘You!’ she breathed, pressing a hand to her throat. ‘Wh-what do you want? Why have you come here?’

      ‘An unnecessary question,’ remarked Alain flatly, stepping past her without invitation. ‘Why else would I come here, except to see you? Can you honestly say you did not expect me?’

      ‘Yes!’ Ashley strove for breath. ‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘I can honestly say that. Wh-why have you come here? Why should you want to see me?’

      Alain turned in the centre of the floor, dark and forbidding in his charcoal grey attire. ‘Close the door, will you?’ he directed, flicking a careless hand, on the little finger of which a dragon’s eye ruby glinted balefully. ‘I do not propose to speak with you in sight and hearing of a crowd of inquisitive tenants.’

      ‘You flatter yourself,’ returned Ashley tensely, making no move to obey him. ‘And why should I allow you into my apartment? We—we have nothing to say to one another.’

      ‘I disagree,’ Alain argued smoothly, and with an arbitrary gesture he crossed the floor to her side, rescuing the handle of the door from her grasp and closing it firmly with a definite click.

      ‘You have no right to do this,’ Ashley protested, gazing up at him tremulously, but Alain did not acknowledge her indignation. As she struggled to compose herself, he returned to his position in the centre of the floor and suggested she take a seat.

      ‘This is my flat,’ Ashley declared, endeavouring to hide the tremor in her voice. ‘I’ll decide when or if I sit down, not you!’

      ‘As you wish.’ Alain’s mouth thinned. ‘You were always an argumentative creature. But what I have to say may make you change your mind, so be warned.’

      Ashley took a deep breath. ‘You—you have a nerve, coming here, trying to tell me how to behave—–’

      ‘I do not propose to get involved in futile discussions of that sort,’ he interrupted her bleakly. ‘You and I have known one another too long to be in any doubt as to one another’s character, and—–’

      ‘We never knew one another!’ Ashley choked bitterly. ‘You didn’t know me, and it’s certain I never knew you!’

      ‘Please try not to be emotional,’ Alain advised her briefly, folding his arms across the waist-coated expanse of his chest. ‘I did not come here to argue the merits of our past relationships. Sufficient to say that you do not appear to have suffered by them. You are still as beautiful as ever—and no doubt duping some other poor fool, as you once did my brother!’

      Ashley’s fingers stung across his cheek, almost before he had finished speaking, and she watched in horror as the marks she had made appeared on his dark skin. She waited in silent apprehension for him to retaliate in kind, as he had once done in the past, but apart from lifting a brown-fingered hand to finger his bruised cheek, he took no immediate retribution.

      ‘So,’ he said at last. ‘Now you have relieved yourself of such pent-up energy, perhaps we can now get to the point of my visit.’

      ‘What point?’ Ashley was sullen, as much from a sense of self-recrimination as from anything he had said. She had made a fool of herself, not him, by her childish display of temper, and it was up to her now to prove that she could be as controlled as he was.

      ‘Perhaps if you were to offer me a cup of coffee,’ he said, indicating her cup nearby. ‘Obviously I have interrupted you. If we were to behave more as—acquaintances than enemies—–’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Ashley’s nerve snapped again, and she turned away from him abruptly, feeling the hot tears stinging in her eyes. It was no use. She could not be unemotional about this, and she groped for a tissue to wipe away СКАЧАТЬ