Lightning Encounter (18 page)

Karen stopped dead in her tracks, knowing why. That way would be too degrading. She wasn't a sack of potatoes to be hauled here and there, nor an untrustworthy child whose word is to be doubted. She had to say, “It
wasn't
me.” And if he loved her, he had to believe her because that is what love is all about, trusting a person, believing them implicitly when the facts state otherwise.

‘That isn't me,' she said stabbing the photograph in the Hamblewick & District News.'

‘I know,' said Ian.

‘Just this once the indisputable facts are . . . what did you say?'

‘I said I know it isn't you.'

Her anxiety switched off and she stared at him, numb with relief. ‘You know!' For one heady, glorious moment she gloated in silent wonder, before an intrepid desire for confirmation goaded her into saying: ‘You trust me . . . implicitly?'

‘Trust doesn't come into it,' he said, wriggling uncomfortably.

‘What do you mean?' Her joy was momentarily blighted.

‘Just what I said.' He avoided her shrewd eyes, rubbed his chin, and challenged: ‘Have you looked at the picture?'

‘Yes,' she replied shortly.

‘I don't think you have.' He was still looking anywhere but at her. Puzzled, she reached for the paper to examine it critically. It was a marvellous shot of Mitch, his face looked splendidly handsome in semi profile. Not so good of the girl. Val showed the camera her back. People's backs tend to look much alike
and
she couldn't see . . . ‘Oh!'

‘Precisely,' he said as the tell-tale colour rushed to her cheeks.

‘Your dress, but not your back. That back is covered, which means the girl's front must be . . . uncovered.'

‘The word is décolleté,' she submitted miserably.

‘And you wouldn't wear a dress with a décolleté neckline, would you?'

‘No,' she said, embarrassment hollowing out her voice, yet she wasn't so totally submerged that she couldn't acknowledge the demon of amusement enjoying the fact that it was a bit of a suck in for Val. Val had slipped up badly in her impersonation, but then she didn't know Karen wore the dress back to front, for a very special reason. He wasn't supposed to know, either. When she told him about the lightning, she hadn't been able to bring herself to mention the extent of that.

His hand cupped her chin, then dropped boldly to outline her scar.

‘Not such a terrible disfigurement,' he said meaningly. His voice, as gentle as his touch, stirred her heart. ‘You can't . . . know?'

‘I can,' he said kindly. ‘Let's say I found out sooner than later.'

‘How much sooner?'

‘The first night you came here you had a nightmare. I rushed in like Galahad to find m'lady skimpily attired!

She
swallowed. ‘It's a relief actually, that you know and don't . . .' Her voice fell into unhappy silence.

‘Finish what you were going to say,' he commanded, his expression softening to give her the confidence she lacked.

‘Find my body repulsive?' she croaked.

‘My darling, I could never find you that. Beautiful, adorable, very, very desirable. Never, never repulsive. Please don't cry.'

‘I'm sorry, but I always cry when somebody tells me they find me desirable.'

‘Have there been many?'

She giggled weakly, because he asked this so tentatively, then she rushed to assure him: ‘You're the first. I'm making such a fool of myself. But you see, I didn't know.'

‘Didn't know that I love you and desire you to distraction? But you must know. Why else would I ask you to marry me?'

‘But you haven't,' she protested.

‘Nonsense! Of course I have. I asked you to dine with me on my fifty-fifth birthday.' Denuded of argument by the memory of that occasion, she could only weakly gasp: ‘And that was a proposal?'

He contrived to look hurt. ‘What else! You'll surely be married by then, you're not spinster material. I hope you don't think I'd take out another man's wife. That would make me a lecherous old so and so.'

‘Oh, Ian!' she said, sliding her hands up and
round
his neck. ‘That is a proposal. A beautiful proposal. Did I accept?'

‘Of course. Now, may I ask where my fiancée was when I phoned yesterday evening?'

‘Your fiancée? Oh! you mean me! Darling, I can explain but,'—she broke off to giggle—‘it is a bit of a lame duck tale. So do you think it can wait because I want you to kiss me so desperately.'

She was already in his arms. All he had to do was bend his head. His mouth was half way to hers when his body stiffened and drew back. She didn't look round. She waited a moment and then heard him say:

‘Hello, Val.'

‘Ian, you're back!' She slunk into the room like a guilty child who knows she has been naughty and awaits punishment. Karen felt nothing but admiration for Ian as he squeezed her hand, intimating, ‘We'll carry on where we left off, later' before going over to Val. ‘Sorry love,' he said. ‘It didn't work. Like to tell me why you did it?'

For a moment she looked as if she would deny all knowledge. Then, wearily shrugging her shoulders she said: ‘I wanted to discredit her,'—indicating Karen with a haughty thrust of the head—‘in your eyes.'

‘Why did you, Val?' he asked so patiently that Karen felt a rush of gratitude because he loved her, wanted her . . .

‘Because
I didn't want to lose you.'

. . . and compassion because Val hadn't been as lucky in love. Before Ian could voice an answer, she rushed in impulsively: ‘You won't, Val. We're your friends. Both of us.'

The telephone was ringing. Ian is calling from Paris, thought Karen, struggling through the hampering layers of happy somnolence. I'm not too late after all. But I must hurry, hurry, before he rings off. Because I'm not answering he might think I'm not here. Wait Ian, please my darling, wait for me. I'm hurrying, only I'm not making progress. I can't . . . walk very well, my throat hurts and my eyes are stinging so much I can't see.

My eyes are open now. I'm awake. I'm realizing it isn't then, but now. That isn't Ian on the telephone because he's not in Paris, but asleep, probably, in his room over the garage. I still can't see. I'm on the stairs. I know I'm on the stairs because I'm feeling the steps with my hands, but I can't see for the black, thickening smoke.

Oh, my God! The house is on fire! Val, where is Val? In her room? Is she sleeping through this or is she, perhaps, overcome by the fumes?

She turned to fight a way through the dense blackness until she was standing in the long corridor outside Val's room. Terrifying sounds came from within. Fierce crackling noises mingled with the ferocious whine of the wind,
but
she hesitated for only a brief moment before fumbling for the knob.

Instead of the blazing inferno she half dreaded: more smoke, if possible thicker and denser. She groped her way to the window, to stop in horrified fascination. The forest, her beloved forest, resembled a series of lit torches. The heat was unbearable, even as she watched the pane cracked, sounding like the report from a gun, showering her with fragments of glass. Painfully she backed away; coughing, spluttering, she found the bed, punching its emptiness before retreating, hoping, as she progressed slowly down the stairs, that the forest fire was as yet only a threat to the house and that her exit would not be blocked.

The rapidly approaching flames, teased by the wind, leapt to attack the living room windows, shattering them, numbing her brain so that instinct alone guided her bare feet along the fireplace wall, past the still ringing telephone, which had awakened her just in time. Please, please let it be in time.

Frenziedly she wrestled with the bolt on the door. Normally it slid back easily, but she was impeded by the smoke and the scorching heat—the bolt itself felt intensely hot—and her own fumbling fingers. Several agonising moments later she was beginning to think she would never get out. She banged the door in futile desperation. She heard the, by this time,
familiar
sound of splintering glass; then a voice said: ‘You're all right, my love. I'm here.' And she fell, laughing and crying, into Ian's arms.

He had entered by way of the pantry window, set in the gable end. Quickly, effortlessly, he dealt with the bolt and then, his arm anchoring her nightgown clad form, he half walked, half carried her outside.

The scene of unusual activity, already several fire brigades had arrived and were pressing into action, took on the unreality of a dream. She couldn't remember Ian stripping off his jacket, but she could feel the warmth of it round her shoulders, and she was no longer barefoot but wearing a pair of masculine brogues, size: enormous.

She was gulping fresh air in a distraught, undignified manner. Ian was saying something to the effect of: ‘Val . . . must go in and get Val.' Her brain roused itself to say sluggishly: ‘Not . . . in . . . bed empty.' Then she was suddenly alert, uttering a heartfelt: ‘Don't leave me. Please don't go back in there.'

The yard was full of flitting people, a confusion of voices, making an indistinguishable mumbo-jumbo of noise, a babble, a deafening roar. She wanted to stop up her ears. Ian . . . where was Ian? Gone, heedless of his own safety, intent on saving Val.

She tugged at someone's sleeve. ‘The house? Will the house catch fire?'

The
reply was given, but she didn't hear it. She swayed and fell into a deep faint.

* * *

She was in hospital again. An impersonal voice said: ‘How do you feel?'

‘Like a cup of tea,' decided Karen.

‘Before or after?'

‘Before or after what?'

‘I show in your visitor. How about as well as? I'm sure you could both do with a cup.'

With extra sugar, please nurse. Good for shock,' said a familiar, exquisitely dear voice. ‘Ian,' she welcomed. ‘Help! I bet I look a sight! Come in and tell me the worst.' His fingers curled round hers, warming her cold heart. In her joy at seeing him, whole and unharmed, she didn't notice that his eyes were full of shadows.

‘How are you?' he asked.

‘Fine. I had to have five stitches in my arm. Flying glass, you know. And three somewhere else. I earned those running away, if you please!'

‘A blow to your dignity?' he suggested delicately, but his amusement was so obviously a pretence, and not an award winning one at that, that she knew something was badly wrong. Had he had to stand helplessly by and watch the house go up in flames? It would be a blow, but it would not annihilate him. He had
been
the one to tell her that possessions count for nothing. Only people matter. ‘Oh my darling' cried her heart. ‘What is it? Tell me, let me help.'

‘The house,' she began tentatively. ‘Is it—?'

‘No. The firemen did a marvellous job. Every pane of glass is broken and it needs a major decoration job. Nothing that time and money can't put right.'

‘Oh, Ian. I'm so glad. But—?' If it wasn't the house. Then what—?

‘Val,' he said, his face a grief-stricken mask. ‘Val turned up after they took you to hospital.'

‘Oh? She wasn't in the house, then? I wondered about that, although I didn't see how she could be. Because surely I would have stumbled over her, or something.'

He said nothing, just continued to look as if all the stuffing had been knocked out of him. Her brain latched on to an idea, played it; it fitted into a groove like a well worn record. It must have been running through her mind all the time.

‘You don't have to tell me, Ian. I think I know. Val started the fire, didn't she? She hated the forest, although I didn't realize how intensely until now. Did she mean the house to catch fire?'

‘It's a possibility.'

‘Don't be too hard on her,' she pleaded. ‘She loved the house as much as she hated the forest. I suppose she couldn't bear the thought
of
us loving it and living there, happily together. But she regretted her action.'

‘What makes you think that?' She noticed his eyes. There was such a look of hope in them that it wrung her dry. If Val had had a change of heart, even at the last moment, it somehow wouldn't be as bad.

‘I know I'm right. The phone was ringing, remember? It was Val, ringing to warn me. It could only be her. She wanted to save my life. Ian, we mustn't blame her. Don't you see, she is sicker than either of us realized. We must help her all we can.'

‘Bless you.' His mouth tightened and the nerve under his left eye jumped.

‘Val doesn't need our help any more. You see, after telephoning, if she did, we can only theorise on that point, she came back. She was seen entering the forest. Several people went in after her, but it was hopeless. Within seconds the path she took was impassable. She was swallowed whole.'

Oh my love, no, no, no! How awful you must feel. What can I do, how best can I share your pain? Not only your pain, I was beginning to understand Val, understand her and like her.

‘Swallowed whole. Odd you should use that expression. It's what she felt . . . perhaps she sensed it would happen. If she did, if she really saw into the future, it must have been a happy release. The actual moment can have been
nothing
to the agony of waiting. Poor . . . stricken . . . Val! Poor old you.'

He said: ‘I'll get over it. I just feel as if I've failed her in some way.'

‘Don't talk like that. No one could have done more.' She couldn't bear to see him looking so gaunt, so grimly devoid of hope, or feeling, or anything. She must say something to take his mind off this tragic thing. She must make him look forward.

‘About us?' How warily she must tread. ‘Or is it too soon to ask?' It was working. He looked less bleak, warmer somehow.