No Greater Joy (7 page)

This was Alison's world—the whinnying of the horses, the clopping of hooves, the smell of fresh straw. The feel of saddle-leather between her hands, the dimness of the stables in contrast to the glare of sun-baked rock outside. This was the world she loved.

She straightened in surprise when Clint appeared. She was even more surprised when he drew up a stool beside her and took a saddle from the pile.

'I can manage these on my own,' she protested.

'Four hands make for faster work than two. Have you any objection to my helping you?' There was a smile in his voice.

After a moment, she said, 'No... It isn't necessary, though.'

'Perhaps not,' he agreed, but he remained where he was.

For a while they worked in silence, Alison continuing to polish the saddle on her lap as if nothing had changed. But for her something had changed. Till then she had enjoyed the smells and sounds of the stables, now she was conscious only of Clint.

He was buffing the polish on a saddle when he broke the silence. 'This is where Bushveld Camp started,' he told her.

She looked up. The light was too dim to make out the expression in his eyes, but she was caught by something in his tone.

'These stables?'

'This used to be a fishing shack. It was much smaller, of course, most of it was added later. But part of the original structure is still standing.'He fell silent again, and Alison, sensing that he had begun to tell her something important, did not speak either.

At length he went on. 'I was married once, did you know?'

'Jenny told me...'

He doesn't talk about his marriage often, Jenny had said. Alison could not have said why she felt suddenly tense.

'Then she must have told you that Linda died, nine years ago, in a senseless accident. Afterwards...a couple of weeks afterwards... I came up here.'

'Here?' Alison whispered.

'I was crazy with grief. And ridden with guilt, because I'd allowed her to drive on a stormy night, when I should have made her stay at home.'

'Were... were you alone?'

'It was the way I wanted it. I had to be alone, to grieve, to think—to make some sense of things.' Clint put down the saddle and looked at her. 'Years ago, my father used to bring my brothers and me up here to fish. It was the place where I used to be happiest. When tragedy struck, I came back.'

'You must have loved Linda very much,' Alison said softly.

'Yes, I loved her. She was small and sweet and pretty, and Y always felt I had to protect her. That was what made the guilt all the worse.'

'You weren't to blame.'

'You couldn't have convinced me of that then.' Clint picked up the saddle and resumed his polishing. 'The first months after Linda's death were very rough. But somehow I survived. And it was partly this place that did it—the mountains, the stream, the wild beauty of the veld.'

'It
is
beautiful here,' she agreed. 'Even more beautiful than I'd expected.'

'The most beautiful place in the world for me. When I decided to start the camp, this was the natural place to build it. And the hotel up the road was the first of the chain.'

Bravely, Alison said, 'Jenny said you don't often talk about Linda.'

'She's right about that. Even Don doesn't know that I came here. Or what this place did for me.'

Silence fell between them once more. The swishing of the polishing cloths and the grunting of a horse in a nearby stall were the only sounds in the stables. Alison polished fiercely, almost as if her life depended on it.

At length, it was her turn to break the silence. 'Why did you tell me, Clint?'

'I wanted to.'

'It was more than that. You brought me here on purpose to tell me. I could have gone on working in the - office, the saddles could have waited.'

'I had to tell you I was sorry.' Clint's voice was soft.

'Sorry?'
Her head jerked.

'I've behaved very badly since we met—teasing you constantly about Raymond.'

'You couldn't have known,' she said painfully.

'Maybe not, but there was something odd about the relationship all along. The fact that he wasn't around to say goodbye to you when we left. He didn't phone. And you were so uptight every time I mentioned him.'

'You couldn't have known,' she said again.

Without warning, he reached out a hand to cover one of hers. The contact shocked her. Where it touched her, his skin was so warm and alive, stirring a longing deep inside her that she tried very hard not to acknowledge. Beneath his fingers her hand stiffened.

At her reaction, Clint's hand left hers. 'At any rate, I was insensitive. I'm sorry.'

Alison took a breath. 'Thank you.'

'Feel like talking about it?'

'Heavens, no! I don't want to bore you.' The words came out too quickly.

'I told you once before that you could never do that. And it helps to talk. Trite, I know, but true.'

She looked at him thoughtfully. It had been almost impossible to talk to her family; they were too close to her, to Raymond, too cut up about the whole thing. And so terribly sorry for her. They didn't seem to understand that their pity only made things worse.

'I can't remember- a time when Raymond wasn't part of my life,' she said at length. 'We were toddlers together, Clint. I mean, we shared the same toys and played in the same sandpit. All through school we were in the same classes. We were best friends. We did everything together.'

'Sounds like brother and sister,' Clint observed drily.

'In a way, Raymond was the brother I never had,' she acknowledged.

'You don't marry a brother, Alison.'

'I know what you're trying to say. But things changed. At some point in high school we became boyfriend and girlfriend. It was taken for granted we would get married one day.'

'Taken for granted by whom?' Clint asked quietly.

'Our parents. Ourselves.'

'It doesn't sound very exciting, Alison.'

'It wasn't exciting,' she conceded. 'It was...' she searched for a word, 'comfortable. I knew—I
thought
I knew—that Raymond and I would always be there for each other. I was wrong...' Her voice quivered.

A moment passed, then Clint said, 'Last night you talked about an argument.'

'A very silly argument, yes.'

'Why didn't the two of you sort out your differences?'

'At first I was too proud. Raymond was always the first to make things up, and I thought I'd wait for him again this time. Afterwards... well, I tried to make the first move when I saw he wasn't going to do it. But it was too late by then.'

'He'd already taken up with Edna?' Clint asked disbelievingly.

'Thinking back, I realise now that things hadn't been all that good for a while before the argument. And Edna—I know now that Raymond was already seeing her. Considering the size of the village, it's amazing I didn't know, but I didn't. It seems they went out of their way to keep their meetings secret.'

'I think you said Edna was the boss's daughter.' Clint's tone was noncommittal.

'And Raymond is ambitious, yes. But I believe there's more to it. I think he loves Edna. I really don't believe he could be so ambitious as to want to marry her just because her father can do great things for him.' She put her hand over her eyes. 'No, I can't believe it's that.

'The worst of it was the way I found out.' Her voice was very low now, it was the only way she could keep herself from crying. 'I decided to go to Raymond's house, to try and patch things up. And I...I found them together. They were lying on a sofa... kissing.'

'My God!' he muttered.

'Raymond was terribly embarrassed, of course. But he told me he loved Edna and that he was going to marry her. For a while I couldn't believe it. There was this great emptiness inside me.'

'That's something I know all about.'

'Yes, you would. But Clint, I felt so let down, disillusioned. If I couldn't trust Raymond, there was nobody I could trust.'

'Not every man is like Raymond,' Clint said quietly.

'That's something I'll never know.'

His voice changed. 'I hope you don't really mean that.'

'I told you last night that I didn't intend to find a replacement for Raymond, and I meant it,' Alison insisted.

Clint reached for her hand again. 'You think that now because you're still hurt. I believe the time will come when you will love again, Alison.'

'I won't let it happen. In fact, I'll make quite sure it doesn't.' She drew her hand away from his. 'When I found out about Edna I wanted to die. I was so jealous of her, Clint, it was awful!'

'A normal reaction, I'd say.'

'Maybe so, but I don't want to experience it again. Yesterday you asked me if I was the jealous kind. I'm never going to be jealous again, Clint. You can only be jealous if you love someone, and I don't intend to let myself love again.'

'What about loneliness?'

'I won't be lonely. I'll have my stables and my horses, all the things I like best. I'll never have to wonder whether a man is interested in me because he loves me, or because I happen to be the diversion of the moment.'

She looked at him steadily in the dim light. 'That's why I didn't tell you the truth about Raymond. I didn't want you thinking I was fair game just because there was no longer a man in the picture.'

'Your opinion of me is flattering,' he said drily.

'It's not personal, Clint. It would have been the same with any man.'

'I see.'

'Anyway, perhaps now you can understand why I don't want to be touched?'

'You're a lovely woman, Alison. I know that you're warm and caring, and I sense that you've a great capacity for love. Are you really going to deny yourself a normal life?' He sounded troubled.

'That part of my life is over,' she said firmly. 'I'm not likely to change my mind.'

She was surprised when Clint asked her to have dinner with him at the hotel again that evening.

'After what happened last night? Aren't you embarrassed to be seen with me?' she queried.

'I don't get embarrassed that easily,' he said cheerfully. 'The counsellors arrive tomorrow, Alison. Let's have one lovely evening together before this place becomes a madhouse. I won't make a pass at you, I promise.'

And, in fact, it really was a lovely evening. There was none of the strain of yesterday; tonight they talked and laughed with the easy enjoyment of two people who had become friends.

The food was delicious—a succulent fish this time, caught in the cold, fresh waters of the mountains. Once again Clint ordered wine, a sparkling Riesling that came from vineyards much further south than the Drakensberg.

Time passed quickly as they talked about music and films and books they had both read, and Alison was amazed to find how much she was enjoying herself. The conversation was eager and spirited, for their opinions differed widely.

One film in particular was the subject of keen discussion. It was a movie they had both enjoyed, though each had seen it in a different light. Clint saw Miranda, the heroine, as a charming schemer; to Alison she was a helpless victim of circumstances. A good ten minutes were spent discussing plot and character, with neither Clint nor Alison willing to compromise their views, while each acknowledged that the points the other made were good ones.

Alison was laughing when they finally agreed to call a truce. 'Not that we settled that one.'

'But we had a good time disagreeing, didn't we?' Clint's eyes sparkled at her over the candlelight.

'Oh, we did! A marvellous time. I remember coming out of that movie with Raymond, and feeling I wanted to talk about it.'

'Didn't you?'

Alison tightened, but only briefly. 'Well, no... There would have been no point to it, really. We'd have had the same opinion.'

'How could you know that without testing it?' Clint was watching her.

'Because we always thought the same way.'

'About everything?'

'Most things. Our likes, our dislikes, everything was the same. We always knew what the other was thinking.' She paused a moment. 'Oh, don't look at me like that, Clint. There's nothing wrong with two people being so similar.'

'Except that the similarity could get boring eventually.'

'You'll be saying next that we didn't really love each other,' she said crossly.

'Did you?' he asked quietly.

'Of course we did!' she came back, a little too quickly. 'I can't remember a time when I didn't love Raymond. I thought you understood that.'

'I believe that you loved him.' His voice was very soft now. 'But were you
in love
with him?'

She stared at him. In the glow of the candlelight, her eyes were smudged with shock. Clint's eyes held hers, not wavering even when her lips began to tremble.

Alison was the first to shift her gaze away. 'I feel like dancing,' she said.

They went to the dance-floor, and Clint took her in his arms; neither of them referred to the fact that Alison had not answered his question. They danced till the band took a break, and then they went back to their table and had dessert and coffee and more wine, and the discussion turned to horses. The one topic they didn't touch on again was Raymond.

It was late when they got back to the camp. At the door of Alison's cabin they stopped, and she looked up at Clint.

'You're safe,' he smiled down at her. 'I'm not going to force my way in.''Just as well.' She was smiling back at him. Yet, inside her, belying the words and the smile, was a most contradictory frisson of disappointment.

'Not that I wouldn't like to,' he said lightly. 'I'm determined to live in hope, Alison.'

'It's getting late, Clint. Thank you for a very lovely evening.'

'I'm the one to thank you,' he said softly.

He reached towards her, cupped her face in those large hands of his, and kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, and it lasted just a few seconds.

Without a word, he released her then, and disappeared into the fragrant darkness.

Alison closed the door. She did not switch on the light, but went instead to the window. For a few minutes she just stood there, resting her hot face against the cool glass pane, and trying to calm a mind that was surprisingly agitated.