Hell Or High Water

by Anne Mather

  Jarret’s lips twisted. ‘No, you won’t. You’re going to get out right now and come and meet Horatio—’

  ‘No, I won’t!’ Helen was adamant, but even as she made to start the car again, Jarret’s fingers closed round her arm, and the power in his fingers numbed the strength in her hand.

  ‘Now,’ he said, maintaining a mild expression even while she could see the steely brilliance of his eyes, ‘do you get out under your own steam, or do I assist you?’

  Guessing what manner his assistance would take, Helen thrust her legs over the valance of the car and allowed him to draw her to her feet, but she hung back as he would have drawn her after him.

  ‘Oh, please…’ she whispered, and there was real fear in her voice now. ‘Don’t make me do this, Jarret. I—I’ll do anything—anything—’

  ‘Anything?’ he mocked, and she sniffed rather tearfully.

  ‘Anything,’ she insisted, and he expelled his breath in an impatient sigh.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he informed her harshly, letting her go so violently she almost lost her balance. ‘Go on, get back into your cage. You’ll feel safe there. I won’t deprive your fiancé of your doubtful pleasures. Go and bury yourself in the sand. You buried your head long ago!’

  ‘Why, you—you—’

  Helen could not think of an expletive suitable to describe the hatred she felt for him at that moment, but Jarret only turned and walked back to Horatio, swinging himself into the saddle with a lithe movement.

  ‘So—okay,’ he taunted. ‘What are you going to do now? Attack me?’

  Helen pursed and unpursed her lips, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. ‘You—you’re a pig!’ she declared, her vocabulary no match for his. ‘You think you can say—and do—anything you like to me!’

  ‘And can’t I?’ he mocked. ‘Oh, little girl, what a lot you have to learn!’

  ‘I—I hate you!’

  ‘That’s healthy anyway.’ He dug his heels into Horatio’s sides and turned the horse towards her. ‘Going to come with me?’

  He was incorrigible, and she had no defence against him. Besides, as Horatio began to move towards her, other emotions took possession, and stumbling slightly she tumbled back into the car, slamming the door behind her. She heard his mocking laughter as she wound up her window, but without waiting for him to humiliate her further, she swung the wheel and describing a large semi-circle around him, she took off down the drive.

  Karen had already opened up the shop when Helen arrived, and she had the kettle boiling ready to make some coffee. She grinned cheerfully when she saw her friend, but her smile turned to an anxious expression as she took in Helen’s evident distraction.

  ‘Hey!’ she exclaimed, taking tthe other girl’s arm and urging her into the privacy of the office. ‘What’s happened? You look awful!’

  ‘Oh…’ Helen shook her head, unwilling to discuss her problems with Karen. ‘I—er—slept badly, that’s all. Is that coffee you’re making? I could surely use a cup.’

  Karen gave her another considered look, and then with a shrug went to make the coffee. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I thought you must have slept in, not the other way about.’

  Helen sighed, making a display of examining some invoices on the desk. ‘Oh, you know how it is,’ she said. ‘Themore time you have, the more you take. Has the mail come?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Karen stirred sugar into the cups, before handing one to her friend. ‘There you are. I hope it’s all right. The milk has gone sour, so I’ve used that powdered substitute.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Helen sipped hers with real relief. ‘Mmm, just what I needed. The traffic was really bad this morning.’

  Karen nodded, perching herself on a corner of the desk. ‘Did you go to the house last night?’

  ‘The house?’ For a moment Helen’s mind was blank, and Karen stared at her disbelievingly.

  ‘The house. Your house. Yours and Charles’s. At Petersham.’

  ‘Oh!’ Helen moved her shoulders in a helpless gesture. The hours she had spent with Charles seemed so incredibly distant as compared to the subsequent time she had spent with Jarret, and for a moment she had been unable to think beyond the events of the library. ‘Oh, yes,’ she added. ‘We—er—we were choosing colour schemes for the kitchen. I—er—Charles thinks red tiles are attractive.’

  Karen pulled a wry face. ‘Memorable indeed!’

  Helen sighed. ‘We have to get the house decorated, Karen.’

  ‘Oh, I agree. But what a waste of all those empty rooms.’

  Helen shook her head. ‘Honestly, Karen, there’s more to marriage than sex!’

  ‘So you say,’ her friend conceded lightly. ‘So—what did you decide?’

  ‘Decide?’ Once more Helen’s mind was blank, and Karen reached for her cigarettes with mild impatience.

  ‘About the kitchen,’ she exclaimed. ‘You just said—’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know.’ Helen gathered herself with difficulty. ‘I—I don’t think we decided anything definite.’

  ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘Karen, what is this? The third degree?’ Helen endeavoured to sound amused. ‘What did you do with your evening? Did you go and see that film you were talking about? I’ll have to try and persuade Charles to go to the cinema sometimes. I never seem to go these days.’

  Karen lit her cigarette with careful deliberation, and thenshe said casually: ‘No, I didn’t go to the pictures, Helen. As—er—as a matter of fact, I had a date.’

  ‘Oh?’ Helen arched her dark brows. ‘With John?’

  ‘No.’ Karen’s tongue circled her lips. ‘With Jarret Manning, actually.’

  ‘What?’ Helen could not prevent the shocked exclamation, and Karen, watching her, saw the revealing colour come and go in her cheeks.

  ‘Yes, I thought you’d be surprised,’ she went on blithely. ‘I would have told you, but I know how you feel about him, and—well, it seemed easier this way.’

  Helen sought for composure. ‘I—I didn’t know you knew him that well,’ she got out at last, trying to absorb this turn of circumstances. But all she could think of was that if they had had a date, it had been over earlier than surely Karen could have anticipated.

  Karen shrugged, still observing her closely. ‘He rang me a week ago,’ she explained. ‘He wanted to know if I knew a stables hereabout where he might be able to buy a mount.’

  ‘But Charles—’

  ‘Yes, well, obviously he didn’t want to contact Charles. I told him about Burt Halliday.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Anyway, he contacted Burt, and Burt knew of this bay gelding that would be ideal, and I guess you know, he got the horse last night.’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘So he invited me out for a drink to celebrate,’ Karen finished, drawing deeply on her cigarette. ‘Naturally I accepted.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Helen’s tone was bitter, and Karen eyed her mockingly.

  ‘What’s wrong? Do you disapprove? I don’t see why you should. At least Jarret isn’t married.’ She paused. ‘He told me quite a lot about himself, actually. He’s not half as self-conscious as you’d have me believe.’

  ‘I’d really rather not talk about Jarret Manning, if you don’t mind,’ retorted Helen shortly. ‘Did you unpack those onyx figurines? I had a customer in here yesterday who—’

  ‘Helen!’ Karen cast her eyes heavenward. ‘You’re notfooling anyone, you know. I know you’re not indifferent to my going out with him, so stop pretending you are. Oh, I realise he’s something outside your normal range of acquaintances, and I also accept that you’re going to marry Charles, come hell or high water, but can’t you at least be honest with me? For God’s sake, he’s not interested in me! Oh, I don’t deny, I’d like to think he was. But he’s not. It’s you he’s hooked on. But whether that’s just another way of saying he wants to go to bed with you, I don’t know. I only know he spent half the two hours we were together as
king questions about you, and the other half trying to convince me what a lucky devil he’d been in making a success of his writing. He’s not a bit conceited, if anything, he underplays his part, and I wish to hell it had been me who attracted him!’

  ‘Karen!’ Helen was shaken, but her friend was unrepentant.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ she declared snappishly. ‘He’s nice, really nice, and if you were really honest you’d admit it.’

  Helen licked her dry lips. ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Karen, but—’

  ‘I’m suggesting you stop behaving like a frustrated virgin, and act like a grown woman. Are you going to tell me you don’t find him the least bit attractive, because I won’t believe you.’

  ‘Then there’s no point in telling you, is there?’

  ‘Helen!’ Karen pressed out the stub of her cigarette with a heavy hand. ‘Can’t you see? It’s this very—opposition you have to him that proves you’re not indifferent.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Driven beyond reason, Helen looped her hair behind her ears with trembling fingers. ‘I do find him attractive. But as most women seem to, I’m not so different, am I?’

  Karen sighed. ‘The difference is—he finds you attractive, too.’

  ‘Did he say so?’

  Karen snorted. ‘He didn’t have to.’

  ‘Oh, Karen!’

  ‘Oh, Karen—nothing. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, remember? That first morning he brought you to the shop—’

  ‘But that was weeks ago.’

  ‘So what? At a guess, I’d say you were the reason he was so keen to take over King’s Green.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous! He knows I’m engaged to Charles.’

  ‘Oh, Helen! When will you learn that two and two don’t necessarily make four?’

  Helen bent her head. ‘I think we ought to leave this topic—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Because—oh, because it’s getting late, and we have things to do. You haven’t forgotten that consignment from Bruges, have you—’

  ‘You really won’t listen to reason, will you, Helen?’

  ‘Reason? Reason?’ Helen pressed her lips together. ‘What’s reasonable about getting involved with Jarret Manning?’

  Karen sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You see! Karen, I know you mean well, but honestly, Jarret Manning and I have nothing more to say to one another.’

  Karen got up from the desk, and then she hesitated. ‘So you have no objection if I see him again?’

  Helen’s fingers sought the edge of the desk. ‘Wh-why should I have?’

  ‘It was just a question,’ said Karen mildly. ‘Okay, what do you want me to do?’

  Helen caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘Oh, I—I—let me think.’ Despite her affirmed indifference, the other girl’s words had left her feeling horribly faint. It was useless telling herself that it was just because she had had nothing to eat that morning. Deep down inside her, she could feel a knife turning slowly, and nothing could erase the knowledge that Karen would have no qualms when it came to a more intimate relationship…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DURING the following days Helen waited with a sense of foreboding for Karen to tell her Jarret had invited her out again. But she didn’t, and she tormented herself with the thought that perhaps the other girl did not intend to tell her. Jarret himself seemed engrossed in his work, but after she had gone out of an evening she could not be absolutely sure that he stayed at home. She could hardly ask her mother. Although Mrs Chase liked Jarret, she would not give her approval to his conducting an illicit relationship with her daughter, and in spite of her defence of her house guest, she was really very fond of Charles.

  For Helen, caught in the web of her own uncertainties, it was a terrible time. When she was with Charles, she was able to convince herself that everything was all right, that nothing had changed, that their marriage would be as successful as she had always imagined it would. But when they were apart, she was plagued with doubts, torn by the certain knowledge that Charles would not suffer a neurotic wife, and troubled by the awareness that she might not be able to respond to him. If only she could talk to him, she thought, try to make him understand what it was she was afraid of. But any attempt at an intimate discussion provoked an embarrassed rejection, and she was left feeling more and more conscious of their lack of mutual understanding. For Charles, that side of their marriage was a closed book, only to be opened between the sheets of their marriage bed, and Helen could not pursue the point without promoting the kind of display she most wanted to avoid.

  The following week, she left work early one evening to do some shopping before she went home. She had promised Charles she would collect some wallpaper catalogues from the design centre, and she wanted to buy some tights and some make-up and visit the hairdresser for her monthly trim. This regular appointment kept her hair in good condition, and stopped it from growing longer than she wanted. She thought its present length was enough to handle, and asshe invariably washed and dried it at home, it paid to keep the ends neat.

  The small town was not busy at that hour of the afternoon. It was another warm day, although slightly overcast, and most people had done their shopping early to make the most of the sunshine. In consequence, she completed her purchases in ten minutes, and arrived at the hairdressers in good time for her appointment. Sally, the girl who always attended to her, was not busy either, and the wash and trim were soon accomplished, and a junior employed to blow it dry. It was quite pleasant sitting there, the open door providing a welcome draught, and Helen was almost sorry when it was over.

  She drove home slowly, trying not to think of the problems that going home had come to mean to her, and parked the car by the porch, in readiness for her trip to Ketchley that evening. As she got out of the car she thought she could hear voices, but Horatio’s whinny of welcome drowned any other sound, and she turned towards the horse in unwilling admiration.

  ‘I know you’re beautiful,’ she said, grimacing across the space that divided them as Horatio leaned over the paddock rails. ‘But I’m not the person you should be welcoming. You’re too big and too aggressive for me. I don’t like horses.’

  Horatio shook his head, the movement sending the silky gold threads of his mane flying, and Helen felt a ridiculous sense of communion. ‘It’s no good, you know,’ she persisted, closing the car door and pocketing the keys. ‘I’m not a friend, so there’s no point in pretending I am. You stick to—to your master. He likes you. I don’t.

  Horatio did nothing. He just stood there looking hopefully at her with those dark soulful eyes that had so startled her that first evening Jarret brought him home, and almost involuntarily, Helen found herself taking a few steps towards him.

  ‘Are you hot?’ she asked, feeling no real sense of embarrassment in speaking to the horse. No one could hear her, and at least he did not answer back. She could see the way his tail was flicking his hide, dislodging the troublesome flies the heat had attracted, and she wondered suddenly ifJarret had remembered to fill his water trough.

  Horatio watched her approach without moving. Helen, realising she was as close to him as she had ever been to any horse, felt an increasing sense of pride in her own achievement. Maybe this was what she had needed all along, she thought, an opportunity to test herself, to try alone what she had never dared to try with anyone else. After all, what could he do to her? He was on one side of the fence, and she was on the other, and so often Charles had explained to her what intelligent beasts they were. The idea of being able to tell her fiancé that she had actually stroked a horse made her stretch out her hand towards his muzzle, and her fingers spread tentatively against its velvety nose.

  It was an exquisite moment, a moment of immense satisfaction, when all the doubts and fears she had nourished seemed to melt away. It wasn’t frightening at all, it was exhilarating, and her breath escaped o
n a choking sob of relief.

  But it was spoilt by the increasing sound of the voices she had heard before, or one voice at least, shrill and accusing and totally out of control. She turned her head bewilderedly, wondering if her mother and Jarret could be having some kind of altercation, but not really believing it, and saw Margot Urquart appear in the open doorway. Seeing Margot like that was like sustaining a solid blow to the solar plexis. Somehow Margot was the last person she had expected to see, but even as she started to avert her head, the sun glinted on something Margot was carrying, something that was very heavy and which the older woman was finding it difficult to hold on to. Blinking, Helen saw in amazement that it was Jarret’s typewriter, the strong, heavy-duty portable machine he had brought to King’s Green with him, but while the conviction was dawning that there was something seriously amiss, Margot suddenly flung the machine with all the force she could muster on to the gravelled sweep of the forecourt. It all happened so quickly, Helen had no time to voice any objection, and even though she could now see Jarret behind Margot, his attention had been distracted by her own closeness to the horse. And before he could drag his eyes from her and back to Margot, the deed was done.

  Horatio was startled by the sudden uproar. Backing off from the rails, he made his own audible protest, but Helen was too shocked to be alarmed. Margot must be out of her mind, she thought, unable to conceive of anything which might have caused her to react so violently, and the outcome was so appalling, she felt glued to the spot.

  ‘Now you’ll have to come back to London, won’t you?’ the other woman was shouting hysterically. ‘You’ll have to get another typewriter from the apartment, or buy a new one. And I doubt a little place like Malverley will sell a sophisticated machine like that!’

  Helen felt terrible. She did not want to be an onlooker to this unprovoked display, but there was no way she could escape without being observed. Margot seemed deaf and blind to anyone’s feelings but her own, and any sudden move on her part might precipitate the kind of verbal abuse she most wanted to avoid.