by Jan Andersen
For the first time she forgot the porter’s warning and left the path, seeing somewhere that looked as if it might just suit her purpose; a flat rock, in the sun, and against the mountain out of the wind. She settled herself down and started to write, her pencil flying across the page until she was forced to stop through the sheer ache in her fingers. She had never felt the urge to write quite like this. She would have her sandwiches and coffee and write for another half hour before she attempted the walk to the top. It would not be the same, she knew, to write in the hotel. Here her thoughts, like the air, were crystal clear.
She lay back against the rock, closing her eyes, wondering if she would tire of this place in a week or two.
The gust of wind came so suddenly that it caught her unawares. She looked up in time to see her notebook being carried across the slope and finally come to rest against another rock more than a hundred feet away.
Oh, no! She could have wept. She must have it; she had to have it. She could never write all that again. For once words had flowed as quickly and vividly as her thoughts.
For a few moments Jess watched the fluttering white of the pages and knew that if she did not get it now the wind could take it to a far more inaccessible place. So, putting her things in the shelter of the rock, she started to move cautiously down the slope.
Because of her determination to reach the notebook she did not stop to think that what she was doing was dangerous. The slope was not a particularly steep one, even if it did end suddenly in a sheer drop. But she tried not to look as far as that.
It took her a very long fifteen minutes before she reached out and grasped her prize. She would have liked to sit down and rest, but she did not dare, so she started the slow upward scramble.
She did not know whether it was because she was tired, or the soles of her rubber shoes were too smooth, but a second’s carelessness sent her spinning off balance and slithering down the way she had come.
In panic she reached out for a rock, a shrub, anything to stop herself, felt the sharp, burning pain in her arm that made her gasp aloud, and then she came to an abrupt stop.
When her head had cleared she looked down and shuddered and knew she had no alternative but to start climbing again, but this time with the help of only one arm.
‘Stay where you are.’ The voice came from above her. It was both commanding—and English—so she obeyed instantly. A few minutes later a hand was reaching down to hers and the voice was saying, ‘Now hold on tightly to me and step where I step. And whatever you do don’t look down.’
So she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the black-clad legs just in front of her and the heavy suede boots that took each step upwards with such sureness.
Then the ground levelled out and she felt herself firmly pushed on to a flat rock and told: ‘Now put your head between your knees. You look faint even if you don’t feel it. And you also look too heavy for me to carry half way across the mountain.’
He was quite right, she did feel a bit queer, but it was mostly from the pain in her arm. She wondered if she had broken it, it felt so limp and useless.
Her head cleared and she looked up at her rescuer for the first time and could not control her gasp.
‘Well, I’m not a ghost, you know. Do I look all that peculiar?’
‘No, but I know you; at least I’ve seen you before. Or perhaps I really am lightheaded.’
‘I doubt it,’ he returned calmly. ‘Were you dining with a very personable Spaniard in a restaurant in Barcelona on Friday night? Up at one of the balcony tables?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, you were there too.’ She did not add that she had been convinced even then that she had seen him before.
‘Right,’ he said brusquely, ‘since we have introduced ourselves in the proper British manner, do you feel you can walk a few hundred yards?’
She nodded. ‘I think so. But where to? There isn’t a house for miles around.’
‘There is. There’s my house. I’m afraid I’m not in the habit of sitting around on this mountain waiting for stupid English girls to try to throw themselves down it.’ She flushed. There was honestly no need to be quite as insulting as that.
‘If you feel so strongly,’ she retorted, ‘then I’ll find my own way back to the village. I imagine I can cope with that. It seems a better proposition than being bullied.’
He stood and watched her, a half smile on his lips, but there was little humour in it. ‘Then you imagine wrong, Miss English. With that arm of yours you’ll have passed out long before you can reach help on this mountain. And I’m not coming after you a second time. Come on, you’d better follow me. I’m quite harmless really. They say my bark is worse than my bite.’
She hesitated, looking down for the first time to where she had fallen.
‘Well, you don’t look the timid kind. Do you really think I’m going to rape you or something?’
‘No,’ she said coldly, ‘my stupidity doesn’t extend that far. But I can’t go with you until I get back what I went down the slope for.’ She was staring at her notebook. She must have dropped it again as she fell and although it lay not fax down the slope, she did not fancy that little journey again.
He followed the direction of her gaze. ‘Ah yes, you were writing, weren’t you, before you fell. That’s how I came to see you from my window. It must be important if you intend to risk life and limb again.’
‘Important enough.’
‘All right. Although I never expected to act Sir Galahad for a few bits of paper. Stay here and don’t move until I come back.’
He made his way down, moving easily, but carefully. She saw now that it was not so much a dangerous slope but a difficult one, with too much loose shale. The only problem was that it ended in that sheer drop to the other world below. It was at that she shuddered.
He handed her the notebook and started off ahead of her. ‘Follow me, but don’t try to rush. It’s an easy enough path if you stick to it.’
Five minutes later they were outside a small stone house built literally into the mountain and perched on a ledge. It seemed an extraordinary place for a man like this, but by now the ache in her arm was making her feel sick and there was a tight band across her forehead. This man would hardly be able to help with the arm, but if she could rest for a while and perhaps have a drink of water she would probably manage to get back.
There was a rough wooden chair by the window, the only one with a cushion. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered once more, ‘and take off that anorak.’
But even that she could not manage, so it was he who eased it off and pushed up the sleeve of her sweater. She must have grazed it severely because it had been bleeding badly, but she was getting that ‘couldn’t cope ‘feeling again, with the room swimming round her.
She felt him wipe away the blood with warm water and was surprised that his touch was so gentle. Then she jumped as she felt the sting of some kind of antiseptic.
But he did not leave it there. Fingers were probing at her wrist and making her bite her lips with pain.
‘Hmm,’ he said at last, ‘the grazes are nothing, what’s causing the pain is the wrist. You’ve strained it slightly, but it will be better when we’ve eased the weight from it.’
She was even more surprised when he strapped up the lower part of her arm and then produced a large silk scarf and made a very creditable sling from it.
She wanted to say thank you, but instead the wrong words came out. ‘So you study first aid, as well as rescue damsels in distress!’
He looked sharply at her, but all he said was: ‘If you live alone up here you have to be prepared for anything. Besides, I don’t like human contact, so the more one knows the less one has to bother other people.’
‘Yes, you’ve made that clear.’ She tried to stand up, but her legs were ridiculously wobbly. ‘I’ve been enough of a nuisance. I daresay I can get back now.’
‘Touchy, too, eh? You’re not moving from here until you’ve had some good English tea. A
nd then I doubt whether you’ll feel like moving very far.’
‘Well, I can hardly stay here for the night, can IP’ she said between her teeth, now annoyed at him taking her over so completely. Just because he had happened to be on hand, it did not mean that...
She watched him leave the main room and go out to the back one, where there was a clatter of china. Although her head was still swimming slightly, she could think more clearly and her arm seemed a little less painful. At least he had done that for her. It was almost as though he had had some kind of medical training.
The thought stopped her dead in her tracks just as he came to stand in the doorway, seeming to fill the whole area. There were not a dozen stray Englishmen to be found on a mountain like this, not even two. Without any more effort than half falling down a mountain and straining a wrist she had come face to face with her quarry. This could be no other man than Richard Kendall.
CHAPTER IV
Jess did not know whether to kick herself or burst into tears. Here she was, actually in the house of the infamous Mr. Kendall, and all she had succeeded in doing so far was to arouse every streak of antagonism in him. How on earth was she ever going to be able to make up enough for that? She had been sent here to gain his confidence, not to answer rudeness with more rudeness. That was the prime lesson of every reporter. Your subject is always in the right.
‘Well,’ he said brusquely, ‘have you lost your tongue or something? Or do you think the tea is poisoned?’
She glanced down at the mug of tea he had placed by her elbow, then took her first sip. The hot sweet liquid seemed to have an immediate reviving effect. Well, it was no good trying to go back to the beginning of the encounter again, so, whatever her personal opinion was of this man, she had to eat humble pie.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I think I must have been suffering from some kind of delayed shock. You’ve been extremely kind to me and I’ve hardly said “thank you”.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s all right. The circumstances are ... a little odd, I suppose. And they do say that all the best patients want to kick their doctors simply for being right.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he were a doctor, but she realized he was only speaking figuratively. Instead, she sent her first question off in another direction.
‘Do you live up here on Monserrat all the time, Mr. ...”
‘Armstrong. Richard Armstrong. And yes, I do live here all the time, at least for this year. There’s usually very little danger of being disturbed.’
Jess smiled slightly. ‘Then I’m your first ... unexpected visitor?’
‘You could say that. The locals have all called to bring some gift of fruit or cheese or firewood, but you could hardly call them visitors. They are merely trying to show me that I’m now a part of their small community. Now, before I check on that arm and see you on your way, perhaps you’d better tell me what you are doing up here. I imagine you’re not just a tourist at this time of year?’
‘No, I’m not, at least not all the time.’ She had long ago decided how to describe herself to Richard Kendall when she met him. ‘I’m writing a small travel book on Monserrat. Today I was more or less trying to get the feel of the mountain. I wasn’t really intending to start writing today, but somehow I was caught up in the atmosphere and I felt things so vividly that I had to stop and write them down. In future I shall take more care.’
‘Well, if you felt like that about the mountain, then the mountain will be your friend, but I imagine you won’t be staying longer than a day or two?’
Her eyes were very wide and innocent as she said, ‘Then it’s clear you’ve only read bad travel books, Mr. Armstrong. I shall be here three weeks, possibly even four. But that depends on so many things.’
She was aware of his sudden stillness, then he had swung abruptly to the window and was saying bluntly, ‘I don’t think even Monserrat could occupy you for more than a week, Miss...’
‘Jess Stevenson...’
‘Miss Stevenson. The mountain is hardly four miles long and only half as wide. I imagine you’ll soon grow bored.’
So he did not like the idea of her staying. A curious English girl was not going to be to his taste. Jess knew she had to tread even more warily. It would be all too easy for his door to be closed permanently against her.
She stood up quickly. ‘Only time will tell, won’t it? But now I really must go, Mr. Armstrong. I’m perfectly all right, and if you’ll point out the quickest way down, then I need not be any further trouble to you.’
He did not bother to reply, but helped her on with her anorak and opened the door for her. The afternoon had chilled and she felt the wind cutting across the mountain as they left the shelter of the house. At this moment she had not the least idea how she was going to find an excuse to get up here again. She would certainly not be invited.
She stole a look at the man striding alongside her. His implacable expression told her he could not get rid of her quickly enough. And if he had cut himself so successfully off from the world, how could she, a perfectly ordinary girl without even the common interest of medicine, hope to break through the barrier he had erected round himself? For the second time she quietly cursed Oliver Preston and his completely false belief that she, not anyone else, was capable of getting through to this man.
While they had been in the house she had not given Richard Kendall—who called himself Armstrong—much thought as a person. By the time she had realized who he was she was incapable of any thought but that she must somehow leave him on more amicable terms.
For his size he moved with surprising lightness. A man of dark thick hair and even darker shuttered eyes, it seemed to her that all laughter had been drained from him. He had fought his battle with the world, and lost, and that was the face he would always show.
They were on the main path now and climbing towards a small building on the next rise.
‘Do you mind heights?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’
‘This particular cable car which takes you down to the road is one of the steepest descents in Europe. It goes at almost right angles down the rock face, about a thousand feet. It’s my quickest way down for supplies to the village.’
Well, at least that was one useful thing she had learned. ‘Do you go down often, Mr. Armstrong?’
‘As little as I can help. There’s usually someone who brings things to the top here where I can pick them up. You’ve probably gathered, Miss Stevenson,’ and he allowed himself the faint glimmer of a smile, ‘I don’t exactly love my fellow human beings. So watch it next time you slip down Monserrat. I might not be there to pick you up.’
In the small shed that provided the terminus of the cable car he spoke a few rapid words of Spanish to the engineer, then turned back to her. ‘You’ll be taken down to the hotel, Miss Stevenson.’ Then he held out his hand. ‘If your arm isn’t better in a day or two there’s a doctor of sorts in the village. I hope your stay on Monserrat is successful; I doubt whether we shall meet again, in spite of its comparative smallness.’
His eyes met hers briefly, but with the same impact she had felt in that restaurant in Barcelona. Then he turned abruptly, and was gone.
Jess was the only passenger in the cable car. She stared almost unseeingly at the perpendicular granite wall of the mountain as it slid past the window, until the guide pointed and said, ‘Did you know, senorita, that the alpine club of Barcelona climbs this wall every year?’
She stared, horrified, first at the smooth wall, then at him. ‘But it’s impossible!’
‘Impossible to you and me, maybe but not to the most daring of climbers. See, they even spend a night out there on the wall, since the climb takes two days, you can see the ropes they have left behind. Oh, there are many tales of the daring of these men. Did not your friend, Senor Armstrong, tell you? He is a good climber himself—although I don’t think he would like to try this one.’
�
��No,’ she said, ‘no, he didn’t tell me. We ... we talked of other things. But, senor, I would like to know if Senor Armstrong is well known on Monserrat.’
‘Yes and no, I suppose you might say. The few of us who live and work up here, we know him well enough, but he is a man who likes his privacy and prefers to be quiet, so we respect his wishes. When summer comes we shall try to keep the tourists away. But I doubt if they will find his house. It is not on the main paths. Senor Armstrong works very hard, does he not? Do all scientists in your country work as hard as he does?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but then there are not many men like Senor Armstrong.’
The cable car came to a gentle halt and she followed the guide into a room warmed by a wood stove, with a small shop and bar in the corner that seemed to be the gathering place for some of the men working locally. Jess found herself escorted outside and politely handed into a large lorry. Only minutes later she was dropped in the village square, outside the hotel.
She suddenly realized that it had been a long and eventful day and that she was very tired. She did little more than take off her trousers and anorak, then flung herself on to the bed to fall almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The following day remained cloudy and dull, so Jess stayed around the square most of the time, still feeling a little shaky, but with the pain in her wrist somewhat eased, although she still kept it in its improvised sling.
