Another Life

by Rosemary Carter

  The waves broke about them, but neither one of them noticed the movement of the surf. There was only the sensuousness of two wet bodies straining together, the fury of conflicting emotions contained in their embrace—joy and anger, hope and despair, exultation and a terrible grief for what would never be experienced again.

  'Clyde,' Sara groaned helplessly when he lifted his head for breath. 'I don't… we can't…'

  'The hell we can't!' he said fiercely. 'Grow up, Sara. Don't you know what you want?'

  She thought he would kiss her again, but instead he turned them both shorewards. He held her to him until they reached shallow water. Then he released her abruptly.

  She turned to him as they came on to the sand. 'Clyde, I wish I could…'

  She stopped herself just in time. I wish I could explain, was what she had started to say. But she could not explain. Not today, probably never.

  She took a step away from him and looked up. In the white swimsuit he was as superb a specimen of a man as she had ever seen. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, long legs were taut and muscled. There was not a spare ounce of flesh on the bronzed body. His fair hair was plastered wetly back from his head, and his eyes were as blue as the sky above.

  Dominating all else was an impression of maleness, of virility, of a compelling sexual appeal which left Sara feeling weak despite her determination to be strong.

  She opened her mouth, not knowing quite what she meant to say, when the breath caught in her throat. A girl had come up to them. Sara had not seen her approach. She was tall and beautiful with all her curves in the right places, and as fair as Clyde himself. She threw Sara a glance that was sharp with dislike, then looked up at Clyde with a pouting smile.

  'Darling, I wondered where you'd got to.'

  'I went for a swim.'

  'You might have waited for me, darling.' A hand slid possessively around his waist as she looked at Sara with an expression that said 'Private property, keep away.'

  Clyde looked faintly irritated, and Sara noticed that he made no attempt to dislodge the hand. 'You were talking to your friends,' was all he said.

  'Oh yes, and darling, they were all so happy that we're together again. Do you know, Ted asked me out, but I told him no, that it's just a matter of time now before we…'

  'Andrea,' Clyde interrupted, 'I want you to meet Sara Demaine. Sara, this is Andrea Stanford.'

  'The dancer.' Perfectly painted lips thinned. 'How nice. Clyde darling, we really must be going.'

  Sara forced a smile. Somehow she kept it plastered to her face while the baby—her baby and Clyde's—moved inside her once more. 'I must be getting along too,' she said with all the composure she could muster.

  She felt drained and numb as she watched them walk away. Clyde and Andrea Stanford, the girl whose father could do so much to help pave Clyde's way to a glittering future. 'Don't cry,' she told herself fiercely, as she felt the tears welling in her eyes. 'It's all over. Just get off this beach without crying.'

  Sara accepted Peter's third proposal. In deference to her health the wedding was quiet. Madame Olga was there, and all Sara's friends from the company. Family was represented only by Aunt Mary, who journeyed from Durban to take the place of the parents who had died long ago. And there was Lynn, unconnected with dancing, and the owner of an antique shop in the village that was not far from Peter's wine estate Morning Glow. Lynn had been Sara's closest friend at school. It was a friendship which time and distance had never dulled.

  'Do you, Peter, take this woman…'

  The words 'I will' were spoken in a tone that was low and firm. If the memory of Peter's first wife stood in the shadows there was nothing in his manner to indicate it.

  'Do you, Sara, take this man…'

  'I will.' Faintly. And then more firmly, 'I will'. And all the while a part of her, outside of her so it seemed, was weeping. Clyde, you should be standing beside me today, not this very kind man who has just promised to cherish me till death us do part.

  And then Peter was kissing her, and they were being showered with confetti, and there was laughter and talk and a buzz of congratulations. Sara smiled with the rest. A not-too-perceptive stranger would have said she was a happy bride; the desolation which filled her was hidden deep inside. Turning a laughing face to Peter, she understood that although he knew her love for Clyde still existed, she must not let him know the extent of it. She owed Peter that much at least.

  The honeymoon was spent at Morning Glow. Morning Glow was a name with which Sara had long been familiar. The wine estate on the Garden Route was famed for its loveliness. Generations of Burods had lived here. Peter, the present owner, drove out from Cape Town whenever he could. The demands made on the choreographer were great. At Morning Glow he could relax. Somehow he had managed to take ten days from his busy routine to be alone with his new bride. They were happy days. The sensitivity which Peter had displayed from the beginning was with him still as he made his bride his wife. There was a gentleness in his lovemaking, a passion that was both sweet yet undemanding. Sara tried to respond to him as best she could. There was an ease and affection between them which made her think at times that she succeeded. Then she would remember the wildness of her ardour when she had lain in Clyde's arms, and she knew that much of her response was largely forced. If Peter was aware of sham, and disappointed by it, he did not say so; he seemed content with the measure of love that Sara could give him.

  And there was love between them. A very different sort of love from the overwhelming, all-consuming emotion she had experienced once, yet love nevertheless. Living with Peter, listening quietly while he spoke of his hopes and dreams, she knew that the man she had thought of as kind and thoughtful and sensitive was in fact all the things she had imagined—and more, and little by little her affection for him increased.

  The honeymoon over, Peter had reluctantly to leave her and drive back to Cape Town. Sara asked to be taken along, but he was adamant that she should stay at Morning Glow. She had the baby to think of, he told her. His concern could not have been greater if he had been the father of the coming child. Clyde's part in the fathering was never discussed. When Peter spoke of the approaching birth, it was with quiet joy. There was no doubt in Sara's mind that he would look upon the child as his own.

  She was lucky, she knew. On her own, she could have provided her baby with much love but only the essentials in comfort. With Peter Burod as its father, the child would have every luxury. She hoped he would never regret having made another's man's child his own.

  Looking over the purple vineyards, Sara often had to convince herself that she was really the mistress of this glorious estate; that she had a wealthy and adoring husband who wanted only to spoil her. She knew she should be totally happy.

  She would be totally happy—if only she could shut Clyde from her mind. But how to shut him out, when the life that he had placed inside her was growing every day? When the memories of a love that had meant more to her even than her dancing still provoked pain?

  For Peter's sake and her own, she had to forget Clyde. When she was awake, she could apply the self-discipline that was so much a part of her ballerina's make-up, and force herself to think of other things. But at night, when her unconscious took over, her dreams were of a tall lean man, with thick fair hair and eyes that were deeply intelligent. And in the mornings, with the dreams still very vivid, she would wake up feeling drained. She would forget, she told herself despairingly. She had to.

  On a morning in early summer she sat on the verandah, staring out towards the sea. The house was built high into a cliff overlooking the vineyards from one angle, the sea from another. It had been aptly named Morning Glow, Sara thought. It was not long since the sun had risen, and sea and land were bathed in a translucent radiance. Everywhere was in an intense clarity, a crispness that seemed to infuse the very air itself, giving it a champagne-like quality which Sara had never experienced in the city.

  At the soft sound of feet on the gras
s, she turned. The housekeeper had come to take her tray. Her name was Lettie; she had soft generous features and a friendly smile, and Sara had taken to her from the start. The liking was evidently reciprocated, for Lettie went out of her way to do small things that would please her. She smiled at Sara as she held out a newspaper.

  'Thank you, Lettie,' Sara smiled back, marvelling not for the first time at the speed with which the staff had accepted her.

  As Lettie made her way back to the house, Sara took up the newspaper and began to turn the pages. First the entertainment section, where she devoured the latest reviews. Any mention of ballet left her feeling stimulated yet wistful. It had been hard to accept that she had to stop dancing, that the part she had looked forward to for so long now belonged to Maria, her understudy. She wondered when she would dance again. After the baby was born there would be a period that was only for mothering. But one day…

  She had never read the newspaper as thoroughly as she did now. There had never been time to do more than skim the headlines. Now the papers were her link with the city and a life in which she had once been very involved.

  The photograph on the society page sent her suddenly rigid. Clyde was staring up at her—Clyde, with his arm around a curvaceous blonde whom she recognised. For a long moment Sara gazed fixedly at the photo, unable to move her eyes to the words below. It was as if Clyde was holding her gaze, defying her to look away. Clyde, unfamiliar in dress suit, his head just slightly inclined towards the girl at his side, his appearance more distinguished than ever.

  A great trembling took Sara as the blur of print began to clear. The premonition of disaster made no sense—no reason why Clyde should not be photographed with Andrea Stanford. Yet as she began to read she knew without seeing the words what they would tell her.

  The engagement was announced of Dr Clyde Montgomery to Andrea Stanford. Andrea's father was well known in the world of medicine, and the wedding was to take place shortly.

  The pages fluttered from nerveless fingers. The blood drained from Sara's face, and her limbs were like water. Inside her she felt a small flutter. The baby had kicked. It was a movement Sara felt seldom; sometimes she wondered whether the baby was as strong as it should be, whether it had been affected by her collapse some months earlier. That it should choose to move now seemed symbolic, a token of protest against the decision its father had chosen to make.

  What had she expected? she asked herself unhappily. That Clyde remain faithful to her memory? That he pursue the path towards his career ambitions alone? He had not asked her to break their engagement. And from Andrea Sara had gathered that this new engagement was just a matter of time.

  If bitterness was unreasonable, it burned within her notwithstanding. Both sets of parents were delighted, the announcement said. And why not? Andrea was acquiring a husband who would stir the senses of any woman. Sara remembered the conversation she had overheard. Andrea had taken up with someone else, Belinda had said. Evidently Andrea had returned to her first love. Knowing Clyde, having experienced the impact of his sensual maleness, that was something Sara could understand.

  As for Clyde, in marrying Dr Stanford's daughter he had set himself firmly on the path to success. No wonder the respective parents were glad.

  What of Clyde's feelings? Had he forgotten the dancer he had sworn to love to the end of his days? Or had he managed to convince himself that what he had felt for Sara had never been more than infatuation for a girl who came from a world so different from his own? Did he love Andrea? Perhaps he did, for she was beautiful. Even if he did not, perhaps he had not ignored the benefits her position could bring him. There was the memory of the windy day in the Clifton apartment. 'I mean to be rich and famous,' he had said. There had been conviction in his tone. Now, through Andrea Stanford, he was assured that his ambition would be fulfilled.

  Suddenly Sara was on her feet. The joy had gone out of the day. She did not see the gracious house, the loveliness of the vineyards and the sea. There was only pain, a searing pain that was even worse than that which she had experienced on overhearing the conversation which had led her to sever the relationship with the man she loved. Stumbling a little, she made her way inside. She wanted only to be in her room, alone, free to weep until her eyes were drained of tears.

  Another morning, a week or two later, Sara was again sitting on the verandah, but today the sky was overcast, the sea a sullen wind-chopped grey. Restlessly she shifted in her chair, trying to ease her swollen body into a more comfortable position.

  She had made it a habit to take a daily walk. Accustomed as she was to the sea, the wild beauty of this particular coastline never failed to enchant her. With Bruno, Peter's big labrador, racing in front of her, she would walk along the beach, the dainty high-instepped dancer's feet moulding themselves to the soft sand, the fine golden grains sifting between her toes. The morning walks had become as much a part of her life as the practice at the barre had once been.

  Today, however, the effort to negotiate the path down to the beach seemed an insuperable ordeal. Watching a fishing-boat tossed this way and that on the angry waves, she wondered if the weather had affected her mood. She was filled with an intense unease, coupled with an odd inertia—an inertia which the baby inside her seemed to share. Never active, today she could not remember feeling it move at all.

  'No walk today, Miss Sara?'

  Sara looked up at Lettie, who had appeared silently at her side bearing a tray with yogurt and orange juice. The housekeeper's face was thoughtful. Over the months her concern for Sara had never wavered, a fact Sara appreciated, for with Peter away all week—even now he was in Cape Town, hard at work on the choreography for a new ballet—she was often lonely.

  'The weather…' She tried to smile.

  Lettie forbore making the comment that Sara had walked in worse weather. Putting down the tray on a small side table, she asked, 'When is the next appointment with the doctor?'

  'Friday.'

  'Perhaps you should go today.'

  'Oh no, I'll wait.'

  Lettie was at the door leading into the house when an anguished gasp brought her spinning around. Sara's face was white, with bands of sweat on the high forehead. The big sloe eyes were panic-stricken and the slender body was twisted in pain.

  Within moments she had relaxed somewhat, though her face had not regained its colour. 'I'm sorry, Lettie.' The words came uncertainly through white lips. 'I don't know what… what came over me.'

  'The baby?'

  'No.' With a conviction she was far from feeling, 'Nothing to do with the baby…'

  'Come to bed, Miss Sara. Then I will phone the doctor.'

  'Stop fussing, Lettie,' Sara said weakly. 'I'll be fine, really I…'

  Her words trailed away in another gasp of pain. Instinctively she seized Lettie's hand, gripping it fiercely, only relaxing its hold when the spasm had passed.

  'The baby,' Lettie said again.

  'It can't be! It's not due yet. Gastric flu probably.'

  'I will phone the doctor.' Lettie wasted no more words arguing. 'Then Mr Peter in Cape Town. He must come. George will drive you to the hospital.'

  There was no withstanding the usually smiling housekeeper once her mind was made up. By the time she had been ensconced in the car, George the gardener at the wheel, Sara was no longer even in the mood to protest. The spasms were coming frequently, at regular intervals, and the pain was severe.

  'Mr Peter is coming,' Lettie said, as she covered the trembling girl with a rug. 'He is leaving Cape. Town now.'

  'Yes…' through nerveless lips. But in her mind an anguished cry. Clyde… Clyde, you should be with me. The baby is coming. Our baby. Oh, Clyde, I need you!

  Sara was never to remember much of the next hours. Vaguely she was aware of people, bustling around her. Dr Simons, kind, competent, calming her with his own lack of panic. A nurse wheeling her to the labour ward, then to the operating theatre. The moment when the baby was born, and the odd hush that followed. A
glimpse of the doctor's face, more tight-lipped than she had seen him. And then an injection. Oblivion…

  Someone was sitting beside her as she woke. Peter… And that was odd, because it should have been Clyde. Clyde's baby.

  And then her mind began to clear. This was Peter by her side—her husband. He was smiling down at her, and in his eyes was a look of incredible sadness.

  Memory returned—the pains, the hurried drive to the hospital, the birth and the doctor's expression in the moment before she had been anaesthetised.

  'What did we have?' And when Peter did not answer, 'The baby? A boy or a girl?'

  The look in her husband's face deepened. 'Sara… Sara, my very dearest, it was a girl. But…' she heard the break in his voice, 'she…'

  'Died?' Sara felt the frenzied sob at the back of her throat.

  'She's alive, but only just. She's not expected to live.'

  There were no words in her as she stared at her husband. She did not know that to Peter she seemed only eyes, enormous sloe-shaped eyes from which all colour seemed to have vanished. Eyes that were moist and brilliant with distress. The eyes of Odette, the swan-maiden, adrift in a world where meaning, as she knew it, had fled.

  'No!' she gasped at length, blindly.

  The hand holding hers grew firmer, as if Peter tried to infuse her with his love and strength. 'Sara dearest, whatever happens it will be for the best. Cruel as that may sound. The baby… she's so very ill.'

  'No,' she said again, and moved her eyes away from his.

  He could not know the meaning her 'no' entailed. That it was confirmation that what had been between her and Clyde should never have been. The love that had flamed between them like some lovely vital fire. The baby that had been produced as a result. Clyde, she cried, over and over again. During the pregnancy there had been the hope that their child would be the one tangible product of a love she might never know again, a constant memory, alive and wonderful. Now even that was to be denied her.