Night Heat

by Anne Mather

  ‘You’re very pessimistic,’ she had exclaimed, wishing he had not voiced his opinion at all. But although she changed the subject, she could not forget what he had said, and like their conversation about Lincoln Korda, it remained a bone of contention between them.

  And that was why she was still lying awake when her employer returned home. She hadn’t wanted to think about Lincoln’s dinner engagement, or about who had invited him, but at that time of night, her resistance was at its lowest. She couldn’t help recalling how easily he had overcome her opposition to his lovemaking, or remember her submission without a feeling of revulsion. He had treated her abominably. He had tormented and provoked her into a gesture of defiance, and then used his not inconsiderable skills to pervert her plea for dignity. He had used her—but as what? A rehearsal for his encounter with Rebecca Steinbeck, perhaps? Or an endorsement of his belief that he was irresistible to women?

  Sara eventually fell asleep about three o’clock. She had some inkling of what time it was, because at a quarter to three, she fetched herself a glass of water from the bathroom. She had wished it was brandy. She could have done with something to numb the feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SARA was still on tenterhooks when Keating let her into Jeff Korda’s suite after breakfast the next morning. She had rung down and asked Cora if she could have coffee and rolls in her room at eight o’clock, to avoid any possible encounter with the boy’s father, but when Rosa delivered her tray, she also delivered the information that Mr Link had already left for New York.

  ‘He’s flying up with the Steinbecks,’ she continued conversationally. ‘You know—them people he dined with yesterday evening? Seems like he offered the use of his plane to Miss Becca, and her granddaddy decided to go along for the ride.’

  Sara managed a smile in return, but her happy expression only lasted until Rosa had gone out of the door. Apart from the unpleasant realisation that she was upset about Lincoln leaving, she had the additional anxiety of wondering if Grant was going to be proved right sooner than he had anticipated.

  ‘You will remember Mr Korda is easily disturbed, Miss Fielding,’ Keating greeted her, and for a moment she wondered who he was talking about.

  ‘Oh, you mean Jeff!’ she exclaimed, refusing to call the boy Mr Korda to anyone. ‘Yes, I know that,’ she added, smoothing her palms down the seams of her cut-off white jeans. ‘Don’t worry. We have met and—I think we understand one another.’

  That was a massive piece of optimism, but she refused to let Keating see she was nervous. She would get nowhere with Jeff if Keating baulked her at every turn, and while she might be apprehensive, what had she to lose?

  ‘Very well, Miss Fielding.’ He backed off. ‘I presume you do know where to find him.’

  ‘In his bedroom?’ Sara lifted one shoulder in a gesture of assent. ‘Oh, well, wish me luck. I’m sure you hope this works as much as the rest of us.’

  His smile was decidedly frosty, but like the good servant he was, he didn’t contradict her. Instead, he disappeared into what she assumed to be his apartments, which adjoined the suite on the other side, and Sara was left to take the initiative herself.

  It was like a repeat of that other time she came here, only this time she had his consent, she reassured herself. All the same, she did wonder if Jeff had been told his father had already departed. And if so, would his attitude change as Grant had predicted?

  He was lying in exactly the same position as before, the sheet folded neatly across his chest, his arms stretched over it and resting by his sides. It was as if he was completely paralysed, thought Sara, somewhat daunted. She had hoped he might have made an effort and greeted her from his wheelchair.

  ‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly, coming round the bed, and he looked up at her unsmilingly.

  ‘Hi.’

  She was encouraged. ‘You were expecting me, then?’

  ‘I sent for you,’ responded Jeff challengingly. ‘I knew you’d come if my father asked you.’

  A little of Sara’s nervousness evaporated. ‘You didn’t have to get your father to ask me,’ she retorted smoothly. ‘I’d have come just the same if you’d invited me. That’s what I’m here for.’

  Jeff’s thin face was sulky. ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘What’s not true? Why else do you think I’m——’

  ‘It’s not true that you’d have come if I’d asked you to. You ignored me. I called your name and you ignored it.

  She blinked. ‘You mean a couple of days ago?’

  ‘When else?’

  She shook her head. ‘As I recall it, you told me to get out. And in no uncertain terms.’

  Jeff’s jaw clenched. ‘You startled me. I thought you were Rosa.’

  ‘But you soon found out I wasn’t,’ Sara reminded him drily. ‘Anyway, I’m here now, so perhaps we should start again.’

  ‘Start what?’ he asked sardonically.

  ‘Start being friends, of course.’

  ‘Friends!’ His lips twisted. ‘I don’t have friends.’

  ‘Like you don’t have visitors, hmm?’ suggested Sara tensely. ‘Look, Jeff, don’t you think this is getting a bit ridiculous? I’m here. We’re talking. Can’t we at least try and find a bit of common ground, before you lapse back into that well of self-pity that’s drowning you?’

  His eyes glittered suddenly. ‘What are you?’ he snapped. ‘What particular branch of medicine did you qualify in? No, let me guess—psychology or psychiatry, am I right? They’re certainly turning out better-looking doctors, I’ll give them that.’

  ‘I’m not a doctor,’ exclaimed Sara at once. ‘Honestly, I’m not. I wouldn’t know how to psychoanalyse anyone. As a matter of fact, I—I was a dancer. Or at least, I hoped to be.’

  ‘A dancer?’ Jeff stared at her. ‘What kind of a dancer?’

  ‘Well, I trained as a classical dancer first, but then I found modern dancing was more my scene.’ She hesitated. ‘It was a terrible blow when I had to give it up.’

  He frowned. ‘Why did you?’

  ‘Because I broke my ankle.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he grunted, ‘I remember. You said that you were lame.’ He levered himself up on his elbows and looked down at her feet. ‘You don’t look lame to me.’

  ‘That’s because I try not to be,’ replied Sara carefully. ‘There’s a weakness there, but I don’t give in to it.’

  He uttered a short laugh and flopped back on to his pillows again. ‘Oh, God!’ he muttered. ‘How noble of you!’ His voice was raw with sarcasm. ‘You break your ankle and it mends again, and you’re here to tell me the story of your sacrifice! What does it really mean to you? Instead of spending your life trying to make it big in some small time theatre company you’ve got to find yourself a sedentary occupation. Big deal!’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ Sara was indignant. ‘I had an offer to work on TV!’ It was an exaggeration, but what the hell!

  ‘Puppets work on TV,’ replied Jeff disparagingly. ‘It’s not a life-and-death situation. You do have a life left to lead.’

  ‘So do you!’

  ‘Oh, grow up, will you? I don’t need platitudes, from you or anyone else.’

  ‘What you need is reality!’ retorted Sara, without hesitation. ‘This isn’t reality, this——’ she gestured about her, ‘—this padded cell you’ve ensconced yourself in! You don’t even know what day it is up here. You don’t know if it’s wet or dry; you don’t even know when the sun’s shining!’

  ‘That’s the way I like it.’

  ‘Why?’ She had started, so she argued that she might as well finish. If she was fired now, at least she could console herself with the knowledge that she had said what she wanted to say. ‘You don’t really like living up here, remote from what’s going on around you, but the truth is, you’re scared to do anything else.’

  ‘Scared?’ Jeff started up on his elbows. ‘I’m not scared!’

  ‘Aren’
t you? Aren’t you really afraid to face things as they really are?’ Sara shook her head. ‘Oh, I know you’re going to tell me that if you’re not scared of death, you can’t be scared of life, but it’s not true! It takes a hell of a lot more courage to face living than it does dying!’

  He was angry now. ‘What would you know about it?’ he sneered. ‘Have you ever taken an overdose?’

  ‘No.’ Sara was honest. ‘But that’s not to say I haven’t thought about it. Everybody does, at some time or another. But we don’t all look for the easy way out.’

  ‘Easy?’ Jeff flopped back again. ‘You sure as hell don’t avoid the jugular, do you?’

  She took a breath. ‘All right, maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m wrong, and you’re right. But I’ll tell you this, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the way you’re living and—and dying. This room is like a mortuary!’

  He groaned. ‘Did no one ever tell you, you don’t speak that way to a sick person?’

  She knew a moment’s contrition. And then she said quietly: ‘Are you?’

  ‘Am I what?’ Jeff gave her a lacklustre gaze, and she realised his momentary surge of anger had exhausted him. It made her wonder if she was not simply hurting him in an effort to justify her own existence, but it was too late now to call back her words.

  ‘Are you a sick person?’ she replied softly.

  He shook his head. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘No, I mean it.’ She moved nearer to the bed and looked down at him. ‘What’s really wrong with you now? Apart from the paralysis, I mean.’

  ‘Apart from the paralysis?’ Jeff’s lips curled. ‘Oh, well, if we dismiss the paralysis, let’s see: I guess I’m pretty fit, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic!’

  ‘Well, don’t be so bloody stupid!’ he retorted. ‘I’m paralysed, for God’s sake! That’s it! Period!’

  Sara sighed. ‘And you’re prepared to lie here until you either grow old or succeed in what you didn’t succeed in a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Until I succeed in killing myself. Why don’t you say it right out? You’ve said everything else.’

  She hunched her shoulders, pushing her hands into the waistline pockets of her jeans. ‘You feel pretty sorry for yourself, don’t you?’

  He gasped. ‘Don’t you ever give up?’

  ‘I’m only telling you the truth. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  He bit his lip. ‘I think you’d better get lost now. I’m tired.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sara shrugged resignedly. She had known it was an outside chance at best. She backed away from the bed. ‘Goodbye, then. I hope you achieve what you’re aiming for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jeff dragged himself over to stare after her. ‘That sounded final.’

  ‘It was.’ She halted with her hand on the door. ‘I’ve tried everything I can think of, but you don’t want to know. The sooner I use my return ticket for London and stop wasting your father’s money——’

  ‘He can afford it.’ Jeff plucked impatiently at the sheet. ‘Look, I don’t want you to leave. Not yet, at least. Come back tomorrow. We can talk some more then.’

  ‘I don’t think——’

  ‘Dammit, I don’t care what you think!’ he snapped, and there were beads of perspiration standing on his forehead now. ‘My father’s paying your wages, for God’s sake! I didn’t ask you to come here, but you came. At least have the decency to stay as long as you’re needed!’

  Although Grant was obviously curious about her conversation with Jeff, Sara managed to evade his most pointed questions. She was loath to discuss what had happened with anyone, and although she supposed she had scored a minor success by getting Jeff to ask her to come back, it didn’t much feel like it. As usual, as soon as she had had time to think about what she had said, she was plagued with misgivings, and she waited apprehensively for the repeat of what had happened before. But the rest of the day passed without incident, and she actually ate her dinner that evening with something akin to enthusiasm.

  However, when Keating let her into the suite the next morning, he was evidently less than pleased to see her. ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Fielding,’ he greeted her offhandedly. ‘Does Mr Korda expect you?’

  ‘I think so.’ Sara quelled the urge to be impatient with the man. ‘Shall I go straight in?’

  ‘No. That is—Mr Korda’s not ready for you,’ declared Keating hastily. ‘He—he—he’s still having breakfast. Could you come back later?’

  ‘How much later?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Oh—an hour?’

  ‘An hour!’ Sara stood her ground. ‘Surely it doesn’t take him an hour to eat his breakfast?’

  ‘Keating!’

  Jeff’s peremptory summons broke into their conversation, and looking anxiously over his shoulder, the little man clucked his tongue. ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ he said, turning back to Sara, but she was not so easily diverted.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said, sliding past him and seating herself on the upright chair by the door. She dredged up an appealing smile. ‘You can tell him I’m here, if you like.’

  Keating was evidently torn between the desire to get rid of her again and the equally strong need to attend to his patient’s wishes. ‘Oh, very well,’ he muttered ungraciously, as Jeff called again, and slamming the door, he hurried into Jeff’s bedroom.

  He was out again with a tray some ten minutes later. ‘You can go in now,’ he said grudgingly. ‘But don’t stay too long. He tires easily.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sara waited until he had disappeared into the adjoining apartment, and then sauntered as casually as she could into the other room.

  During the minutes she had been kept waiting, she had wondered if Jeff’s lateness could have anything to do with what they had been talking about the previous day. She had allowed herself to dream of how she would feel if she walked into Jeff’s room and found him sitting in his wheelchair, maybe even dressed, although that was carrying things a little too far. However, it had been just a dream, she acknowledged, and she tried not to look too disappointed when she found he was still as immobile as ever.

  Hello,’ she greeted him cheerfully, approaching the bed. ‘How are you?’

  Jeff’s nostrils flared. ‘How do I look?’

  She shrugged. ‘Pale.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ His response was ironic, but not unfriendly. He nodded towards a chair set against the wall. ‘You’d better sit down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sara pulled the chair towards the bed and subsided on to it. ‘Did Keating tell you I’ve been waiting?’

  ‘He grumbled that you were here,’ agreed Jeff, with a trace of humour. ‘Keating doesn’t like his schedules to be disrupted.’

  She grimaced. ‘Did I disrupt his schedules?’

  ‘Your coming here disrupts his schedules,’ said Jeff drily. ‘I’m the only one allowed to do that.’

  She bent her head. ‘Well, he’ll just have to put up with it.’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ he remarked carelessly. ‘So, forget about Keating. Let’s talk about you.’

  ‘We talked about me yesterday,’ murmured Sara. ‘Why don’t we talk about you?’

  Jeff scowled. ‘As you said yesterday, I’m a drag!’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She stared at him.

  ‘As good as.’ His hunched thin shoulders beneath the cream silk pyjamas. ‘Anyway, it’s true. I’m boring. You’re not.’

  She sighed. ‘I’ve told you about me.’

  ‘Only that you trained to be a dancer. What do you do now? Apart from counselling failed suicides?’

  So Sara told him about her life; about Vicki, and the flat, and the job she had given up to come out here. She even mentioned his uncle, although she noticed Jeff shied away from any discussions of his family.

  Even so, the morning passed quite quickly, and when Keating appeared with Jeff’s lunch on a tray, she was astonished to realise it was almost twe
lve.

  ‘You can come back this afternoon, if you like,’ Jeff invited casually, but now Keating intervened.

  ‘Don’t you think Miss Fielding should be allowed a little time to herself, Jeff?’ he asked, swinging out the legs of the tray and setting it across the boy’s knees. ‘Besides, you know you have to rest after lunch. I think tomorrow morning would be quite time enough.’

  ‘I could come back this evening,’ suggested Sara, prepared to endorse Keating’s assertion that Jeff should rest for a while during the heat of the day, but the manservant shook his head.

  ‘Mr Korda retires early, Miss Fielding,’ he declared firmly, and Sara, meeting Jeff’s strangely defensive gaze, did not argue.

  ‘Okay, tomorrow then,’ she said, giving the boy a reassuring smile, but he hunched his shoulders and looked away, as she walked out of the room.

  By the end of the week following, Sara felt as if she was beginning to make some headway. The progress they had made was slow, but positive, and although there were times when she despaired of ever persuading him he had something to live for, these times were less frequent, and usually in the wee small hours. Much like the times she thought about his father, she admitted reluctantly. Despite her efforts with Jeff, and Lincoln’s absence, she still thought about him far too often, and perhaps that was why she put such energy into her work.

  Of course, Jeff still resisted any attempt to get him to use his wheelchair. So far as she knew, Keating still attended him, like the baby Grant had described. But she had discovered he now fed himself on occasions, instead of forcing someone else to do it if they didn’t want him to starve.

  Still, the black moods he suffered were decidedly fewer, and he was not so negative in his outlook. She realised he had begun to look forward to the time they spent together, and because of having an interest in something, he was definitely getting stronger. Talking didn’t tire him, as it had done in the beginning, and even the occasional argument had no adverse effect on his temperature.

  There were limits to what they talked about, of course. Jeff didn’t like any personal questions about himself or his family, and if he sometimes revealed more than he had intended, he quickly changed the subject. Nevertheless, Sara did learn more about his childhood, and a picture slowly emerged of a lonely little boy, brought up by servants, and ignored by his father. How could Lincoln do that? she asked herself time and time again. It was obvious that the boy’s mother had had little time for her son, by Jeff’s inadvertent remarks concerning holidays and the like. He had evidently attended a private residential school, and his free time had been spent with a series of minders. He had attended ball games with people called Buzz or Mac, and only rarely did Michelle figure in his reminiscences. Lincoln must have known this. He must have realised what kind of existence he was condemning his son to. Yet he had done nothing to change the situation, and not until Jeff was lying paralysed in a hospital bed had he belatedly remembered his responsibilities.