Diamond Cut Diamond

by Jane Donnelly

  Everybody else had. Even Mary, rarely seen out of jodhpurs, was wearing a pretty floral dress, and had her short straight usually tousled hair in a sleek cap.

  'As it is,' said Charlotte, 'the least I can do is let my hair down.' She was wearing a bandeau. She tugged it off and shook her head and her hair fell loose and swirling, then somebody gave her a glass of punch, and it would have been rank ingratitude not to enjoy herself after the trouble they'd taken.

  A record player was providing music and Charlotte danced, and chatted and joked and flirted, and thanked everybody over and over again. Mary had made a huge quiche for the buffet, and as she cut Charlotte a slice she said, 'Well, we thought you could do with something to cheer you up, and when Jo-Ann rang me and said how about a party and we remembered it was your birthday—'

  'Thanks.' Charlotte took the plate and scooped from various side dishes.

  'But if you ask me,' said Mary, 'I think she wanted to show off.'

  'Show off what?'

  'Well, everybody's been wondering if there's anything going on between you and Saul Laurenson, although Jo-Ann says he's been dating her.'

  'That doesn't surprise me,' said Charlotte tartly.

  'I think she's out to show everybody that she's got him,' said Mary. 'They've never moved away from each other. She's all over him, and she's never stopped smirking.'

  Charlotte hadn't spoken to Saul yet. She had heard his drawling voice through the babble of voices, but he hadn't come over to her and she hadn't come up against him. She would sooner or later. If she looked around she would find him. The crowd would have to be dense that he didn't stand out in. She tried the quiche and said, 'This is delicious. Anyhow, he's leaving for Canada on Monday, and he told me that half the time he can't even remember the names of the girls he'd had, so I shouldn't think Jo-Ann's got much to grin about.'

  Mary grinned, 'What a rotten thing to say! But he is dishy, isn't he?'

  Charlotte shrugged indifference, then she looked across in the direction Mary was looking, at Saul and Jo-Ann, and the food in her mouth turned to ashes.

  They were standing, talking with others, and Jo-Ann's hand was through Saul's arm. That was all, but searing anger ripped Charlotte. Seeing Jo-Ann's fingers on the stuff of Saul's coat hurt more than finding Jeremy and Lesley naked together. She could have rushed through the guests and physically torn them apart, and she turned away, got herself another glass of punch and drank it quickly, thinking, I mustn't look again. So long as I don't see them I won't do anything unforgivable.

  Mary had followed her and was looking at her anxiously, asking, 'Are you all right?'

  'Sure,' said Charlotte. 'But I wish I'd known this was waiting. It's been a bit overwhelming.'

  'Too much of a surprise?'

  'A lovely surprise,' said Charlotte, then smiled at the man nearest and said, 'Shall we dance?' because that would pass the time and help get her through the lovely surprise that had turned into a nightmare.

  For the next two hours she hardly stopped dancing. Anyone seeing her would have thought she was having a high old time, and she was a little high, but she knew that as soon as she stopped whirling and smiling she was going to sink into deep depression.

  Saul didn't ask her to dance; he didn't come near her. When she saw him dancing with Jo-Ann she was swaying in the arms of a young man who was hoping this was his lucky night, and she leaned to whisper in her partner's ear, 'Would you do me a favour? Could you give me a lift home without breaking up the party? I had a long hard day at work and I'm dead on my feet, only I've drunk rather a lot of punch and I'm scared to drive.'

  This convinced him his luck was in. But he was wrong, because all Charlotte wanted was a lift, and when they reached her home she thanked him and jumped out of the car, and vanished round the side of the house before he was over the shock of not being invited in.

  The house was in darkness, except for a light in Nurse Betty's room, and Charlotte kept on walking. She hadn't the strength to saddle Kelly, but she knew she couldn't sleep, so she went down to the patio and across the field, through the gate over the track, then climbed up the hill to the very top. And sat down at last, under the big old chestnut tree where she had tethered Kelly that morning, long, long ago it seemed, after her first meeting with Saul.

  While she was walking she was occupied. The moon was bright but the turf was uneven, she had to watch as she stepped and she walked fast, almost as though this was a race. But at the top of the hill, when she sat down, knees hunched so that her chin rested on them and hands clasped round her ankles, the thoughts came rushing into her head.

  That had been a hellish party. Except for the night when she waited at the hospital, to hear if her father would live or die, she couldn't recall a night that came near it for pain. The pain was with her still, raw and aching, and nothing like the jealousy she had felt for Jeremy.

  For Jeremy she had felt neither jealousy nor love, just hurt pride and makebelieve. Jeremy was something out of one of the plays he played in, but the agony of watching Saul with Jo-Ann had been real and primitive. She could have killed them. She could have picked up one of the buffet knives and stuck it into the pair of them.

  If Jo-Ann had organised that party to show everybody that she had Saul Laurenson, and Charlotte hadn't, she had shown them nothing of the kind, because Saul was going in two days' time and he carried no photographs because there was never a girl he hoped to remember. But Jo-Ann had shown Charlotte, all right, what he meant to Charlotte.

  Charlotte had known they were almost certainly having an affair, but seeing them touch had brought the terrifying realisation that she herself loved Saul, hopelessly and completely. She had recognised him that night on the patio, the moment he touched her, before he kissed her. She knew him, and it was his arms she had wanted around her. And the misery every night had nothing to do with Jeremy. It was because Saul always walked past her door.

  The day after tomorrow he would be gone. For quite a while, he'd said, and she'd thought that she couldn't imagine the house without him. But it wasn't just the house. It was her life she couldn't imagine without Saul, and she stared up at the moon, big and round and yellow as a runaway balloon, and felt like the only living soul in a world of emptiness.

  She hadn't a clue what she could do. She hadn't time to do much, and even if she had how could she even start? She couldn't say, 'I love you,' because that wasn't a word in his vocabulary, and she had been saying it to Jeremy only last week. 'I love you,' instead of goodbye on the telephone, and that was all it had meant then, just, 'Cheerio.' Now it meant that she wanted to follow Saul to the ends of the earth, that she would never want another man. That she ached for him and would die for him.

  She sat for a long time. She could have stayed there all night, but it wouldn't be any easier in the morning, and at last she got stiffly to her feet and began to walk back. Saul might not be home. He might have stayed at Jo-Ann's. And if he was at home, and still up, what could she say to him?

  She would get a night's sleep, what was left of it, and tomorrow she would say, 'This is your last day. Let's spend your last day here together,' and she would try to make him remember her. He didn't carry photographs, but somehow she would strive to fix her image in his mind because it mattered so desperately that he should not forget her.

  She was in pieces, as shaken up as though she had been caught in a hurricane and tossed to the four winds. She would crawl into bed, Georgy would be glad to see her, and lie there until morning, and perhaps by morning she would be whole.

  She had a front door key on her key ring in the pocket of her jeans, and she let herself in very quietly. Even so the dogs began barking in the kitchen. Georgy's yap was not among them, so either he was lying low or Aunt Lucy had put him in Charlotte's room before she went to bed herself.

  The party at Jo-Ann's should be over by now, unless it was lasting all night. And Charlotte hoped it was lasting because, if everyone started leaving, she couldn't see Jo-Ann neglec
ting to offer Saul a bed for the night.

  She thought, I'll go round in the morning. I left my car there. If Saul isn't back for breakfast I'll be at Jo-Ann's and I'll get him away. I'll think up something to do with the house, the business—something.

  But when he strolled out of the drawing room into the hall her wits deserted her. It was light as day in here, the full moon streaming in. She could see him clear as clear, and the sight of him sent her mind reeling.

  'Where have you been?' he asked and she started to chatter.

  'Would you believe, sitting on top of a hill looking at the harvest moon? Or is it the hunters' moon? Which comes first, harvest or hunter? As a country girl I should surely know. Lovely party, wasn't it?'

  She was backing towards the stairs, she was going to run upstairs because she couldn't face him tonight. Everything had been too much. Tonight she would just make a fool of herself.

  He said, 'Charlotte,' harshly, and she froze. He looked grim as death, and she remembered that other time and whispered, 'What's happened?'

  He walked back into the drawing room. The dogs had stopped barking, recognising her step and her voice. She followed him, and in here it was all grey and silver. 'What's the matter?' she was still whispering, and when Saul closed the door she sat down on the big sofa because her legs gave way.

  He said, and his voice was still harsh, 'I'll tell you what's the matter. I'm in love with you and it's killing me.'

  She hardly knew his face. She had never seen him anything but confident and in control. This was another man, and she held out her arms and said, 'Come here,' and he came, kneeling beside her, and she cradled his head against her breast. 'Oh, my love,' she whispered, 'my love.'

  He raised his face, his lips twisted in what could have passed for a smile. 'The difficulty is,' he said, 'that I mean it. And as you keep reminding me, it's time my luck ran out. Most things have been a game up to now, and I've never been scared of losing because nothing mattered that much. The first thing in my life that really mattered is getting you to marry me.'

  She choked, 'Marry you? You said you didn't want a wife.'

  'I didn't.' He got up from kneeling beside her to sitting beside her,' almost glaring at her. 'If I hadn't met you I never would have married. But I want you wearing my ring, and any children you have I want to be mine.'

  She said, 'Oh!' and then, 'Don't tell me it was the photograph my father showed you.'

  'It had nothing to do with your photograph. I took your photograph from the office at the shop and that goes wherever I go, but when we were looking around those houses and I came up into that bedroom, and you were standing there and I startled you and you stumbled against me—I don't know,' he gestured helplessly, 'I suddenly wished we'd been looking around together. Just the two of us, looking for a home. That had never happened to me before. And soon afterwards the car smash, and I could have lost you before we'd even had time to get to know each other.'

  Charlotte hardly moved. She listened and thought, Yes, yes…

  He said huskily, 'I could have torn those roses he sent you to pieces. I could have killed him when you were in his bed. And every time you spoke to him on the phone you said, "I love you," and God, how I hated him!'

  'I wasn't sleeping with Jeremy that night,' she said. 'And what there was between us is over.'

  'Yes.'

  'Did you see him in the Stage Door?'

  'I saw he saw us in the Stage Door,' said Saul with a certain satisfaction, 'which was why we were in the Stage Door. To make sure he got the message. The night I was waiting for you on the patio I'd warned him that if he didn't keep away from you I'd finish him.'

  'You didn't! You couldn't,' she said, and she knew that he could, just as Jeremy had decided he couldn't afford to tangle with Saul.

  'I'm not a naturally jealous man,' said Saul hastily, 'so don't let that worry you. If you married me I'd trust you. It's the not being sure that's hell, and not knowing what to do about it because this could be when my luck runs out. Jealousy can cut you apart. Watching you dancing tonight, then going off with some man. I've been sitting here for hours, waiting for you to come back.'

  'What about Jo-Ann?' she asked. 'You've been going around with her, haven't you?'

  'Would you care?' He sounded surprised and hopeful. 'As a matter of fact I haven't, although I've bumped into her more than once. And she asked me to this surprise birthday tonight.' He started to stand up. 'I've a present for you,' and she caught his hand.

  'I do know what jealousy is,' she told him. 'It's seeing Jo-Ann hanging on to you and not being able to walk over and smile because you'd rather have my hand on. your arm.' Her fingers tightened and Saul sat down again, cupping her face in his hands and staring into her eyes as though he would read her soul, then he said huskily, 'I'm burning up for you.'

  'I know something about that too,' she said. 'I never locked my door. We could have put sleeping pills in Aunt Lucy's cocoa, anyhow she's a sound sleeper until seven o'clock in the morning.'

  He smiled, his eyes as dark as the darkest night, and Charlotte said tremulously, 'I'm not joking, really. I didn't know what to do because I do love you. Not like Jeremy. Nothing like that. Nothing like anything that ever happened to me before.'

  He moved away from her, but only for a moment, and put a flat jewel case on her lap, and before she opened it she knew it was the aquamarine collar. Her throat was so choked up that she could only make little cries of gratitude, and Saul closed the case again and put it down on the carpet. Then he sat beside her and took her in his arms, pressing her back into the soft cushions of the long sofa.

  As he began to caress her, and desire rose in her, the words came. 'Oh, I want you to love me. I didn't know what I was going to do when you went away. I was alone on top of that hill watching the moon and wondering how I could make you remember me because—'

  His mouth came down on hers, then he raised his head with a laugh that was half a groan. 'For God's sake, hold your tongue and let me love.'

  'John Donne,' she cried.

  'Clever girl!'

  'Oh yes.' She was starving for him, her heart was beating so hard that it sounded like drums in her ears. 'I must be clever to have got you.'

  'Hush,' he said, 'hush,' and for a long time their togetherness was deep and tender and savagely sublimely passionate, with no need at all of words.