‘A maiden’s dream?’
‘Nightmare. We had an affair years ago when we were still students, but then I got cold feet and sheered off, and he’s never quite managed to forgive and forget. He has this fixation that I’m playing some long-running game of hard to get.’
‘And are you?’
‘No – single eccentric female, that’s me. S.E.F. I’ve even got a cat.’
‘Oh?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Does that make me an S.E.M.? I haven’t got a cat,’ he added.
‘No, it makes you a W.O.B.: Weird Old Bachelor.’
‘Thanks. And maybe I am mad, at that, standing here in the rain discussing abbreviations when we could get into this bus shelter until it goes off and we can go home.’
I hadn’t realized we’d stopped moving, or that it had started raining again. ‘You can go home any time you like,’ I assured him, but I did let him pull me into the dark, sheep-smelling hut while the rain pattered down outside like footsteps . . .
There were footsteps.
Chapter 22
Stoned
Without further ceremony I dragged Nye into the darkest corner and he came unresisting: women probably do that sort of thing all the time.
When I shivered he put his arm around me and drew me into him, in a friendly sort of way. I was starting to feel as if I’d known him a long time, like Mu.
Well, almost. And it was nice to lean on something warm and bigger than myself, because it was a bit chilly and my legs still felt sort of detached from me . . .
‘It must have been the non-alcoholic punch,’ I muttered. ‘Did you have the punch?’
‘No.’
‘There you are then – I don’t get drunk, because I have great self-control,’ I assured him. ‘So someone spiked the punch. Probably one of those pure alcohols that make you go blind.’
‘Wha—’ he began.
But I slapped my hand over his mouth and hissed: ‘Shh!’
Footsteps approached, paused, then faded back towards the village centre, and I slowly removed my hand from Nye’s mouth, but not before he’d kissed the palm of it.
He pulled me to him and pleaded huskily, ‘One last kiss before the bus parts us for ever, Blodwen!’
‘You’re an idiot,’ I told him, grinning, and then he did kiss me in a light and friendly way that took a sudden turn of direction and went on a bit.
A lot, actually: this was a man who could kiss for England. When our lips finally and reluctantly parted I didn’t move, just stared at what I could see of him: one big, shadowy shape – and I thought: it’s true what they say, all cats are the same in the dark.
His being blond, handsome, short-tempered and possibly a murderer sort of paled into insignificance after that kiss. I’ve never felt so little, weak and light-headed – though maybe that was the punch?
‘Let’s try that again,’ he said softly, suiting the action to the words.
‘Resistance is useless!’ bleated a Dalek voice in my head. ‘Resistance is useless,’ I agreed during a later pause for breath, but some of my brain cells had woken from their coma and had begun to send messages: Sappho, you’re in a bus shelter snogging a strange – very strange – man, who’s both bigger and stronger than you.
And another thing – it had suddenly gone very, very dark.
I pushed myself away (about a quarter of an inch) and said urgently: ‘I’ve gone blind. Have you gone blind too?’
‘Blind? No, of course not.’ He relaxed his arms a bit, and I could feel my lungs going in and out like a pair of relieved bellows. ‘Why should I be blind?’
‘There was something in that punch.’
‘I didn’t drink it, and you’re not blind, it’s just dark in here. Look at the doorway, where the streetlight shines in.’
I had to open my eyes to do that, which is when I finally acknowledged that I was absolutely ratted. Let’s face it, anyone who doesn’t realize she’s got her eyes shut is drunk in charge of her legs, and her brain is operating on Impulse Drive only.
What she needs to clear her head is fresh air and a brisk night walk over a deserted stretch of moorland to an ancient hilltop grave. She needs the willpower to overcome her baser instincts, which are telling her she’s got a two-handed grip on something mind-blowingly attractive, and set out.
Self-control.
‘Excuse me,’ I said politely, pushing off from an expanse of chest like a muscular spring board and aiming at the door.
I must have taken him by surprise, because I was off the road and halfway up the track to the cromlech before he caught up with me, and when I turned and ordered him to go away he just stood there looking stubborn with his arms crossed, and the moonlight making his eyes and hair glimmer in an unsettling way.
No wonder Dragonslayer set poor Nala on end, following her through the dark forests!
But now I knew he only looked spectral – he was solid and warm enough to the touch: hot and hard, even. And stubborn. So I gave it up and continued following the broad grassy path up to the tomb, which has the rare distinction of not being anything to do with King Arthur. Going by the number of Arthur’s Stones he must have been shredded and scattered to the four winds.
My head had cleared, and so had the rain, leaving a half-moon and twinkling stars. I felt good. Hitching my skirts up, I climbed on to the huge flat stone.
‘Nala stood at the Place of Stones, and defied the Forces of Darkness to touch her in her invincibility . . .!’ I exclaimed, feeling inspired and wishing I had my little recorder with me.
Twirling quickly to drink in the stars made my head suddenly swim and my knees buckle, and as something huge and dark came up to meet me I thought: this is it! I’m on the brink . . . falling . . . falling . . .
Then Nye’s strong arms swept me up and deposited me without ceremony on to the damp slab of stone, though I clung to him when he would have let me go, because otherwise I would have carried on falling, through the rock, and the bones and the soil and the worms and the . . .
‘Now will you go home?’ he said, sounding so exasperated that I tried to explain why he had to hold me, and not let me fall into the Abyss, like Raarg, but he obviously didn’t grasp the idea until I kissed him. Maybe kissing was his first language?
I forgot where and when and why after that, and it was just us, cocooned in a warm private world of our own. Everything else ceased to exist, and we ended up lying entwined on the stone, though I’m not sure who was the sacrifice.
Probably Nye, because I think he would have drawn back at one point except I wouldn’t let him. Never mind true unions of the soul: half a loaf is a lot better than none.
That was one hot rock. It was also an uncomfortable rock after a while, even if Nye by then was cushioning most of it for me, and a chill wind was taking advantage of my extremities.
‘So you’re not a pansy potter?’ I said into his ear.
‘So Lili lied, and you’re not gay?’ he returned.
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But I am celibate.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’
‘Was,’ I qualified. ‘Will be,’ I added, after another minute’s thought. ‘This is just a small aberration caused by spiked alcohol. I don’t like blond men – especially bad-tempered ones.’
He propped himself up and glared at me. ‘So you said earlier – and not only am I not bad-tempered, I refuse to be a small aberration! And – it was all right, Sappho, wasn’t it? I did ask you before I—’
‘It was fine,’ I interrupted hastily. Typical male, worrying about his performance! Did he want a score card? ‘And I don’t know what you’re so cross about – you probably sleep with a different woman every night of the week . . . except poor Lili.’
‘I’ll have you know I haven’t been with a woman since Eloise left me – probably why I was so desperate I let you seduce me tonight on this damned uncomfortable rock!’
‘I seduced you—’ I began indignantly, and then stopped because it was all too true. ‘Well, I’ll
have you know that I haven’t been with anyone for years, and that punch mustn’t have been spiked but poisoned to make me want to get anywhere near such a bossy, opinionated, conceited – oh, words fail me!’
He smiled unnervingly: ‘Then one good thing at least is that if neither of us has been putting it about then we won’t have exchanged any interesting diseases.’
I stiffened. It had been so long, and the Fall so sudden, that the practical aspects had escaped me entirely, along with my much-vaunted self-control.
‘You may think I’m conceited,’ he added coldly, ‘but I don’t walk around with a pocketful of condoms, even if you’d given me time to use one. But I did ask you if it was all right.’
‘Yes, and – oh!’ The penny dropped: I’d just had unprotected sex with a stranger . . . and while that might have been what I’d been vaguely contemplating at some point, not this stranger. ‘And you aren’t even what I’m looking for!’ I told him bitterly.
‘What are you looking for, Sappho?’
‘Someone tall, dark, attractive and not living on my doorstep.’
‘But you just ran from someone tall, dark and attractive,’ he pointed out.
‘I didn’t run away; it was a strategic withdrawal. And he’s tall, dark, attractive and insanely jealous. But you’re right about tonight – if neither of us has been around there’s no harm done, is there? Now, if you’d just like to get off me, I’m going home.’
And write and write before I forgot all this . . . if it’s possible to forget, although some aspects were already pretty hazy to me, like how we actually ended up lying on the rock together in the first place. What happened next is permanently engraved on my back like a sort of lewd Rosetta Stone, though I’d need a mirror to read it.
Nye shifted his weight a little. ‘You’ll have to let go of me first,’ he pointed out mildly, which was when I realized I was still clasping his broad, muscular, warm back with both hands.
Our lips were about two centimetres apart and closing fast when a faint, wind-borne voice exclaimed in foreign-accented delight: ‘See how right to be visitink the stone in the moonlight! How fascinatink to see these old fertility rituals.’
‘Ja,’ chimed in a second person. ‘As the moon rises, so is he risink and—’
We froze.
‘Oh my God!’ Nye hissed. ‘It’s Ceri’s “Mystic Celtic Midnight Tour” – and they’re coming this way!’
As one we rolled off the rock, hastily adjusted our somewhat damp and dishevelled clothing, and set off down the hill away from the voices.
Fortunately this was towards Aces Acre, since I didn’t fancy parading through the village in my present state, even in the dead of night, though I’m not sure Nye felt the same way. He was laughing so much I would have left him behind had he not taken a firm grip of my hand.
I’m sure Dragonslayer wouldn’t have laughed at this point: he has too much dignity.
Sobriety set in, and horror at my sudden lapse from well-ordered self-control: I’d taken not just a jump but a leap in the dark, and the sooner I got home and exorcised it on to paper the better.
‘Hey,’ Nye said, ‘slow down. It might have been worse – they could have been a few minutes earlier and spoiled something very special.’
‘Huh!’ I said inelegantly, wresting my hand away and making for the gap in the wall that led down into my lane.
Mind you, just imagine if they had been a bit earlier – or later – or if Dave had caught us up there. It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘It’s all right, you don’t have to pretend it meant anything to you, Nye. It was good, it’s over. My house is just here, so thank you and goodnight.’
‘Sappho,’ he said, the laughter gone out of his voice. ‘Sappho, come back!’
But I made off down the lane, the slick mud under my bare feet reminding me of the day I’d first seen Nye in his incarnation as the Giant Thing from the Slime Pit.
Then I skidded to a halt and listened, for there was a terrible scream, a banshee of despair that brought the hairs up on the back of my neck – and it was coming from the direction of home.
‘What the hell was that?’ cried Nye, keeping pace with me as I ran round the corner of the barn and stopped dead in my tracks.
In the courtyard before the open door Sphinx lay as still as her namesake, in a pool of spreading dark blood, while Mu lamented and wrung her hands.
What a Lady Macbeth she would have made.
Chapter 23
Well Read
For a moment we stayed still, absolutely transfixed. Then Mu ran forward to kneel on the rain-soaked cobbles in her green silk shift.
I was so glad she’d stopped screaming.
‘Something hit her . . .’ she muttered as I knelt beside her, and examined the fragile skull with sensitive fingers. ‘She sneaked out when I got back, and I’d just picked up the torch to go and look for her when I heard a noise and saw her lying here.’
‘Do you think anything’s broken?’
‘No, but there’s a deep cut . . . all this blood!’
‘She’s breathing all right,’ I said anxiously. Nearby a rock glistened with more than just rain, quite a heavy rock to hit a little cat. ‘We need something to stop the blood and a vet—’
‘I know a good vet who’ll come out,’ Nye broke in, startling Mu, who hadn’t realized he was there. ‘He’s a friend. Where’s your phone?’
Mu took him off, and came back with a clean towel, which she used to staunch the bleeding. ‘It must have been Dave, Sappho – he’s mad enough, and he hates cats. He and Lili were getting on like a house on fire at the party until they found out you and Nye had vanished. I told them it was ridiculous to think you’d gone off together, but . . .’
She stopped and stared at me over Sphinx: ‘But actually you did, didn’t you? I thought you’d simply had enough of the evening’s entertainment, and left.’
‘I did. Nye followed me.’
‘Oh? Well, anyway, Dave dropped Lili like a hot potato and went rampaging off to look for you, and Lili said she’d had enough and she was going to walk home – she borrowed your rain cape. After that I decided to come back to the cottage, expecting to find you here, and Sphinx got out – which I’m terribly sorry about. I should have been more careful.’
Sphinx made a little restless movement as Nye returned. ‘He’ll be here in a few minutes, and he says not to move her.’
‘Good.’
‘So, who do you think tried to brain your cat?’ he asked conversationally. ‘How insanely jealous is this old boy-friend?’
‘Jealous enough,’ Mu assured him. ‘I was just telling Sappho I thought it was him.’
‘But why? I mean, I know he doesn’t like cats, but why should he lob rocks at one?’
‘Why not, if he came here looking for you and found Sphinx instead?’ she said.
‘But it’s hardly likely to endear him to me, is it?’
‘No one ever said he was thinking clearly where you’re concerned. I expect he forgot all about me and the kitten and just convinced himself you were here alone with Nye.’
I rubbed my forehead wearily where a headache was beginning to form, though not a patch on the one poor old Sphinx would have. ‘Come to think of it, he did say he’d put a note through my door last night, so he knows where I live, but it could just as easily have been some local lout’s idea of fun.’
A torch flickered round the corner of the barn and came to rest on our upturned faces. ‘Can this be the vet already?’ Mu said.
‘No, we’d have heard the car,’ Nye answered. ‘It’s Chris.’
It was, too. He halted and said intelligently, ‘Hello, has something happened?’ then spotted Nye and looked knowing. ‘So this is where you got to, Nye?’
‘Someone’s thrown a rock at Sappho’s cat and knocked it out,’ Nye said, ignoring the wealth of innuendo. ‘I don’t suppose you passed anyone on the way here?’
‘No – not a soul. People have been a
ppearing and vanishing all evening, and now Miranda’s gone missing too. I thought I’d see if she was here.’
‘Why would she come here in the middle of the party?’ Mu said reasonably. ‘She probably just went into the garden for a bit of fresh air.’ Her tone suggested she saw through his excuse for nosiness.
He turned back to Nye. ‘She’s been a bit absent-minded and unpredictable lately, and the shock of her dog going missing seems to have played on her mind, and—’ he broke off theatrically and exclaimed, ‘Good God! What if it was Miranda who came here tonight and—’
‘Threw a rock at my cat?’ I finished scornfully. ‘Come off it, she loves animals, and there’s nothing wrong with her except being married to you. I’m going to phone The Hacienda now and I bet she’s been there all the time, which is more than can be said for you.’
‘And here’s the vet,’ Nye said. ‘You go in, Sappho, and we’ll sort Sphinx out.’
With a backward glance at my poor, battered cat I went to phone, and after some delay got Miranda herself. It still sounded exceedingly lively at the party.
‘It’s me – Sappho. Chris is here, and he says he’s looking for you.’
‘For me? I’ve b-been looking for him – there’s no wine left and everyone’s hanging about, so I’ve had to get another case out of the garage myself.’
‘I’ll send him back now. Thanks for the party – but I must dash. The cat’s had an accident and the vet’s here. Oh, and Miranda,’ I added as an afterthought, ‘watch the punch – I think someone’s spiked it.’
‘I know, I found three b-bottles of very strong vodka under the table and everyone who d-drank it is legless. That’s why everyone’s still here – they can’t d-drive home and the taxi’s d-doing relays.’
When I went back outside Sphinx had been carefully stowed in the back of the vet’s white estate car, and he was reassuring.
‘Just concussion, cuts and bruises, I think, but I’ll take an X-ray, and keep her overnight, at least. Ring tomorrow afternoon to see how she is.’
‘That’s going to cost you a packet, calling the vet out at this time of night,’ Chris said as the tail lights vanished into the lane.
A Leap of Faith Page 18
