And now what to do? Rena sat alone in her vehicle, unsure whether to make her way into the building where Ran Logan was alone, perhaps wondering if any of his students would return, or to sit and wait for somebody else to be the first inside.
The decision was made for her when another car swerved into position behind her own and the elegant redhead, whatever her name was, slid from behind the wheel. She, too, didn’t bother to look Rena’s way; instead she headed straight for the lighted doorway of the building, her arms full of folders and writing materials.
It was only too obvious that this woman ... Louise, that was it … had deliberately arrived early in hopes of catching Ran alone. Rena could have kicked herself for the sudden twinge of indisputable jealousy that accompanied that thought.
‘Well, she’s welcome to him,’ she muttered aloud, and for a fleeting instant was within a hair’s breadth of doing what she knew she really ought to do—leave.
Then some inner demon took control, and an instant later she was out of the car and striding determinedly up the narrow stairs to the impromptu classroom, making just enough noise as she climbed the stairs that her arrival couldn’t go unnoticed.
She entered the rear door to the two rooms that formed the classroom, and spoke a subdued ‘Good evening’ that clotted in her throat at the sight of the redhead lounging prettily on the edge of the table behind which Ran was seated.
One long, shapely leg was swinging casually as Louise leaned close to him, obviously interrupted in the process of reading something to him in an intimate voice. What it was, Rena couldn’t have guessed; she hadn’t heard more than a murmur since ascending the staircase.
The redhead shot her a vaguely hostile look, but it was Ran’s voice that broke the sudden silence. ‘Good evening, Rena,’ he said in tones that seemed distinctly welcoming. ‘I’m certainly glad to have salvaged two students for the evening, or are both of you early and we’ve still something to look forward to?’
‘I think we’re both early,’ Rena replied, not bothering to acknowledge the scowl that said, in Louise’s eyes, only one of them was early and that was Rena herself.
Rena found herself wondering if he had greeted Louise by name with the same familiarity he had shown upon Rena’s own arrival. Perhaps not, which might account for the unfriendly look the redhead was still giving her.
Before she could worry much about it, footsteps announced the arrival of yet another student, and within five minutes the full complement of ten had straggled in to take their places.
‘Well, this is certainly encouraging,’ said Ran when the count was made and he had been advised. Then he quickly set up his recording equipment and asked for a second chair to be placed beside his own at the large table.
‘Now we come to the fun part,’ he said with a grin. ‘I know that some of you will be shy at first, but the best way to get over that is to get in first and get it over with. So who’s first?’
It was too quick; too sudden. Looking round the class, Rena found every other student doing exactly the same, each one suddenly beset by the shyness Ran had mentioned.
Ran himself was also surveying the room, swinging his head around almost as if he could see. And his temper was quickly fading, Rena could tell, or was he simply as nervous about this experiment as his students?
Her first instinct was to sit silently and let him sweat it out, but even as that thought occurred to her, she knew she couldn’t be so cruel to a man in Ran’s condition, no matter what justification she might personally feel. A moment later she was on her feet, writing in hand, and moving up to seat herself beside him.
His whispered ‘Thank you, Rena’ was almost conspiratorial, but beneath it she felt an undercurrent of genuine thanks that gladdened her heart and dispelled whatever nervousness she felt.
After she had read her own compositions, the rest of the class were easily convinced to follow suit, and before half an hour had expired, the entire week’s submissions were on tape.
‘See ... didn’t hurt a bit,’ Ran commented. ‘Now comes the part that will — the criticism. I want all of you to feel quite free to comment on the work of any other, or indeed your own—but let’s keep it tidy and constructive. There’s no gain in tearing somebody’s cherished prose apart just for the sake of having something to say.’
And so it began. Ran let everyone have their say about Rena’s writing before commenting himself, and when he did it was mostly to answer questions raised by other class members rather than comment on the work itself.
He did much the same with everyone else’s work, using his knowledge to guide, rather than criticise, to explain rather than rip apart work that had obviously demanded a good deal of effort from most contributors.
Most of the writing, Rena was somewhat surprised to hear, seemed quite good. Not professional, certainly, or why would the would-be writers be attending Ran’s class at all? But very definitely of a higher standard than she would have expected.
It seemed that Ran thought so, too. His general comments when all the submissions had been read were filled with praise for what had been done.
‘It’s a good start. An excellent start, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘If we can all keep up to the pace, you’ll find you accomplish quite a good deal of writing during the eight weeks remaining of this course.’
All the submissions were piled together before him, and as he spoke, he lifted them and shuffled them through his long, slender fingers. Almost like a deck of cards, Rena thought, wondering idly why he had bothered to have the writings left with him in the first place.
She found out a few moments later, in a fashion that shocked her almost as much as it did the rest of the class.
‘You’ll all remember that on our first night I advised you — at least three times — to keep a copy of everything you wrote,’ said Ran, and there was a mischievous smile playing round his mouth as he said it.
Then the grin broadened, became positively devilish. Ran reached into his pocket and pulled forth a dollar note, which he brandished before him in a deceptively casual wave.
‘I’ll give three to one odds that at least one of you didn’t keep a copy of what I have here in front of me,’ he said. ‘And more likely two or three — perhaps even half of you. Any takers?’
He laughed at the gulf of silence that followed his question, then replaced the dollar in his pocket and once again picked up the typescripts from the table.
‘I thought so. Which is certainly going to make next week’s assignment a bit tricky for some of you.’ And without a pause he ripped all the manuscripts to pieces and threw them down again.
Rena’s gasp of astonishment was echoed from around the room, then followed by a deep rumbling of anger from several throats. Most immediately vocal was the redheaded Louise, who was obviously among those who had ignored the advice.
‘I think that was a filthy, rotten trick!’ she cried, rising to her feet as if she intended to rush forward and rescue the shreds of her manuscript. Around her, several others fidgeted in their seats, and the hum of angry mutterings grew louder.
Ran merely grinned at them, outwardly as calm as old John, who had obviously kept a copy of his work and was now regarding the antics of his classmates with growing amusement.
‘A dirty trick? Really, would I play a dirty trick on my favourite students?’ he asked scathingly. He seemed quite oblivious to the aura of hostility that surrounded him.
‘Now for next week, I want you to revise your work,’ he said as if nothing untoward had happened at all. ‘Those who have stories to finish should pay attention to what’s been said today, and those who handed in finished work tonight should rework those same stories, again taking heed of the criticisms.’
‘And how the hell are we supposed to do that when you’ve destroyed the originals?’ Louise demanded petulantly. Her green eyes were blazing with fury and Ran didn’t need his eyesight to recognise her anger.
‘Well, I guess those of you who didn�
�t listen last week will have to pray for good memories,’ he retorted with scorn. ‘I’ll guarantee this much — you’ll damned well remember to keep a copy from now on.’
Rena shuddered at the atmosphere of anger that pervaded the room. It seemed so ... so illogical, somehow. Why build up all their egos and enthusiasm only to tear it all down again by such a blatantly provocative gesture?
Yet she herself didn’t share the anger so evident on half the faces in the class, despite the fact that she was one of the offenders. The thought of rewriting her poetry didn’t upset her at all, and as for the short story, it could surely stand to be reworked in any event.
‘Well, I still don’t think it’s fair,’ declared Louise.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ replied Ran, his face grim. ‘But it’s a lesson that obviously some of you had to learn, and better to learn it this way than by losing an entire book, or something you’ve written that’s really important. Face facts! Things do get lost. The post office loses manuscripts; publishers lose manuscripts; editors lose manuscripts. Hell, I’ve even lost some of my own manuscripts — and that was when I could see.’
He paused, rubbing wearily at his forehead as if his fingers could so easily remove the lines of stress there. And when he spoke again, his voice was softer, less abrasive. ‘Be honest with yourselves; with one possible exception not one of you turned in anything here tonight that wouldn’t have needed rewriting anyway. This way you’ve learned a valuable lesson in the bargain.’
‘And I suppose you’re not going to tell us who the exception is, either,’ snapped the redhead.
‘I wouldn’t have thought I had to,’ Ran replied just as snappily. ‘You all heard the submissions as well as I did.’
Rena found herself involuntarily glancing over to where John sat; certainly his partially-completed short story had been the only submission that she thought might merit such praise. But he merely returned her glance, his pale blue eyes twinkling still with amusement at the encounter between Ran and Louise.
Then, incredibly, it seemed as if the entire class was looking at her, though it was Louise who spoke.
‘And of course you kept a carbon of your poem,’ the redhead crooned, her voice fairly dripping with venom.
Rena looked round, disbelief surging through her. Surely they couldn’t think ... oh, no! she thought. She had to stifle the urge to giggle, so certain was she that the work Ran had mentioned must be John’s story.
‘Aren’t you going to answer her, Rena?’ Ran’s rich voice held sarcastic overtones, but it wasn’t that which sent shivers down Rena’s spine. It was the barely-concealed sensuality of it, the hard-soft, living essence of masculinity which seemed to melt her bones even at that distance.
‘No ... n ... o. No, I didn’t,’ she stammered. It couldn’t be! Surely he was merely making some obscure point to Louise.
‘And of course there’s no question from anyone that it’s Rena’s poem I was referring to?’ His voice sifted through the room, seeming to prick each student individually. To Rena’s astonishment, there wasn’t a single dissenting voice.
‘And tell us please, Rena, why you didn’t keep a carbon,’ Ran continued, his voice like silk-smooth steel. ‘And also, perhaps, why you haven’t been screaming bloody blue murder at my destruction of your work.’
‘I just never thought of it,’ she replied. ‘I’ve ... never bothered in the past. And for the rest, well, I can always rewrite it; it wasn’t all that good in the first place.’
‘Therein lies that rarest of creatures, an honest woman,’ Ran barked. ‘If I hadn’t been able to hear it with my own ears I don’t think I would have believed it.’
Then his voice softened, became almost caressing.
‘And do you think you’ll remember to keep a carbon, or some sort of copy, from now on?’ he asked, and despite the reflective glasses and the knowledge of his blindness, she felt his eyes upon her.
‘Well, I shall obviously have to if you’re going to make a habit of tearing things up,’ she snapped, temper frayed and touchy at having been made the centre of attention. Her sharpness brought a chuckle from old John and murmurs of approval from several others in the class, but Ran didn’t so much as smile.
‘I would hope that I never get into the habit of destroying beautiful things,’ he said quite soberly. ‘But for the benefit of the rest of you, I might also point out that I’d bet any amount of money Rena could rewrite that poem entirely from memory without the slightest difficulty; I very much doubt if most of you will find it that easy with your submissions.’
‘Well then, why should it be so easy for her?’ Louise, the ever-angry redhead again.
‘Because, dear Louise, Rena has already rewritten that poem, I’d guess, at least a dozen times,’ replied Ran. ‘Either that or she’s far too brilliant to be here in the first place.’ Then he smiled, and it was like a ray of sunshine in the room. ‘Maybe both, for all I know,’ he said. ‘Certainly I’d have to think her reasons for being here involve marketing more than writing itself, assuming she’s been entirely truthful in saying she’s never sold any of her poetry.’
CHAPTER FOUR
He knew! Rena shrunk into her seat, unable to force herself to look up and face his blank, accusing stare.
He knew! He must know, she thought, to have made a comment like that — so close to the mark. She closed her eyes briefly, certain that not only was Ran accusing her, but that everyone else must also be aware.
‘Mind you, perhaps I malign the poor girl; I probably do,’ he said then, and Rena’s eyes flashed open in bewildered wonder.
Ran was rubbing at his forehead, where deep creases revealed a tremendous strain. Headache? Rena sucked in a deep breath at his frown of pain. But when he spoke, his voice was steady enough.
‘In fact, I’m sure I do,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘It’s just that I once knew a girl who made part of her living from poetry that was somewhat similar to that. Not quite as good, I fancy, but somewhat similar.’ He shook his head, a lock of dark hair falling unnoticed down across his brow.
‘Sorry, Rena. I think I ... sort of let my mind wander a bit there,’ he said. And again he shook his head, almost as if there was something annoying him, nagging at him.
‘Anyway, that’s enough for tonight if you all don’t mind,’ he said. ‘You’ve got your work cut out for the week ahead, and I’m looking forward to seeing what next Wednesday brings.’
Louise’s angry, long-legged stride set the pace for the rest of the departing class, although Rena was pleased to see that virtually everyone paused long enough to bid Ran goodnight.
She herself hung back, watching him. He was in pain, she suddenly realised, and without another thought she stepped hurriedly towards him.
‘Are you all right?’ The concern in her voice must have been obvious, but Ran seemingly chose to ignore it.
‘Of course I’m all right,’ he replied almost angrily. ‘Except for the fact that I can’t see, and there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about that.’
‘You’re lying and you know it,’ she replied with anger in her own voice. ‘You may be blind, but I’m certainly not, and you’ve either been in very great pain or you do a marvellous imitation of it for a man who can’t see.’
‘Don’t shout. I may be blind but I’m not deaf,’ he countered. ‘All I’ve got is a bit of a headache; I’ve had worse and it’ll pass.’
‘I think I’ve got some tablets in my bag,’ said Rena. But even before she could get the handbag open he was waving off her intended gesture.
‘Forget it! Pills don’t help at all,’ he growled. And then, with truly vicious bitterness, ‘It’s just my eyes trying to get control of themselves again — or that’s what the quacks keep telling me, anyway. As if they knew anything about it!’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Rena said. ‘Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but ...’
‘According to the bloody doctors I’m not blind at all — ex
cept in my head,’ he snapped. ‘It’s called psychosomatic blindness. I’m not blind; I’m crazy.’
Rena gasped. She couldn’t help it. Indeed, she could hardly believe her ears. Randall Logan — perhaps the strongest, most self-assured person she’d ever met — and here he was saying his blindness was purely psychosomatic? That he was crazy?
‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, I’m sorry ... I ... I didn’t realise.’
‘There’s nothing to be damned well sorry about; it’s nothing to do with you,’ he snapped, surly now, like a hurt animal wanting only to be left alone. ‘And for God’s sake don’t go getting all ducky, or broody, or whatever it is women get when they’re confronted with something like this; it doesn’t help and it annoys hell out of me.’
‘I have no intention of being ducky ... or broody.’ Rena replied almost as hotly. Her own anger, she realised, was purely defensive, solely to keep her from revealing her true feelings. ‘From the sound of things, you’re getting quite enough sympathy from yourself, without me adding any.’
‘Sympathy? Hah!’ His snort of derision was a gesture both haughty and defiant. ‘This isn’t sympathy, dear Rena, it’s plain, ordinary, old-fashioned anger.’
‘And remarkably ineffectual as well, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ she replied. ‘Being angry with the doctors isn’t going to help you very much. I’m sure they’re doing all they—’
‘I am not angry with the doctors,’ he interrupted, his voice icy cold, grave cold. ‘I am angry with myself. Because much as I detest the thought, I rather think the doctors might be right. And if it is all in my head, then I ought to be able to do something about it. Only I can’t, it seems.’
Once again he reached up to brush a hand across his forehead, almost as if he were trying to clear away cobwebs from before his eyes. Rena shivered at the implications.
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