Flood Tide

by Stella Whitelaw

  “I did enjoy myself,” she said, scraping out the last of a cream dip with a broken crisp. “We ought to have more parties. What a pity you don’t get on with that handsome Ewart Morgan.”

  “I feel nothing but distaste for him.”

  “That’s a pretty skirt you’re wearing.”

  “My sitting-room curtains.”

  “I’m sure Ewart Morgan noticed.”

  “He wouldn’t notice if I was wearing an ex-army bell tent,” said Reah stonily.

  Reah left Miss Hardcastle sitting by the fire with a tray of tea, the clearing up finished and her flat ship-shape. She felt exhausted. She retrieved her bicycle and began to push it down the drive.

  A tall man came out of the shadows; Reah was too worn out to be alarmed.

  “I’ll take you home,” said Ewart. “You can’t ride a bike in that skirt.”

  He bent nearer and sniffed. “And you’ve had too much sherry.”

  “Gallons,” said Reah.

  “Don’t exaggerate. The car’s at the end of the drive. Leave your bike in the shrubs.”

  He grasped her hand. She felt drained of emotion. The Alfa Romeo was at the entrance to the drive. Ewart had taken the nurses back to the hospital then returned for Reah.

  “So the Contessa is back,” she said. “I hope the menu has improved.” She could hardly trust herself to speak.

  “The Contessa? Here, in my chaotic cottage? You over-estimate my appeal, dear girl. I doubt if that aristocratic lady would come within sniffing distance.”

  He jerked her chin up. “Nor would she care to leave the many children and grand-children who inhabit her villa outside Florence in droves.”

  “Grand-children?”

  “The Contessa Bianca Bernini is one of those wonderfully preserved Italian women who look forty but must be at least sixty. She is still beautiful and youthful. And she is something of a heroine. During the flood disaster she drove from the villa every day with her car full of food from her kitchen and produce from her gardens and set up free feeding points. Her sheets were torn up for nappies; she gave away every blanket she possessed. When the restoration work began, she and her children came every day, armed with blotting paper and talcum powder and worked painstakingly on the muddied lumps that were rare manuscripts and books.”

  Reah’s thoughts spun as she re-adjusted this new information.

  “But Milan?” she asked.

  “Another hero. The Contessa heard that this man, an ordinary shopkeeper, now old and retired, was visiting Milan just for the day. She phoned me and I went immediately to see him.”

  “When I saw the car… I thought that…”

  “The car is mine. The Contessa was in financial difficulties and I offered to buy the car from her. A simple transaction.”

  Relief flooded through Reah making her dizzy. It was Ewart’s car. The Contessa was not some man-eating Italian beauty, but a silver-haired grandmother tearing up sheets for nappies. Reah was ashamed of the thoughts that had become twisted and bitter in her mind.

  “How could she bear to part with it?” said Reah in a low voice.

  “Her late husband was a collector of vintage cars,” Ewart grinned. “There are another four in the garage.”

  He drove the big car carefully through the narrow lanes, its headlamps lighting up ghostly trees and hedgerows. He stopped near her cottage and switched off the engine. He turned to her, his arm casually along the back of the seat.

  “Do I get a cup of coffee?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Reah hurried ahead, Ewart close on her heels. He caught sight of the flame-coloured tapestry material piled on the floor.

  “Going in for mass production?” he asked pleasantly.

  “My new curtains,” said Reah, bundling up the material.

  “Do you often go to parties wearing your curtains?”

  “Frequently. It gives me a sense of continuity.” She made some coffee and opened a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits, taking it through to the sitting room on a tray. Ewart was sitting in her father’s armchair. It was the first time she had felt comfortable about seeing someone else in it.

  “The way to a man’s heart,” said Ewart, helping himself to a biscuit. “Tell me, Reah, since we haven’t fought for at least ten minutes, what is the way to a woman’s heart?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Reah, stirring her coffee.

  “Many things…humour, kindness, compassion, sensitivity, concern. It’s two contradictions—strength and gentleness. A man must be both strong and gentle.”

  He had lit the fire while she was in the kitchen, and it was beginning to throw out a rosy glow. “Sit by me,” he said, indicating the sheepskin rug in front of the fire. “It’s the warmest place.”

  “I always used to sit like this with my father.” She leaned against his knees. It seemed the most natural thing to do. He moved his legs so that she would be more comfortable.

  “Perhaps you’d also like to tell me now why you look at me with such fear in your eyes?”

  The question exploded in the quiet room like a bomb shell. Reah caught her breath. It was so unexpected.

  She hung her head, her escaping hair hiding her face in the firelight.

  “Don’t ask me that,” she said.

  “But I must,” he insisted. “I must know why you are afraid of me.”

  She stared into the flickering flames, the horror of that night returning with force. She could see crashing waves in the tongues of fire, hear voices shouting over the screaming wind.

  “I am not afraid of you,” she said carefully. “But I am afraid for you.”

  “Why?”

  She took a deep breath. She had never told anyone before, never put the nightmare into words.

  “I keep having this dream, this nightmare,” she said, hardly audible. “It is the day of my father’s death. He has put to sea in the Reah, his new boat. The squall blows up suddenly and the seas are mountainous, tossing the boats about like toys. I feel the weight of water crashing over my head as if I am in the sea too, and icy coldness paralysing my limbs. The waves are huge, black, racing towards me like monsters.

  “Then I see a man in the water, quite near me. It’s a younger man, not my father at all. He looks at me with a startled, troubled look as if he does not know why he is there or has lost the thread of something. Then a huge and tumultuous mountain of seas comes crashing down on his head, completely obliterating him, and I see him being sucked under, drowning, and I feel as if I am suffocating with the man as he drowns …”

  Her face was wet with tears. He lifted her off the rug and cradled her in his arms. He held her closely, his lips against her hair.

  She shut her eyes and lay against him, aware of the warmth and hardness of his body and the tangy scent of his skin.

  “And the man in the sea is me?”

  “Yes. Always.”

  “And you didn’t know me? Had never seen me before?”

  “When we met at the foot of the stairs on the last day of the summer term, I recognised you as the man in my dream. It was the most shattering experience: to discover that you really existed, that you were a living person, not just a face that I imagined in a dream.”

  “There must be an explanation,” said Ewart. “I don’t believe in premonitions. Perhaps you had seen my photograph in a magazine or newspaper?”

  “I don’t know,” said Reah wearily. “I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  He stroked her hair as she lay against him.

  “Tell me about the day that your father died. Tell me what you did.”

  “It was a Friday in February. A grey day with an overcast sky but no wind. My father sailed in all weathers but he had not planned to go out that day. I went to college as usual. I remember reminding him about the week-end shopping. He teased me, saying that as there was nothing left in the housekeeping; he would have to go fishing for our supper.”

  Her voice dropped. “I’ll neve
r know if he went fishing or not. They never found the Reah. A squall blew up in the afternoon, all along this stretch of the coast from Eastbourne to Shoreham. There was a lot of small shipping in difficulties. Then I learned that my father had gone out and hadn’t returned.

  “I stood on the cliffs looking at the pounding seas and I knew in my heart that he would not return. But I kept on hoping. He was such an experienced sailor. He’d sailed in storms before and across the Atlantic. Eventually I came back to the cottage and waited.”

  “What did you do while you were here?”

  Reah made a short, strangled sound. “Heavens, I’ve no idea. I suppose I made a cup of tea. I put the television on, hoping there might be some news. Then someone from the lifeboat station phoned to say that another boat had seen the Reah suddenly overturned by an enormous wave. It was tossed into the air like a piece of flotsam. When they looked again, for they were hard pressed to keep themselves afloat, the Reah had gone.”

  Reah shuddered at the painful memory and Ewart’s arms tightened round her. She was staring into the fire.

  “I don’t know how long I sat here, unbelieving. The next I knew it was sometime in the middle of the night. The television was a flickering blank screen, the fire had gone out, and I was so stiff with cold I could hardly move.”

  “Then you began to have this dream?”

  “I dragged myself upstairs to bed but I didn’t sleep much. This dream kept coming over and over again…it was terrible.”

  Reah buried her face in her hands to shut away the haunting pictures. At first she did not even hear Ewart’s voice urgently asking a question.

  “Reah, tell me the date of that Friday. When was it?” He had a slim diary in his hand. “Was it the sixth of February?”

  Reah looked at him wonderingly through her tears and nodded.

  “Listen, Reah. On the sixth of February this year, I did a live interview on television. You say you sat watching television that evening. You were in a state of shock so it’s not surprising that you don’t remember what you saw. It was my first appearance, and very unnerving. But what I do remember,” Ewart went on, “is that the programme was interrupted a couple of times with news flashes about the seas battering the south coast and the lifeboats putting out to search for a famous yachtsman.

  “The news flashes took us by surprise. We were completely thrown. That startled face you saw, as if I had lost the thread of something, was me all right.”

  He gripped her arm firmly. “Don’t you see, Reah? That dream of yours is not wholly a dream. It’s what you saw unconsciously on television that evening, as you sat here shocked and alone. You saw news shots of the turbulent seas, then me caught off guard in the studio, and somehow the two pictures have been spliced into one. That’s how your dream began. It’s no premonition, my darling, merely a television fantasy, a trick of the screen.”

  Reah longed to believe Ewart’s explanation. If only this was true, then the terror would fade. His face was close to her, his arms strong, his eyes gentle; it was a moment of sweet comfort.

  “You mean, my memory cells stored the television scenes in my brain, but somehow got them all mixed up,” she said with a slow, tremulous smile.

  “It sounds odd but shock can play strange tricks. I could get the recording of the programme…”

  “No,” said Reah quickly. “I couldn’t bear to see it. I prefer to believe you.”

  Her head was in the crook of his shoulder as a deep ache pulsed strongly through her veins. It was a feeling that almost deprived her of her senses. She felt heady with an overwhelming relief and love for Ewart. To know that there was a reasonable explanation for her dream, to know that he was not responsible for the way she had been treated by his agent…she could feel her love for Ewart growing with every heartbeat.

  He led her upstairs, their arms entwined. With gentle fingers he took off the tapestry skirt and antique blouse and wrapped her shaking body in a cotton robe. He carried her to the bed and Reah clung to him, not wanting to let him go. He took off his jacket and shirt, lay down beside her and she crawled into the warmth of his arms.

  His mouth travelled down her satiny skin, tasting the sweetness, feeling the smooth flesh, sending flames of desire through her slim body. She was tired, so tired but the desire was stronger. She moaned as his mouth moved against her lips, his tongue touching the inner softness, drawing her closer till she could hardly breathe.

  He tangled his fingers in her dishevelled hair, gathering her against him with desperate urgency. Her body cried out for his touch, and as if he heard, his fingers began a sweet exploration of her softly swelling breast. It was a moment of ecstasy. Reah arched herself against his hand, amazed at the response surging through her body.

  She whispered his name as he stroked this throbbing curve, slowly rising to the hardening tip. Her last barriers were crumbling, longing for more of the delight he was bringing to her burning flesh.

  He covered her body with his own and she could feel his desire growing. It seemed she was floating in a sensation so erotic that she wondered if this, too, was all a dream. The brush of the soft hair on his chest sent her nerves tingling; she longed to bury her face in its dark curls. His bare skin drew her fingers as she began her own tentative voyage. She heard him groan as the unexpected touch triggered a powerful surge of emotion in his loins.

  His face moved down her shoulders, mouthing the skin with gentle kisses as if he were tasting her. He reached her breasts and found her rising to meet his mouth. As his tongue circled her nipple, she gasped aloud. An electric shock ran through her body, both delighting and terrifying her with its strength.

  They were crushing each other, aflame with the heat of this growing, unstoppable passion. Their minds were linked into an enveloping desire to merge, to become one, wanting to belong.

  Her body began to tremble as his movements quickened, becoming expert and probing. Her breath was a sob as she fought to control her mounting feelings. His marvellous body was silhouetted for a moment, like a Florentine statue…he was her David…his masculine beauty a further joy to her overwhelmed senses.

  There was no more time for thoughts beyond the compelling movements which convulsed through her.

  She lifted her body towards him and he took her with a swift, sweet gentleness that almost shocked her with its suddenness.

  Waves of pleasure rippled along every nerve, growing, surging, till Reah felt she would die with the unbearable urgency. Her whole body was out of control. She did not know where she was in the darkness, what she was doing, only that a deep, primitive need wanted fulfillment.

  She twisted and turned, moaning, crying his name, her cheeks wet with tears. His nails gripped into her flesh but she felt no pain. His breath was hot and gasping against her mouth, seeking to bring them together to the point of no return.

  Suddenly a deep shuddering groan stabbed his body. Reah felt a second of despair, of panic, but her own fiery pinnacle was not far behind. It, too, took her by surprise as the surging exploded and waves of release flooded into every limb, taking her through a plunging universe that spun with shooting stars.

  Chapter Nine

  The pillow beside her was empty. Ewart had gone. At some time in the early hours he slipped away, not wanting to compromise her in a small community. The Alfa Romeo was too conspicuous to be left outside her cottage.

  She stretched her arms and legs, a long luxuriant movement that made her limbs tingle. A great burden was lifted from her mind. Ewart had broken the nightmare into bearable images.

  And Reah had wept for the first time in months. She had cried in his arms and he had not tried to stop her, letting the tears wash away some of the pain.

  Her thoughts lingered on their lovemaking. It had been a revelation, sheer joy, their two bodies in perfect harmony. He had not said he loved her and yet every kiss, every touch seemed to convey that message. His aggressiveness had gone, arrogance disappeared; he had treated her as a beautiful and desirable w
oman.

  In Florence Ewart had taken care of her as he promised Miss Hardcastle. She wanted to believe that this meant something. Her heart lifted.

  Retrieving the shawl after her evening at the disco had been touched with moments of sheer magic, dancing with him on the deserted disco floor wearing his socks.

  Reah remembered his strong hands gripping her, his passionate kisses. His cruelty had been in words, clever lines, products of his fertile and active imagination.

  “But you’re not going to rule my life, Ewart Morgan,” she said aloud. “I’m not that meek.”

  She longed to see him again, to be part of his life. They could work together. She sighed at her fanciful dreams, knowing that she did not belong to his world.

  When the roses came to the door, Reah was immediately transported back to the flower market in Florence. They were yellow roses, of course. Ewart had not forgotten. There was a card with the roses. It said: “Thank you for the coffee. I could become addicted.”

  Reah buried her face in the yellow petals. Their perfume was delicate and English, quite different to the robust scent of their Italian counterparts. He could become addicted. It was a one-liner from a professional television dramatist; nothing more.

  Her restlessness overflowed into the afternoon. A grey, rain-laden sky made her feel apprehensive. When she found Ewart’s silver birch stick hidden away in a cupboard in her tote bag, the impact of that first meeting returned. She held the stick, half laughing to herself, half fearful; how little she had known then. Ewart had brought a passion into her life which would be difficult to tame.

  She knew a walk would clear her mind of these confused thoughts, so she put on some strong shoes, a jersey and her Trilby hat. She took the trail path through the National Trust land; to be part of its remoteness and scenic beauty would be calming.

  The background of bird chatter came from the nesting wildfowl on the lakes; dandelion clocks blew in clouds across the salt marshes and meadows like early snow; the river meandered along the estuary, free flowing and clear.