Desert Barbarian

by Charlotte Lamb

  'Was it?' Her voice was savage. 'I was only thinking of him. I know he loves her. She may just pull him back. It was a chance worth taking.'

  He put a hand on hers, but she pushed him away. 'Don't touch me! You've done enough for one day. Why do you stay here? Why don't you go? I can't stand the sight of you!'

  'I'll drive you home when your mother comes back,' he said, his voice level.

  'We can call our chauffeur, thanks,' she said.

  'I'll drive you,' he repeated expressionlessly.

  Marie lapsed into silence. She would not argue with him while her father lay dying a few yards away.

  The door swung open again and Clare came out, look­ing less tense. She looked at Marie across the corridor and her eyes shone with tears. 'Thank you, darling,' she said in a choked voice.

  Marie went to her, put an arm around her. 'Was it… awful?'

  'Awful,' Clare whispered. 'But not as bad as I feared. He wasn't conscious, but they let me hold his hand and his fingers clung… his fingers clung, Marie.'

  The doctor came out, a smile on his tired face. He gave Stonor a nod. 'I think something got through. His pulse is improving.'

  'When can we come tomorrow?' asked Clare impatiently.

  'Ring us in the morning and we'll decide then,' the doctor told her. 'Things take time, you know. We won't be sure about anything for a long while yet.'

  Stonor drove them back to the flat. Clare, without dis­cussion, accepted Marie's suggestion that she come there for the night. Marie felt she could not leave her mother alone in a hotel bedroom at such a time.

  Mrs Abbot met them at the front door, her eyes pink from weeping. 'Is it true? Is it true?' she asked. 'Is he dead?'

  'Of course he isn't dead,' Marie burst out angrily. 'Who told you that?'

  'The newspapers have been ringing up for hours. They said he had had a fatal heart attack over dinner at the hotel…'

  'A heart attack,' Stonor put in coolly, 'but not a fatal one, thank God.'

  'Oh, thank God, sir, yes,' Mrs Abbot murmured. 'Come in, I'll get you all some coffee…'

  'My mother would prefer cocoa,' Marie said quickly. 'She must get some sleep. Coffee would keep her awake.'

  Mrs Abbot looked at Clare with hostility. 'Oh, Mrs Sebastian, it's you, is it? I didn't expect to see you here.'

  Clare seemed unaware of her hostility. The dark circles under her blue eyes, the pallor of her face, lent her a new but fragile beauty. She reminded Marie of a wood an­emone trembling in a cold spring wind.

  She encircled Clare protectively with her arm. 'My mother will sleep in my father's room tonight,' she said clearly, her eyes reproving Mrs Abbot.

  The old woman flushed angrily. 'I don't think Mr Brinton would like that, indeed I don't.'

  'Thank you, Mrs Abbot,' Marie said fiercely. 'I'll take my mother there myself.' She led Clare down the hall, her arm around her waist.

  Mrs Abbot watched with undisguised anger as the two of them went into James Brinton's bedroom.

  Clare looked around the room, flinching as her eyes fell upon a large studio portrait of herself beside the bed. Marie was surprised to see it there. She had not been into her father's room often, and she had never suspected that he kept a picture of Clare beside his bed.

  'Mrs Abbot is right,' Clare said huskily. 'I shouldn't be in here. I'll take the spare room.'

  'I know Dad would want you to sleep here,' Marie said with a hard certainty. 'I suppose it's silly, but I have a feeling that it will actually help him.'

  Clare stared at her, biting her lower lip. 'How can it? I don't understand you, darling.'

  'I'm not sure myself,' said Marie, with a faint smile. 'Perhaps your being in this room will give you a tele­pathic link with him… didn't you say his fingers clung when you touched him, although he was unconscious? How could he know you were there except by tele­pathy?'

  'Do you believe in telepathy?' Clare asked her seri­ously.

  'I've never thought about it before, but I don't see why not. Anything which would help Dad is worth trying. I just have this instinct… a vague feeling… that he would like you to be here.'

  Clare sighed. 'Then I'll stay. You know him better than I do, darling.'

  'Oh, no,' Marie stared at her in distress, 'don't say that! I only know one aspect of him—he's my father. I don't know him the way you do. You were married to him for years, after all.'

  'We lived together for years, you mean,' Clare said bitterly. 'For the first year we were married. Then you were born and after that James never had time for me. From a wife I became just the woman in his house. You don't know what I went through… I felt stifled, ex­cluded, isolated. When I protested, he suggested that I find a life of my own. Make friends, he said, go to the theatre. He said he wanted me to have fun, but he didn't have time to have fun with me—he was too busy.' She shrugged. 'Any fool could have predicted the end of it.'

  Marie turned down the bed. 'Clare, put the past behind you for a while. Lie down, try to sleep. I'll bring the cocoa along when you're in bed.'

  'I don't really want any,' Clare said thickly. 'I'll sleep anyway—I have my pills in my handbag. Goodnight, Marie. If… if anything happens, call me, won't you?' Her blue eyes pleaded humbly.

  'I promise,' said Marie, kissing her on the cheek. 'Goodnight, Clare.'

  Clare turned away, then stopped dead, seeing herself reflected in the mirror. She put a hand to her cheek, grimacing.

  'I look old suddenly. I've always felt quite young, even first thing in the morning without my make-up. But when I saw James choking and dying right in front of my eyes time seemed to rush away from me at trem­endous speed. I aged inside. James and I were so young once. If he dies part of me will die too. He's the only one who remembers me when I was eighteen… you don't know yet, darling, what that means… but when all those who knew you when you were young have van­ished, you really feel old.'

  Marie smiled at her. 'You're still very beautiful, Clare. Even tonight… believe me.'

  Clare laughed abruptly. 'You must think me very vain and silly.'

  'No, just human,' Marie assured her.

  They smiled at each other, then Marie closed the door and went back down the corridor. The kitchen door stood open. She went in, prepared to do battle with Mrs Abbot, and found Stonor there alone, putting cocoa into hot milk and whisking it vigorously.

  'Where's Mrs Abbot?' she asked.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. 'I sent her to bed.'

  'She had no right to say what she did to my mother,' Marie said.

  'You're amusingly predictable,' he drawled, pouring the foaming cocoa into two mugs.

  'What do you mean?' She stared at him suspiciously, sensing criticism.

  'You fly off at a tangent over everything,' he said, leaning against the wall, his hand propping up his dark head as though he were physically weary. The dark eyes surveyed her, a glint of laughter in their depths. 'Earlier you were angry with me, then you were angry with your mother. You're emotionally unstable. You have to be taught how to respond in every situation. The first angry thought that comes into your head dominates you until you're shown the folly of it.'

  'I'm sorry I'm so immature,' she snapped, naturally furious with him at once. 'Perhaps you'd better leave now. I'm sure you don't want to waste any more time on someone so silly and childish.'

  He laughed, his eyes mocking her. 'You see? There you go again, leaping down my throat because I tell you the truth. My dear child, you've been both spoilt and neglected. Your father gave you every material possession but never had time for you yourself. Your mother deserted you. But all that's in the past, and now you're an adult. Try to behave like one. Think of things in an adult way. Tonight you've swung back and forth like a pendulum. Once I had pointed out that your mother was genuinely distressed, you were both kind and thoughtful towards her. You became over-protective, enraged be­cause Mrs Abbot was hostile towards her…'

  'She had no right to say such things!' Mar
ie burst out.

  'I agree, but you see Mrs Abbot is fond of your father, too, and she was just as disturbed by his heart attack as your mother had been. I suspect that your own reaction to Clare surprised her. You haven't always been very friendly towards your mother, have you?'

  Marie flushed. 'All right, I get what you mean. I wasn't fair to Mrs Abbot. I'll go and say I'm sorry…'

  Stonor caught her arm, looking down at her, shaking his head. 'No, leave it until the morning. I've already spoken to her.'

  'Oh, have you?' She was indignant. Who did he think he was, arranging, interfering, ordering everyone around? 'And what did you say?'

  'I told her you were too upset to know what you were saying or doing, and I apologised on your behalf.'

  'You had no business to do so!' She was very flushed now, her blue eyes bright with anger.

  'Blessed are the peacemakers,' he drawled. 'Or don't you believe that?'

  'I think you'd better go,' she said.

  'Without my cocoa?' he asked tauntingly, sipping from the mug. 'I make very good cocoa, by the way. Try it.'

  Marie seethed for a moment, then gave in, picking up the mug and tasting it. They drank in silence, then he put his mug down and looked at her thoughtfully.

  'Would you like me to stay the night? I can sleep on a couch quite easily.' His mouth curved in a tormenting smile. 'As you know, I'm quite used to sleeping on the desert sand, and a couch is quite luxurious compared to that.'

  'I think we can manage without you, Mr Grey,' she said coldly. 'We have done for years.'

  He laughed. 'We can always get along without things we've never had,' he said softy. 'It's custom that makes us dependent.'

  'Well, I'm not dependent on you, Mr Grey,' she snap­ped.

  'Not yet, perhaps,' he said, in a softly menacing tone which made the hair rise on the back of her head.

  Her pulses raced as he moved towards her, but she lifted her chin defiantly, determined not to show him how his physical presence affected her.

  He looked down at her from his greater height, the dark eyes flickering, the thick almost feminine lashes half veiling their expression. 'You look tired, like a little girl. Are you sure you wouldn't like me to carry you to bed?'

  'Don't touch me!' she snapped, panicking immedi­ately at the thought of being picked up in those power­ful arms as she had been before, carried like a child against his muscled chest.

  His mouth parted on an amused smile, the white teeth showing briefly. 'What are you afraid of? Me? Or your­self?'

  'Why should I be afraid of myself?' she retorted scorn­fully.

  'Because you're alarmed by your own response to me,' he said mockingly. 'I think you're rather inexperienced, for all your outward sophistication. The packaging glit­ters, but underneath it lies something far more vulner­able.'

  'You should be a psychologist, not a tycoon,' she said sarcastically.

  'Business requires a great deal of psychological war­fare,' he said drily. 'Rather like war… how can you defeat the enemy unless you understand him ? That was why Field-Marshal Montgomery kept a photograph of Rommel in his bedroom… he wanted to understand the way the other man thought, so that he could anticipate his every move.'

  'Thanks for the warning!'

  His eyes teased her again. 'Oh, are we enemies?'

  The intimacy of the tone made her feel suffocated for a second or two. She said flatly, 'Aren't we?'

  'There's no enmity on my side,' he said softly.

  'There is on mine,' she returned frankly. 'You played a trick on me, and I haven't forgotten that. Nor will I ever forget that it was because of the Unex take-over bid that my father had this heart attack.'

  'Your father has had a heart condition for several years,' said Stonor coolly.

  'What?' Marie was incredulous. 'Who told you that?'

  'When I do business with a man I like to know all I can about him. I had a report on your father months ago. I knew about his health, his divorce, even about his spoilt, wayward daughter… when I saw you in the Hotel Marina I had recently read a hefty dossier on you.'

  'You sound like the secret police of some police state!' she said in a voice heavy with rage.

  He shrugged. 'Information is the raw material of my decision-making process. I never act purely on instinct.'

  'Never?' she asked, remembering that kiss beside the campfire in the oasis.

  The dark eyes narrowed. 'Almost never,' he conceded, moving nearer, holding her eyes compellingly.

  Marie felt a strange fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She knew he was going to kiss her, and for a moment all her instincts demanded that she forget everything, and let him. Then her pride rose bitterly in revolt, and she moved away from him, backing angrily, her glance daring him to touch her.

  'Despite what you say, I blame you for my father's illness. Your take-over brought about the attack. If he dies…'

  She stopped on the word, her voice choking, tears rush­ing into her eyes. She glared at him briefly, then turned and ran down the corridor to her own room and locked the door of her bedroom behind her. As she leaned on the door, sobbing under her breath, she heard the click of a light switch being turned off and then the quiet closing of the front door. He had gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JAMES BRINTON continued to fight for his life with in­creasing strength, helped by Clare's constant presence beside his bed. Marie saw clearly that her father's affec­tion for his wife was growing alongside his return to health. The long, quiet days in his bed were giving him time to think, time to take stock of his situation. He and Clare were happy together, talking quietly or falling silent for a while, learning a new companionship which reaped dividends for James in his struggle with his health.

  Marie visited him each day, too, but tactfully left her mother behind when she left the hospital. Clare had moved into the flat fully now, bringing cases of clothes with her. Mrs Abbot behaved towards her with a sort of cool politeness which only just masked a deep hostility, but judging it best to leave things alone for the moment, Marie pretended to be blind to Mrs Abbot's feelings. After all, she thought, there was probably a little jealousy involved. Mrs Abbot had run their home for so long. No doubt she felt Clare to be a threat to her own position in the household.

  There had been no sign of Stonor since the night when James collapsed. Once Marie saw some flowers in a vase beside her father's bed, a card from Stonor pushed among them, inscribed in strong, flamboyant writing with his name and a brief message. But she herself had not set eyes on him.

  She told herself she was glad.

  Several weeks after James collapsed, he came home from the hospital briefly before going away for a long convalescence at a private nursing home. He sat in the sitting-room staring around him in a strangely thoughtful fashion.

  'At one time I thought I would never see this room again,' he said. 'Now I realise I never liked this flat any­way. I'm tired of London.'

  Marie looked astonished. 'Tired of London?'

  Clare smiled at James. 'Yes,' she said to her daughter. 'We were thinking of moving into the country. While James is at the nursing home I'm going to look for a house. Will you help me, Marie?'

  'Of course,' said Marie, noting with pleasure the easy way in which Clare was taking charge. 'Where are you thinking of buying a house?'

  'Sussex,' said Clare. 'Near the sea. We'll be able to take walks along the beach every day and buy a dog…'

  'Buy a dog?' Marie laughed and looked at her father in sheer disbelief, trying to see him in this idyllic domestic setting. 'You and a dog taking walks beside the sea, Dad? Are you serious?'

  James laughed and shrugged. 'Completely serious, Marie. I've spent most of my life chasing success, making money, building up the firm, then suddenly it all van­ished like fairy gold. The business, my occupation… gone! Oh, I'm rich enough now, I can do whatever I like. Clare and I talked it over. We're both ready to settle for a cottage by the sea and some peace. Of course, we wan
t you to come, darling. But whatever you think, we've decided that this is what we want, and we're going to do it.'

  Marie smiled at him, then at her mother. 'I just want you to be happy. I'm glad if this is what you want.' She hesitated, then asked, 'What about the firm?'

  Her father shrugged indifferently. 'Let Unex have it. I no longer care. Perhaps it was time someone else took over. I'd been running the firm for so long, my ideas were getting stale. I was bored with it all, but I didn't even realise that until I came so close to death. Then I got a new perspective on life. I realised that things just don't matter. People are what matter.'

  'You're right, Dad,' Marie said softly. 'And I'm glad you and Clare are together again. It seems so right to see you together.'

  James glanced at Clare. 'Marie, I would like you to call Clare by her rightful name again.'

  For a moment she was bewildered. 'Her rightful name?'

  'She is your mother,' he said gently. 'Call her that.'

  Marie looked at Clare enquiringly. 'Of course, if she wants me to, but…'

  Clare was pink and half laughing. 'I know I hated it once, but I would like you to start calling me Mother again. You never know you value something until you've lost it.'

  'You haven't lost either of us,' James said firmly. 'We're going to be a family again.' Marie giggled. 'You'll have to get married first, Dad!' He looked amused. 'I'd forgotten the legal side. I sup­pose we will. I've never really accepted the divorce, I suppose.'

  Clare looked at him half wistfully. 'Oh, James!'

  Feeling very much de trop, Marie tiptoed out of the room and left them to discuss the subject alone.

  While James was away recovering his strength, Marie and Clare drove around Sussex looking for houses. They saw dozens, but none were suitable. Clare wanted a house small enough to be easy to run, yet with plenty of ground around it to ensure privacy. Just when they were giving up hope of success, they were shown a cottage which had just been put on the market by an artist.

  'In rather a ramshackle condition,' the estate agent warned them. 'But basically sound, I assure you. It would cost a little to have some repairs and redecoration.'