Thorn

by Sarah Rayne

  ‘If he doesn’t know, no one does,’ said Rosa. ‘I hear his new girlfriend is twenty years his junior.’

  Leo had accepted the invitation with a very divided mind.

  He was curious about Dan Tudor. Half of him liked Dan very much and rather admired him; the other half was aware of boiling envy, because of what Dan had shared with Imogen in October House. He rescued her, thought Leo. She was about to be butchered by that mad creature Thalia Caudle, and Dan rescued her. Any girl – any female, come to that – could be pardoned for feeling a touch of hero-worship for someone who had done that.

  Imogen had ceased to be his patient after that amazing night in October House, save for a few more or less routine checks straight afterwards. But Leo had known long before the results came in that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her; this was a girl as normal as it was possible for anyone to be. Except that to Leo she would always be extraordinary.

  She had written to him from Paris several times, and she had asked about his news: about how the revamping of Thornacre was progressing and whether he had set up any convention-defying treatments, and what had become of Matron Porter. Leo had written back, telling her that Freda had left Thornacre for the stultifying gentility of a home for retired army officers on the south coast, and Imogen’s comment had held the gentle irony that Leo remembered. ‘Her spiritual home I should think,’ she had said. She scribbled a postscript to say that she was loving the course here, but she was looking forward to coming home. Next time he was in London she would cook him a gourmet dinner.

  She was normal and bright and intelligent and she was starting to take her place in the world at last; the trouble was that it was a world that was a million light years away from Leo’s own world. You’re going to have to let her go, said his mind. You’d better face it, you know. She’s not for you, she never was. She’s for some bright, clever, younger man who’s just starting out in life, and who’ll be eminently suitable and who’ll think she’s a knockout.

  Dan Tudor?

  Imogen had not, of course, turned into any of the things Dan had been visualising.

  She looked very nearly the same as his private, remembered vision, although she had scooped her hair up in a kind of loose chignon, which made her look older, and she was wearing a dark red dress that turned her skin into translucent ivory. Dan was so abruptly and so completely glad to see her that he forgot about milksop heroines and headed across the room.

  She was exactly and precisely as he remembered her, in fact, she was better. She came towards him, her face lighting up with delight, and she held out her hands, and Dan wanted to grab her and run off with her there and then.

  Imogen did not seem to notice. She was still holding his hand, and talking to him. It was tremendous to see him, she said; she had so looked forward to it. Letters were no substitute, were they? And she had read his book, and it was terrific; she had not been able to put it down. Was he working on another? The same thing or something different this time?

  She was real and she was good to talk to, and she had no affectations or mannerisms. She accepted a glass of wine and sipped it with enjoyment, asking about his work. They progressed to the food that was set out, and Dan, who was by now recovering his equilibrium, asked what she was intending to do now that she was back in London.

  ‘Well, it’s possible that I can join forces with a friend of my cousin Juliette’s. They run a small catering firm. Dinner parties in your home and boardroom lunches. I’d have to start on the bottom rung, and I think it’ll be hard work, but it’s what I’d like to do.’

  ‘Not the board room at Ingram’s?’

  Imogen grinned. ‘Ingram’s can run itself without me. I’ve taken a flat in Juliette’s block, you know. The family nearly had a fit.’ She studied him for a moment, wondering if she could invite him to the tiny flat. She had been planning it all the way here, but now that they were actually face to face it was not quite so easy. What could she say? ‘Maybe you’d like to act as guinea pig for one of my cookery experiments one evening . . .’ It was the kind of thing she could have said to Dr Sterne without there being the least suggestion of anything – well, physical – but with Dan it was very different.

  They looked at one another. After a moment Dan said, ‘If you’d like a busman’s holiday, perhaps we could have dinner some evening.’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes, really.’

  He stared at her. She had accepted almost before he finished asking. It was possible to believe that she meant it. As a further test of that, he said, ‘Tomorrow evening?’

  ‘That would be terrific. I’ll give you my address.’ She wrote it down, and smiled at him and then looked beyond his shoulder. ‘Oh, there’s your brother with Juliette.’

  ‘So it is. I don’t know if he cornered Juliette, or if it was the other way round.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s likely to have been the other way round.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Dan was amused. It looked as if this time Oliver was not going to get away.

  ‘Oh, and Dr Sterne’s just come in,’ said Imogen, with sudden pleasure. ‘Dan, it’s almost as if we’re all together again—’

  And stopped abruptly, her mind remembering and her eyes clouding with pain.

  The three of them stood together in front of Quincy’s last, remarkable drawing.

  It had been used for the book jacket, and the framed blown-up illustration was on display as part of the publicity campaign. It was striking and disturbing, and every time Dan looked at it he felt a deep sadness for the fey child who had died. But far beneath that was a snaking thread of fear, because Quincy’s sketch was so utterly and completely Margot; it was Margot shrouded in voluptuous evil. How did Quincy get it so right? he wondered uneasily. How did I get it so right, as well? I anticipated very nearly every step that Thalia took.

  Leo, studying the illustration, vividly aware of Imogen at his side, felt his mind loop back to the night when he had sat in the deserted dormitory, staring down at Quincy’s sketch. He had not forgotten Quincy, and he thought he never would forget her. Even at this distance he still felt anger at the waste of her life, and he was deeply grateful to whoever had made the decision to use the sketch for Dan’s book.

  Seeing Imogen with Dan had brought sharply home to him that she was indeed moving into a different world and on to a different plane. Even that bright remark in her last letter – ‘next time you’re in London I’ll cook you a gourmet dinner’ – even that had a filial air about it. Filial. The very last emotion I want from her. I’m losing you, my darling girl, thought Leo. But even though I’m losing you, for a very short time you were wholly mine. While we were in Thornacre, while you were locked in that twilit greenwood shade . . .

  Thornacre. The word rippled across the surface of his consciousness, and he thought, at least I still have Thornacre.

  Thornacre, with those dark, sad corners, but with those abrupt sunlit splashes of happiness as well. If Imogen’s twilit forest truly existed anywhere, it would exist inside Thornacre. Because it was there, said his mind, at the heart of that chimerical woodland dusk, that she really did belong to me. Belonging, like sleep, like life, like love, has many levels and many existences, and in that unknown, unnamed world, she was all mine. He glanced down at her, and felt the bitterness again. Yes, I think you’re going to haunt Thornacre for me, Imogen.

  He understood now that Dan, too, had had his dreams of Imogen and that they might not have been very far removed from Leo’s own. That’s how he wrote that remarkable book, thought Leo. Yes, of course! Does Imogen see that? No, I don’t think she does, not yet. But she will see it one day. He’ll tell her one day. And in the meantime – yes, in the meantime I still have Thornacre.

  Imogen was not thinking about dreams-made-real or lost loves, or even future loves. She was thinking about Quincy, and how tragic it was that Quincy could not be here. It occurred to her for the first time that D
an and Quincy both had a little of the ability to see things hidden from everyone else. With the thought came a sudden chill, as if something had breathed corruption into her mind, or as if something sly and malevolent was watching her. She shivered and half turned round, and at once Dan turned with her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Imogen scanned the room, frowning slightly. But there was nothing there to disturb her. Juliette was moving in on Oliver; she had placed one hand on his arm, and she was wearing the expression that meant that at any minute she would say, purringly, that it was time they left, and her flat was only a few minutes away.

  Imogen looked back at Dan. ‘There’s nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘It’s just that for a moment I thought I saw someone I knew. But I think I must have been wrong.’

  As Imogen got ready to go out – taking a long scented bath, deciding which outfit to wear – delighted anticipation was welling up inside her.

  It was probably pretty unsophisticated to read too much into a dinner date: people went out to dinner all the time without it having any significance, but there was still the feeling of something special about tonight.

  She flipped the radio on while she brushed her hair. Classic FM and a programme of Tchaikovsky was just starting. Nice. Imogen liked modern music, but she liked this kind of music as well. It depended on the mood you were in. She dabbed on scent, and crossed to the window to look down into the street. It was probably the last word in naivety to look out of the window for your escort, but she would pretend that it was to save Dan from bothering with parking and with the intercom downstairs. She stood in the shallow window recess, one hand drawing the curtain aside a little, watching the traffic snailing its way towards Kensington High Street.

  As for that odd disquieting moment at yesterday’s party – and how remarkable that Dan had sensed it! – Imogen had decided to ignore it. The likeness had been astonishing for a second or two, and the man had stood watching her, and then he had gone. But there had been just that second when Imogen had caught the glint of hair that was molten gold and of blue eyes that were sly and cruel, and she had thought: Edmund! Edmund? He’s going to live again, Thalia had said. I’m going to dig out your heart and give it to Edmund. . . Impossible! said Imogen’s mind firmly. So way-out as to be absurd! Start thinking about the good things; the real, positive things. Meeting Dan tonight – yes, that was a very good thought indeed. They might talk a bit about Thalia and October House, but they would probably not talk much about it, because it was all over, and Imogen had the feeling that there were more exciting, more interesting things to be discussed. Dan’s work – she would like to hear about that. She wanted to talk to him about the truly amazing way his plot had mirrored what had happened last year. And she might tell him a bit about Paris, which had been fun but hard work. She might even be able to talk about Thornacre itself, which was not something she had yet been able to do with anyone, not even Leo Sterne. The realisation that she was going to be able to talk to Dan about all these things, about everything and anything, made Imogen suddenly feel safe and warm. Something good was starting tonight. Something absolutely tremendous was starting.

  Dan’s ramshackle car turned the corner and bounced down the road, and Imogen picked up her coat and went out of the flat, locking the door carefully. It was not until she was crossing the landing outside that she realised she had left the radio on. It did not really matter, in fact it would fool potential house-breakers into thinking there was someone at home. The radio was not very loud, but she could just make out the music.

  Tchaikovsky’s finale to Sleeping Beauty was just beginning.

  Imogen grinned and began to descend the stair.