by Flora Kidd
‘Yes, I think so,’ muttered Lenore, thinking ruefully of the way she had been attracted to Adam last night, drawn to him against her will.
‘When I saw what a bad way he was in,’ Albert went on, ‘I didn’t feel disappointed any more about not getting the property. I guess I realised he needed the place more than I did. He needed somewhere to go to, a home to hide in while he recovered. So I arranged for him to come here and Bertha and I have looked after him ever since, just like we looked after Martin Jonson.’
‘That was kind of you,’ she said.
‘Least I could do for me own flesh and blood,’ retorted Albert fiercely. ‘Don’t hold with folks who can’t help their own kin.’
‘But I thought there was someone else living with him when he first came. My sister told me there was a woman staying with him,’ probed Lenore curiously.
‘That bitch!’ Albert’s voice was harsh with scorn and Lenore had the impression he would have liked to spit. ‘She turned up after he’d moved into the house—seems she’d been his girlfriend once. Anyway, she moved in too for a while. Don’t rightly know what happened, but they had a dust-up one day and she left. Reckon Adam didn’t like her living here.’
‘He doesn’t seem too happy about what the surgeon told him about his eyesight,’ Lenore remarked.
‘Told you about that, did he?’ queried Albert on a note of surprise. ‘He must have taken to you, then. Adam doesn’t talk about his problems to everyone.’
The brakes squealed and the truck came to a sliding, skidding stop at the junction with Main Street. Albert turned it into the wide tree-lined street and in a few seconds was braking it to a stop again in front of the heaps of snow in front of the Inn.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ said Lenore.
‘You’re welcome. Take care now,’ replied Albert.
She got out of the truck, gave him a parting wave and limped up the narrow pathway that someone had cleared to the front door. The door was unlocked and as she stepped into the panelled hallway the warmth of the Inn seemed to close around her, enfolding her and making her feel welcome.
‘Blythe. Blythe, I’m back!’ she called.
‘Thank God!’ Blythe came hurrying into the lounge from the kitchen. She was still in her dressing gown, a fluffy blue thing, and her black hair was loose on her shoulders. Dark circles were scored under her wide anxious eyes. ‘Thank God you’re alive!’ she added, putting her arms around Lenore and hugging her. ‘Where have you been? What happened? I’ve been sick with worry all night—haven’t slept a wink! Josh and I set out to look for you, but the storm was too bad. We got stuck in his car on the road to the lighthouse and had to walk back here. Oh, I don’t know what I’d have done if he hadn’t stayed with me!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lenore. ‘I knew you’d be anxious. But I couldn’t do anything about it. You see, I hurt my knee and couldn’t walk very well and Adam Jonson’s phone was out of order, so I couldn’t contact you.’
‘Adam Jonson? You’ve been in the Jonson house?’ exclaimed Blythe.
‘Yes. I was near there when I fell and hurt my knee. It was the only place I could get to. If he’d had a car I’d have tried to get back here, but he doesn’t have one because he can’t see to drive.’ ‘Then how did you get here now?’
‘Albert Smith drove me. He works for Adam. So does his wife.’
‘Oh, lord!’ groaned Blythe. ‘Now it will be all over the village that you stayed the night with Adam Jonson . . . alone, and everyone will think the worst.’
‘Well, I can’t help that,’ Lenore snapped. ‘I didn’t ask to be stranded in his house.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ said Blythe soothingly. ‘Come into the kitchen and have some breakfast and tell me what’s wrong with your knee.’ She gave Lenore another quick hug, ‘Oh, you’ve no idea how relieved I am to see you! It must have been an ordeal for you as well as for me. I hope Adam Jonson behaved himself and treated you well.’
‘He was a bit feisty at first, wouldn’t let me into his house to use his phone, but when he realised I’d really hurt myself he was more amicable,’ replied Lenore coolly as she limped after Blythe and through to the kitchen.
The man with greying dark hair and a lean weatherbeaten face, who was sitting at the table rose to his feet as she and Blythe entered the kitchen.
‘Lenore, I’d like you to meet Josh Kyd,’ said Blythe a little shyly.
‘Glad to see you’re all in one piece,’ said Josh as he shook hands with Lenore. ‘We were just thinking of informing the police that you were missing.’ His sleepy grey eyes warmed with affection as he looked past her at Blythe. ‘Guess I can leave you now and go to the boatyard. Time I was starting work.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Blythe was actually blushing rosily, Lenore noted as she sat down at the table and stretched her right leg before her.
‘I’ll come round this evening,’ Josh added as he moved towards the back door, ‘and we can talk some more about those plans.’
‘Thanks, Josh, thanks for staying,’ said Blythe, following.
‘Any time,’ he replied, turning to give Blythe what Lenore could only describe as a meaningful look. ‘See you.’
He went out, and Blythe slowly closed the door. Smiling a little to herself, she went across to the cooking range, lit a burner and put some butter into a heavy cast-iron frying pan.
‘Could you eat an omelette?’ she asked Lenore.
‘I could eat a house,’ replied Lenore. ‘Any coffee?’
‘Sure.’ Blythe came across to the table with the coffee pot and a mug, poured and set the mug before her sister, then wandered back to the cooking range.
‘He’s nice,’ said Lenore as she poured cream into the hot coffee.
‘Who is?’ queried Blythe, pouring beaten eggs into the smoking melted butter. ‘Adam Jonson?’
‘No, you fool—Josh Kyd. Are you in love with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Blythe slowly. ‘I think I might be, but we’re really just friends.’
‘That’s how the best romances are supposed to start—with friendship,’ mused Lenore.
‘My, listen to you!’ mocked Blythe. ‘Are you speaking from experience? Or have you been reading Ann Landers’ column lately? Tell me about your knee.’
Taking the hint that Blythe didn’t want to discuss her friendship with Josh Kyd any more, Lenore explained what had happened to her knee, and it was decided that she should go to the hospital outpatient department as soon as she had finished breakfast and had changed her clothes.
Blythe drove her to the hospital, where she was seen by the doctor on duty, who recommended an X-ray on the knee as he thought she might have cracked the knee-cap. The X-ray showed a fine hairline crack that he said would heal fairly quickly as long as she didn’t walk on her right leg too much.
‘I could put a cast on it to make you keep it stiff,’ he said. ‘But if you’re prepared to obey my instructions that won’t be necessary. Rest it as much as you can and if you have to walk about use a pair of crutches. Come back in a week and I’ll have another look at it.’
Pleased that her injury wasn’t too serious, Lenore went with Blythe to the local pharmacy, where they were able to rent a pair of crutches, then they returned to the Inn.
The next few days passed by slowly and uneventfully. At first Lenore was glad to lie about the lounge with her right leg propped up. To keep herself entertained she caught up on her reading, and she also practised playing her clarinet, and she had Blythe for company when her sister wasn’t busy preparing lunches and serving them or cooking dinners for the few local people who came during the week to dine at the Inn.
But as time went by she became less and less interested in reading and found herself daydreaming instead, and as if it wasn’t enough that the hours she spent alone at night in bed were filled with thoughts and memories of Adam Jonson, he began to invade and take over her daydreams too.
How was he? What was he doing? Would she eve
r see him again? Did he think of her and wonder if he would see her again?
Or had their brief and passionate encounter been an only once in a lifetime happening? A white-hot, sensual coming together of two lonely and rejected people? A flash-fire blazing up brilliantly for a short while before dying out just as swiftly as it had flared up?
Ten to one Adam Jonson, having satisfied his overwhelming physical need to make love to a woman, had forgotten by now that she had stayed with him for a night, she thought with a touch of cynicism. Men were like that—they soon forgot. And she must learn to forget too.
Forget the magical touch of Adam’s fingertips stroking her skin? Forget the heat of his lips on hers? Forget the hard pressure of his thighs against hers? Forget, forget. Oh, how could she forget?
He had made love to her the way she had often secretly dreamed of being made love to. He had made love to her as Herzel never had. Savage and tender in turn, he had aroused in her sensations she hadn’t known she was capable of feeling. He had created a new Lenore, a woman with no past and no future, a wholly sensual person aflame with desire.
Oh, she must forget. She must forget, or she would be running to him as soon as her knee was better. She would be trampling her pride in the dust and pleading with him to take her and do with her what he wished. She would be kneeling before him like a slave before a master, submitting, and that was something she had vowed long ago she would never do to any man.
‘Lenore?’ Blythe called from the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. ‘Phone for you. Take it on the extension in there.’
‘For me?’ Her hands were suddenly clammy and shaking. Her heart skipped a beat and began to race. Her cheeks burned. Could Adam be calling her at last? To ask why she had left his house before he had wakened?’
‘Who is it?’ she called back.
‘Isaac Goldstein.’
Disappointment was a cold wave washing over her. She reached for the phone, picked up the receiver and spoke. Isaac answered her. He was calling, he said, to remind her that the music group would be meeting at his house that evening and he would be pleased if she came. Lenore promised to be there. He thanked her and hung up.
Blythe drove her to the Goldstein house. It was an old Cape Cod cottage on Bay Street East, with views of the estuary and the green hills of the other shore. In the living-room, that was crammed with antique furniture, Lenore shared a velvet-covered love-seat with another new member of the group, a young man called Douglas Corwen, who played the cello.
‘Tonight I’d like to discuss our future,’ said Isaac. ‘I’m hoping that our new members will be able to offer some ideas and alternatives. I’m pleased to tell you that we have found a cellist at last and so our string quartet is complete. We should be ready to put on a concert at the beginning of next month, that is on June the first. That gives us just a month to rehearse, this being the second of May. It also gives us some time to find a location for the concert. I’ve approached the three churches in the village, but while each church organisation is willing to let us rent either the church halls or the church buildings, I don’t find any of them suitable.’
There followed a lot of discussion. Members asked Isaac what sort of place he envisaged as being the perfect setting for the concert, and as she listened Lenore found herself remembering the long wide room at the Jonson house, the rosewood piano, the velvet curtains, the long windows opening in summer on to a terrace with a view of Penobscot Bay and the Camden Hills. When there was a pause in the discussion she leaned forward and said,
‘There’s a beautiful Steinway grand in the Jonson house at Pickering Point. There’s also a room which must have been designed for the performance of chamber music. All you would need to get would be chairs for the audience.’
‘You’ve seen it?’ demanded Isaac, flashing her a bright sharp glance from small brown eyes. ‘You’ve been in the house?’
‘Yes, I’ve been in the house. It would be a great place to hold an annual music festival in,’ said Lenore, warming to her theme. ‘In fact, with all those rooms and all that land around it it could be developed into a summer cultural centre.’ ‘Something like Wolf Trap, you mean?’ suggested Jack Kenata, leaning forward, his slanting eyes beginning to sparkle with enthusiasm. ‘But that’s what I’ve been dreaming about for this area. That’s why I got the music group started.’
‘Yes,’ said Lenore, nodding. ‘Something like Wolf Trap,’ she repeated. She knew the open-air centre for the performing arts that had been donated to the nation and had, in fact, performed there one summer in a woodwind quartet with Herzel.
‘But the property on Pickering Point is a private residence,’ remarked Fred Caplan. ‘And the guy who owns it and lives in it right now isn’t exactly approachable,’ he added dryly. ‘I can’t see Adam Jonson letting any of us in the place. He’s very reclusive—even more so than his great-uncle was.’ He gave Lenore a curious glance. ‘How come you know what it’s like inside?’
‘I was there last Monday,’ replied Lenore coolly, hoping he wouldn’t question her more closely.
‘Adam Jonson?’ queried Janet Moore, another new member of the group. ‘He wouldn’t be the Adam Jonson who made that documentary film about the fighting in the Middle East, would he? You know, the one who won an award for the best news documentary a few years back?’
‘He’s that Adam Jonson,’ said Fred.
‘I’d no idea he lived near Northport,’ exclaimed Janet excitedly. ‘Do you know him well?’ she turned towards Lenore.
‘No, not really,’ said Lenore.
‘Oh, I’ve just had the greatest idea,’ said Willa Caplan. ‘If we could get Adam Jonson to agree to let us perform our first concert in his house maybe he would film it for us and it could be shown on TV.’
‘He’s blind,’ said Fred Caplan. ‘His days of filming the news or anything else are over. Anyway, we might as well forget the idea. As I’ve said, he’s most unapproachable.’
‘There’d be no harm in asking him,’ said Jack. He looked at Lenore. ‘You know him. Would you be willing to ask him?’
‘Would you?’ asked Isaac, looking at her earnestly and hopefully. ‘From what you’ve told us the place sounds ideal.’
‘I suppose I could go and see him and ask him,’ Lenore replied slowly.
‘Great!’ said Jack enthusiastically.
‘But when will you need to know?’
‘Before the end of the month, of course,’ replied Isaac. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll continue to look for other suitable premises. And now, before we start rehearsing the quartet, I’d like to discuss the addition to our repertoire of pieces that would include you and Janet. You both have, no doubt, favourite chamber music written for woodwind instruments that you would like to perform, possibly accompanied by piano or even by strings.’
The rest of the evening was spent talking and playing music. Isaac’s wife Rose served coffee and cakes and they all left just before midnight. Jack Kanata driving Lenore back to the Inn.
Once she was in bed she lay awake, wondering what she had let herself in for by offering to ask Adam if he would lend the living room of his house for a concert. Where had the idea come from? Had it arisen from a subconscious desire to go and see him again? Probably. And she had seized the excuse quickly, almost greedily.
But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go straight to him and ask him. She would have to phone him first.
For several days she dithered, rehearsing what she would say to him when she got through to him, but each time she picked up the receiver her courage failed her and she didn’t dial his number.
She visited the hospital again about her knee, and another X-ray showed that the crack was closing up nicely. The doctor advised her to start putting her weight on it as long as she didn’t overdo the walking yet.
Another few days went by. Another weekend came and with it an influx of guests to the Inn. It was Sunday brunch again and Isaac and Jack were there, asking her if she had approached Adam
Jonson.
‘No, not yet. I ... I haven’t been able to get hold of him. I’ll try tomorrow,’ she said.
But when tomorrow came she was still hesitant, and she confided in Blythe about her offer to go and ask Adam if he would lend his living room for the concert.
‘And now you’re afraid to go and beard the lion in his den, I suppose,’ mocked Blythe as she parked the car in front of the Inn. ‘Why are you afraid of him?’ she asked, turning to Lenore as she switched off the car’s engine.
‘I’m not really afraid of him,’ replied Lenore thoughtfully. ‘I just don’t want him to think that I’m making the most of our very brief association by asking him if the music group can hold their concert in his living room. Oh, I wish now that I’d never made the suggestion. Why do I do it, Blythe? Why am I always getting into awkward predicaments? Why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut?’
‘I guess it’s because you’re impulsive and generous, always thinking you can help someone.’ Blythe gave her sister a curious sidelong glance. ‘Maybe, subconsciously, you want to help Adam Jonson, blast him out of his seclusion by making him show an interest in the community he’s come to live in. You always did have a tendency to want to help lame dogs.’
‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ agreed Lenore with a sigh. ‘And it would be good for him. It would give him something to think about instead of brooding about his infirmity. I’ll go and phone him now.’
‘That’s my sister!’ mocked Blythe. ‘She’s afraid of neither man or beast. And remember, he can’t bite you over the phone. He can only roar. And if he does you can always hang up and try again when he’s in a softer, more approachable mood.’ Lenore didn’t get through to Adam until halfway through the afternoon, and then the phone rang six times before it was answered.
