Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  He saw her begin to play the social game again. Only occasionally did she glance round, searching, checking. When she did so, he ducked backwards briefly. He didn’t want her just now. Still, he reached for his glass and raised it to her. “Here’s to you, Dianne,” he said silently. “With or without me.”

  Slowly, she relaxed and he leaned on the rail again, his eyes latched on her. He saw her laughing, tilting her head to listen, refusing another drink with a smile and a shake of the head, sitting on the arm of a chair, touching a friend on the hand, whispering in her ear, sharing a giggle.

  Even as he watched, he felt himself leaving her. She was losing the little blaze that made her stand out in his universe. She was blending in, fading into the colourful, shifting pattern of the room. She was losing the edges of her difference, becoming ordinary in his eyes. Last night he had caressed her silky skin and loved her with the desperation of hope, a craving to belong. Now, he felt his attachment to her sifting away like the whisper of sand falling through a sieve. He could try to catch the sand, but it would trickle through his fingers, inexorably departing.

  He could say it now, so he did, whispered low and sorrowful. “I’m sorry, Luther.”

  Unleashed by the words, fear leapt at his throat. His hands came up as if against attack; he turned and sank into the chair, fixed his eyes on the long bulbs dripping from the chandelier. I’m on my own. I’m really on my own. It isn’t going to work. He leaned back and closed his eyes. The lights ghosted into black dots on the inside of his lids. People think loneliness is absence. It isn’t. It’s a filling up, a rising, spilling tide that crashes into every gully and chasm of your mind and soul until you’re choked with emptiness, awash with desolation, thrashing in the foam of it, reaching for a hand to hold and yet finding no hand, no refuge, no comfort. He had been here before.

  He kept his eyes shut and breathed himself slowly back to land.

  “Hello, Paul.”

  His eyes snapped open. A man of about his own height but perhaps twenty years older, stood beside the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs. Speckles of white hair swept from his temples and sprinkled the neat, pointed beard. In one hand he held a brandy glass. The other hand rested loosely in his pocket as his clear, steady gaze rested on Paul.

  Slowly, Paul got to his feet.

  “Hello Toby,” he said. “When did you get here?”

  “A few minutes ago.” His voice was mellow, cultured. “Arabella told me you’d gone upstairs to be mean and moody.” The man extended a finger from his glass and pointed at the passage that led from the landing. “I’m sure there’s somewhere here we can talk.”

  Paul’s hands came up again, palms out in self-defence. Then they dropped to his sides and he flashed a brief, forced smile. “Sure,” he said and walked ahead, past the deep trumpets of the white lilies, down the long, lamp lit way, past the pictures in their grand frames, the linen cupboard, the table at the corner with the Chinese urn that he had always detested, the door of the bedroom where he and Dianne would lie later, the cream curtains pulled over the window that overlooked the back gardens.

  Back here, there wasn’t a sound.

  The brush tore through her hair in fast, angry sweeps.

  “Where were you, Paul?” Dianne stopped and swivelled round to glare at him. “I was looking for you. You just disappeared.”

  He was already in bed, lying on his side. He seemed distant, as if he were hardly aware that she was talking. That annoyed her more.

  “A lot of the visitors tonight had come to see you. Poor old Vicky Spencer’s too nice to say you were rude to her, but that’s what she meant.”

  He stirred. “You disappeared too.”

  She turned back to the mirror and resumed brushing her hair. “That was different. I came back. You went to bed!” She glared at his reflection and jabbed the brush at it irritably. “Two nights ago you were being wonderful and funny. People were hanging on your every word.”

  He watched her for a moment. Then he asked, “How’s Luther?”

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “Busy. The gallery’s doing well for him at last.”

  “Good.”

  She set down the brush and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “You agreed to come. The least you can do is be sociable. A lot of these people were your clients and will be again when you come back. And they’re all contacts you need. They have friends.”

  He rolled onto his back. “I’m not coming back.”

  “Oh Paul! You’ll never get anywhere if you desert the reputation you’ve built up here.”

  “I don’t want that any more.”

  She laughed a little, brittle and strained. “Don’t be silly. What on earth do you want?”

  He sat up and the covers fell from his bare shoulders leaving his body tense and naked in front of her. He put his hand up to the back of her neck and held her head so that she felt pinioned by his eyes. Tonight they did look almost black.

  “I want,” he said, the words slow and deliberate, “a child.”

  She recoiled, twisted from his grasp and stood up, backing away from him. “We’ve been over this so many times! It’s not the right time.”

  There was a long silence. She wished he would reply, get angry, fight with her as he used to do. Instead, he seemed to give up. He fell back on the pillow. Short locks of black hair nudged round his head and fringed his brow. Muscles rippled across his shoulders and round his collar bone, then became still.

  He swallowed once, seemed to be thinking. Then he said, “You don’t need me here.”

  She frowned. “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t,” he repeated. He turned on his side again and pulled the cover over his shoulders. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

  Alarm spread through her body. “You can’t! We’re staying till next week.”

  “I’m going home tomorrow,” he repeated.

  She stood up straighter. “How? You haven’t even got a standby ticket. And tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve.”

  “I’ll get there,” he said, closing his eyes. “You could come with me.”

  She went round to her side of the bed and slid in behind him, anxious, disturbed. She put her hand across his body. “I can’t, Paul. Daddy would be so disappointed. And Bella and I have plans…”

  He interrupted her. “Fine. I’ll see you after the weekend then.” She felt the long firm muscles of his back, the maleness of him. Where had he gone? He had always been difficult, but yet hypnotically delightful. Tonight, she sensed a greater change. Something more than moodiness was tugging him away from her.

  He stirred and turned to face her. Face to face with her on the pillow, his hand came up to cup her cheek.

  “You’re right,” he said softly. “Now’s not the right time. I won’t mention it again.”

  He put his arm under her neck and pulled her close. She settled her head into the hollow of his shoulder. Of course he wouldn’t leave tomorrow!

  She slept.

  When she awoke in the morning, she was already alone.

  15

  HE WOULD HAVE got home if he had had to swim. As it was, patience, persistence and liberal charm lavished on the check-in staff had located a seat on a plane to Belfast by mid-afternoon. It was dark when finally Paul put his key in the door of his own house.

  He dropped his bag, set his keys on the hall table and stood listening to the silence, smelled the scent of emptiness. He ran up the stairs, running his hand over the fuzz of tinsel that Dianne had threaded through the banisters. A quick check round satisfied him that all was well.

  He spent the evening at his computer, watching his new pictures open into life before his eyes. It was a process that fascinated him endlessly. Some pictures he discarded because they dissatisfied his standards of perfection.

  Many were devoted to pigeons – walking, pecking, squabbling. The birds made him smile and reminded him of the batch of shots he had captured the day he had st
aked out the bird table in the back garden. Jenna had arrived and located the robin in the bush for him, unerring and calm in her instinct for what he was trying to do.

  The thought of food hadn’t crossed his mind since he had boarded the plane. Late in the night, his stomach reminded him that he was hungry. He made himself a cup of coffee and some toast from frozen bread. Restless, he paced round the kitchen and sitting room eating and drinking as he moved. When he had finished and left the dishes lying in the sink, he forced himself to sit down. His eyes caught on the clock on the side table. He got up again and put on his coat.

  He didn’t want to sleep through the turn of this year. He wanted to know about its dawning, watch its birth. He wanted to catch it slipping into time, gathering him with it, pulling him on down the tunnel of days as if the journey had no end.

  The bolt on the back door was stiff and cold to his fingers. Outside, he crouched on a stone at the edge of the untidy path and breathed in the air of his home place. The stars wheeled into the new year and, across the city, fireworks shot into the sky, bursting above his head in cascades of light. With a whoosh, several more scored the darkness – up, up, until his head was back and his neck ached with looking. Light splashed across the blackness, tossed above the rooftops and fell in a tracery of fire. Transfixed, he watched the sparkles as they whirled and fell and dimmed and vanished. When all was done, the darkness hunched itself over him again, the cold breeze brushed his face, the black dart of a bat cut above the tiny rustle of unseen things.

  He pushed himself to his feet and went back inside. The bedroom was strange without Dianne. There was no smell of her cream, no rhythm of her brush.

  He didn’t believe in prayer so he closed his eyes tight and wished. He knew what he was going to do in the morning, and he knew who he wanted at his side.

  He wished again and then he slept.

  Dianne didn’t have to tell her father that Paul had gone back without her until they met over a light snack at lunchtime.

  “It was a New Year assignment that came up. Some major VIP dinner.” She broke her soup roll delicately. “Someone rang him last night and said the photographer they’d booked had gone down with flu. It’s a Press thing, so it had to be covered.” She gave a small laugh. “Paul can’t turn anything down.”

  Her father looked up from under his brows as he bent over his soup. “Isn’t it strange that there wasn’t anyone on the same island who could fill in?”

  She shrugged. “Well, sometimes people want Paul and noone else will do.”

  He didn’t say another word about it.

  She tried the same story on Arabella who was more direct in her response when she phoned.

  “Don’t tell porkies, Di darling. He was smouldering with boredom last night. I could tell. More likely, you’ve had a frightful row over your little tête-á-tête with Luther.”

  “No, we didn’t have a row. He trusts me. That’s over.”

  Bella’s throaty chuckle sounded in her ear. “And Buckingham Palace is made of green cheese! It’s not over for Luther, darling. What’s a wedding ring these days? Besides,” she added, “I wouldn’t trust you the length of my little finger – and I’m your friend.”

  It was afternoon when Dianne walked slowly up the long drive of the Chevalier house. Here was the slope where she and Luther had raced snails. There was the patch of lawn beside the beech trees where the swings used to be. His much older brother and sister would play with them for a while and then get bored and leave them to their own devices.

  And over there – Dianne stopped – was the garden seat where Luther had first kissed her. He was sixteen and she was only thirteen. It hadn’t happened again for years, but that one kiss had loosened the promise of womanhood in her. She was becoming an attractive girl and a rich one. There was fun to be had. After the parties and clubs, the taxis and chauffeurs would take them all home and Luther and she would talk on the phone, analysing the evening, gossiping. She would tease him about his girlfriends and he would insult her men friends with caustic wit.

  Then came the day when he had kissed her for the second time. They came together that day, two plants from the same hothouse. There was no one else for either of them – until that day she had visited Bella. A talented young photographer had bounded into the house. Energy sparked from his eyes, humour danced round his mouth and strength flexed his body as he checked lighting, angles, moved furniture and told Bella’s mother that the colour of her outfit wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all. Bella’s parents were ensnared into effortless obedience and the portrait that he took was priceless. Never before had Dianne called a man perfect, but it was the only word for this one.

  Three days later, she rang Luther. “Sorry, darling. I think I’m coming down with something. I don’t think I’m up to going out tonight. I’m going to have an early night.”

  Three hours later, she was having her first dinner with Paul Shepherd and Luther was totally eclipsed by his shadow. When she heard of the Chevalier’s ill-advised investments and the devastating loss of money that the family suffered, she remarked to Bella, “Heavens, to think I might have married him! I might have been a pauper. Ugh!”

  She walked the last few yards of the drive and saw Luther standing at the front door, arms folded. When she reached him, he greeted her tersely. “What do you want?”

  She pulled her collar up against the cold wind. “It’s chilly. Can I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I thought maybe last night wasn’t a good way for old friends to part.”

  He unfolded his arms and leaned an elbow against the door frame. “Are you apologising?”

  Her chin jutted. “No. You provoked me. Are you apologising?”

  “No. I said you were a lying bitch and you are.”

  She looked at his sturdy figure, the slightly chubby fingers stroking his chin, the sandy hair just a little too long at his ears. He was so different to the lean darkness of Paul, and yet… She turned away and walked in a small circle. And yet he was part of something that she missed so much. Paul was magical and sensuous and still perfect. But he was hard, tiring work. It was his own fault that she was here, now, standing at the door of an old lover.

  She faced Luther again, holding with one hand the strands of her hair as they blew across her face.

  “Well, this is true. Paul’s gone back early. I don’t know why.” She blew a blonde curl from her mouth. “So I’ve no-one to see in the New Year with,” she added.

  There was a moment while they just looked at each other, seeing through each other as through plain glass. Simultaneously, they began to grin, slowly at first and then with the wide delight of reprieved thieves.

  Luther backed into the house. “I’ll pick you up at nine,” he said, and closed the door.

  Dianne stared at the door as it slammed. Then she spun on her heels and walked briskly down the driveway. At the huge metal gate, which was rusty and neglected, she gave a little hop and skip. Her chin was up, her mind was already rattling through the dresses in her wardrobe. She had absolutely nothing to wear.

  The phone was shrilling through the house. Jenna pulled the bedclothes over her head, unwilling to waken, unwilling to face this day. Who would be ringing her house, her landline? Her mother or father, wanting to wish her a happy New Year? They always forgot about her mobile. She squinted at the clock on the bedside table. Ten past seven! She came alive on the thought that at this hour, it could be that something was wrong. Luke! What scrape had he got into last night?

  She stumbled down the stairs expecting the ringing to stop any moment. The phone perched in a corner behind the front door, on a built-in wooden unit that housed the fuse box. She grabbed the receiver.

  “Hello?” There wasn’t a sound in reply. “Hello? Who’s that?” There was a click and the dialling tone burred in her ear. She slammed the phone down. “If you got a wrong number, at least have the grace to apologise!” she bawled at it. She sank down onto the bottom stair an
d dropped her head into her hands, scrunching her hair into tufts and tangled strands. What a way to wake up. Hallo, New Year.

  She decided to go back to sleep. She looked at her rumpled bed and then decided she was thirsty. A towelling robe was tossed over a chair. She pulled it on and yanked the belt tight. Hmm. She’d got thinner. A glass of orange was joined by a bowl of cereal and became breakfast in front of the television. Outside her window, a cold, damp, night still hung over the street, the first creep of dawn still an hour away. Not too many people were about at this hour, especially as most people were sleeping off the night before. Had Adam been with Rachel last night? She set the bowl of cereal on the floor. She didn’t feel like it after all. She drew her knees up to her chin and huddled in her chair. She didn’t feel like anything. Adam would probably ring later. He said he would last time they had a brief, stilted conversation. He might even call in once he found out she was here. She folded her arms tightly. They were going to have to have it out. Whenever she tried to work out what she wanted to say, what she wanted to happen, her feelings still hurt too much and she put the thoughts away again.

  After half an hour gazing sightlessly at cartoons, she decided to get a cup of tea and go back to bed. The kettle was coming to the boil when her doorbell rang. Startled, she tugged at the belt of her robe and looked down at her pink slippers, a present from Aunt Susan. There was a cat woven on each toe. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.

  She opened the door on the chain and put her eye to the chink. Paul Shepherd stood on the footpath, woollen hat pulled over his ears and his hands in the pockets of his long coat. A brown envelope was tucked under one arm. He was looking up, his eyes bright and restless in the street light.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked sharply.

  “Not a thing,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  “It’s nearly eight o’clock in the morning!”

  He looked at his watch. “Well, what do you know? So it is. Can I come in?”

  She took the chain off and went back to the kitchen, leaving him to close the door himself. He didn’t follow her, instead turning left into her sitting room. She poured two mugs of tea. He was sitting in her chair, looking round, flicking the woollen hat between his hands, his hair ruffled. When he set the hat down to take a mug from her, she picked it up and set it on the sofa out of his reach.