Constance gave her no answer, she made no response whatever. She was watching the wheel of life as it came to the end of its circle. Her granddaughter was going back to High Banks Hall with a Mallen—with a Mallen.
Ignoring the fierceness of Jim Waite’s stare, Hannah went past him and over the threshold and, without looking at Ben, went down the steps.
They walked side by side along the front of the house and out through the gap in the stone wall onto the road. And they walked almost half a mile without either glancing at the other or speaking. When, simultaneously they stopped, their gaze held in muteness, until Hannah, swallowing deeply, asked softly, ‘How long had you been standing there?’
‘Long enough.’
Her eyes did not waver from his but her colour rose; and then she said, ‘The main thing is you made it.’
‘Yes, I made it.’ He reached out and took her hand and they walked on again, silent once more.
When they next stopped it was almost at the place where the driver had dropped him shortly before, and he said, ‘I got a lift up to here.’
‘You came by motor car?’
‘In a truck.’
‘How, how did you do it? I mean, what…what made you do it?’
‘It was Lawrence. He…he said if I didn’t come and get you he would.’
‘Lawrence?’ She smiled gently. Then again she said, ‘Lawrence?’
‘He missed you.’
They glanced at each other. ‘That’s nice to hear.’ Her voice was small.
They walked on again, more slowly now as the hills became steeper. The sky was high, the sun was warm, the light was thin and clear, the world about them looked wide, empty and wide, space everywhere, no people, nothing, only clean space. They gasped, now and again paused, but didn’t really stop until they reached the summit and were opposite the ruined house. Then they sat down.
They sat on the grass verge with the ruins behind them, the ruins of the old house wherein her father had been conceived. They sat in silence looking away down into the vast bowl of the valley until, after a time, he brought his gaze down to his hands which were joined and hanging between his knees now, and he asked softly, ‘Did you mean all you said back there?’
She looked into the distance as she replied, ‘Yes, I meant it.’
‘You’d…you’d come and live with me, just like that?’ He lifted his eyes towards her, and now hers were waiting. ‘How…how long have you felt like this?’
‘I…I don’t really know. It…it must have been practically from the beginning. And you?’
‘Since you put your hands into the void and pulled me out, all the time I think, but…but I wouldn’t give it daylight. There…there was my mother’s rejection and others; fickleness, no depth…and then there was the situation. Your father, my mother. No, I wouldn’t give it daylight until, well, I realised I couldn’t make it without you, I’d never make it without you, I didn’t want to make it without you.’
‘Oh Ben! Ben!’
They were locked together, not kissing, just holding tight, their faces on each other’s shoulder as if in shyness, as if they could not face the enormity of the thing that was happening to them. When their heads moved and once again they were looking at each other, Ben, from deep in his throat, asked, ‘Do you realise that this is how it would have been with them if they had been given the chance?’
Dumbly she nodded her head.
‘You’ll always want me, Hannah?’
‘Always, Ben.’
‘You’ll have to be sure.’
‘I am sure.’
‘I need you, Hannah.’
‘I love you, Ben. I love you…oh, I love you…I love you.’ She hugged him to her with each declaration.
That was what he wanted to hear, not for him to say it first, but for some woman to say ‘I love you, Ben, I love you, I love you.’
It was strange but no woman had ever said those words to him.
As he put his mouth down on hers and drew her into him he knew he had reached home; he was on solid ground, and the Earth had no edge to it.
The End
The Mallen Litter Page 32
