‘I have to say I’m sorry for over-reacting this afternoon,’ he said. Without preamble. Without any warning at all to help Helen prepare herself for the conversation.
‘You don’t have to say it,’ she eventually replied, the words dropping into the silence like rocks into a deep pool. ‘I ... I think I understand.’ A lie, or at least partly a lie, because she really didn’t understand all of it. Least of all, perhaps, her own reactions. But she did understand the need for his attempt at an apology.
‘Good.’ And it was as if he’d stop there, except he added, astonishingly, ‘And I’m glad to see you realise it’s mostly your own fault.’
"My fault?’ The question emerged more as a squeal of indignation and outrage, then disintegrated into a fumbling, mixed-up torrent of words that made no sense at all. And then into laughter as she saw the mocking gleam in his eye and realised that he’d deliberately made the comment just to break the tension.
‘All right, Dane,’ she managed to chuckle. ‘I suppose I should have realised you wouldn’t be able to handle all this pulchritude, so I’ll take the blame. And to make it up to you — provided you’re good, of course — I’ll even see about spending some time breaking your damned donkeys,’
Then she grinned, a wicked grin, she hoped. ‘To harness, since obviously you’re too old and infirm to be riding. I think a nice little cart with red wheels would be appropriate, with a special rack for your canes.’
And they both laughed, secure now in the knowledge that the tension had been destroyed, and that although neither might be able to forget the incident earlier in the day, at least it had been defused.
Certainly, Helen realised when she was alone in her bed, she wouldn’t soon forget it. Nor did she really want to, not until she’d more fully savoured the potential pleasures of it.
Huddled beneath her eiderdown, secure in the dark stillness of the room, she found herself reliving the taste of his kiss, the touch of him against her, her own frenzied stirring of emotion, of physical desire. It was, she decided, almost wicked to have enjoyed anything quite that much. Especially when it meant that someone she cared for was troubled by the circumstances.
That, of course, was the problem. Much as the demon inside her revelled in the thought that Dane might now be seeing her not as a child, a tiresome young sister to be dragged into shape to meet the world, but as a woman, a potentially desirable woman, it was only fair to recognise that this altered situation could only put him under a strain that neither of them needed.
It was one thing for her to live under his roof as an old friend, on a platonic basis. They could both co-exist happily enough under that circumstance, as was intended. But for her to play on today’s events would be an infringement of friendship, much less hospitality, and Helen knew she must never, never do that.
Dane obviously knew it, too. Because beginning the next morning he took pains to ensure there was no repeat performance. So tactfully, so subtly, that Helen wouldn’t even have caught it if she hadn’t known him so well, he managed to ensure a safety margin between them, a physical but invisible barrier that maintained their friendship without risk.
And the donkeys helped; in fact so did the entire menagerie. When Dane mentioned that he was going through a particularly bad patch with his latest novel, Helen gradually assumed the farm chores, which she quite enjoyed anyway, and found that she spent most of her days out-of-doors, while he stayed locked in his office. Their paths crossed only at meal times and on the occasional evening when they might sit companionably listening to music, reading, or watching the occasional television programme.
By the end of a fortnight, Helen had taken over the farm work almost in total, along with those aspects of the house not already handled — quite adequately — by the twice-weekly visits of a neighbour lady who did the laundry and washing and general house-cleaning.
It was difficult at first for Helen to be sure exactly what Mrs Bowen thought of her being there, but gradually it became clear that Dane was the woman’s idol and could simply do no wrong. Helen’s presence was, therefore, perfectly correct because it was at his instigation,
Helen also found that despite Dane’s earlier objections, it was just as easy to gradually assume control of the kitchen. She did most of the cooking, all of the shopping for both home and farm, and quickly came to feel that she was anything but redundant.
The hardest part of it all was learning to find her way through Hobart’s maze of one-way streets, on those few occasions when she had to go all the way into the city. For most things, she could shop quite conveniently in the community of Kingston, and she usually did just that.
Dane, having apologised once for his single-minded approach to this particular novel, seemed to take Helen’s input for granted, but this didn’t bother her as it might have earlier in her life. She knew her contribution was appreciated, and because she was so enjoying herself she hardly noticed the passage of time.
Almost every day, she rode Maria, then spent half an hour or so with each of the other donkeys, teaching them basic things like being groomed and handled and having their feet picked up and their hooves trimmed. Trumpet, as she’d expected, proved the most difficult of the quartet, being flighty and of rather uncertain temperament. Joshua was as docile as first impressions had indicated, and showed signs of becoming a most useful beast.
There were times when the ease with which she’d slipped into the routine bothered her. It was sometimes just too ... domestic, almost as if they were a married couple of long standing. Dane never questioned her expenditures, always tucked into her cooking with complimentary vigour, and always found time during the day to listen with interest and consideration to her reports about the animals’ health and progress.
But he maintained that distance between them; whether because he was so wound up in his writing or because he just thought it necessary, Helen wasn’t certain. And, most surprising of all, he never argued with her about anything. That was what she missed most, if anything. She had always enjoyed arguing with him, honing her vocabulary and her mind during discussions about anything and everything.
Then, without warning or preamble, he did begin arguing with her again, and it didn’t take long until she was wishing he wouldn’t.
‘You remember that discussion we were having about somebody stepping into Vivian’s shoes?’ he asked one evening after dinner when there was a fine fire going in the lounge room and they were both settled with coffee and liqueurs.
‘I’m hardly likely to forget it, am I?’ Helen replied, not being bitchy or nasty, but obviously enough rather surprised at the unexpected question. And, admittedly, a trifle sarcastic.
But Dane ignored the sarcasm. ‘And how do you feel about it now that you’ve been here a while?’ he asked. ‘Still feel like there’s a ghost in the house?’
‘I never did,’ Helen replied. ‘That was, I thought, a sort of hypothetical discussion in any case.’
‘It still is,’ he replied.
‘Well I should hope so, which is the whole point. I’m only here as a visitor. I can’t look at this as if ... well ... you know.’
‘You could at least try and think of it that way,’ he insisted. ‘I mean, it isn’t all that far-fetched, surely.’
‘Vivian would turn over in her grave,’ Helen replied, her voice slightly ragged from strain. Damn him! Couldn’t he see that this was one subject she simply couldn’t hypothesise about? She didn’t dare! And then she calmed herself. How could he see it ... she hadn’t herself until he’d asked that question. But now that she did ...
‘She would probably think it was marvellous,’ he said, not looking at her, not seeing the cruelty he was inflicting.
Helen bit her lip, then spoke out brutally, knowing she must nip this conversation in the bud before it became any more involved, before she found herself believing in it, believing in him despite his claim that it was all hypothetical.
‘She’d think it was incestuous. And so would I.’
‘I see.’ And now he was looking at her, through eyes as cold and brittle as ice, eyes she couldn’t continue to meet. Helen dropped her gaze even as he continued. ‘Yes, I suppose you would feel that way, wouldn’t you?’
‘Why not? You do.’ And again her reply held an aura of frank brutality, but she couldn’t help that. It was her only defence from allowing him to resume the discussion, to bring up possibilities she didn’t dare to consider. Not after his bland assertion that it was all hypothetical.
‘I was willing to set that aside ... for purposes of discussion,’ Dane replied, voice calm despite the wildfire she could still see flickering in his eyes.
‘Well I’m sorry, but I ... I can’t,’ she replied, ‘especially not after ..And she couldn’t go on, couldn’t put into words her feelings about that one, soul- destroying kiss. Dane was her friend, but he was more than that, and she simply couldn’t! But he could.
‘Not after a kiss that showed a modicum of mutual physical attraction? I can’t see why that should matter, in theory.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ Helen lied, making it up now as she went along and hoping she could slide the falsehoods past him so quickly he wouldn’t notice. ‘It’s just that ... well ... I still feel very guilty about not being able to make Vivian’s funeral, and about never really telling her how ... how grateful I was to her and ... and everything. And I just ... just can’t talk so calmly about taking her place, not even hypothetically — which is a word I’m coming to hate, by the way — because nobody could ever take her place. She was, as I believe you said, unique.’
‘Ah.’ She didn’t dare look at him, knowing he’d read the lie from her eyes. But when he didn’t speak more than that single word, Helen finally was forced to look up, only he wasn’t looking at her anyway. That surprised her.
And then he was, but there was none of the cold assessment she might have expected, and the wildfire was burned away now from his eyes. He was calm, perhaps too calm, considering her own rattled emotions.
‘I don’t know why it is that we invariably seem to get off on the wrong track every time I instigate a serious discussion,’ he said, it must be me; we never used to do that. So let’s just forget what’s just been said, and see if we can manage to get round this in simple terms. I was hoping that you might spend a bit of time helping me design a new kitchen for this place, Helen. And what all the rest was leading up to is that I’d like you to approach the project as if it was a kitchen you were going to have to live with for a very long time.’
Now it was Helen’s turn to say, ‘Ah,’ which was about all she could say, for the moment. She felt so stupid, so damned silly, that sensible words just wouldn’t break through the glue that seemed to be holding her jaw shut.
‘Very profound.’ She could hear the sarcasm in his voice, but she didn’t dare look to see it in his eyes.
‘I ... I suppose I could do that,’ she finally managed to splutter. ‘Although I really can’t see the sense of it. I mean, it’s perfectly liveable as it is, and wouldn’t it be better to wait until, well, whoever’s really going to have to live with it?’
‘I’ve been doing that since I moved down here, and I’m sick of it,’ he replied. ‘It would have to be the most incompetently arranged kitchen on the face of the earth, as I’m sure you’re well aware by now. Vivian hated it, and you’ll come to hate it, too, in time.’
‘Very likely,’ Helen replied, eyes downcast to hide the thrill of pleasure that had surged up inside her at the merest suggestion that she’d be staying long enough for that to happen.
Actually, she had barely noticed the kitchen except during moments when the inconvenience was most noticeable. With only the two of them to feed, it served well enough for her culinary needs. Her major criticism would have been the south-western exposure that kept the room from getting any sun at all during winter. And which, she thought, would make it unbearably hot at dinner time in summer.
And yet ... could she really ... honestly ... approach the project as he intended? As if she were going to have to live with the result for a long, long time? When she wasn’t ... and worse ... knew she wasn’t? Even though she was beginning to feel that she most desperately wanted to? Helen found her head spinning. It was unfair. Perhaps innocently so, but nonetheless unfair. And she couldn’t even tell him that, not without revealing things she didn’t dare to reveal. Not without altering their association, perhaps destructively, forever.
But there was no logical excuse, bar sheer ignorance, that she could offer for refusing to help in the design. And she knew Dane would see through any but the most thoroughly prepared of excuses, which she didn’t have time to prepare anyway.
‘Oh, all right. I’ll at least think about it,’ she finally, grudgingly conceded. ‘But I really think you’re mad to ask me. I’m certainly no architect; I’m not even all that much of a cook.’
‘And you’re overly modest,’ Dane replied with a grin, ‘Your cooking has improved out of sight from what I remember. As for not being an architect—I don’t remember asking you to do this all by yourself. What I want is for you to help me get the thing worked out to the point where we can hand it over to an architect and know he’s started on the right track, that’s all.’
Which effectively ended any show of argument from Helen. A few minutes later, Dane retreated to the seclusion of his office with his usual reminder that he wasn’t to be disturbed except in the most dire of emergencies, leaving Helen to ponder the rough sketches he’d left her of how the addition — including kitchen space — might look.
She sat at the kitchen table, staring at the sketches without really seeing them, wondering why he inevitably demanded there be no interruptions when there never were any in the first place. In all the time she’d been there, Helen recalled, the ‘phone had rung only once while Dane was working, and that had been a wrong number.
She was still pondering that when the telephone’s shrill bell jerked her back to reality, and she reached up to grasp at the receiver before the noise could further disturb Dane.
This time, it wasn’t a wrong number, but it took Helen several moments of annoying conversation to determine that. Conversation, she decided later, that she’d rather have done without.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Who’s that?’ It was an educated voice, but querulous with naked, obvious suspicion. Almost angry. And rude!
Unbidden, Helen’s mind recalled an incident long in the past, when Dane had received a similar type of response to answering a ‘phone, and without second thoughts she parroted his response of that time.
‘Who wants to know?’ Her reply was mildly flippant, but only sufficiently so to inform the unknown caller that Helen had no intention of being harassed. And it worked, marginally.
‘I would like,’ the voice purred, although the purr held the beginnings of a growl behind it, ‘to speak to Dane Curtis.’
Not the slightest indication that the woman thought she might have a wrong number, nothing like that at all. She knew the number she’d dialled; it was hearing a woman’s voice, Helen’s voice, that had spawned the rude opening.
‘I’m sorry,’ Helen replied gently. ‘He’s not available just at the moment. May I take a message?’
‘You may get him to the telephone ... now!’ And the purr had grown into a genuine snarl. Whomever this woman might be, she was quite obviously used to having her own way in all things. Even, Helen wondered, where Dane was concerned?
‘I’m very sorry but I can’t do that,’ she replied, keeping her voice gentle, refusing to reveal the slightest provocation despite her urge to reply to rudeness with a bit of rudeness herself.
‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’ was the angry reply. And then the voice softened perceptibly.
‘Now look, if he’s there, I should like to speak to him. He will want to speak to me, I can assure you.’
Helen refused to be drawn.
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,�
�� she replied, then silently cursed as she realised that she should have instead continued to deny his availability. This opening, however slight, was enough for the angry caller to gain a foothold.
‘Hah! So he is there,’ the voice snapped, fierce now in the first chances of winning. ‘And I suppose he’s hiding in that den he calls an office, pleading overwork and demanding not to be disturbed except in the most dire of emergencies.’
It was too much in Dane’s own words; this woman had obviously heard them before and Helen couldn’t help wondering under just what circumstances. Not to mention wondering who the mysterious caller was ... For just an instant, Helen was stuck for a reply.
‘But don’t tell me he’s hired a secretary to screen him from the wicked world outside,’ the voice went on. ‘I know you’re not Mrs Bowen; she would have put me through without all this ... this ridiculous hedging.’
‘No,’ Helen replied. ‘I’m not his secretary,’ But she was damned if she’d bother to explain just who she was ... notwithstanding the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure of that herself. She had a fair idea of the response if she were to describe herself to this caller as the property’s resident jillaroo. She was tempted for an instant to say she was his mother, but such flippancy would hardly be appreciated once the woman did contact Dane, and Helen had no doubts that would be accomplished ... and fairly soon at that.
‘But you’re not going to let me talk to him?’ It was hardly a question, and Helen was halfway through saying that she could only obey her instructions when the caller hung up on her.
‘You are a very rude woman,’ she muttered into the silent receiver, half-wishing she’d said it when the woman was there to hear.
She remained in the kitchen for fifteen minutes, half convinced the telephone caller would try again, and yet not at all certain she wanted to be there when it happened. Then Helen decided she’d be more productive if she simply put the matter from her mind. When Dane finished working, or in the morning if she’d gone to bed before he did, she would mention the call to him. And somehow she knew that he’d need little prompting if any to figure out who’d called.
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