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‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid Mr Marchant isn’t seeing any visitors.’
‘Please. I think he’ll want to see me.’ But as she said the words she realised their bitter irony. If Jack was blind then he wouldn’t be ‘seeing’ anyone.
There was a pause while the woman studied her and maybe something in Ashley’s plea touched her because she opened the door wider and stepped aside.
‘You look harmless enough—and it might do him good to talk to someone for a change. But not for long, mind,’ she warned. ‘Come this way.’
The woman led the way along a long corridor to a door right at the far end, and she opened it to let Ashley step through and then shut it behind her.
The room was gloomy, the light from the fire its only illumination, and Ashley was trembling as her eyes took in the scene in front of her. Because there, sitting in front of the fire—his head bowed in a way she had never seen it bowed before—sat the blinded form of her lover. His tall frame was still striking but all the energy and vitality seemed to have been sucked from him—as if, just like Blackwood, he were nothing but an empty shell. By his feet sat Casey, who looked up as she entered. The dog’s ears pricked and, with a little yelp, he jumped up and ran towards her.
‘Down, boy,’ said Ashley softly and she saw Jack start.
‘Who’s that?’ he demanded, putting his head to one side—as if to listen more keenly. ‘Is that you, Mary?’
‘No, it is not Mary. Don’t you know who it is?’ She swallowed. ‘Casey does.’
Blindly, he reached out his hand towards her and the gesture nearly broke Ashley’s heart. ‘Who is it?’ he repeated. ‘God, am I going mad at last? For a minute then I thought—’
She could not help herself—her hand reached out and entwined with the outstretched fingers of his.
‘What did you think?’ she whispered.
‘But that is her voice,’ he said, like a man in a dream as his fingers now locked around hers. ‘And this is her hand in mine. Ashley? Ashley? Is that really you?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed. ‘Yes, it’s me, Jack.’
‘Not a dream?’
‘No dream, no—although maybe it feels a bit like one.’
‘Let me touch you. Let me touch you properly.’
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She had thought that he meant to kiss or to caress her, but Ashley realised that for Jack touch had taken on a whole new dimension. His fingers had become his eyes. As she bent towards him they reached up to her face—their feather-light contact tracing the contours of her features as if he was learning them all over again.
‘So it really is you,’ he said wonderingly. ‘Ashley Jones.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve come back to me?’
‘Yes, I’ve come back to you.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ came his harsh assertion and Ashley stilled as he let her hand fall—turning his head away and waving her away in a gesture of dismissal. ‘You should have stayed where you were and forgotten all about me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘For God’s sake, Ashley,’ he grated. ‘Don’t let your tender heart blind you to the truth—or to reality. You’ve seen me—so now go.’
‘And if I don’t want to go?’
‘You have no choice in the matter. I’m telling you to go. You think I deserve someone like you, after what I did to you?’ He shook his head and bit the words out as if they were poison. ‘I’m not the man you need—especially now that I have a disability. And maybe that’s my punishment for having lied to you and misled you for so long. For having taken your innocence with scant regard for anything except my own pleasure.’ His voice deepened with some kind of emotion which made it sound as if it was close to breaking. ‘But don’t worry, Ashley—nobody will blame you for not wanting me. Not even me. Especially not me. I’m blind—and it’s the perfect let-out clause.’
She could feel the walls pressing in on her—and her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by some ruthless and powerful fist. ‘And what if I told you that I don’t want a “let-out” clause?’ she demanded quietly. ‘If I said that I didn’t care about your blindness? That you are still Jack—my Jack—and you always will be—and that no disability could be greater than the one of not having you in my life any more?’
‘Stop it right now! Stop it,’ he raged. ‘You think I’m in any position to withstand your sweet words of comfort? It’s over, Ashley—and I’ve accepted that. So go. You once told me that you didn’t think you could ever trust me again, and that no relationship could ever be founded on a lack of trust, and you were right.’
