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‘It feels as if I’m losing her all over again, just when I’m starting to really get to know her,’ he said, as they drank coffee on the couch in her living room, Anya curled up against his side, after an exhausting weekend showing Petra the sights of Auckland, including a ferry-ride out to Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf and a steep walk up to the top of the volcanic cone for a look at the view.
She leaned her head comfortably on his shoulder. ‘It’s not like last time. You’re not really losing her. You’ve both made a binding connection, you’ll see each other again.’
‘Yes, this time Lorna’s not going to have everything her own way,’ he said grimly.
The only point of real conflict between them was Anya’s adamant refusal to stay the night at The Pines, or even allow Scott to make love to her there. Neither frustrated argument nor seductive persuasion could pressure her into changing her mind. Her heart longed to make itself at home in his home, but she was afraid that in doing so she would be overwhelmed by the intensity of her feelings and relinquish the last remaining thread of control that she had over the progress of their affair. She used Scott’s need to concentrate on his daughter in the short time they had left together as the reason for her reticence, but they both knew that it was more than that, and that when Petra had gone she would no longer be able to hide behind her altruistic excuses. The moment of truth was fast approaching—not least because she was also piling up increasingly querulous
e-mails from London and Paris.
It arrived far sooner than Anya anticipated. One Saturday morning Scott had to respond to a call for an unscheduled court appearance for one of his remand clients and urged her to stay and keep Petra company while he was gone.
‘I shouldn’t be too long. By the way, do you know anyone called Russell Fuller?’
Anya shook her head. ‘Is he a local?’
‘He’s a freelance journalist. He rang me earlier to ask if he could come and see the house and pick up some information about Kate Carlyle’s time here—’
‘Oh!’ Her heart nearly leaped out of her throat.
He looked at her, eyes narrowing at the sight of her contracted pupils. ‘So you have heard of him?’
‘About him…just that some journalist was doing a big cover piece on Kate. She warned me that he’d probably be coming round,’ she said dully.
He frowned. ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to rake over old ashes, but evidently Kate told him I bought The Pines from her. God knows what else she saw fit to tell him. He was fairly insistent that I could help him on the phone, so I thought it wiser to agree to see him and find out exactly what he wants rather than encourage his persistence by turning him down cold. I made an appointment for him to come over this afternoon. It’s up to you whether you want to be here or not…’
He kissed her warmly before he walked out of the door, misreading her feverish clutch of desperation for one of entrancing eagerness, leaving her standing on the brink of a deep, dark chasm.
She should have told him…but she hadn’t. She had been afraid to destroy the precious trust that had been built up between them. And now it was too late. Her period of grace had run out.
Did she owe her first loyalty to Kate—selfish, brilliant Kate whom she had known all of her life but found difficult to like? Or to Scott—a man whose true complexity she was only beginning to appreciate but whom she already loved? Family or lover? Whichever way she chose someone would be hurt. The question was, which choice would wreak the least damage on the least number of people?
The chunky wooden ladder into the attic still creaked at the metal joints as it unfolded from the pull-down trapdoor, and the attic itself was as dirty and cobwebby as Scott had suggested it would be. Anya’s hand shook as she climbed into the cramped, dusty, stifling room, holding up the candle that she had stolen from the dining room to illuminate her way. She hadn’t wanted to ask Mrs Lee for a torch, but matches had been a fairly innocuous request that hadn’t raised any awkward questions. She hadn’t even had to tell any fibs to Petra, because it would take an earthquake to distract the girl from her morning piano practice.
She stepped carefully across the timber beams, ducking to avoid the cobwebs and the low cross-beams that prevented her from standing up. The attic itself was big, running the full length of the house, but only a small proportion of it had been used for storage. Anya didn’t bother to look under the bulky, shrouded shapes, holding the candle low to look for the small metal trunk that Kate had described.
She found it tucked against a beam and set the candle carefully down on a peeling paint-pot as she opened the lid, coughing at the cloud of dust that puffed into the air. Kate’s green hardback journal was on the top, and she took it out and began rifling quickly through the albums, loose photos and papers, extracting anything in Kate’s distinctive slanting hand, occasionally lingering over a half-remembered photograph or amusing piece of family history. Suddenly conscious that the time was slipping away from her, she hurriedly closed the trunk and gathered up her armful of contraband.
As she turned to leave she knocked over the candle, snuffing it out, and realised she’d lost her matches somewhere in the dark. Fortunately the chinks in the roof tiles and the square of light from the open trapdoor guided her stumbling steps back to her starting point and she slithered down the ladder on trembling legs, dropping Kate’s journal with a crash on the floor. It fell open and several pieces of paper flew out of the pages, and when she gathered them up her eye was caught by the medical letterhead of a consultant gynaecologist.
She had never meant to read any of Kate’s personal papers, feeling that she had already sinned enough against her own honour, but she couldn’t help seeing what was right in front of her eyes.
Kate had had a pregnancy test done at the Manukau City doctors’ office five years ago. The result had been positive. In view of Miss Carlyle’s excellent physical and mental health, she’d had no grounds for abortion under current New Zealand law, even though she was only a few weeks into her pregnancy. If she wished to go ahead with a termination it would have to be done overseas.
Kate, who believed that having babies was the real reason that so few women achieved greatness in the world. Kate, who in the five years since her affair with Scott had recovered from her tax problems and brief career hiccup by fulfilling the promise of her youth with an unbroken string of concerts, recordings and festivals with no more than the odd weekend or two out of the public eye.
No wonder she had been panicked at the thought of Scott going through her papers!
‘What are you doing?’
Scott looked from the attic ladder to Anya’s agonised face. ‘My case was called off—the judge was ill,’ he explained absently, looking puzzled but not yet suspicious. ‘Mrs Lee said she thought you were somewhere upstairs. I heard noises on the way up—I thought we had mice in the ceiling. Was that you? What were you doing up there?’ He raised his eyebrows curiously at the untidy stack she was holding against her chest. ‘What have you got there?’
In the silence that followed, her treacherous fingers went utterly numb, and the damning piece of paper floated down onto the top of Scott’s shoe.
He hesitantly bent to pick it up, along with the fallen journal, alerted by her stillness.
When he saw what he had in his hands he went stark white.
He looked at her again, his eyes pure blue devastation, and she knew that she was looking at the death of a dream.
