Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (67 page)

“It doesn’t matter where. Don’t look like that, Steve. It’s been absorbed, taken into account, resigned to. We all have our little troubles.”

The silence was like a weight on them. It was almost cold. The ponderous stone carapace of the Mosque shut out the Cordoban heat, shut out the bright, steaming day, shut out the world. When she shivered, Steve put an arm around her.

“It is kind of nasty in here,” he said. “Like a lost world. Like — ”

He stopped talking suddenly.

They had both slowed up. There was now an immense silence, no ringing footfalls, no resounding voices echoed back. There was just that ghastly, cold silence. It was really like being enclosed in a tomb, like breathing the dank air of death, a final and ineluctable end to sunlight and beauty and laughter.

“Where’s Richard?” Steve asked.

“Just up ahead, I expect.”

Steve put his hand on one of the great blocks of stone that was part of a pillar, and called.

“Richard.”

There was no answer.

He called again.

“Richard!”

There was still no response.

And Kelly felt her flesh crawl.

“Call him again,” she said sharply.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve said angrily. “Where did that little bastard go to?” He dropped her hand and began walking rapidly through the corridors. “Come on, let’s see where the little jerk is.”

And then they were walking faster, almost running.

“Steve, why are you so — ?” Kelly asked.

He didn’t bother to answer. Suddenly it was a nightmare; those interminable corridors, the pillars flashing by, striped and now quite hideous, as they plunged down the series of archways, their heels clashing against the marble underfoot.

It was like … we should have a compass, Kelly thought … like running, as you did in horrible dreams, through eternity, never being able to catch up with what you wanted to find … whatever it was.

This incredible, abandoned place … like hell, perhaps, like the underworld. And then, blessedly, there was an end to the apparently endless corridors. Through an open doorway, a mere slit in the wall, the green of grass was framed, like a glorious picture, dead ahead. Steve shot through the narrow aperture and after him, Kelly. It was like being given life again … to see the sky, to feel the warmth of the day:

Seated outside on the grass, reading studiously, his face intent, Richard sat, legs splayed, looking peaceful and content.

“Damn you,” Steve barked. “Didn’t you hear us screeching for you?”

The boy looked up.

“Wha’?”

Steve swore under his breath. “Get up and say you’re sorry,” he thundered. “When you’re with me you stay with me, is that understood?”

“But — ”

“Apologize!”

There was a stunned silence. Then Richard, eyes wide, scrambled up. “I’m sorry if — ”

“All right, all right! Don’t ever do that again. Wander away … who do you think you are, you little joker?”

“What did I
do?
”

“You left us! We were yelling for you! Who gave you permission to — ”

Something shone in the boy’s eyes, and it wasn’t hurt or resentment, Kelly saw. It was a kind of slowly dawning admiration. He didn’t mind the scolding. In fact, he liked it. A man’s authority, a man’s anger.

“I didn’t realize,” he said. “Gee, I just didn’t think.”

“Well, from now on you think,” Steve said grimly. “I mean what I said, Rich. We’re responsible for you. And you’re to remember that.”

“I will, Steve.”

“Okay. Now let’s get away from this crazy place.”

• • •

They had lunch at La Rambla, where there was a gift shop with beautiful pottery, and later went on to Castro de Rio and Pozoblanco. Richard made a trip to the bathroom and Kelly asked Steve why he had been so upset at the boy’s disappearance in the Mosque.

“Nothing happened,” she said. “Yet you made a real Federal case out of it.”

“It’s over with now. Let’s forget about it.”

“Uh uh. What was all the shouting about?”

He lit a cigar. “Okay, you might as well know. Richard’s a very rich boy. Through an inheritance from his paternal grandmother. Grape nuts, or something similar. There’s a lot of money riding on that kid.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I make it my business to find out things.”

“Why? Who are you?”

“What does it matter?”

“Steve, you’re unfair. You tell me these things and I’m supposed to sit back and smile nicely. I want to know.”

He looked away, puffed on his cigar and leaned back. “Let it go.”

“No. When Richard disappeared, you thought someone had — ”

He didn’t say anything.

“You thought someone had … taken him.”

She knew then; she had a flash of insight. She should have guessed it before. “Why, you’re watching out for Richard,” she said. “It wasn’t coincidence. You didn’t just
happen
to be on the same plane with him. You came over with him. I wondered about that. A child under ten is always accompanied by a stewardess; that’s a rule of the airline. Over ten is in a different category, but just the same … and if you’re right, if Richard is a very wealthy boy, no one would take chances with such a child. So you came along to keep an eye on him. Why? Whom do you represent?”

“A relative,” he said reluctantly. “Let it go at that.”

“Constant. Richard’s uncle.”

“Let it lay, Kelly.”

“Was it Constant?”

Even if he had wanted to answer, it was too late. Richard trotted back to his chair again. Could he have another coke, please? Kelly caught Steve’s eye and he grinned companionably … but secretively. Why, he must be a private eye! A man who led a dangerous life.

But it didn’t change things. Whatever he was, whoever he was, she was in love with him. So much for upbringing. For the first time in her life she was a captive. The lessons she had learned at Mother’s knee wouldn’t help her now. The cigarette Steve lit for her wavered between trembling fingers, and she might be making the biggest mistake of her life, but she was very much in love with that man. Everything else … career, aspirations, the dream of a quiet, dignified life drew a big, fat blank.

He saw it in her eyes; she knew that. And saw his gratification. Resented it, but could do nothing about it. A furtive life … that was what he led, and she had guessed it almost from the beginning. A man who spied on people, who looked into peepholes.

“Could I please have another coke?” Richard asked.

Echoes. Resounding echoes. Red stripes on a vaulted ceiling. Ahead stretched infinity, in its awfulness, its finality. Why am I alone? Kelly thought, turning to look for Steve, holding out a hand, absently, for Richard.

But they weren’t there.

Not Steve, not Richard.

Then, she told herself reasonably, they were just beyond the next arch. She had been so busy looking at the brilliant tiles on the walls that she hadn’t noticed. They had just gone on ahead, that was all.

Confidently, she walked quickly ahead, was in another corridor. Another corridor just like the last one. They were all the same. They were repetitions. Ad infinitum. Forever!

Because there was no end, of course.

No beginning?

No.

And no end.

I hate this place, she thought. I don’t want to be here.

“Where are you?” she asked her friends.

She walked ahead, gaining the corridor beyond. They must be here, of course.

No, they were not. They were not! There was no one there, not the sound of a voice, not the ghost of a whisper. Her footfalls echoed on the marble tile of the floor, rang out loudly.

She was alone. They had left her. She was alone.

And exactly where? Because where was the end and where the beginning of this maze? Where had it started? To where did it lead?

This is horrible, she thought, in the terrible grip of claustrophobia. I can’t possibly stand this.

She put out her arms, as if to push away the walls, as if, like Sampson, she could bring the pillars crashing down, see the hideous tomb of Abd el Rahman break into ruins, show the bright blue of the sky outdoors.

A bird flew by. She ducked, filled with horror. A bird? And yet she loved them, loved all wild creatures. The bird rushed past her, its wings almost tangling in her hair. The rushing sound of its flight filled her ears, deafening, and she caught sight of the eyes, cruel and intent. The eyes looked at her, calculating and savage, and then the bird soared up again, brushing against the vaulting of the ceiling, poised for further devastations.

She knew its plan. To destroy her. Yes, it was clear what the creature had in its mind. And then, with a caw of anger, it beat its wings and dive-bombed.

She screamed.

“No … no …”

But the bird, in its swift, terrifying descent, plummeted down. She wound her hands round her head but, with a deafening rush of powerful wings, the eagle crashed down on her.

There was the slash of its talons. The blood poured down her forehead. The claws were intent on her eyes, tearing, tearing.

Her eyes!

The scream forced its way past her tight throat.

• • •

Steve woke up with a start.

What the hell was that? he thought.

Someone had screamed bloody murder.

He slid out of bed.

The
scream
died away.

At the interconnecting door he paused.

Had
he been dreaming?

Everything was quiet now.

And then, suddenly, there was the repressed sound of sobbing, as if a child was on the other side of that door. A little girl …

Hell, that was Kelly.

He stood a minute, and then turned the doorknob.

She was curled up in the fetal position. In the dim light from outdoors he could see her shoulders shaking. She heard him come in, and gasped.

“Who’s there?”

Her hands came away from her head.

“It’s only me. I heard you.”

“Oh. It’s all right. It was only a dream.”

“All right. Talk about it.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

“No no, it’s too stupid.”

“Don’t be a joker. What was this dream?”

She gave a shaky laugh. “Something about a big bird. It’s insane. I love birds.”

“What did the bird do?”

“It tried to …” She shuddered. “Yipes, I’m sorry,” she said. “But it was rather disgusting.”

“Tell me.”

“I just wonder why we have such garbage in our minds,” she said. “It was such an obscene dream. The bird was going for my eyes.”

She laughed again, trembling in his arms.

“Imagine? My eyes, you understand.”

“It was only a dream.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Atavism,” he said. “We’re what thousands of centuries have made us. We still have the primordial fears.”

“I suppose.”

He cradled her, and she was passive, quiescent. “It was that Mosque,” she said finally. “That weird, bizarre place. That’s something that gets to you.”

“Yes, it was unpleasant, rather.”

“Of course that was the reason for my rotten dream.”

“I’m sure.”

“I don’t even like Spain much. It’s another kind of civilization. It’s alien to me, really.”

“Sure. I understand.”

He let her talk.

And at last she subsided.

“I’m all right now,” she said. “You were very good to come to me.”

“It wasn’t altruism,” he said. “If you haven’t guessed by now, you’re not as bright as I think you are.”

She stiffened in his arms.

Finally she said, as if it were painful, “I like hearing that. But just the same. You understand …”

“Understand what?”

“I don’t … I mean I can’t … really, Steve,
can’t …
”

She swallowed. “I mean, follow it up.”

“Did you think I wanted to get into bed with you?” he asked.

“Oh, I just mean …”

“I do want to get into bed with you. But not like this. Kelly, for God’s sake. I’m a man, I can always get girls … women …”

He put her away from him.

“What I’m trying to say is, I’m not out for an easy thing. They come a dime a dozen. I just want to tell you that hearing you cry out, knowing you had a need for someone and that I was there to supply that need. Why, that’s the most beautiful thing I can think of. That I could come to you, hold you and comfort you. For now, that’s the best, that’s what I want, what I prize. I won’t even kiss you. Give me your little hand, let me hold it to my heart. That’s the sweet girl. You are a sweet girl, Kell. Nothing hard or brittle about you.”

He put her hand to his chest.

“Christ, look what I found,” he said huskily. “Look what I found right out of the blue.”

Then he got up.

“I’m right next door,” he reminded her. “So if there’s anything else — we could, of course, play double solitaire if you can’t sleep.”

And then she was able to laugh. “I’ll sleep,” she said.

“Sure?”

“Yes. And thank you, Steve.”

He went out and she heard him moving in the next room. It was so reassuring. I never felt alone before, she thought, drifting off. But of course she had been alone. She’d had fun, but —

Look what I found, Steve had said, and she said the same words to herself.

Look what she found.

Lisa Comstock, at the Hassler Hotel in Rome, placed a call to New York City. She was in bed and propped up on fat pillows. Everything she had on her body was hand-made … the nightgown and the bedjacket. Real silk, and the trim Brussels lace. There had never been a time when she had known anything else. She had been reared in luxury, first in a Palazzo in Florence and then, when she was a very small child, in Manhattan, on Park Avenue.

She had been eighteen when she married an extremely wealthy, older man, and she was the mother of a child whose inheritance was enormous. Richard’s money was tied up in a trust fund, but it also provided handsomely for his mother until he reached the age of twenty-one.

She could come and go as she pleased; yet she was not a happy woman. She had been the deb of the year when she came out; now, at just past thirty, she saw her beauty dimming. There were small, fine lines at the corners of her eyes and her inky black hair sprouted an occasional gray strand. She spent several minutes every morning with an eyebrow tweezer, yanking them out and feeling the depression washing over her.