calculation, not tenderness. Peril, not security.
'He's my enemy,' she said aloud, beating on the wheel with her
clenched fist. 'I hate him, and it's because of that, because of the
hating, that he's there in my head all the time, filling my thoughts.
There's no other reason. There can't be. I won't have it. I won't allow
it!'
Her words died into silence. And in that silence came the bleak and
despairing awareness that it was already too late. The conflict, for
her, was over. Her chains were forged, and her destiny sealed.
Totally. Inexorably.
Joanna swallowed convulsively, the sunlit day outside the car fading
to a shimmering blur, as she fought the tears that would no longer be
denied.
Somehow, against all logic and all reason, she had fallen in love with
Cal Blackstone.
God help me, she whispered. Oh, God help me.
JOANNA stayed in the lay-by for nearly half an hour, oblivious to the
other cars that came and went.
When she was calm again, she started the car and began to drive with
scrupulous care back towards Northwaite. The self-revelation which
had come to her had been as devastating as it was profound, and now
she felt drained of emotion, and oddly detached.
But the new awareness had brought something else in its train: a
determination to face up to a duty she'd been frankly shirking since
her return. To cope with the trauma of the present by exorcising the
other ghosts, other demons in her past. To acknowledge, at last, the
wrong she had done.
She drove through the town, pausing briefly at a florist's shop, and up
the hill towards the tall Victorian parish church that dominated the
skyline. She parked outside the church railings, and, carrying her
flowers, began to walk slowly up the churchyard's gravel path, her
heels crunching over the loose stones.
The Bentham family plot was in a secluded corner, shaded by trees,
and Joanna bit her lip as she looked down at the neat oblong of turf,
with its simple headstone.
It had been Martin's own wish to be cremated, as she'd repeated over
and over again in the numbing aftermath of his accident, but his aunt
Grace Bentham had been adamant that he should be buried here
beside his parents, and she'd allowed herself to be overruled.
The grave was immaculately kept, the flowers in the stone vase only
just beginning to wilt. Miss Bentham's work, Joanna thought as she
fetched fresh water and arranged the blooms she'd brought. She'd
been half afraid she would find Martin's aunt keeping one of her
solitary vigils in the churchyard, but to her relief there seemed no one
else around. She could not have borne, she thought, more accusation,
more confrontation. Not until she'd been able to come to terms herself
with her marriage and the circumstances which had brought it about.
Apart from the trilling of birds in the leafy branches above her head, it
was very quiet, and she was glad of it. She needed peace to think, and
remember, although few of the memories would be pleasant ones.
But then she hardly deserved that they should be.
'You killed him.' The words came back to her with as much startling
clarity as if Grace Bentham had suddenly materialised beside her like
a figure of Nemesis. 'You killed my dear boy!'
They were standing in the ugly drawing-room of Miss Bentham's
house, thick curtains shutting out the daylight as a mark of respect.
The room had been stifling, but Joanna shivered just the same. 'Miss
Bentham --' she had never been invited to call the older woman Aunt
Grace, or even wanted to '—you don't know what you're saying. You
heard the coroner. The verdict was accidental death. The pathologist
said that Martin had over double the legal limit of alcohol --'
'Martin did not drink. Martin never drawc.' Grace Bentham's voice
was inimical. 'You must have forced him to it. You married him. You
made him miserable, and you killed him!'
'Oh, please!' The words were like knives, stabbing Joanna's flesh,
stabbing her to the heart. 'You mustn't say these things...'
'It's time they were said. I should have spoken before.' Miss
Bentham's face was like granite—like marble. 'I watched—I saw the
life, the happiness drain out of him while he lived with you. You were
no good for him. Why did you marry him? Why couldn't you leave
him alone?'
That, Joanna thought, wincing, was the million- dollar—the
unanswerable question.
After a brief pause, the other woman continued, 'You will not, of
course, require the flat any longer. I should be glad if you would
vacate it as quickly as possible. I have a waiting-list of possible
tenants.'
Joanna felt as if she'd been slapped across the face. She had no real
desire to stay on in the flat for any length of time. It held too many
memories of wretchedness and failure for that, but she thought she
would be at least allowed a breathing-space, a chance to put her life
together again.
She lifted her chin. 'I can be out by the end of the week.'
'Good.' Grace Bentham sounded almost brisk. 'After the funeral, I see
no reason why we should have to meet again, do you?'
Even now, with the sun warm on her back, Joanna shuddered as she
recalled the sheer malevolence in Grace Bentham's eyes. She'd
wanted to shout a denial,to fling the accusations back in the older
woman's icy face, but it was impossible.
Sitting back on her heels, she thought about Martin Bentham.
Although she'd known him almost all her life, she'd always regarded
him as something of a loner, always on the fringe of her crowd rather
than one of its moving forces.
He'd had few girlfriends, and it was generally agreed it would take a
combination of Mother Theresa and Superwoman to find favour with
Grace Bentham, who'd brought him up since the death of his parents
in his early childhood, and doted on him to the point of obsession.
He'd been due to inherit some money from a trust fund when he was
thirty-five, but until then he'd seemed content to help his aunt with
her thriving antiques business.
Joanna had accepted his occasional invitations because he was
always such undemanding company. Martin had never expected an
evening at the theatre or a restaurant to end in bed. There had never
been any pressure in his brief goodnight kisses to move the
relationship to a more intimate level. She'd felt safe with Martin,
relaxed. He'd been a friend who was also a man, and there didn't seem
to be too many of those around.
But her encounter with Cal Blackstone on that rain&wept high road
above Northwaite had changed everything.
She'd felt threatened, pursued, and the kind of casual, uninvolved
relationships she'd enjoyed with other men up to that point were
suddenly no protection against Cal's intensity of purpose. She'd
needed, with cold desperation, to distance herself from Cal—to put
herself totally and finally beyond his reach.
She could not even remember now the exact moment when she'd
decided the answer was to marry Martin Bentham, but she could
recall with shame every trick she'd used to persuade him to propose to
her.
It had been, in theory, an eminently suitable match, joining two
established local families. She'd told herself defensively that she
liked Martin—she really did, and that friendship—companionship
was reckoned to be a far safer basis for marriage than some
ungovernable passion. And out of friendship, love would surely
grow—eventually.
Their relationship might not have many fireworks, but it would be
stable and secure, she'd argued in self- justification. Martin couldn't
want to go on living forever in that hideous Victorian villa being
fussed over by his aunt. And, as another man's wife, she would surely
be safe from Cal Blackstone's machinations forever.
There'd been nothing to warn her what lay ahead of her. Nothing to
tell her about the manifold complexities of human nature, or explain
that there could be more than one kind of desperation.
Six months after the ceremony which had tied them together, Martin
had driven his ageing sports car straight into the wall of a viaduct on a
notoriously dangerous bend. He'd been killed instantly.
The church had been crowded for the funeral, she remembered. As
well as the genuine mourners, there'd been the usual element of
sensation-seekers, intrigued by this swift and violent ending to a
newly fledged marriage.
In the churchyard, Joanna and Grace Bentham had been invited to
scatter earth on the coffin. All during the service, she'd been on edge,
aware of the older woman watching her, hating her. Now, as the
trowel passed between them, their hands had brushed, and Joanna had
found herself recoiling from the cold dank contact with Miss
Bentham's skin, as if she'd touched some stone, dredged from a deep
and stagnant pool.
As the vicar uttered the final words, Joanna had seen the other
woman's face twist into an approximation of a snarl, her mouth
parting, working as she tried to find speech. In that instant, she'd
known that Grace Bentham was going to scream 'Murderess!' at her
across Martin's grave. Her whole body had tensed in shock and
negation as she waited for the onslaught. But it had never come.
Instead, with a cry like an animal, Grace Bentham had fallen on her
knees. 'My boy!' she'd wailed. 'My darling boy!'
There had been a moment's horrified silence, then the vicar and the
undertaker had moved hurriedly to her side, lifting her to her feet as
she began to sob uncontrollably.
Joanna had felt nauseated, close to fainting. She'd dragged her
appalled gaze away from Miss Bentham's agonised face, and it was
then that she saw Cal. Impeccably attired in a dark suit, topped by a
grey overcoat, his black armband neatly in place, he'd stood, as ever,
a little apart from the other mourners, outwardly a picture of
convention.
But, as their eyes met, Joanna had known that all the ruin and misery
of the past six months had all been for nothing. That, for him,
everything had been just the same, as if Martin had never existed, and
that she was in as much danger as ever.
So I ran, she thought in self-derision. And I thought that would solve
everything. I thought I'd be able to stay away and be safe. But there
was never any safety, never any real sanctuary from him, and I knew
it. That was why I came back, although I invented any number of
other reasons to justify my decision.
But I couldn't stay away any more. I had to return— to see him again,
to find out. And now I know—I know everything.
That was why I couldn't defend myself against Grace Bentham when
she attacked me. Because I knew there was an element of truth in
what she said.
I did everything I could to try and make Martin happy. I wanted our
marriage to work, but it didn't, and it couldn't, because I didn't love
him, and whatever I did feel for him wasn't enough—not in an
intimate relationship like marriage.
I was just using Martin, and he knew it, and that was why it was all
such a disaster from the very start. I was trying to build a relationship
out of nothing, making bricks without straw, because I didn't dare to
admit, even to myself, that Cal was always there with me, in my heart
and in my mind, even then.
No matter what I did, how hard I fought, I couldn't be rid of him. I
told myself it was because I loathed him and everything he
represented, but I knew all the time, deep down, that it couldn't be that
simple.
My God, I used to lie beside Martin at night, and dream about Cal
over and over again.
Her whole body warmed in bitter shame as she remembered those
dreams. She had tried so hard to dismiss them, to tell herself that they
were engendered solely by the problems of her marriage rather than
her unspoken, guilty desire for another man. The one man above all
she had no right, no reason to desire.
But I should have been honest with myself, she thought. I should have
been honest with Martin too. Then we could have ended that dreadful
sham of a marriage and started again. And Martin would still be alive
now.
Instead, he's dead, and it's all my fault.
Her whole being seemed to convulse in guilt and grief, and she
wrapped her arms tightly across her body, staring unseeingly up
through the sun-dappled leaves to the blue arc of the sky. She began
to weep again, but very quietly and hopelessly, as she'd never been