Sheltering Rain Page 3

  Joy stared at him in horror as he said this, but now it was he who looked ahead. She couldn't think of a way of conveying that he had misunderstood, that it was the being-sick thing that she had been running from, not him, without bringing it all back again, and she didn't want him to remember her for that. Oh, where was Stella when she needed her? She always knew how to talk to men. By the time she had decided that a short denial was the best response, it was somehow too late, and they were heading back toward the yard, their horses' heads stretched long and low in front of them, nodding wearily as they headed home.

  Edward offered to help put the horses away, and Mr. Foghill suggested she might like to refresh herself in the ladies' rest room. On sight of her reflection, she realized that he had been being solicitous. She looked a fright. Her hair was a frizzy, wet tangle, a hair ball in a bathplug. When she tried to run her fingers through it, they halted only inches from her scalp. Her face was both sweaty with humidity and smeared with dust from the trail, and there were green spittle marks on her white shirt, where her horse had attempted to rub his head on her after she had dismounted. She rubbed furiously at her face with a wet hand towel, almost in tears at her inability to remember something as simple as a comb, or spare ribbon. Stella would never have forgotten something like that. But when she walked out, Edward merely greeted her with a broad smile, as if there were nothing remiss in her appearance. It was then that she noticed his own trousers were streaked with sweat and red dirt, clean only from the shin down, where Mr. Foghill had lent him a pair of boots.

  "Your carriage awaits," he said, grinning at his own appearance. "You'll need to direct me back. I haven't a clue where we are."

  Edward was a little quieter on the way home, and Joy felt her own silence more acutely. She could issue directions, but, despite the ease she felt in his company, could still not muster up anything interesting to say. It would all feel somehow shallow, when what she wanted to convey was that in the space of four short hours he had shifted her very world off its axis. In his eyes she saw other lands, green fields and hunting dogs, eccentric villagers, and a world devoid of cocktail parties. In his voice, she heard a speech free from artifice, and cleverness, continents away from the mannered, moneyed language of the Hong Kong expat. In his broad, freckled hands, she saw horses and kindnesses and something else that made her stomach constrict with longing.

  "I wish I could have met you sooner," he was saying, his voice carrying away from her in the wind.

  "What? What did you say?" Joy put her hand up to her ear.

  "I said I wish I could have met you sooner." He slowed the car, so that she could hear better. A car full of naval officers tore past them, honking a lewd greeting. "I--I--oh, I don't know. It's just pretty galling that I leave the day after tomorrow."

  A chill ran through Joy's heart. She could feel every vein turn to ice. "What? What do you mean?"

  "We sail in two days. I've got one more day of shore leave, and then we've got to head for Korean waters."

  Joy could not hide the expression of horror on her face. This was too cruel. To have found someone--to have found him--and for him to leave so soon.

  "For how long?" Her voice, when it came out, was small and tremulous. It didn't sound like hers. Edward turned to look at her, caught something in her face, and turned back to the wheel, signaling that he was about to pull over.

  "I don't think we're coming back here," he said, gazing back at her. "We do our bit with the Yanks in Korean waters, and then we're headed for New York. We'll be at sea for months." He was gazing right into her eyes, as he said this, seemingly imparting something of the impossibility of connections when one is always on the move.

  Joy felt like her head was going to explode. Her hands, she noted, had begun to tremble. It was like being given the key to a prison cell, only to find it was made of rubber. She realized, with dismay, that she was going to cry.

  "I can't," she said quietly, biting at her lip.

  "What?" Edward had reached over, so that his hand was resting very close to her own.

  "I can't just let you go. I can't let you go." She said it loudly, this time, her eyes meeting his full on. Even as she spoke, she couldn't quite believe what she was saying, the sheer inappropriateness, as a young woman of her upbringing, of her own words. But they felt unstoppable, came fully formed out of her mouth like solid, warm pebbles, falling like offerings before him.

  There was a long, electrifying pause, during which she thought she might die. Then Edward took her hand. His was warm, dry.

  "I didn't think you liked me," he said.

  "I've never liked anyone. I mean, I never liked anyone before. I never felt comfortable with anyone before." She was gabbling now, the words tumbling unchecked, but he didn't pull away. "I find it so hard to talk to people. And there aren't people here whom I really want to talk to. Except Stella. My friend, that is. And when you came this morning I was so embarrassed about what happened last night that it was easier to get you to go away than it was to be nice to you. But when you stayed, and we went in the car, and everything, I never felt like that. I never felt like I wasn't being judged. Like I could just sit, and that person would understand."

  "I thought you were hungover," he laughed. But she was too intense, too brimful of emotion to laugh with him.

  "Everything you've said today I've agreed with. There's nothing you've said that I haven't felt myself. I mean obviously not the hunting and stuff, because I've never been. But all the things you said about cocktail parties and people and liking horses better sometimes and not minding if people think you're a bit odd, well, that's me, too. That's me. It's like listening to my own thoughts. So I can't. I can't let you leave. And if you're horrified by what I've said and you think I'm the most embarrassing, forward creature you've ever met, then I still don't care, because it's the only time I've felt like I was really being true to myself in my entire life."

  Two heavy, salty tears had begun a slow pathway down Joy's flushed cheeks, weighted by the emotion behind what was certainly the longest speech of her adult life. She gulped, trying to keep them in check, both appalled and exhilarated by what she had done. She had laid herself prostrate before this man whom she didn't know, in a manner her mother, and probably Stella, too, would have found certifiable. And when she had told him she didn't care, it was not true. If he turned from her now, uttered some polite platitude about what a lovely day he had had and how no doubt she must be feeling exhausted, she would hold herself in until she got home and then find some way of just, well, killing herself. Because there was no way she could bear skating the trite surface of her existence when she had dipped below, and found something cool, and calming, and deep. Say you at least understand what I'm saying then, she willed. Even if you just say you understand, that will be enough for me.

  There was a long, painful silence. Another car roared by, accelerating as it passed them.

  "I suppose we'd better go back then," he said, placing his hand back on the wheel, and using the other to shift the stiff gear stick.

  Joy's face froze, and slowly, imperceptibly, her body shrank back into the passenger seat, her spine so brittle that it was likely to crack. So she had gotten it wrong. Of course she had. Whatever had made her think that an outburst like that could win a man's respect, let alone his heart?

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, her head falling toward her chest. "I'm so sorry."

  Oh, God, but she was such a fool.

  "For what?" said Edward, his hand reaching over and pushing back her damp curtain of hair. "I want to talk to your father."

  Joy looked at him blankly. Was he going to tell him that she was a fool?

  "Look," he said, cupping her face with his hand. It smelled of sweat. And horse. "I know you'll probably think this is a bit sudden. But, Joy, if you'll have me, I want to ask him about us getting married."

  You don't possibly think we're going to say yes, do you?" said her mother, her face illuminated by horror and astonishment th
at her daughter had managed to elicit such strength of feeling from any man. (Her bad humor had been exacerbated by the fact that they had arrived back before she had had time to put her face on.) "We don't even know him."

  She spoke as if he weren't even in the room.

  "I'll tell you anything you want to know, Mrs. Leonard," said Edward, his long, dirty-trousered legs stretched out in front of him.

  Joy eyed them with the stunned joy of new possession. She had spent the remainder of the journey in a daze, laughing out loud and half-hysterically at the madness of what they had just done. She didn't know him! He didn't know her! And yet they had grinned at each other with this kind of manic complicity, holding hands awkwardly, and she had willingly launched her life into his grasp. She hadn't expected to find anyone. Hadn't even thought of looking. But he seemed to know what he was doing, and he seemed much more likely to know what was right than she was. And he hadn't been remotely fazed by the prospect of putting this insanity to her parents.

  Edward took a deep breath, and began reeling off the facts. "My father is a retired judge, and he and my mother have moved to Ireland, where they breed horses. I've got a sister and a brother, both married, both older than I am. I'm twenty-nine years old, I've been in the navy for almost eight years, since I left university, and I have a private trust on top of my naval salary."

  The slight wrinkling of her mother's nose at the mention of Ireland had been counterbalanced by the words "private trust." But it was her father's face Joy gazed at, desperately searching for some sign of approval.

  "It's awfully sudden. I don't see why you can't wait."

  "Do you think you love her?" Her father, leaning back in his chair, his gin and tonic in hand, stared at Edward. Joy flushed. It seemed almost obscene, him saying it out loud like that.

  Edward looked at her for a long time, and then took her hand, making her color again. No man had ever even touched her in front of her parents.

  "I don't know if either of us could call it love yet," he said slowly, almost addressing Joy. "But I'm not young and foolish; I've met lots of girls, and I know as surely as I know anything that Joy is unlike anyone I've ever met."

  "You can say that again," muttered her mother.

  "All I can say is I think I can make her happy. If I had longer, I would be able to put your mind at rest. But, the fact is, I've got to sail pretty well straightaway."

  It didn't occur to Joy to question the speed of his feelings. She was simply fiercely grateful that they appeared to match the strength of her own. Still reeling from the fact that someone had called her unique in a good way, it took her some minutes to realize that his hand had started to sweat.

  "It's too soon, Graham. Tell them. They don't even know each other."

  Joy caught the brightness in her mother's eyes, the agitation behind them. She's jealous, she thought suddenly. She's jealous because she's disappointed in her own life and she can't bear the thought that someone might be about to sweep me out of mine.

  Her father stared at Edward for a while longer, as if working something out. Edward held his gaze.

  "Well, they do things faster these days," said Graham, motioning to Bei-Lin to fetch some more drinks. "You remember what it was like in the war, Alice."

  Joy had to fight to suppress a little thrill of excitement. She squeezed Edward's hand and felt the faintest of returns.

  Her father drained his glass. He appeared to be momentarily absorbed in something outside the window.

  "So, say I said yes, young man. What would you plan to do about it in thirty-six hours?"

  "We want to get married," said Joy, breathlessly. She felt able to speak now that it seemed they were only arguing over timing.

  Her father didn't appear to hear her. He was talking to Edward.

  "I'll respect your wishes, sir."

  "Then I'll say you have my blessing. To get engaged."

  Joy's heart leapt. And fell. "You can marry when you're next on shore leave."

  There was a stunned silence in the room. Joy, fighting back disappointment, was dimly aware of the shuffling sound of Bei-Lin, behind the door, rushing off to tell the cook. Her mother was staring at her and back at her father. What would people think?

  "If you're serious about each other, then it won't hurt to wait. You can buy the ring, make all the announcements, and then get married later." Her father put his glass heavily down on the lacquered table, as if signifying that judgment had been passed.

  Joy turned to look at Edward, who was letting out a slow, deep breath. Please disagree, she willed. Tell him you've got to marry me now. Take me away on your big gray ship.

  But Edward said nothing.

  Gazing at him, Joy experienced the first thrill of disappointment in her new partner, the first microcosmic, bitter recognition that the man in whom she placed her highest hopes, her greatest trust, might not be entirely what she had hoped.

  "When will that be?" she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. "When do you think you'll be off your ship?"

  "Our next proper stop is New York," he said, almost apologetically. "But, that won't be for around nine months. It might even be a year."

  Joy sat upright, and glanced around at her mother, who appeared to have relaxed. She was almost smiling, a patronizing smile, the kind of smile that said, Oh, young people--they might think they're in love, but let's see what happens six months down the line. Alice wanted to be proven right, Joy realized, feeling cold. She wanted the affirmation that true love didn't exist, that everyone ended up in marriages as miserable as her own. Well, if they thought this was going to put her off they were wrong.

  "Then I'll see you in nine months," she said to the blue eyes of her new fiance, trying to convey as much certainty into her own as she knew she felt. "Just--just write."

  The door opened.

  "God save the Queen!" said Bei-Lin, entering with a tray of drinks.

  CHAPTER ONE

  October 1997

  Kate's windscreen wipers finally gave up just outside Fishguard, sticking, and then sliding resignedly down toward the bonnet, at the exact moment that the rain, which had been satisfied with simply heavy, chose to become torrential.

  "Oh, bugger," she said, swerving as she flicked the dashboard switch up and down. "I can't see a thing. Sweetheart, if I pull over at the next lay by, could you reach your arm out and give the screen a wipe?"

  Sabine pulled her knees up into her chest and scowled at her mother. "It's not going to make the slightest difference. We might as well just stop."

  Kate pulled the car to a stop and wound down her window, trying to wipe her own half with the end of her velvet scarf. "Well, we can't stop. We're running late. And I can't have you missing the ferry."

  Her mother was a generally mild-mannered soul, but Sabine knew that note of steel in Kate's voice, and knew that it said nothing short of a tsunami was going to prevent Sabine getting on that ferry. It was not a huge surprise; it was a note she had come up against many times in the past three weeks, but having to hear yet another reinforcement of her ultimate powerlessness in the face of her mother made Sabine's lower lip jut unconsciously, and her body turn away in mute protest.

  Kate, finely tuned to her daughter's mercurial moods, glanced over, noted it, and looked away. "You know, if you weren't so busy being determined to hate this, you might just have a good time."

  "How can I have a good time? You're sending me to a place I've been to all of twice in my whole life, to stay in Bog City, with a grandmother you like so much you haven't seen her in bloody years, basically to be some kind of domestic skivvy while my grandfather pops his clogs. Great. Some holiday. I'm just gagging for it."

  "Oh, look. They're working again. Let's see if we can make it to the port." Kate wrenched the wheel, and the battered Volkswagen lurched forward onto the wet road, sending tea-colored fans of spray up at each side window. "Look. We don't know that your grandfather is that ill; he's just frail, apparently. And I just think it wi
ll be good for you to get away from London for a bit. You've hardly met your granny at all, and it will be nice for you to see a bit of each other before she gets too old, or you go traveling, or whatever."

  Sabine stared determinedly out of her side window.

  "Granny. You make it sound like Happy Families."

  "And I know she's ever so grateful for the help."

  Still she refused to look. She knew bloody well why she was being shipped off to Ireland, and her mother knew it, and if she was such a bloody hypocrite that she wasn't going to admit it, then she couldn't expect Sabine to be straight with her, either.

  "Left lane," she said, still not turning around.

  "What?"

  "Left lane. You need to be in the left lane for the ferry terminal. Oh, for God's sake, Mum, why can't you just wear your bloody glasses?"

  Kate wrenched the little car into the left lane, ignoring the beeps of protest behind her, and, under Sabine's bad-tempered direction, eased it over to the windswept sign that indicated foot passengers. She drove until she could see a place to park, a gray, windswept tarmac desert, in the shadow of a featureless gray Lubyanka. Why do they make offices look so dispiriting? she thought, absently. As if people weren't already miserable enough when they got there. When the car and its wipers stopped again, the rain obligingly ensured that it was swiftly erased, turning everything outside into an impressionistic blur.

  Kate, for whom most things without her glasses were an impressionistic blur, gazed at the outline of her daughter and wished suddenly that they could have the kind of fond farewells that she was sure other mothers and daughters practiced. She wanted to tell her she was bitterly sorry that Geoff was going, and that for the third time in her young life their domestic arrangements were going to be in upheaval. She wanted to tell her that she was sending her to Ireland to protect her, to save her from witnessing the kind of bitter scenes that she and Geoff had barely been suppressing as they ended their six-year relationship; and she wanted to tell her that even though she and her own mother no longer had any kind of relationship, Kate unselfishly wanted her to feel like she had some kind of grandmother, someone other than just her.