The Dark Shore (15 page)

“No,” said Rivers. “I’m spending a couple of days with friends at Mullion, and just called in to discuss one or two business matters with Marijohn.”

“Phone your friends and say you’re dining out tonight. They wouldn’t mind, would they? Stay and have dinner with us!”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Rivers pleasantly. “But thank you all the same.”

“Marijohn!” said Jon to his cousin, his eyes bright, his frame taut and vibrant with life. “You’d like Michael to stay for dinner, wouldn’t you? Persuade him to stay!”

Marijohn’s eyes were very clear. She turned to Rivers. “Won’t you, Michael?” was all she said. “Please.”

He shrugged, making a helpless gesture with his hands, and then she gave him a warm, brilliant, unexpected smile and he was lost. “When did you last have dinner with me?”

He shrugged again, not replying, but Sarah saw him bend his head slowly in acquiescence and knew that he had agreed to stay against his better judgment.

“Where’s Max, Sarah?” said Jon to her, making her jump.

“He—he’s still down by the cove, sunbathing.”

“And Justin?”

“Still in St. Ives presumably,” said Marijohn, moving over to the French windows. “Michael, come out and sit on the swing-seat and forget all those dreary legal documents for a while. I expect Jon wants to be alone with Sarah.”

That was said for effect, thought Sarah instantly and unreasonably. All this is for effect to make some definite impression on Michael. This is all for Michael. And Jon is playing the same game; he’s set the key for the evening and she’s responding note for note. The key involved inviting Michael to dinner, giving the impression that the past is buried and forgotten, and now they want to show him that everything is normal and that there’s nothing to hide.

Her thoughts raced on and on, no matter how hard she tried to stem her rising feeling of panic. How could Jon and Marijohn be working in conjunction with one another when Jon hadn’t even known Michael was calling in that evening? But he had known. He had walked into the room and said “Hullo, Michael” although he could not have known before he opened the door that Michael would be there
...
Perhaps he had recognized Michael’s car. But the car wasn’t ten years old! Jon could never have seen the car before. And yet he had known, he had known before he had opened the door that he would find Michael with Marijohn in the room
...

“Come upstairs and talk to me, darling,” said Jon, putting his arm round her waist. “I want to shower and change my clothes. Come and tell me what you’ve been doing.”

So she went upstairs and sat on the edge of
th
e hath as he had a shower and then rubbed himself vigorously with the rough towel. He told her about his friend in Penzance and described the motor-boat and the afternoon spin on the sea in detail. Finally as he returned to the bedroom to dress he paused to smile at her.

“Now tell me what you’ve been doing! You’ve hardly said a word to me all day! Do you still love me?”

There was a lump in her throat suddenly, a deep unreasoning ache that only deepened against her will. “Oh Jon,” was all she could say, and then the next moment she was in his arms and pressing her face against his chest and he was crushing the sobs from her body and kissing her eyes to stop her tears.

“Sarah,” he said, upset. “Sarah, darling Sarah, what is it? What’s the matter? What have I said?”

“I—” She summoned tog
ether all her strength and managed to look straight into his eyes. “Jon,” she said. “Jon, I want something very badly. Could you—”

“Tell me what it is,” he said instantly, “and you shall have it. Just tell me what it is.”

She took a deep breath, checked her tears. “I—I want to go back to Canada, Jon—I don’t want to stay here. I just want to go home. Please, Jon, let’s go. I don’t want to stay here. I’m terribly sorry, but I—”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why don’t you want to stay? I was planning to stay for another week.”

She couldn’t cry now. She could only stare into his face and think: It’s all true. There
is
something. Max wasn’t lying. There’s something intangible, something impossible to describe, just as he said there was. It’s all true.

“I thought you liked it here,” he said. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

She shook her head dumbly. “Marijohn—”

“What about Marijohn?” he said. He spoke much too quickly, and afterwards looked annoyed with himself for betraying his feelings.

“She doesn’t like me.”

“Rubbish. She thinks you’re very pretty and just right for me and she’s very glad I’ve married someone so nice.”

She twisted away from him, but he held her tightly and wouldn’t let her go. “Come here.”

The towel slipped from his waist. He pulled her down on the bed and suddenly she clung to him in a rush of passion and desire which was terrible to her because she was so afraid it would strike no response in him.

“Sarah
...”
He sounded su
r
prised, taken aback but not indifferent. And suddenly his passion was flowing into her own, and the more she poured
out her love to him in movement and gesture the more he took her love and transformed it with his own.

When they parted at last the sweat was blinding her eyes and there were tears on her cheeks and her body felt bruised and aching.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you.”

He was still trying to find his breath, still trembling, his fists clenched with his tension and his eyes tight shut for a second as if in pain. He can’t relax, she thought, and neither can I. There’s no peace. We should be able to sleep now for a while but we won’t. There’s no peace here, no rest.

“Jon,” she said. “Jon darling, take me away from here. Let’s go tomorrow. Please. Let’s go back to London, back to Canada, anywhere, but don’t let’s stay here anymore.”

His fists were clenched so tightly that the skin was white across the knuckles. “Why?” he said indistinctly into the pillow, his voice truculent and hostile. “Why? Give me one good reason.”

And when she was silent he reached out and pulled her towards him in a violent gesture of love. “Give me another couple of days,” he said. “Please. If you love me, give me that. I can’t go just yet.”

She tried to frame the word “why” but it refused to come. She got up, went into the bathroom and washed, but when she returned from the bathroom she found that he was still lying in the same position. She started to dress. Time passed.

At last, sitting down in front of the mirror, she began to do her hair but still she made no attempt to speak, and the silence between them remained unbroken.

“Sarah,” Jon said at last in distress. “Sarah, please.”

She swiveled round to face him. “Is Marijohn your mistress?”

There was utter silence. He stared at her, his eyes dark and opaque. “No,” he said at last. “Of course not. Sarah—”

“Has she ever been your mistress?”

“No!” he said with sudden violent resentment. “Never!”

“Were you having an affair with her when Sophia was killed?”

“No!” he shouted, springing off the bed and coming across the room towards her. “No, no, no!” He took her by the shoulders and started to shake her. “No, no, no—”

“Jon,” she said gently. “Shhh, Jon
...”

He sank down beside her on the stool. “If that’s why you want to leave, you can forget it,” he said tightly. “There’s nothing like that between us. She—” He stopped.

“She?”

“She detests any form of physical love,” he said. “Didn’t you guess? She can’t even bear being touched however casually by a man. Did you never notice how I’ve always avoided touching her? Did you never notice how I didn’t kiss her when we met? Didn’t you notice any of those things?”

She stared at him. He stared back, his hands trembling.

“I see,” she said, at last.

He relaxed, and she knew in a flash that he had not understood. He thought she understood only the key to Marijohn’s remoteness, and he never knew that all she understood was the despair in his eyes and the physical frustration in every line of his tense, taut frame.

3

When Sarah went downstairs the hall was dim and quiet and she decided the others must still be in the garden. There was no sign of Max Alexander. After pausing by the open front door to glance up the hillside and listen to the rushing water beyond the gateway she crossed the hall and opened the drawing-room door.

She had been wrong. Rivers and Marijohn were no longer in the garden. As she entered the room, Rivers swung round abruptly to face the door and Marijohn glanced up from her position on the sofa.

“I—I’m sorry,” stammered Sarah. “I thought—”

“That’s all right,” Rivers said easily, lulling her feeling of embarrassment. “Come on in. We were just wondering whether Max has been washed away by the tide down in the cove.”

Marijohn stood up. She wore a plain linen dress, narrow and simple, without sleeves. It was a beautiful color. She wore no makeup and no jewelry, and Sarah noticed for the first time that she had even removed her wedding-ring.

“Where are you going?” said Rivers sharply.

“Just to see about dinner.” She moved over to the door, not hurrying, her eyes not watching either of them, and went out into the hall.

There was a silence.

“Drink, Sarah?” said Rivers at last.

“No, thank you.” She sat down, twisting the material of her dress into tight ridges across her thighs and wondering what Rivers had been saying before she had interrupted him. She was just trying to think of some remark which might begin a polite conversation and ease the silence in the room when Rivers said, “Is Jon upstairs?”

“Yes—yes, he is.”

“I see.” He was by the sideboard, his hand on the decanter. “Sure you won’t join me in a drink?”

She shook her head again and watched
him as h
e mixed himsel
f
a whisky and soda.

“How long,” he said presently, “are you staying here?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned to face her abruptly and as she looked at him she saw that he knew.

“You want to go, don’t you?”

“No,” she said, lying out of pride. “No, I like it here.”

“I shouldn’t stay here too long if I were you.”

She shrugged, assuming indifference. “Jon wants to stay here for a day or two longer.”

“I’m sure he does.” He took a gulp of his drink and she saw his fingers tighten on the stem of his glass. “I didn’t realize you would both be coming down here,” he said evenly at last. “I didn’t think he would be seeing Marijohn again. She had made up her mind not to see him again, I know. I suppose he persuaded her to change her mind.”

She stared at him blankly. From somewhere far away she heard the clatter of a saucepan in the kitchen.

“He wanted to see her again—I know that because he came to me in an attempt to find out where she was. Naturally I didn’t tell him. I knew she had made up her mind that it would be much better for her not to see him again, and I knew too that it would be disastrous if—”

He stopped.

There were footsteps on the stairs, Jon whistling the old American country song
You Win Again.

“Listen,” said Rivers suddenly. “I must talk to you further about this. It’s in both our interests, don’t you understand? I must talk to you.”

“But I don’t see. Why should—”

“You have to get Jon away from here. I can’t persuade Marijohn to leave—we’re not even married any more. But you can persuade Jon. God, you’re all but on your honeymoon, aren’t you? Get him away from here, right away. Back to Canada, anywhere—but get him away from this place.
”

“From this place?”

“From Marijohn.”

The whistling stopped; the door opened.

“Sarah? Ah, there you are! Come on down to the cove with me and rescue Max!”

“I think,” said Rivers, “that he’s just walking up to the gateway.”

“Well, so he is!” Jon moved out on to the lawn. “Max!” he shouted his hand raised in welcome. “Where’ve you been, you bastard? We thought you’d drowned yourself!”

Rivers w
as already beside
her even as she stood up to follow Jon out on to the lawn.

“Come for a walk with me after supper and I’ll explain.”

“I—”

“You must,” he interrupted. “I don’t think you understand the danger you’re in.”

She felt the color drain from her face as she stared into his eyes. And then Jon was blazing across the silence, bursting back into the room to mix a round of drinks, and Alexander was crossing the threshold of the French windows with a lazy, indolent smile on his face.

“Why, Michael! Fancy that! Just like old times! How are you these days? Still soliciting?”

There was brittle, empty conversation for a few minutes. Max started to expound the virtues of his latest car. Jon, moving across to Sarah, kissed her on the mouth with his back to the others and sat down beside her on the sofa.

“All right?”

When she nodded he put his hand over hers and kept it there. She stared blindly down at his fingers, not hearing Max Alexander’s voice, aware of nothing except that Jon was a stranger to her whom she could not trust. It occurred to her dully to wonder if she had ever imagined unhappiness to be like this; it’s not the raw nagging edge of desolation, she thought, but the tight darkness of fear. The pain is convex and opaque and absolute.

Marijohn returned to the room fifteen minutes later.

“I suppose Justin’s coming back for dinner, Jon?”

He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I imagine so.”

“Can I get you a drink, Marijohn?”

“No ... no thanks. I think I’ll go out for a while. Dinner will be in about another half hour.”

On the sofa Sarah felt Jon stir restlessly.

“Another drink, Jon?” offered Max Alexander from the sideboard.

Jon didn’t answer.

“Jon,” said Sarah, pressing against him instinctively. “Jon.”

“Do you want to come, Michael?” said Marijohn. “I don’t want to walk far, just down to the cove and back.”

“No,” said Rivers. “I’m in the middle of a perfectly good whisky and soda and I want to finish it and have another one to follow.”

“Don’t look at me, Marijohn,” advised Max Alexander. “I’ve staggered down to the cove and back already this afternoon. I’ve had my share of exercise today.”

Jon stood up, hesitated and then reached for the cigarette box to help himself to a cigarette.

“Do you want to go, Jon?
”
said Rivers pleasantly.

“Not particularly.” He lit the cigarette, wandered over to the fireplace and started to straighten the ornaments on the mantelshelf.

Marijohn walked away across the lawn. She walked very slowly, as if savoring each step. Jon glanced after her once and then abruptly turned his back on the window and flung himself down in the nearest armchair.

“Why don’t you go, Jon?” said Rivers. “Don’t feel you have to stay here and entertain us—I’m sure Sarah would make an admirable hostess. Why don’t you go with Marijohn?”

Jon inhaled from his cigarette and watched the blue smoke curl upwards from between his fingers. “We’ve been down to the sea already today.”

“Oh, I see
...
Not to the Flat Rocks, by any chance?”

“I say,” said Alexander suddenly, “what the hell’s Justin doing in St.—”

“No,” said Jon to Rivers. “Just down to the cove.”

“How strange. Marijohn told me she hadn’t been down to the cove today.”

“Sarah,” said Max. “Do you know what Justin’s doing in St. Ives?”

“Do you often come down here?” said Jon idly to Rivers. “It must take up a lot of your time if you have to visit Marijohn personally whenever it’s necessary to discuss some business problem with her. Or do you like to have a good excuse to visit her as often as possible?”

“At least,” said Rivers, “my excuse for coming here is a damned sight better than yours.”

“Look,” said Max, spilling his drink slightly on the carpet, “for Christ’s sake, why doesn’t one of you go down to the cove with Marijohn now? Michael, she asked you—why the hell don’t you go if you’ve come down here to see her?”

Jon flung his cigarette into the fireplace and stood up. “Come on, Sarah, we’ll go down together.”

There was a silence. They were all looking at her.

“No,” she said too loudly, “no, I don’t want to come. I’d rather stay here.”

Jon shrugged his shoulders. “Just as you like,” he said shortly, sounding as if he couldn’t have cared less, and walked through the open French windows across the lawn without even a hint of a backward glance.