Dear Deceiver(15)

Outside a bright moon diluted the darkness making Rory's face look as  though it had been rinsed in blue. 'Now's as good a time as any,' he  remarked. 'What do you think of him?'

He could only mean Toby. 'I think he's great,' she could say it truthfully. 'And very like you.'

'You think that?' The tone was amused. 'Well, you're not the first to say it. How do you feel about it?'

Somewhere along the line they had lost the levity. His eyes gleamed in  the shadows like gimlets. It was an unnerving question. She answered as  best she could. 'I don't know. It's all so long ago. But I think I'm  glad.'

'You've thought it out, haven't you?' The searching tone was terrifying.

And dear knows, she'd enough and to spare of eeriness. The moon,  bouncing like a football on the fence of clouds, made the path black and  white as a badger's face and the alarm call of a blackbird had just  torn through the darkness. Quite enough to startle a city-dweller  without the added fear that she was being doubted.

But suddenly-and very strangely-as she looked at it Rory Hart's  expression became almost understanding. 'I've done some thinking too,'  he said gravely. 'And I'm glad as well. Think it over and we might even  arrive at the same point.'

A timber hut in a clearing some distance on served as Forester's Office.  He collected the papers he had come for and they started to walk back.  By now Haidee's eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness and her  ears to the sounds about her. A second bird set up a barrage that could  have been ack-ack fire and somewhere ahead two high notes bubbled  through the conifers. It was excitingly like an owl, but to ask would  have given away her ignorance. For all that she couldn't help her eyes  raking the darkness. Yet another bird scolded and Rory chuckled:  'There's an owl about.'

'Yes. I thought I heard it.'

'We've had a lot of tawnies round here.' He raised his eyes to a clump  of oak. 'Last spring there was a nest in that hollow. Toby did his best  to lose an eye over it.' He left the gruesomeness unexplained and went  on irritably, 'You might as well know, Suzanne, we've a problem there.'

Again, she was caught in a maze. 'We've a problem.' Why 'we'?

'If there's anything I can do....' she began.

'I don't know that there is, but I think you should be at least  cognizant. He doesn't use his head. He won't watch. He won't think. And  he won't work-unless he chooses. I seem to spend my time hammering him.'

From what she had seen of him that came easily. 'You wouldn't take my help, but I'd advocate a dose of love and affection.'

'Your brand?' It was a sneer. 'You're quite right. I wouldn't even wish  that on your cat. I may be hard, Suzanne, but at least I stay with it.'

Unquestionably, Suzanne, whatever the trouble had been, had not. 'As I  didn't,' Haidee owned softly. 'Forgive me. I didn't think.'                       
       
           



       

Surprisingly, the hard face softened. 'I'll say this for you, Johnny.  Your temper's improved. If I'd said that ten years ago you'd have flown  in my face like one of these blessed owls.'

The atmosphere had lightened and she felt herself suddenly in time with it. 'I haven't seen once since!' she said laughingly.

'No?' He too seemed to be catching the new tempo. 'Well, that's soon remedied. They're not far away.'

He dipped in his coat pocket and produced a torch with a red beam which  he focused not at the branches as Haidee had expected but on the ground  under the trees. 'Pellets,' he said briefly. 'If there are pellets there  have to be owls.'

There were plenty of pellets. He showed them to her, studied the trees  for a minute and then broke off a dead branch and used it to tap on the  trunk with the largest scattering of pellets. Almost at once a cock  tawny flew out of a hole and was caught in the red light trained upon  him. He flew quite silently, his big head giving him the absurd look of  an alarm clock, and pitched on top of a birch. Rory put him up again and  he circled above them, so clear in the moonlight that the stripes on  his wings were visible.

Giveaway or not, Haidee gazed after him raptly. 'Thanks. That was  marvellous.' She looked back at her suddenly silent companion. Moonlight  gave his long features the sheen of marble and he was standing as  though like the giants round him he had become rooted to the ground.

Fantasy must, she thought, be infectious. This one had now spread to  her. She couldn't move either. Like a stoated rabbit she stared back,  trembling, waiting ... It was a feeling unmatched in her experience,  half thrill, half pain.

And then slowly sublimation took place. That which seemed to have turned  to vapour solidified again. Rory was no longer a satyr but a man in a  green rain jacket. What had she feared? Against what had she been  gathering herself? So silly, all of it, as silly as Jennie had found the  thought of her being an enchantress.

Rory was walking on. He took long strides and like the tawny he was a  little 'front heavy'. Hastily she fell into step. Constraint had fallen  on both of them and they went silently. Haidee's tired eyes indeed were  taking a rest.

They saw the path ahead vaguely as a strait between curtains of dark.

Until-it opened! A head poked up and froze. She saw it as bearlike with  black and white stripes. It was there for only a second and then it  vanished, but she'd seen it-a ghost, a monster, coming out of the  ground...

Terror clutched her. She gasped and somehow found herself in Rory's  arms. At first it was abstract and shapeless. He was strong, protecting,  comforting.

'What was it? Did you see it?' she quavered.

'It,' he said gently, 'was a boar badger probably twice as scared as  you. It's all right,' as her head jerked shamefacedly, 'I know. They do  look like ghosts when they pop up like that. But now that he's got wind  of us we certainly won't see him again.'

'A badger?' She was mortified, and apprehensive. Could he fail to ask  himself what had come over Suzanne? 'I'm sorry. I feel such a fool.'

'Don't then. I've told you, brock can look quite unearthly on a dark  night.' Incredibly the thought of Suzanne did not seem to have entered  his head.

But in the next second she knew this was not the case. The eyes  regarding her had changed. Emotion laced them that had nothing to do  with kindness or comfort. 'Suzanne, I can't play games any longer. In  God's name where did you get to?'

'I told you ... Dublin ...' Her heart fluttered into her throat.

'Come off it,' he said roughly. 'I'm talking about ten years ago. You were with Freeman, weren't you?'

All she could do-it seemed ineffectual-was to shake her head. Wordlessly. Pleadingly.

'If I'd found you I'd have had his guts.' He paused and repeated himself. 'I'd have had his guts.'

Haidee had her back to a sycamore. His hands, each side of her, rested  against the silk-smooth trunk. The look on his face shocked her. The  past had been dead and buried and she'd raked it up. Had she set out to  wreak retribution for the ravaged squirrel population of Glenglass, she  could have done its Forester no greater disservice than to confront him  with the love affair that had come to nothing. Now it seemed imperative  to stop him hoping again.                       
       
           



       

'I thought-I hoped-that was all over,' she said awkwardly. 'It's so long  ago.' It was puzzling that he should keep on referring to ten years;  surely it was fifteen.

'It makes no difference.'

'I hoped it would.'

'That's why you stayed away?'

'Partly.'

'And called yourself Brown?'

The waters were growing deeper every second. She could only nod.

'Because you couldn't stomach me?'

'Please don't put it that way.'

'What's the alternative?'

'Just say it wouldn't have worked.' She braced herself. 'I'm sorry I  came back. It wasn't an easy decision. But I had to think of my mother  and I felt you would have written me off long ago.'

'You really thought it that simple?' The voice rose, marvelling. 'Good grief, Suzanne, how naive can you get?'

'Rory, please! I am sorry. I've said so. Can't you...' She found herself  looking pleadingly into his gaunt face. 'Can't you just hate me? I hate  myself.'

She supposed he would say she was being naive again. Surprisingly he  didn't. Even more surprisingly, she thought for one moment that he was  about to smile. The folded mouth twitched slightly and was still.

I must look so goofy, she thought, all eyes.

'Can't I just hate you?' he echoed. 'What makes you think I don't?  Ten-fifteen-twenty-all the years I've known you it's been a toss-up. It  still is.' The tanned forehead came nearer till it brushed her own.

There had been no tenderness in the words and there was little in the  gesture. It had such a near-animal quality that it brought her a dart of  fear. She stiffened, but to break away was impossible. And then, with a  power hitherto unsuspected, her own body began to respond. Her lips  which at the start had been shy and gauche became intuitive. The best  way she could describe it was that it was like finding a good dance  partner.