had visited him several times in hospital, and kept him informed about Maggie. Nothing from Maggie herself, of course. Well, that had been his intention, hadn’t it?
So that was that. She had respected his wish to be left alone, maybe she’d even been grateful to him for taking the issue out of her hands. Back into your proper orbit, Miss Tressider, and I’ll skid back into mine. I’ll see you, he thought, from the back of the circle occasionally, I’ll hear you broadcast and be thankful for that, but that’s all the rights I shall ever have or ever expect in you.
He stepped out through the door into the cool, autumnal air, and shivered. He felt light, empty and aimless. The world was a big place, but without savour. He looked along the kerb for his taxi; there was little point in hurrying anywhere, but none in staying here.
There was only one car drawn up by the entrance, and that was not a taxi. It was an elderly Dodge of a creamy coffee-colour, with a girl sitting behind the wheel.
She didn’t get out when she saw him, but she leaned across and opened the passenger door, and waited for him to get in. Her hair was braided into two great plaits and coiled on top of her head, and all those subtle colours that met and married in it matched the leaves of the oak tree as well in autumn as in spring. She was pale but radiant; all the lines of her face were easier and more at peace than he had ever seen them before, and her gentian eyes were no longer straining to see something remote and ominous that would not stand still to be seen. On the contrary, they focused very sharply and resolutely upon him.
‘I paid your taximan and sent him away,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ll drive you back to Scheidenau.’
There was nothing to be done but get in beside her. ‘I thought you’d gone back to England,’ he said, leaning rather gingerly to dispose of his briefcase on the back seat.
‘No, not yet.’ She started the car, carefully because she wasn’t yet used to it, and drove slowly out into traffic, winding her way towards the frontage of Lake Constance. ‘I waited for you.’
‘That was kind, but you shouldn’t have put off going on my account.’
‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I put it off on my own account. Did you really think I could go away and leave you here alone, after all that’s happened?’
‘I don’t see why not. You’d already done more than enough for me. You knew I was being perfectly well looked after, and making a good recovery. And you must be longing to get back and start work again. I see,’ he said, veering resolutely away from the subject, ‘they found the Dodge in time.’
‘At that mason’s yard in Regenheim. And quite a lot of contraband and stolen property, too, that nobody had time to ditch. When they’d done with the car I asked if I could take it over. I thought you’d be relieved to see it.’
‘It certainly wouldn’t be much fun to have to replace it. It was good of you to think of putting my mind at rest.’
Everything was going to be deference, kindness and gratitude, she could see that, whatever stresses might be gnawing away underneath. She waited until they were out of the town, winding their way along the upland road, and then settled to a gentle forty kilometres, and cast a long, measuring look at him along her shoulder.
‘You drive very well,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you in action before.’
‘You’ll have plenty of chance, I’m driving you back to Zurich when we go.’
‘Maggie… now look…’
‘Well, naturally! With that shoulder
‘Maggie, look, you shouldn’t have done this. I can’t let you…’
‘You can’t stop me,’ she said gently, and turned and smiled at him. She would have to be very careful of him, she could see, he was still easily shaken. She felt his body tighten and brace itself beside her, and saw his brows draw painfully together over clouded eyes.
‘Oh, no!’ he said, shaking his head with decision. ‘None of that! I know you now. Once you passed by an overture of love, as you thought, without noticing it until it was too late, and spent years of your life paying your substance away in requital of what you took to be a debt. Now you’re so mortally afraid of repeating the error that you’ll fall over backwards to avoid it. But not with me! I’ve got too much sense to let that happen, if you haven’t. You don’t love me, you just feel responsible for me. You owe me nothing,and I’ll take nothing from you. Go home, girl, sing, be successful, be happy… you’ve got time even for that, now.’
‘That,’ she said patiently, ‘depends on you. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ They were high among the meadows, the hills folding and unfolding before them in bleached green of pasture and blue-black of conifers. She pulled in to the wide grass verge and stopped the car, turning on him a face pale to incandescence with solemnity.
‘Francis, I’m not making any mistake this time, and I won’t let you, either. I’ve never loved anyone before, perhaps I couldn’t because of him. But I love you now, and if you pass me by I shall have lost everything. Maybe you don’t want me, and that I could accept, but I daren’t let go of you until I know whether that’s really why you want me to go away. If you don’t love me, tell me so, and I’ll leave you alone. But for pity’s sake don’t tell me you don’t if you do, because that wouldn’t be noble, it would be damned ignoble, and I should spend the rest of my life paying for it, as well as you. And if you do love me, then start getting used to my being here, because I’m always going to be here.’
He opened his lips to answer her, and found she had left him nothing to say. Everything he could have produced by way of subterfuge she had anticipated, and now he could not lie to her, even if he’d thought for a moment he could have managed it successfully. How could he live with himself afterwards, if he ever began to suspect she had been right? To send her back to her own world and her own kind might have been almost bearable, as long as he could rest in the conviction that she would be happiest that way, which God knew any sane man would take for granted. But what if the unbelievable turned out to be true, and he was the one who was fooling himself, not she?
He had begun to shake and sweat, between crazy hope and craven fear; this sort of thing wasn’t for him yet, he wasn’t up to it. He dragged his gaze away from her face with an effort, pressing his fingers deep into his hollow cheeks to clamp the wrong words in until he could find the right ones and somehow get them out. There are hurdles not even love can take without a crashing fall; only the native obstinacy recent stresses had roused in her could
