Rosamunde Pilcher - September

The last thing Archie wanted to do, at this particular moment, was to try on a lot of new clothes, but Isobel seemed so excited that he hadn't the heart to refuse her. And so he put his glass down on her dressing-table and obediently began to shed his old tweeds.

"Leave your shirt on. We don't want to open the new one in case you get it dirty. Take off your brogues and those smelly old stockings. Now…"

With her help, he pulled on the new trousers. Isobel dealt with zips and buttons, tucking in the tails of his blue country shirt and generally fussing around as if she were dressing a child for a tea-party. She fixed the cummerbund, laced his evening shoes for him, held out the velvet smoking jacket. He put his arms into the silk-lined sleeves, and she turned him around and did up the frogged fastenings.

"Now." She smoothed his hair with her hands. "Go and look in the mirror."

For some reason, he felt like an idiot. His stump ached and he yearned for a hot bath, but he limped obediently over to Isobel's wardrobe, where her full-length mirror was set in the centre panel. Observing himself in mirrors was not his favourite occupation, because his reflection nowadays seemed such a travesty of his former handsome self, so thin and grey had he become, so graceless in his shabby clothes, so awkward with his lumbering, hated aluminium leg.

Even now, with Isobel's proud eyes upon him, it took some effort actually to face himself. But he did so, and it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. It wasn't bad at all. He looked all right. Great, in fact. The trews, long and slim-legged, immaculately cut and sharply creased, had a crisp and almost military dash about them. And the marvellously rich and lustrous velvet of the jacket provided exactly the right touch of worn and gentlemanly elegance, the faded green picking up the thread of green in the tartan.

Isobel had smoothed his hair, but now he smoothed it again, for himself; turned to see other aspects of his reflected finery. Undid the jacket to admire the satiny sheen of the cummerbund, sleek around his skinny middle. Did the jacket up again. Caught his own eye and smiled wryly, seeing himself preen like a bloody peacock.

He turned to his wife. "What do you think?"

"You look amazing."

He held out his arms. "Lady Balmerino, will you waltz with me?"

She came to him, and he held her close, his cheek resting on the top of her head, the way they used to dance long ago, smooching in night-clubs. Through the thin silk of her gown his hands felt her skin, still warm from the bath-water, the curve of her hips, her neat waist. Her breasts, soft, unrestricted, pressed against him, and she smelt sweetly of soap.

They shifted gently from foot to foot, rocking in each others' arms, dancing, as best they could, to music which only the two of them could hear.

He said, "Have you, at this moment, got anything pressing that you have to go and do?"

"Not that I can think of."

"No dinner to cook, no dog to feed, no bird to pluck, no border to weed?"

"No."

He pressed a kiss on her hair. "Then come to bed with me."

She was still, but Archie's hand moved on, stroking her back. After a little, she drew away from him, looked up into his face, and he saw that her deep-blue eyes were bright with unshed tears.

"Archie…"

"Please."

"The others?"

"All occupied. We'll lock the door. Hang up a 'Do Not Disturb' sign."

"But… the nightmare?"

"Nightmares are for children. We are too old to allow dreams to stop us loving each other."

"You are different." She frowned, her sweet face filled with puzzlement. "What has happened to you?"

"Pandora bought me a present?"

"Not that. Something else."

"I found a guy who would listen. At the top of Creagan Dubh, with only the wind and the heather and the birds for company, and no person to obtrude. And so I talked."

"About Northern Ireland?" •

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"The bomb blast, and the bits of body and the dead Jocks?"

"Yes."

"And Neil MacDonald? And the nightmare?"

"Yes."

"But you told me. You talked to me. And that didn't do us any good."

"That's because you are part of me. A stranger is different. Objective. There was never anybody like that before. Only relations and old friends who had known me all my life. Too close."

"The nightmare's still there, Archie. That won't go away."

"Maybe not. But maybe its fangs have been drawn."

"What makes you so sure?"

"My mother had a saying. Fear knocked at the door, Faith went to answer it, and no one was there. We'll have to see. I love you more than life itself, and that's all that's important."

"Oh, Archie." Her tears overflowed and he kissed them away, unloosened the sash of her gown and slid his hand beneath the soft silk, caressing her nakedness. His lips moved to her mouth, the lips opening for him…

"Shall we give it a try?"

"Now?"

"Yes. Now. Right away. Just as soon as you can get me out of these damned trousers."

Thursday the Fifteenth

Virginia, awake at five o'clock, waited for the dawn. It was Thursday, Vi's seventy-eighth birthday.,

Vi, as she had promised, had rung in the evening just before the nine-o'clock news. Lottie was back in the Relkirk Royal, she had told Virginia. Not at all upset, she seemed to take it in her stride. Edie had been distressed, but after some persuasion, had accepted the inevitable. And Vi had telephoned Templehall and instructed the headmaster to reassure Henry that he no longer needed to agonize over his beloved Edie. The horrendous episode was over at last. Virginia must put it out of her mind.

The conversation left Virginia in a state of confused emotions. The most important was one of thankfulness and overwhelming relief. Now she could face the darkness of the night, go to bed by herself in the large and empty house; sleep, in the certain knowledge that no ghoul haunted the shadows of the garden, hovering, watching, waiting to pounce. Lottie would not return; she was shut away with her dangerous secrets. Virginia was free of her.

However, she knew a certain uneasiness. It was hateful to imagine Edie's distress at having to admit failure, her reluctance to commit her cousin once mor^vto the professional, but impersonal, care of the hospital. But surely, deep down, Edie must know some relief, if only for the fact that she was shed of that almost untenable reponsibility and no longer had to endure listening to the seemingly endless spate of Lottie's conversation.

Finally, there was Henry, and here Virginia was filled with guilt. She knew how Henry felt about Lottie, and how he feared for Edie, and yet the sensible idea of making a telephone call to his school had never even occurred to her, and she realized that the shameful reason for this was that Henry had slipped out of her mind, so absorbed had she become in herself and the events of the last few days.

First, Edmund and Pandora. Now, Conrad.

Conrad Tucker. Here, in Scotland, in Strathcroy, already part of the Balmerino household and an important character in the dramatis personae of the next few days, his presence changed the shape of everything. Mostly herself, as though some unsuspected and hidden facet of her own personality had been, by him, revealed. She had slept with Conrad. They had made love with a mutual desire that had more to do with comfort than passion, and she had stayed with him, and spent the night in his arms. An act of infidelity; adultery. Call it the worst name in the world, and still Virginia regretted nothing.

Whatever you do, you must never tell Edmund.

Vi was a wise old lady, and confession was not a penance but a self-indulgence. It was unloading your so-called sin onto another person, and thus shedding guilt. But her own total lack of remorse had taken Virginia by surprise, and she felt that in the last twenty-four hours she had somehow grown, not physically, but within herself. It was as though she had been struggling up some precipitous hillside, and now had time to pause for breath, to rest, to appreciate the widened prospects that her efforts had achieved.