The Japanese Screen Read online

  The bathroom light went out and the door to the bedroom opened. In the gloom she could vaguely make out his shadowy form as he moved towards the bed. But he didn’t immediately get into bed. He sat down at her side and she could feel his intent dark eyes searching for hers.

  ‘Why did you turn the light out?’ he asked gently.

  Susannah found it difficult to articulate between chattering teeth. ‘I—I—I didn’t know you—you wanted—it on.’

  He sighed. ‘What’s wrong? You sound positively petrified. I did not know I was such a terrifying individual.’

  ‘You—you’re—n—not.’

  Fernando shook his head. ‘That is a relief,’ he commented with some irony. He slid his fingers to her throat, smoothing his thumbs over her ears, causing a little of the tension to leave her. He drew back the bedcovers to her waist and even in the gloom the whiteness of her gown was clearly visible. ‘Que?’ he murmured questioningly. ‘You are wearing a nightgown?’

  She nodded jerkily, stretching out her arms to him stiffly, touching only the firm warm skin of his body. Fernando seemed to hesitate a moment and then he caught both her hands in his and said a trifle grimly, ‘Susannah! Something you said! Something about never having—done this sort of thing before. Madre de dios, did you mean it?’

  She nodded again, clenching her teeth to stop their chattering.

  ‘Cristo!’

  With a violent gesture he dropped her hands and rose to his feet, turning away from her and walking to the foot of the bed. He opened his suitcase, rummaged inside it, and came out with a kind of white bathrobe which he swiftly donned to cover his nakedness. Then he walked to the light and switched it on, deliberately dispelling any intimacy between them.

  ‘Why did you not make it plain?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Dios, would you add the defilement of an innocent to my other sins?’

  Susannah was mortified. ‘Fernando, please—what have I done?’ She caught her breath on a sob. ‘Don’t you want me any more?’

  Fernando closed his eyes and then opened them again. ‘You are talking like an idiota!’ he snapped savagely, striding about the room before coming to a halt at the foot of the bed. ‘Why did you not tell me this evening?’

  Susannah struggled into a sitting position. ‘But I told you yesterday, Fernando,’ she protested tearfully.

  He stood breathing heavily. ‘Women say these things. They do not mean them. They simply wish the man to believe that he is the first—’

  ‘But you are!’

  ‘Por dios, I know that.’ He turned away as though he could not bear to look at her. ‘What a fool I have been!’

  Susannah stared at his broad back helplessly. Then she slid out of bed and padded on bare feet to his side. ‘Fernando,’ she pleaded, ‘don’t be angry with me! I—I couldn’t bear that.’

  He turned slowly and looked down at her, the heavy swathe of pale hair combined with her demure lawn gown giving her an almost childlike appearance. ‘Basta, Susannah!’ he muttered thickly. ‘Go to bed! I will sleep in the other room. You need have no fear of me!’

  ‘Fernando!’ She stared up at him appealingly, but he could stand no more. With a grim determination, he put her aside and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  She cried for a long time, her face buried under the covers so that he would not hear her; but then she must have slept, because she was dreaming, a terrible, terrifying dream where Fernando became the monster of the film they had watched that evening, the maniacal killer of half a dozen women. She was trapped in the cottage with him and he was searching for her. She hid in every imaginable place, but he always found her, always kept coming after her. But then when he cornered her and she wanted him to kill her, he wouldn’t do it. He stepped away from her and she began to cry, and cry and cry…

  ‘Susannah! Susannah mia, what is it? Susannah, wake up, wake up! No one’s going to hurt you!’

  She blinked rapidly, looking up into Fernando’s concerned eyes. Someone had put on the bedside lamp and he was sitting on the side of the bed in his bathrobe, his hair tumbled from the pillow.

  ‘Fernando?’ she breathed slowly, taking great gulping breaths of air, becoming aware of the dampness of her cheeks. She scrubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘Wh—what time is it?’

  Fernando glanced at his wrist watch. ‘It’s a little after one o’clock,’ he told her gently. ‘You’ve been dreaming. You were crying…’

  Susannah began to nod as the terrible remembrance of the nightmare came back to her. ‘It—it was awful!’ she choked, her breath coming in shallow gulps. ‘It—it was the film—the film—’

  Fernando frowned. ‘Ah, the remote cottage—the killer of so many women!’ He nodded. ‘I understand.’ He rose to his feet.

  ‘Wh—where are you going?’ she cried, jerking upright, reaching for his hand, the hand that a moment ago had been smoothing her brow.

  Fernando’s frown deepened. ‘You are all right now. I will go back to my room—’

  ‘No! Oh, no, please—don’t!’ Her voice was urgent, her eyes wide and alarmed.

  ‘I must!’ His voice was harsh—as before.

  She began to cry again, deep racking sobs that shook her slender form, and her hair fell in a curtain about her face buried in her hands.

  Fernando watched her for a long agonizing period and then with a muffled exclamation, he said’ ‘A fondo, I will stay. But that is all—do you understand?’

  She raised a tear-wet face to his, and nodded silently. He went and turned out the light and walked round the bed, sliding on it beside her. He did not take off his robe, nor did he get beneath the bedcovers, and she had the sense to understand why. All the same, some time before morning she found herself snuggled into the small of his back, her arm encircling his waist trapped in the folds of his bathrobe…

  CHAPTER SIX

  SUSANNAH awoke to an unusual feeling of apprehension and could not understand why. The sun was shining, and the yellow curtains at the windows were filling the room with a golden light. She blinked, not immediately identifying her surroundings, but then sat up with a start as she recalled the humiliating events of the night before. Her eyes turned swiftly to the bed beside her, but Fernando had gone, only the imprint of his head on the pillow bearing witness to the fact that he had stayed with her last night.

  Haste, panic-stricken haste, brought her out of bed on the instant. She searched impatiently for her silk dressing gown and putting it on hurried to the door, But she stopped suddenly and did a double take. Something which she had noticed but which had not at once made any impression now focused her attention. Fernando’s suitcase was no longer on the ottoman beside hers.

  Quickening her step she opened the bedroom door and came out on to the landing. There was no sound from anywhere and she opened the door of the second bedroom with trembling fingers, not really surprised when she found it empty. Then she went downstairs.

  Again, there was no sign of Fernando, but propped on the low coffee table in a position where she could not fail to see it was a note. An awful sinking feeling assailed her as she approached that note, and she picked it up reluctantly, half guessing what it would say.

  Mi amada,

  I cannot take back the past. I can only hope you will not think too unkindly of me in the future. I cannot say that I regret this time we have spent together. It is a memory I will always treasure. But you are a beautiful young woman, Susannah, and one day you will meet a young man who is worthy of your love and forget all about me. Please believe that I love you, and that it is because I love you that I am not prepared to create a relationship between us that must be doomed from the start. I am too old for you. I have seen too much of life not to know I am right. I have arranged for a cab to collect you at eleven o’clock to take you back to London. I shall be gone by then.

  Forgive me, Fernando.

  Susannah read the note twice and then sank down on to the couch and stared blindly into the empty fire-grate. He
had gone, really gone. He had left the cottage, goodness knows how long ago, and was probably aboard his plane by now. Had he had this all planned? Was this night to be their only time together? Had he already arranged his departure before he left for the country? He made no mention of seeing her again, not even on his next trip to London, and in any case he knew she was leaving the Castanas, so how would he find her even if he wanted to…?

  Eventually she dragged herself into the kitchen and made herself some coffee. She had to do something to arouse herself from the extreme state of apathy into which she had sunk. Somehow she had to pull herself together sufficiently to wash and dress and pack her things, and be ready to leave when the taxi came at eleven o’clock.

  As there was no sign of a key and the cottage door had a Yale lock Susannah slammed it as she came out and climbed into the cab without looking back. If the driver thought it strange that his fare should be a rather wan-faced girl who had apparently been spending the weekend alone at the cottage he kept his thoughts to himself and chatted away about how mild the weather was for the time of year and wasn’t it a shame that some football club had lost their match against a European side?

  By the time they reached London it was long after lunch, but when Susannah alighted at the Castana house and tried to pay her fare she was informed that it had already been taken care of. She entered the house with an intense feeling of desolation and started when Mrs. Travers appeared from the kitchen.

  ‘You’re back early, miss,’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought you were to be away until this evening.’

  ‘I was.’ Susannah sighed. ‘Are Señor and Señora Castana at home?’

  ‘No, miss, they’re out. An old friend of theirs, a Señora d’Alvarez, arrived yesterday afternoon, and I believe they’ve taken her to visit mutual friends.’

  ‘I see.’ Susannah felt relieved.

  Mrs. Travers clicked her tongue. ‘Is something wrong, miss? You’re looking awfully peaky. Oh, I suppose you’re hungry.’ She paused. ‘Well, I was just leaving for my sister’s, but if you’re hungry—’

  Susannah shook her head. ‘No, really, Mrs. Travers. It’s quite all right. I—I didn’t come back to upset your afternoon. You go ahead. In any case, I—I may be going out again.’

  The idea had just occurred to her. Margaret, she thought, like a drowning man clutching at straws, that was where she would go. To see Margaret and Peter and baby Toni. It would be so good to be with people who cared what happened to her…

  * * *

  ‘You mean—you slept with him? Oh, Susannah!’ Margaret French stared at her friend with anxious eyes. ‘Whatever possessed you to agree to such a thing?’

  The two girls were talking in the kitchen of Margaret and Peter’s modern semi on a large housing estate at Kennington. Peter was in the living-room entertaining Toni, tactfully keeping out of the way. Margaret had insisted on making Susannah an omelette, which she had managed to eat half of, and now they were sharing a pot of coffee.

  Susannah traced the pattern of the formica on the kitchen table with her forefinger. ‘I’ve told you, Margaret. Nothing happened.’

  ‘I know. But—well, if this Fernando hadn’t been a decent sort of man it could have.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘So—whatever were you thinking of? Heavens, you’ve only known the man two weeks!’

  ‘He was leaving for Spain tomorrow, This was his last week-end in England.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I love him, Margaret.’ Susannah had to press her lips together to stop them from trembling.

  ‘But you know nothing about him! You don’t even have his address.’

  ‘I—I could get it.’

  ‘Where from? The Castanas? Would they give it to you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Susannah hunched her shoulders. ‘Oh, Margaret, haven’t you ever felt like doing anything crazy? Has there never been a man in your life who hasn’t conformed to—to—certain conventialities?’

  ‘We’re not talking about me,’ observed Margaret dryly. ‘Susannah—after all you’ve said about your mother!’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  Margaret shook her head and rose to her feet carrying her empty coffee cup to the sink. ‘What you need is a steady boy-friend, someone who’d knock all these wild ideas out of your head,’ she said firmly. ‘If you were married you wouldn’t have time for—for day-dreaming!’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that.’

  ‘Well, what would you call it? Susannah’, you’re not a child. You know perfectly well that some men—when they’re away from home—are just ripe for an illicit affair—’

  ‘Fernando isn’t like that!’ declared Susannah unsteadily.

  ‘How do you know? What do you know about him? He could be married for all you know!’

  Susannah felt sick. ‘He’s not. I know he’s not.’

  ‘How? Did he tell you so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he would hardly tell you if he was married, would he?’

  ‘Oh, Margaret—’

  ‘I’m only trying to be practical, Susannah. If he loves you as you say he does, why has he gone? Why hasn’t he arranged to see you again?’

  ‘He—he thinks he’s too old for me.’

  ‘Oh, really? And when did age stop any man from getting what he wanted?’

  ‘That’s not a fair analogy.’

  ‘I know. But honestly, Sue, do you really think that’s all that’s stopping him?’

  ‘I don’t know. He—he comes from a very old Spanish family. Perhaps they would oppose any involvement between him and an English girl.’

  ‘I see. So now it’s his family who are the villains. He’s not a boy, you know, Sue! You said he’s forty. Don’t you think it’s entirely plausible that he’s married at that age?’

  ‘Oh, stop it, stop it!’ Susannah covered her ears with her hands. ‘He loves me, I know he does!’

  Margaret’s eyes warmed with compassion and she came back and pressed Susannah’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps he does at that,’ she commented wryly. ‘Why else didn’t he take what you so consummately offered?’

  Susannah was trembling, tears hovering on the brink of her eyes. ‘That’s what I keep asking myself,’ she admitted chokingly.

  Margaret sighed and went to sit opposite her again. ‘All right. Suppose we accept that he does love you. What then? What are you going to do? Go to the States with the Castanas?’

  Susannah shook her head. ‘I—I couldn’t do that.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘Well, I suppose I can understand that,’ she conceded. ‘So—you need another job.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why don’t you come out of private tutoring and get yourself a job in a school—’

  ‘—where I’ll meet some suitable young men,’ Susannah finished for her.

  ‘Well, why not? Susannah, do you want to remain a spinster all your life?’

  Susannah wiped her eyes, amusement twitching at her lips. ‘That’s a rather old-fashioned word, isn’t it? Nowadays people say bachelor girls.’

  ‘All right. Do you want to stay single all your life? Don’t you want a home—a family?’

  ‘Of course I do. But I don’t just want to get married simply as an alternative to staying single. I want to marry the man I love.’

  ‘Fernando.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Margaret shook her head. ‘So you’ll take another private post?’

  ‘I suppose so. I—I haven’t given the matter a lot of thought.’

  ‘You haven’t had much time,’ pointed out Margaret dryly.

  ‘No.’ Susannah finished her coffee. ‘But I must tell Señor Castana that I shan’t be going to New York, though. He asked me to give him as much time as possible to find a replacement. He wants an English governess for Eduardo.’

  Margaret nodded. ‘Well, you know you can always stay with us if you haven’t found anything before the Castanas leave. We have loads of room and we’d love to h
ave you, you know that.’

  Susannah was sorry when the time came to leave the Frenches. For a few hours she had known the relaxation of a real home and she was loath to exchange it for the solitary isolation of her apartment at the Castana house. Perhaps there was something to be said for being married, she thought dejectedly, as Peter drove her back to Lorrimer Terrace. At least she would have a home of her own that way.

  The next morning she encountered the Castanas’ house guest for the first time. Lucie Castana brought her to the schoolroom while Susannah was giving Eduardo his lessons and introduced her as Señora Monica d’Alvarez.

  To her surprise, Susannah found that Monica d’Alvarez was an American. She had, she said, lived in Spain for a great number of years, but her accent remained as strident as ever. Although Susannah estimated her age to be nearing fifty, Monica dressed in the manner of a much younger woman. Obviously, she did not favour the greys and blacks that one read were much favoured by older Latin matrons, and instead she was wearing a rather garishly-patterned tunic top over scarlet lounging pants. Her hair was bleached to a silvery whiteness that contrasted sharply with her rather sallow complexion, and from the amount of nicotine staining her bony fingers Susannah thought she must smoke almost incessantly. And yet, for all that, she was not an unattractive woman, with a dry sense of humour that was lost on Lucie Castana.

  She showed a genuine interest in what Eduardo was doing, asking Susannah pertinent questions, praising the boy for being able to read English so well.

  ‘An English governess is always best,’ remarked Lucie complacently, paying Susannah a somewhat indirect compliment. ‘Carlos would employ no other.’

  Monica d’Alvarez raised her narrow plucked eyebrows. ‘We Americans get along,’ she commented dryly. Then to Susannah: ‘Are you looking forward to going to the States? It’s a great country. You’ll have a hell of a time! The men aren’t blind over there like they are where I come from.’