Island-in-Waiting (7 page)

After a moment I succeeded in wrenching my head away and his lips moved to my throat and the open neckline of my dress, hot and frighteningly insistent. In escalating panic I pushed against his chest with both hands and at last he raised his head and looked at me. He was breathing quickly and there was an ugly expression in his eyes.

“What's the matter? It's no use playing the ice maiden with me, my girl. You wanted that as much as I did.”

“No!” I shook my head desperately. “No, Ray, please –”

“Then why did you come to me? You like to blow hot and cold, is that it? Egg someone on and then give him the deep freeze?”

“No,” I said again.

His mouth twisted. “Don't fight me, Chloe. It won't do any good.”

The kitchen clock ticked unconcernedly into the suddenly threatening silence and I said on a high note of relief, “Your free period's nearly over. You'd better go.”

He glanced impatiently at his watch. “When can I see you, then? We'll keep Saturday for the sightseeing, but –”

I said quickly, “Ray, I really think perhaps –”

“Hell, I'll have to go. We'll fix something at college tomorrow.”

“I shan't be there.”

“You will, my sweet, believe me.”

“But it's not one of Martha's days.”

He lifted a hand to caress my cheek, his smile fading as I ducked away. “Goodbye, then, Chloe. For now.”

When he had gone I sank tremblingly on to the chair and put my hands to my face. On the table the untouched teapot still steamed. What in the name of heaven had happened to me? He was right, I had after all gone to him voluntarily-

No! I raised my head. Not voluntarily. Numbly I thought back to my first meeting with Ray and how, after initially ruling out any physical attraction towards him, I had almost been overwhelmed by it. Could the sensation have been deliberately imposed on me, overriding my own will? It was a terrifying thought but I of all people had reason not to underestimate the power of suggestion. This afternoon it had swamped me again, but if he had relaxed his mental hold in the moment of physical contact, all my natural reserve would have come flooding back.

I drew a deep breath. If these hypotheses had any grain of truth in them, Hugo had been right to warn me about Ray, though he could have had no inkling how dangerous our liaison could be. ‘Don't fight me,' Ray had said. ‘It won't do any good. '

Hugo and Martha were full of praise for the chicken that evening, “especially,” Hugo commented, “since we were on starvation rations at lunch time. The girl who does the staff lunch has gone down with 'flu and so has her husband. Everything was chaotic – we had to make do with cheese and biscuits, if you please!”

“No wonder you're hungry,” I remarked, refilling the plate he held out. “I didn't realize you have outside caterers.”

“Only for our lunch. The boys go back to their houses but for some reason lunches aren't provided in Staff House during the week. In any case the non-resident members don't want to trail home at midday, so I suppose it was considered easier to feed us all together.”

“Who has the contract?”

“The young married couple who run the restaurant down the road. It's only open in the evenings, so I imagine they're glad of the extra money providing our lunches five days a week.”

“It sounds just the kind of business I should be looking for!”

“I thought you didn't want to be burdened by overheads?”

I smiled. “I was only trying not to run before I could walk. Anyway, I hope for your sakes order will be restored tomorrow.”

“I very much doubt it. Everyone was rushing round trying to persuade the cooks in the different houses to provide a bit extra for us but they all have different menus so it would be very complicated.”

I said on impulse, “I could do the lunches till she's better, if it would help.”

Hugo looked up. “Now that is a thought! Do you think you could cope?”

“I don't see why not. I'm used to cooking for fairly large numbers, and I've nothing else to do.”

“Bully for you! I'll ring through after dinner and pass on the suggestion.”

The college accepted my offer with gratitude as, when in turn I phoned her, did Annette St Cyr.

“This is the first time we've let St Olaf's down,” she told me, “and I've been so worried it might lose us the contract. They must be able to depend on their caterers. That's the trouble with there being only two of us – when we're both ill we're completely stuck. We've had to cancel restaurant bookings till the end of the week, which is something we can't really afford.”

“Don't worry about the lunches, anyway. If you tell me what you were planning and where I can find it, I'll do the rest.”

“It should be Spaghetti Bolognese tomorrow, with ice-cream to follow. The sauce only needs thawing and reheating. The main problem is getting it to you.”

“I'll come and collect it, if there's somewhere you can leave it.”

“Would you mind? We could put the containers in the passage just inside the back door and leave it on the latch. We'll keep out of the way though – I don't want to pass this on to you! There's a large selection of pans at college, so don't worry about utensils. You know the kitchenette off the staff-room? It has a cooker, fridge, sink and so on. They use it to make tea and coffee during the day. The washing-up isn't your concern, of course. Two girls come in to serve the meal and clear and wash up afterwards. Once the dessert is portioned out you're free to go.”

I was quite pleased at the prospect of cooking again, having enjoyed the challenge of the
Poularde,
and it was only as I was dropping off to sleep that I realized I should in fact, as Ray had assured me, be at college the following day.

The Viking Restaurant was a converted coach-house on the Jurby road and Annette's clear directions led me to it without any trouble. The sign of a helmeted warrior with flowing hair dispelled any possible doubt that I had reached my destination. As arranged I walked round the building and pushed open the back door. The small passage inside obviously doubled as a wine cellar and racks of bottles lined the walls. There was a flight of stairs at the far end and on the left a door led presumably to the kitchen. I was tempted to take a quick peep inside but discretion overcame curiosity. I collected the containers left ready for me, snipped down the latch on the door and went on my way.

As I approached the corner where we'd seen the ram my hands tightened apprehensively on the driving-wheel, but today the fields and hillside falling away below me held no trace of strangeness. Perhaps the atmosphere was expunged of any lingering unease once the foreseen incident had taken place. I put it thankfully out of my mind and minutes later turned into the gateway of St Olaf's.

By the time the girls arrived to lay the long table everything was well in hand and for the next half-hour or so I worked harder than I had for some time, ladling steaming mounds of spaghetti and sauce on to a seemingly endless succession of plates.

“That's all for in there,” Kitty, the elder girl, said at last. “These three plates are ours. We've just enough time to eat it before serving the sweet.”

We sat down at the small corner table and as we ate they regaled me with news of their boy-friends and their homes in the village. I gathered they spent the rest of the day helping with the housework at one of the college houses. Despite their chatter, however, they ate remarkably quickly and were pushing back their chairs before I had eaten half my own meal. I wasn't hungry anyway and abandoned it to embark on spooning out the ice-cream. Since I didn't want any myself I was then free to go. I said good-bye to the girls and, avoiding the still crowded staff-room, went out by the other door leading directly on to the corridor. I pulled it shut behind me and turned to find myself face to face with Ray. He took my arm.

“I've some sketches of the island to show you. They may give you an idea of where you'd like to go on Saturday.” Before I could think of an excuse he led me firmly down the passage and into a small room with canvases stacked all round the walls. “This is my private sanctum. I keep my equipment here, where it can be safely locked up. Some of it is quite valuable.”

Dubiously, with the idea of escape still at the forefront of my-mind, I looked about me. On the easel at one end of the room was the half-completed portrait of an old woman and even I, with no knowledge of art, could see the expertise in the simple, telling strokes which had captured an impression of yearning loneliness. Interest overcame my hesitancy.

“That's wonderful, Ray! Who is she?”

“My grandmother. The family's pretty long-suffering about sitting for me. There are one or two sketches of them among the landscapes.”

He gestured towards the nearest pile of canvases and I started to flick through them: seascapes, an imposing mountain scene, the impudent face of a small boy, a man with penetrating eyes and a small goatee beard –

The canvases slithered to my feet in an untidy heap. Some corner of my mind noted Ray's stillness but my eyes were locked on the top canvas, a face I knew I should never be able to forget. “Who –” My voice didn't sound the first time: patiently I tried again. “Ray, who is that man?”

“Another relative.” His voice shook slightly. “The black sheep of the family, in fact – my Uncle Tom.”

Black sheep – the ram darting into the road. I shook my head to clear it. “Uncle Tom?” I repeated stupidly.

“That's right. Tom Kelly.”

My voice seemed no part of me. “Is he – he's a hypnotist, isn't he?”

Ray let out his breath in a long sigh. “He was once, yes.” The walls of the little room tilted ominously. “Could I sit down?”

“Of course.” He lifted an untidy pile of papers from the room's only chair and I lowered myself on to it, my hands tightening convulsively round the edge of the seat till the wood bit deeply into the palms. He stood watching me, the papers still in his arms. “You're not going to pass out, are you?”

“I don't think so.”

“I had to do it, Chloe. I had to be sure.”

I dragged my eyes to his face. “You mean you knew?”

“That you were the one he couldn't bring round? Yes.”

“How?” The word was only a whisper, as though I didn't really want an answer.

“We used to be pretty close, Uncle and I. I was over on the mainland when it happened and he phoned me in one hell of a flap asking what he should do. We'd had a game going between us for years – telepathy, hypnotism, all kinds of tests of will-power. He wanted me to join up with him as a double act but I was at art school by then and there seemed mote security in carrying on with that.”

“You mean he wanted you to try to wake me?”

“He didn't know what he wanted. He went to pieces completely. Nothing like that had ever happened before. By the time I got to Oxford he'd changed his mind and clammed up. Wouldn't tell me a thing about you, even your name. As you can imagine, having dropped everything to go to his assistance I was pretty rattled about it.” His eyes slid away from me. “So I – muscled in on the act, as you might say.”

The silence between us was thick and suffocating. “Go on,” I said.

“It was like bugging a phone, but as it turned out only partially successful. I think the old devil imposed a block somewhere along the line. I could get through to you all right, but nothing came back. It was maddening, knowing you were receiving but not your reactions. All that came over was a kind of quivering electrical response.”

He turned from me and lit a cigarette. “We had one hell of a row about it. He knew I was tapping the current somewhere and he couldn't stop me. What really got him was that it was himself had taught me how.” He blew out a succession of smoke rings as I sat unmoving. “I don't know why I went on with it; sheer bloody-mindedness, I suppose. At any rate every now and then, to prove to myself I could still call you up, I made contact, and gradually it got me hooked. I just had to find out who you were.” He paused again and again I remained silent.

“Uncle had gone to ground in some grotty little office in Chester. In spite of being cleared he wouldn't even contemplate hypnotism again and of course he wasn't trained for anything else. So I went to all the trouble of rooting him out but the stubborn old fool still wouldn't budge and of course your name had been kept out of the papers – protecting minors or something. So my only hope was to bring you to the island.”

It seemed imperative that I make some move to assert myself. My brain was reeling with implications too enormous to comprehend but I managed to say shakily, “I came here to visit Hugo.”

He ignored the interruption. “It's been a long wait. I was beginning to get desperate. Oh, there were a couple of false alarms – wishful thinking really – but when you did come I knew at once, even before I saw you.”

I closed my eyes, remembering the mental bombardment from the garden gate – and the little symbolic black cloud.

“Sometimes,” I said hastily, staring down again at my twisting fingers, “I have very vivid dreams. I think they're set here and some of them seem to take place in the island's ancient past. Is that – do you –?”

He shook his head. “Not guilty. You're probably receiving them direct from old Tom. You're still linked to him, after all, and he's nuts about the place. When I was a kid we'd walk for hours out on the fells while he told me all the old legends about bugganes and phynnodderees and the rest. It was himself took me to see Granny Clegg. She's a weird old soul living down on the harbour at Peel, and what she doesn't know about the island isn't worth knowing at all.”

Granny Clegg. There would come a time when she might be able to help me –