––––––––
Ju was hungry, but did not hope that Pitt had come with her breakfast. She merely hoped that it would be Pitt, and not someone else from the household, or one of the other employees.
She was not sure what Pitt had planned for her, but already she could feel the melancholy begin to lift, having allowed herself to hope that Pitt would not permit her return to Chen Yun the following Saturday. In itself, this filled her with a new fear; of what might happen when Ju did not arrive for work; of what might happen to her family back in China. Nevertheless, it was significant that, for the first time since she had left her home so many months earlier, Ju was allowing herself any hope at all.
She laid the book on the ground beside her chair and looked up at Pitt. Still, her eyes did not quite meet his. He held the paper out towards her. She cast a quick glance up to his face and stood up as she took it from him.
He had no idea whether or not she could read the story. However, it seemed plain enough. There were pictures of Chen Yun and Klimsky, and there was a large picture of the house where Ju had been taken every Saturday; taped off by the police, several officers standing around, a bagged up body being wheeled out of the gate.
The paper started to shake in her trembling hands. He watched her face, the movement of her eyes. She was reading, or trying to read, the story. His stomach was filled with nerves, the like of which he had not felt in a very long time. His throat was dry.
He wanted to reach out and touch her; he wanted her to know that she was not alone. Now, however, although the desire was there, and perhaps even the confidence to be so bold, he was wary of her reaction. He was a murderer. She might not want him to hold her, she might not want to be pressed against him. She might not want to be locked in a cellar by a man who had murdered three people in less than five minutes with his bare hands.
His heart raced, he swallowed. Her gaze was still locked on the story, and Pitt began to find the wait unbearable. He had other things to do to help Ju, and perhaps now that he had given her this part of the news, he needed to get on with them.
A tear fell onto the paper, the sound excruciatingly loud in the silence of the cellar. Pitt could not move. A tear told him nothing.
The paper toppled out of Ju’s hands and fell to the floor. She looked up at Pitt, her lips pressed together, another tear running down her cheek. Still, he could not read her; still, his heart pounded and he was desperate to know if he had done right by this woman to whom he had found himself so intolerably drawn.
Her lips started to break, and then, with the tears beginning to flow down her cheeks, for the first time that summer, Pitt saw her smile. It was weak and it was confused, but the gratitude flowed from her like tears, and he could feel the relief rush around his body, his skin tingling.
She lifted her hand, her fingers still trembling, and touched Pitt’s cheek. His face did not break, he did not return the smile, but he did not have to. The gates had been opened, and suddenly the intimacy that existed between them had been made physical. He lifted his hand and touched the side of her head, felt the softness of her hair. And then he pulled her in towards him, and she put her arms around his back, and they held each other. Not too tightly, not a clutching desperate embrace. But tenderly, their bodies barely touching, both of them breathing in the other.
He pressed his cheek against hers. He felt the warmth of someone’s love for the first time. Eventually, they pressed their bodies together and held each other as tightly as they could.
Yuan Ju thought she could stand there like that for all of her life. The melancholy lifted from her like mist burned off by the sun. She pressed her head into Pitt’s chest and the horror of her long summer began to disappear.
Time passed. They held on to each other as if they might never get the chance to do so again.
*
Pitt was unused to finding his emotions in total confusion. He was set in his determination to take Ju away, and knew what he had to do, but it seemed alien to have his thoughts so entangled.
He wanted to get away before the government and their media entourage arrived, and so, eventually, he tore himself away from Ju. He had lost track of time. When she’d been in his arms, time had meant nothing. He’d had no idea how long he stood there. What insignificant movements the hands of a clock had made around a dial were of no consideration. Ju and Pitt had held each other for eternity. It had been a sixth sense that had made Pitt finally detach from her, to reluctantly leave her again, but his thoughts were of taking her away from the vineyard that afternoon and spending the night in a hotel at the airport, before flying out the following day.
He was not thinking erotic or even romantic thoughts; he just knew he had to be alone with Ju, and that she deserved to be more comfortable.
Pitt turned out of the driveway, just as three cars turned in. He ignored them. Some way further down the road he passed a white van with the markings of BBC South West on the side.
He thought about Ju the whole way, driving to the nearest town, the nearest travel agent. He knew so little of the Internet that he could not regret being without the basic knowledge of how to book a flight online. It was something that he did not even know was possible.
He would book flights for the following day, he would go back to the farmhouse, he would pack a bag, collect and carefully pack a couple of vines, and be ready to go by late afternoon. He did not need to speak to Daisy. Perhaps he would say a word of farewell to Jenkins, officially hand the running of the vineyard over to him, and then he could be off. And if Ju was seen walking from the cellar door to the car, it would not matter. They would be gone.
As Pitt drove into town, feeling the sudden freedom that spontaneity and love had brought him, he tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that his plans, made in such haste, would somehow not work out.
*
Down in the cellar, Ju read her grandmother’s book. Where before she had read with sadness and longing, now she read with pleasure and a light heart, for she knew she was going home. Pitt had not been able to tell her that this was his intention, but somehow she knew it. She could smell home, she could see the hills. And she was not just going to China; she was not just going back to Hangzhou and the ugly apartment with her mother and father. She was going home, to the village where her grandmother had grown up. And Pitt would be with her, to protect her. She did not understand how that would work, and how Pitt would be able to come and live with her in her country, but she did not doubt that it would happen.
She had gestured for Pitt to take the newspaper with him when he left as she could not even countenance having the image of Chen Yun beside her in the cellar; as if the malignancy of the man might be able to creep from the pages of the newspaper and take hold of her once again.
She was free, Pitt had come to rescue her, and her sorrow was gone. The vineyard could breathe again.
*
Pitt booked tickets on a British Airways flight to Paris CDG the following morning from Heathrow, a room in a hotel at Heathrow Airport that evening, followed by three nights in a hotel in Paris. He did not think beyond that.
In the space of twenty-four hours, he had come to feel great gratitude for Hardyman’s handling of his personal finances. For, while the vineyard had struggled to make money, Hardyman had made sure that Pitt personally would be all right. He had not creamed money from the vineyard, had done nothing extravagant. However, he had taken Pitt’s complete lack of interest in his own financial situation and quietly, over the course of eleven years, made Pitt very financially comfortable.
Now, although Pitt was aware of a new found contempt for his wife, he was not about to run off with all the loot in a backpack. After sorting out his travel details, he visited the bank. Transferred half his savings into his current account, the other half into Daisy’s personal account. He suspected, correctly, that this would salve her anger when he told her he was leaving.
He was so used to not examining his life, to living his life for one purpose, that, now the purpose had altered, he did not examine it either. He had methodically thought out the steps that required to be taken, he had considered the dangers and the problems that could get in the way, and now he was following them through; and, once again, he was not stopping to examine his actions. He was doing the right thing for Ju, insomuch as his knowledge of her allowed, and that was all that mattered.
Their connection was not just chemical, not just some ephemeral rationalisation of their mutual attraction. They understood each other, and they instinctively knew things about each other.
They did not need to know the other’s history; they did not need to talk.