‘AND YOU CAN see from the formation of them where over thousands of years the pressure of the water has worn away the softer rock to form these caves.’
‘Have they ever been inhabited?’ Livvy asked the guide curiously, as he paused to allow the tour to pause and acknowledge with awe the cavern that nature had created.
It was icy cold down here beneath the surface, especially after the heat of the summer sun outside, but Livvy had paid attention to the warnings in her guidebook and had dressed appropriately for her visit to the caves. Her question had been prompted by her awareness that, in other parts of France, along the Loire valley for instance and at other ancient sites, the caves there had been inhabited until quite recently.
Waiting now for the guide to answer her, she remembered too reading that in the pitifully war-torn country which had been Yugoslavia refugees were having to resort to making their homes in the same caves which their parents and grandparents had inhabited during the Second World War. Now, glancing around the icy coldness of the cavern, she tried to envisage how it would feel to have to make such a place one’s home.
Several tunnels lay off the main gallery and she could well imagine the warren of passageways and caves which must honeycomb this subterranean world.
Like Theseus, though, in his quest to vanquish the Minotaur, one would need to be very sure of knowing one’s way around such a very complicated maze.
Such places had always both fascinated and repelled her. She could still vividly remember her first visit to the caves at Inglewhite at home; the shock of the icy cold air; the awe at the size of the huge stalagmites and stalactites. Stalactites hung on tight to the ceiling, stalagmites grew upwards from the floor with all their might, the guide there had told her informatively.
She smiled ruefully to herself now while she listened to the guide responding to her question.
When she had taken her own class on a similar trip, they had scorned such homely explanations, although she had recognised that same look of awe and fascination in their eyes as even the ‘coolest’ members of 5V witnessed the effect of the relentless power of nature.
‘That’s nothing,’ one of the boys had derided when they had entered the largest cavern, its ceiling so high above them that it was almost impossible to see it. ‘A semtex bomb could make a hole twice this size in seconds…this took nature millions of years.’
‘It takes man to detonate a bomb,’ Livvy had told him. ‘And man can always be stopped. Nature can’t…’
It had been the lake which had impressed them all the most, though; so deep that no one had even truly plumbed its depths, and so cold that it was unsafe for even the strongest diver to stay below the surface for very long.
Their guide was directing them down a narrow passageway. Livvy had been lucky; there were only half a dozen other people on this afternoon tour. Their guide was a young geology student, a trifle earnest perhaps, but interesting none the less.
‘I shouldn’t like to be down here if there was a flood,’ someone commented.
Livvy felt the brief frisson of fear that ran through the small group.
‘We are safe enough here,’ the guide assured them with a smile, ‘but there are other parts…other passageways and caves.’ He gave a brief shrug. ‘We do not allow the public to endanger themselves in them, though.’
As he painstakingly explained the safety precautions they used, Livvy found her attention drifting slightly.
There had been no sign of Richard Field when she’d left this morning. Not that she minded, of course. The less they saw of one another, the better, as far as she was concerned.
It was just as well he possessed that blind prejudiced view of her and that he so patently disapproved of and disliked her, otherwise…
Otherwise what? Just because his kisses had made her feel…
They made her feel nothing, she told herself firmly. Nothing at all.
While their guide was explaining the geological make-up of the cave system, another tour group arrived in the cavern; schoolchildren, noisy and excited as they discovered the possibilities of the cavern’s echo effect. They were younger than her own class. Livvy sympathised with the slightly tense-looking young woman who was obviously their teacher.
One of the boys, his face turned upwards to stare at the ceiling, backed accidentally into Livvy.
When the teacher hurried across to remonstrate with him and apologise, Livvy smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she told her. ‘I’ve been there myself…’
‘You’re a teacher?’ the other girl queried.
She was about Livvy’s own age, small and very French-looking, with her immaculate bobbed shiny dark hair, pristine shirt and jeans and soft Gucci loafers.
The same clothes worn by her would never have managed to look quite as chic as they did on this girl, Livvy reflected, and then acknowledged wryly to herself that a British schoolteacher’s salary was hardly likely to stretch to what looked like a genuine pair of Gucci shoes.
‘Yes, although my class is slightly older.’
They chatted for several seconds, but it wasn’t until the other girl introduced herself and asked what subject Livvy specialised in that she realised that Livvy herself was not actually French.
Her astonishment when she discovered her nationality was rather flattering, Livvy acknowledged, although she was quick to explain that one of the reasons her French was so good was due to the holidays she had spent with her French relatives.
‘Oui, that is the very best way to become fluent in another language,’ the other girl agreed.
Her name was Marie-Louise Fernier and she had returned to teaching part-time following the birth of her son, she explained to Livvy as they chatted. When she learned that Livvy was staying locally, she immediately suggested that Livvy might like to look round the school.
‘Perhaps we could have lunch together,’ Marie-Louise added, ‘I should enjoy that.’
‘Lunch would be lovely,’ Livvy agreed. It would also be interesting to get an informal look at close hand at a French school.
‘Would tomorrow be too soon?’ Marie-Louise asked her. ‘Only, after tomorrow I do not work again until next week.’
‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ Livvy assured her. ‘Where shall I meet you?’
‘If you would like to come direct to the school,’ Marie-Louise suggested. ‘It is quite easy to find, a kilometre outside Beaulieu. If you could be there for twelve, we could have lunch and then in the afternoon I could show you over the school.’
After she had made a note of Marie-Louise’s directions, Livvy realised that the rest of her tour had moved on. Excusing herself, she hurried to join them.
She would enjoy having lunch with the French-woman, she acknowledged; it would be interesting to talk to her as a colleague and to compare the methods they used. Despite the fact that she had come to the Dordogne for solitude, she was already looking forward to seeing Marie-Louise again.
It would do her good to have something else to think about, something to take her mind off Richard Field and all the confusing and dangerous emotions he managed to arouse in her.
‘You are here alone?’ Marie-Louise had asked her, and she had been very quick to confirm that this was the case.
But it was the truth, after all. All right, so technically Richard Field was sharing the house with her, and the farmer seemed to have leapt to the conclusion because of that fact that they were together, a pair…lovers.
Lovers…A fine frisson of sensation, which had nothing to do with the fact that she had just emerged into the warm sunlight from the coldness of the caves, ran tauntingly over her skin.
‘Had a good day?’
Livvy couldn’t conceal her astonishment. She paused in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee and turned to look at Richard Field.
He had walked into the kitchen a few minutes ago and, although she had pretended not to notice him, irritatingly, physically and mentally as well, she seemed to be extra-sensitive to his presence, her nerves on edge, her muscles tight and tense, and even her skin extraordinarily sensitive…so sensitive in fact that she could almost feel the eddies in the air made by his movements.
If he’d actually physically touched her, she couldn’t have reacted more, she recognised edgily. It was ridiculous that he should have this effect on her, especially in view of what she knew about him and his opinions of her.
‘Yes, fine. Have you?’ she responded tersely without looking at him.
‘Mmm…I went fishing…’
Livvy could feel her skin starting to burn. Fishing. It was hardly the most erotic of words and yet, as she heard him say it, a most extraordinary feeling of physically sensual awareness came over her.
For a moment she actually felt as she had done when they had stood together by the river, her heart pounding, her senses aware of everything about him, but most especially the fact that he was standing so close to her, holding her, touching her, his mouth only inches away from her own.
‘Where have you been…?’
‘I—er—’ She felt dazed, giddy, foolishly, dangerously light-headed. Pull yourself together, she warned herself fiercely. Just because for once his voice had sounded soft, gentle, almost provocatively teasing, as though he too was remembering…
‘I visited the caves,’ she told him huskily.
‘I thought tomorrow I might visit Cahors,’ he told her, adding astoundingly, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me. We could have lunch somewhere together, maybe…’
Livvy stared at him in shock. ‘No…no, I’m sorry, I can’t. I’ve already made arrangements…I’m having lunch with someone else…’
She was gabbling, she recognised shakily, but then she would defy anyone not to betray their feelings if they were in her shoes. The shock of hearing Richard actually suggest that they spend some time together, actually ask her to have lunch with him after the way he had behaved towards her, was enough to send anyone off balance.
As she looked into his face and saw the way it was closing, hardening, she had to suppress a wild urge to cry out in protest, to say that he had got it all wrong…that it was not that she didn’t want to accept his invitation, to explain that it had come as such a shock.
‘I see…’
His voice was cold and hard. As cold and hard as his face.
He was turning away from her, walking away from her. Livvy bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from calling him back. It was obvious what he was thinking, but what was the point in trying to explain? He obviously thought she had picked up some man and arranged to see him again.
Something dangerous and vulnerable inside her ached pitifully, but she refused to give in to it. After all, wasn’t it really safer, wiser to let him think the worst of her? To ignore that ridiculous yearning to hear over and over again that gentle, almost tender, intonation to his voice which surely had to be a product of her ridiculously overcharged imagination?
And if it hadn’t been…It had, she told herself firmly. After all, there was no way he could possibly feel any tenderness towards her.
‘Good lunch, was it?’
Livvy tensed as she heard the sarcasm splintering through Richard Field’s voice.
She had returned to the farmhouse less than half an hour ago, half expecting to find that Richard was still out, but instead she had discovered that he had returned before her.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact it was,’ she replied calmly. ‘Very enjoyable.’
She warned herself that there was no point in deliberately goading him, and then asked herself ruefully what it was about him that drove her into over-reacting so irresponsibly.
She already knew how he believed she had spent her ‘lunch’. Did she really look as though she had actually passed the afternoon indulging in some heavy sex-session, instead of enjoying a very pleasant lunch with another woman, accompanied by a very interesting discussion on different methods of teaching?
‘And yours…?’
The look he gave her warned her that she had pushed him too far. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she exclaimed irately. ‘Look, I know what you think, but you’re totally wrong. My lunch date was another woman…a fellow teacher. I met her yesterday when I was touring the caves. She invited me to visit her school and to have lunch with her.’
When he made no response, she shrugged her shoulders and added impatiently, ‘All right, don’t believe me if you don’t want to…I don’t care.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?’
Livvy turned away from him uncomfortably. She knew quite well why she had led him on to believing the worst about her, and she knew equally well that there was no way she was going to answer his question honestly.
How could you tell a man like this one that your instincts, those perverse, feminine, rebellious and oh, so hard to control, deeply rooted, atavistic feelings which really had no place in the life of a sensible modern woman, had warned her that it would be dangerous to let him get too close to her…that it would be foolish to do or say anything which might bring down the barriers they had erected against one another, that it was safer to allow him to think the worst of her?
No, she couldn’t tell him any of that. So instead, she shrugged again and, keeping her face turned away from him, said dismissively, ‘Why should I?’
When he didn’t make any response, she added edgily, ‘It really didn’t seem that important.’
‘No? Then why tell me now?’
He was quick, she had to give him that, Livvy admitted, as she caught her breath. ‘No reason,’ she lied.
The look he was giving her made a mockery of her pretended insouciance.
‘All right, I admit it. I don’t like being judged—wrongly—as…as someone who’s so sexually dependent that…’ She was getting into deep water, she warned herself, and if she wasn’t careful he was going to start asking her some very awkward questions, such as why it should matter to her what he thought of her or how he misjudged her. It didn’t, of course, not one tiny little bit. It was just that…
‘You mean you don’t like the fact that I know exactly what you really are…’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’ve had enough of this. What you saw at the auberge wasn’t what you thought at all…I know you won’t accept this…I know you have some kind of…of problem which seems to make it impossible for you to view my sex other than with some ridiculously distorted bias, but that man you saw me with was not there with my consent, my desire, my agreement, or anything else. Far from it.
‘He had followed me up from downstairs, using the fire exit. He caught hold of me before I could stop him, and what you seem determined to believe was a mutual desire for sex was in fact attempted rape. It was no thanks to you that he didn’t succeed,’ she added angrily. ‘I really don’t care what you think of me or even whether you believe me or not, but for the sake of the rest of my sex I would strongly counsel you to learn the distinguishing signs that say a woman is welcoming a man’s advances or rejecting them.
‘If I had wanted that…that oaf as my lover, do you honestly believe I’d have allowed him to maul me like that in the corridor, in public?’ Her eyes flashed angrily, heightened colour burning her face. ‘I suppose you’re the kind of man who believes that no woman is ever raped against her will, that—’
‘No…that’s not true.’
The harshness of his denial shocked Livvy into silence, her anger suddenly spent, leaving her feeling oddly weak and close to tears.
She hadn’t meant to say anything to him, to let him see how much his attitude towards her irked and distressed her, and now, in the silence filling the kitchen, she wished that she had remained silent.
He probably didn’t believe her anyway, she reflected tiredly. He was probably far too used to holding on to the comfort of his antagonism to let go of it and admit that he had made a mistake.
She turned away from him, heading for the door.
‘Why didn’t you say something at the time?’
She stopped. Without turning round, she asked him huskily, ‘Like what…please help me?’ She looked at him over her shoulder and gave him a bitter smile.
She had just reached the door when she felt his hands on her arms. Her whole body tensed as he swung her round to face him. She could see the angry pulse beating in his jaw, smell the heat coming off his skin.
‘You’re enjoying doing this to me, aren’t you?’ he demanded through gritted teeth. ‘You’re loving every minute of it…You…’
He stopped as she made a tiny, choked sound of protest in her throat.
‘My arms…you’re hurting me,’ Livvy protested fiercely, even though she knew it was more shock than pain that was making her tremble, and the fact was that the sensation of his skin against hers, of its warmth and strength, was producing tiny quivers of physical reaction inside her body which were a world away from what she was claiming to feel.
‘I’m sorry.’ He looked confused…bitter…anguished almost, she might have said, but then her gaze focused on his mouth, and the most extraordinary surge of emotion rose up inside her.
It took every ounce of will-power she possessed not to close her eyes and let her body sway softly into his, not to lift her head and offer him her mouth.
Quickly she pulled away from him, praying that he couldn’t guess what she was feeling.
Perhaps he was right after all…perhaps secretly she was some kind of wanton…Perhaps he possessed some kind of magical power that totally transformed her personality, made it impossible for her to resist him.
Yes, and it’s called sexual chemistry, she told herself grimly, as he stepped back from her, setting her free to open the door and make her escape.
What on earth had possessed her to over-react like that? It was obvious that he hadn’t believed a word she had said.
Which was perhaps just as well.