We were climbing higher all the time, thrusting deeper into the mountains. The road wound its way through a narrow gorge, just a rim on the edge of a seemingly vertical rockface. At one point we had to cross the ravine by a slender metal bridge that looked as if it would scarcely bear the weight of the car. Then at once we plunged into a dark tunnel where Brett needed to use the headlights.
We emerged into a different world—a harshly arid world that had its own sort of grandeur. The wide, parched valley was encircled by distant peaks, some crested with snow. Nearer, huge outcrops of limestone rock, blindingly white, stood out like jagged scars.
Here and there was a single olive tree, its contorted branches still winter-bare, and clusters of stunted pine shivered in the wind. In the hollows, where the sun could not penetrate, lay patches of crusted snow.
I shuddered at such bleakness. Yet people lived here, somehow scratching themselves a livelihood. We passed through a village, no more than a scattering of tumbledown houses. It seemed deserted, but I sensed eyes peering secretively from behind curtains.
Beyond the village the road divided, and Brett stopped to consult the map he’d bought in La Turbie. With the engine switched off, I could hear the wind sighing through the telephone wires beside the road. It was a mournful sound.
“We take the right fork here,” said Brett, refolding the map. “It’s not far now. How does the thought of a blazing log fire strike you?”
“Great.” I hugged closer into my coat. “I suppose it’s very beautiful, Brett, but...”
He laughed. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? Nobody’s going to think of looking for us in this wilderness.”
Fifteen minutes later we came to a rough track leading off to the right. A mailbox was nailed to a pole, with a hand-painted sign beneath it - La Retraite.
“This is it,” said Brett and swung onto the track. We bumped our way along for nearly a mile, twisting and turning. Pine trees blocked our view of the house until we were almost upon it.
La Retraite was a huddled mass of stone, crouching low upon the ground. The walls, the roof pantiles, the tufty grass around it were the same tawny gray. If I’d expected a welcome, I was disappointed. No figure stood in the doorway, no smoke curled from the squat chimney. The windows were tightly shuttered.
“Brett, are you quite sure this is the right place?”
“Of course I am.”
“It... it looks so deserted. All shut up.”
Brett made no comment as he stopped the car on the square of roughly leveled ground. For a moment or two he sat behind the wheel, making no move to get out. Then he said briskly, “Come on, let’s have a look around.”
There was still no sign of life from the house. I expected Brett to knock at the door, but instead he poked about in a crevice between two stones in the wall and withdrew a large and rusty iron key. He thrust it in the lock and without a backward glance at me opened the door and stepped inside.
“Brett,” I began, “ought we to ... ?”
“Come on in, Gail. We’d better get a fire going right away. It’s like an icebox.”
Inside, with the shutters up, it was dark. I could see very little except that we were in a large oblong room, its flagstone floor partly covered by wool rugs. It felt bitterly cold, the raw cold of a house long empty.
“There’s no one here,” I said, dismayed. Then suddenly I understood and swung around on Brett accusingly. “You knew there’d be nobody here, didn’t you? There couldn’t have been when you were supposed to be phoning. This place hasn’t been lived in for ages.”
“Not since autumn, actually,” he agreed. “Bill and Harriet just spend the summer here. They say it’s the only place they can escape and get some work done. Luckily for us, it’s essential that the TV people can reach Bill quickly, or there’d be no phone.” I heard a ting as he lifted the receiver. “Yes, it’s working, so we’ll be all right.”
“You’ve got a nerve. You told me they—”
“Keep cool, Gail. I had to spin you a yarn. I knew you wouldn’t have come at all if you’d known the Shackletons weren’t here.”
“Too true I wouldn’t. And I’m not staying, either. You’d better think again, Brett.”
His voice reached me out of the gloom. Calm and reasonable. “There’s nowhere else as safe as this, Gail. Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t stay.”
“There are all sorts of reasons. The Shackletons, for one thing. What would they think if they knew you were making use of their place like this?”
“Bill and Harriet wouldn’t care a damn. They’ve often told me that if I ever wanted somewhere quiet to go when I was on the coast, I could always come here. How else do you imagine I knew where the key was hidden?”
I was silent. There ought to be something I could say, some retort that would crush Brett’s unbearable self-assurance. But I couldn’t think of it.
He laughed softly. “Don’t tell me you’re having an attack of frozen virtue. I thought you and I had got past that stage long ago.”
I felt my cheeks flame and was grateful it was too dark for him to see.
“We’ll freeze to death if we don’t get a fire going,” said Brett, suddenly practical. “I’ll nip outside and open up the shutters, then I’ll fetch in some logs. There’s always a pile kept around at the back. Look and see if you can find some paper and kindling wood.”
Searching, I discovered the full extent of the mas, and it wasn’t much. Opening off the living room was a room with a large double bed. I shut the door quickly, wondering about sleeping arrangements. The tiny lean-to kitchen contained a shallow stone sink with no taps, a contraption that looked like a primitive oil stove, a cupboard with cleaning things, and a larder that was bare except for, on the bottom shelf, the very things I wanted.
I had paper and sticks piled ready in the grate when Brett came back with an armful of split logs. In about three minutes the fire was roaring up the wide-throated chimney. With the sun coming in through the open shutters, the room began to look more cheerful. I was forced to admit that it possessed a certain charm.
It was furnished very simply, the walls painted white, the floor rugs and curtains in strong bright colors —orange, lime green and yellow. There was a circular dining table of natural pine and four matching ladder-back chairs, a deep, soft couch with a scattering of cushions, which Brett dragged around to face the fire.
He disappeared outside again and returned with the carton of food we’d bought, the two long French loaves sticking out of the top.
“I think an early lunch is indicated, don’t you, Gail? What do you say to canned soup? I fancy kidney myself, followed by some of that nice ripe Camembert. And we’ll break open a bottle of the Chablis.”
With the warmth of the fire beginning to penetrate my frozen bones, and the prospect of food, I was feeling mellowed, more human. I suddenly realized that I was devastatingly hungry. I’d scarcely eaten any breakfast.
I followed Brett through to the kitchen, leaving the door wide open to take some of the fire’s heat with us.
“I’ll see to it, Brett. That is, if I can manage the oil stove.”
“It’s not difficult once it knows who’s boss. I’ll show you. Then I’ll get a bucket of water from the hand pump, which incidentally doubles as the bathroom.”
“Bathroom? I could just do with ...”
Brett grinned maliciously. “You strip and crouch under the spout while somebody pumps for you. Bill and Harriet swear by it. They say it’s most invigorating. Care to try?”
“Thanks, I’ll do without. Look, Brett, hadn’t you better phone Dougal before we do anything else?”
“I’ve done it already, from the cafe.”
“When you were supposed to be ringing here and fixing it with the Shackletons.” On an impulse, I added, “I’m sorry for being bitchy, Brett. You’re doing your best to help me, and heaven knows why you should.”
He smiled at me briefly. Or perhaps it was a rueful smile against himself.
“I was dead lucky and caught Dougal just as he got back to his hotel in Cannes. He was flaming mad about his exclusive story going bust, but he’s promised that he’ll ring us at this number as soon as he hears anything more.”
After we had eaten, I heated some water and washed the dishes, then returned to the couch to relax and let the fire soak into me. There was nothing I could do, no action I could take. Until Dougal phoned with fresh news, I would just have to curb my impatience and wait. In fact, this brief respite from rush and activity was rather delicious.
I drifted into a light doze, conscious of Brett moving around the room, doing this and that. In the end, I fell deeply asleep.
The sound of the door being closed aroused me. Opening my eyes, I saw that Brett had just come in from outside. The fire was a glow of red embers, and I realized the daylight was fading.
“What time is it?” I asked drowsily.
He flicked his wrist in a gesture that I’d seen him make a hundred times before. “Just on five-fifteen. You had a good sleep. You must have needed it.”
I snapped wide awake. “Hasn’t Dougal phoned yet? It’s hours since we got here.”
“He will—the second there’s anything to tell us. But it may be that Alexis has really gone to ground this time.”
“Oh no. You don’t really think that, do you, Brett?”
He shrugged. “It might be best all around if he vanished, considering the trouble he’s causing everyone. Just now, while you were asleep, I was thinking what a terrible fraud that man is. I remembered the touching little gathering at Deer’s Leap on Christmas Eve. Both families gathered around the fire, with the radio tuned to the BBC European service to hear Alexis giving his annual message of hope and comfort to his fellow countrymen. The famous Wenceslas Message. At the end, my father was so moved that he couldn’t speak for a minute. There were actually tears in the old chap’s eyes as he silently produced the bottle of slivovice he’d bought specially for the occasion. Oh, it makes me sick.”
I bit my lip, keeping back tears. Being in the United States, I had missed Christmas at Deer’s Leap this year, but it was always the same. A solemn ritual. Alexis had broadcast the Wenceslas Message each Christmas Eve since his escape to freedom.
Brett went on in the same bitter voice, “It’s all very fine you having this crazy idea of talking Alexis around and making him see the error of his ways—but I doubt if I will ever forgive him. And I reckon that goes for a great many people.”
Out of my despair came a flash of anger. “You shouldn’t be so quick to pass judgment. What right have you to condemn Alexis before you’ve heard his side of the story?”
Brett’s dark eyes were flinty. “Look who’s talking about fairness. I never remember you being ready to give me the benefit of the doubt.”
I almost snapped back at him, but I checked myself in time. There was no use in our bickering, no sense in fighting past battles again and reopening old wounds. A log fell to the stone hearth with a crash of sparks, and it gave me an excuse to kneel down and attend to the fire.
Later, for supper, I made a large ham omelet, using Harriet Shackleton’s heavy iron skillet. We had more of the Camembert and some grapes to follow. Brett opened another bottle of wine.
We sat opposite each other at the round table, in the pool of light cast by a figured brass oil lamp. My mind leaped back across the months. It had often been like this in my apartment in London—just the two of us in a softly lit room.
But it was different now. Everything was changed. Brett and I sat and made polite talk, empty words and phrases strung together. Whenever a possible danger point loomed, we both drew back hastily into the safety of platitudes.
Brett got up from the table and began to prowl about the room restlessly. He seemed just as much on edge as I was.
“The moon’s up,” he said, stopping by the window and drawing aside the curtain. “It looks beautiful. Get your coat on, Gail, and we’ll go outside for a few minutes.”
The wind had dropped and the air was crisp. The moon was low in the sky, just a half circle, and its pure clear light made a landscape of vivid contrasts. The distant snow-capped peaks were etched silver against an indigo sky, while nearby a massive outcrop of rock rose like a miniature mountain, the limestone glowing a translucent bluish white. The shadows were deep, black, mysterious.
Brett said, pointing, “I remember there’s a path leading around that big crag. From the farther side you get a terrific view right down the entire length of the valley. It’s fantastic.”
“Can we go and look?”
“Not now. The path is too narrow to be safe at night, even when there’s a moon. Besides, one of us must stay close to the phone. If we’re still here in the morning, you can go and have a look then.”
The cold was striking through my coat, but I had no urge to go back inside. Not yet. There was a strange enchantment about this silent, silver world of moonlight. Nothing seemed quite real. I felt a fluttering within me that was almost panic.
It plucked a chord of memory. Some time, some place, this had happened to me before. Suddenly, I recalled the occasion vividly—the Ivory Room at Deer’s Leap, when I had met Brett again after an interval of more than ten years. That evening I had experienced this same curious sensation, as if everything was without substance and I was floating adrift, drowning, having no say in my own destiny.
I shivered, from the cold, from the remembrance. Brett’s fingers reached out to me, and I let my hand stay in his. It seemed so natural, so utterly right. The misty vapor of our breathing mingled and hung in a little cloud, scarcely moving in the stillness of the night.
I don’t remember if there was a moment of decision. I only remember going into Brett’s arms, being held, clinging to him. I remember the feel of his lips on mine —ice-cold, then warm.
“Gail,” he murmured softly. “Darling Gail.”
Without any more words being spoken, as if the silence was somehow too precious to break, we turned and went back inside. Brett tossed logs onto the fire, and I stood very still, watching him, watching the golden, leaping flames, conscious of the flames that leaped within me.
There were no explanations, no apologies, no forgiveness. That night it was as if Brett and I had never been apart.