An Affair to Forget (12 page)

As
he grinned down at her Morrin felt a warm glow ease the hurt he had caused her earlier, and as they went into the house together she wished that Vicki and Gareth were both a thousand miles away.

*

“Go and put on something warm,” Gareth told Morrin the next morning after Vicki and Sam had departed for Santa Cruz. “And ask Maria if she can lend you a pair of wellington boots or something like that. I’m taking you to visit Teide and believe it or not, there’s snow on the top of that mountain. I’ve hired a car; meet you out front in ten minutes.”

“
But we’re supposed to be getting on with the play.”

“
All visitors have to pay their respects to the volcano when they arrive on Tenerife. In any case, I have some thinking to do before I get back to the script. Don’t you remember the way it used to be with my books?”

She
remembered. He used to toss a bag of golf clubs into the boot of his car and drive off, or walk for miles with the dogs. Or phone one of his girlfriends and arrange to take her out for the day. “You didn’t expect me to go with you in those days.”

“
Today I do. Sam has loaned you to me – and you’re going,” Gareth said, “if I have to carry you up the damned mountain over my shoulder. Nine minutes.”

“
You don’t need me if you’re thinking, do you?”

“
I might want to talk to someone about it and you’re all I’ve got.” He clapped his hands at her as though guiding an errant hen into its litter house. “Eight minutes. Go on, I’m not going to wait all day for you.”

She
went, reminding herself as she dressed in a checked shirt and black slacks that it was her job to do as Sam wished. And if she endured for long enough, she would eventually regain her freedom.

Gareth
was leaning against a blue open-topped car when she left the house. “Not bad… just under fifteen minutes.” He scooped her into the passenger seat with none of the gallantry he had shown towards Vicki on their first evening.

They
drove in silence for some time. As the car began to climb, leaving the flat coastal area behind, he said easily, “Sure you’re comfortable?”

“
Perfectly, thank you.”

“
Then don’t you think you should stop sulking?”

“
Why should I be sulking?”

She
caught the green glint of an amused sidelong glance. “I don’t know, but if you get any nearer to that door you’ll be on the other side of it. You don’t have to huddle as far away from me as possible, you know. We’re only out for a drive, nothing more than that. I can’t seduce you while I’m driving, and I’m long past the stage of a quick grope in a small car, thank God.”

They
climbed through pine forests, passing a lorry parked by the roadside. The men working about it were shovelling masses of soft thick brown material from piles by the verge.

“
Pine needles from the floor of the forest,” Gareth told her. “They use it for animal bedding, then manure. They’re very thrifty people.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
I’ve been here before, several times. My parents brought us to Tenerife on a number of holidays.”

When
they stopped at a small tavern for a glass of wine, Morrin, remembering that she was supposed to be working on Sam’s behalf, tried to start a discussion about the play, but Gareth brushed her aside with an impatient, “Don’t spoil the day by talking shop.” Then, when their glasses were empty and they rose to go, he said, “Come and see this.”

She
followed him on to the terrace and up a flight of steps to the flat roof. From there they overlooked a huge valley where, far below, a large concrete water holder and a scatter of white houses looked like toys dropped by a bored child over the green carpet of the banana plantations.

“
That,” Gareth indicated a sandy area, flanked by wooden benches, by the side of the house, “is a wrestling ring. The Cuanches, the former inhabitants of these islands, were great wrestlers and the local men keep the custom alive. I’ve been to a few matches, and they were great.”

“
There’s a mist coming.” Morrin moved to the parapet. The sky had taken on a pearly oyster colour while they were drinking their wine and the mist, coming inland from the sea, was a wall of pale grey edging towards them.

“
We’ll be going above it.” Gareth, who had joined her, turned to lean back on the parapet, looking down at her. “You puzzle me, Morrin of the long hair. You run from my employment just because we enjoyed a… social interlude one evening when we were thrown by circumstances into each other’s arms, but you’re quite happy to work for Sam Kennedy when you’re besotted by him. What’s the difference between him and me?”

“
You seriously think that we’re… that Sam and I . . .” Morrin stopped, tongue-tied.

“
You have such an easy way with words,” Gareth said smoothly. “If you’re trying to tell me that the two of you are lovers, I already know it and I’m not in the least bit shocked. Long live the permissive society, I say.”

“
Only because it suits you very well.” It was difficult to have a logical conversation with this man. She leaned her elbows on the parapet and gazed down at the valley, refusing to look at him. The mist was rolling towards them steadily now, covering houses and banana plantations as it advanced. “Sam is my boss, and nothing more. Do you understand?”

“
I do, but I don’t think Vicki does.” Gareth said. “Haven’t you noticed the way she looks at you sometimes, as if she wouldn’t mind pushing you into the pool and holding you under? I’d watch my step if I was you.”

“
Vicki Queen has no time for other women.”

“
No time for you, certainly. Perhaps it’s as well that I’m staying on to mind your back, since you seem to be oblivious to what’s going on around you.”

The
mist seemed to jump the final fifty yards. Suddenly it was all around them, reaching out with chilly fingers to touch Morrin’s face. She couldn’t see anything beyond the wall. It was as though the two of them were alone in the world. She shivered at the thought.

“
Cold?” Gareth reached out as though to enfold her in the warmth of his arms but she pulled away.

“
You stayed for one reason and one reason only.”

The
sudden dampness had silvered his hair. “I did? Do tell.”

“
Because you knew that it was the last thing I wanted.”

“
Clever,” said Gareth. Then, putting a hand beneath her arm, “We’d best be on our way to pay our respects to Teide.”

Twelve

Once back at the car Morrin was glad to pull on her blue sweater and white cagoule, tucking her damp hair inside the hood. Gareth put on a crimson sweater but left his anorak on the back seat.

A
few miles onward and upward they broke through the damp clinging mist into an unexpectedly clear cold world with the sun shining from a blue sky. At this height they were in line with the tops of the giant firs from the valley below, and cloud lapped the crowns of the trees like a sea breaking on the shore. Above them, Teide’s magnificent snow-capped peak dominated everything.

They
drove through a lunar landscape of volcanic rock in every shade of brown, fawn and black before leaving the car and taking a cable-car ride to the top of the mountain.

“
It’s hard to believe that people are sunbathing down there.” Gareth nodded at the layer of cloud below as they crunched through crisp dazzling snow. He suddenly veered to one side and began to climb one of the strangely shaped fingers of rock formed by the volcanic eruption, balancing himself easily on the very top, his dark head outlined by the vivid blue of the sky.

“
It’s almost like being in Austria,” he called down to her.

“
With the wrong company.”

“
You’ll do to be getting on with,” he said casually, then, when he had rejoined her, “Can you ski?”

“
I’ve never tried.”

“
I could teach you. You’d enjoy it. The snow and the sun, the relaxing, lazy evenings and a soft warm bed at the end of the day…” His voice deepened, and when she looked up at him she saw that his eyes had darkened. “Oh, I could teach you such a lot…”

“
And what about Alison?”

He
laughed. “Alison was not part of the picture I was painting. You’re always so practical, aren’t you? Do you never fantasise, Morrin?”

“
Often,” she retorted, and he caught her fingers in his, pulling her on through the snow with him.

“
About Sam?”

“
Sam is
not
– ”

“
Say that often enough and I might begin to believe you,” Gareth said. “Or perhaps not.” She found herself swung round to stand before him so that they were face to face. “Morrin, he’s a lot older than you are.”

“
Sam Kennedy is thirty-one and you are – ”

“
I can’t deny that I’ve had my thirty-second birthday since we… parted company,” he admitted. “I was looking for a card but you didn’t send one.”

“
Maybe I did, and it got lost in the crowd.”

“
I would have noticed.” He gave her hands, still in his, a little shake. “Anyway, it’s not my advancing years we’re discussing, it’s Sam Kennedy. The theatrical world is different from anything you’ve been used to before, Morrin. These people live in a romantic world of make-believe. They fall in and out of love very easily.”

“
You’re trying to tell me that Sam’s shallow and he’ll break my heart because I’m too naïve for my own good?”

“
I didn’t say he’s shallow, I just meant that he’s more… experienced in his particular world than you are. Despite what you believe, Morrin Grey, I like you and I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

“
You won’t.” She broke free of him and strode on over the dazzling snow, glad of the boots Maria had found for her.

“
Why does it have to be one rule for you and another for me?” she wanted to know when he caught up with her.

“
Because you’re too young to know what it’s all about.”

Exasperated
beyond bearing, she swung round on him. “Listen… no, just you listen to
me
for a change, Gareth Sinclair,” she insisted as he opened his mouth to speak. “Sam’s a nice man, a caring and honest man. He’s my friend as well as my employer and I trust him completely.”

“
I’m glad to hear it.”

“
And I’ve never made love with him or with anyone else come to that – ”

“
Really?”

“
– but he has asked me to go away on holiday with him once this
Charlotte
Dreaming
business has been dealt with, and I am very happy about that,” Morrin finished with a great show of bravado.

“
Ah!” He put a lot of meaning into that one syllable.

“
What do you mean, ‘Ah’?”

“
I mean that I’m right. Sam Kennedy is after one thing, and he’s about to get it served up on a plate.”

“
Not at all. Sam has made it quite clear that I call the shots. If I want separate rooms then we’ll have separate rooms. Must you always judge everyone else by your own standards?” she asked scathingly.

“
My own…?” He glared down at her for a few seconds, then turned and began to stamp back towards the cable car. The air carried his words back to her. “Ye Gods… what’s an infant like that doing away from her mother? Does she really think that any man worth his salt is going to take her on a separate-rooms holiday?” he asked the sky.

“
I’m not entirely naïve, you know!” she yelled after him. The misery and humiliation and self-hatred Gareth had wakened in her, her guilt over lying to Sam, all rose to the surface. She ran after Gareth, slipping and floundering on the snowy rocks. “And I didn’t say I wanted separate rooms, either,” she panted when she caught up with him. “Sam’s a normal man and I don’t expect him to treat me like something too precious to touch. But he’s loyal and honest and – ”

Gareth
turned. “Next thing, you’ll be telling me that you expect to hear the sound of wedding bells,” he jeered.

“
Just because you’d die rather than think of marriage…” She stopped, baffled, as he started to laugh, peals of mirth soaring up into the clear sky.

“
Sweetheart, you don’t think a man like Sam Kennedy’s going to tie himself down just like that, do you?” he asked when the laughter had begun to subside. “For one thing, what’s Vicki going to say about it?”

“
It has nothing to do with Vicki!”

“
You think not? Come on, Morrin! You’re lovely, you’re sweet – and from what you’ve just told me you’re virgin territory,” Gareth said cruelly, without mincing his words. “He’s only offered you this perfect holiday for two to keep you working with me… because he wants this play more than anything else, including you.”

“
He meant it.”

“
Perhaps he did. Perhaps you’re the consolation prize if he doesn’t get what he’s really after.”

“
I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
Don’t you? Then you’re even more innocent than I thought,” Gareth said. “Sam Kennedy really does know a good thing when it comes along.”

“
You’re jealous.” The words were out before Morrin even realised that she was thinking them. Don’t be an idiot, a small voice told her deep inside her head. Why would Gareth Sinclair be jealous of Sam? And yet she heard herself talking on, the words spilling into the silence between them. “You’re jealous because I wouldn’t go to bed with you that time in Yorkshire. You’re jealous because I trust Sam and I’m willing to go on holiday with him. Because he might be the first…”

He
caught her by the shoulders, shaking her. “You little fool,” he said. “Don’t you know why he’s paying you all this attention, why he’s so keen on me writing this damned play for him? It’s not you he wants – it never was you!”

“
You don’t know anything about me and Sam!”

“
You,” Gareth said coldly and deliberately, “are a diversion, a titbit to be getting on with. That’s – ”

He
stopped short, releasing her so abruptly that she almost lost her footing on the uneven, snowy ground as a group of people came into view, their voices ringing out in the clear sharp air.

“
Shall we get back down to earth again?” he asked, and strode off towards the cable car, leaving her to trail in his wake, miserable and confused, her anger deflated.

The
cable-car was crowded during the short journey down. Once, when it jolted, Morrin was thrown off balance, against Gareth. Expressionless, he set her back on her feet, and she fumbled for the rail, moving as far away from him as she could.

She
was glad to get back to the car and eager to return to the comparative safety of the villa, and Sam. But by the time they had reached the bottom of the mountains Gareth seemed to have swept their quarrel from his mind, and he insisted on stopping at a small restaurant for dinner.

“
You should try some local food, and I’m quite sure that the others can manage very well without us. Besides, I’m starving,” he said, almost plucking Morrin from the car and into the building.

“
I’ve already had local food, the first night we got here.”

“
That was a restaurant for tourists. This is for locals, entirely different.”

He
was right, she discovered when she followed him into a plain, small room with white-washed walls and checked cloths on the wooden tables. A group of local people were already there, filling the place with their voices and laughter. Morrin noticed that several of the handsome dark-eyed women looked with more than passing interest at Gareth as he seated himself opposite her at a small corner table.

He
ordered for both of them: rabbit stew and potatoes cooked in their jackets and served with a peppery red sauce, plus a bottle of the local wine, red and spicy and just right for the meal. Gareth’s earlier manner had changed completely, and throughout the meal he chatted about previous holidays on the island with his brother and sister and parents.

Morrin,
sipping her wine and mopping up the last of the sauce on her plate with a thick wedge of bread, felt herself beginning to relax properly for the first time since Sam had dropped his bombshell about reading
Charlotte
Dreaming
. She was even beginning to enjoy Gareth’s company, she discovered with surprise. She didn’t realise that the thought had made her laugh out loud until, pausing in the middle of a story about some mischief he and his sister had once got up to, he asked, “What’s so amusing?”

“
I was just thinking how much you’d changed.”

He
raised an eyebrow. “Since you worked for me, you mean?”

“
Ssshhh.” She put a finger to her lips. “Walls have ears. Sam must not know.”

“
You’re quite right.” He poured some wine for her then emptied the bottle into his own glass.

“
I meant that you’ve not been as nice as this to me since we met in London.”

“
You think so?”

“
Come on, Gareth!” She had picked up her glass, and now she waved it at him. “You know the way you’ve treated me. Sarcastic and teasing, and downright angry. Quite nasty, in fact.” She took a gulp of wine.

“
Oh, that. I’ve had a lot on my mind. Sam going on at me, and Vicki sulking, and –”

“
– and having to postpone your holiday with Alison.”

“
That too,” he agreed. “And you being determined to keep our previous relationship a secret, as if I was a skeleton in your closet.”

“
Or a bit of fluff under my carpet,” she contributed, and giggled again.

“
Exactly. But today, on Teide, then enjoying this meal together, we can be ourselves, without any need to pretend. So I’m more relaxed than I have been since we got here. And so are you. You’ve stopped being prickly and on the defensive. You’ve started to treat me like a person, instead of…” – he paused, then said with a grin, “a bit of fluff under your carpet.”

Just
then the Spaniards began to sing, keeping time with the beautiful staccato clapping that only they can do so well. Some of them started dancing on the tiny square of floor available, and Gareth moved to the other side of the table so that he and Morrin could sit together and watch the dancers as they drank their coffee and sipped the brandy he had ordered for them both.

“
Come on, let’s dance,” he said after a while.

“
I don’t know how to do this kind of dancing.”

“
You can learn. Just follow me.” He pulled Morrin to her feet and she went with him, laughing, on to the tiny dance floor, where they were greeted with flashing smiles.

Time
flew by and the little room took on a carnival atmosphere. They kept on dancing, with each other at first, then with strangers, then with each other again, stopping only to sip some more wine and catch their breath.

“
Enjoyed yourself?” Gareth asked as they met on the dance floor.