Dark and all of them coming. Essential to pretend that everything was normal. She was walking as fast as she could. Her throat burned. But the cold air felt so good to her, icing her all over, cooling the fever inside her.
And there was the house dark and waiting. She had come back in time. She had the key in her hand.
“What if I can’t get him to go tomorrow?” she whispered. She stood at the gate looking up at the empty windows. Like that first night when Carlotta had said, Come to me. Choose.
But you must make him leave. By dark tomorrow, my darling. Or I’ll kill him.
“No, you must never never do that. You mustn’t even say it. Do you hear me? Nothing must happen to him, ever. Do you hear me?”
She stood on the porch talking aloud to no one. And all around her the snow came down. Snow in paradise, pelting the frozen banana leaves, drifting past the high thick stems of bamboo. But what would paradise have been without the beauty of snow?
“You understand me, don’t you? You cannot hurt him. You absolutely cannot hurt him. Promise me. Make the pact with me. No harm comes to Michael.”
As you wish, my darling. I do love him. But he cannot come between us on the night of all nights. The stars are moving into the perfect configuration. They are my eternal witnesses, old as I am, and I would have them shine down upon me at the perfect moment. The moment of my choosing. If you would save your mortal lover from my wrath, see that he is gone from my sight.
Fifty
IT WAS TWO in the morning before they all left. He had never seen so many happy people completely oblivious to what was really going on.
But what was really going on? It was a great warm house, full of laughter and singing, with its many fires burning, and outside the snow floating down, covering the trees and the shrubbery and the paths with luminous whiteness. And why shouldn’t they all be having a wonderful time?
How they’d laughed as they slipped on the snow-covered flagstones, and crunched through the ice in the gutters. There had been enough snow even for the children to make, snowballs. In their caps and mittens they had skittered along the frozen crust that covered the lawn.
Even Aunt Viv had loved the snow. She had drunk too much sherry, and in those moments reminded him frighteningly of his mother, though Bea and Lily, who had become her dearest friends, did not seem to care.
Rowan had been perfect all evening, singing carols with them at the piano, posing for the pictures before the tree.
And this was his dream, wasn’t it, full of radiant faces and ringing voices, people who knew how to appreciate this moment-glasses clinked together in toasts, lips pressed to cheeks, and the melancholy sound of the old songs.
“So sweet of you to do this so soon after the wedding … ”
“ … All gathered like in the old days.”
“Christmas the way it ought to be.”
And they had so admired his precious ornaments, and though they had been cautioned not to, they piled their little presents beneath the tree.
There were moments when he couldn’t stand it. He’d gone upstairs to the third floor and climbed out on the roof of the north bedroom and stood near the parapet wall, looking towards downtown and the city lights. Snow on the rooftop, snow etching windowsills and gables and chimneys, and snow falling thin and beautiful, as far as he could see.
It was everything he’d ever wanted, as full and rich as the wedding, and he had never been more unhappy. It was as if that thing had its hand around his throat. He could have put his fist through a wall in his anxiety. It was bitter, bitter as grief is bitter.
And it seemed in the pockets of quiet through which he wandered, upstairs away from them, that he could feel that thing. That when he laid his naked fingers on the door frames and the doorknobs, he caught great raging glimpses of it in the shadows.
“You’re here, Lasher. I know you’re here.”
Something stepped back for him in the shadows, playing with him, sliding up the dark walls away from him, and then dispersing so that he found himself in the upper hallway, in the dim light, alone.
Anyone spying on him would have thought he was a madman. He laughed. Is that how Daniel McIntyre had seemed in his drunken, wandering old age? What about all the other eunuch husbands who sensed the secret? They went off to mistresses-and certain death, it seemed-or drifted into irrelevance. What the hell was going to happen to him?
But this wasn’t the finish. This was only the beginning, and she had to be playing for time. He had to believe that behind her silent pleas her love waited to reveal itself in truth again.
At last they’d gone.
The very last invitations to Christmas dinner had been tactfully refused, and promises had been made for future get-togethers. Aunt Viv would dine with Bea on Christmas Eve and they weren’t to worry about her. They could have this Christmas to themselves.
Polaroid pictures had been exchanged and sleeping children gathered up from couches, and last-minute hugs given, and then out they all went into the clean bright cold.
Weary of the strain and sick with worry, he’d taken his time locking up. No need to smile now. No need to pretend anything. And God, what had the strain been like for her?
He dreaded going up the stairs. He went through the house checking windows, checking the little green tiny pinpoints of light on the alarm panel, and turning on the faucets to save the pipes from the freeze.
Finally he stood in the parlor, in front of his beautiful lighted tree.
Had there ever been a Christmas as bitter and lonely as this one? He would have been in a rage if it had served any purpose.
For a while he lay on the sofa, letting the fire burn itself out in the fireplace, and talking silently to Julien and Deborah, asking them as he had a thousand times tonight, what was he meant to do?
At last he climbed the stairs. The bedroom was hushed and dark. She was covered with blankets, so he saw only her hair against the pillow, her face turned away.
How many times this evening had he tried to catch her eye, and failed? Had anyone noticed that they spoke not a single syllable to each other? Everyone was too certain of their happiness. Just as he’d been so certain.
He walked silently to the front window and pulled back the heavy damask drape so that he might look at the falling snow for the last time. It was well after midnight-Christmas Eve already. And tonight would come that magic moment when he would take stock of his life and his accomplishments, when he would shape in dreams and plans the coming year.
Rowan, it’s not going to end like this. It’s only a skirmish. We knew at the beginning, so much more than the others …
He turned and saw her hand on the pillow, slender and beautiful, fingers lightly curled.
Silently he drew close to her. He wanted to touch her hand, to feel its warmth against his fingers, to grab hold of her as if she were floating away from him in some dark perilous sea. But he didn’t dare.
His heart was tripping and he felt that warm pain in his chest as he looked back out into the snowfall. And then his eyes settled on her face.
Her eyes were open. She was staring at him in the darkness. And her lips slowly spread in a long, vicious smile.
He was petrified. Her face was white in the dim light from outside, and hard as marble, and the smile was frozen and the eyes gleamed like pieces of glass. His heart quickened and the warm pain spread through his chest. He continued to stare at her, unable to take his eyes off her, and then his hand shot out before he could stop it and he grabbed her wrist.
Her entire body twisted, and the vicious mask of her face crumpled completely and she sat up suddenly, anxious and confused. “What is it, Michael?” She stared at her wrist, and slowly he let her go. “I’m glad you woke me,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide and her lip trembled. “I was having the most terrible dream.”