Page 74 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
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Rescue Me
…the one ewe lamb must be saved from the foul beast. Righteousness will prevail. The Spawn of Satan shall not draw her in, though I walk in the fiery pit to save her …
This rant was awaiting me on the answering machine when I got home last night, and I feared Pa had finally gone right over the edge.
While it was clear that Jane was the ewe lamb, was I the foul beast or the Spawnof Satan, or both? And far from being a fiery pit my cottage was on the dank side, if anything.
He couldn’t possibly intend coming here, could he?
Perhaps he meant to get Jane up there and lockherin the cupboard? I’d quite have liked that.
After that I couldn’t settle down to work because my mind was going round in circles, wondering what to do about Jason. I mean, he was the only man willing(apart from a reluctant and faraway Max) to offer to father my offspring, it was just that I couldn’t stomach the relationship angle that he clearly expected to go with it.
Maybe I could persuade him just to do the donor thing?But even then he’d still haunt me at every turn, wanting to get involved with the child-rearing.
Now the awful spectre of Tom had been removed from the equation, Jasonmight make quite nice babies, though …
But then there was Orla to consider: I thought she really cared about him, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere while he had this misguided crush on my slightly kinky Vampirella persona; and even though she said she wouldn’t mind Jason fathering my child, I was quite sure it would do something fundamentally bad to our friendship.
I didn’t have so many closefriends I could afford to lose any.
Why did I feel this need to have children – a child – at all? What did I want onefor? The answer, plainly, was nothing: the urge to procreate went much, much deeper than that. But other women dealt with it: they got cats, dogs, or looked after other people’s children.
It was all very confusing, so after a while I pulled on my boots and cloak and walked upto the graveyard, striking it lucky: it was one of those rare nights with the full Hammer Horror mist-rising-from-the-tombs effect.
I took it as a good omen right up to the minute when I stepped back to admire a particularly spooky vista, tripped over a half-hidden tombstone, and fell backwards into an all-too-familiar embrace.
…arms closed about her, caged her in a strong embrace. She feltenveloped in inky blackness as though a dark cloud had forever blotted out the sun and she would never know its warmth again, only the raging fires of eternity…
I didn’t even have to see him: one touch and I knew who it was.
‘You just can’t keep out of my arms, can you?’ Dante said unfairly, setting me back on my feet and turning me round to face him. The darkly shadowed hollow cheekbones anddeep-set eyes weresensationalby moonlight, but his mouth, unfortunately, looked like it had been firmly folded by an anally retentive origami expert.
‘What areyoudoing here?’ I demanded angrily, for I rather looked on the graveyard at night as my own special place, for refuge, inspiration or comfort.
‘I’d heard about the special effects, and came to see for myself.’ He looked around, stillretaining a seemingly casual hold on me. ‘Pity we can’t lay it on when we want it, isn’t it?’
‘No, I like the surprise. How didyouknow it would be like this tonight?’
‘The vicar told me. He told me about lots of other interesting things, too, like this slave auction coming up next week,’ he added casually, if anything can sound casual when delivered in that curiously sexy, running-water-over-gravelvoice.
‘Oh,that’snot very interesting,’ I assured him. ‘Not worth your while bothering to come, even.’
‘Oh, I don’t know: I think it has distinct possibilities.’ He looked me over, burqa’d head to heels in purple velvet, and amended that: ‘Hidden possibilities. Tell me, Cass, how does your lover feel about you selling yourself to the highest bidder, when any man could buy your services fora day?’
He managed to make an innocent charity event sound absolutely indecent.
‘You must know from the vicar that it’s aperfectlyrespectable affair,’ I said coldly. ‘And leave my lover out of this! What did you mean, pretending you thought Max was my father the other night?’
He shrugged, but at least he let me go and put his hands in his jacket pockets instead, which was a relief. I tooka cautious step back.
‘It was an impulse of the moment: you looked miserable, he was looking pompous. You hadn’t told him about ourlittle fling, by any chance? Or is sleeping with strange men something you do so often when he’s not around it’s hardly worth mentioning?’
For a moment I couldn’t seem to breathe: but then something terribly Southern Belle swept over me like a savanna fire and Idealt him the most resounding slap on the cheek with the flat of my hand. You could practically hear the theme tune toGone With the Windbuilding up in a crescendo in the background.
Oh Miz Scarlett, whathaveyou gone and done?
