The Thorn Birds (77 page)

“What’s Desdemona?” Frank asked from the shadows where he hid.

Justine launched into a vivid description, charmed by their horror when they learned she would be strangled once a night, and only remembered how tired they must be half an hour later when Patsy yawned.

“I must go,” she said, putting down her empty glass. She had not been offered a second beer; one was apparently the limit for ladies. “Thanks for listening to me blather.”

Much to Bob’s surprise and confusion, she kissed him good night; Jack edged away but was easily caught, while Hughie accepted the farewell with alacrity. Jims turned bright red, endured it dumbly. For Patsy, a hug as well as a kiss, because he was a little bit of an island himself. And for Frank no kiss at all, he averted his head; yet when she put her arms around him she could sense a faint echo of some intensity quite missing in the others. Poor Frank. Why was he like that?

Outside their door, she leaned for a moment against the wall. Rain loved her. But when she tried to phone his room the operator informed her he had checked out, returned to Bonn.

No matter. It might be better to wait until London to see him, anyway. A contrite apology via the mail, and an invitation to dinner next time he was in England. There were many things she didn’t know about Rain, but of one characteristic she had no doubt at all; he would come, because he hadn’t a grudging bone in his body. Since foreign affairs had become his forte, England was one of his most regular ports of call.

“You wait and see, my lad,” she said, staring into her mirror and seeing his face instead of her own. “I’m going to make England your most important foreign affair, or my name isn’t Justine O’Neill.”

It had not occurred to her that perhaps as far as Rain was concerned, her name was indeed the crux of the matter. Her patterns of behavior were set, and marriage was no part of them. That Rain might want to make her over into Justine Hartheim never even crossed her mind. She was too busy remembering the quality of his kiss, and dreaming of more.

There remained only the task of telling Dane she couldn’t go to Greece with him, but about this she was untroubled. Dane would understand, he always did. Only somehow she didn’t think she’d tell him all the reasons why she wasn’t able to go. Much as she loved her brother, she didn’t feel like listening to what would be one of his sternest homilies ever. He wanted her to marry Rain, so if she told him what her plans for Rain were, he’d cart her off to Greece with him if it meant forcible abduction. What Dane’s ears didn’t hear, his heart couldn’t grieve about.

“Dear Rain,” the note said. “Sorry I ran like a hairy goat the other night, can’t think what got into me. The hectic day and everything, I suppose. Please forgive me for behaving like an utter prawn. I’m ashamed of myself for making so much fuss about a trifle. And I daresay the day had got to you, too, words of love and all, I mean. So I tell you what—you forgive me, and I’ll forgive you. Let’s be friends, please. I can’t bear to be at outs with you. Next time you’re in London, come to dinner at my place and we’ll formally draft out a peace treaty.”

As usual it was signed plain “Justine.” No words even of affection; she never used them. Frowning, he studied the artlessly casual phrases as if he could see through them to what was really in her mind as she wrote. It was certainly an overture of friendship, but what else? Sighing, he was forced to admit probably very little. He had frightened her badly; that she wanted to retain his friendship spoke of how much he meant to her, but he very much doubted whether she understood exactly what she felt for him. After all, now she knew he loved her; if she had sorted herself out sufficiently to realize she loved him too, she would have come straight out with it in her letter. Yet why had she returned to London instead of going to Greece with Dane? He knew he shouldn’t hope it was because of him, but despite his misgivings, hope began to color his thoughts so cheerfully he buzzed his secretary. It was 10 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time, the best hour to find her at home.

“Get me Miss O’Neill’s London flat,” he instructed, and waited the intervening seconds with a frown pulling at the inner corners of his brows.

“Rain!” Justine said, apparently delighted. “Did you get my letter?”

“This minute.”

After a delicate pause she said. “And will you come to dinner soon?”

“I’m going to be in England this coming Friday and Saturday. Is the notice too short?”

“Not if Saturday evening is all right with you. I’m in rehearsal for Desdemona, so Friday’s out.”

“Desdemona?”

“That’s right, you don’t know! Clyde wrote to me in Rome and offered me the part. Marc Simpson as Othello, Clyde directing personally. Isn’t it wonderful? I came back to London on the first plane.”

He shielded his eyes with his hand, thankful his secretary was safely in her outer office, not sitting where she could see his face. “Justine,
Herzchen
, that’s marvelous news!” he managed to say enthusiastically. “I was wondering what brought you back to London.”

“Oh, Dane understood,” she said lightly, “and in a way I think he was quite glad to be alone. He had concocted a story about needing me to bitch at him to go home, but I think it was all more for his second reason, that he doesn’t want me to feel excluded from his life now he’s a priest.”

“Probably,” he agreed politely.

“Saturday evening, then,” she said. “Around six, then we can have a leisurely peace treaty session with the aid of a bottle or two, and I’ll feed you after we’ve reached a satisfactory compromise. All right?”

“Yes, of course. Goodbye,
Herzchen
.”

Contact was cut off abruptly by the sound of her receiver going down; he sat for a moment with his still in his hand, then shrugged and replaced it on its cradle. Damn Justine! She was beginning to come between him and his work.

She continued to come between him and his work during the succeeding days, though it was doubtful if anyone suspected. And on Saturday evening a little after six he presented himself at her apartment, empty-handed as usual because she was a difficult person to bring gifts. She was indifferent to flowers, never ate candy and would have thrown a more expensive offering carelessly in some corner, then forgotten it. The only gifts Justine seemed to prize were those Dane had given her.

“Champagne before dinner?” he asked, looking at her in surprise.

“Well, I think the occasion calls for it, don’t you? It was our first-ever breaking of relations, and this is our first-ever reconciliation,” she answered plausibly, indicating a comfortable chair for him and settling herself on the tawny kangaroo-fur rug, lips parted as if she had already rehearsed replies to anything he might say next.

But conversation was beyond him, at least until he was better able to assess her mood, so he watched her in silence. Until he had kissed her it had been easy to keep himself partially aloof, but now, seeing her again for the first time since, he admitted that it was going to be a great deal harder in the future.

Probably even when she was a very old woman she would still retain something not quite fully mature about face and bearing; as though essential womanliness would always pass her by. That cool, self-centered, logical brain seemed to dominate her completely, yet for him she owned a fascination so potent he doubted if he would ever be able to replace her with any other woman. Never once had he questioned whether she was worth the long struggle. Possibly from a philosophical standpoint she wasn’t. Did it matter? She was a goal, an aspiration.

“You’re looking very nice tonight,
Herzchen
,” he said at last, tipping his champagne glass to her in a gesture half toast, half acknowledgment of an adversary.

A coal fire simmered unshielded in the small Victorian grate, but Justine didn’t seem to mind the heat, huddled close to it with her eyes fixed on him. Then she put her glass on the hearth with a ringing snap and sat forward, her arms linked about her knees, bare feet hidden by folds of densely black gown.

“I can’t stand beating around the bush,” she said. “Did you mean it, Rain?”

Suddenly relaxing deeply, he lay back in his chair. “Mean what?”

“What you said in Rome…That you loved me.”

“Is that what this is all about,
Herzchen
?”

She looked away, shrugged, looked back at him and nodded. “Well, of course.”

“But why bring it up again? You told me what you thought, and I had gathered tonight’s invitation wasn’t extended to bring up the past, only plan a future.”

“Oh, Rain! You’re acting as if I’m making a fuss! Even if I was, surely you can see why.”

“No, I can’t.” He put his glass down and bent forward to watch her more closely. “You gave me to understand most emphatically that you wanted no part of my love, and I had hoped you’d at least have the decency to refrain from discussing it.”

It had not occurred to her that this meeting, no matter what its outcome, would be so uncomfortable; after all, he had put himself in the position of a suppliant, and ought to be waiting humbly for her to reverse her decision. Instead he seemed to have turned the tables neatly. Here she was feeling like a naughty schoolgirl called upon to answer for some idiotic prank.

“Look, sport, you’re the one who changed the status quo, not me! I didn’t ask you to come tonight so I could beg forgiveness for having wounded the great Hartheim ego!”

“On the defensive, Justine?”

She wriggled impatiently. “Yes, dammit! How do you manage to do that to me, Rain? Oh, I wish just once you’d let me enjoy having the upper hand!”

“If I did, you’d throw me out like a smelly old rag,” he said, smiling.

“I can do that yet, mate!”

“Nonsense! If you haven’t done it by now you never will. You’ll go on seeing me because I keep you on the hop—you never know what to expect from me.”

“Is that why you said you loved me?” she asked painfully. “Was it only a ploy to keep me on the hop?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re a prize bastard!” she said through her teeth, and marched across the rug on her knees until she was close enough to give him the full benefit of her anger. “Say you love me again, you big Kraut prawn, and watch me spit in your eye!”

He was angry, too. “No, I’m not going to say it again! That isn’t why you asked me to come, is it? My feelings don’t concern you one bit, Justine. You asked me to come so you could experiment with your own feelings, and it didn’t enter your mind to consider whether that was being fair to me.”

Before she could move away he leaned forward, gripped her arms near the shoulders and clamped her body between his legs, holding her firmly. Her rage vanished at once; she flattened her palms on his thighs and lifted her face. But he didn’t kiss her. He let go of her arms and twisted to switch off the lamp behind him, then relaxed his hold on her and laid his head back against the chair, so that she wasn’t sure if he had dimmed the room down to glowing coals as the first move in his love-making, or simply to conceal his expression. Uncertain, afraid of outright rejection, she waited to be told what to do. She should have realized earlier that one didn’t tamper with people like Rain. They were as invincible as death. Why couldn’t she put her head on his lap and say: Rain, love me, I need you so much and I’m so sorry? Oh, surely if she could get him to make love to her some emotional key would turn and it would all come tumbling out, released….

Still withdrawn, remote, he let her take off his jacket and tie, but by the time she began to unbutton his shirt she knew it wasn’t going to work. The kind of instinctive erotic skills which could make the most mundane operation exciting were not in her repertoire. This was so important, and she was making an absolute mess of it. Her fingers faltered, her mouth puckered. She burst into tears.

“Oh, no!
Herzchen, liebchen
, don’t cry!” He pulled her onto his lap and turned her head into his shoulder, his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Herzchen, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Now you know,” she said between sobs. “I’m a miserable failure; I told you it wouldn’t work! Rain, I wanted so badly to keep you, but I knew it wouldn’t work if I let you see how awful I am!”

“No, of course it wouldn’t work. How could it? I wasn’t helping you,
Herzchen
.” He tugged at her hair to bring her face up to his, kissed her eyelids, her wet cheeks, the corners of her mouth. “It’s my fault,
Herzchen
, not yours. I was paying you back; I wanted to see how far you could go without encouragement. But I think I have mistaken your motives,
nicht wahr
?” His voice had grown thicker, more German. “And I say, if this is what you want you shall have it, but it shall be together.”

“Please, Rain, let’s call it off! I haven’t got what it takes. I’ll only disappoint you!”

“Oh, you’ve got it,
Herzchen
, I’ve seen it on the stage. How can you doubt yourself when you’re with me?”

Which was so right her tears dried.

“Kiss me the way you did in Rome,” she whispered. Only it wasn’t like the kiss in Rome at all. That had been something raw, startled, explosive; this was very languorous and deep, an opportunity to taste and smell and feel, settle by layers into voluptuous ease. Her fingers returned to the buttons, his went to the zipper of her dress, then he covered her hand with his and thrust it inside his shirt, across skin matted with fine soft hair. The sudden hardening of his mouth against her throat brought a helpless response so acute she felt faint, thought she was falling and found she had, flat on the silky rug with Rain looming above her. His shirt had come off, perhaps more, she couldn’t see, only the fire glancing off his shoulders spread over her, and the beautiful stern mouth. Determined to destroy its discipline for all time, she locked her fingers in his hair and made him kiss her again, harder, harder!

And the feel of him! Like coming home, recognizing every part of him with her lips and hands and body, yet fabulous and strange. While the world sank down to the minute width of the firelight lapping against darkness, she opened herself to what he wanted, and learned something he had kept entirely concealed for as long as she had known him; that he must have made love to her in imagination a thousand times. Her own experience and newborn intuition told her so. She was completely disarmed. With any other man the intimacy and astonishing sensuality would have appalled her, but he forced her to see that these were things only she had the right to command. And command them she did. Until finally she cried for him to finish it, her arms about him so strongly she could feel the contours of his very bones.