Whirlwind (17 page)

'She makes me feel very old,' Anna groaned; and Joey laughed.

'I'd say she's having a rush of freedom to the head.'

'I'm afraid you're right,' she agreed ruefully.

'Well, her family have kept her pretty close to home until now! I suppose it was a phase she was bound to go through, sooner or later. Old Montgomery is rather old to be the father of a girl of her age; his ideas are almost Edwardian. I'm surprised they didn't try to persuade her to go to university, though.'

'I don't think she wanted to go. Patti has strong ideas about what she does or doesn't want. If she'd gone to college—whether it was university or drama school—she'd have tasted freedom a long time ago. She has a lot of catching up to do, but she'll sort it all out in her mind in time.'

'Have you got a fill-in job yet?' Joey asked as he put down his cup, and Anna shook her head. 'Well, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. Don't worry, we'll find you something to do until we start rehearsing for the West End run.' He got to his feet. 'Now, before I rush off, can I see this famous view of the river and Tower Bridge?'

Anna showed him out of the french windows on to the balcony and they stood there, gazing along the water in silence. Joey turned his head to smile down into her eyes.

'OK, you're right—it is fabulous, and I'm green with envy. Amazing to remember that only a few years ago this whole area was a rotting maze of warehouses and docks, isn't it? I remember filming down here seven years ago—just ten minutes from this building, in fact. Did you ever see the TV version of the life of Dickens? I worked on that, doing theatre research for the director. This part of the riverside still reeked of Dickens, it didn't seem to have changed since he was a boy. Now it's altering fast.'

'Some of the other flats are still vacant,' Anna told him. 'If you're interested?'

'I don't know if I can afford it,' he shrugged. He put a hand up to her windblown red-gold hair, brushing it back from her eyes. 'You know, 1 might get you some modelling—how do you feel about that?'

'It's better than working as a waitress!'

He laughed, pinching her ear. 'Is that the alternative? Well, I'll see what I can do—I've got a lot of friends in advertising and photography. They owe me favours.'

As Anna opened the door to show him out they found themselves facing Laird, wintry-faced and aloof ina formal pin-striped city suit.

'Oh, hi,' said Joey, startled and showing it.

Laird nodded, sparing no words on him, his profile rigidly arctic. It was lucky Joey couldn't see his eyes which were hidden by those heavy lids as he let the other man pass. Anna saw them a second later as the lids lifted and Laird looked directly at her. The grey eyes were molten, seething with a desire to do violence. Anna's throat closed up at the sight of them.

Turning back to her, Joey said, 'Well, I'll start ringing my old pals and see what they can chase up for you. Don't worry, Anna. I'll get you some sort of work.'

'Thank you,' she said, without being quite sure what she was saying. Her mind couldn't concentrate on Joey Ross; she was too intensely aware of Laird's silent rage, resenting it and yet trembling at it. He never ceased to surprise her; she had just become convinced that he was as charming and kind and fascinating as she had first thought in his penthouse before she got too drunk to know what was going on—and now the hardness and iciness was back in his face. Why? she asked herself, stepping back into the flat and closing the door on Joey's departing back.

Laird had walked into the sitting-room and was standing in it like a general surveying a battlefield from a hill; his mouth set, his eyes grim.

'Where's Patti?' he grated.

'Out shopping, she should be back soon,' Anna told him in a voice she tried to keep firm and calm, without too much success.

'Alone?'

The snarl of his voice made her jump and flush. 'She's not a child, you know, and it is broad daylight —why shouldn't she go shopping alone?''And you were here with Ross,' he sneered, his mouth full of contempt. 'Alone! And you're not a child, either, and what you do is your business, but don't involve Patti in your fun and games.'

'Fun and games? What are you accusing me of now?' Anna was incredulous. 'Joey and I were talking.'

He laughed shortly. 'Oh, is that what you were doing?'

'Yes, it was!'

'Out on the balcony a few minutes ago?' He made the question sound like a trap and Anna stammered back, flustered and uncertain, not sure what he meant.

'What are you talking about?'

'He was touching you. Stroking your hair, your face ... is that your idea of conversation?'

She just stared at him, then a smile crept into her eyes. 'Are you jealous?'

Laird stared fixedly at her for a long moment, his face confused, darkly flushed, frowning, then he turned on his heel and walked out on to the balcony and stood there with his back to her, staring down over the river. Anna slowly walked out after him and watched his profile; the afternoon sun gave her a clear view of every pore, every line, every angle.

Without looking at her, Laird said huskily, 'I'll never marry again, I couldn't risk it. I got too mauled last time, she chewed me up and spat me out, and it took me years to recover. No, that's not even the truth. You never
do
recover from something like that, especially if it follows on from a traumatic childhood.' He gripped the rail of the balcony with both hands, his knuckles whitening with the pressure of that grasp, and leaned over, his head bent and the wind whipping through the thick dark hair.

Anna watched him with a strange intensity, her eyes glowing with passion and compassion. As if she had known him then, she picked up his suffering and hated the two women who had caused it.

'My mother was very beautiful—I've inherited her colouring but not her looks, she really was lovely, and of course, I adored her. Boys are always romantic creatures, even when they do their best to hide it. I was fond of my father, too, but not with the same strong feeling. After she'd gone, I felt guilty, as if it was my fault, I'd done something wrong, I'd let her down . . . it never even occurred to me that it had nothing to do with me, that she probably hardly knew I existed. No, I was so self-centred then that I took all the blame and all the guilt, and for a long, long time I was utterly miserable. Eventually, of course, I came out of it and began to hate her—that was far healthier and I soon recovered after that, but it left scars, and when Merieth started having affairs I had a terrible sense of
deja vu
.'

He sighed, his shoulders heaving, and Anna asked huskily, 'You didn't blame yourself for that, too?'

'God knows. With my head, no! But we don't always use our heads at crisis points; we revert to using our instincts, without even knowing what we're doing. My unconscious fished it all up from my childhood; I started confusing my wife and my mother and between rage and unhappiness I no longer knew what I really felt or thought. When Merieth went, I was relieved because it was over, what 1 suppose I'd always dreaded had happened—my marriage had broken up, just like my father's, my wife had gone, just like my mother, and left me with a lot of questions and no answers.'

'What questions?' asked Anna, frowning, angry with him for hurting himself like this and wanting to make him see how crazy it was to feel guilt over the past for so many years.

He straightened, shrugging, and stared fixedly at the distant roofscape of London's riverside, the warehouses and modern office blocks, the spires and towers.

'About myself, about women, about the impossibility of ever being happy with one of them.'

Anna felt her body turn to ice, a chill echo sounding in her ears. His voice had a flat inevitability, a finality that left no room for hope or doubt or question.

'Or even loving one,' Laird said in that distant tone. 'Liking one, maybe. Even wanting one. I haven't turned into a monk or gone in for voluntary chastity, I'm not saying that. But I'm simply not prepared to risk letting myself in for that again.'

Anna didn't think she would be able to speak because her throat was so raw with pain, but she forced her tongue to move, to make sounds, to say what she wanted to say. 'All women aren't . . . '

He didn't let her finish. 'No, of course, I know! But . . . ' He turned and she saw his face for the first time, flinching from it and fighting down the tears which rose to her eyes. Laird looked at her almost as if in desperation, 'It makes no difference, you see. I'm too terrified of getting hurt again, like a rider who's been thrown and broken too many bones ever to get on the back of a horse again—I know I couldn't face it.'

Anna tried to think, to marshal arguments, to talk calmly and sanely, but she could only feel, and what she felt was a pain like his; a terrible, aching sadness and hopelessness.

'Have you ever tried?' she whispered, and he smiled, a brief, wry twist of the mouth more than a real smile.

'Oh, yes.'

Anna winced and he watched her, frowning, as if he could see in her face the jealousy that had stabbed through her at the idea of Laird trying to love other women.

'It never worked out,' he said. 'Each time the same thing happened—oh, not that the woman left me for another man, but each time I got so far and couldn't, go on, I had to stop seeing her in case I did feel anything. I'd start getting the sort of panic you feel when you look down from a great height. I was on the Eiffel Tower once when I saw a woman staring down and you could see from her face how terrified she was, she had to be helped down, she was in such a state. That's how I feel about loving a woman.'

'Why are you telling
me
all this?' she asked, and he gave an unsteady little smile.

'You know why, don't you, Anna?'

She did, of course. He was telling her because he knew she was in love with him, and he was warning her off. Being cruel to be kind, she thought wildly, staring at him.

'You were right—I was jealous when I saw you with Ross on the balcony,' he said, with a rough groan. 'I was jealous when I saw him kiss you in his car a few weeks back. That's part of the trouble; as soon as I even think of falling in love I become impossibly possessive, jealous, suspicious.' He walked back into the sitting-room and prowled up and down like a caged animal, pacing from wall to wall and back, avoiding furniture with the neatness of a bat flying in the dark. 'That isn't my usual state of mind, and I hate feeling like that, I don't seem able to help myself.' .

Anna walked back into the room, but stood by the windows watching his restless wandering.

'You're beautiful, Anna,' he said roughly. 'And I'm attracted to you, we both know that, so we might as well be frank. I want you, but I have to be honest with you. I don't want to have an affair with you and then have you turn round and accuse me of cheating you. I'm a burnt-out case, Anna. I haven't got any love to give you. Love costs too much.'

She looked around the room, away from him, her face hot, then as cold as ice. 'Did I ask you to love me?'

He was suddenly still, watching her. 'Doesn't it matter?' he asked huskily, and she was so busy fighting down the pain she felt that she didn't understand what he was saying until he moved and she felt his arms going round her. 'Anna,' he whispered, his mouth hunting hers. 'I want you so badly, you've been driving me crazy for weeks!'

She shuddered as she felt that touch, the seeking warmth of the lips moving over her cheek, kissing her ears, her throat, looking hungrily for the mouth she was averting while she tried to think.

He was offering her passion and sensuality but not love; and he might satisfy the craving she had been fighting for weeks, he might give her a physical pleasure she knew she needed from him, but it would never be enough. It wouldn't mean a thing if Laird couldn't love her,
wouldn't
love her. She had understood what he was really saying a moment ago—Laird had been obliquely admitting that he had been on the verge of falling in love with her, but was pulling back from the edge, refusing to let it happen, and Anna was angry with him. That was far worse than if he had never felt a thing.

She pushed him away, shaking her head. 'No. I won't have an affair with you, let go of me!' The fierceness in her voice got home to him and he stood, staring down at her, his hands falling.

'Do you think you're the only one who's afraid of getting hurt?' she muttered. 'You're still self- obsessed, Laird, or you might realise that nothing excuses you for hurting someone else—especially deliberately, with your eyes wide open, knowing what you're doing.'

He looked taken aback, frowning, darkly flushed, his eyes restless. 'That's just it, I don't want to hurt you,' he said impatiently.

'You think by telling me in advance that it may hurt, you're absolved from all guilt when it does?'

He grimaced. 'You think that's what I was doing?'

'Wasn't it?'

He swung and walked away, his head bent as he thought about that.

Anna said flatly, 'I have my life worked out, Laird. I planned it all years ago, when I was still at school. I suppose you could say I believe in my destiny—it's the only way you ever get anything, by believing you will. I'm going to be a famous actress and I don't want to wreck my chances by giving too much of myself to a relationship that has no future anyway. You said you wanted to be honest, so let's be honest. I could fall in love with you and ruin my life, or I could send you away and get on with my career. Which do you think would be wisest?'

He gave her a cool, ironic stare. 'Yes, I get the point. I hadn't looked at it from your angle—I'd just told myself that that was what I was doing.'

'You were making excuses for yourself in advance!'

'OK, don't rub it H You're right.' He came back and smiled down into her eyes with all the charm she now resented. 'I do have one cast-iron excuse for myself—you really are lovely and I'm not going to apologise for wanting you.' He held out a hand, eyes rueful. 'Friends?'

Anna shook her head. 'Do you think that would work? Because I don't. Stay away from me. Laird, please. I won't be your mistress and I can't be your friend, so just stay away.'