Chapter II

My first sight of Gilda Delaney is something I’m never likely to forget.

She was a little above medium height with a golden tan complexion that comes from hours out in the sun. Her hair was the colour of polished bronze and reached to her shoulders. Her eyes were big and as blue as forget-me-nots, and there was that look in them that a man, who is anything of a man, must react to, the way a fighting bull reacts when the matador flicks his cape in the moment of incitement.

She was wearing a red cowboy shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and what that combination did to show off her shape was something to see.

Delaney glanced around and stared at her, then he said in a flat, indifferent tone, “This is my wife. ” He made it sound as if she was of no consequence. Looking at her, he went on, “This is Mr Regan. He’s the TV and radio man around here. He’s trying to sell me a TV set. ”

“Isn’t that just what you want? ” she said. She had one of those low, husky voices that went with her shape and the look in her eyes.

“It could be. ” He stubbed out his cigar, then looked over at me. “Suppose I don’t care for this set you propose to build? What happens then? ”

“If you don’t care for it, Mr Delaney, ” I said, having to make an effort to keep my mind on business, aware of this woman as I had never been aware of any other woman before, “then I guess I’ll find someone else who’ll buy it, but I think you will care for it. ”

The woman said, “You could get a lot of fun out of a TV set. You should have it. ”

She nodded to me, her forget-me-not blue eyes moving over me inquisitively, then with a faint smile that meant nothing, she passed me and went down the steps, along the path and out of sight as she rounded the corner of the cabin.

I watched her until I lost sight of her. If you had been able to see the way she walked, the smooth roll of her hips, the power that was in her body, her upright carriage, you would have felt the same way as I felt, and I mean just exactly that. Right at that moment, watching her as she moved down the steps, and along the concrete path, I wanted her more than I had ever wanted any other woman before.

Delaney said, “Well, okay, Regan, make the set. If I like it, I’ll buy it. ”

I dragged my attention back to business.

Not a very satisfactory way of doing business, I thought; this guy sitting in his wheel chair could be a bluffer and a phoney. I could use up quite a bit of my savings building him a super set and he could slide out of buying it by saying he didn’t like it. But I wasn’t going to argue with him. I wanted to see her again, and this was the way I could see her again.

“Well, okay, ” I said, “I’ll build it. It’ll take a couple of weeks. In the meantime you would probably like to have this set to carry on with. ”

“Yes, leave it here, ” he said. “I’ll pay you rent for it. ”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be happy to leave it on loan. You’ll need a permanent aerial. I’ll be out tomorrow to fix it for you. Will that be all right? ”

“Sure, ” he said. “Come out tomorrow. I’m always around. ”

I left him sitting on the verandah, staring at the lighted screen of the TV set. As I drove down the tarmac I kept my eyes open for her, but she didn’t show.

I had her on my mind all the way back to the cabin. She was still in my mind when I went to bed that night, and she was with me when I got up and began to put my breakfast together.

I went out to Blue Jay cabin the following afternoon. I made it the afternoon because I thought there might be a chance she would be out shopping in the morning and I didn’t intend to miss seeing her.

Delaney was sitting on the verandah with the TV set on. He was watching a gangster film and he scarcely bothered to look up as I got off the truck.

I collected the aerial I had brought with me, a roll of flex and my tool kit, and I walked up the steps.

“Go on in, ” he said, waving to the lounge. “You’ll find the servant or my wife somewhere. ”

The way he said it the servant and his wife were of a kind, and that riled me.

I went into the big living-room that was as luxurious and as expensive as only a millionaire could make it.

I set down the stuff I had brought with me and, seeing no one, I crossed to the double doors, opened them and looked out onto a patio with a miniature fountain in the centre full of gold fish exercising themselves in the sun.

I walked through a doorway on the far side of the patio and into a big hall from which several doors led.

One of the doors stood open and I heard Gilda Delaney humming softly to herself.

“Mrs Delaney, ” I said, slightly raising my voice.

She came to the door. She was even better than the image I had been keeping of her in my mind during the past thirty-six hours. No memory could recapture the look she had, nor the sensual quality of her body, nor the way her bronze hair glinted in the sunlight coming through the big open window.

She had on a cream silk shirt and a pleated sky-blue skirt. The sight of her set my heart thumping.

“Hello, Mr Regan, ” she said, and she smiled.

“Your husband told me to come on in, ” I said, and my voice sounded husky. “I want to fix the aerial. Is there a way up to the roof? ”

“There’s an attic and a skylight. You will want the steps. They are in the storeroom: that door there’; and she pointed.

“Thanks, ” I said and paused, then went on, “Looks like the set is a success. ”

She nodded, and I was aware her eyes were going over me, thoughtfully, probingly, as if she were asking herself what kind of man I was.

“It is. He put it on at nine this morning, and it has been on ever since. ”

“For someone tied to a chair the way he is, ” I said, “there’s nothing like a TV set. ”

“Of course. ” A faintly bored expression appeared in her forget-me-not blue eyes. “Well, I mustn’t hold you up. ”

It was a little nudging hint that I had work to do and she didn’t want to stand gossiping all the afternoon.

“I’ll get on. That door there? ”

“Yes. ”

“And the attic? ”

“Over there. There’s a trap up to it. ”

“Well, thanks, Mrs Delaney. ”

I got the steps from the storeroom, stood them under the trap, climbed the steps and pushed the trap open.

The attic roof was just high enough for me to stand up in, and the skylight gave me easy access to the roof. I opened the skylight and then descended to the ground floor.

I went back into the lounge, collected my kit and the aerial and started back along the passage. As I passed her door, she appeared in the doorway.

There was an expression in her eyes that stopped me as if I had walked into a brick wall.

“Do you want any help? ” she asked.

“Thanks, but I don’t want to bother you. ”

“I have nothing to do if I can be of help. ”

We looked at each other.

“Well, I’d be glad then. I don’t like taking my tool kit out on a roof. If you could hand me up what I want, it would be a real help. ”

“That sounds easy enough. ”

She moved with that liquid grace that had held my attention before. She paused by the steps.

“Do you think you can get up there? ” I said, nodding to the open trap.

“I think so if you will hold the steps steady. ”

I set down the aerial and joined her. She was wearing a perfume that I didn’t know: heady stuff that went with her character and personality. Standing this close to her really got me going.

I put my hand on the steps.

“They’re safe enough, ” I said.

She started up them. Half way up, she paused and looked down at me. Her long, slim legs were on the level with my eyes.

“I should be wearing jeans for this kind of work, ” she said, and smiled.

“That’s okay, ” I said, and it sounded as if I had a plum in my mouth. “I won’t look. ”

She laughed.

“I hope you won’t. ”

She put her hands on each side of the trap, then swung herself nimbly up into the attic.

Her pleated skirt billowed out, and the brief glimpse I got of her as I looked up set my blood racing.

She looked down at me through the trap opening. From that angle she really looked more than something with her bronze-coloured hair hanging forward, framing her face.

Her eyes searched my face with that knowledgeable, cool appraisal of a woman who knows all about men and how men will react to what she knew I had just seen.

“If you’ll give me the aerial... ” she said.

I was glad of the excuse to turn away and pick up the aerial. I handed it up to her, then the tool kit and then the coil of flex.

I climbed up beside her.

In that hot, stuffy little attic we suddenly seemed to be the only two people left in the world. Up there I couldn’t hear the TV. I couldn’t hear anything except the thump-thump-thump of my heart-beats.

“I’m glad I don’t have to go out there, ” she said, moving away from me to stare through the skylight at the patch of blue sky. “I haven’t any head for heights. ”

“I used to feel that way, but it doesn’t bother me now. I guess one gets used to anything if you try hard enough. ”

“I used to think that too, but not now. I know my husband will never get used to sitting in his chair for the rest of his days. ”

I began to uncoil the flex.

“That’s different. Did he have an accident? ”

“Yes. ” She lifted her hair off her shoulders, letting it run through her slim-waisted lingers. “He feels it terribly. I think it’s worse for him than most men. He was the tennis coach for the Pacific Film Studios. He coached all the famous stars. It was a glamorous and very paying job. He is close on fifty. You wouldn’t think he could be a great tennis player, not at that age, but he was. He had so much fun and he loved teaching. That was really all he was ever good at. He had no other interests. Then this accident happened. He’ll never be able to walk again. ”

And he’ll never be able to make love to you again either, I thought. If there was any pity in my thoughts, it was for her.

“That’s tough, ” I said. “Isn’t there something he could interest himself in? He’s not planning to sit in that chair and do nothing for the rest of his days, is he? ”

“Yes. He made an awful lot of money. That’s something we’re not short of. ” Her red, full lips twisted into a bitter smile. “He has come out here to get away from his friends. The one thing he hates more than anything is to be pitied. ”

I fixed the stripped ends of the flex to the aerial leads.

“How about you? It can’t be much fun being buried out here, can it? ”

She lifted her shoulders.

“He is my husband. ” She studied me for a long moment, then said, “Shall I hold it now? ”

That broke up the conversation. I got out onto the roof and she passed the aerial up to me.

With her helping me, it didn’t take long to fix the aerial in place. She handed up the tools I wanted, and every time I came to the skylight and looked down at her, I became more aware of her.

“That’s it, ” I said, and swung myself down through the skylight into the attic.

“It didn’t take long, ” she said.

She was standing close to me.

“I’ve put up so many aerials I could put one up in my sleep. ”

I was beginning to breathe fast again.

I knew she wasn’t listening. She was looking intently at me, her chin up, and there was that thing lighting up her eyes.

Suddenly she swayed towards me.

I grabbed her.

In the past I have kissed quite a few women, but this was different. This was the kind of kiss you dream about. She melted into me: it was the moment of truth — there is no other way of describing it.

We clung to each other for maybe twenty or thirty seconds, then she broke free and stepped back and put her finger on her lips, pressing them while she stared at me. Her forget-me-not blue eyes had turned cloudy and were half closed, and she was breathing as fast as I was.

“There’s lipstick on your mouth, ” she said in that husky, spooky voice of hers; then, turning, she reached the trap opening, and swung herself out of my sight.

I stood there trembling, aware of the thudding of my heart while I listened to her quick-light footfalls as she went away from me.

III

I got back to my cabin around eight o’clock in the evening; my mind still full of Gilda. I sat on the verandah, lit a cigarette and did some thinking.

I kept asking myself why she had kissed me.

I said to myself: a woman as lovely as she is with her background of luxury is not going to take you seriously. That was an off-beat moment. You’ve got to get it out of your mind. It’s something that won’t happen again. Don’t try to kid yourself into believing she would leave her husband for you. What have you to offer her anyway? This lousy little cabin? You couldn’t keep her in stockings. It was an off-beat moment, and she meant nothing by it.

Then suddenly, breaking into my thoughts, the telephone bell began to ring.

I got up and went into the lounge and took up the receiver.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr Regan. ”

There was only one soft, husky voice like that in the world. At the sound of it I had a rush of blood to my head.

“Why, no... ”

“I wanted to see you. I suppose I couldn’t come over to your place about eleven? ”

“Why... yes.

“Then at eleven, ” and she hung up.

A minute or so after eleven, I saw the headlights of her car coming up the dirt track and I got to my feet.

My heart was thumping as I walked down the steps and watched the estate wagon drive up the rough drive-in.

She pulled up outside the cabin and came towards me.

“I’m sorry to be so late, Mr Regan, ” she said, “but I had to wait until my husband was in bed. ”

That made it a conspiracy. I was breathing fast and I was pretty worked up.

“Won’t you come up onto the verandah, Mrs Delaney? ”

She moved past me and up onto the verandah.

I had turned the lights off, and the only light came from the lounge, making a rectangle of light on the floor of the verandah.

She moved across this patch of light. She had changed into her slacks and the cowboy shirt. She walked to one of the old basket chairs and sat down.

“I want to apologize for what happened this afternoon. ” She seemed very calm and matter-of-fact. “You must be thinking I am one of those uncontrolled women who throw themselves at any man. ”

“Of course I don’t, ” I said, sitting down near her. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have... ”

“Please don’t be insincere. It’s always the woman’s fault when a thing like that happens. I just happened to lose my head for the moment. ” She shifted lower in the chair. “Could I have a cigarette? ”

I took out my case and offered it.

She took a cigarette. I struck a match. My hand was so unsteady, she put her fingers on my wrist so she could light the cigarette. The touch of her cool flesh on mine increased the thud of my heart-beats.

“I’m ashamed of myself, ” she went on, leaning back in the chair. “It is hard sometimes for a woman in my position. After all, why make a mystery of it? But I should have controlled myself. I thought it was only fair to you to come here and explain. ”

“You needn’t have... I wasn’t imagining... ”

“Of course you were. I know I am attractive to men. It’s something I can’t do anything about, and when certain men find out about my husband being a cripple, they begin to pester me. Up to now I haven’t met a man attractive enough to bother me, and it has been easy to hold them off. ” She paused, drawing on her cigarette. “But there’s something about you.... ” She broke off and lifted her hands, letting them fall back onto the arms of the chair. “Anyway, I had to come here and tell you it isn’t going to happen again. You see, Mr Regan, if I were unlucky enough to fall in love with another man, I could never leave my husband. He is a cripple. He relies on me. I have a conscience about him. ”

“If you did happen to fall in love with another man, ” I said, “no one could blame you for leaving your husband. You’re young. He can’t expect you to remain tied to him for the rest of his days. It would be throwing your life away. ”

“Do you think so? When I married him I promised to take him for better or for worse. Sliding out through a back door would be impossible to me. Besides, I was responsible for the accident that crippled him. That’s why, apart from the ethics of my marriage vows, I have a conscience about him. ”

“You were responsible? ”

“Yes. ” She crossed her long, slim legs. “You are the first person I have met since the accident I feel I can talk to. Would it bore you if I told you about the accident? ”

“Nothing you say to me would ever bore me. ”

“Thank you. ” She paused, then went on, “Jack and I have been married for four years. Three months after we were married the accident happened. ” Her voice now sounded impersonal and wooden. “We had been to a party. Jack had been drinking. I hated him to drive when he was lit up, and he was often lit up. When we got into the car, I insisted on driving. We quarrelled about it, but finally I got my way. We were on a mountain road. The movement of the car lulled Jack to sleep. Half-way up the road I came to a stationary car that blocked the road. It belonged to a friend of ours. He had also been to the party. He had run out of gas. I pulled up and got out of the car and started to walk over to him. I had stopped on a very steep part of the road. As soon as I got out of the car, it began to move backwards. I couldn’t have set the parking brake properly. ” She flicked her half-finished cigarette into the garden. “Jack was still asleep. I rushed back, but it was too late. The car went off the road. I shall never forget that moment, listening to the terrible noise as the car crashed down the mountain side. If I had put the parking brake on properly, it would never have happened. ”

“It was an accident, ” I said. “It could have happened to anyone. ”

“Jack doesn’t think so. He thinks it was entirely my fault. I have the most horrible guilt complex about it, and that is why I can never leave him. ”

I asked her the question I had to know.

“Do you still love him? ”

I saw her stiffen.

“Love him? That doesn’t come into it. I’ve lived with him now for four years. He has suffered a lot, and he isn’t very pleasant to live with. He drinks, and his temper can be hateful. He is twenty-three years older than I am. His ideas are not my ideas, but I married him and I have to accept him. It was through me that he is a cripple and his life has been spoilt. ”

“It was an accident, ” I said, gripping my clenched fists between my knees. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. ”

“So what do you think I should do? ”

“You are free to leave him if you want to. That’s the way I see it. ”

“But then you haven’t got my conscience. ” She held out her hand and I gave her a cigarette. I left my chair to light the cigarette. In the light of the match flame we stared at each other. “You are a disturbing person. ” Her voice was very low.

“You’re disturbing, too. ”

“Yes, I know. I’m not only disturbing to most men, I’m disturbing to myself. My life is difficult, Mr Regan. I think perhaps you have already realized that. What we did this afternoon has been worrying me a lot. Will you accept my apologies? ”

“You don’t have to apologize. I understand. ”

“I believe you do. I wouldn’t have come out at this time of night, alone, if I wasn’t sure you would understand. I must get back. ”

She got up.

“It’s nice out here and so quiet. I asked Maria, my maid, about you. She tells me you aren’t married and you live alone. ”

“I’ve lived on my own out here for a long time. ” I was standing by her side now and we were both looking across the heads of the trees, outlined in the moonlight.

“Do you mind living on your own? I should have thought you would have married. ”

“I haven’t yet found the right woman. ” She glanced at me.

The hard light of the moon fell directly on her face and I could see a small, bitter smile on her mouth.

“Are you difficult to please? ”

“I suppose so. Marriage is very permanent — at least it is to me. I feel the way you do about it. ”

“One must have love. I never really loved my husband. I married him for security. Before I met him I had nothing. I would be a lot happier now if I still had nothing except my freedom. ”

“You can still have your freedom. ”

“Not now. If I left him, I’d have my conscience to torment me. A conscience is a sterner prison than anything else in the world. ”

“My conscience never bothers me, but I guess I can understand about yours. ”

“I don’t know what I am going to think of myself tomorrow, ” she said, tracing her forefinger idly along the verandah rail. “I came out here on the spur of the moment. I wanted you to understand... ”

I put my hand over hers.

“Gilda—”

She turned and looked at me... She was trembling.

“Gilda, I’m crazy about you—”

“Oh, darling, I’m such a hypocrite, ” she said breathlessly. “I’m so ashamed, but the moment I saw you... ”

I had her in my arms and her mouth was against mine. We clung to each other and I could feel the yearning, the crying out of her body as she pressed against me.

I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the cabin.

The brown owl that always sits on the roof of the garage flew suddenly across the face of the moon.

It made a small, insignificant shadow.

Chapter II

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