Crescendo

Grandie looked hesitantly at her and she saw that he was about to lie to her.

'He hasn't, has he?' she asked harshly.

'I wish I could throw him out,' Grandie muttered, enraged by his own bodily weakness. 'I wish I wasn't so old, my hands so us

eless.' They flexed weakly on his knees as if he would like to get them round Gideon's strong throat. 'He just refuses to go, and I can't make him.'

'I'll see him,' said Marina, making up her mind.

'What?' Grandie looked horrified, staring at her as if she were insane. 'No! Marina ...'

'I'll see him,' she said in a cold, firm voice. 'And then he will go.'

Grandie tried to argue with her, but she just looked at him and in the end he went out, then she sat and waited, staring at the window and seeing the morning light as though it were a darkness without end.

She was going to send Gideon away for ever and although she had no doubts about the wisdom of that it was going to mean a lot of pain for her, now and in the future. But pain was something she had lived with before and she would live with again. Losing Gideon was going to cripple her the way Grandie had been crippled by his hands, the hands which had once given him all the happiness and meaning life had held for him. It was an ironic joke which life played on one—to use the things that meant most in order to wound one in the end.

She heard his steps and listened to them intently because she was never going to hear them again. He ran up the stairs, two at a time, and she felt the eagerness with which he came into the room. He stood at the door and stared at her for a few seconds before he walked over to the bed in that graceful, predatory lope of his and knelt down beside it to take her hands into his own and lift them to his mouth.

'You're leaving now, Gideon,' she said quietly and his black head shot up and the dark eyes stared at her.

Before he could speak she went on in the same even tone, 'I never want to see you again. Go away and don't come back. You can divorce me, or I'll divorce you, I don't mind which, but I want our marriage ended.'

'Listen to me, Marina,' he broke out huskily, and she shook her head, cutting into the words.

'There's nothing for either of us to say.'

'Let me explain,' he began again, and again she interrupted him.

'There's nothing to explain.'

'Isn't there?' He stood up now, towering over her, his face hard. 'Why won't you let me tell you, then?'

'I don't want to listen to any more lies.'

'I've never lied to you!'

She lowered her head. 'No?' The sarcasm lin­gered on the air for a moment and Gideon shifted his feet restlessly, his body tense.

'No,' he flung back thickly, 'never. What you saw that day was my first meeting with Diana since the day I realised I loved you.'

It was the first time Gideon had ever admitted he loved her, but it gave her no happiness. The moment she had longed for during the months of their marriage, the joy and relief she had imagined she would feel, did not come. She felt nothing but a dead cold misery.

'It makes no difference how many times it hap­pened.' She looked at him directly, her face "con­temptuous. 'Once was quite enough.'

'Nothing happened,' he said roughly. 'Nothing that you didn't see. Diana kissed me. I wasn't doing the kissing.'

'If I hadn't walked in at that moment it wouldn't have stopped at kissing,' she said with a twist of her lips.

'Listen to me,' Gideon muttered, sinking on to the bed and taking hold of her shoulders. The dark eyes glared into hers. 'You've got to believe me.'

'I shall never believe you.' She met his stare head on, her eyes icy. 'I never want to see you again. It's over.'

She read the flicker of calculation in his eyes. 'No,' he said. She could read so many of the expressions on that hard, dark face and she had no difficulty in in­terpreting the thoughts moving in his mind now. He was remembering the way she had responded to him over the last few days and a softness stole over his mouth, his eyes gleamed.

'That wasn't the impression I got the other night,' he said huskily and as their eyes held she knew she had not dreamt the passionate lovemaking which had taken place in his bedroom. She had gone to him like an addict to a drug and Gideon had taken her although he knew she was not aware of what she was doing.

She pushed him away violently, turning her head aside to escape the searching movement of the sen- sual mouth. 'You had no right,' her voice accused angrily.