A Savage Adoration

‘You were always far too restless to concentrate,’ her mother added fondly. ‘I remember one Sunday afternoon, you picked up the board and threw all the pieces on to the floor.’

‘The year I took my O-levels. Dominic threatened to wallop me for it.’

‘Yes, I remember.’ Her mother laughed, and Christy wondered if she also remembered how that miserable afternoon had ended. She certainly did.

For weeks she had been troubled by a vague but persistent feeling of restlessness; she wanted to be with Dominic, but when she was, she wasn’t satisfied with their old comfortable friendship. Too young and inexperienced to be able to analyse her own feelings, she had taken refuge in fits of sulks alternated with bursts of temper. Dominic’s threat to put her over his knee and administer the punishment he thought she deserved had acted like a shock of cold water on her newly emerging feminine feelings, and she had retreated from him to the sanctuary of her bedroom, in floods of tears.

The next day he had been waiting for her when she came out of school. He had driven her half-way home and had then stopped the car on a secluded piece of road.

‘I’m sorry about last night, infant,’ he had said softly. ‘I forget sometimes that you’re not a little girl any more.’

She had burst into tears again, but this time there had been nowhere to run and she had sobbed out her misery and confusion against the hard warmth of his shoulder, even in her anguish conscious of the pleasure of his body close to her own and his arms wrapped round her.

He had kissed her briefly on the forehead as he released her, offering his handkerchief so that she could dry her eyes. That had been the day she knew she had fallen in love with him.

‘Come back, Christy …’

Her mother’s teasing voice jolted her back to the present and reality, and although she listened to her chatter as she smoothed her pillows and checked that she had everything she needed, Christy was wondering what her mother would say if she told her that now she could play chess. Meryl had taught her. Meryl, whose patience made her an admirable teacher; Meryl, whose patience allowed her to turn a blind eye to a husband to whom a continuous string of brief sexual affairs seemed to be as necessary as the air he breathed. And yet without Meryl, David would be very unhappy. She was his wife, and in his way he loved her. He also loved their children. Sighing faintly, Christy walked towards the door. Adult relationships were very complex things. As a teenager she had daydreamed about the perfect life she would have with Dominic if he loved her; she had imagined that love alone was enough, that nothing else mattered, but different people had different needs.

She herself was too old-fashioned in her moral outlook to involve herself in an affair with a married man, especially a married man whose wife she knew and liked.

No matter how awkward and unsettling it was discovering that Dominic had come back to Setondale, she knew that she had made the right decision in refusing to accompany David to Hollywood. Already, the effect of his sexual magnetism was beginning to fade now that he was no longer there to generate it. Maybe even the desire she had felt clawing so sharply within her had really been the desire of an inexperienced woman for experience rather than a particular desire for David himself.

Ever since the humiliation of her rejection by Dominic, Christy had kept the sexual side of her nature firmly under control. She was not and never had been the sort of woman to whom sex could be sufficient in itself, but there were times, increasingly so these days, when she saw lovers embracing, couples together, when she was pierced by an intense need, coupled with sadness for all that she had lost in not having a lover of her own.

And that was Dominic’s fault; his strictures, his contempt had made it impossible for her to be open and honest in her dealings with his sex; she was quite frankly terrified of misinterpreting a man’s feelings and suffering once again the savage rejection which still haunted her.

She went downstairs and started to make a tray of coffee for her father and Dominic. It was gone ten o’clock and, as Dominic no doubt remembered, her parents preferred early nights.

When she took the tray in it was obvious that Dominic was winning the game.

‘He’s got me completely tied up,’ her father commented with a mock grimace as she handed him his coffee.

‘Mmm.’ She studied the chess board knowledgeably. ‘Another two moves and you won’t be able to avoid checkmate.’

Her father’s eyebrows rose, but he looked pleased. ‘Well, well, so you have managed to learn something while you’ve been in London!’ Turning to Dominic, he asked teasingly, ‘Do you remember how often you tried to teach her?’

‘There are teachers and teachers,’ Christy responded acidly, watching the way Dominic frowned as he looked up at her. The humour she had seen warming his eyes earlier was gone now, and they were a hard, flat grey.

‘And pupils and pupils,’ he taunted back, while her father looked from one set face to the other as though suddenly conscious of the fast-flowing undercurrents racing between them.

Christy was glad that the phone rang, cutting through the thick silence. Her father went to answer it, and she started to follow him until Dominic’s smooth voice stopped her.

‘You’ve changed, Christy. And I don’t suppose for one moment that chess is the only thing you’ve been taught!’

She swung round, her eyes glittering with the temper he had always been so easily able to arouse inside her, but before she could say anything, her father came back into the room, frowning slightly.

‘The call’s for you, Christy. It’s David.’

‘My ex-boss. I suppose he’s lost an all-important piece of filing.’ She knew she was flushing and that moreover, Dominic was aware of it, but David ringing her when she had thought she had made it quite clear to him that there was no point in him pursuing her had caught her off guard.

She hurried to the phone, curling the flex round her fingers in nervous agitation as she spoke into the receiver.

‘Christy, my love, you can’t know how much I’ve missed hearing your voice. I miss you, Christy. Come back.’

She gritted her teeth together. She had always known that David was persistent when there was something that he wanted, but she thought she had made it clear there could be nothing between them.

‘I can’t come back, David,’ she responded coolly. ‘My mother is ill and she needs me.’

‘I need you. God, how I need you! Come back, Christy …’

Her body had started to tremble. This was too much to cope with coming on top of her clash with Dominic.

‘I can’t, David.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And I wouldn’t even if I could. I’ve already told you that. You’re a married man. You know how much I like Meryl.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she heard him swear sharply. ‘Listen, Christy …’

Suddenly she panicked. ‘No … no … I don’t want to hear any more.’ She held the receiver away from her, but before she could slam it down she heard him saying furiously, ‘I’m not letting you go as easily as that. I want you … and I can make you want me …’

Even with the receiver held away from her, the words were plainly audible. She slammed it down, literally shaking with reaction.

‘And that’s your boss, is it?’

The shock of Dominic’s hard voice coming from behind her made her whirl round to stare at him.

Correctly reading her expression, he added evenly, ‘I just came in to say goodnight, on your father’s instructions. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Do you love him, Christy … is that why you’ve come running home?’

‘He’s a married man.’ She cried out the words desperately, hating him for seeing her like this when she was so weak and vulnerable.

‘I see …’

Surely that wasn’t compassion she could see in his eyes. She shook her head disbelievingly and heard him say, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help …’

Eight years ago she had needed his help, but he had rejected her, and suddenly she wanted to throw that in his face, and to tell him that it was his fault she was the person she was now; that it was his fault that she was a twenty-four-year-old virgin with ridiculously unrealistic ideals of love and marriage, but common sense told her that the blame wasn’t all his, so instead she stormed past him, saying bitterly, ‘Stop trying to bigbrother me, Dominic; I don’t need your help, either as a doctor or as a man.’

His face closed up immediately, and she was conscious of an unfamiliar hardness about it, an expression that warned her that he would be a dangerous man to push too hard.

‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’ He paused in the act of stepping past her to the front door and said quietly, ‘Just tell me one thing. Was he …’ he gestured to the phone, ‘the one who taught you to play chess?’

Briefly she frowned. ‘No … no … he wasn’t …’

What an odd thing to ask her. She was just about to ask him the reason for his question, but he opened the door and stepped through it before she could do so.

‘Dominic gone, then?’ her father asked, coming into the hall a moment later. ‘He’s a nice lad. Clever, too.’

Christy’s eyebrows rose as she went into his study to collect the coffee cups. ‘If he’s so clever then what’s he doing coming to work here as a mere GP? I thought he would have been better off staying in America?’

‘Financially, maybe,’ her father agreed, his expression slightly reproving. ‘But the Savage men have been general practitioners here for three generations, and Dominic has a tremendous sense of duty. He always did have; don’t you remember how protective he always used to be of you? We never needed to worry about you when you were in Dominic’s care.’

‘I would have thought he had more ambition than to want to spend all his life in Setondale.’

‘Oh, he’s got ambition all right. He was telling me tonight about his hopes and plans. He wants to try to raise enough money locally to buy and equip a local surgery that’s capable of carrying out most of the more common operations. He’s seen it done in the States and is convinced it can be copied here, and I think he’ll do it, too. There’s going to be quite a lot of work involved in raising the initial finance, of course, but I’ve promised to give him what help I can—oh, and I told him that you’d probably be prepared to take on the secretarial side of things for him. It’s a very worthwhile cause, and I’m sure he’ll be able to get a lot of local support. After all, it’s going on for forty miles to the nearest hospital, and the sort of clinic-cum-operating theatre Dominic plans for Setondale could only benefit everyone.’

Her father’s enthusiasm for Dominic’s plans made it impossible for Christy to tell him that there was no way she was going to be involved in anything that brought her into closer contact with Dominic. She tried to comfort herself with the conviction that she was the very last person Dominic would want to assist him, but she couldn’t help remembering that since his unexpected return he had behaved as though that final annihilating scene between them had simply never taken place. Maybe he could do that, but she couldn’t. Every time she looked at him she remembered her humiliation.

Thoroughly infuriated and exasperated by her father’s lack of intuition in realising that she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Dominic, she carried the coffee tray into the kitchen.

CHAPTER THREE

FOUR days passed without Christy seeing anything of Dominic. She told herself that she was glad, and concentrated on settling into a proper routine. By the end of the week she was finding that she had time to spare, and because she was used to being busy, it weighed heavily upon her hands. So heavily, in fact, that her father’s announcement that a meeting was going to be held to discuss the setting-up of a committee to organise fund-raising for Dominic’s clinic-cum-operating theatre came as a welcome relief.

‘I’ve volunteered you to take notes and keep the minutes,’ he warned her. ‘Dominic was a bit dubious about whether you’d want to be so closely involved.’

Meaning that he didn’t want her closely involved? She felt a totally unexpected pain shaft through her, which she suppressed instantly, instead concentrating on fanning her anger.

‘Was he? Well, you can tell Dominic from me that I do want to do it. It will stop my secretarial skills from getting too rusty.’

‘You’ll be able to tell him for yourself,’ her father chuckled. ‘He’s coming round for supper tonight, so that we can make a few preliminary plans.’

The sudden lurch of her heart was so intensely reminiscent of her reaction to the mention of his name at seventeen that it drove all the colour from her face. What was the matter with her? She wasn’t that susceptible, adolescent, any more. She felt nothing for Dominic Savage, unless it was dislike.

‘Who else will be at the meeting?’ she asked her father, trying to distract herself.

‘Oh, John Howard, from the bank. He’s bringing a client of his who’s just moved into the area. A self-made man who’s just retired and who he thinks might be interested in making a donation. I think I’ve managed to persuade Lady Anthony to join us. She suffers quite badly from arthritis now, and isn’t as involved in local affairs as she was once, but I think she’ll consider this is something worth being involved with. She’s always had a soft spot for Dominic.’

‘Yes. Ever since he presented her with the chocolates he won at the summer fête!’

Her father gave her an indulgent smile. ‘Yes, you’d plagued the life out of him to give those chocolates to you.’

‘And he said they weren’t good for me.’

That had been the summer she was eleven, and Dominic had been, what? Nineteen and at medical school. She had adored him then, and he had put up with her adoration in much the same way as he might have tolerated the friskiness of an untrained puppy.

‘Lady Anthony has a relative staying with her at the moment. I haven’t met her, but I have heard that she’s a very attractive young woman. You’ll probably find you have quite a lot in common with her. She’s been living in London, but when her marriage broke up she came to stay with her godmother. The Vicar will be there of course—oh, and Major Barnes.’

When Christy’s eyebrows rose, her father grinned. ‘Yes, I know. He and Lady Anthony will argue like mad. They always do, and secretly, I’m sure both of them enjoy it. He’s an indefatigable organiser, though. We’re all meeting at Dominic’s house—you know he’s bought the Vicarage.’ He glanced apologetically at her. ‘I’m afraid I’ve volunteered you to take charge of the refreshments. Your mother …’

Christy sighed, not needing him to finish the sentence. Yes, had she been well enough, her mother would have been the first to offer her services. Like the Major, her mother was also an indefatigable organiser, and many was the hot summer afternoon when Christy had been detailed to assist with a mammoth cake-baking session for some local bring-and-buy sale or summer fete.

It must be her nostalgia for those long-ago times that made her refrain from objecting to her father’s casual disposal of her time, she decided the next morning as she surveyed the cooling sponges on their wire trays.

The inhabitants of Setondale were old-fashioned about some things; bought cakes were one of them. No self-respecting Setondale housewife would ever serve her visitors with something she had not prepared with her own hands.

Well, at least she didn’t appear to have lost her touch with a sponge, Christy thought approvingly as she tested the golden-brown confectionery. In addition to the sponges, there were biscuits, made to her mother’s special recipe, and later on she would make sandwiches and carefully cover them to stop them curling at the edges. She would have to borrow her father’s car to run them over to Dominic’s house, but since her father was out playing golf with one of his cronies he was hardly likely to object.

As she drove over to the Vicarage later in the day Christy wondered curiously why Dominic had bought it. Surely a smaller house in the centre of Setondale itself would have suited him more? The very reason the Church had sold off the Vicarage was its size, and the cost of maintaining and heating it. As far as she remembered, it had at least seven bedrooms, and then there were the attics.

The wrought-iron gates were permanently open; indeed, they had stood open for so long that she doubted they could ever be closed. Weeds and brambles had grown in between the spars, and the bright winter sunshine highlighted their neglected state.

The drive to the house too was overgrown, and the trees, which would look lovely in the spring, now looked gaunt and dreary without their leaves. Even so, the Georgian façade of the house was undeniably elegant, and the gardens, encircled as they were by a high brick wall, would be a haven of privacy once they had been brought under control. But who was going to do that? Not Dominic, surely? He would be far too busy.

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