a rigid hierarchy with crushing rules that would drive most of us insane.’
‘But we’re animals too.’
‘Of course we are.’ Made uneasy by the focused intentness of his gaze, Ianthe resisted the impulse to wriggle. ‘Our problem is that we know what we’re doing. Most animals live by instinct.’
‘So it’s not cruel for animals to drive an ill or wounded member from the pack, but humans shouldn’t?’
For a moment she didn’t realise what he meant. When she did she gave him a startled, angry glance. ‘Animals drive their sick away or abandon them because their presence attracts predators. If you’re using me as an instance, I’m not ill, but my wound could well have put an end to the series’ existence if people had stopped watching. Besides, I was in hospital while they were filming the last programmes so they had to get someone to take my place. I have no hard feelings.’
‘As I said before, you’re astonishingly tolerant,’ he said, his smile hard and humourless.
Oh, she could be enormously tolerant. The loss of her job was the least of her problems.
He said, ‘Will you always have that limp?’ He glanced at her trouser-clad leg.
For the first time Ianthe realised that most people when confronted with her scar did one of two things—the rude stared and commented while the polite kept their eyes fixed on her face. Both responses irritated her because they seemed to imply that she was less than perfect, less than human. Alex, however, looked at her leg without aversion.
‘Always,’ she said, steadying her voice so that her self-pity didn’t show.
‘You seem very relaxed about it.’
Although her unusual frankness had given him the opportunity to probe, she’d told him enough about herself. ‘I try not to worry about things I can’t control,’ she said coolly. ‘It doesn’t always work, but fretting over the past is just a waste of time.’
‘Fretting over anything is a waste of time.’
Nodding, she let the sun soak into her, acutely aware of the strumming of the cicadas, now reaching for a crescendo. However, balancing the shrill stridulation were other sounds—the soft rustling of reeds swaying against each other, the lazy cry of a gull that had drifted inland from the coast a few miles away, and the sound of a speedboat on the one lake that was open for powerboats, its intrusive roar muted by intervening hills to a pleasant hum.
And a fantail—the same one, perhaps?—black and cheeky as it darted around collecting insects from under the vine over the pergola.
Accepting her tacit refusal to discuss her leg any further, Alex Considine said, ‘Do you know anything about the way dune lakes are formed? Why are there lakes in this valley, but not in the valleys on either side?’
‘Because under this one there’s an impermeable ironstone pan. Rainwater collects above it and forms the lakes. The sand is silica, which is why it’s so white.’
‘So this is a rare formation?’
‘No, there are similar lakes wherever there are sand-hills—on this coast they go right up to North Cape.’
He asked, ‘Did you do geology at university also?’
‘I’m just an interested amateur,’ she said, getting up. ‘I must go now. Thank you so much for the drink, and I hope your Range Rover is driveable soon.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alex said calmly, rising to tower over her. ‘Mark isn’t hurt and neither was anyone else; that’s the important thing.’
Ianthe wanted to convince herself she was grateful that he didn’t try to persuade her to stay. For all his exotic façade he was far too easy to talk to, and she’d revealed more about herself than she’d intended to. Much more than he’d told her about himself.
As they were going towards the front door Ianthe’s leg failed her again. It was only a slight stumble, but Alex’s hand shot out instantly, closing with hard strength onto her arm and supporting her. Ianthe had been stung by jellyfish; that was how she felt now—shock, and then a sensation like the thrust of a spear tempered on the edge of ice and fire.
Did he feel it too? She looked up, saw the beautiful mouth compress, harden.
‘All right?’ he asked abruptly, releasing her when he was sure she had regained her balance.
She managed to smile. ‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Do you need to rest?’
‘No,’ she said, adding with hasty firmness, ‘And I don’t need to be carried, either.’
He was frowning, the brilliant eyes resting on her leg. ‘Will it always be likely to let you down?’
‘No, they tell me it’s going to be a lot better as soon as the muscles strengthen.’
Her surgeon had suggested she walk to build up the muscles, but she hadn’t because she’d cringed at the idea of people pitying her as she limped by. Well, that very evening she’d begin exercising, and ignore the stares and whispered comments.
The decision buoyed her spirits. With erect back and shoulders she said goodbye and drove carefully down the drive, concentrating fiercely to stop the odd desolation that roiled inside her.
At the bach she pushed all the windows open before going out onto the verandah overlooking the lake and collapsing into one of the elderly chairs to read the newspaper.
After ten minutes or so, she dropped it on the floor, feeling oddly detached, as though somehow she’d slipped through a transparent door and into another world.
The two men shaking hands on the front page weren’t statesmen signing an important treaty; they were smirking actors chosen to fill empty space on the page. The people marching in the streets of the capital city in a tiny state somewhere on the Adriatic Sea were extras from an old movie, selected for their lined, worn faces and dressed by Wardrobe in thick, drab peasants’ clothing.
Only the photograph of children playing in the sea meant anything; yes, she thought, looking at them with her heart compressed into a painful knot, they were real, they were complete and oh, they were lucky.
To break the soggy spell of self-pity, she strode over the thick, springy kikuyu grass to the edge of the busy beach. Small children ran around happily, yelling and laughing, many swam in the milky band of water that denoted the shallows.
Ianthe closed her eyes but immediately forced her lashes back up. Beneath her breath she muttered, ‘I’m not going to stand here like a wimp,’ and walked across the blinding white sand.
Nausea clutched her before she’d gone halfway. Breathing shallowly, fighting back the panic that turned her clammy and shaking, she forced herself to stand there for long, chilling moments before turning and stumbling back.
A couple of youths were passing; through the roaring in her ears she heard one jeer, ‘Hey, blondie, need some help?’
Intent only on reaching sanctuary, she blundered past. His companion said something and followed it up by catching her
