bitterness of the past rising up to swamp her, fighting off the cringing memories of that last destructive quarrel when Yorke had thrown those words at her. She had known then that she must get away from him or be completely destroyed, because then her need of him had been so great that she had known that she could not continue to live with him and not eventually plead with him to make love to her, and once she did that she would have destroyed the last fragile remnant of her self-respect.
‘I hope Alan appreciates what you’re doing for him,’ York said sardonically, interrupting her train of thought. ‘Or is it just for him?’ His hand caressed her bare arm, the flesh rising in goosebumps under his skilled fingers, his mouth descending to tease her skin with coaxing, soft kisses. Autumn forced herself to remain still and cold.
‘No, Yorke,’ she told him quietly. ‘It’s for me as well. Call it part of my therapy. I’d like to tell you that having you touch me fills me with loathing,’ she added calmly, ‘but that isn’t true.’
She felt him stiffen and sensed that he was expecting her surrender.
‘You see, Yorke,’ she told him emotionlessly, ‘I feel nothing. Nothing at all, neither for you nor anyone else. You destroyed my ability to feel.’
She moved away from him as she spoke, acutely aware of him behind her as he unlocked the door, throwing her the key.
‘Don’t try running out on me, Autumn,’ he warned her curtly, ‘or I’ll make you wait for eternity for divorce. The moment I’ve got the negotiations here all wrapped up, we’re leaving—together.’
Autumn did not respond. She could not. It was taking all her will-power merely to breathe. She felt as though she had died and been born again, living through some dreadful, indescribable holocaust, to emerge from it another person.
How long she stood staring out of the window she did not know. A soft tap on her door roused her, and Sally’s anxious face told her how concerned her friend had been.
‘I saw Yorke leaving,’ she said by way of explanation for her presence. ‘What happened?’
‘He’s promised me my divorce, provided I live with him for the next four months.’ Autumn explained the situation emotionlessly, whilst Sally listened.
‘You’re hoping that living with him will free you from whatever it is that haunts you from the past, aren’t you?’ she said shrewdly.
‘In a way,’ Autumn agreed wryly. ‘Don’t hypnotists use much the same method for freeing patients from their hang-ups? A mental regression to childhood to live through the trauma once more and come to terms with it?
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Sally said unhappily. ‘You could be playing with fire.’
‘I’m immune,’ Autumn told her. Discussing Yorke’s offer with Sally had helped to clarify her own thoughts on the subject, and confirmed her own view that the time for running was over, and yet still fear lingered, urging her to flight. That was the response of the gauche adolescent she had been, not the woman she now was.
‘Sure you don’t want me to stay?’ Sally asked her.
Autumn shook her head. She wanted to be alone, to think things through slowly and carefully. When Sally had gone she stared out of her uncurtained window, the soothing movement of the sea beckoning her like a benison, then she opened the french window and walked towards it.
For two years she had told herself that she was free, but she wasn’t, and never would be until she could lie in Yorke’s arms and feel nothing, apart from the intense satisfaction of her rejection of him!
The beach was in darkness and deserted, the faint strains of music reaching her from the hotel fading as she walked farther away from it, her feet making delicate imprints in the damp sand.
She loved the sea, endlessly fascinated by its ceaseless movement. Lying on it was like being rocked in a huge cradle. The tide had washed up a huge conch shell and she picked it up, shuddering a little as she glimpsed the fleshy eel-like conch inside. The sting of a conch could be particularly painful, and she made a mental note to remind the new holidaymakers of this fact in the morning. Collecting the varied shells to be found on the beaches was a favourite pastime with the visitors. The wooden beach hut which held the diving and snorkelling equipment was closed up for the night, the dinghies and windsurfers pulled up outside it; the two power boats the hotel used for water skiing drifted easily at anchor.
The beach came to an abrupt end, the black volcanic rock from which the Five Fathoms restaurant was carved stretching skywards in a sheer, unscalable cliff, thick with luxuriant vegetation, and plunging steeply into the sea. Autumn sat down on a piece of driftwood and stared out into the darkness.
Ever since she had left Yorke she had been hiding from her memories, but now she could hide no longer. The exorcism would have to start somewhere, and the very beginning was as good a place as any, she mused.
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