An Indecent Obsession

‘I’d like that too,’ he said seriously. ‘Just let me drop this out on the verandah first. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the ramp.’

I wonder if he’ll appear with Benedict in tow? she asked herself as she stood in the watery sun at the bottom of the ramp. See one and you saw the other.

But Michael was alone, and fell into step alongside her. They paced down the path which led to the beach, stopping just short of the sand.

‘It came too quickly. I’m not ready after all,’ she said, looking at him a little guardedly.

‘Nor am I,’ he said.

She began to babble. ‘This is the first opportunity I’ve had to see you alone since—since Luce died. No, since the verdict came in. That was awful. I said so many awful things to you. I want you to know I didn’t mean them. Michael, I’m so sorry!’

He listened to her quietly, his face sad. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who ought to be doing all the apologizing.’ Seeming to deliberate within himself, he went on slowly. ‘The others don’t think so, but I feel I owe you some sort of explanation, now that it doesn’t matter much any more.’

All she heard was the last little bit. ‘Nothing matters much any more,’ she said. ‘I’d like to change the subject, ask you about home. Are you going back to your dairy farm right away? What about your sister and your brother-in-law? I’d like to know, and we don’t have much time.’

‘We never did have much time,’ he said. ‘Well, I have to get my discharge first. Then Ben and I are going to head for my farm. I’ve just had a letter from my sister and they’re counting the days until I can take over again. Harold—my brother-in-law—wants to get his old job before too many soldiers are demobbed.’

She gaped. ‘Ben and you? Together?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ben and you.’

‘That’s right.’

‘In God’s name, why?’

‘I owe it to him,’ said Michael.

Her face twisted. ‘Oh, come off it!’ she snapped, rebuffed.

He set his shoulders. ‘Benedict is alone, Sis. He doesn’t have anyone at all waiting for him. And he needs someone with him all the time. Me. It’s my fault, I wish I could make you see that! I have to make sure it never happens again.’

Her torment became bewilderment; she stared at him and wondered if she would ever begin to get to the bottom of the mystery that surrounded Michael. ‘What are you talking about? What never happens again?’

‘I said it before,’ he said patiently. ‘I think I owe you an explanation. The others don’t agree. They think you ought to be kept right out of it forever, but I want to tell you. I understand why Neil’s so set against your knowing, but I still believe I owe you an explanation. Neil wasn’t with you that night, I was. And it entitles you to an explanation.’

‘What explanation? What is all this?’

There was a big petrol drum lying on its side just where the path petered out; he turned, put one foot up on it, gazed down at his boot. ‘It’s not easy to find the right words. But I don’t want you to look at me the way you’ve been looking at me ever since that morning, not understanding. I agree with Neil, telling you isn’t going to change anything, but it might mean that the last time I ever see you, you won’t be looking at me as if half of you hated me and the other half was wishing it could hate me too.’ He straightened, faced her. ‘This is hard,’ he said.

‘I don’t hate you, Michael. I couldn’t ever hate you. What’s done is done. I’m not fond of post-mortems. So tell me, please. I want to know. I have a right to know. But I don’t hate you. I never have, I never could.’

‘Luce didn’t kill himself,’ he said. ‘Benedict did the killing.’

She was back in the midst of all that blood, all that ruined magnificence. Luce sprawled without consideration of grace, fluidity of line, theatrical effect—unless sheer horror was the effect he had aimed for, and Luce was not like that. Luce loved himself too much, visually anyway.

Her face went so pale the light striking down through the palms gave it a greenish hue; for the second time in their acquaintance Michael moved close to her, slipped an arm around her waist and supported her so strongly all she could feel was the feel of him.

‘Here, love, don’t pass out on me! Come on now, take a few deep breaths, that’s the good girl!’ He spoke tenderly, he held her tenderly.

‘I knew it all the time,’ she said slowly, when at last she was able to speak. ‘There was something wrong. It just wasn’t typical of Luce. But it’s typical Benedict, all right.’ The color stole back beneath her skin, she clenched her fists in an impotent anger directed entirely against herself. ‘Oh what a fool I am!’

Michael released her and stepped back a pace, looking more at ease with himself. ‘If I didn’t think so much of you I wouldn’t have told you, but I couldn’t bear to see you hate me. It’s been killing me. Neil knows that, too.’ Then, seeming to decide he was drifting from the subject, he turned back to it. ‘Benedict won’t ever do anything like it again, Sis, you have my word. As long as I’m there to look after him, he can’t do it again. You do understand that, don’t you? I have to look after him. He’s my responsibility. He did it for me, or he thought he did it for me, which amounts to the same thing. I told you in the morning, remember? I told you it was wrong of me to stay with you all night. I should have gone back to the ward to keep an eye on Ben. If I had been there where I belonged, it would never have happened. Fu

Huge reserves of strength, she had huge reserves of strength; she plundered them with the carelessness of a freebooter. ‘I should have known that,’ she said. ‘Of course you loved me.’

‘I was thinking of myself first,’ he said, apparently happy he could talk to her at last. ‘If you knew how much I blame myself! There was no need for Luce to die! All I had to do was be there in the ward to show Ben I was all right, that it wasn’t in Luce’s power to harm me.’ His chest heaved, more a shudder than a sigh. ‘While I was with you in your room, Ben was all alone, thinking Luce had somehow managed to destroy me. And once Ben came to that conclusion, the rest followed naturally. If Neil had known, it might have been different. But Neil had no idea. He had other things on his mind. And I wasn’t even there to tidy up the mess, the rest had to do that too.’ His hand went out to her, fell back to his side. ‘I have a lot to answer for, Honour. The way I hurt you—there are no excuses for that, either. I can’t make any, even to myself. But I’d like you to know that I… feel it, that I do understand what I’ve done to you. And that of everything I have to answer for, hurting you is the hardest to bear.’

The tears were coursing down her face, more for his pain than her own. ‘Don’t you love me now at all?’ she asked. ‘Oh, Michael, I can stand anything but losing your love!’

‘Yes, I love you. But there’s no future in it—there couldn’t be, there never was, Luce and Ben aside. If it hadn’t been for the war, I would never have met anyone like you. You would have met men like Neil, not men like me. My friends, the sort of life I like to lead, even the house I live in—they don’t fit with you.’

‘You don’t love a life,’ she said, wiping the tears away. ‘You love a man, and then you make a life.’