Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

"Is there someone there?" she said. She pulled it open, irritated at the interruption.

Nick was standing, looking out of the high landing window at the sloping rooftops of the house backs. He turned slowly and looked at her without a word. "Oh, no, it's you. What do you want?" Judy glared at him, determined he would not see the hurt and longing that rose to the surface at the sight of him.

"I thought I would see if you had got back from France safely, " he said. He did not smile at her.

"As you see, I did. " She put her hands on her hips.

"Judy—" He came toward her suddenly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you like that. It was a lousy thing to do after you had come out to join me. We'd had a good time. "

"Until someone mentioned Joanna. " Judy stood by the door holding it open as he walked past her into the studio. "How is Jo?"

Nick shrugged. "She's gone off somewhere. Is this going to be the new painting?" He was standing in front of the blank canvas.

"No. It's going to be a sculpture in bronze. " Her voice was sharp with sarcasm. "So Jo is missing and you decided to visit the first reserve. Dear old unfussy Judy, always there to pat your head and make a man of you again. " She was still standing by the door. "I'm sorry, Nick, but I'd like you to leave. "

He walked back toward her. "Can I have a drink first?" There was a new harshness in his voice as he pulled her hand from the door latch abruptly and hurled the door shut. "A drink, Judy. "

She took a step back in astonishment. "All right! Steady. How much have you had already?"

"Nothing. I've been in the office all morning trying to sort out the screw-up Jim Greerson's made of our best account and I'm going back there this afternoon. This visit"—he waved his arm around the studio—"is lunch. " - "Then I'll get you some food. "

"I said a drink. " His eyes were hard.

"Okay. A drink. " Judy was staring at him as she groped behind her in a cabinet and found a whisky bottle. "I'll fetch some glasses. "

"Do that. " Nick had not moved. He was looking at the blank canvas with the same intensity he would normally have given to a painting. His head ached, and he knew he was tense and irritable and that it had been a mistake to come. He wasn't sure why he had. His desire for Judy had gone and yet he had found himself hailing a taxi and giving her address automatically, compelled by a need to be with her that he could not define or understand.

"So what's wrong? Apart from the office, I mean?" Judy poured half an inch into the glass and handed it to him.

He drank it quickly and held it out to her again. As she was pouring he caught her wrist, forcing her to slop the whisky until the glass was almost full.

"Careful! Look what you've done!" she cried.

"Shut up, Judy, " he said, bored. "One tumblerful is the same as the sum of all the prissy little doses you're going to give me one by one. "

"I am not going to hand you little doses one by one. If you drink that lot on an empty stomach you'll be flat on your back!"

"Fine. With you in my arms?"

"No!" She took the glass out of his hand and put it down with a bang on the table. "Please leave now, Nick. "

"Oh, come on!"

"I mean it!" She bit back sudden angry tears. "Please get out of here. Go back to your office and sort out your problems there, not in my studio. "

She pulled the door open and stood by it. "I mean it!"

For a moment he hesitated, then he picked up the whisky glass, took a couple of gulps from it, put it down, and strode past her to the door.

"I thought you wanted me back, " he said softly as he stood for a moment looking down at her.

"Out, Nick, " she repeated.

He shrugged, then, with a strangely grating laugh, he walked past her and out onto the landing.

She slammed the door. For a moment she listened to the sound of his footsteps running down the long flights of stairs, then she turned back into the studio.

"Oh, yes, I want you back, Nick Franklyn, " she said to herself softly. "But on my terms. Not yours. "

As she picked up his glass and began to pour the whisky carefully back into the bottle, she found she was shaking.

They took Jo to a nearby boardinghouse, the two kind strangers who had found her on the riverbank. And there she was shown to a spotless room with a mansard window, overlooking the common beyond the river. Alone at last, she lay down wearily on the bed. Her last thought as she drifted into sleep was of little Will. As he played in the dirt of the castle bailey he had fallen on the ground and grazed his knees. She had to see that someone cleaned them properly and smeared on some antiseptic; the whole place was so filthy...

She awoke the next morning to the smell of frying bacon. Puzzled, she lay staring around her room, looking at the pink chintz curtains blowing at the open window and the pink drapes of an unfamiliar dressing table. Her mind was fuddled with sleep. Slowly she pulled herself into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. She was still fully dressed. Someone had put a tartan blanket over her while she slept. Her bag and typewriter stood on the floor by the door and she could see her car keys on the dressing table. Vaguely she remembered giving her keys to the strangers; they must have collected her things.

The rest of it was coming back to her now too.