Home Repairs
Chapter Five: Marred Foundations
by L. Inman
There is no end, but addition: the trailing
Consequence of further days and hours,
While emotion takes to itself the emotionless
Years of living among the breakage
Of what was believed in as the most reliable—
And therefore the fittest for renunciation.
—T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
“I have a gift for
you,” Rupert said, when they were alone in his room at last.
“Oh, Rupert, you shouldn’t have done
that. I didn’t bring anything for you.”
“You did,” he said. “You came here, because I asked you.”
She gave him a grave, arch look, and
moved further into the room.
He went to the armoire and drew out
a box wrapped in silver paper; she went toward him in spite of herself, and he
held it out to her hesitantly, seized by a sudden diffidence. “I hope you like it,” he said. “I wanted you to have something nice.”
He didn’t add, “for once,” or “of
your own,” and Elisabeth was grateful for that alone. She undid the wrapping on the box,
deliberately, and lifted off the lid.
“Oh,” she said, after a few stunned
seconds. She reached in and lifted out
his gift with gentle awe.
It was a kimono of a dusky rose
silk—real silk, her fingers knew by the touch, not what passed for silk these
days—that hung from her fingers like water.
She lay it on the bed and for a long moment feasted her eyes and
fingertips on its opulence.
“You like it,” he said, in a husky
whisper.
She nodded speechlessly; then shot
him a sidelong glance that brought the light into his face.
“Shall I try it on?” she said, with
a quiet smile.
Tucked up in the
darkness of her bed,
Still, it was a relief to have
Elisabeth here: she was now as anxious
to share Giles as she had once been to claim his full attention—what was that
Chinese curse, something about getting what you wish for? She had said, Now I have you all to myself, and the weight of that granted wish
reverberated through her with prophetic doom.
And Elisabeth was making Giles
happy. It hurt to watch, but the part of
Maybe if he wasn’t hurting, she
wouldn’t have to.
Caught up in these thoughts, Willow
did not notice at first the sensations reaching her from across the house: but
the sharp tang that rose on her tongue startled her into awareness, and she
almost sat up in bed with the panic of it.
Of course; that had been the whole
point of her going to bed early. That
had been the whole point of inviting Elisabeth here in the first place. But oh—she had forgotten the mingled heat and
joy, the shining sweetness of it. Willow
burrowed down under the covers and crammed her pillow over her head, but that
was a futile gesture. Every avenue was
pain—breathing life into others’ happiness, far preferable to continuing her
aborted effort to end the world, could only hold up the mirror to her own loss.
Or was she the mirror? Her body seemed to say so.
It took
*
A keen, slanting November rain was falling as Anne Langland peered through her windscreen to find the lane turning for Pyke’s Lea. She had been to the house once before, weathering the discomfort of seeing Rupert and mending fences; she had found the house very pleasing and homeworthy, and this had had the effect of doing away most of Rupert’s hunched mea-culpa demeanor. And she herself had been greatly relieved: the story of the haunting and exorcism had predisposed her to be nervous about setting foot in the place.
Today she was on a happier errand—she was bringing Elisabeth her birthday present, and Elisabeth was going to serve her tea: they had just got the kitchen in operating order. Elisabeth had spent an afternoon at the vicarage a fortnight ago conspicuously not shedding tears about what she called the Plumbing Disaster. They had put it right at great effort and expense, and from things Elisabeth let fall, Anne had found out that Rupert had spent more time than usual at the pub over it.
He had also, she discovered, been fighting with Buffy again. Elisabeth had come home to the flat one day to find him having an unusually acrimonious shouting match with her over the phone. Smacked in the face by the sheer keen bitterness of his voice, she had made an about-face and went to hide herself in her study carrel at Magdalen for the rest of the afternoon. Elisabeth had related this with the same placid air and wry twist of the mouth, giving nothing away.
“But what were they fighting about?” Anne had asked.
“It had really got beyond anything coherent by the time I showed up,” Elisabeth said. “And I didn’t ask him. But I suspect it started because he told her that Robson had contacted him.” Elisabeth explained about Robson and the Council, though much of it Anne already knew.
And I didn’t ask him: that was the telltale sign that made Anne sigh. Developing a maternal instinct over one’s directees was the devil and all. She was just going to go to Pyke’s Lea and have tea with her friend.
The house as she approached it was wrapped in a grey shawl of rain, the brick dark with wet and the smoke from the kitchen chimney swirling down over the gable, pulled down in an embrace with the falling drops. As she set the hand brake and flipped up her hood preparatory to getting out, she saw the door open and Elisabeth appear on the threshold. Anne grabbed her parcel and popped the car door open to dart toward the front walk.
“Oh, gosh. I was just going to get the umbrella for you,” Elisabeth was saying as she gained the front porch. “It’s really started coming down. Tea’s ’bout ready. Mind the paint cans as you come in.”
There were as yet no coathooks or coat-tree, so Elisabeth took Anne’s coat and draped it neatly over the newel-post of the staircase as they went in. Anne retained her parcel; carrying it, she followed Elisabeth into the kitchen, where a small, heavy table waited, set for tea, a beautiful thing amidst a general clutter of paint-chips and folding rulers and wires. Anne set her parcel down on one of the mismatched chairs and took the place at the table Elisabeth showed her.
With an unconscious youthful dexterity Elisabeth plucked the kettle from the stove, filled the warmed teapot and brought the pot to the table. “Help yourself to the cheese and the tarts,” she said, “while this steeps.”
“My goodness.” Anne chose a small wedge of soft cheese, a tart, and a biscuit. “All this wealth you serve me, and it’s your birthday.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Elisabeth said. And indeed, as she lifted the pot to pour a serving of tea into each delicate flowered cup, she looked very pleased.
“Have you any special plans for the day?”
“I believe Rupert plans to take me out to dinner. D’you take sugar?”
“A spoonful, please. I suppose Rupert is working in town?”
“I’m not sure where he is—poncing moodily about somewhere.”
As if on cue, they heard a rattling at the conservatory door; it scraped open, and Rupert’s staccato footsteps tracked them to the kitchen.
“Elisabeth…oh, hallo,” Rupert said. He was wearing paint-stained jeans and equally-paint-stained boots, and the drops on his shapeless canvas coat bore witness to the unrelenting rain. “I forgot you were going to have tea.” His gaze skittered away from them at the table, and lit on the merry blaze in the kitchen fireplace.
“Elisabeth,” he said, looking alarmed, “that chimney hasn’t been swept, you know.”
“Hasn’t it?”
“No. It hasn’t.” He frowned at the flames.
“Oops,” Elisabeth said sheepishly. “Shoulda thought of that.”
He did not say Yes, you should have, but the words rang in the room nevertheless.
“Well,” he grudged, “I expect if it was going to start a fire it’d have done so by now. All the same, I’d bank it if I were you.”
“Good plan.” Elisabeth got up and went to carry it out.
Elisabeth’s swift action made Rupert’s peevish irresolution even more pronounced. “Well,” he stammered finally, “I’m going to go and take care of some things at the flat. Would you mind if I take you with me to the hardware store before we go out? There are some tiles I want you to look at.”
“Certainly,” Elisabeth said, with the utmost docile calm. Her hands did not falter in their task at the fireplace.
Her energy-absorbing opacity seemed to bring Rupert to decision. “Right then, I’ll be off. Good day to you, Mother.” Anne nodded in return. “See you later.”
Elisabeth nodded, and he made good his retreat.
When she returned to the table, Elisabeth allowed herself a small sigh and picked up her cooled tea.
“So that’s what you were telling me about?” Anne asked mildly.
Elisabeth’s lips tightened. “More or less.”
Anne was perfectly willing to let it go. After all, she had come here, and Elisabeth had invited her, to drink tea, eat pretty things, and banter of nothing in particular. But her friend’s eyes were lidded over secret unhappiness, and Anne found herself saying instead:
“Perhaps you’d like to talk about it?”
Slowly, Elisabeth nodded.
*
There had been no open conflict; nor had Elisabeth’s worries that Rupert would not want her to be part of the renovation project materialized. But a persistent uneasiness had wound its way around their works and days like an asp biding its time to strike. Rupert’s non-rhythm of balanced competence and warped despair seemed to go on without reference to Elisabeth’s own; but she suspected they fed on one another nonetheless.
“He’s not used to the way I behave,” she told Anne. “A couple of times he got in a critical mood and I curled into a tight ball. Nobody else he knows does that. They fight back, or get hurt and show it, or take it to heart and make amends. But I don’t. I do what he does: I put up the armor, pretend it’s all right, and seethe with secret resentment.” She heaved a sigh. “The hell of it is, I don’t think it’d be going any better if I behaved more like Buffy.”
“They’re still not getting along?”
“It’s a bristling détente.”
“If you don’t approve of your response to criticism, why don’t you experiment with changing it?”
“Change it?” Elisabeth said, making it almost a cry. “Can the leopard change his spots?”
“One-two-three-where’s-your-breakfast?” Anne said.
“Ha,” Elisabeth said. “If only camouflage was so efficient.”
“But he knows you.”
“Damn it, yes, he knows me.”
“And I doubt,” Anne said gently, “he’s hunting you.”
Elisabeth wasn’t altogether sure of that. There was something he wanted of her, some kind of response she wasn’t giving that he was pushing for. But nothing had taken shape, either on her side or on his, and spats, or sexual passion, provided only a temporary relief.
*
There had been the day they had stripped the old varnish from the floorboards of the front hall. Elisabeth had been fighting a cold, and after a week of wrestling fruitlessly with her thesis she had welcomed the chance to break off and help Rupert with the project. They had been snappish with one another all week, and as far as the house was concerned, the bloom was definitely off the rose: they had passed from excited dreaming to laborious doing, and they had very nearly quarreled over who last had the ring of paint chips. At any rate, Rupert had delivered a stinging rebuke which Elisabeth countered with a caustic denial, and she had indulged in a quiet cry in the back garden. Rupert, that night, indulged in somewhat less salty fluids for comfort. But he had come in late that night, as Elisabeth was trying to read herself to sleep, and sat at her side on the bed. His mute misery, and her own fragility, reminded her of that night long ago in Sunnydale when they had sought awkwardly to comfort one another. “Bloody awful day,” she ventured; for answer he took her hand and stroked it, still silent. And much later that night, when she succumbed to the old nightmare, he curled protectively around her as she fought and wept, and held her close until, needing breath in the stuffy darkness, she arched gently, guiltily away from him and sighed her way back into sleep.
The next day, however, the air had changed. Autumn was beginning to make itself felt in the form of grey, clinging clouds and the occasional shrill gust of wind: the perfect sort of weather for repetitive physical labor. The grey, homely eternity seeped into their pores as they worked; their hands made more sound than their voices, and beneath the rhythm Elisabeth had felt an energy simmering that was not yet, and was not guaranteed to become, a full frisson of feeling.
She wasn’t about to push for it, however.
But at noontime she caught his glance as she stripped off her gloves and wiped at her hands with a rag. A sharp whistle of wind funnelled through the front door and set the newspaper trembling for a brief moment. As she drew up her flannel sleeve to swipe at her nose, Rupert said quietly:
“Do we have time to go back to the flat while this dries?”
“Why do we need to go back to the flat?” she said, pulling out a crumpled tissue to wipe her nose more thoroughly and pretending to ignore the telltale note in his voice.
“Because I want you,” he said simply.
Elisabeth stopped feeling the chill. She nipped a smirk in the bud and repeated, “Why do we need to go back to the flat?”
He lifted his eyes and tipped his head; she could see him suppressing an elated smile. “Well, I neglected to take thought for precautions, you see.”
She retorted, “If it’s contraceptive precautions you’re thinking of, I’ve already taken them.”
His gaze snapped to her face. “What?”
This time she did smirk at him. “You gave me a look this morning that I thought could be interpreted in that direction. Nothing like thinking ahead—or thinking with your head—or thinking with the head on your—” He put his fists on his hips and glared at her, and she desisted with a grin, and went past him to drop the rag in the bucket. As she passed behind him she dealt him a stinging slap on the backside. He jumped.
She missed the bucket with the rag, but before she could bend to pick it up, he captured her hand and began to pull her steadily away after him.
In the hallway he paused. “Where?” he said.
“Study?” she suggested dubiously.
There was not a stick of furniture in the study, but nevertheless he turned and led her at a quick pace to the study door. She thought he was going to draw her inside, but instead he backed her up swiftly against the broad doorjamb and kissed her with force, his long hands cupping her face. Instantly she was alive with heat, as if some unspoken word between them had created her passion by mutual fiat.
Despite his urgency he took his sweet time kissing her before letting his hands drift down to collect her shape and anchor them together against the doorway. Then matters progressed swiftly enough: at the same moment she felt/heard the rasp of his unshaved cheek against hers as he moved his kiss to the hollow behind her jaw, and the unceremonious slither of her jeans down to her ankles. Not to be outdone, she worked clever hands down to his waist, and his jeans soon followed, then his shorts.
His hands were on her bare skin: she felt the angle of his thumb smooth down the inside of her thigh, making her tremble and arch into him. A little growl from him curled into her ear.
She felt his hands sweep down to gather her in from behind, and moved with him, twining her arms up over his shoulders and reclaiming his mouth for a long, savored kiss. He broke the kiss for a concerted effort to lift her up round his waist; the first attempt failed, and for the second she reached up and her fingertips found the carved ledge of the architrave overhead, and clung hard.
It was hard, hot work, pressed between him and the doorway, and desperately uncomfortable: she begged him, “Oh…more—”
And he complied.
If Elisabeth had wanted any proof that the sun had not set on their passion, she could hardly have asked for more than what followed next: every muscle in her body, every fiber of her, was taut and concentrated in a sheen of sweat and pain and need, and he anchored himself hard against her and pressed, gasping, again and again and again—
There followed a confused moment of shaking effort and fumbling grasp; then the hot relief came, and she shut her eyes and breathed out rejoicing. She held him, nearly losing him, with her knees till it was all over. His knees trembling, he let her down and they stood propped up against one another, panting.
With her eyes shut, she slipped her hands around his waist, buried her face against his shirtfront, and held him; and he was quiet. Presently his hand moved, to stroke her mussed hair: a pain of longing rose in her, for the time when the landscape of their love had not been narrowed to such small chinks of tenderness. And yet she was at peace.
It was useless to confront the confusion. She leaned her head back and caught his eye. “All right?” he said softly.
“Very,” she said, and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. He kissed her back; and they turned to clean themselves up and resume their clothing.
They had lingered on the front steps afterward, drinking tea from a thermos and contemplating the wild grey quiet of the country before them.
“Well,” Elisabeth said at length, resting her wrist on updrawn knee and blowing gently across the surface of her steaming tea, “looks like we’ve christened the house.”
He cast his eyelashes down over a grin. “Yes, it appears so. Not precisely the christening I had originally planned.”
“No,” she agreed, deep humor in her voice.
The wind whistled up, and fresh leaves skittered down from the trees in the orchard.
*
“Is Buffy still planning to come to visit?” Anne asked.
“Yes, the plan’s still on,” Elisabeth said, swallowing hard. “The Plumbing Disaster almost finished it, but we convinced Rupert that it’d be good to have Buffy here regardless. We’ve saved some heavy lifting tasks for her,” she said lightly, “and Buffy told me on the phone she’d be glad for a chance at something to do with her hands.”
“I haven’t met her,” Anne said, “but she sounds a very formidable girl.” Anne’s natural sense of formality would have led her to call Buffy “Miss Summers,” but she grasped instinctively that that address didn’t fit this young woman, the last of the singular Slayers. “One girl in every generation,” Rupert had repeated to her once; “she alone will stand against the darkness….” “She does have help,” Anne had said mildly, and Rupert had startled and flushed.
“Are you nervous?” Anne asked now.
“Yes,” Elisabeth said. “Buffy doesn’t much care for me in a general way, you know.”
“I can imagine,” Anne said, regarding Elisabeth with her thoughtful aquiline look.
“And you know it’s bad when she’d rather talk to me than to Rupert. It hasn’t been very much fun.”
“If it promises to be so unpleasant, why have you all been so assiduously pushing the plan through?” Anne asked gently.
“Because it’s the last long shot for peace,” Elisabeth said, simply.
*
The decision to have Buffy out to Pyke’s Lea for an extended
visit was not made in a day. It had
germinated soon after the exorcism, when Rupert had established Andrew in the
Elisabeth had snorted; but this was mostly to stave off tears.
Rupert was
thoughtful on the drive home. He and
Xander had been deep in conversation for most of Xander’s stay, poring over
blueprints and visiting lumberyards.
Elisabeth had been left to entertain Andrew, a task to which she was
quite well suited: by the time Andrew’s abode had been established at
In the car,
riding back to
But the contact with Xander had whetted his appetite to share things with the Scoobies, especially Buffy, and he had, Elisabeth realized, eventually lit upon Andrew as his link with the others—showing Andrew things he was working on in this room or that, explaining where the herbal cupboard was going to go, which swords were going to hang in the back corridor, how the attic pull-door was going to be altered to make the house defensible from above in (God forbid) some unnamed extremity. He knew, and Elisabeth knew he knew, that Andrew would pass everything he heard and saw to Dawn; and Dawn would give a precis of it to Buffy, so that Buffy would know what he was up to without his having to make himself vulnerable enough to explain it. Elisabeth found this arrangement rather discomfiting; but it was better than nothing, and considering how strained Rupert’s conversations with Buffy had grown, she knew it was next to impossible to alter it for the time being.
But Rupert had grown restless with the scheme. It was of a piece, though Elisabeth had not made this explicit even to herself, with his veiled urges to poke her into some unguarded response, even if it meant combat. Rupert wanted insulation; he wanted unmitigated full contact. He wanted to meet people at removes; he wanted to come to grips with them directly. Elisabeth understood instinctively this push-me-pull-you state of his, but that did not make it any more comfortable to live with.
Rupert worked feverishly on his house, and fitfully on the work of the Slayers; occasionally he fell into a dismal lassitude and disappeared off to a pub to drink slow and deep. Elisabeth did nothing to stop him, though she did go so far as to make a secret trip to see the landlord of his favorite haunt, give him her card, and make arrangements for him to bill her should Rupert ever need to be sent home insensible. This had not happened yet, but Elisabeth felt that it was only a matter of time.
Once, alone with Andrew in the house, Elisabeth had stopped work on a wainscot to drop her paintbrush and chuff into helpless sobs; Andrew, looking frightened, had reached out tentatively to give her shoulder many small pats. For once, he asked no questions; Andrew was naïve, but he wasn’t stupid.
It began to look like the house would be partially livable by Christmastime; Rupert’s and Elisabeth’s bedroom was nearly finished, the kitchen and upstairs bathroom had been made quite usable if not sleek and fully fitted; the study floor had been resanded clean enough to move in a desk and a couple of filing cabinets for Rupert to work. It was then that Rupert had casually mentioned to her, one evening when they were resting from their respective labors, flopped comfortably together on Elisabeth’s couch with cups of tea, that he was thinking of having Buffy out to the house when he’d got it livable enough for them all. Elisabeth buried her stinging eyes in her teacup and murmured that she thought it sounded like a wonderful idea. Buffy had been approached, with utmost diplomacy, and to everyone’s relief had readily accepted the idea of spending Christmas at Pyke’s Lea.
Then came the Plumbing Disaster.
“I don’t
know why I even try,” he said miserably, looking down at his half-submerged
boots and holding up his palms, looking much like Moses might have done if the
“Well,” Elisabeth said, surveying the damage while wiping the spatters of slime from her glasses on the tail of her sweatshirt, “it’s certainly set us back about a month. Good thing you hadn’t got the furniture out of storage.”
His answer was a mere grunt.
Elisabeth put her glasses back on and was confronted with a cloudy smear suffocating her vision. “Oh, this is pathetic,” she muttered, and took them off.
He was not looking at her. “Pathetic is the word,” he said, letting his hands drop in disgust. He shifted one foot, sending ripples of water across the soggy carpet, and gave a deep sigh. “Well, I suppose I’d better call Buffy and tell her it’s all off.”
She forgot her glasses and stared at him. “Why?”
“Well, look at this!” He flapped a hand at the mess, his voice shooting up into the Querulous Giles Register. “D’you call this hospitality?”
“I don’t
think it’s as bad as it looks,” she said, rubbing her glasses on her sweatshirt
again. Rupert made an incredulous noise,
but she went on. “I think with a concerted
effort we can at least get a bedroom for Buffy put together within a week of
her arrival, either side. And even if we
can’t, Rupert, the whole point of having her out here is to give her a break
from administrative stuff. You can take
her to
Unlike Elisabeth, he had not bothered with the attempt to clean his glasses, which was probably just as well. He glared at the dripping mess through the specks of slime on his lenses. “A little physical labor,” he said, “not a month of disgusting drudgery.”
Elisabeth’s mouth quirked. “Even a month of disgusting drudgery might do her good.”
He gave her a withering look. “How?”
“Well, I’m no perfect judge, but I think being in a position to offer you some help in the domestic arena might stroke her ego a little bit.” She gave him a dry smile.
“At the expense of mine,” he grumbled; but he made no further protest, and the plans stood.
*
“What’s in the package?” Elisabeth asked now.
“Your birthday present,” Anne said, with an arch smile. “Shall we go somewhere where there’s more light for you to open it?”
Anne was rewarded to see Elisabeth’s face lighten. “Study would be good,” she said, and Anne followed her out of the kitchen, carrying the parcel.
“I wrapped it in brown paper instead of wrapping paper,” Anne said apologetically, as she handed it over by the French doors of the study. “I didn’t want the rain to harm it.”
“I’m very fond of brown paper,” Elisabeth said. “It always reminds me of that Chesterton essay, ‘A Piece of Chalk.’”
Anne laughed, recalling the essay.
She had wrapped it in two layers of brown paper, and Elisabeth chuckled as she removed the second one; but her laughter stilled when she pulled the last layer away and saw what it was.
Anne had been working steadily on the Visitation of St. Elizabeth icon she had begun while Elisabeth was staying at the vicarage in the spring. It had not been Anne’s original plan to give it to her, but the holocaust of Elisabeth’s battle with the First Evil had stayed in Anne’s mind as she worked, until she no longer remembered the point at which she had decided to make a gift of it to Elisabeth.
“I finished it just last week—just in time,” Anne said softly. “It matches you. Prophecy, exultation—pleasure in God’s works—the beginning of a great thing….”
Elisabeth’s mouth was very small and taut at the corners, but she was not crying. She nodded a thank-you.
After a long silence, Anne whispered, “It isn’t just Rupert…is it.”
Elisabeth shook her head, still gazing at the gold and the colors of the icon.
Anne waited.
Finally Elisabeth cleared her throat and spoke. “I don’t think I told you…how I got here.” The words came low and strained. “In my home dimension…I was in an earthquake. My—I don’t know what you call it—astral self was sent here. Rupert worked for a week to find the spell that would send me back. He worked very hard…I was ill and he took care of me. He sheltered me. He did all those things—not because he felt some special pity for me—but—that’s just what you do, on the Hellmouth, and he knew it. His moral compass points true north, you know—that’s why the Council couldn’t handle him.
“He offered…to do what he could for my illness in the meantime. He couldn’t give me therapy or medicine, but he could teach me to meditate.” Elisabeth drew a shivering breath that shook her frame, and went on. “He convinced me to go deep, to uncover what I was protecting. He thought that might help to heal whatever—breaches—were causing the trouble in my mind. We sat alone in a room…and with his voice and a few crystals he guided me under.”
She paused to take a dry swallow. “It was a disaster. I don’t think—I don’t think Rupert ever really got over what it did to me. He blamed himself, of course.” She shivered and drew herself up, as if to face an attacker, and faltered: “What I found, in the deepest place, under everything in me, was….” She stopped.
“‘An horror of great darkness?’” Anne said, quietly.
For the first time Elisabeth looked up, stricken, unable to speak. Finally she nodded, and opened her mouth. New words came, low, quick. “He tried to make me believe—when I was able to tell him what I saw—that it only represented my fear. That that great Nothing was what I feared, not what was. He said, ‘I know you are human.’ I told you that before, I think.”
“And this,” Anne said, “this is what the First Evil was using against you?”
Elisabeth shut her eyes. She did not even need to nod. “It wasn’t a representation of anything. It just was. It just was the Nothing, was the evil. That’s what my soul is made out of. Do you know I cried when I read that Teresa of Avila book you gave me? I went inward, and found not light but darkness—”
“Not your soul, Elisabeth.”
“How do you know that?” Elisabeth opened her eyes to bore into Anne’s own. “How do you know? You weren’t there.”
Anne spoke as gently as she could. “You didn’t go looking for your soul. You went looking for the thing you were protecting. That’s what you found.”
“But it was real.” Elisabeth’s hands gripped the edges of the icon, knuckles paling.
“Of course it was real. Think, Elisabeth. Where do you find the Nothing in the Scriptures?”
She had gone white, but she mustered an answer. “Abraham’s dream?”
“Yes. Where else?”
Elisabeth looked at her, blank with fear.
Anne gave her a small smile. “‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void, and the Spirit hovered over the waters….’”
Elisabeth raised a dubious eyebrow.
“Nothing is the womb of creation,” Anne said, but Elisabeth interrupted.
“It wasn’t a happy place.”
“No; it wouldn’t be. It’s a place of danger and vulnerability. Of course you would have an instinct to protect it. Especially if, as you say, you were divided across dimensions. But it’s not down to you to create something out of nothing. That’s not your job.”
“The First said—” Elisabeth’s voice scratched on the word— “the First said it would make the darkness rise up and take me over.”
“That,” Anne said dryly, “was the sort of clever ruse one might expect—to make you focus on your own vulnerability, rather than the First’s vulnerability.”
“Which is what?” Elisabeth had calmed, but Anne sensed that the anger ran deep: she was still clutching the icon, and her voice was quiet and flat.
“It is also subject to creation.”
There was a long silence while Elisabeth thought it over, her gaze fixed on the empty middle distance. “I want to believe you,” she said softly at last.
“Don’t,” Anne said. “Find out for yourself.”
Elisabeth recoiled visibly. “When you’re ready,” Anne added gently.
Elisabeth’s shoulders lowered, a horizon of misery. “If I were ready now,” she said, “I probably could get rid of the dreams.”
“You’re still having them?”
Elisabeth nodded.
“What does Rupert say about that?”
“He doesn’t know.” Elisabeth looked away.
“Doesn’t know you’re having them? Or—”
“Doesn’t know what they’re about.” Elisabeth’s voice threaded to a whisper.
“Elisabeth,” Anne said gently, “the longer you wait to tell him, the worse—”
“I know.” Elisabeth held the icon close, her face a mask of sorrow. “I know. But I can’t.”
Anne heaved a small sigh.
“I mean, look at him,” Elisabeth said, with a small mordant toss of her head.
It was hard to disagree. “Quite,” Anne said.
“You’ll pray for me, won’t you?” Elisabeth relaxed her hold on the icon to look at it once more, a wistful look softening the bleak lines of her face.
“I always do,” Anne said.
*
“You cleaned up nice,” Elisabeth said, smiling across the table at him.
He raised his eyes from the task of draping his napkin over his lap, caught the pleasure in her face, and relaxed. “So did you,” he said. “Happy birthday.”
She raised her wineglass and gave a flirtatious shy of the head. “I feel so grown up,” she said, playfully. “Candlelight dinner and everything.”
“Were you ever not grown up?” he smiled.
“I’m working my way backwards,” Elisabeth said, and he snorted a laugh.
“How old are you now?”
“Seriously? Thirty-one. Twenty-nine, if I’d been born in this dimension.”
He fixed her with a thoughtful look. “It must be odd, having two ages.”
Elisabeth shrugged. “In the end it doesn’t seem to make much difference.”
He had said
“medium-dressy” in response to her query about the dinner plans, so she had put
on a flowing black dress and topped it with a cream
She reached up a hand to touch it. “It’s growing out. I’ve been thinking of cutting it off.”
An involuntary whimper broke from him, and she smiled. “You like it long?”
He blushed. “Well—it’s your hair, of course. But yes.”
“Rupert,” she said, “I do believe you are a closet romantic.”
“And you,” he replied, “are manifestly beautiful.”
Elisabeth ducked her head, flushing. “My goodness,” she murmured.
“I want you to know,” he went on forcibly, “that I deeply appreciate the way you’ve put up with me these past few months. I know I—”
But Elisabeth was shaking her head vehemently. “There’s no ‘putting up with’ between you and me, Rupert. I don’t believe in it. I abominate mere tolerance,” she said, with a sudden passion that brought a startled look to his face. But the startlement deepened to amazement when she went on: “I love you,” and added, quieter, “I don’t say that lightly.”
“I know you don’t,” he said, after a second of stunned silence. “In fact, I think it’s the first time you have said it.”
It was Elisabeth’s turn to be startled. “Haven’t I?”
He gave a brief shake of the head. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”
“You did know, though, didn’t you?” she said, wide-eyed.
He raised his eyes to hers without lifting his head, and gave a very small smile. “Yes,” he said.
She drew a long breath. “Good. I was worried there for a second.”
“Happy birthday,” Rupert said softly. “I love you too.”
*
They came home that night to a familiar hopeless mess. Months of shoehorning two people’s busy lives into one small flat had resulted in piles of papers and books that had themselves become part of the furnishing, festooned with bits of clothing and the odd uncollected teacup. “Oh, this place needs cleaning,” Elisabeth groaned.
“Better when we can move into the house,” Rupert agreed dismally.
The cat miaowed from his sinuous path round Elisabeth’s ankles. “Don’t rub it in,” Elisabeth said to him.
The answerphone message light was blinking. Rupert went and pressed the play button, and Buffy’s short, peremptory voice filled the room.
“Giles, it’s me. I know it’s late, but I need to talk to you about the Morimoto girl. I’m not getting anything from Faith. I tried your cell but I think you’ve got it turned off. Call me whenever you get in; I’ll be up.” Beep.
Rupert sighed. “I’d better take this. You mind?”
Elisabeth shook her head, and Rupert disappeared into the bedroom, pulling his mobile out of his pocket.
Kicking her shoes off under the lamp-table, Elisabeth dropped onto the couch with a sigh. The cat leapt upon her lap, and she ran a long stroke over his spine and down his tail. “It’s a good thing I’m wearing black,” she told him. For answer the cat stretched forward and sniffed at her nose, then settled down on her lap, purring.
Without upsetting the cat, Elisabeth reached across the couch to draw over her present from Anne. She pulled off the loose brown paper and held it gently, tracing its outlines with her eyes. Anne had done wonderful work: the long lines of the women’s faces and robes spoke simultaneously of suffering and joy, the eyes dark, the gold haloes coruscating from their braided hair.
It’s like you, Anne had said, and, it’s not down to you to make something out of nothing. If only she could trust that. It had been startling to hear Anne voice the shame she’d been hiding, in such a matter-of-fact way: an horror of great darkness. Perhaps this fear inside her was not unique. Perhaps the proof of the pudding was that she had survived.
“Happy birthday to me,” she whispered.
To her relief, as she listened, the timbre of Rupert’s voice in the bedroom did not escalate. The small strain was still there, but he was calm and speaking at a normal deliberate pace. Elisabeth hoped whatever was happening with the Morimoto girl was not too horrific.
Presently Rupert’s voice ended, and after an interval in which she heard the movement of clothing, he opened the door and called softly: “I’m headed for bed. Are you coming?”
“Yeah, just a minute,” she called back.
The cat bounded off her lap, but she paused, still staring at the icon, for a long moment before getting up.
*
His hands were tender, and his voice was deep and ardent, and he was stroking her inside and out, in a rhythm of contact that gathered them both together and flung them into compassless joy, and her hands were buried in his hair, as his had been tangled in hers when she took it down, and she was naked and unafraid.
But when sleep rang down darkness on her consciousness, she stifled and struggled, and the old dream came again, and his hands were hard and unmerciful and his voice was despairing venom, and her own darkness was roaring in her ears and she couldn’t stop it—
“It’s all right, love. It’s all right. It’s just that bloody dream again. You’ll be all right in a moment.” Rupert was murmuring to her, and his hands were gentle once more.
She choked on a dry sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” Rupert whispered soothingly.
“Yes I do,” Elisabeth sobbed.
She was still naked, and so was he: his skin was warm, hers cold. He gathered her in from behind and limned his body to hers, and stroked her long hair back from her face, over and over.
She was so tired—so tired; it was easy to give in and let him comfort her, so easy to let him soothe the fear away with his voice.
“I have to tell you—” she mumbled.
“Mm?” He had not understood her. Had she been incoherent on purpose?
Her shivering was subsiding; his hand stroking down her arm. “You can sleep again now,” he said softly. “You’re all right.”
Elisabeth acquiesced, and breathed out, and returned to sleep.
*