The Yuletide Child

Their mouths clung; she felt heat deep inside her body. It was the first time in her entire life that she had ever wanted a man like that.

A week later they got engaged. The wedding was fixed for a month after that, although her father almost had kittens when she said she was planning to marry so quickly. Her mother would have been dead for two years that spring; it seemed longer. Dylan still missed her and wished she could talk to her about Ross, about getting married. Ingrid Adams had been fifty the year she’d died of cancer, after a mercifully short illness. Dylan’s father, Joe Adams, still hadn’t quite got over it, and was unable to cope with organising a wedding.

‘There isn’t time! You can’t arrange a wedding this soon!’ he said to her helplessly. ‘Why not wait a few months, give yourself time to think, time for us to organise everything?’

‘We don’t want to wait. We just want to get married!’

He looked at her sister, Jenny, throwing up his hands in despair. Jenny tried to argue her out of being in such a hurry, too, but gave up when she realized Dylan simply was not listening.

Michael was worse. Michael went crazy, white and shaking, his eyes black holes in his head. ‘You can’t do this to me—you can’t chuck everything away. For pity’s sake, Dylan, it’s just infatuation. Sleep with him, but don’t marry him. How can you go on with your career if you live at the back of beyond? You have to be in London to dance.’

‘I’m sorry, Michael,’ was all she could say, almost in tears herself, because she hated quarrelling with him. She felt guilty because what he had said was true. She wasn’t just getting married. She was giving up her career. She was walking away from Michael and everything they had built up together.

‘My contract ends this month; I’m not signing up again.’ Their season ended, too, at the same time; they would have gone into rehearsal for a month, then gone on a protracted tour of the States before returning in the autumn to open a new season here in London. Now Michael would be doing all that without her.

Michael grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hoarsely shouting. ‘I won’t let you do it! What about me? What am I supposed to do? I can’t dance without you.’

He made her nervous, but she lifted her chin to stare back at him defiantly. ‘I’m sorry, Michael. Don’t be so angry. I know it’s going to be a problem, but it will be a challenge, too—can’t you see that? You’ll find a new partner; they’ll queue up for the chance to dance with you, you know that. I’m not unique. You’ll find someone else, just as good, probably even better, and go on to even greater heights.’

His face was stormy, full of bitterness. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re a great dancer, arguably the best of our generation...you can’t throw it all away on this stupid, ordinary, boring guy. My God, Dylan—he’s nobody. He doesn’t even understand what you are, how wonderful you are. He knows nothing about ballet. He is destroying a great dancer without even knowing what a great dancer is!’

Helplessly she pleaded for him to understand, her voice shaking ‘Michael, try to see it from our side—he loves me: we love each other.’

‘Stop saying that—I just told you, it won’t last for ever, it never does. Use your brain, Dylan. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re possessed...out of your mind, crazy.’

She laughed nervously. ‘Maybe I am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I am being driven, Michael. I can’t think of anything else but Ross. If I stayed on in the ballet I’d be worse than useless. It doesn’t seem important any more. I no longer want to dance.’

He looked as shocked as if she had hit him in the face. ‘You can’t be serious. I’d rather see you dead at my feet than let you stop dancing. The idea is unthinkable. You were born to dance, and I won’t let you stop, do you hear me? You aren’t going to do it!’

‘Yes, I am, Michael.’

It went on day after day, all the same arguments, the same pleas and angry protests, until her wedding day.

Michael’s bitterness and rage made life impossible in the theatre during that month but Dylan rode the storm somehow, her mind entirely set on the moment when she would become Ross’s wife. Michael was right—she was possessed, nothing else mattered to her, she was being carried away by an instinct older than time. She wanted to sleep in Ross’s bed every night, bear his children, spend her life with him. The life force had her in its grip and her career no longer mattered a damn. She found rehearsing tiring; the nightly performances passed in a vague dream. She was no longer part of the company. In her own mind she had already left, although her body went on performing.

She hadn’t believed Michael would come to the wedding, but he did, glowering darkly from his seat in the church. His friends, the company, all the dancers they had been to school with, were on his side, their eyes accusing her of treachery, betrayal. How could she do this to him? they silently asked, those eyes.

Afterwards, at the reception, he walked up to Dylan in her white dress and veil. She stiffened, afraid of what he might do next, but all he did was take her hands and kiss them lingeringly, the backs and then the pale pink palms.

‘I’m not saying goodbye. You’ll be back. You can’t exist away from us. When the madness passes, you’ll come back to me.’

‘Don’t hold your breath, Carossi!’ Ross snapped, tense as a drawn bow beside her, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her close to him.

Michael ignored him as if he was invisible. Dylan watched him walk away, sadness welling up inside her. Ever since they’d first met at ballet school they had been so close, almost one person instead of two; it was hard to say goodbye, harder to think of life without him.

She and Ross left for their honeymoon a few minutes later. They flew to Italy and spent two weeks at a small hotel in the Tuscan hills, making love day and night with a passion that excluded everyone and everything else, although they managed to spend a day at Venice and another at Florence. Dylan remembered both days like waking dreams: she and Ross wandered together, entranced, through the cities, looking at each other, not the beautiful buildings, the River Arno, the Grand Canal, the famous paintings, the statues in the narrow, old streets of both those ancient and exquisite cities. They were merely the background of the happiness Dylan and Ross shared, like painted designs on a stage backcloth.

After their honeymoon Ross took her up north to the house they were going to share, and for the first time she saw his forest, the ranked dark green of the conifers, the scent of pine, the darkness in the heart of the trees. There was no other house in sight. There was very little traffic; few cars ever passed along that narrow road.

Dylan was a city girl, used to the busy streets of London, the noise and fumes, the roofs crowding the skyline, other people everywhere. Even during their honeymoon there had always been crowds circling them. Now they were alone, in a haunted landscape.

This was the first moment she felt a stirring of doubt, a sense of panic. She had married Ross without stopping to think about what she was throwing away, leaving behind; the city she had lived in all her life, the pleasure and pain of dancing, the companionship of the ballet company, the partnership with Michael which had been her life for years.

From her first sight of Ross none of that had seemed to matter any more. She had become a driven creature, only knowing she needed this man more than breath itself. Love had not so much obsessed her as consumed her, taken over her whole life.

Now she was alone with Ross and his forest, facing the consequences of her marriage, looking down into the deep abyss between her past and her future, the life she had led and the life she would lead in future. Standing at the window of their bedroom, looking out, she saw nothing but trees and sky, heard only the wind moving the branches, the sigh and whisper of the forest, and fear prickled under her skin.

What had she done?

CHAPTER TWO

AND then Ross came up behind her, put his arms around her waist and kissed her softly on the side of her neck. Dylan leaned back against him, sighing with pleasure, pushing away her moment of doubt and uncertainty. She loved him more than she had ever loved anything or anyone else before. Whatever she had had to give up weighed very little in the scales against having Ross.

‘Come and meet my trees,’ he whispered.

He always talked about them as if they were human, had feelings, could hear what he said to them and even answered him in their own way. Dylan smiled, touched by that, by his passionate commitment to his work That was what she wanted from him—that deep, unfaltering love. She wanted to give as much back, too.

‘I’m dying to!’ she assured him.

His smile of pleasure made her heart lift. He wanted her to share his feelings about the forest. Dylan wanted to be part of every aspect of his life. Wasn’t that what marriage meant? Sharing everything, becoming one flesh, one heart, one mind?

The unforgettable scent of pine met them as soon as they walked through the gate in their garden hedge into the forest. Ferns brushed their legs, flies and midges buzzed them, powdery-winged brown and blue butterflies hovered over spring flowers in the long grass at the forest rim. Under their feet was the crunch of pine needles. Sunlight laid out needle-fine paths in front of them under the fir trees until they faded into darkness.

As the shadows around them deepened Dylan couldn’t help shivering. ‘It’s quite cold in here, isn’t it?’

She was wearing jeans and a light pink shirt, over which she wore a denim waistcoat but no jacket because the weather was warm for late March, so long as you were out in the sunlight. Once they were deep into the forest, though, the sun didn’t penetrate the closely set trees and her skin had chilled rapidly.

Ross gave her a quick look, then took off his tweed jacket and put it round her shoulders. ‘Better?’

She snuggled into the warmth from his body which the tweed retained along with his own particular body scent. ‘That’s lovely. But I don’t want you to get cold. Maybe we should go back?’

‘Oh, I’m used to working out here in all weathers; I never feel the cold.’ He took her hand. ‘Come on, I want to show you something.’

She had to move quickly to keep up with his long-legged stride. The tall pines stretched all around them now; they were deep into the forest, with very little light to show them where they were going, and Dylan was oddly afraid of the pressing tree trunks, the shadows, the cool, pine-scented air.

All the forests and woods she had ever known had had broadleaf trees, oak and hornbeam, beech and ash, which shed their leaves in autumn and did not grow too close together, so that open glades stretched in places, full of light and giving space for wild flowers and tussocks of long grass. She had never been nervous in those woods, but she was nervous now.

At last Ross stopped moving and put a finger to his lips, whispering to her, ‘Keep very still. Look...there...’ He pointed to a tree a few feet away.

Obediently not moving, Dylan peered, but at first could not see anything interesting. Then there was a shirr of wings, a flash of gold and cream. A tiny bird flew up to a branch of the conifer and perched on a web of ivy. A second later Dylan spotted a basket-shape hanging there; the little bird disappeared into it.

Looking up at Ross, she silently shaped the word ‘nest’.

He nodded. ‘A goldcrest’s nest,’ he whispered, so softly she could only just hear him.

The bird flew out and vanished among the trees, and Ross said very quietly, ‘The nest is made of moss—isn’t it clever, the way it’s made? She must have fledglings. We often get goldcrests here; they feed on insects which live on conifers, breed in the bark—beetles and flies, for instance—not many birds live among fir trees, but it’s a habitat that agrees with goldcrests.’

‘I’ve never seen a goldcrest before,’ she said wonderingly. ‘It’s such a wonderful colour.’

‘No, you wouldn’t have—they aren’t city birds.’

‘I wish I could see the fledglings. Do you know, I’ve never seen a bird’s nest? If I’d had a brother I might have done, but there was just me and Jenny and we never went bird-nesting.’

‘I’m glad to hear it—these days it’s very frowned on. You’re encouraged to use binoculars and watch a nest, never to interfere with it, and certainly never to remove eggs.’

‘Do people still do that?’

‘Unfortunately, yes. Some collectors have no conscience. Luckily, that tree is far too high to climb. Goldcrests aren’t common birds; we have to protect them.’ Glancing at his watch, he said, ‘Look at the time! We’ve been in here nearly an hour. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself? We’d better start walking back.’

Dylan was relieved to see the sunlit edge of the forest reappearing. There was something disturbing about the deep interior of the forest; it was so silent and full of shadows, making the skin on the back of her neck creep. She couldn’t say why, except that, perhaps, she knew so little about the natural world. She had lived in a great city all her life. She had a lot to learn.

Just before they left the forest something red flashed up a tree, making her jump and stand still, staring upward.

‘What was that?’

‘A red squirrel,’ Ross said casually.

Her eyes widened. ‘Red? I’ve never seen a red one; in London we only have grey squirrels.’ She stood staring up the tree; the squirrel peered down at her, its bushy tail flicking to and fro. ‘Will it come if I feed it some nuts? There were squirrels in the park near where I lived which came right up to you and took nuts from your hand.’

‘They were semi-tame—this is a wild squirrel,’ Ross told her. ‘It might run down and snatch nuts if you threw them and stayed back, but it wouldn’t eat out of your hand.’

As they finally left the forest, coming out into the sunlight, she asked him, ‘Have you got any books I could read? On the forest?’

‘I’ll find one for you,’ Ross promised. ‘And this evening, after supper, we’ll take another walk. I’ll show you the moths; they are really something! The forest is very different at night.’

Dylan hoped he didn’t notice the atavistic shudder running through her at the idea of going into the forest in the dark. Smiling bravely, she said, ‘Wonderful, I’ll look forward to that.’ Somehow she had to learn to love the forest for his sake.

They never got very far among the trees that night, though. Before they had gone more than a few steps Dylan felt something scuttle across her face and screamed, frantically brushing her skin to get rid of whatever it was.

Ross had a torch in one hand; he switched it on and turned it on her, blinding her. ‘Stand still. Oh, it’s just a spider.’ He flicked one finger. ‘There, it’s gone. It was a wolf spider.’

Shuddering, she said, ‘A wolf spider? Why is it called that? Does it bite?’

Ross switched off his torch and put both arms round her, pulling her close to him, kissing her hair. ‘Of course not. Are you scared of spiders? There’s no need to be; there are no poisonous spiders in Britain. Wolf spiders hunt their prey instead of just sitting in a web waiting for it. And they eat other insects, not people!’

‘How was I to know that? I’m not up on spiders.’ She tried to laugh, lifting her face, and saw his eyes gleaming in the shadows. ‘Even you seem strange,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know you out here, in the dark.’

‘Then I’ll have to remind you who I am,’ he murmured thickly, his head coming down.

His mouth blotted out memory. She was lost at once, kissing him back passionately, her knees giving. Sliding her arms around his neck, she held him tightly, pressing closer, her body moulding itself to his.

Ross pulled her down into the long, whispering ferns and grass, the scent of the earth and the pines making her head swim. Without breaking off their kiss, they hurriedly began undressing each other with shaky hands. Dylan buried her flushed, feverish face in his naked chest, groaning with desire, her lips open on his skin.

‘I want you so much.’

‘Not as much as I want you,’ he muttered, sliding on top of her, and her breath exhaled in a strangled gasp as he parted her thighs.

‘Darling...oh, darling...’

Her arms around his back, she caught him between her thighs, arching up to meet that first, deep thrust. The need intensified into a frenzy as they moved together, their bodies totally entwined, riding fiercely towards the same intense pleasure.

Their deep moans of satisfaction floated up between the trees into the dark night sky. Afterwards they lay sleepily on their crushed bed of fern, still closely twined, his arm under her, her leg curled across him, staring up into the shadows where pale moths flitted, glistening with powdered wings.

‘I love your moths,’ she whispered, drowsily wondering how she could ever have felt uncertain about having married him. She had never been so happy in her entire life. It would be wonderful to sleep out here all night, naked in this forest, under the stars and moon, with the scents and sounds of the earth all around them.

Next day he was up at first light while she was still asleep. He woke her with a cup of tea and a slice of buttered toast before he left for work. Drowsily, she blinked up at him, sunlight on her lashes.

He groaned, bending to kiss the warm valley between her breasts. ‘I wish I didn’t have to go to work. You’re far too tempting in that nightie. Even sexier without it, of course.’ He pushed the deep lace neckline aside and buried his face against her breasts. ‘Mmm...you smell of honey and flowers.’

She stroked his dark hair, ran her fingertips into it, caressed the nape of his neck.

‘Get back in bed, Ross, I want you.’ She pulled him down closer and he laughed throatily.

‘I wish I could, believe me—but I can’t. We’re back in the real world and I have a job to do.’ Straightening, he sighed. ‘Got to go, darling. I can’t be sure what time I’ll be back, but there’s plenty of food in the freezer and the fridge. You’ve got my mobile number if you need me. I’ll have to take the car—I’ll need it to get from one part of the forest to another, with all my equipment and tools—but if you want to go into the village it’s only a couple of miles to walk, or you can get a lift there with the postman if he comes today. He often gives people lifts. Then you’ll only have the walk back to face.’

The distance didn’t bother her; she would enjoy a walk. ‘The exercise will be good for me. I don’t want to lose muscle tone. I have to keep supple, and walking is a very good way of doing that.’

‘I’ll help you keep supple—I can think of some very enjoyable exercises to do every night.’

She giggled. ‘I bet you can.’

‘When did you say your brother-in-law was going to deliver that object you call a car up here?’

‘Don’t make fun of my flower wagon! I love it. It may not go very fast but it is reliable, and it’s a thing of beauty! A one-off, unique. People always stare when I go by in it.’

‘I bet they do,’ Ross said curtly.

She had bought it secondhand from a car auction two years ago: a Mini car painted a metallic green. Michael had transformed it over a couple of weekends, painting a jungle all over it—palms and huge, exotic tropical flowers in extraordinary colours.

‘Phil hopes to bring it up here next weekend. He can’t get the time off during the week. He’ll have to take the train to London to pick up my car, then drive it up here and take the train back home to Penrith. It’s a long journey; it’s very good of Phil to offer to do it.’

Ross nodded. ‘Nice guy, Phil. I liked him.’

The emphasis reminded her that he did not like Michael, and never would. She suppressed a faint sigh. If only they could be friends. They were the two most important men in her life and she hated knowing that they resented each other.

‘And your sister’s nearly as gorgeous as you are,’ Ross added, smiling, then looked at his watch. ‘Must rush. See you, darling. Oh, and I left a couple of books on the forest for you, on the kitchen table.’

It was her first day alone in the house. She got up after she had finished her toast and tea, showered and dressed in jeans and a loose dark pink shirt, then sat down at the kitchen table and worked out a daily schedule for her housework. She had learned discipline in ballet school; you had to be organised or you got nowhere.

After making their bed and tidying the bedroom and all the rooms downstairs she went out into the garden to gather vegetables for supper. She would make a vegetable casserole, she decided, a layered dish of thick slices of carrots, potatoes, onions, parsnips, turnips and young broad beans. It was a meal she had often cooked before, in London, but there she had used vegetables from a nearby street market. They had not been as fresh as the ones she was picking from Ross’s neat, straight rows.

When it was nearly cooked she would stir in tomatoes and mushrooms and sprinkle the top with mixed fresh breadcrumbs and grated cheese to make a crunchy gold topping. She would serve lamb with it for Ross, but she, herself, would only eat the vegetable casserole. As well as exercising daily she would need to diet. For years she had been working out for hours every day, using up a lot of calories and energy. Now that she had stopped she would put on weight if she didn’t watch it.

Looking at her watch, she was shaken to see that it was only eleven! The day was dragging. What if Ross didn’t get back until six or seven? How was she going to cope with such long days alone, with nothing to do and nobody to talk to?

She left the trug of vegetables on the draining board, to wash later, and made some black coffee. While she drank a cup she sat down at the kitchen table and opened one of the books Ross had left her. It was easier to read than she had been afraid it would be—almost every page had a coloured picture on it and the text was direct and simple. She started with a section on the wildlife of a conifer forest, and read for twenty minutes with deep interest until she suddenly heard Ross’s voice outside.

Dropping the book, she rushed to open the front door, then stopped dead as she realised he was not alone. There was a woman in his arms.

Shocked, Dylan froze, staring—who on earth was she? Someone very sophisticated, with blonde hair the colour of a new-hatched chick and a figure with more curves than a switchback ride. Her high, round breasts were shown off by a tight white sweater which clung to every seductive inch, her slim waist was cinched by a black leather belt, and she had very long legs in tight jeans.

Ross turned to smile, his manner unworried and confident. ‘Dylan, this is Suzy Hale. She’s Alan’s wife—I’ve told you about him, one of my colleagues and a very good friend of mine—they live ten miles off. She’s come along to introduce herself and invite us both over for dinner, next week. Isn’t that nice of her?’

Dylan barely heard half he said. She was too busy noticing the smear of bright red lipstick on the corner of his mouth. Did he always kiss his best friend’s wife on the lips?

Somehow, though, she managed a smile and murmured, ‘That would be lovely.’

The blonde slid out of Ross’s grasp and came towards her, holding out her hand, the fingers tipped with bright red nail varnish that matched her lipstick.

‘Hi, Dylan, welcome to the back of beyond!’ Her fingers were firm and warm and her smile was so friendly Dylan couldn’t help smiling back.

‘That’s a London accent, isn’t it?’

The other woman laughed, her head flung back. ‘Well spotted! I was born in Finchley, lived there for years. Bit of a culture shock, this place, isn’t it, to a Londoner? How is the old place? I bet you’re missing it already! I know I do. I rarely get a chance to go there since my family moved to Wales. My brother got a job in a hospital in Cardiff; he’s a physiotherapist. Our parents decided to go, too. My father came from Cardiff originally, so they were keen to go back there. Now I have to stay in a hotel if I go to London, and, as you know only too well, London hotels cost an arm and a leg. But then everything in London is expensive, and on Alan’s salary we can’t afford to spend money like a drunken sailor.’ Dylan was dazed by the speed at which the other woman talked. Scarcely drawing breath, Suzy went on, ‘Ross says you were a ballet dancer—I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never ever seen ballet. The only dancing I ever did was at a rave. I’m not an intellectual, I’m afraid.’ She turned a laughing face at Ross. ‘And 1 can’t believe Ross went to the ballet! Buy the ticket by mistake, did you, Ross? Thought you’d be seeing something like the Folies Bergère?’