no idea how I feel,” he said succinctly. “I’m different. Different, do you understand?”
“I’ve been different since I was born, sir. I can understand you, believe me,” I weakly defended myself.
He tried to catch my gaze, but I didn’t allow him.
There was a knock on the door, and I welcomed Kyle’s arrival, who walked in with a blank expression.
“Do you need me, Mr Mc Laine?”
The writer made a gesture of anger. “Where have you been, you lazy bum?”
A flash of rebellion flickered in the assistant’s eyes, but he didn’t comment.
“Wait for me in the study, Miss Bruno,” Mc Laine told me, his voice still trembling with repressed violence.
I didn’t look back as I left.
Chapter four
Several days passed before I managed to recover the initial alchemy with the owner of Midnight Rose.
I avoided Kyle like a plague, to discourage even the slightest hope he might have. His greedy eyes always sought to capture mine, every time he met me. But I kept him at arm’s length, hoping that it would be enough to dissuade him from trying new, unpleasant approaches.
On the other hand, I began to appreciate Mrs Mc Millian’s company. She was a smart woman, not a busybody as I had mistakenly judged her at first. She was totally loyal toward Mr Mc Laine, and this quality brought us very close. I carried out my duties with a passionate diligence, glad to be able, at least in part, to take some weight off his shoulders. I missed our arguments, and my heart threatened to explode when they resumed.
They started again unexpectedly, as they had the first time.
“Damn!”
I abruptly lifted my head, as I leaned over some of the documents I was rearranging. His eyes were closed, and he had a vulnerable expression on his boyish face that stirred me.
“Are you all right?”
His gaze was very cold, and I almost regretted that he had reopened his eyes.
“It's my damn publisher,” he explained, waving a sheet. The letter had arrived with the morning mail and I hadn’t paid attention to it. It was my duty to sort through the mail, and I regretted not having given it to him sooner. Maybe he was angry with me for having missed an important letter. His next words revealed the mystery.
“I wish I had never received this letter,” he said disgustedly. “He demands that I send him the rest of the manuscript.”
My silence seemed to fuel his fury. “And I have no other chapters to send him.”
“I’ve seen you write for days” I dared to say, puzzled.
“I’ve been writing crap for days, and I threw it all in there,” he pointed to the fireplace.
I’d noticed that the fire had been lit the previous day, and it surprised me, considering the summer temperatures, but I didn’t ask for explanations.
“Try speaking to your publisher. Do you want me to phone him?” I suggested quickly. “I'm sure he'll understand...”
He broke me off, shaking his hand sharply, as if trying to shoo a fly away. “He’ll understand what? That I’m in the middle of a creative crisis? That I’m experiencing the classic writer’s block?” His mocking smile made my heart beat fast, as though he had stroked it.
He threw the letter on the desk. “The book isn’t moving forward. For the first time in my career I seem to have nothing to write, I feel as though I’ve exhausted my flair.”
“Then do something else,” I said impulsively.
He looked at me as if I were mad. “Sorry?”
“Take a break, just to understand what's going on,” I explained frantically.
“And what should I do? Go jogging? Take a car ride? Or play a tennis match?” The sarcasm in his voice was so sharp it tore me up. I could almost feel the sticky heat of the blood flowing from my wounds.
“There are not only physical hobbies,” I said, bending my head. “You could listen to some music, maybe. Or read something.”
Now, he would probably get rid of me in a flash, like the person who had suggested the worst nonsense in history. Instead, his eyes were alert, focused on me.
“Music. That’s not a bad idea. I don’t have anything else to do, do I?” He pointed to a record player on the top of the library. “Go get it, please.”
I climbed on the chair and pulled it down, admiring its details at the same time. “It's magnificent. It’s an original, isn’t it?”
He nodded as I placed it on the desk. “I've always loved antiques, although this is a bit more modern. In the red box you’ll find some vinyl records.”
I stopped in front of the bookcase, my arms hanging along my hips. There were two dark boxes of similar size on the same shelf on which the record player had been. I passed my tongue over my dry lips, my throat parched.
He called me impatiently. “Move it, Miss Bruno. I know I'm not going anywhere, but that doesn’t justify your slowness. What are you? A turtle? Or did Kyle give you lessons?”
I would never get used to his sarcasm, I thought angrily, as I made a hasty decision. The time had come: should I confess my peculiar anomaly, or take the easy way out, as I had always done in the past? Such as grabbing a random box and hoping it would be the right one? I couldn’t open them first to spy the contents; they were both closed with large pieces of tape. At the thought of the terrifying jokes I would have had to endure if I had told him the truth, I made my decision. I got up on the chair and pulled down a box. I put it on his desk without looking at him.
I heard him rummaging in it silently. Surprisingly, it was the right one. And I started breathing again.
“Here it is.” He handed me a record. It was Debussy.
“Why him?” I asked.
“Because I've re-evaluated Debussy since I’ve known that your name was chosen as a tribute to him.”
The primitive simplicity of his answer left me breathless, my heart full of hopes that hurt like thorns. Because they were too good to be true.
I didn’t know how to dream. Perhaps because my mind had already understood at birth what my heart refused to do. Namely, that dreams never come true. Not mine, at least.
The music started, and invaded the room. First gently, then more vigorously, up into an exciting, seductive crescendo.
Mr Mc Laine closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, absorbing the rhythm, making it his, snatching it in an authorized theft.
I looked at him, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see me. At that moment he seemed tremendously young and fragile, as if a mere gust of wind could take him away. I also closed my eyes to that scandalous and ridiculous thought. He wasn’t mine. He never would have been. Wheelchair or not. The sooner I realized that, the sooner I would have gotten my common sense back, my comforting acquiescence, and my mental balance. I couldn’t jeopardize the cage I had deliberately locked myself into, risking to suffer terribly for a simple fantasy, an impossible dream, worthy of a teenager.
The music ended, passionate and inebriating.
We re-opened our eyes at the same time. His had resumed their usual coldness. Mine were shadowed and dreamy.
“I’ll never finish the book at this rate,” he decreed. “Get rid of the record player, Melisande. I want to write a little, or rather, rewrite everything.”
He gave me a brilliant smile. “The idea of the music was brilliant. Thank you.”
“You’re