Quite a dull piece, this – I confess it. But Anna will have Topaz escaping and being recaptured again and again until I give in and send Cleft to rescue her, so this is a necessary, functional interlude. Still, it’s a good chance to contemplate the turmoil that Topes has unleashed in Cleft’s hitherto hard heart. Just as well he doesn’t go for resourceful types.
Part 28 (by Oliver)
Sun was seeping through the thin curtains of the little inn’s bedroom, tentatively spilling milky light on to the crumpled bed where Cleft lay. He had not slept; his chin was shadowed with four days’ growth of beard and his clothes still lay where he had flung them the night Topaz had fled.
What had she done to him? No woman had ever possessed him as Topaz did. And no woman had questioned his actions as she had. A wrong had been done to the woman he loved; who better than he to avenge it? Calling Reuters had been a kinder course of action than the one he would have preferred – Cleft’s hands clenched involuntarily into fists as he thought about it.
Now he did not know what to do. He was a man of action, in life as in love, and this terrible not knowing had paralysed him. Not sleeping, barely eating, Cleft was merely being, unable to do more until he had Topaz back.
A scuffle at the door, and an envelope slid underneath. Almost reluctantly, Cleft rolled off the bed and picked it up. It was creased and limp, scrawled with a cheap biro and postmarked Spain. Who in Spain could know he was here? Suddenly forceful, Cleft ripped the envelope open and read the torn note within:
‘Dear Cleft, I am being held captive by a Spanish cab driver. A small house on a hill near Paradise Heights. Bring money. Topaz.’
No soft words, just urgency. Yet the ‘dear’ with which the note began smote Cleft as more fulsome tendernesses never had. She needed him now in a way she never had before; and that was all he needed to know.
Swiftly, energetically now that his life had a purpose once more, Cleft packed his few possessions, ran downstairs and flung a bundle of £20 notes on to the reception desk. As he leapt into his jeep he did not see a figure in a car opposite sit up and watch him intently. And as he slid the jeep down the lane, his frenzied mind saw nothing remarkable in the Ford Escort that followed him through the Berkshire countryside and sped behind him as he roared towards Heathrow Airport.
Gosh, that note from Topaz stirred an emotional tumult inside me! How do you manage to capture so much pent-up passion, so much suppressed longing, so much naked human psychology and such raw animal need into two lines!
ReplyDeleteOoooooooooooo, who's following him? Intrigued.
ReplyDelete