The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (35 page)

Lanky simply could not
understand how a bright girl like Ginny could be so stupid. But her
disappointment and frustration were as nothing compared to Leo’s. He had never
made any secret of his admiration for Arthur. When Guinevere broke the news to
him, he was shocked. He begged her to reconsider, but Guinevere would not be
budged. Arthur was not for her, she said, and Leo had no choice but to accept
the inevitable. He knew his daughter, and once she had made up her mind, no
words of his could sway her.

No words. But circumstances
perhaps. Though Guinevere still lived with her father, she did not normally
attend his dinner parties. She was curious, then, when he invited her to one.

‘Any special reason?’

‘I need some young blood. Too many old fogies,
most of them the wrong side of sixty. Will you come?’

‘If you want me to. Will there
be anyone I know?’ ‘Could be,’ he said non-commitally.

Drinks were being served, and
most of the other guests had arrived when in walked Arthur Pendragon. Guinevere
did not know which way to look. What was he doing here? She could only imagine
that her father was promoting Arthur’s political career by inviting a few influential
politicians and businessmen to dinner to meet him. Her dad had told her he was
thinking of standing down as leader, and she had heard talk of Arthur taking
over. All very well, but why was she invited? This was not her scene at all.
She had little interest in politics, as her father well knew. She tried to lose
herself in earnest conversation with an elderly judge whom she had never met
before. Then with a murmured apology she excused herself and rushed blindly
into the arms of the very man she was trying so hard to avoid.

‘Guinevere! What a marvellous
surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here. How are you?’

‘I am well, as you see,’ she
said, her head in a spin. ‘Quite well. Fine, thank you. Very well, in fact. And
you?’

‘Excellent.’ Arthur lowered
his voice discreetly. ‘Who are all these old codgers? This isn’t Leo’s usual
sort of dinner party. We seem to be the only ones under seventy. What’s he up
to?’

‘I was just wondering the same thing myself.’

For a moment or two they
searched each other’s face for an answer, and then, as the light dawned, they
both began to laugh.

It was alright as long as they
were laughing but when they were serious again she was too embarrassed to look
at him. She could not think of anything to say, so she stood with head bowed,
tracing patterns on the carpet with the tips of her shoes like an awkward
teenager. How immature she must seem to him. What must he think of her? Across
the room she directed at her father a look of such concentrated hostility, it
would have bored a hole in an iceberg. Adding insult to injury, he smiled back
at her and waved. She could have killed him. How dare he! How dare he interfere
in her life like this! It was unforgivable. How could he be so insensitive, so
sly? If he had any concern for her feelings, any concern at all, he would at
least have had the decency to prepare her for what was bound to be the most
excruciatingly uncomfortable experience of her whole life.

To her great surprise though,
it was nothing of the kind. Once started, she could hardly stop talking, and
barely addressed a word all evening to anyone but Arthur, forgetting completely
that the man to whom she was so cordially chattering was the same one whose
proposal she had turned down only a month before.

After dinner they had taken a
stroll in the garden, at his suggestion. It had been pleasant, very pleasant.
Indeed if she had found anything in him to criticise, it was his excessively
cheerful manner and lively conversation. Where was the pale and wan lover?
Where the downcast eyes and gloomy expression?

‘It’s so good to see you
again, Guinevere,’ said Arthur as she blushed. Oh Lord, what a ninny she was.
‘You too.’ Here she had taken the opportunity of re-establishing their
relationship on a correct footing, just in case he might be under any
misapprehension. ‘I wouldn’t want to lose your friendship.’

‘Nor I yours,’ he responded.

When all the guests had left
she did not even have the heart to scold her father. What was there to complain
of? Arthur’s conduct had been beyond reproach, he had handled himself like the
gentleman he most assuredly was. That night, being so stimulated, she found it
difficult to sleep. There were, aside from pleasant memories, some rather
puzzling aspects of Arthur’s behaviour that needed thinking about – his whole
attitude towards her, for one thing; he had acted more like a close friend than
a rejected suitor. A lesser man than he might have displayed some resentment,
or at the very least feigned indifference to show how little he cared. But
Arthur had gone out of his way to demonstrate how much he enjoyed her company,
which she found pleasing but at the same time disconcerting.

All in all he had behaved
impeccably, perhaps a shade too impeccably. Did he have to take quite so
readily the hand of friendship she had offered him? Should he not have been
just a trifle listless and melancholy, rather than so very joyful and animated?
Why had he not toyed with his food at the dinner table, instead of eating like
a horse? Could he have fallen out of love so quickly? There was not even the
tiniest hint that he was pining for her. How could he be so fickle! What could
it mean? Should a man as gallant as Arthur not have taken some pains at least
to hint of a broken heart? That at any rate was how it seemed to her. The only
reasonable assumption was that he was not heartbroken at all, and that, being
rejected, he had all too casually abandoned his love for her.

It was, to say the least,
disappointing. How could men be trusted when even the best of them, it seemed,
was so capricious? She could not help questioning whether he had ever loved her
at all, whether indeed at this very minute he might not be complimenting
himself on a lucky escape. In which case, should she not be doing the same?

 Lancelot and Helena had been childhood
friends but had long gone their separate ways, he to the army, she into
modelling. So Helena’s phone-call came out of the blue.

She found it weird to be
sitting across a table from Lance. How long had it been? Eight years? Nine? He
had been a young teenager – fourteen or fifteen – when she last saw him. Now he
was a man, and a very good-looking one. What else about him had changed, she
wondered. Not a lot, it seemed; there was still that aura of melancholy about
him, those brooding eyes, that reluctance to communicate. He had hardly said a
word since they took their seats in the restaurant. Yet Helena knew
instinctively that Lance’s aloof manner was a pose to protect a shy and
vulnerable man.

Whilst they were waiting for
the first course she sipped a glass of wine, and Lancelot, who neither smoked
nor drank alcohol, moved his knife and fork around. She could see he was
searching for something to say.

‘I was ten when we met,’ she
said, prompting him. ‘You must have been twelve.’

‘Were we really that young?’
She smiled. ‘Afraid so.’

She sensed that he was doing
much the same as she was, weighing her up, comparing what she was now and what
he remembered of her. ‘You were pretty good at climbing trees – for a girl.’
Now it was his turn to smile, and when he did, she noticed particularly that
his brown eyes remained strangely sad.

‘As good as you any day.’ They had always been
competitive.

‘You were a real tomboy.’ He made it sound like
a compliment.

Was there a hint of affection too?

Helena remembered wishing she
had been born a boy, so she could always be Lance’s friend. ‘I suppose I was.’

‘Happy days,’ said Lancelot,
for though he would never admit it he had missed Helena dreadfully when her
parents moved from the country to London.

‘Yes, they were.’

He smiled at her, and this
time his eyes lit up. They both relaxed and the ice was finally broken.

‘You mentioned something about
a spot of hot water?’ Lancelot remarked casually over coffee.

She was tempted to run out of
the restaurant. But when she looked up, those dark eyes of his were filled with
such concern that she opened her heart to him. ‘His name is Lambert Harford,’
she began haltingly. ‘I – well, I fell for him.’ She flashed a glance at
Lancelot over her wine glass, but his face was impassive. ‘He took me
everywhere and I was flattered. He introduced me to pot.’ She caught the
fleeting look of disgust on Lancelot’s face. ‘I had never smoked a joint before,’
she said quickly. It seemed important for Lancelot to know that. ‘I thought
what the hell, everyone does it, don’t they?’ She sipped her wine. What must he
think of her? Nothing good, that was for sure.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I’m
listening.’ He spoke gently, not sounding at all judgmental. She was grateful
for that.

‘It wasn’t long before my head
stopped working. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, he’s a photographer –
professional. I let him take photographs. Nude ones.’ She avoided Lance’s eyes,
her hands tightly clasped on the table. ‘It was stupid of me, of course.
Somehow or other he convinced me it would help my career. No, to be honest, it
wasn’t even that. Half the time I was so stoned I didn’t give a damn what I was
doing.’ She blushed. ‘The photographs were what you might call uninhibited, not
pornographic, or anything like that, but not how a girl wants to see herself in
the tabloids either.’

Lancelot could feel the anger
gathering in his chest. ‘Has he sold them to a newspaper?’

‘He says he will if I don’t pay him
twenty-thousand pounds.

I haven’t got that sort of money.’

‘Tell him to publish the photos and be damned.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t
do that. It would be embarrassing for me, and even more for mum and dad. They
would be the ones to suffer most, especially my dad. I would lose modelling
work but that’s the least of it.’ She thumped the table in frustration. ‘I’ve
been such a fool.’

‘I’d like to help if you’ll
let me,’ said Lancelot quietly. He watched her lips set in a stubborn line.
That brought back memories, it was the way she looked when he would try to stop
her climbing a tree.

‘I’m not asking for your help.
It’s just advice I need,’ she insisted. ‘It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it.’
She could see from the way he looked at her that he didn’t believe she could.
‘My credit’s good,’ she explained. ‘I’m sure I can borrow what I need.’

He could have told her it
would be a waste of time and money, because you could never pay off
blackmailers; they always came back for more. What was the use though? It would
be a waste of time arguing with her, she was as obstinate as he was.

So obstinate that it was not
easy to persuade her to go out with him again. He waited for her in the
restaurant. As she sat down, there on the table in front of her was a large
manila envelope. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Prints. Negatives. End of
story.’ Lancelot busied himself with the menu.

Quickly she flipped through
the contents. She knew she ought to be thanking him, when instead she was
tormenting herself with the thought that he must have looked at the photos. Her
face flushed redder by the second.

He cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘He
assured me they were all there.’

She could not look at him.
‘They are.’ He had seen them. He must have done.

‘I had no idea how many he
took,’ he said, reading the menu with the keenest attention, ‘so there was no
point in checking them.’

He was telling her he hadn’t
looked at them. Could it be true? She would not have believed most men but
Lancelot she did, he wouldn’t lie, he would scorn to. She was so grateful she
wanted to throw her arms round him and kiss him. ‘I don’t know how to thank
you. I’m just so relieved. I’m quite overwhelmed. I don’t know what to say. How
did you get them back?’

‘It wasn’t too difficult,’ he
said, making light of it. ‘I phoned Lambert’s studio and said I was coming
round for a chat. He was waiting for me with two friends of his. When I say
friends, I think they were actually professional bouncers. They certainly
looked it. Naturally I warned them I had boxed at Oxford, but for some reason
they seemed to find that amusing, I don’t know why. They became quite
aggressive.’

Her hands were clenched so
tight the knuckles were white. ‘Oh no, Lance. What did you do?’

‘I knocked them out,’ he said,
consulting the wine list. ‘What, all three of them?’

‘Only the two bouncers,’ said
Lancelot. ‘I’m afraid I had to hit them quite hard. Lambert was very
co-operative after that. He produced the photographs almost immediately. Of
course he tried to keep the negatives, but I managed to make him see reason.’

It was all too thrilling and
too wonderful and, yes, too embarrassing for words. She touched his bandaged
hand.

‘A couple of broken fingers,’
he said, drawing his hand away. ‘I never fought without gloves before. Those
men had the hardest jaws.’

It was unbelievable. To think he had done all
this for her! It was so brave of him, so daring, so gallant. It was like having
your very own knight in shining armour! Chivalry was still alive and well. Who
would have thought it in this cynical and disillusioned age? Bending her head,
she kissed his bandaged hand. Impulsively he reached out and touched her face,
though whether it was a sign of affection or a simple acknowledgement of the
kiss was not clear; whichever it was, in the sweet confusion of the moment she
was overcome by an emotion entirely new to her.

Lancelot wanted to ask her out
again, but the incident had left him deeply troubled. Not for the first time in
his young life he had committed the unpardonable sin; he had lost control. The
two men had attacked him without warning, one with a table lamp, the other with
a flick knife. Nevertheless the damage he had inflicted on them worried him. It
was only later he learned that both men had spent several days in hospital with
badly bruised faces, broken jaws and noses, and fractured ribs. No wonder he
had hurt his hand. It shocked him to discover he was capable of such extreme
violence. Even more shocking, he remembered nothing about it. One moment the
two men were advancing on him, the next they were lying unconscious on the
floor, the time between a blank.

Had his mind blocked out an
unpleasant memory? Or was there a more sinister explanation? Was there some
malfunction in his brain creating a rift between thought and action? Again he
asked himself the question that had troubled him so long. Had he inherited some
weakness from his mother?
It
might
not

actually be a physical
problem. Could be some kind of, well,

not
mental
disturbance
exactly,
but
that
sort
of
thing.
He
had so many questions about his mother, and only his father’s stunted answers.
Why had she taken her own life? Everyone who knew them said that she and dad
adored each other. The closest his father had come to an explanation was to
hint that pregnancy sometimes had strange effects on women. Was that the real
reason, or was he hiding something? Was the delicate balance of her mind
disturbed, not temporarily, but permanently? Did that explain those
uncontrollable fits of anger that convulsed him from time to time?

Helena now knew for certain
that she had found the only man she would ever love, and was determined not to
let him get away. Had he not, like the traditional valorous knight of story
books, ridden to the aid of the damsel in distress and rescued her from the
wicked ogre? Such a man was worthy of special effort, and she would not allow
pride to stand in her way. If she wanted to see him again, it was up to her to
make the running. If the knight would not come to the damsel, then the damsel
would have to go to the knight. And so she did. For a time they were
inseparable companions, though nothing more than that.

Ban was delighted. The hooded,
world-weary eyes of Helena’s father, Harold Pemberton, assumed a gentler look.
With what he imagined were subtle hints, he recommended his daughter to find a
nice young fellow and settle down. Helena was only too happy to oblige, if the
right man came along. On that subject, however, there could be no compromise,
for there was now only one right man.

Though it pleased her to think
of Lancelot as the hero of her girlish fantasies, she was not by inclination a
romantic spirit, nor did she aspire – as so many women of her generation did

– to success in some business
or profession. To marry, settle down and have children was what she wanted
above all else. A semi-detached in Battersea would comfortably accommodate her
dreams for the future. But what about Lancelot’s dreams? Would he feel trapped
in her vacuum-packed life? Would he warm to her dull friends? Would he eat dinner
on his knees watching television? Would he walk the dog in the park? Would he
kick a soccer ball with the kids on a Saturday morning? How would he earn a
living? Would he make the army his career, or if not, be a lawyer or an
accountant, or take a job in the city trading equities?

Hard to imagine. Somehow a collar and tie, a
nine-to-five routine and a houseful of children did not seem to be Lancelot’s
cup of tea. She asked herself, could a knight in shining armour ever be
Battersea man? Time alone would tell. Meanwhile, resolved to press matters, she
made it clear to Lancelot that she wanted to go to bed with him.

His reaction took her by
surprise. ‘It may sound silly to you,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think a man and
woman should sleep together until they are married.’

Helena’s eyes grew large. Was
he ending their relationship? Or could it be Lancelot’s way of proposing?
‘Fine,’ she said, a determined look in her eye, ‘let’s get married.’

That he had not expected. ‘I
don’tthink I’m ready for marriage just yet,’ he said, having the grace to look
apologetic.

‘When will you be?’ She knew
it was foolish to try and put him in a corner but she could not help herself.

Lancelot mumbled something
inaudible. ‘What did you say?’

‘In a couple of years . . . or so . . . is what
I said.’

Was he serious? ‘You expect me
to wait two years for sex!’ She made him sound unreasonable, priggish even. It
was, he thought, very unfair of her. What was he to do? He was trapped between
Scylla and Charybdis, either to be drowned in the whirlpool of sex, or
swallowed by the monster of marriage, both terrifying prospects. Yet for all
his reservations and misgivings the inevitable happened. An excellent Italian
meal, a little more red wine than usual, Helena more beautiful than he had ever
seen her, and the two of them fell into bed. The next morning both were
thoughtful and subdued. Everything that had seemed so simple to Helena the
night before was infinitely more complicated the morning after. Last night she
had given herself to the man of her dreams; the question was, whom had she
woken up with? Was this man lying in bed beside her still the man of her
dreams? Or was he just a man she had spent the night with? How could you feel
close to someone when you were not at all sure who they were? This was not
remotely how she had expected to feel.

Lancelot too was far from
happy. Why, lying next to this lovely girl, did he feel intimacy and
estrangement in equal measure? Why was he feeling ashamed of himself? Was it
because he had taken advantage of Helena’s unconditional love? Was it that he
did not appear to feel what a man in love was supposed to feel? Or was it that
he had betrayed his own long-held principles?

It had certainly been
pleasurable, if not the mind-expanding experience he had hoped it would be. In
the morning the mysteries of the universe were still mysteries, and life every
bit as inexplicable as it had been the night before. More depressing still, in
the intimacy of their sexual union he had never felt more isolated. What was he
afraid of? Of feeling too much? Or too little? Lancelot was beginning to fear
that he was destined never to love anyone, or worse, that he was incapable of
loving. Lying next to Helena, the image came to him of another woman, a woman
he would always worship, but had never known. Through a veil of water, his
mother gazed at him with sad eyes.