What the Heart Keeps (35 page)

“
I hope so,” he whispered, moving his lips onto hers and beginning to caress her breasts with a delicious gentleness that was almost unbearable to her. The errant shoulders of her still unfastened dress were drawn down again, and his kisses, slow and subtle and warm with love, passed with it, bringing all her long yearning for him into full flood. She could no more have held back than she could have halted the flames consuming the forest. It was to her as if she had been snatched from death into this haven with the man she loved, a small capsule of time having been specially created for the two of them with all else shut out by the monstrous fire that had lost its power to terrify her.

They
undressed each other with tender exploration, she becoming as familiar with his body as he with hers. Their ardent kisses and trailing fingertips and sweet fondling punctuated their love-whispers with sighs of pleasure. Blissful tears trickled from the corners of her eyes when he enfolded her thighs to press a kiss against her that held all the homage of an adoring man for his woman’s ultimate perfection. Quite simultaneously, a kind of wildness entered into their passion as if there was the fear that all they meant to each other could never be assuaged, but when the moment of their belonging came she saw in his eyes, as he saw in hers, a look of pure unbridled joy that nothing had ever surpassed this time in the whole of their lives. He thrust deeper into her and wave after wave of ecstasy broke over her, drawing her still further with him into the realms of lasting love.

Night
fell but there was no darkness except for the wind-blown pall of smoke; the sky was filled with a red-gold glow as if a sunset had been permanently ensnared, and the lake all around them held the same liquid colour. They slept wrapped in each other’s arms, legs entwined, and then stirred to make love again, sometimes gently, at others with overwhelming passion, but always with some new caress, or touch, or movement to extend their growing experience of shared joys and pleasures that were entirely their own. The pattern of these secret happinesses continued throughout the ensuing hours. Neither had ever felt more loved.

Not
long after dawn they became aware of a curious stillness. He folded back the blankets overhead and they raised themselves up to look out. The rising sun shone warm and beatifically upon their shoulders. The wind had dropped completely. The air was almost hushed, although the aroma of charred wood was still all pervading. The smoke was rising straight upwards from smouldering clumps and from the small pockets of flickering fire still in possession of the split stumps of fallen trees, which lay at angles everywhere like a scattered profusion of giant charcoal matches. She gazed around as if scarcely able to believe that this encircling scene of destruction had once been that of a beautiful forest. Peter’s horse stood forlornly on a sandy spit where doubtless the first retreat of the flames had begun some hours before.

“
We have to wait awhile yet,” Peter said, drawing her down again. He possessed her for the last time in the boat that was now sun-filled, their limbs agleam in the radiance, her tumbled hair full of golden lights. The bitter-sweetness of their fading idyll gave a wondrous intensity to the final union of his flesh with hers. They remained in soft kissing, his lips on her mouth, her throat and her eyes, before reluctantly they drew apart, her arms loosening a loving hold about him.

Afterwards
they bathed in the lake, since the boat had drifted into shallow water, and he cleared a space amid the charred debris that floated there. They returned to the boat to dress. She put on her one surviving stocking. He fastened the buttons down the back of her dress, kissing her spine between each one as if he would have turned the clock back if it had been possible. She could not pin up her hair, for the pins lay somewhere amid the ashes of a burnt-out cabin, but she tidied it as best she could. Lastly she tied it back with a piece of cord that Peter found for her among some fishing tackle in the bow.

They
sat holding hands in the boat. She was quiet and preoccupied. Questions and explanations lay ahead of her when it was safe to go ashore. Not for a moment did she expect to find herself pregnant as a result of their mutual passion, for although they had made love with complete freedom and abandonment she had come to the conclusion long ago, over the many months of her marriage, that she was barren. Neither rape nor her husband’s love-making had brought her to fruition. She saw it as another of fate’s quirks that was beyond explanation. Slowly she turned her head to face Peter and spoke emotionally.

“
You do realise that if Alan will have me back after this night with you, that I must go, don’t you?”

“
Then nothing has changed?” His face became agonized and yet curiously he was not surprised. Somehow he had known how it would be.

“
Nothing, except that we have memories to cherish until we are together again.”

“
If you leave me, you’ll never come back.” He saw she was about to make some vehement protest and he shook his head quickly. “You will mean to, I know that. But if the child has the slightest need of you he will always come first. Since you think of him as your own, that’s not unnatural, because you love with conscience, Lisa, my sweet. That’s the way you are and how you’ll always be. You see, we must accept that the boy may ail, or suffer an accident, or simply continue to look to you for maternal love and support. Whatever the reason, you’ll not feel free of your duties until he is as near fully grown as makes no difference.”

“
You are saying I must make a choice once and for all. There can be no compromise.” Her voice faltered on the clarification.

“
I have a life to live, and it would grind me to dust if I was forced to wait year after year and then you never came.” He spoke determinedly. “I could wait for a definite date of reunion, but that’s all. Give me that date.”

She
was very pale, her eyes full of pain. “You know I can’t.” He twisted his mouth bleakly. “You could if you wished, but you realise only too well that what I have foretold is true.” “I’ll love you always!” The words tore from her heart.

“
I’ll never stop loving you, but I can’t live in limbo. I must be with you or without you.”

She
looked as if she might die. “Am I never to see you again?” “The decision is yours.”

She
turned her gaze away from the starkness of his expression, unable to bear what she was doing to him and yet powerless to retract, for he had spoken the truth and there was no querying the facts. She started violently when the sombre silence between them was suddenly broken by a male voice hailing them across the water from the south shore.

“
Hi, folks! You okay?”

Neither
she nor Peter had noticed the newcomer’s approach through the charred fern and verdue as he dodged among the trees propped at curious angles. She recognised him instantly as Mcpherson, the old lumberman she had driven past the previous day. He had come to a halt with arms akimbo, his jaws moving rhythmically on the tobacco he chewed as Peter answered him.

“
Yes! I’ll row the boat over. Is the terrain safe?”

“
The ground is still smoulderin’ in places. Do you have boots? No? I brung a spare pair with me hopin’ I’d find Mrs. Fernley safe and sound where you are right now. You can wear ‘em and she can ride the horse.”

He
turned to plod on along the water’s edge, the spare boots tied by string over his shoulder, to reach the horse, which whinnied and tossed its head nervously. He caught the bridle and dived about in one of his capacious pockets to find something edible, which the horse accepted greedily when he held it out. There was nuzzling for more as he clapped the horse’s neck and spoke calm words of reassurance.

Peter
set the oars in the rollocks and rowed the boat to the south shore, the bow knocking aside branches and other floating deadwood. As it beached, he sprang out and turned to lift her onto land. As he held her close to his body for no more than a matter of seconds, they looked deep into each other’s eyes and all their shared feelings were mirrored there.

“
Here’s the boots.” Mcpherson had come up to them, leading the horse, and he chucked the caulked and spiked footwear of the logging trade that he had once followed onto the ground at Peter’s feet. He turned to Lisa. “I’m sure glad to find you safe, ma’am. That fire came up like a match to tinder. It’s lucky the wind kept in the direction that it did. The sawmill and the settlement escaped completely.”

“
What of your home, Mr. Mcpherson?” she asked.

He
spat a stream of tobacco juice before replying. “By-passed, ma’am. They used to call me Lucky Mack in my loggin’ days. Some sparks ignited the roof, but I was keepin’ it damp with buckets of water and no damage was done that can’t be repaired.”

“
It was kind of you to come looking for me. How did you know I’d been trapped by the fire?”

“
An hour ago I sighted your burnt-out automobile. Come on. We’d best be goin’. I reckon there’ll be search parties out for you any place near the water. That’s always the hope folks follow when someone is missin’ after a fire.” He stooped to make a step for her with his linked hands and she mounted the horse, pulling up her skirt to sit astride its bare back, for Peter had had no time to saddle up in their flight from the fire. Quickly she clutched at the mane for a fast hold, for she did not know how to ride. It was still her hope that Alan and Minnie had been spared anxieties about her.

Progress
was slow. Whole areas of smouldering earth had to be avoided and there was the constant danger of collapsing trees. The tobacco juice that Mcpherson emitted from the side of his mouth at fairly regular intervals occasionally caused the ground to hiss. The whole time smoky dust and thick ash flew up all around them, getting in their eyes and settling on their skin and clothes. Her muslin dress became dark-streaked and small pieces of falling twigs caught in her hair. They eventually came to the road and there at the side she saw the twisted mass of metal that had been her transport to the lake.

Gradually
evidence of the fire thinned out to scorched bark and singed foliage. Finally greenery took over with a sweet coolness and fresher air. Peter called a halt to remove the uncomfortable caulk boots, which had been two sizes too small for him, and put on his own shoes. Mcpherson took the boots from him and prepared to take his leave, but Peter stayed him with a question.

“
Do you know a trail to get Mrs. Fernley back to her own home without going through Dekova’s Place?”

Mcpherson
’s face did not change its expression although he shifted the quid in his mouth. He knew full well what lay behind those words. If the couple had met by chance in the forest and found a mutual shelter in the boat, it would have come out naturally in the conversation. But that had not happened and the way in which they looked at each other would have told any simpleton that they were lovers. “I reckon I do.”

“
Then would you take her there? That is, if she has not changed her mind about coming with me.” Peter gazed up into Lisa’s eyes and she gazed down into his in a final sharing of love. Hers became brilliant with tears, but slowly she shook her head. As she reached out a hand to him he enfolded it in both of his own.

“
Goodbye, Peter.”

“
Farewell, Lisa.” He kissed her fingers and then released them.

Mcpherson
guided the horse around and in through the trees away from the road. She tried to keep herself from looking back, but finally she could no longer resist and turned for one last glimpse of him. But he had gone, unable to endure the sight of her passing out of his life.

It
was a long and roundabout route that they followed. Neither she nor Mcpherson spoke, she too choked for idle conversation, he silent because he preferred it. Eventually they came onto the path that ran between the sawmill and the settlement.

“
I’ll get down here, Mr. Mcpherson,” she said, “and walk the rest of the way.”

He
helped her dismount. “What about the horse?”

“
Would you return it to the stables behind the farrier’s? Mr. Hagen will be there.”

“
Okay.”

“
Thank you again.”

He
continued to regard her as phlegmatically as if he had done no more than sell her one of his kitchen buckets. “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

It
did not take her long to reach the row of whitewashed houses at the edge of the sawmill. To her dismay she saw neighbours gathered at the gate of her house and she darted back quickly into the shelter of the bushes by the path, unable to face their inquisitive stares and questions at the present time. Almost blindly she stumbled back the way she had come for some distance before leaving the path to lean back against a tree out of sight of anyone who might pass by. In her mind’s eye she followed the progress of Mcpherson with the horse. By now he would be handing it back to Peter. When it was rested and fed and re-saddled, Peter would ride it out of Dekova’s Place and away to take up the threads of his life again as if their reunion had never been. Yet they had loved each other too much and too long ever to be free of memory, no matter how many years went by.