The Girl Who Couldn'T See Rainbows

Chapter eight-2

“I expected you to be more understanding, Melisande,” he said with an air of accomplice.

“You’re a disgusting human being!” I was almost shouting, but I didn’t care. He used my confidences to punish me, to justify his sins, his cruelty, and I wasn’t willing to tolerate it.

He laughed at me. “I didn’t think you were so impetuous, Melisande. I thought you were controlled and passive. I see with pleasure that you have a temper somewhere. A bit rusty, but we'll restore it again, won’t we?”

By now the waves were thrusting me from one side to the other, and the ship on which I was traveling, that I believed had landed in a safe harbour, began to fall apart. I stood up.

“I won’t stay here a minute more!”

If my tone irritated him, he showed no sign of it, and he kept smiling. “Sit back down, Melisande. I don’t want you to leave. I promise not to ever mention your past crime, and I’ll give up my verbal crimes. Do you think we can do that? Will you give it a try, adorable, virtuous and devoted Melisande?”

My anger deflated like a balloon. He was playing with me, as usual. I resumed my place in front of him, in a dignified silence.

“I'm not as horrible as you think, Melisande. And I'm not as special as you think either.” His mocking voice penetrated my lethargy, as thick as a fog.

I looked up at him. And I lost my patience when I was faced with his devilish calm.

"I don’t know what to expect from you, sir. Your behaviour is incomprehensible, complex and unreadable. I'm not strong enough to be your secretary.” I wasn’t making any pretentious statements, I was just stating a fact. He seemed to understand it, because he stopped laughing at me.

“You're right, Melisande. You shouldn’t take me seriously, I can understand your distrust, and your difficulties. But there’s no one in the world who can work with me. You are perfect, delightful and unique. You really try to understand me. Nobody has ever done it.” His words were incomprehensible, but I relished them like spring flowers.

“All right, I’ll stay,” I said seriously.

He tilted his head to the side, as if to evaluate my disposition. Then he smiled at me. “The storm is over, why don’t you go out a bit?”

Amazed I looked at the window. He was right. The sky was covered by wide rays of sunshine.

“Next Sunday,” I said simply.

“Next Sunday,” he repeated with a strange solemnity, and it sounded like a promise.

I couldn’t leave.

Not when all I wanted in the world was in that house.

And wanting it didn’t necessarily mean understanding it.

I took my eyes off the book, and glanced at the watch on the bedside table. It was long after midnight, and sleep was far from coming. I was sitting in bed, my back softly resting on the pillows with Jane Eyre in my hands and my mind elsewhere. More precisely on thoughts that stung like thorns. I was in love, I had to admit it. Jane Eyre was proof of it. If even my favourite book didn’t distract me from Sebastian Mc Laine's image, I was lost. In the literal sense of the word. His unpredictability was not the heart of the problem, nor was his infirmity.

And, based on what I had learned about him, not even our social differences. No, the problem was that he only saw me as a source of fun, of distraction, as a court jester. I threw the book away as if it burned my hands, and I got out of bed.

I had been foolish to choose that book, I thought irritably. The figure of Rochester was too similar, in some respects, to Mc Laine and that didn’t help take my mind off of him. I approached the window, sat on the windowsill, and my thoughts wandered in the darkness. The night was angry and hostile, like tigers to be tamed. If Monique had been there, she would’ve made fun of me for the rest of my life. I was the only young woman in the life of a lonely and paralyzed single man and he wasn’t interested in me as a woman, but only as a subject of derision. No, my sister would’ve laughed, and she would have talked about it for years. Thinking about Monique inevitably led me to think about the letter, too. I had to answer her, if only to ask her to be patient. I could only help her when I received my first pay check, not earlier. Patience... A virtue that my sister lacked, in direct disproportion to me. No, it would’ve been better for me to send them the money immediately. I turned the light off and I went to bed. My eyelids grew heavier and lowered. The road to sleep wound in front of me, white, winding and inviting. At that moment I heard a noise, a door slamming, followed by thunder in the distance. My hands fumbled to find the lamp, and I turned the light back on. My sleepy eyes opened wide, struggling not to surrender to sleep, now that an enigma had formed in my flat existence. Who could go out at that hour? Certainly not Mrs Mc Millian, who usually took sleeping pills to beat her deep-rooted enemy: insomnia. Surely Kyle, I told myself, but I still couldn’t fall asleep, as if that slammed door was the signal of an imminent omen. My ears sharpened in the attempt to hear other noises, but there was only an absolute silence, as dense as fog. I began to think that I had dreamed and only imagined it when I heard it again. The outer door, this time.

Alarmed, I got out of bed. Kyle was depressed lately, and that could lead him to mess things up, such as leaving the doors open or getting drunk and getting hurt. My concern was certainly unfounded and unnecessary, but an excess of scruples made me leave my room. I wasn’t very familiar with the house, but this wasn’t enough make me desist. Adventurously – or stupidly, depending on the point of view – I went down to the ground floor, turning the lights on as I passed. The absolute silence was broken by the sound of rain on the windows. My steps slowed down near the front door.

It was locked and bolted.

From the inside.

Old superstitions, from when I read ghost stories in my bed, with a flashlight, hidden under the sheet, in order to avoid my parents’ anger, made their way into my confused mind. I had heard two doors closing. One on my floor, and the other was in front of me. Could I be wrong? At this point I had to admit that the answer to that question could only be yes. At least as far as one of the doors was concerned. No one could have gone out of that door and closed it behind them with the bolt. Or maybe someone had opened it, but hadn’t left the house... This solution eased my fear. Of course! That had to be the case. How stupid of me not to understand it immediately... Kyle - because it had to be him – wanted to go out, but at the sight of the thunderstorm he had come back inside. At the same moment in which I formulated that theory, I realized my mistake. Where was Kyle, if he hadn’t gone out? I hadn’t met him on the landing or on the stairs, so he didn’t go back to his room. Was he hiding in the kitchen? The kitchen door was wide open and the room was dark. I felt terribly defenceless. Could Kyle be hiding in that cold darkness to spy on my moves? But why would he do that? I felt a lump in my throat, remembering how his breath stunk of alcohol. An alcoholic is not exactly a rational person; I knew that well. My father had been a terrible example. My eyes almost crossed. My left eye didn’t leave the darkness of the kitchen, the right one measured the distance between the point where I stood and the staircase. Did Kyle want to hurt me? And in that case who could come to help me? Certainly not Mr Mc Laine, because of his insensitive legs. And Mrs Mc Millian was in the arms of Morpheus for hours, thanks to the effectiveness of her beloved pills. I froze, unable to move. Should I go and check the kitchen? Force Kyle to finish his stupid joke? Turn the light on to dispel the shadows? Or run away as fast as my legs could carry me to my room, hoping to be faster than him. I didn’t imagine those noises; they weren’t the fruit of my imagination.

Enough. I wouldn’t be a victim of fear. I would go into the kitchen. I would be determined, unyielding and cold. I would put Kyle in his place, proving I wasn’t scared of anything and anybody. But the thought wasn’t powerful enough to make my feet move. At that moment I felt more paralyzed than Mr Mc Laine.

Finally, after an endless time, I started taking small steps towards the stairs, with the strong feeling of being watched. I climbed stairs slower than a turtle, as if every step was a tremendous effort. I trembled from the effort of keeping my hand on the handrail. Slowly, one step after another, I reached the landing, and then my room. As soon as I locked myself inside, I burst into tears, I don’t know why.

Maybe I cried because I understood. I had allowed my fear - of everyone, everything and of the unknown - to have the best of me, and to create non-existent nightmares.

The next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I studied the events of that night. My cowardice had emphasized innocent noises. Perhaps poor Kyle had been hiding in the kitchen all the while, ashamed of wandering around the house like a ghost, his eyes swollen with tears, and his wine smelling breath. Everything in the usual, almost burlesque manner. It was easy to think so when the sun had dispersed the night’s shadows.

In the kitchen I found Mrs Mc Millian in tears.

“Oh dear! What happened? Are you ill?”

The woman wiped her eyes with a finely embroidered handkerchief, a vestige of the old days.

“Mr Davenport died last night. Dr Mc Intosh informed me on the phone, a little while ago,” she explained, her voice trembling.

It took me a few seconds before I understood. “Mr Davenport is...”

Mrs Mc Millian looked at me in dismay. “Oh, forgive me, Miss Bruno. I took it for granted that you knew him... Your red hair makes you look Scottish, and I tend to forget that you’re not from here.”

“I thought his life wasn’t in immediate danger,” I said, when I found my voice.

She jumped. “He didn’t die from his illness.” Her face was deadly white, without the usual dark signs on her cheeks, probably pink.

“Then how?” I hesitated, worried about her distraught expression. I would’ve never thought of seeing the wise, peaceful and reasonable Mrs Mc Millian so upset. And most of all, I would’ve never expected to have to pull the words out of her.

“They found him... They found him... Oh God, have pity on us... I can’t...” She was stammering, her words mixed with sobs. I put a hand on her shoulder, in the difficult task of comforting her.

“Calm down, Mrs Mc Millian. Take slow and deep breaths... That’s it... Good.”

She grabbed my hand with such a force that I could almost hear it moan, and the bones crunch. “His throat was torn up. As if he had been assaulted by an animal.”

She couldn’t manage to say anything else. Her eyes shifted from one point to the other of the room, as if to make sure there was no hidden danger.

Patiently, as if she were a child in need of protection, I stroke her hair, and led her into her bed, hoping she would rest a while and calm down. I’d just left her room when I heard the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock. She had locked herself inside. I wasn’t the only chicken in the house, after all. Although it was a small comfort after the scare of the previous night. I was again grasped by fear when I met Kyle near the office.

“Did you hear the news, Melisande?” He asked, confidentially. He seemed amused. “They're all dying of fear. I just came back from town. It's pretty much deserted. They’re all locked up in their houses, convinced that some lion wanders undisturbed in the woods, intending to eat them all. We are in the Highlands, not in Africa.”

He laughed at his joke.

“It's not funny, Kyle,” I said, with my arms folded. “If they don’t catch the animal, someone else might die.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an animal.” Now he had a wise guy, irritating and viscous attitude.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said.”

I collected all my patience so I wouldn’t slap him. “If you have any information, you should call the police.”

He laughed louder. “Now I understand why Mc Laine finds you so funny, Melisande. You're hilarious. Really.”

I went by him furiously. But he grabbed me by the arm. “You're too aloof, Melisande. Reconsider my offer. We're still in the summer, but winter comes soon... Scottish nights are very long... and very cold...”

I cut lose, nauseated. “I’m not interested.”

He let me go, a flash of anger on his face. “You really think you’re special, don’t you? Well, you're not, baby. And you’re not even very beautiful.”

“Certainly more than you.”

I trembled violently, as I went back into my room. No, the previous night it wasn’t Kyle on the ground floor watching my movements. He wouldn’t just stay in the dark, watching me.