Dark Fire Read online

  Paul’s face was distorted with terror; he called her name, and she clung, trying to hold him back from the pit. In the background the band continued to play, and everyone else danced sedately around the edges, ignoring the pit and the dreadful things waiting there and Paul’s struggles, even though he was trembling on the brink.

  Aura couldn’t scream; whimpering, she tried to drag him free, but he slid through her fingers and inexorably into the darkness, and she called desperately, ‘Paul, don’t go—Paul, hang on—Paul Paul Paul Paul...’

  But someone was shaking her, someone was hauling her away, and as she struggled, Paul disappeared into the darkness, his eyes fixed despairingly on her, and she burst into harsh sobs that tore her to pieces.

  ‘Wake up! Aura, stop it, you’re having a nightmare!’

  She opened desperate eyes. After a horrified moment they focused on Flint’s face. She heard Paul’s name dying on her lips, echoing in the quiet room.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Flint said, and tried to pull her into his arms, but she huddled away against the pillow, holding herself rigid.

  Something bleak moved in the depths of his eyes, but he said evenly, ‘It was just a dream, Aura. A nightmare. I’ll get you a drink.’

  Shuddering, she tried to dispel the lingering miasma of the nightmare. By the time he came back from the bathroom with a glass of water she had almost succeeded. With one hand she pushed tangled hair back from her face, with the other she clutched the glass. Her teeth chattered, but she managed to drink the water down without spilling it.

  He took the glass from her, flicked away the cloud of netting and sat down on the side of the bed. Now, when it was too late, she wanted him to hold her, to convince her that she had nothing to fear, but she couldn’t make the first move. He was distant, wrapped in a remoteness she couldn’t penetrate.

  ‘All right now?’ he asked her.

  Not trusting her voice, she nodded.

  ‘Do you get them often?’

  ‘No.’ It came out creaky, but at least it was usable. She hesitated, then said, ‘It’s the first time it’s ever happened to me.’

  ‘And no prizes for telling what caused it.’

  She bit her lip, because of course she knew what had brought it on. Her unconscious mind was accusing her of the betrayal she had committed. Making love with Paul’s best friend had been the final straw.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said, staring down at the sheet, keeping her gaze there by sheer force of will because she couldn’t bear to look at his calm, reasonable expression.

  ‘I didn’t realise you were so badly affected by—the break-up.’ His voice was steady, uninflected.

  She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s over.’

  ‘It’s clearly not over for you,’ he said, still in that same impersonal tone.

  She sat mutely as he got to his feet and went across to the window. A swift, angry movement of one strong brown hand looped back the thin curtains. That hand, and her memories of what it had done to her during the night, made Aura flush, warmed her a little against the misery of the dream. But their lovemaking now seemed just as unreal as the images her mind had called up from the pit of her secret fears.

  It meant nothing to Flint but the appeasing of an appetite; he had told her that she was beautiful, told her what her beauty did to him, but he hadn’t spoken a word that could be construed to be loving.

  Aura looked away. Outside the world was flooded with heat and light, but there was grey desolation in her heart, a disillusion as heavy and foreboding as the bleakest thundercloud.

  ‘I’d better get back to my room,’ she said drearily, struggling to her feet and looking about for her clothes.

  He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ There was nothing but an impersonal concern in his voice.

  Aura couldn’t wait to get away. As she climbed into her clothes she said, very fast, ‘Go on to Bali, and then back home.’

  ‘Will you be seeing Paul?’

  Her fingers stilled on the catch of her bra. She looked over to where he stood looking out the window. The bluntly arrogant outline of his profile was etched against the soft blue wall; the sun summoned copper lights from his hair. He was a glowing statue in the tropical light, with all a statue’s warmth.

  ‘No,’ she said, shivering.

  ‘It’s probably just as well.’

  Desperate to get away, she pulled her dress over her head and stuffed her stockings into her handbag, sliding arched bare feet into high-heeled sandals.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said bleakly, heading for the door.

  He looked at her then. For a hopeful moment Aura searched his unyielding features, then turned away, welcoming the numb acceptance that replaced the aching loneliness. In his face, in his eyes, there was nothing but guarded detachment, as though he expected her to make a fuss.

  Pride stiffened her back, brought a smile to her pale lips.

  ‘Aura—’

  The smile solidified, but was maintained. ‘It was good. Let’s leave it like that,’ she said, opening the door and closing it behind her with a sharp, final click.

  Fortunately there was no one else in the corridor. Back in her room she showered, but even as the water washed away his scent from her body, and toothpaste banished his taste from her mouth, she knew that what had happened the night before had been irrevocable. For him it might only be a one-night stand, but for her it had been commitment. In the most basic way of all, she felt that he belonged to her just as she now belonged to him.

  The white towel clung not unpleasantly to her body. At least, she thought wearily, I don’t have to worry much about being pregnant.

  He had taken care of that both times.

  Bali was hot, and the water buffalo didn’t want anything to do with her, only reluctantly yielding to its master’s determination. The emerald paddy fields were truly monuments to the skill of generations of men.

  At any other time Aura would have enjoyed it. As it was, she went through the motions wrapped in a grey fog of despair that fortunately translated on film to a look of exotic sensuality.

  When she got back to Auckland it was still raining, and there had clearly been no one in the unit for some time. Sighing, because Natalie had been in Kerikeri too often these last months, she rang Alick’s phone number.

  Laurel answered, her cool voice warming when she heard Aura’s greeting. ‘How was Cairns?’ she asked.

  ‘It didn’t rain once while I was there.’

  ‘And Bali?’

  ‘One or two showers. Nothing like this.’

  Alick’s wife laughed. ‘Come on, it doesn’t rain all the time here.’

  ‘No, it just seems like it. Is Natalie still with you?’

  Laurel’s voice altered subtly, although it was still warm. ‘Yes. She has some news for you. I’ll get her.’

  Natalie’s voice was velvet with satisfaction. ‘Darling, I’m getting married,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Oh.’ The Canadian?

  ‘He’s a darling, you’ll love him. He’s over here organising a farm he’s bought halfway between Whangarei and the coast.’

  ‘Natalie, are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I am sure. Very sure. We’re having a quiet little wedding up here in Kerikeri—Lauren’s dealing with everything, bless her—’ and Alick’s paying for it, Aura thought cynically ‘—and then we’re going on a trip around the world. You’ll be able to come and see us, darling. Joe lives quite close to Calgary.’

  Aura was willing to bet that her mother had never heard of Calgary until she met Joe, but she spoke of it now as though it was the hub of the universe.

  Hoping fervently that both Natalie and Joe knew what they were doing, she went up to Kerikeri two days before the wedding, and soon realised that Joe Donaldson knew exactly what he was in for. She also discovered, to her astonishment, that Natalie was in love.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ her mother confided, looking younger and even more extravagantly beaut
iful. ‘I thought that after your father—’

  ‘Did you love him?’ Aura had often wondered.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Natalie smoothed down a lock of hair, gazing at her reflection with eyes that saw into the past. ‘And we were happy, until he decided that Africa was more important than his family. I knew that I’d never cope with Africa, but he insisted we go with him. Sometimes there are situations where no amount of compromising will work. He had a vocation. I didn’t go with him, but I loved him, and he loved me.’

  ‘So why on earth did you marry Lionel Helswell?’

  Natalie shrugged. ‘He—oh, he promised to look after me, and although I know it’s not what women of your generation are supposed to want, that’s what I was brought up to expect in a marriage. That’s the way I am. It’s too late for me to change now, Aura.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ Aura smiled.

  ‘Joe’s not like Lionel, Aura.’

  No, the thin, shrewd, cheerful cattle rancher and oilman was nothing like her other stepfather. His good heart was patently revealed whenever he spoke. Aura thought that this time her mother had chosen well. ‘I hope you’ll be happy,’ she said.

  ‘I will be. What about you?’

  Aura smiled steadily. ‘I’m fine.’

  Natalie was Natalie. Because she was happy, she assumed everyone else would be. ‘Well, all’s well that ends well. Promise me you’ll keep in touch.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘You’ll be able to come and see us whenever you like. And you have Laurel and Alick if things go wrong. Laurel is very fond of you.’

  Aura smiled painfully. ‘I’m a big girl now.’

  Her mother laughed, and sprayed the air with perfume, walking through it so that it clung to her in a faint, subtle mist of fragrance. ‘Oh, life is wonderful,’ she said happily.

  Back in Auckland Aura organised the sale of the unit, then moved into a big old Kauri villa in Mt Eden with five other women, and for the first time since boarding school found herself coping with communal living. She enjoyed the company and the casual camaraderie, and the conversation and activity kept her from feeling too lonely.

  The advertising campaign hit the magazines and newspapers and to her surprise she became a minor celebrity, interviewed by journalists and offered work she didn’t want, and couldn’t take anyway because her contract was exclusive.

  ‘It’s those eyes,’ Jessica told her cheerfully as she riffled through pages of proofs. ‘They photograph wonderfully, all sultry allure and mischief. The coloured contact lenses were a brilliant idea. I don’t know how you manage to look innocent in brown and earnest in blue, but it works.’

  ‘The camera lies,’ Aura said shortly. She wandered across Jessica’s office and stared out of the window. Sunlight danced on the Waitemata Harbour, lovingly delineated the curves of island and peninsula and bay, picked out the corrugated iron roofs of the houses on the North Shore. A frigate was in dock at the naval base, and the two little green volcanoes in Devonport rose like exotic Christmas puddings above the sleek grey ship.

  ‘It doesn’t lie, it just loves your face, and your hands, and your legs. Actually, it loves you. If you were four inches taller and half a stone lighter you’d make a fortune.’

  ‘I don’t want a fortune. And I don’t want any work when this runs out. I want to work at the job I’ve been trained for.’ Aura knew she sounded abrupt, but she was becoming desperate. An aching grief was eating away at her heart.

  More than anything she wanted to be able to get her teeth into some hard work, the sort of mental exercise that would force her to snap out of this slough of self-pity she seemed permanently immured in. She had bought another computer and spent as much time as she could working at it, but the interest and excitement seemed to have faded into the same dull greyness that tainted all of her life now.

  ‘I think you’re mad,’ Jessica said comfortably. ‘Although I’m not surprised. You were always as stubborn as a pig. How are things going?’

  Aura knew what she meant. ‘I’m surviving,’ she said lightly.

  ‘I saw Paul at a book launch the other night.’

  ‘How did he look?’

  ‘Grim. About as grim as you do when you think no one’s looking.’

  Aura’s brows knotted together.

  ‘Don’t frown,’ Jessica said automatically. ‘It helps to talk, you know.’

  ‘I’ve already bored you once.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. Just remember, I’m always here. Oh, there’s an articleabout Flint Jansen in the latest Wine and Food. It seems he’s going to stick his neck out and make wine on the coast out from Warkworth. Opinion seems equally divided as to whether he’s going to succeed.’

  Aura felt the blood drain from her skin to her heart. Fortunately she had her back to Jessica. It took her a moment to say calmly, ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yep. The man photographs like a dream. You know, I wonder if I could coax him on to our books. We need good older men, ones who aren’t pretty, sweet and cuddly, or mock sullen, or husbandly. He’s the real thing, you can tell. I wonder if I’d ever have the courage to ask him.’

  Aura managed to laugh and change the subject, but on the way home she stopped at a bookshop and bought the magazine. She forced herself to wait until she was in bed before she opened it.

  Flint’s face made her stomach flip. He was smiling, not for the camera but at a shorter, clearly French man beside him. Behind them were rows of vines, dressed in their spring green. More rows of vines formed a formal pattern across the slope in the background. At the end of each row a rose bush put forward its first red blooms. Blue hills reared up in the distant background; not very far away water glittered.

  He was smiling. But then, why shouldn’t he? He didn’t have a broken heart that kept him on the winter side of the sun. Aura’s gaze travelled greedily over his face, recalling how it felt when he kissed her, how hot his mouth had been against her breasts, how much she loved him...

  Oh, God, she was being aroused by a photograph! She made herself read the article, and as she read she was overcome by longing to see this place he had chosen to settle down in. Warkworth was an hour’s drive from Auckland, a pretty town on a tidal river, and Flint’s Shangri-La was less than fifteen minutes from Warkworth. She could hire a car for the day and go. Perhaps tomorrow...?

  As though the weather approved of her decision it was sunny the next day, one of those delicious spring days when the sky is a blue so vivid it hurts the eyes. The crisp, fresh air, with enough of a hint of summer’s languor to take the edge off it, was clear enough for her to be able to pick out individual trees on top of the range of hills that marked the western and northern horizon.

  Insensibly Aura’s spirits began to lift. Just after Matakana, so small it could barely be called a village, she turned east and followed the road towards the coast, driving between green paddocks where little black and white calves ran and butted each other and played in the sun. She would drive past the gateway, that was all.

  At the end of the road there was a gate, and behind it a building with a Mediterranean air that was obviously the winery. Aura turned around in the gateway and drove back up the road a little before stopping the car and getting out. A warm little breeze flirted with a few tendrils of hair that escaped from beneath her scarf. Settling her sunglasses more firmly on her nose, she looked around.

  No sound but the call of an over-excited lamb broke the silence. It was just as Flint had described it. A tidal river ran around three sides of the neatly planted vineyard. The tide was out, so muddy banks made sinuous pathways on each side of the river channel. Birds waded across the sleek mud, and above them a skylark’s pure song was interrupted by the lazy, laughing caw of a gull.

  The river seemed to wind up to the blue hills a few miles away; on its way to the sea it separated the vineyard from a long sandspit with a jetty and car parks. Years before she had caught a fussy little ferry to Kawau Island from that jetty. It was too early in th
e season for holiday traffic, so the car parks were almost empty.

  Aura breathed in peace, and looked across the river and the sandspit, up a bushclad hill where expensive houses had been built, far enough away not to be obtrusive, and somehow not spoiling the view of the tranquillity.

  It was a perfect place, an ideal home for a warrior who’d given up fighting the quiet battles of his profession. Aura stood for long moments, until the sound of a car coming down the road froze her into place.

  Please don’t let it be Flint, she prayed.

  She stood with her face turned away and unease crystallising into panic in her stomach as the car slowed, then stopped.

  A voice with a distinct French intonation said, ‘You are lost, m’selle?’

  Slowly, reluctantly, Aura turned. There was only one person in the car. Relief sent colour licking through her cheeks. ‘No, I’m just admiring the view.’

  It was the Frenchman Flint was in partnership with. Although he was eyeing her with typical Gallic appreciation, she found nothing offensive in his candid admiration.

  ‘Me, also, I am admiring the view,’ he said with a twinkle, and she laughed.

  The breeze caught her scarf. She managed to catch it before it tore free from her hair, but he said nevertheless, ‘It is a crime to hide such hair.’

  She smiled, and said, ‘The wind’s a little busy. Goodbye, monsieur.’

  She liked him, she thought as she drove home. She could be very happy there, beside the river, with the vines growing about her. She liked Warkworth, too.

  Oh, who was she fooling? If Flint asked her she would live with him on the top of Mt Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, called by the Maori people Aoraki, the cloud piercer.

  That night she cried a little before she went to sleep, but somehow the visit had eased a sore patch in her heart. The next day she caught a plane to Fala’isi for another shoot.