‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘All of it.’
She did, though she had to force it past her constricted throat. He stepped back while she drank, but his eyes never left her face.
‘Better?’ he asked, as she carefully replaced the glass.
She blinked. Her heart rate was returning to normal, her breathing easing.
‘Yes,’ she said faintly. She made to turn away, but a hand closed around her upper arm.
‘Sit down,’ he said. He guided her to one of the kitchen chairs, lowered her down on it and she sat unresistingly. He sat himself down as well and looked across the table at her.
‘We had better talk,’ he said.
For a moment Lycos said nothing, collecting his thoughts. It had been…unnerving…to witness something that had all the hallmarks of a hysterical collapse. Her complete, uncontrollable,uncontrolled breakdown in front of his eyes. His thoughts now were conflicted. He’d sat her down and said they had better talk, but he didn’t want to. Why should he? It was nothing to him that she was upset because she was nothing to him. Yet, all the same, he took a breath.
As he looked across at her he saw that her face was blank. Not with the resistance she’d presented so far, but with a kind of emptiness.
‘Arielle, you’ve had a shock. Something bad you’ve been holding at bay has finally happened. Now you’re having to deal with it. But look at it this way. You’ve known since your father died, so you told me, that you are going to have to relinquish what you’d expected to inherit. There’s nothing you can do about it. Accept it. You don’t have a choice and you know…’
Something edged into his voice he didn’t want to think about.
‘…when you have no choice, it…it frees you. That might sound illogical, but it isn’t. You don’t have to fight any more. You don’t have to fear any more. The worst has happened. That’s it.’
He fell silent, eyes masking a moment. Then he spoke again. Slowly this time.
‘When the worst has happened, nothing more can hurt you. That’s a kind of freedom you know. It has…a value. When choice is taken from you, so is responsibility. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
Her face was still blank. He went on. He didn’t want to think about where his words were coming from.
Didn’t want to remember.
‘You’ve felt responsible, haven’t you? For this place. You told me it’s been in your mother’s family for generations. Now it’s gone. It isn’t your fault that it’s gone. If there was any fault it was, if you think about it, your mother’s fault in trusting your father. And before that it was your great-grandfather’s fault forputting debt on it. So, because it’s not your fault it’s gone, it’s not your responsibility either.’
He could see her face work now, her hands clenching. ‘But I don’t want it gone,’ she said in a faint voice.
He gave a sigh. ‘The secret of a happy life, Arielle…’ he said in a very dry tone, ‘…is only to want what we can get.’ He took another breath. ‘If you want this place then my advice to you is this. Go back to England and make some money, enough to make whoever buys this place an offer they won’t want to refuse.’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t know how to make money.’
‘Then learn!’ he said impatiently. ‘Anyone can do it! I’m proof of that—’
He broke off suddenly and stood up. ‘That’s enough of a life lesson for now. I’m hungry. What’s for lunch?’
It was a distraction, he knew, but it was also what he happened to want right then.
And getting what he wanted, whatever it was, was the most compelling life lesson that he had learnt. And lived by.
Arielle’s voice interrupted his familiar mantra, sounding hesitant, ‘I usually just have salad for lunch.’
‘What kind?’
She replied, still sounding hesitant, ‘Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cheese and ham. That sort of thing.’
Lycos nodded. ‘Sounds good. Let’s eat outside.’
She was still hesitant, so he crossed to the ancient looking fridge, which was rumbling to itself in the corner, and opened it. He brought out what he could find by way of cheese, ham and butter, and put it all on the table. He knew that some of the baguette he’d brought with him remained from their breakfast. Arielle collected herself sufficiently to fetch tomatoes and a gold-yellow pepper from a large bowl by the sink.
‘I’ll… I’ll go and cut some lettuce,’ he heard her say as she headed outside. Lycos let her be. She needed to come downcompletely from that state of mental turmoil she’d succumbed to. He busied himself loading up the wooden breakfast tray, wondering when he’d last had to prepare his own lunch. Arielle returned with a handful of leaves, washing them and then tossing them in a crockery bowl with oil and vinegar. She didn’t speak and neither did Lycos. He picked up the tray.
