I didn’t dream of Sebastian that night.
The next day was Tuesday, and Mr Mc Laine was already grumpy early in the morning.
“Today, as punctual as a tax collector, Dr Mc Intosh will come,” he said grimly. “I can’t talk him out of coming. I've tried everything. I tried threating and begging him. He seems to be immune to all my attempts. He’s worse than a vulture.”
“Maybe he just wants to make sure you’re in good health,” I remarked, just to say something.
He stared into my eyes, and then he burst into a roaring laugh. “Melisande Bruno, you're a character... Our beloved Dr Mc Intosh comes because he considers it his duty, not because he has a particular affection for me.”
“His duty? I don’t understand... In my opinion, his only purpose is to perform an examination. He must have some interest in you,” I said stubbornly.
Mc Laine grimaced. “My dear... You’re not as naive to really believe that everything is what it seems, are you? Not everything is white or black, there is also grey, so to say.”
I didn’t answer. Anyhow what could I say? That he had realized the truth about me? For me, there really was nothing but white and black, to the point of being nauseated by it.
“Mc Intosh feels guilty about the accident, and he thinks he'll make up for it by coming to visit me regularly, although I don’t like it at all,” he added spitefully.
“Guilty feelings?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
A flash of lightning lit up the window behind him, followed by a loud sound of thunder. He didn’t turn away, as if he couldn’t pull his eyes away from mine.
“It seems like we’re in for a torrential flood. Perhaps that will distract Mc Intosh from coming today.”
“I doubt it. It's just a summer storm. In an hour it’ll all be over,” I said practically.
He looked at me with such intensity that subtle chills crawled along my spine. He was a strange man, but his charisma cancelled any other flaw.
“Do you want me to sort out the rest of the shelves?” I asked nervously, avoiding his fixed gaze.
“Did you sleep well last night, Melisande?”
The question surprised me. His tone was light, but it had a pressing urgency that pushed me to tell him the truth.
“Not really.”
“No dreams?” His voice was light and clear like the water of a mild stream, and I let myself get carried away by that refreshing flow.
“No, not last night.”
“Did you want to dream?”
“Yes,” I said on impulse. Our dialogue was surreal, yet I was ready to continue it forever.
“Maybe it will happen again. The silence of this place is ideal for dreams,” he said coldly. He turned back to the computer, already forgetting about me.
Great, I thought, humiliated. He had thrown me a bone like he would with a dog, and I was so idiotic as to grab it as if I was starving. And I really was starving. For our glances, our intense complicity, and his rare smiles.
I hunched my shoulders and started working again. At that moment I thought of Monique. She managed to turn men’s heads, to allure them into a net of lies and dreams and conquer their attention with consummate expertise. I had asked her once how she had learned the art of seduction. At first she answered. “It’s not something you learn, Melisande. It’s innate; if you don’t have it you can just dream about it.” Then she turned to me, her expression soft. “When you get my age, you’ll know how to do it, you'll see.”
Now that I was her age, I knew less than I did before. My relationships with men had always been sporadic and short lived. All the men I had met had always asked me the same questions: What’s your name? What do you do in life? What car do you drive? When they learned that I had no driver’s license, they stared at me as if I were a rare beast, as if I was suffering from a terribly contagious disease. And I certainly wasn’t a person who shared her thoughts.
I passed my hand over a book cover. It was a luxurious edition, in Moroccan leather, of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.
“I bet it's your favourite book.”
I raised my head. Mr Mc Laine was looking at me from under his lowered eyelids with a dangerous sparkle in the black depths.
“No,” I said, placing the book on the shelf. “I like it, but it's not my favourite.”
“Then it has to be Wuthering Heights.” He gave me a breathtakingly unexpected smile.
My heart leapt, and almost fell into the emptiness. “That’s not it either,” I replied, happy for the firm tone of my voice.
“It doesn’t have a happy ending. As I’ve already told you, I prefer stories with happy endings.”
He twirled the wheelchair, and came a few feet away from me, his expression thoughtful. “Persuasion, always by Austen. It has a happy ending, you can’t deny it.” He didn’t hide that he was enjoying himself, and I was also appreciating that game.
“It's nice, I’ll admit it, but you're still far off. It's a book focused on waiting, and I'm not good at waiting. I’m too impatient. I would end up giving up, or changing my wish.”
Now my voice was frivolous. Without realizing it, I was flirting with him.
“Jane Eyre.”
He didn’t anticipate my laughter, and he looked at me, puzzled.
Several minutes passed before I could answer him. “Finally! I thought it would take forever...”
A shadow of a smile erased his frown. “I should have guessed immediately, actually. A heroine with a sad and lonely story behind her, a man with a painful past and a happy ending as a result of many ordeals. Romantic. Passionate. Realistic.” Now his lips were smiling as well as his eyes. “Melisande Bruno, are you aware that you might fall in love with me as Jane Eyre did with Mr Rochester, who coincidentally, was her employer?”
“You aren’t Mr Rochester,” I said quietly.
“I'm as lunatic as he was,” he objected with a half-smile that I couldn’t help but return.
“I agree. But I'm not Jane Eyre.”
“That's also true. She was wan, ugly and insignificant,” he said, slurring the words. “No person sound of mind, and of eyes, could say this about you. Your red hair would be noticeable miles away.”
“That doesn’t really sound like a compliment...” I said, whining jokingly.
“Whoever stands out, in one way or another, is never ugly, Melisande,” he said gently.
“Then thank you.”
He sneered. “Who did you get that hair from, Miss Bruno? From your Italian parents?”
The allusion to my family helped to blur the happiness of the moment. I looked away, and continued sorting the books on the shelves.
“I’ve been told that my grandmother was a redhead. My parents weren’t, nor is my sister.”
He brought the wheelchair nearer to my legs, which were stretched in the effort of fixing the books. At that short distance I could recognize his soft scent. It was a mysterious and seductive mixture of flowers and spices.
“And what’s a pretty red-haired secretary with Italian ancestors doing in a remote Scottish village?”
“My father emigrated to support his wife and daughter. I was born in Belgium.” I was looking for a way to change the subject, but it was hard to do. His closeness confused my thoughts, knotting them in a bundle that was hard to untangle.
“From Belgium to London, and then to Scotland. At only twenty-two years of age. You’ll admit that it’s at least unusual.”
“I want to see the world,” I replied evasively.
I gazed at him. His frown had disappeared like snow in the sun, replaced by a healthy curiosity. There was no way to distract him. Outside, the storm raged, with its violent intensity. A similar storm was unrolling within me. Communicating with him was natural, spontaneous and liberating, but I shouldn’t, couldn’t speak freely, or else I would regret it.
“Your need to see the world brought you to this remote corner of the world?” His tone was openly sceptical. “There’s no need to lie to me, Melisande Bruno. I won’t judge you, in spite of the appearances.”
Something broke inside me, releasing memories that I believed buried forever. I had trusted someone just once, and it didn’t end well, my life had almost been destroyed because of it. Only fate had prevented a tragedy. My tragedy.