David had called his mother to say he would be away for a few days, but he still had not talked about her to Caitlin. It was a gap in their togetherness that she desperately wanted filled. He had met her family, albeit not under the best of circumstances. Nevertheless, he had met them, and spoken of her father with liking and respect. Surely it was now time for her to meet his mother.
Caitlin lay with her head on his chest, her cheek over his heart. He must love her, she assured herself. He wouldn’t have done everything he had if he didn’t love her.
‘Caitlin...’
‘Mmh?’
‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he said, his voice strained with a complex range of emotions. ‘And I don’t know how you’ll react.’
Caitlin’s mind instantly switched to red alert. This had to be important, possibly critically important. ‘Tell me,’ she invited, aware of the slight acceleration of his heartbeat. She lay very still, listening more for the feeling behind his reply than the words themselves.
There was a long pause. Her own heartbeat quickened. Her instincts told her this was something very serious, something that could affect them very deeply.
‘It’s not so much a matter of telling, but of seeing.’
Pain. Sadness. Uncertainty. She waited for him to go on. She knew intuitively he was feeling his way through uncharted territory, or territory that contained so many deadly pitfalls that to safely negotiate past them took enormous care.
‘My mother was very beautiful,’ he said softly, wistfully. ‘As beautiful as you are, Caitlin.’
She held her breath, acutely aware that he was approaching a highly sensitive area...Crawley’s weapon against him...
‘Her hair was thick and black and wavy. She always wore it long. She had smooth creamy skin. Thick eyelashes...’
Caitlin frowned. Why the past tense?
‘My father never had eyes for any other woman. He adored her. And she loved him very much. Sometimes it made me feel excluded.’
Lonely most of his life...
‘It must have been a good marriage,’ Caitlin said wistfully.
‘Yes. They were very happy together. They did everything together.’
His lips brushed warmly over her hair. Did he want that with her? Caitlin fiercely willed it to be so.
‘Then one day there was a fire at the factory,’ David said flatly.
The industrial accident that had killed his father? Caitlin barely suppressed a shudder. To die by fire...
‘My father tried to save the designs for the new furniture. My designs. That was the tragedy, because I could have drawn them again.’
The pain of countless thoughts of ‘if only’ was in his voice. Caitlin remained silent. There was no balm she could give to that pain.
‘There was an explosion,’ David continued. ‘Tins of varnish, they said afterwards. My father didn’t have a chance but my mother tried to reach and rescue him. She ran into the flames. I don’t think she stopped to think about what she was doing. A reflex action. She simply couldn’t bear to lose him. Burning with the passion she felt...the fire enveloped her.’
His voice faded into brooding silence.
Horror speared through Caitlin’s mind as she thought of why David had never invited her home with him, why he had spoken of his mother’s beauty as belonging to the past.
‘She was...rescued,’ he went on. ‘A brave act by a brave man from the factory, although, perhaps, a merciless one. The burns...it was hell on earth for her, Caitlin. Months and years of hell. No one should suffer like that. No one should have to live through it. And then the skin grafts...’
Caitlin frantically searched for something to say to David. There seemed to be no words that were remotely adequate. It must have been hell for him, too: the grief, the sense of futility and helplessness, the anguish of watching someone you loved suffer so terribly.
‘I wish I’d been there for you, David,’ she said impulsively. ‘It must have been the loneliest torment...’
He said nothing for so long, Caitlin began to wish she’d held her tongue. Had it been an inane thing to say? Did he think she hadn’t meant it?
‘I did have someone, Caitlin,’ he said, a bitter note in his voice. ‘We had planned to marry once we gained our university degrees. She came with me to visit my mother...once. When she realised what a future with me would entail... She recoiled from the sight of my mother. I couldn’t accept that. Marriage to me quickly lost its attraction.’