Lucinda felt an overwhelming rush of relief that her long car journey would soon be over. Familiar sights came to the eye wherever she chose to look, and the traffic allowed. She had toiled with a sense of guilt that Tom would be left behind in a care home; a temporary arrangement, at best, and one that they had followed every year since his stroke had wrought its debilitating and destructive effects on his once agile mind and energetic ways. He spoke to her with difficulty; was confined to a wheelchair if he was to be moved or they went out for a walk along the lanes of the village where they continued to live.
She read to him, or encouraged this in him, whenever it was possible and a thin beam of acuity had Tom do this for himself; only for the efforts to exhaust him along with her. She cooked for and bathed him; she was grateful that in matters of personal hygiene, she was present but took no steps to intervene. Their home was a haven and kept spotlessly clean; the tended garden a refuge for them both, and in their ways of drawing upon its color and restful setting.
Things had not degenerated that far, yet; but the emotional and physical toll upon her required that she stepped off that ever-revolving track, one that friends who lived close by to them were only too aware of and sympathized with. She was never heard to complain but many saw the toll that caring for Tom had upon her.
Was it too much to ask that she be allowed a week away and to use the time to pursue, as best as she could, the rest of body and mind that she needed? It was not to be so generously expressed by her children, Rebecca and Tom Chapman. There were no words left for them to tell her how they felt when she had announced, as she did every year, that she was taking a week's break in Devon. There, she would lodge in her favored apartment complex with its views over the English Channel and the cliffs bounding its shores; the base of the cliffs, or the wave-cut platform, surrendering the treasures that were to be found along this part of the Jurassic coastline.
She never failed to bring back a small memento of her stay, a fossil of some kind with its beautifully preserved coils and exquisite detailing; an item that never failed to brighten Tom's eyes with the glimmer of recognition of what had once been a regular trip for them. Then, they would call in to see their closest friends who had retired to this part of the country, Peggy and Charles Sanderson.
They had finally accepted that she wished to spend time on her own and not be beholden to them or anyone else. It did not mean that she would become a recluse. Far from it. She would engage in conversation with those that she met on the cliff-top walks or down on the beach, especially along the shoreline, when a mutual interest or her little book of identifying what might lie at her feet had been revealed after the practiced tap of her rock-hammer failed her.
Such disappointments were few. The sight that now greeted her as she entered the small hamlet and saw the glaring brilliance of her rented holiday apartment block, lifted her spirits; it made her sing out in uncommon frivolity.
The cares of being Tom's wife and nurse could be put to one side for a few days. The weather forecast was set fair. She hoped that her stay would be restful and free of the turbulence that was often encountered at home; the drain on her physical and mental resources and the toll that had been wrought on her body and mind; in a woman aged only sixty.
She had abided by the wedding services' saying, 'in sickness and in health'. It remained to be seen if she would be richer from the experience of being here once more.
♥
Aiden put aside his brushes; wiped his hands on his short tunic and leaned against the railing. The balcony of his small apartment was a sunny vantage point. He could gaze down at the crowds that sauntered along the pavements to each side of the roadway as he painted. He could also see the comings and goings over the small, private car park where he had seen a familiar car draw to a stop, not so far below where he now stood.
A woman that he remembered from two years ago was again to be seen. She stepped somewhat stiffly from the car, smoothing her thin summer skirt over her thighs and brushing away at the tumble of silken ash-grey hair that fell lazily to her shoulders. A multitude of colored baubles hung from a strand and onto her breasts; others slid over her arms, snagged on the frills of her cropped-sleeved blouse that she wore. He took in every detail with his artist's eyes, and he liked what was to be seen.
There had been no time to engage in any conversation the last time that he had seen her. Then as now, he noted, the woman was alone. A straw beach bag was reached for, and the woman was soon seen stepping towards the block's main entrance; holidaying residents being asked to walk along a balcony, set at the rear of the block, and thereby gain access to their apartment's front door.
'I remember you from two years ago...it seems we can't stay away from this place,' he called out to her as she passed below him.
'That's true,' she acknowledged on glancing up at him, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand, though startled that he should speak to her and so directly.
Aiden soon heard the development's owner talking to her and knew that the formalities of a handover, and the production of a front door key, would soon follow. Like him, she would soon be left to her own devices. Unlike him, she was seen to be reserved, even closed in on herself. The artist in him, the portraitist first and foremost, saw the look of disbelief that a total stranger had been engaged by her appearance and had chosen to speak to her.
'How strange,' Lucinda said to the owner as the keys were held out to her. 'A man in a painter's smock greeted me...saying that he'd seen me here before.'
Tina, the woman's badge announced, smiled. 'That's Aiden Prescott. He's here twice a year, summer and winter. In the summer it's the scenery, in the winter it's portraits. There's a display of them, some of his latest works, in the Tourist Info center.'
'Thank you,' Lucinda smiled. 'I'll bear it in mind and go and have a look sometime while I'm here.'
'Aiden sells and he sells well...'
'I'll bear that in mind too.' Lucinda clenched the keys in one hand. 'Do I make my way, or do you show me around?'
'Make your way unless you tell me otherwise? You know the place as well as anyone, don't you?'
'Almost as well as Aiden Prescott, it seems.'
Tina laughed. 'He's been no trouble and he works hard at those paintings of his. He looks a bit wild with that mop of hair and stubbly beard, but he always leaves the place spotless, which is more than I can say for some who stay here.'
Lucinda knew at once that her week's stay would be like no other that had gone before. Tina had told her to look out for the blue and white glazed pot that stood by the door to her apartment. She had failed to tell her that it was next door to that man, Aiden Prescott's apartment; rooms that she had heard were also his studio.
She thought of asking whether she could have a different place but that might serve up more problems than it would solve. Besides, it was nearing the height of the holiday season. Would any be vacant even if she did ask?
She met his smile and suppressed a gasp of wonder that he should be standing there at his door to greet her again. The man looked wild; his grey-blue eyes seemed to, overtly, take in every detail of her appearance. It was behavior that needed no words as they told an only too obvious story. He was taken by her appearance, and she suppressed the instinct, or compulsion, to feel the same about him.
It was utter madness for her to feel this way about him on a first meeting. It was wonderfully refreshing to have a man look at her in the way that Aiden had done, when was seen looking down from his balcony, and again now as he stood close. She was gripped by a sudden and inexplicable attraction to him and was equally dismayed to feel an unmistakable ache of longing. It had been so long since anyone had looked at her in quite that way and now she was in the grip of wishing to know of a man again and for him to know of her. All of that had been denied to her for some time and with Tom...poor Tom.
The tunic was gone and the faint whiff of turpentine rose to her nostrils as he drew near and greeted her again. A denim shirt flapped loosely over some chino shorts. He was barefoot; his toes long and thick; Aiden's wavy black hair, with streaks of grey, was brushed back from a wrinkled forehead. That, and a greying stubble beard, made him look older, but engagingly so. She found him ruggedly handsome and could not help but feel that her plans had been turned over or might soon be if he continued to look at her in that way of his.
It was madness; it would be a holiday madness, but it was also a state of mind that might help to refresh and make her feel alive again, and not an automaton with the unrelenting toll of caring for someone she loved but was broken; a husband, a man, who was beyond repair and a man who had once possessed an agile mind. He now lived in a husk, a broken shell.
Old as he was, and disconcertingly attractive and flirtatious, Aiden confounded everything she knew in her bounded world at home.
