Dark Mirror. Daphne Clair
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swallowed took deadly effect. He’d had the sense to collect up the bottles and bring them into the hospital with her.
‘She’s lucky,’ they said. ‘He did all the right things.’
It didn’t make her feel any more kindly towards Kyle Ranburn. What must the man have done to poor Tansy, to make her so desperate?
And why, darling, Fler thought, staring at the pathetically tangled fair hair on the pillow and the waxy pallor of her daughter’s face, why didn’t you call me, tell me what was troubling you? Whatever it was, we’d have worked it out. We will, when you’re better, she promised silently. And found tears running hotly down her cheeks.
There was a basin in the small room, and she got up to rinse away the tears. It wouldn’t help Tansy for her to crack up now.
She splashed cold water over her face and dried it with a paper towel. In the mirror over the basin she looked almost as white as the girl in the bed, her clear green eyes dulled and bloodshot with worry and the aftermath of tears. Her hair, several shades darker than Tansy’s, was a mess. Automatically she took a comb from her bag and smoothed it back over her ears in the sleek style she’d adopted when she got it cut a few years ago.
Tansy had objected. ‘I liked it long.’
‘It’s a nuisance,’ Fler had told her. ‘I have to pin it up every day, and I haven’t got the time.’
‘Leave it loose,’ Tansy had suggested. ‘It’s pretty.’
‘I’m too old for that.’
‘Thirty-four isn’t all that old,’ fifteen-year-old Tansy had assured her endearingly. ‘And anyway, you don’t look it.’
She was thirty-seven now, and this morning she looked every day of it, she was sure. The fine lines at the corners of her eyes and on her forehead were more pronounced than usual, and there were blue shadows beneath her eyes. Even her mouth was pale. She fumbled a lipstick from the bag and used it. If Tansy woke soon, she wouldn’t want to find her mother looking as though she was in need of a hospital bed herself.
She closed the bag and went back to the bed, gazing at the oblivious girl for a few minutes, then going to the window to stare out at the view, what there was of it.
A hum of morning traffic rose from the invisible streets of Auckland. Several floors down she could see people hurrying from a car park to the hospital buildings, some of the women wearing white or green uniforms, most clutching jackets or coats against a wintry breeze, although the sun glinted off the windows of the parked cars. Between a jumble of anonymous tower blocks she glimpsed a few round-headed trees, and in the distance a wedge of blue sea.
She’d take Tansy home, she thought. Home to Northland, away from Auckland and its impersonal big-city atmosphere. Away from men like Kyle Ranburn.
Kyle Ranburn. A name that months before had begun to crop up with disturbing regularity in Tansy’s infrequent letters, her rather more frequent collect calls home. At first Fler had thought he was a fellow student. It was some time before she’d discovered he was on the staff of the university, before she had begun to be uneasy about his influence on her daughter, and Tansy’s obvious dependence on him.
Before she’d realised that her daughter was engaged in a full-blown love-affair with a man who, she became increasingly certain, was probably enjoying having an ardent, inexperienced young girl on a string but who was bound eventually to break her heart.
When Tansy was home for the May holidays, Fler had tried tactfully to voice her concern.
‘I know you think a great deal of this man,’ she said. ‘But he must be a few years older than you. What sort of person is he?’
Apparently he was some kind of demigod, from Tansy’s rapturous description. But it didn’t really tell her much.
When the eulogy appeared to be over she said, keeping her voice light, ‘I expect half of your friends have a crush on him, too, if he’s as wonderful as you say.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Tansy declared impatiently, the age-old pronouncement of youth to a parent. ‘It’s not like that at all. Kyle and I have a...a relationship.’
A relationship? Did she mean—? ‘What kind of relationship?’ she asked.
Mistake. She’d meant it to sound like a matter-of-fact woman-to-woman question. It had come out sharply, almost an accusation, definitely mother-to-possibly-wayward-daughter. ‘Are you going out together?’ she asked more casually.
‘Sometimes. Well, we don’t exactly go out much, you know. I see him in class, of course, and he takes some of the tutorials himself. But Kyle has to be careful. Discreet, you know? He couldn’t let anyone think he’s favouring me. He’s got to think of his position.’
Does he, now? Fler thought grimly. It sounded as though Tansy was quoting him. He didn’t want to be seen with her in public. That was obvious. ‘You know, it’s not exactly ethical for a lecturer to seduce one of his students,’ she said.
‘Kyle hasn’t seduced me!’
Maybe not yet, but Fler would have laid odds it was on his agenda. With the emphasis Tansy had given it, the remark was ambiguous. She asked a blunt question. ‘Are you sleeping with him?’
‘What if I am?’ Tansy flushed, looking boldly at her mother. ‘I’m over the age of consent, so there isn’t a thing you can do about it.’
That gave Fler a nasty little jolt. She said, ‘How serious is this, Tansy?’
‘I love him,’ Tansy said, her eyes wide and defiant.
As gently as she could, Fler said, ‘Darling, are you sure you’re not fooling yourself?’
Tansy had been immediately defensive and angry, and they’d had their first major quarrel in years. It had ended with Tansy in tears, accusing Fler of not wanting to let go of the apron strings, of being jealous of her daughter having a man when she didn’t, of wanting to ruin Tansy’s life as she’d wrecked her own.
Of course Fler had taken it all with a healthy pinch of salt. Tansy was still young and didn’t mean half of what she said in temper. But the accusations were a disturbing echo of her own insecurities. Maybe there was a grain of truth in them. So she’d trodden carefully from then on, wary of alienating Tansy, terribly afraid for her, and holding herself ready to be available for comfort and support when the inevitable break finally came.
Now it had, with stunning force. Never in a million years would she have expected Tansy to attempt suicide. She felt sick with shock. And guilty, too. Because she hadn’t foreseen anything like this, although she’d thought she and Tansy were close.
But mostly, she felt a hot, vengeful rage against the man who had carelessly, cruelly, for some whim or because it fed his masculine ego, brought her lovely, loving daughter to the brink of self-destruction. Quite simply, she wanted to kill him.
CHAPTER TWO
‘KYLE?’
Tansy’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
Fler instantly crossed to the bed, her anxious eyes on the gold-tipped lashes struggling to open. ‘Tansy...’ She took the slack hand again in hers, smoothed the fine hair away from the clammy forehead. ‘It’s all right, I’m here.’
Tansy’s brow briefly wrinkled. She managed to open her eyes for a moment before they closed heavily. ‘Mummy!’ The old childhood name. ‘Wha’ are you...?’
‘The hospital called me.’ The early morning call, the calm, impersonal voice on the line... ‘Your daughter has been brought into hospital...an overdose...’
‘Where’ Kyle?’ Tansy whispered.
Fler tamped down a fresh spasm of rage. Calmly she said, ‘He had to go. Don’t