The Cinderella Factor. Sophie Weston
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She batted the surface of the water with her hands, making rainbow droplets fly up like a fountain. She shook her face in them, revelling in the sensation. Then she submerged completely and swam through the arch of the bridge.
The man took his hands out of his pockets and came to the edge of the bank, looking keenly after her. The fall of the willow would still have hidden him from Jo even if she had suspected that he was there. But she was enjoying herself too much to sense that she was being watched.
She streaked down to the bend in the river, where it was deeper and the water flowed faster. Then she turned in a neat dive and stroked lazily downstream again, on her back, looking at the clear sky through the tracery of overhanging leaves. She turned her head on the water to watch the bank dreamily. There were little patches of green-gold, where the sun streamed through unimpeded, areas of black shadow, like the cool place where she had left her clothes, and long stretches where the sun filtered through the trees as if it was creeping in round the edge of a mask, printing a sharp, delicate pattern of black lace on the turf.
She drew a deep breath, did a backward somersault into the weedy depths and disappeared. Instinctively, the man stepped out of the curtain of the willow, scanning the unbroken surface of the water.
Still unaware, Jo came up, shaking the water out of her hair and eyes, laughing. And it was then that she saw the bird, in a flash of emerald and blue, skimming the surface of the stream and flying away into the trees.
Jo went quite still. She stood where she was, the water up to her waist, tilting her head to watch the little creature. It had found a branch and was sitting there with whatever it had caught. She could make out the flash of a beady eye and the amazing jewel colours of the feathers.
She had heard of kingfishers. Seen pictures. But nothing had prepared her for this—this living iridescence, so small and yet so brilliant that it hurt the eyes. She held her breath.
Behind her, a voice said harshly, ‘Have you hurt yourself?’
Jo was so absorbed she was not startled, much less embarrassed by her nakedness. She was hardly aware of it, she was concentrating so hard.
‘Hush,’ she said, the softness of her voice failing to disguise the clear note of command. ‘That has to be a kingfisher.’
She was aware of movement behind her, as if whoever it was had been on the very edge of the bank and was now retreating a few paces.
‘Where?’ The voice was no less harsh, though this time it was scarcely above a whisper.
Jo raised a bare arm and pointed. Water fell from her fingers and elbow in a sparkle of silver.
‘You look like a statue in a fountain,’ the harsh voice said abruptly.
But Jo did not notice. The kingfisher was on the wing again. It streaked past them, a flash of sapphire and jade fire, and was lost in the foliage at the bend of the river.
Jo expelled a long breath.
‘Oh, wasn’t that wonderful?’she said, turning to face the voice.
It was a shock.
He was tall and slender, with an alarming air of compact, confident strength. He had a thin, proud face, which most women would probably call handsome. And his eyes were masked by the ubiquitous dark glasses. Jo registered all this in the blink of an eyelid and it left her unmoved.
And then he took his glasses off. And she froze to the spot as if he had cast a spell on her.
His eyes! They were deepset, under heavy brows. At first she thought they were black, then brown, then a strange golden yellow like old brandy. And they were staring at her as if she was an apparition from another world.
He was the first to speak.
‘Well,’ he said softly. All the harshness was gone, as if it had never been.
Jo shook her head a little, trying to break that mesmeric eye contact. Her ragged hair was plastered to her head, darkened to coal-black, all its red lights doused in the soaking it had received. The movement sent trickles of water from the rats’ tails down her shoulders and between her breasts.
‘I didn’t realise anyone was there,’ she said blankly.
At once she was furious with herself. Stupid, stupid, she thought. Of course you knew he was there—the moment he spoke. And of course you didn’t know before that, or you would not have been jumping about in the water with no clothes on.
Realisation hit her then. She gave a little gasp and plunged her shoulders rapidly under the water. But she couldn’t quite break the locking of their gaze.
He smiled a little. ‘I didn’t intend that you should.’
Jo digested that. ‘You were spying on me?’ she said, incredulous.
It did not seem likely, somehow; it was out of character with that haughty profile, she thought. Years of living on her wits had taught Jo to sum up people fast. She was not usually wrong.
His face reflected distaste. ‘Quite by accident.’
He sounded so weary that Jo flushed, as if it were she, not he, who was at fault. She was indignant.
‘How do you spy on someone by accident?’ she demanded hotly.
He smiled again, startling her. It was a sudden slanting of that too controlled, too uncompromising mouth and it changed his face completely. Suddenly it was not just other women who would have called him handsome. And more than handsome.
Disconcerted, Jo swallowed. And huddled deeper under the water.
He said, ‘I was here first. I saw you come down from the bridge. By the time I realised you were intending to strip off and leap into the water it was too late to warn you that you were not alone.’
‘Oh.’
He relented. ‘But I admit I watched you playing in the water. I suppose a gentleman would have gone away. But you looked so—happy.’
The mouth was a thin line again. Not so much harsh, Jo thought in sharp recognition, as holding down a pain of the soul that was scarcely endurable. She knew something about that.
She said gently, ‘It’s the place. Anyone would be happy here.’
His eyes held hers. There was a little silence. For a moment even the bees stilled in the summer air. He shook his head slowly, as if this time he was the one under a spell—and trying desperately to break free.
‘Only if you’re very young.’
Jo thought of those years—in shabby rooms when she’d had some money, sleeping in bus shelters and an old boat-house by a canal when she hadn’t. Of cold, and intermittent hunger, and the need to stay painfully alert against theft and worse. The longing for a bath. The loneliness. The need to stay lonely because you never knew who you could afford to trust.
‘I’m not that young,’ she said dryly.
He looked up, arrested. Then seemed to pull himself together. He almost shrugged.
‘You look about sixteen.’
‘Nineteen. But experience speeds up the clock.’ And she looked at him very straightly.
Something seemed to stir, shift in his eyes. Something—she did not know what—half physical sensation, half a strange emotion that made her want to abandon good sense and laugh and cry at once, seemed to wake in Jo in answer. Bewildered, she knew she had never felt anything like it before. All she knew was that it reached out to whatever was waking in him.
Then, like a snake striking, it arced between them. Eyes widening in shock, she realised it had taken him by surprise as much as it had her. He looked shaken.
Jo gasped and sat down suddenly on the riverbed. The water closed over her head. She thought the man winced. She saw his head go back as if at a blow. But she was too busy expelling water to be sure.