The first inkling Simone had what was wrong with Annabelle's mood was going terrifyingly wrong was the way she rushed on ahead after stopping the car with a screech of brakes. She ran down the steps towards their home at an insanely fast speed instead of linking arms and walking down in a leisurely fashion. The fair haired woman felt compelled to go as fast as she could but she was scared of taking a tumble down the periodic steps, handicapped as she was by her heeled shoes. Her lover sped on recklessly, saved by a miracle from disaster and by her flat-heeled sandals that somehow clung to her feet. By the time Simone was close to the bottom, she was startled to see the object of her concern , long hair flailing in the breeze head on down to the beach, and rush onto the sand. A vivid image was instantly branded in her mind of Annabelle running on the sand like a dervish, wheeling and dipping, giving vent to high pitched sounds of utter distress while Simone was already becoming breathless and struggling to catch up with her. This day had suddenly gone insanely wrong after the brilliant achievement of the cheque in Simone's handbag and the promise of the standing order.
When Simone had quickly regained her breath she ran across the sand, her straight line easily catching up with Annabelle's circuitous tracks across the sand and she approached her lover. It was then that she realised just how disturbed she was.
"Annabelle, please listen to me," Simone pleased, trying to recapture a trick or two of her teaching days in grabbing her lover's attention.
"Don't touch me, don't touch me,"Annabelle kept screaming, her hair straggling all over her face which was as white as chalk. Her hands were held up, waving in front of her face as if to fend off something that only she could see. This scared Simone out of her wits. The nearest that she'd seen Annabelle behave that way was after a fight she'd had with Catherine in the dormitory over some barbed remarks she'd made about them both when Simone had temporarily backed away after the emotional intensity of her stay at this very house. Though heartbroken at her inability to tend Annabelle's hurt, she could understand the reason for the younger woman's reaction in rejecting her. This was different league stuff.
"I'm not letting you go, Annabelle. I'm not letting you go," Simone kept on repeating to the other woman. "Even if it gets pitch dark, I'll still be here with you."
Again and again, Simone kept on repeating her declaration of love and faithfulness until suddenly, Annabelle ran out of energy. She suddenly slumped on the beach, shivering all over, looking sweaty to the touch with sand all over her dress and legs. Simone tried to work out in her head just what to do next. Her natural instinct was to comfort Annabelle but she feared to start her off into another peculiar rage. Some memory instinct of past occurrences flashed back into her mind and she clicked into teacher's mode of operation. In as hard and precise a voice as she could summon up, she made her intervention as short and sharp as she could summon up.
"Annabelle Tillman, you need a shower. Right now."
Amazingly enough, the other woman raised herself to her feet. Shivering all over, Annabelle started to trudge in an uncertain line towards their house and Simone followed, stopping to pick up her lover's sandals which, only now, had become detached from her feet. After Simone neatly slid open the front door, the younger woman stomped into the house and headed for the shower, not saying a word. Fairly soon, the sounds of rushing water could be heard. Sighing with relief, Simone kicked off her shoes and collapsed in a chair. She could have done with a shower herself and would certainly have offered to share it with Annabelle only, this time, the situation wasn't right. It was now that she reached for her handbag and felt anxiously for her cheque and, sure enough, the cheque from the J P Morgan account nestled safe and sound. It felt very strange that today had given them some measure of financial security as opposed to her lurking financial worries while everything in her private life was blissfully serene and wonderful. Now the situation had reversed itself in this hideous fashion.
As time went on, Annabelle still hadn't come out of the shower. Normally, she'd have come out way earlier than now in her zest for what was next in their lives. Not a word had come from her, not the occasional snatches of singing as she used to hear in their first days before her lover had first suggested highly novel and more companionable aspects of basic hygiene. Simone started to worry and left it a little while before her concern for the younger woman overrode her natural caution.
"Annabelle, I want to talk to you, make sure you're all right,"Simone called out in her clear gentle tones. The silence that greeted her in return was chilling. Simone left it a little while and called out a second time and again there was a deafening silence.
It was just while Simone was steeling herself to have a third try when finally Annabelle stumbled out of the shower and hurtled in the direction of their bedroom. Without bothering to towel herself dry, she fell forward onto the bed her face buried in the duvet. She was still shivering all over and it was patently obvious that this wasn't down to the cold. The fair haired woman knew that she had to take action quickly and get it right. Their futures depended on it.
Simone had the foresight to grab a hairbrush and towel so she calmly sat next to her and started to softly run her hairbrush through Annabelle's tangled hair, softly towel her down and make gentle shoosh shooshing sounds. The half-light of their bedroom made for a gentle soothing atmosphere and the soft and regular rhythms had their effect in calming Annabelle down much to Simone's huge relief. She became aware that the younger woman's skin felt less tense and sensed that her nerves weren't standing out on stalks. Finally, a shapely hand extended itself sideways groping blindly for something. Simone's calm and gentle nature started to make its presence through her own tensions and she placed her other hand near where the younger woman was reaching. Finally, they made contact and Annabelle's fingers and thumb started to gently stroke the offered hand as her breathing became calmer and more regular. Finally, the younger woman twisted around and those remarkable grey eyes were teary with deep remorse.
"I am really, really sorry, more than I can ever say. I never, never meant to behave that way, not after everything you've done for me. I'll never do it again,"Annabelle said in her first strained words. Simone's heart jumped for joy as at last her lover was coming back to her.
"I think I know what happened," Simone said with kindness and infinite understanding. This made Annabelle cry all the more. She didn't try to hide her tears. When she was feeling less choked inside,she started to explain herself.
"I never, never meant a single word about you not touching me. I got really crazy and it will never happen again. You know I just love the way you touch me, in every way possible. You do know that, don't you? I only said it once before when I had that fight with Cat and I couldn't handle you distancing yourself from me. I know now why you had to do it. You must believe it. I wasn't ignoring you earlier on. I was ashamed of myself, of the way I'd been behaving, that I'd somehow trashed our love and couldn't see it get mended."
"Of course I understand," Simone said with her infinitely gentler soothing voice as she gently stroked the younger woman's face with her fingertips. She could see the pleading look in lover's eyes which touched her to the core.
Annabelle's sigh of relief was audible. Her arms reached out, aching to be hugged. Simone slid into her arms and the younger woman held her for a long, long time and she could feel the last of her nervous tension gradually released. She drew a little way back to look deep into Simone's blue eyes. Finally, a stream of words came pouring out mingled with her tangled emotions which were unleashed in a torrential flood. Simone felt her lover's desperate need to explain herself as much as she felt her own emotions.
"I'm beginning to figure out my freakout, sweetheart. I grew this hard shell round myself when I was with my parents, as if I'm pretending they can't get to me so I won't get hurt by their neglect. When I had screaming matches or became passive-aggressive, that's what I was trying to do. Of course, when they engineered for Marilyn and me to get split up, that did hurt me. I hated them for doing it to me and hated myself for being hurt by them. When my parents drove me to St Theresa's that first day I started, I remember looking out the window of that stretch limousine, vacantly looking at the window at this psychedelically distorted view of the trees and sky, my mother on her mobile, some file in her lap with the latest headlines of 'The Senator's daughter in Trouble again.' It stopped me feeling and it's taken a long time to see everything from the outside. I'd been bottling everything up but being here with you is so incredible, not only your love, sharing our lives, this dream house but you've gradually opened me up,loosened me up, making me tender-hearted and open. The trouble is I saw my mother again and all those fucked up feelings come pouring out when I had no defences. Maybe you think I'm kind of nuts," she finished with a shaky laugh.
"Ever since I've known you I've seen you as totally normal," Simone said softly. A half-grin suddenly appeared on Annabelle's face despite the odd tear still forming in her eyes.
"That's a good one. Can you explain that one please?" she replied with mingled respect, fascination and humour in a way only Annabelle could successfully manage.
"Your reputation preceded you at St Theresa's, darling. I was warned to expect this really terrible trouble-maker who'd disrupt the form only you gave me this really beautiful and thoughtful response to that Walt Whitman poem. That got me thinking"
"I was blatantly flirting with you. I ended up getting more than I bargained for when I got to know you."
"I saw that you didn't really have a problem with authority, only with injustice and being treated like a child. Once I got past the superficials and saw you with fresh eyes, a whole other person appeared, the woman I fell in love with. You can thank Marcel Proust for that one in lending me that quote."
Annabelle threw Simone this lovely, warm-hearted smile at her sensitive insight and their private little joke, being an inscription in the flyleaf of the light green hardback poetry book she'd given her a year ago when their friendship had first taken shape. She drew Simone down next to her, lying full length against each other and hugged fer for a very long time.
"I'll never, never, never treat you like that again," Annabelle kept repeating into Simone's ear."I love you so much."
"Don't you think I haven't experienced something like the same? I saw you once behind the rocks, a cigarette in your hand when my mother came to give me her usual stiff-necked lecture about why didn't I settle down and have children or make a lot of money like my elder brother. Apart from her dreadfully depressing visits, I was sure she cooked up some sort of scheme with the Mother Immaculata, For the last five years, I've only visited them twice a year, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving and each time I feel I'm crawling out of my skin within five minutes because I'm sick of the whole charade."
"That's exactly how I feel about my parents," exclaimed Annabelle, open mouthed with wonder at the way this super-intelligent woman could tune into her feelings and still more that it was safe for to let her do so.
"Needless to say, from this year on, my brother can be on his own with them. We're spending Christmas and Thanksgiving together. That's definite," Simone said with deep feeling.
"I really like the sound of that," Annabelle replied with a beaming smile. She took a look around their little beach house and the feel of it and her lover holding her made all her nightmares go away.
"We did achieve a lot today," mused Simone looking far into the distance as her fingers lightly stroked her lover's skin," more than I ever expected that we ever could".
"You're right but can we talk about a couple of things that's still bothering me. I really need an answer."
"Ask away," Simone replied in calm relaxed tones. Annabelle was certain of her lover's sincerity
"It's the money thing. I can see why you agreed to the money going into your account but I felt like a little child while you and my mother was cutting this deal."
"Your mother is a very cruel woman. The trouble is that she's cold and can't feel feelings but she knows that you can so she's always trying to beat you down. The day may come when you'll feel sorry for her," Simone exclaimed in passionate ringing tones which made the younger woman's head whirl with the way she cut to the heart of the matter."You'd done a bang up job in putting the screws on her to cough up, the only way we would have got anywhere so this was her attempt to split us up. I really wanted to tell her to stuff her money as I feel contaminated having any dealings with her but, let's face it, we need the money. I knew she was putting the knife into you but there's a way round this."
"There is?" replied Annabelle in wonderment at this wonderful woman of hers.
"We're not obliged to keep to this agreement," Simone said in vehement tones."We go into town tomorrow and open a second bank account in joint names and that's where the money gets transferred to. We'll bust your mother's schemes wide open."
"And if she uses her contacts to spot what we're doing?" queried Annabelle.
"Then we go for the jugular just like you explained so brilliantly. We'll have her over a barrel. I'd figured that out while we were talking but I couldn't let you in on the secret with her there."
Annabelle let out a yell of absolute delight and squeezed her lover out of pure affection. She might have known that her darling woman had their best intentions in mind.
"So what about the other thing?" Simone said, starting to feel very over dressed and a bit sweaty after her recent exertions while her lover's towel had carelessly slipped round her waist and she was looking as fresh as a daisy.
"It doesn't really matter. It's trivial," Annabelle started to say in an embarrassed fashion now that her major problem was out of the way.
"Oh no, it isn't. It's about my temperance spiel, isn't it," teased Simone, her fingers stroking her lover's soft cheek. Annabelle nodded her head shyly.
To the younger woman's surprise, Simone lay on her back and uttered a peal of delighted laughter and couldn't speak for a while. The sharp-witted woman knew for certain that Simone was holding out on her.
"Come on, Simone, I know you're keeping secrets from me,"she said in her most seductively demanding fashion.
"It all goes back to my teenage rebel days," Simone started to say before irrepressible laughter choked further speech for a while.
"You mean, now or then," riposted Annabelle with the sort of quick-witted verbal penetration of intelligence that warmed Simone's heart.
"Then. Definitely then. Amanda and I were always going round Father Harris's place running errands, doing good deeds. You must imagine me as I used to be, wearing a short sleeved while blouse and that cute check short skirt, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in my mouth..."
"...mmm,"murmured the younger girl with a wicked grin,"You are giving me really dangerous ideas." Simone slapped the younger woman's skin playfully, visualising the very same thing.
"There was one thing that really grabbed our curiosity and that was the bottles of communion wine he had stored in a special place. Amanda and I reasoned that communion wine was somehow blessed and we had the curiosity of teenagers who had come from protected backgrounds to wonder what it was like to drink. You get the picture?"
"Perfectly," Annabelle said, a wide grin spreading across her face. She knew exactly where the story was heading but she liked hearing Simone tell the story..
"So one day, we sneaked a bottle of wine out and went to the rockery, you know where you and Cat smoked pot once. It's a good place to hang out and you don't get noticed," Simone continued in her bright and breezy fashion, momentarily jolting the younger woman with her depth of her knowledge. She passed it by as it was only Simone talking.
"Hard liquor like Jack Daniels, Bourbon and Rebel Yell may sound cool in comparison with communion wine," proceeded Simone blithely which made Annabelle laugh out loud at the way she put it." Let me tell you that undiluted communion wine has a kick like a demented donkey. You drink it and you realise too late that you're really going to have trouble walking. That's what happened to Amanda and I. Somehow, we supported each other and staggered into the dormitory. To this day, I don't know how we got there unnoticed. Anyone who saw us would have figured us out as drunks from the Bowery. The other bad thing about communion wine is that the hangover is super lethal. The next day, one of us staggered downstairs and had breakfast and went to lessons and the other lay in bed. Guess who was the strong one?"
"You of course," the younger woman replied, relishing the delightfully teenage aspect of her lover.
"I told such a heart-rending story to the Mother Immaculata with my big baby blue eyes about how Amanda was stricken down with a mystery bug. I fooled her too. It was the one part of my life I managed to keep secret from her. Father Harris was the only one who ever knew just like he knew about the two of us before I knew for certain," Simone concluded with a dreamy look in her eyes.
Both women felt wonderfully at peace with themselves as they lay together on the bed. Their wounds had been healed by a magical mixture of laughter and understanding. Annabelle gently stroked her lover's leg and felt traces of sand still adhering to her. It immediately made her feel a little guilty that Simone must have felt uncomfortable while their psyches were being restored. The course of action was surely obvious.
"Come on, sweetheart," she urged in her most seductive tones as she reached behind her lover and unzipped her dress."Whatever the time might be, we're having a shower together, a very special shower."
"You mean?"
"I've got such a lot of making up to do, a lot of making up and it starts right here," Annabelle replied in lust filled tones. Despite the traumas of the day, Simone's rising feelings of desire told her that she might just feel up to this.