In Red

Chapter 19

IT WAS LUCKY THAT ADELLE'S SMALL INN WAS USUALLY NOT VERY busy, for lately they had a constant need of using it and it suited them down to the ground to always find rooms available.

At the dinner table, Blanche and Violet remained in silence. Two other guests, sitting at a distance, gazed curiously and surreptitiously at their sumptuous dresses and those of their sisters. Fortunately, they'd arrived in broad daylight, not increasing with a further infringement the terror of having swopped their clothes, which they had already corrected. Nevertheless, they were still pretty scared and hardly able to assimilate the idea of having left the castle. The other four, joined by Adelle, were discussing the bad idea, in Roxanne's opinion, of having stayed so near.

"It's not so much about us," she was telling Joseph. "I'm concerned about you." She glanced at Alan, conscious that she wasn't making him feel included. "Mr. Harris won't let you get away with this."

"Let him come," answered the young man. "Then I'll be able to break the rest of his teeth. He knows my address anyway," he added, returning to his usual calm manner. "We'd be equally exposed."

Roxanne became more worried and regretful for having dragged him into this situation.

"It's OK," he told her, taking her hand. "I don't really expect him to come. You saw that not even in the heat of the moment did he try to get his own back."

That didn't convince Roxanne. She knew Mr. Harris well enough to foresee a more treacherous act on his part.

"I'm going to bed," said Celeste. "And I'm taking these two upstairs with me. If you finally decide that it is better to leave, just let us know and we'll be ready."

She looked so tired. Too tired. The girl in red wondered how much more they'd resist – she, herself would resist – without going to pieces.

"Joseph," said Alan, "I've been pondering for a while whether to bring forward my return home. Three more years seem to me to be a very long wait and I've heard on Playa they're preparing to leave in eight months' time. It would take five to get there from the Northern Territory and the flight is scheduled to be launched in a few weeks. I'll be there in time if I get going right away. But... I... I couldn't bear to leave you like this, though. Why don't you come too?"

His friend looked at him deeply disappointed, although he tried to hide it. Regardless of the idea proposed, he was hurt that he wouldn't have told him anything until it was all decided and the departure was imminent. He was also hurt that Alan hadn't found their friendship as fulfilling as he had.

"This is so sudden... I admit that going back to Earth was on my mind, but maybe in eight years' time... Not even when you were supposed to go... And certainly not this soon."

"Well... things have changed very quickly," Alan answered.

"Yes. But it's not these things," Joseph replied, alluding clearly to Roxanne and her sisters, "that have propitiated the rush."

The statement hung in the air like a question.

But it remained unanswered. At least for the time being, in the dining room. The two men would surely talk it over later in private.

That night, Roxanne's nocturnal walk was on her own. When she'd gotten outside the street lamps' field of light, towards the hill, she heard someone knock on the inn's door. Hidden in the darkness, she stopped to look. It wasn't any of the guests that had dined with them that evening.

Adelle opened without delay and the man went inside with her, grabbing her backside.

Roxanne focused her attention on how much dirt the hem of her dress collected. It didn't matter. She'd already washed the one she'd worn in the morning and it was hanging out to dry. The following day, she'd once again have only one dirty dress, which was her aim. She couldn't realize, of course, the enviable climate they enjoyed. Like the beginning of a Mediterranean summer, when the washing hung out already dries easily, but the days are still cool enough.

Soon, however, she had no option but to redirect her thoughts to what had happened – not just tonight, but since the kiss on the hill.

She sat down on the same spot – the grass was flattened from her previous excursions – and recalled the sensations she'd experienced having Alan so close to her. They had been a revelation. A revelation of her true feelings towards Joseph, whom she couldn't stop thinking about while the kiss had lasted. Would things in life, in life outside the castle, always be like that? Would she have to become so involved to find out what she really wanted? She reflected on this for a while. No. She wasn't the only protagonist of or responsible for this affective condition. On the one hand, Joseph was earning her fondness, protecting her, taking risks for her, making whatever was between them – on his side, it was probably friendship or a putative brotherly sense of responsibility – grow constantly every day.

On the other hand, Alan's behavior reminded her more and more of her own father, as Lorraine had briefly but aptly described him. Able to light the spark of love, but able thereinafter to sustain it? To not make her feel much lonelier than before meeting him? She felt close to her mother – to the first one, to the one that had carried her in her womb and had died loving her before even actually laying eyes on her – for the first time. She seemed to be preventing an emotion that could end up hurting her badly thanks to the knowledge of her terrible experience. Her mother had left her a legacy of premature calluses on her heart, which she was now beginning to see the fruits of, and she was glad.

Alan was going to leave and he'd probably already made up his mind, or was about to, before trying to make her fall in love, before stealing her first kiss and her first chance to give out her soul never to recover it again. Now, he'd proposed that they accompany him, but not to her, to Joseph, and she and her sisters were only included out of pity, or solidarity – she didn't really care. The fact was that he had unmistakably showed how unimportant she had become for him, and she could only rejoice that she wasn't feeling truly hurt. She didn't know if Joseph would in the end agree to go, she didn't know if she and the girls would then also want to undertake that long journey. But, in any case, she could go to bed with the certainty that she was strong enough not to be harmed by Alan's charm – or that she was crazy enough about somebody else.

She then, began to wonder if it meant that Alan had once and for all ruled out the idea of talking to Adelle. After what she'd seen tonight, it might be best. She'd been too encapsulated to be able to interpret countless scenes, but she knew, because her aunt had considered it convenient to explain it to her, what it meant to be a prostitute. And that encounter, though it could represent several other things, also left the door open to Adelle, on this planet and after all these years, still being one. Lorraine had maintained the friendship with her by such brief meetings – because of Leonard's control – that she couldn't know whether the lady had managed to, and, or, decided to, make a living exclusively from her job as an innkeeper.

"Good luck, Alan, whatever it is that you find out; whatever it is that you resolve to."