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had been foolishly deluding herself. It was up to her to find a way
out, for both of them.
She risked another fleeting glance at his face and found the anger had
abated a little, but the other look was stronger, now, and it was
unmistakable in his eyes, in his mouth a sick disgust.
'I suppose we could could get an annulment,' she said hesitantly.
'But I don't know what evidence is required. It might be difficult,
in the circumstances. But divorce is quite easy, now, isn't it? If we're
willing to wait for a year or two, and and live apart.'
Marc was so long in replying that she might have been goaded into
looking at him again if she could have borne to see his expression.
'Is that what you want?' he asked at last.
Her heart cried out in anguish against it, but she knew it would be
worse to know that he was standing by their marriage while he tried
to hide the way he felt about her. It would be easier not to see that
look in his eyes again.
'Yes,' she said dully, 'I think it would be best.'
There was another pause. Marc made a sudden movement, quickly
stilled, and said, 'All right.' He sounded hard now, like the driving
businessman who had antagonised her when they first met. 'I'll see a
lawyer in the morning. You'll be free as soon as I can arrange it.'
CHAPTER NINE
KYLA moved into the little flat over the shop. It was as good a place
as any, while she decided what to do with her life. Her first thought
was to go away, sell up the shop and rim as far from Marc and their
disastrous relationship as possible. But running away was a repeating
pattern in her life, a pattern she had been determined to break. She
had run from the little town where everyone knew her, when she
could no longer stand the stares, the whispered conversations, the
pity and the curiosity. Some people had been kind and
understanding the minister who had come and talked to her, told
her that she must not feel smirched, that her mother had been
mistaken when in a thoughtless moment she had bewailed that her
daughter could not be married in white, that she had no reason for
shame; and the minister's son, about her own age, had actually asked
her to go out with him. She thought his father had put him up to it,
and refused. In any ease, her feelings were still too raw to accept any
invitations. One or two other boys had been interested in her, but the
sly curiosity she saw in their eyes made her flesh creep. Most of the
boys she knew avoided her, embarrassed to be seen near her.
She had failed the University Entrance examination, after all, her
study programme completely disrupted by the emotional trauma of
what had happened to her, followed by the ordeal of the court
proceedings and a prolonged absence from school. And as soon as
she turned eighteen she left home and went to Auckland, to live in a
hostel and find work, serving in a shop.
For a long time she avoided the company of men but one of the girls
she worked with had a brother who seemed kind and gentle, and
rather shy. The family was strongly religious, and Kyla felt safe
enough with him when he asked her out. He was a good man, and she
knew he was in love with her before he asked her to marry him. She
thought she might come to love him, in time. But first she had to tell
him what had happened to her. Of course he was shocked; she had
expected that. She had not expected embarrassment and unease, and
before long an obvious regret that their relationship had progressed
so far. When she told him she had decided against marriage, his relief
was palpable. It taught her a bitter lesson.
When next she liked a man enough to go out with him, he was much
more extroverted, a man who made her laugh and hid her lack of
confidence with his own ebullience. She wouldn't let him make love
to her; and he was intrigued. When he seemed to be getting serious,
she decided it was only fair to tell him her story before he got to the
point of proposing. To her relief he seemed to accept it
sympathetically; he held her hand and began asking questions in
quiet tones, and she was grateful until the trend of the questions
began to make her uneasy. She looked into his face and saw the
eager, prurient interest in his eyes, and ran from him feeling sick and
frightened and disorientated.
After that she grew a shell of outward poise and calm, cut men out of
her life altogether, and, taking her savings, moved North to start her
own business.
It was a pity that she had allowed Marc to get under her carefully
built defences. A pity she had been stupid enough to persuade herself
that if she didn't mention the past, it would not catch up with her.
No, she was not going to run away again. It wouldn't be easy, staying
here where she might see Marc at any time. But she hoped it was not
going to be easy for him, either.
The fault might have been mainly hers, but she couldn't quell an
angry bitterness because he had not been able to understand, after all.
If only he had loved her, and not the false image of her he had built
in his own mind, her revelations would not have ended their
marriage. Sometimes she hated him for that. There were moments
when she found herself shaking with impotent anger, because he had
made her love him, and his own love for her had been so easily
withdrawn and so cruelly.
Hazel had accepted her brief explanation that the marriage had not
worked out with surprise and quickly hidden disapproval. Kyla could
see her suppressing comment on the grounds that it was not her
business, and was grateful that Hazel restrained herself from saying
anything, other than a brief commiseration.
Marc was as good as his word, and a set of papers to be signed the
first step towards a divorce arrived in the mail within a surprisingly
short time. He wasn't wasting any time in getting rid of her, she
thought with bitter pain.
Winter in the 'winterless North' was never really cold, but there were
times when the winds blew chill, and days of rain coming down in
torrents. Sometimes a day that started fine and warm would be
dimmed by black, bloated clouds rolling over the harbour and on to
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