SORRY FOR THE WRONG UPDATE I DID LAST TIME... AM MAKING UP WITH DOUBLE CHAPTERS THIS TIME 😕😕😕
SO ENJOY 😃😃😃😃
CHAPTER 21
zoya was building a sandcastle on the beach when the little girl whose lopsided lump she was busy turning into a fairy-tale structure complete with flying flags of fuzzy pussy-willow grass suddenly popped her thumb out of her mouth and extended it in a skywards spike. Kneeling in the hard-packed sand just below the high-water line, zoya squinted against the low angle of the sun.
"Oh, no, darling, we're building them up, not pushing them down," choked zoya, hastily blinking away the tears she blamed on the needle-sharp jab of the sun and spreading out
her hands to protect the flank of her castle from an enthusiastic little fist.
The man, who had been padding steadily along the beach towards them, came to a halt at the edge of the shallow moat on the seaward side of the castle, crouching down to survey the damage, his knees splayed, the dark trousers that had been rolled up to his calves pulling tight across the tops of his thighs, his long bare feet melting into the wet sand.
"Looks like you could do with some help," he said, pushing up the sleeves of his pale grey knitted-silk sweater, revealing the golden brown hair on his tanned forearms.
"No, thanks, we're doing fine without you," said zoya, just as another tower got a smashing makeover, sending a spray of damp sand into her mouth and down the top of her scoop-necked top.
"Hey, sweetheart, how about you and I fill this bucket with some more sand?" said Asad, picking up the bright plastic pail with its turret-shaped base lying by his feet and holding out the matching spade.
To zoya"s disgust the little girl trotted obediently over to his side and began digging, while Asad scooped up mounds of sand with his cupped hands and rapidly filled the pail.
"You'll get your clothes dirty," said zoya sourly, wiping the grit from her mouth with her arm, noting that it definitely wasn"t beachwear he was sporting. Who had he dressed to impress? she wondered.
"Like yours?" he said, his mouth curving as he looked at her sand-clogged striped top and water-stained shorts.
When she didn't smile back, his own faded, his brown eyes unflinching as he weathered her wintry stare.
"It'll all come out in the wash," he commented, sinking down onto his knees and turning his attention back to his task, smoothing over the compacted sand in the bucket and invert ing it to produce a smooth-sided release from the bucket with a sharp rap on the top, far more perfect than zoya had obtained.
The little girl clapped her hands. "More!"
Asad obliged until there was another square of perfect towers, which he joined up with mounded walls. zoya doggedly worked on the original castle as he and his helper dug a moat and filled it with buckets of sea water.
"I think I need to hire a decorator," he said to zoya, noticing her sneaking sidelong glances at the expansive grey walls. "Would you like to help?" He picked up a single strand of pussy willow from the bunch of grasses she had gathered in the sand-dunes earlier and held it out to her, the delicate, pale golden catkin at the end of the stalk quivering and dancing in the gentle sea breeze.
It was too reminiscent of an extended olive branch and she opened her mouth to coldly refuse, but then she saw the girl"s innocent blue eyes, alight with eagerness, fixed on her face.
She reached out to reluctantly accept the offering.
"I suppose I could." Her voice was like broken glass but the little girl listened to the words, not the jagged tone, and as zoya poked the stalk into the top of one of the new towers she began pulling her precious collection of shells from the sagging pocket of her shorts and handing them over one by one for zoya to press into the base of the walls.
Watching her crawling around on her hands and knees, Asad said with a curious edge, "Should you be doing that? What about your pulled muscle?"
She didn't understand his concern. After all, he had been the one to turn his back on her grief-stricken admission. He must have realised how shocked and upset she was, how devastated by her humiliating mistake. He hadn't cared then what she was going through.
"The doctor gave me an anti-inflammatory. The pain relief was pretty well immediate."
He frowned. "Don't those things have harmful side-effects?" "I'm sure the doctor wouldn't have prescribed it if it was dangerous," zoya told him tartly. "But if you were so worried about it perhaps you should have asked me about it at the time instead of running off like that. But then, that's fairly typical behaviour for you, isn't it?"
She hadn"t meant to let that slip out, but when she saw the skin tauten over his cheekbones she was glad. There was no reason now to hold back, no secret baby to protect. She was on her own.
"Oh, yes, that's a pretty one, isn't it, darling?" she said as the little girl poked a small shell with its pearlised blue and green interior under her nose.
"Here, girl, put it in your bucket," said Asad, handing it over with the spade tucked inside. Look"your mother's getting ready to take you back up for your tea."
The woman whom zoya had briefly spoken to earlier had repacked her beach bag and was shaking out her towel. Seeing them looking towards her, she waved, yelled out a greeting to Asad and her thanks to zoya, and called to her daughter, who skipped off without a second glance at the result of all their hard work.
"There's gratitude for you," murmured Asad as she got stiffly to her feet. "Never mind, the tide"s still on its way out and the local school kids should be getting off the bus about now. Your monument will get plenty of admiration before the sea comes back to demolish it."
"For someone who doesn't want any children, I'm surprised you're so good at handling them," she said, unable to curb her resentment. "Most people who haven't had much contact with children find it hard to relate to them."
Herself included. She had never been interested in babies or young children until she had thought she was pregnant, then they had turned out to be the subject of a profound, and hitherto inadmissible fascination. Again she felt that deep, wrenching sorrow, the sense of loss that she had no right to feel. She began to walk quickly back along the beach towards the house.
Asad had tensed at her words. "In the kind of group homes I was in there are always plenty of kids coming and going." He shrugged, turning to follow her, easily keeping up with her swinging strides. "It's supposed to be part of the "family experience" to get the teenagers to help look after the younger ones."
His voice petered out, as if he expected her to interrupt with a question, but zoya merely quickened her pace, the breeze against her face making her eyes sting as she pulled ahead.
"I came back, didn't I?" he said roughly, digging his feet into the sand to regain her shoulder. "That must count for something."
"You think?" she said sarcastically. "Yes, that's quite a record turn-around for you. I thought you'd be away much longer," she said truthfully. "But I forgot that you have a work in progress. You had to come back for that"you have a lot of writing to do. And of course that always takes precedence over everything else!" She could hear herself getting shrill and was relieved to see her front lawn. She almost broke into a run.
"zoya" That's not why I came back." He leapt up on the grass and shadowed her to the scene of her fall.
She pulled her sleeve out of his grasp. She didn't know what to believe anymore. She didn't trust him"or herself"to know what was really true. "Excuse me, I think I'm going to go inside and be sick," she flung at him, and rushed up the stairs, hoping that would be enough to make him think twice about harassing her with his unwanted attention.
Unfortunately her words had the opposite effect and after scarcely a moment of hesitation he charged into the house behind her, following her trail of sandy footprints right into the sanctuary of her bedroom where she had fled to shed bitter tears.
"What are you doing in here?" she said thickly, backing away from him, glad that she hadn't yet succumbed to the building pressure behind her eyes.
"You said you were going to be sick."
Just as the doctor had predicted they would, the physical symptoms of her pregnancy had vanished, so she couldn't blame her savage burst of fury on a hormonal mood swing.
"And you wanted to what? Enjoy watching my misery?"
"I thought you might need some help."
She was infuriated by his strained gentleness. "You haven't been much help so far"why start now?"
"Calm down, zoya, it isn't good for you to get all wrought up over trifles."
Trifles? zoya"s mouth fell open at his sheer gall.
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