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Valancy was reading when he came in, curled in the shape of a comma next to the fireplace with the book tucked close to the curve of her body. She was absorbed, half-smiling, glowingly engrossed in the thing, so taken up with it that, for once, she didn't even notice his presence in the room
John Foster, of course. He felt a funny little prickle run over his skin, pride and embarrassment and a touch of bizarre inside-out jealousy. She looked so pleased and she deserved all the pleasure there was -- he'd promised himself to give her as much as he could get of that -- but still. He wanted her to look at him.
"Moonlight," he said softly and she blinked and sat up. Her face changed, as it always did, when she saw him for the first time after a little while, and he felt his own breath catch a little in response. He hadn't believed she really loved him, to begin with, and he still wasn't sure about that -- love was a big complicated embittering word and he couldn't associate her with what he knew of its ugliness and anger and longing -- but it still startled and wrongfooted him how openly crazy about him she was. There was no mistaking that, not after he'd touched her the first time.
"Hello," she said now, looking up at him, and he knelt to kiss her, still wondering what exactly she saw to go crazy over in a down at heel bum like him. She was so exquisite herself; he felt the contrast between them when he put his square hands on her and saw the pink deepening her cheekbones. It was an odd little romance they were playing out, he thought, dream-like and playful and bruisingly painful at the same time. How could she die? She didn't feel like someone who might die. He kissed between her collarbones, felt her shiver and laugh at the same time, and stopped trying to think.
*
"Listen," she said, after, sprawled beside him on the bearskin, and he felt his ears get hot.
"No John Foster," he said, pleadingly, but she ignored him as always and he tried to look impassive as he listened. Her voice did lovely, triumphant, joyful things with the words; the cadence was exactly as he'd thought them in writing, with not a syllable that jarred, but she filled them out with all her own gusto for life and her own blazing clarity about things. Whenever she quoted him, he felt rebuked -- he felt like he was the skulking shadow of the John Foster in her mind, a weaker and bitterer and more fragmented fellow than that splendid lover of life she idolised.
"Rubbish," he said, and she laughed and quoted some more and then put her hand in his hair and said, "Barney" in a voice of deep satisfaction. That was something anyhow. It wasn't some fantasy John Foster she had asked to marry her, it was Barney in all his overalls and dirt. Almost as bad as turpentine, he thought, and waited for the stab of resentment that followed every time he thought of Ethel. It never came. He was too comfortable, the fire was too warm. Valancy was talking, saying something about the sound the rain made on the window pane, and Banjo was stealthily curling about their feet. This comfortable peace wasn't love in all its ugly intensity, of course, but it was the best thing he'd felt in a long time. Perhaps the best thing he'd ever feel again. And after it was over --
"I want an apple," Valancy said, and Barney grumbled a little and then rolled off the bearskin and went to fetch a few from the latest haul. They were crisp and sweet and Barney thought vaguely how Valancy was crisp and sweet too, with the cool mocking bite that her voice could carry and her reckless clear-sighted generosity and the romance of her Blue Castle. She was such a sweet thing. He told her so, and more, and wished he could do more and better for her. She deserved better. I love you, she had said. I missed you. His throat tightened. I'll miss you, he thought, but she was munching contentedly on her third apple and it wouldn't do her a bit of good to hear it even if he could bear to say it. He'd think of something she'd like John Foster to say instead.