Lonely Woman on Dante's Peak

"I'm pregnant."

"I wondered about that. To that old guy who stayed with you during the storm and a couple of days after."

"Yes."

"I thought you must have had something on offer to induce him to stay that long."

"It could have been my scintillating conversation."

Mary laughed and then looked serious. "So you want me to recommend a clinic for the abortion."

"Oh no, I want to engage you as my midwife. I'm asking as a big favor. Please Mary."

Huge delight spread over Mary's face. "Darling, I'd be honored. God, you have gotten your father's friend in the crap over this. I presume he's married?"

"Yes with children and grandchildren. Mary, I set about getting pregnant and he knew that from the outset. I knew it was a good time for me and knew the onslaught of the storm would make me very emotional. He's a fit coot and still plays squash and goes to the gym."

"I could have go a round or two with him myself, but just recreationally of course, not like you. Did he give a little speech and say something like it would be a great honor?"

Katherine giggled. "Something like that. He was superb Mary, better than even my randy ex-husband I think."

"You two must have had a great time up there alone, marooned, and here was I feeling sorry for you being in the company of that old goat. How wrong one can be."

"My doctor is Carol Magness. I said I'd ask you to call her."

"Oh Carol, what a sweet doctor you have. I remember years back before Carol went off to med school she received permission to attend one of our birthings. It was a prem frank breech and the mother was so small. It was delivered normal channel and when dear Carol saw how far stretched the vagina was she keeled over but our student nurse caught her."

"Mary you're making my nervous."

"Oh sorry darling. Just looking at you, a big strong young woman, I reckon you will birth your first at a near-breeze. Will you be fetching him back again for subsequent pregnancies?"

"Mary please. I'll probably end up declaring I'll never fuck again."

"I'm sure you'll have that thought darling but you being a perfect specimen for sex, I really don't think you'll be away from it for long. Once you deliver you first child you'll want more."

"Do you really thing so? I've very interested in becoming a mother."

"Welcome to the club darling. I had four."

The next evening Mary called and to tell Katherine her midwifery license had been renewed without her being required to update. "It appears my reputation is such that I'm held in high regard. I also pointed out little has changed."

* * *

Visiting the village to buy milk and bread, Katherine glanced at the Public Information Board and a computer-generated card caught her attention. It was headed, 'Accommodation for an Artist as a Young Man'. An itinerant writer entering the area had liked the 'savagery;' of its coastline and was seeking full accommodation with a hospitable family with a low threshold in respect of payment for the privilege of having him or her staying with them.

Katherine smiled. The person could be Irish. He/she certainly sounded cheeky and possessing character. The heading had intrigued her because in her bedroom bookshelf was a twice-read copy of James Joyce's 'A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man'. On impulse (and impulse was no stranger to her) she called. There was no reply so she left a message.

Just before 7:00 that evening her phone went.

"What are you doing?"

"Excuse me?" Katherine said biting back an indignant reaction to some jerk phoning women at night.

"I asked a perfect reasonable question and thank you for not displaying hostility."

This time Katherine caught the slight accent. It was the advertiser!

"I'm in the bath, soaking. And reading. My reading glasses are perched on my nose and if I claimed to be reading the Bible you wouldn't believe me."

Her wit was ignored. "So what are you reading?"

She sighed. "A cheap woman's magazine article on breast augmentation."

"You sound interesting."

"Aren't we all if studied well enough?"

"Hmmm. That's deep thinking. Are you old?"

"No."

"Then you're young?"

"No, drifting along between those extremes."

"You didn't say both extremes."

"Why? The word 'both' in that instance is redundant."

"Ah, educated are we?"

Katherine thought enough of this. "So you are the Irishman for whom I left a message?"

There was a pause. "I softened my accent. How the hell did you work that out?"

"Intelligence usually goes with being well educated."

He laughed. "My name is Danny Connor. May I come and live with you and your family?"

"Are you clean and tidy and at least 90% reputable?"

"Yes."

"Do you lie?"

"Not to a soft-spoken educated woman who's read 'The Portrait of an Artist of a Young Man. Where do you live?"

"On Dante's Peak."

The pause was followed by a soft, "Jesus."

"Yes, most people wouldn't live at a location called that, would they? It's listed on local maps. My name is Katherine Blake, a widow, newly pregnant and I live alone and paint seascapes sold in galleries. If none of that is to your likening then obviously you'll be a no-show. Goodnight."

Katherine slid her phone shut and began breathing heavily with suppressed tension. She'd expected an interesting man to enter her life if she waited patiently. She had expected it would be a meeting at a friend's home or at a gallery display opening. Was Mr Connor the one?

Five days later Katherine was up a ladder cleaning leaves from the roof gutters, wearing jeans with a tear in the ass from the time she'd climbed lazily over a barbwire fence when she saw a small white car arrive. She was braless and the sweater had shrunk in the wash. She wore a tight woolen cap under which her hair had oozed out in all directions and her makeup was non-existent.

"Oh god, a fucking visitor," she spat.

She waved and turned back to pull out the branch she'd already dragged closer.

"You being pregnant makes me wonder if that's a good idea you being up there?"

The accent was softly Irish.

"Hello Mr Connor. I have cleaned out my studio for you. It's beside my bedroom and faces out to sea for inspiration. Take your things up now or just leave them and I'll do it when I climb down."

"I wasn't seeking excessive hospitality."

"Well that's a relief."

"Come down and greet me. Go carefully."

"Well I'm due for coffee. I purchased tea for you."

"You knew I'd come?"

"Of course. The name Dante's Peak draws people with adventure in them," Katherine said, making that up. She noticed him nod thoughtfully.

Danny Connor looked about thirty, dark hair, white face and a pointy nose. Not handsome but he appeared to have dark eyes and that was something, Katherine thought. He waited but she chose to go on and finish cleaning within arm's reach. He received a big tick as she climbed down and he didn't rush forward and hold the ladder and make patronizing comment. She turned to face him and giggled when he gaped and said in obvious shock, "Jesus you're tall."

Danny in socks probably only just made five-ten.

"So height is the privilege of males?" Katherine said grittily, annoyed that Danny was now staring at her breasts. "Exactly what did you expect me to be?"

"Characterization is a great interest of mine and I'm used to instantly visualizing character when I meet people and do it quite well, I believe."

"Well that suggests you are not short on ego."

Danny gaped at her again.

"What?"

"You are quite unlike most women I've met in this country, particularly the blondes," he said as they completed shaking hands. "They are great at chatter but have difficulty conversing at a higher level. It seems to come naturally with you and you're blonde."

"Careful Danny, true blondes are not as numerous as they seem."

"What, are you suggesting many are bottle blondes?"

"Hair coloring is a huge industry. Although I'm a true born blonde and my mother is also natural, we do enhance our blondness."

Danny swallowed noticeably as if about to make a confession. "Katherine, my inner voice told me when talking to you on the phone I'd find you inspirational, and now I believe I will."

"Oh? Got it wrong did you?"

"Y-yes. And I admit that. You are not the person I spoke to on the phone."

Katherine smiled. "Drunk again that evening?"

"No, just a couple of ales with whisky chasers."

"Careful Danny, the demon drink seized James Joyce."

He looked at her alarmed.

Katherine put the conversation back on track. "Where did you go wrong with me?"

"I expected you to be wearing glasses."

"I do but only for reading, mainly night reading."

"I had this image you'd be much older, perhaps fifty."

"Few women become pregnant beyond the age of forty. I'm thirty-five."

"Oh, there's a huge flaw in my character assessment, isn't it?"

"None of us is infallible Danny and the harder we hit out straps the more likely we are to expose our shortcomings. But playing cool is boring, isn't it?"

"Indeed. I've been called boring."

"Well, you are rather intense. Carry on about other things you got wrong about me."

"Although you conversed well I visualized you as being prim with an almost flat chest."

"Well, that's very honest of you Danny. I think most men would have backed off at that point in your situation. I admire you for that. Me prim? I don't think so and my flat chest does carry these puppies, Katherine said, cupping them and juggling them slightly. She regretted doing that when seeing Danny's eyes bulge. He had black eyes, or almost black. "Whatever gave you the concept I'd be small breasted?"

"You saying on the phone you were reading about breast augmentation."

Catherine laughed without restraint and then cut it, saying, "I'm sorry. That was not aimed at embarrassing you. I just found such an association incongruous although I can well understand you being on the phone with a vivid imagination and it running your thoughts in the wrong direction."

"Running your thoughts in the wrong direction?"

"Excuse me?"

"That's literary phrasing."

"Yes Danny, I agree and know people don't really talk like that. I must have repeated something I've read."

"Did you?"

"I have no idea. Pass me your laptop and portable printer. I have a back-up desktop printer not being used that I'll put in your bedroom-workroom."

"Is there enough space?"

"I should think so Danny -- it is as wide as half the width of this house."

"Jesus."

Katherine smiled. In all probability Danny was Catholic but interjecting conversation with that word 'Jesus' suggested he was relaxed about it and that would suit her fine. She was happy, knowing in her sixth sense he'd be fucking her before too long. Also having Danny living with her would explain her pregnancy to her mother and those around her including Clara. Oh well done Katherine, she beamed, leading Danny into the house.

Danny followed her into his room and stopped, mouth dropping open. He let go his carry bags and raced to the window, gluing his pointed nose to it. "So inspirational, so inspirational" he murmured, and turning to Katherine he said, "Thank you. Those cloud formations are so wonderful. I am so grateful you are willing to share this with me Kathleen."

"Katherine."

"Oh yes, sorry. Is calling you Kath okay?"

"I'd prefer Kathy."

Danny looked at her. "Is there something wrong with my face?"

"Not that I've noticed. I was studying your face and your pointy nose is cute. I'd like to paint you one day."

"One day? Am I staying here for a long time?"

"I think so. Why are you here?"

"I've been commissioned by an agency to write an eight hour-long drama series about modern-day immigrants from Ireland settling in this country within the past ten years. Although fictional, it has to be based on fact in great detail. I have spent ten months on research and interviews and my last interview is with a young engineer who settled in your city and now is twice married with seven children."

"Oh god, seven children."

"His new wife brought five with her. You may know him; your city is not all that large. His name is Niall Duffy.

"Know him. Niall did all the engineering on this house and he and my late husband became great friends until..."

"Until?"

Katherine bit her lip. "Until Niall's first wife who'd remarried had a brief affair which ended when her new husband caught Donna and my husband at it and in the struggle for a gun my husband was shot, fatally.

"Jesus."

"Thank you. I take it your surprise is flecked with sympathy."

"Oh yes, yes dear woman. It was a tragedy. I'll cancel my interview."

"No Danny. I forbid you to do that and use my husband as one of your characters that Niall came across in settling into his tormented life in this country. He'll be a brilliant character for you. He was out fishing by himself and saved two young boys swimming for their lives who'd been flung off their parent's boat during a violent heel in an exceptionally strong gust and had not been missed until minutes later but then couldn't be located in the choppy water. His face is burned down one side from when he saved an elderly couple trapped in a fire in their trailer home. You'll find Niall is a hero in the city Danny and he designed the new St Mary's Church that has won national awards and one international award for its unique steel and glass design. Strange as it might seem, Niall is a guy who's bigger than fiction."

"You are a remarkable woman Kathy. We'll talk about this again after I've completed my interviews of Niall. You know, he grew up half an hour's walk from where I grew up in Ireland. If what you say is confirmed by Niall, and I'm sure it will be, then I'll not be surprised if I switch my draft central character to base him on Niall."

"Oh I'm sure that will be the case. It will excite you to find his first wife, who remains living in the city and waits for her husband to be released from jail, is a blonde; her family was originally from Sweden I believe. But Niall's new wife is a nurse who arrived from Cork and has flaming red hair."

Kathleen smiled when she saw Danny's eyes almost pop.

They went down for coffee and Niall said, "Ah, paying for my room, meals and use of all facilities... I was thinking of paying $400 a month but your facilities are worth much more. This is a grand house. I'm prepared to offer..."

"Two hundred a month and buy us the occasional bottle of wine Danny. I'm not short of money and welcome the company."

"But that's absurd."

"But those are my terms."

He smiled. "Okay but in that case I'll work around here, doing jobs you want done."

"I started the roof guttering just half an hour before you arrived."

"Great, I'll be on to that."

"That pleases me Danny. Use everything around the house as if it's your house. Perhaps you should knock before entering my bedroom if the door is closed. I'm used to walking around with little or nothing on."

Danny grinned and said she shouldn't change that habit on his account. "Oh, that was rude of me. Sorry."

"Are you Danny?"

His face burned and he looked away.

Katherine showered and dressed in a striped halter-top and a short skirt and walked out with nothing on her feet. Danny's eyes said it all and she smiled and said, "You'll find the printer on a table with a box of paper under it in my bedroom where I'll work. Shift it all to your room."

"Thanks. You look gorgeous."

"Thank you Danny."

Katherine walked out to the seat by the top of the cliff and made a call. It was time to tell Alan he didn't fire blanks.

* * *

Danny felt he'd fallen fatally on to his head and was now in heaven. The house was magnificent, Katherine was a goddess, his workroom was a dream and its view out into the blue yonder as it was today was beyond belief.

What she'd told him about Niall was stupendous. The agency had insisted he'd base the series on real people and wanted that claim to feature in program promos and in all credits. He'd said yes, thinking it was a good idea, but as the time he'd spent on research and interviewing people recommended to him, he'd become increasingly despondent. He'd wanted characters for his hero and heroine who'd appear almost larger than life. Kathy had been on to that in a flash. Obviously that displayed her reading pedigree that she read beyond cheap women's magazines.

Almost gloating Danny thought he was on the eve of finding his hero, Niall, married to a temperamental bitch with flaming red hair from, er, Dublin. The heroine of course would be based on Katherine. The thought had exploded into him as Kathy had come down the ladder and he first saw the tear in her jeans and then the glimpse of bare flesh. She didn't wear panties under her jeans! He then looked into her incredibly light blue eyes. It was rare indeed to see them so light away from people of Nordic ancestry. Those two diverse thoughts had exploded into his brain and his inner-voice cried 'heroine'.

As Danny walked into her bedroom he smelt perfume and glancing into the dressing room saw a bra on the floor but no sign of panties. Was she out there in that short skirt without panties? Danny acquired an unexpected erection, but then when were they ever really that predictable?

He grinned.

A heroine who never wore panties! Er except to church and when visiting her mother. His mind meshed. Did his heroine ever visit her mother, or did her mother always had to visit her? Why was she living alone on Dante's Peak? God, he'd have to use that name; he'd have to ask Kathy for permission. It was a hugely literary name; the sheer name could set off emotions. How the hell had she fallen pregnant, er 'fallen'? Probably the word was 'become'. Oh mystery, mystery and yet such an in-your-face woman who probably could turn into a ball-breaker if she really cut loose on a guy who upset her. Oh glory! With Katherine he'd have a unique problem, having to throttle back on her as a character to avoid her appearing over-played on screen.

Turning from the dresser, observing Katherine's grooming preferences and sighing over one of those spiking thoughts that always darted into his mind uninvited -- this one being was she blonde down there or was she hairless -- Danny spotted the easel. He hesitated wondering whether he should lift the cloth covering it. He decided no, looking at an artist's unfinished work was an invasion of privacy. Then he noticed the unframed paintings leaning against the wall beyond the easel.

Danny lifted one up and cried, "Jesus. She's a fucking trained professional!" He resisted dancing around the room. Instead he went through the seascapes and beachscapes and shook his head in wonder. No two were the same and all were dynamically arresting. He judged her as being very good at her art but there was the hint she was even better than this collection. So where were they? Danny decided not to poke around. He'd asked to see her work and then he'd made that comment. He removed the printer and accessories to his room thinking when would he see Kathy's bared pussy.

CHAPTER 4

Nervously, wondering whether she ought to rehearse her words, Katherine called the business number of Dr Alan Swan. There was instant relief; the receptionist said Dr Swan was with a patient. Katherine asked that he call her, it being a private matter.

She sat looking out to sea, wondering if her guest would be at the window, looking out and wondering if he should join her, or would he have the sense to know had she wanted that he would have been invited. The Irish were difficult to comprehend at times, or so she'd read. It was something to do with what the writer had called, 'crossed-wired cultural logic'. Yes, she remembered the article and had thought it was a putdown, written by an English journalist.