Free Where the West Wind Blows by Mary Middleton

the excruciating pleasure of release, the joy I had taken in his body and the bond we had shared. Instead, I let guilt paint a tainted picture of us and, unable to face him, I hide away, seeking refuge in my attic and commune only with my pencils and paint.
    I throw different shades at the canvas. Nurturing my abstract rock of multi-toned colours, browns and blues and a splash of orange. I try not to think and, for hours every day, I pour all my concentration on nothing but my relationship with my subject and my brush.
    I must forget about Jezz.
    I must forget about James.
    I must forget about guilt.
    But, at the end of that time, when I stand back to view my progress, I see only a chaos of colour. The painting doesn’t even begin to resemble the image I’d conceived in my head. 
    Irritably, I turn away to the window and glimpse a movement. Jezz is striding across the far beach. He doesn’t look toward the cottage but I can tell from the way his hands are thrust so deeply into his pockets and the way his great straggly head is turned firmly away from me, that he is angry. He is always angry, I tell myself, with everyone, with me, with God, with himself. His anguish is nothing new. It is nothing to do with me.
    I pick up my sketchbook from the table and flip through the pages, forcing him to look at me. What is that element that my pencil cannot capture? Why can’t I see it? I am so close, so very close. On impulse, I discard the painting of the rock, toss it to one side and select a new canvas.
    The surface is as pristine as untrodden snow on a winter hill and, like a child running across a virgin, white field, I cannot wait to mar it. Propping the sketchbook where the light from the window falls full upon it, I squirt mini mountains of paint onto my palette, worms of black and grey and white, ochre, deep purple and cadmium blue.
    I pick up my brush, take a deep breath.
    I begin to paint and barely put down my brush until the third day.
     
    Then I stand back, put down my brush and stare at him.  Oh, he is raw. He is elemental and dangerous. With a surge of triumph I know I have him now. It is perfect. I feel as if he is here in the room, confronting me. His tortured mouth is drawn tight, his eyes dark and probing, his hair as wild as a winter sea. I can almost hear him cursing.
    No wonder I am afraid to see him again. I fold my arms and lose myself in admiration of my own handiwork until I notice that dusk is falling.
     
    My stomach growls and I realise it is hours since I had anything to eat. I tidy my brushes and turn off the light, begin to go down stairs. As I reach the first landing, someone hammers on the front door, setting the windows rattling and I jump a foot in the air, my heart like a tambourine.
    I know it is him.
    And I know what he wants.
    Silently, I freeze on the landing and take slow, deep breaths to calm myself before peering down to the hall. When he knocks again, he bangs so hard that dust falls from between the cracks of the door and the latch threatens to surrender, showing its weakness. Cowering in the shadows, I mentally riffle through my options. He won’t give up and go away and he will have seen the attic light shining and will know I am at home. There is nothing else for it so, steeling my courage, I creep down to the hall and reach for the knob.
    Before it is even half way open he is barging in and I flinch from his fury and retreat into the kitchen.
    “Where the hell have you been, woman. I feel like a jilted bride. Why are you hiding from me?”
    A jilted bride? I hadn’t expected that.
    “Come in, do,” I say, disguising my fear with bravado. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
    He fills up the cramped space in the kitchen, dwarfing me. He is an intrusion in my sanctuary but I do not ask him to leave. When I have plucked up the courage to look at him and our eyes finally meet I feel a jolt of something unexpected, as if I have touched an electric wire that is better not