Pureheart by Cassandra Golds Page A

win the love of anyone else. Some things are unforgivable, Deirdre. This is one of them. You are unforgiven, and love is denied you, for the rest of your life.
    â€˜Now get out of my sight. Both of you.’
    And although it had taken so long for them to find the room, the way back to the flat was so short it had the speed of an evil thing in a nightmare. They remembered nothing of the way out of the room, or the way down the steps, or the way back down the corridor. They seemed only to begin the journey before they found themselves in bed, alone, in disgrace, at opposite ends of the flat, with all their lives an impossible burden before them.
    Gal never had a real home again. Nobody ever knew what happened to his father, but he never came back. So the little boy went back to a life of kindly neglect by aunts and uncles and older cousins, this relative or that relative – one person or another who cared about him vaguely, but didn’t have the resources to look after him permanently. And nobody in that branch of the family ever imagined that he wasn’t all right, because he always seemed cheerful, and his face was never other than calm and impenetrable.
    But underneath there were three emotions that never left him, three emotions so powerful that at times they dizzied him. Love for Deirdre – who shone in his memory – the only person he had ever really mattered to, the only person who had ever really needed him. Hatred for her grandmother, who had separated them. And anger, deep, ever-present anger that was like a subterranean river flowing through the vast empty caverns within him, always threatening to flood his entire being.
    From then on, controlling that anger was an exhausting hourly struggle.
    The day he left Corbenic, he swore that, when he was grown up, he would come back and rescue Deirdre.
    But every night he lay awake, the pain in his chest almost tearing him apart.

‘You see?’ said Deirdre. ‘You see?’ She had gone stiff with panic, staring up at that hideous word,
NO
, as the building thumped and shuddered around them. Her whole mind was consumed with a longing to be put out of this misery. She had no more hope; she just wanted it to be over, at last. ‘God have mercy,’ she said, and as always she couldn’t separate God in her mind from her grandmother. ‘God forgive me!’ she muttered, but there was no mercy, no forgiveness. ‘You have to go,’ she said, trying to push Gal towards the door. ‘You have to go, now, before it’s too late –’
    But Gal barely moved. He was still standing, staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t scared; he was angry.
    It was as if the word had reached in and made contact with the deepest level of his being, and had found, not fear, but anger. And yet his anger was calm – it was the deep-seated, patient anger of one who was used to controlling it, who had been controlling it since he was five years old. It was as if he was accepting a challenge and felt equal to it.
    A duel, he thought. To the death. At last.
    And the moment he thought it, he found another feeling, a feeling even stronger than the anger.
    He was not looking at Deirdre; he was still standing, rigid, staring at the ceiling. But he wasn’t thinking about it anymore. He knew exactly where Deirdre was in the room, he knew exactly how far she was standing from him, exactly what the distance was.
    And the distance, only an arm’s length, seemed intolerable, seemed like torment. He longed to put his arms around her, just as he had when they had found the dead rabbit. But now he longed to put his arms around her so badly, he would have given up his life to do it. The longing was exhausting. He noticed he was trembling.
    But he couldn’t act on it. It was forbidden.
    Deirdre stopped trying to make him go. She did not have the will. She stood swaying in the warmth that radiated from him. She was so cold, so cold; it was all she