Anne Douglas (11 page)

‘Has he said he actually wants to part from you, though? I bet you mean as much to him as he does to you. He probably wants to stay friends with you, as well as loving Rosemary.’

‘If he does, he can forget it!’ Lindy cried. ‘He did sort of say we could still be friends and I told him it wasn’t possible. Not now he’s lost his head over her.’

Jemima sighed deeply. ‘My guess is that he’s going to need you again very soon, Lindy.’

‘Why? Why should he?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? He has no hope of a relationship with Miss Rosemary. I know her background; I know what she’d have to give up to marry someone like Neil. She’s a lovely girl, very kind-hearted, but she’ll never do it, never. Her real life will never include him, and he’s going to be broken-hearted if he thinks it will.’

Lindy was silent for some time, then she rose. ‘You could be wrong about that.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘All right, he’ll be broken-hearted, then. Maybe I should feel sorry for him.’ Lindy gave a quick sob. ‘But I only feel sorry for myself.’

At the door they hugged again and Lindy wished Jemima all the best for her interview next day. ‘You’ll walk it, Jemima! They’ll be glad to have someone like you.’

‘Maybe. There are so few jobs going, I expect there’ll be hundreds in for it. I’ll just have to do the best I can.’ Jemima studied Lindy’s woebegone face. ‘You try to keep cheerful, eh? And, listen, are you going to get in touch with that other fellow? Rod, was he called?’

‘Get in touch with Rod? How could I? Even if I could find him, what would I say? Excuse me, I’ve been dumped by that friend I told you about – like to take me out again some time?’ Lindy shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that. Besides, I don’t feel ready to meet him yet. I’m only thinking of Neil.’

‘I know, you will be, but don’t give up on Rod. I have the feeling he was keen.’

‘Who knows? Look, I’d better go. Thanks for listening to me, Jemima. You always do.’

‘Things’ll change for you, Lindy. They’ll be good again, honest they will. You’ll see!’

With a slight nod, Lindy waved and moved slowly down the stairs, but on the last step, her heart beating fast, she froze. The front door had opened and stepping lightly through came a girl in pink, smiling as though at a dear friend.

‘Lindy, hello there!’

It was Rosemary.

‘I’m just back from seeing Mother,’ she went on. ‘Oh, dear, I was so tired, I cheated – took a taxi. Bang goes my budget!’

I should speak to her, thought Lindy, I should be polite, show nothing. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t say a word to the delightful girl who’d stolen Neil’s heart and probably didn’t even know it. Couldn’t, for the life of her, pretend that all was as it had once been. Moving swiftly past Rosemary, her face averted, she reached her own door, scrabbled at the handle, and let herself in, Rosemary’s voice echoing after her, ‘Why, Lindy, what’s wrong? Lindy!’

But Lindy, closing her door, shut her ears to the voice and felt no remorse. Felt, in fact, nothing at all.

As soon as she’d realized Lindy was no longer speaking to her, Rosemary, desperately puzzled, approached Jemima.

‘What have I done?’ she asked, her blue eyes wide. ‘I thought I had made a friend of Lindy, who was always so kind, but then suddenly she doesn’t want to know me any more. Have you any idea why?’

‘Afraid not,’ Jemima said, firmly crossing her fingers as she spoke her lie. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

‘I’d like to, but she keeps so well out of my way I can’t seem to catch her. I don’t want to go to the shop, and – well – sort of confront her.’

‘I’m sure it will sort itself out, Miss Rosemary,’ Jemima replied, hastily correcting herself. ‘I mean, Rosemary. If you like, I’ll have a word with Lindy. I want to tell her my good news, anyway.’

‘Would you speak to her? That would be wonderful, I’d be so grateful.’ But as she took in Jemima’s words, Rosemary’s eyes began to shine. ‘Your good news, did you say? Oh, Jemima, you got the job at Logie’s!’

In genuine delight Rosemary hugged her mother’s one-time lady’s maid. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased for you, I can’t tell you – though I knew all along you’d be successful. You’ll be perfect for Logie’s, absolutely perfect!’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Jemima murmured modestly and, excusing herself, hurried round to Murchie’s Provisions to tell Lindy the good news the postman had brought that morning.

At the shop there were more hugs, from Lindy and even Myra, with cries of ‘Congratulations!’ and ‘I told you so, I said you’d walk it!’, and smiles from customers, glad to hear good news for a change. And getting a job, especially at a grand store like Logie’s, was certainly that.

‘Oh, I’m so pleased for you,’ Lindy told Jemima earnestly when the customers had returned to shopping and Myra was ringing up her till. ‘It’s a real ray of sunshine, eh? I couldn’t be happier. When do you start?’

‘Next week,’ Jemima replied. ‘They’re really keen to have me – there’s a grand wedding coming up, lots to do and they’re short-handed, so they’d like me to start as soon as possible.’ Jemima gave a sigh of satisfaction, then said she’d better begin shopping herself – she had a list somewhere.

‘First,’ she whispered, ‘I think I should tell you, Lindy, that Rosemary’s very upset you’re giving her the cold shoulder and wants to know why. Seemingly, she’s no idea.’

‘No idea,’ Lindy repeated, her smile fading. ‘So he hasn’t told her.’

‘Probably hasn’t found the courage yet.’

‘Was full enough of that when I last saw him.’

‘Ah, but when it comes to the crunch, if she gives the wrong answer, that’s all his dreams over. So he’s putting it off.’ Jemima hesitated. ‘You haven’t seen him, I don’t suppose?’

‘No, and I don’t want to.’ Lindy, seeing Myra looking her way from the counter, began to return to her work of unpacking a box of tinned goods. ‘But it’s really horrible, Jemima, making sure he’s no’ coming down the stair when I leave the flat, or walking down the street when I leave the house. I feel like a criminal, and it’s no’ my fault!’

‘I wouldn’t try to avoid him, or Rosemary. Just be polite if you see them and avoid unpleasantness. That’s what I’d do.’

‘Easier said than done!’ cried Lindy.

All the same, as the days went by it became more and more worrying to her, always having to be on the lookout, and she decided that if she saw Neil she would speak to him, after all. Ask him straight out if he would declare his love to Rosemary, for she was certain he hadn’t yet done so. If he had, Rosemary would certainly have understood Lindy’s feelings, and surely would have told Jemima. And Neil himself would either have been over the moon or down in the mire, and it seemed he was neither, for Struan said he would have heard.

‘Just say the word and I’ll still give him what for,’ he promised Lindy, who told him not to be so foolish. Violence never did any good.

‘Wrong this time – it’d make me feel good,’ Struan retorted. ‘It’s time Mr Shakespeare got taken down a peg or two.’

That might happen soon enough, thought Lindy, still willing to speak to Neil if she saw him, but such was the way of things she never did see him, on the stairs or anywhere. She did see someone else, though, on a chill, wet Saturday in October. Someone who’d come into Murchie’s Provisions after a long interval; someone she’d thought she’d never see again. And it was Roderick Connor, always known as Rod.

The way the scene was set, it was like the showing of a film she’d seen before. Myra having ‘popped home’ as she called it for her dinner break, Lindy was alone at the counter, listening to the rain pelting the windows, when the shop bell pinged and the door opened. She raised her eyes and stood very still. For there he was, just as she remembered him: a young man in a raincoat, a wet cap in his hand, his hair plastered to his brow and his gaze going straight to her.

Had time gone into reverse? she wondered. Was she seeing what had once been, but now was over? Or was this Rod come back to see her, as she’d never imagined he would? I must look like a ghost, she thought, for she’d felt herself turning pale but, surely, he was the ghost?

No, it was flesh and blood Rod all right, his expression, as he approached the counter, wary, his smile uncertain.

‘Hello, Lindy,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid my cap’s dripping.’

‘That’s all right,’ she answered, her own voice sounding far away.

‘Never thought it would rain like this.’

‘No.’

He took a step nearer the counter. ‘Listen, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I thought I’d see how you were – maybe do a bit of shopping –’

‘It’s nice to see you.’

His eyes widened. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘No, I don’t mind. You’ve every right to come here.’

‘You mean, you can’t stop me doing my shopping. But are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘I told you, it’s nice to see you.’ She hesitated. ‘How’ve you been, then?’

‘Me? Fine. Well, getting by. How about you?’

She looked down at the counter, then up again as a customer from the back of the shop came up with a cabbage and a bag of onions.

‘After you, son,’ she said cheerfully to Rod, who stepped back with a smile.

‘Go ahead, please. I haven’t got my stuff yet.’

‘If you’re sure? Lindy, I just want to take these back for our dinner – says threepence on the cabbage, but it’s no’ that grand – can you knock a bit off?’

‘Certainly, Mrs MacInnes,’ Lindy said recklessly, for Myra rarely reduced anything. ‘Make it tuppence, then. That’ll be fivepence altogether.’

‘Thanks, pet, I’ve the coppers here – that OK?’ Mrs MacInnes, from number twenty-one, smiled from Lindy to Rod and hurried away with her vegetables, leaving Lindy to smile at Rod herself.

‘What were we saying?’ she asked.

‘I was asking how you were?’

‘Getting by is about right for me as well as you.’ Her smile faltered. ‘Want me to help you with your shopping, then?’

‘Couldn’t we go and have something to eat? Do you have a break soon?’

‘When Aunt Myra comes back.’

He sighed. ‘She won’t want to see me.’

‘I don’t think she’ll mind.’

‘You don’t? How’s that?’

Lindy put her finger to her lips. ‘Shh. She’s coming now. I’ll get my coat.’

‘Hey, don’t leave me –’

‘It’s all right. I won’t be a minute.’

‘Well, Mr Connor, this is a surprise!’ Myra cried, her green eyes going over Rod as she arrived at the counter still in her mackintosh. ‘Haven’t seen you in here for some time, eh? Thought you’d forgotten us.’

‘Haven’t been round this part lately,’ he mumbled. ‘Might get a few things today – after lunch.’

‘Well, if you need any help, just say. But here’s Lindy.’ With a smile that mystified Rod, Myra moved round to the back of the counter. ‘You two going out for a bite to eat, then?’

‘That’s right,’ Lindy said swiftly. ‘See you later, Aunt Myra.’

‘No hurry. There’ll no’ be many in today, with all this rain. Take my umbrella, Lindy – it’s at the door.’

‘Thanks, I will.’

‘I don’t believe this is happening,’ Rod said when he and Lindy were facing the rain outside, he holding Myra’s umbrella over both of them. ‘I mean, not only you coming out with me, but your stepmother smiling as well.’

‘Needn’t worry about Aunt Myra. She’s pleased to see you, just like me.’

‘But that’s what’s so odd.’

‘Never mind it now – where are we going, then?’

‘Where we went before, in the High Street?’

‘I was so miserable there,’ Lindy said in a low voice, as the rain pattered on their umbrella. ‘But I don’t mind going back.’

‘Are you miserable now?’ Rod asked, bending his head close to her face.

‘Sort of.’

‘I see.’

As he straightened up, away from her, she pressed his arm. ‘I’ll tell you about it in the café.’

As the day was so cold and wet they felt like something warmer than sandwiches and ordered omelettes – ham for Rod, tomato for Lindy. That done, there was an awkward pause while their eyes met and moved away, and neither spoke.

Finally Rod leaned forward. ‘You going to tell me why you’re miserable?’ he asked gently.

Lindy hesitated, seeking the right words for what she wanted to say. After playing with her fork for a moment she raised her eyes to Rod’s. ‘I think I’m feeling more let down than miserable, to be honest.’

Rod’s brown eyes lost their warmth. ‘Let down? Why, who’s let you down? That writing fellow?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Neil.’

‘I thought he was supposed to be your friend? The one you couldn’t do without?’

‘He was my friend, Rod. He was what you say.’ Lindy’s voice was low. ‘At least, I thought he was.’

‘I know. You chose him instead of me.’

‘I did tell you why.’

‘You did. He was the special one, he’d always been there; you couldn’t risk losing him. Now he lets you down. So, tell me – what did he do?’

‘Ham omelette, tomato omelette,’ intoned the waitress, the same who’d served Lindy and Rod before, but who showed no recognition now. Why should she? They remembered their last meeting only too well, but to her they were just two more customers.

‘Who wants what?’ she asked, and once they’d said, dashed down their plates.

‘May we have some bread, please?’ Rod asked politely. ‘Crusty, if you’ve got it.’

‘It’s extra for bread, and it’s no’ crusty, anyway,’ she snapped.

‘That’s all right, we’ll have it.’

‘Hang on, then.’

‘I know who’s crusty,’ Lindy whispered, and Rod grinned.

‘I suppose it’s hard work being a waitress – they’re bound to get a bit crabby now and again.’

‘You’re so sympathetic, Rod.’

‘Not towards your writing friend. If he’s hurt you, Lindy, I wish I could meet him. Give him a piece of my mind, and a punch or two.’

‘A punch or two? You sound like my brother.’

‘Your bread!’ cried the waitress, depositing a plate of rolls on the table and hurrying away.

‘She’s doing her best,’ remarked Rod, passing the plate to Lindy. ‘And if I sound like your brother, it’s because he’s got the right ideas about your so-called friend. You still haven’t told me how he let you down.’

‘I suppose it wasn’t really his fault. He said he couldn’t choose what happened, anyway. But then he said he couldn’t put it back.’