Anne Douglas (20 page)

‘Well, I never thought it,’ she murmured. ‘I never thought Miss Rosemary would take on a job like that.’

‘Shows it’s different from what you thought,’ Struan told her. ‘Don’t know where you got your ideas from, anyway.’

‘Aye, it must be suitable for our Lindy if it’s suitable for Miss Rosemary,’ George said, his brow clearing. ‘I knew Lindy wouldn’t get herself mixed up in anything wrong.’

‘That’s right, Dad,’ Lindy said quickly. ‘And after I’ve read the contract, I’ll be seeing a lawyer and he’ll make sure I understand it. You’ll be able to give me your approval and no’ worry.’

‘Well, I’m saying no more,’ Myra declared, rising and beginning to clear away as noisily as possible. ‘If it’s what you want for your girl, George, it’s no’ for me to interfere. But I’d just like to point out that I’m the one who’s going to suffer and nobody’s given a toss about that!’

‘How d’you mean, Myra?’ George asked worriedly. ‘Why should you suffer?’

‘Why? Because I’ll be left without help in the shop, won’t I? And as soon as Mrs Fielding finds out Lindy’s left, she’ll say she’s no’ replacing her. She wanted to give her the sack before, if you remember, but then she changed her mind. This time she’ll say I can manage and I’ll have everything to do – as though I didn’t have enough to do already!’

‘You don’t know Mrs Fielding will say that,’ Struan pointed out. ‘She might be happy to get you a new assistant.’

‘Oh, it’s all right for you to talk! Talk’s cheap, eh?’ Myra turned cold eyes on Lindy. ‘Are you going to help me wash up, then?’

‘Yes, leave it, I’ll do it.’

But as she started on the dishes, Lindy’s thoughts had moved from her parents to Rod. She wasn’t seeing him till Saturday night. However could she wait that long, with her amazing news bubbling on her lips, ready to be told? At least she could run up and see Jemima and show her the contract, maybe see Rosemary as well. It was time for a celebration with somebody – she just wished it could have been Rod. Roll on Saturday!

It came at last, that Saturday, with its meeting with Rod, and Lindy was up in the clouds, thinking of giving him her news. She was sure he would be pleased, this new job being such a step up for her. Certainly she never had any misgivings. Only afterwards did it occur to her that she might have been doubtful; might have learned a lesson from the mistake she’d made with Neil, believing that he would want what she wanted. But then, Rod wasn’t Neil. He was much more reasonable, much steadier in every way, and when he arrived to collect her on that Saturday evening, all she had in her heart was joy.

‘Got the car at the ready,’ he told her when she ran out to greet him as soon as she heard his knock on the flat door. ‘It’s a terrible night – throwing it down!’

‘Never mind. I don’t care about the weather – it’s just so grand to see you again!’

‘Snap,’ he murmured, kissing her quickly. ‘Oh, God, snap!’ And they ran through the rain into the little Morris waiting at the kerb.

‘Where are we going?’ Lindy asked, shaking drops from her hat as they drove away. ‘I’ve never even looked to see what’s on at the pictures.’

‘That’s not like you. What’s been keeping you busy?’

‘Aha! I’ll tell you in a minute. But what do you want to see, then?’

‘Well, there’s a Hitchcock film in Princes Street.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
with Robert Donat.’

‘Robert Donat? My dreamboat!’

‘Hey, none of that. Any more talk of dreamboats and you’re out in the rain!’ Rod was grinning as he peered through the windscreen. ‘But what have you been doing this past week without me, then?’

‘You’ll never guess. Never in a thousand years.’

‘Oh, come on, now, no teasing.’

‘Well . . .’ Lindy paused, smiling in the shadows. ‘I’ve been finding myself a new job.’

‘A what?’ Rod risked a quick glance sideways to catch a glimpse of Lindy’s face. ‘Did you say a job?’

‘That’s right, a job. It’s no’ definite yet, but it soon will be. You’ll never guess what it is.’

‘All right, why don’t you just tell me what it is?’

‘Wait for it.’ Lindy couldn’t help pausing again for dramatic effect. ‘I’m going to be a model.’

A silence fell over the little car, except for the drumming of the rain on the roof. Lindy, taken aback by Rod’s lack of speech, tried to see his face, but only his profile was visible and it told her nothing.

‘A fashion model,’ she said quickly, feeling a stab of unease, and gave a little laugh. ‘A mannequin, you know. In case you thought I meant an artist’s model.’

‘An artist’s model would be more honest,’ he replied shortly. ‘Look, I’m going to have to pull in – maybe in Thistle Street. I can get in there.’

‘But aren’t we going to the cinema, Rod?’

He made no reply until they’d turned into Thistle Street, where the shops were all closed and there were spaces vacant by its narrow pavements. Here he parked and sat for a moment gazing ahead until, finally, he turned and looked at Lindy. ‘You want to go to the cinema?’

‘Well, we said we would,’ she answered, her voice trembling. ‘To see the Hitchcock picture.’

‘You think I could take an interest in a film when you’ve told me what you’re planning to do?’

‘Rod, I don’t understand you! What are you talking about? I thought you’d be pleased for me – it’s no’ everyone gets accepted for the agency. Instead you start talking in riddles. I mean, how can being an artist’s model be honest? Are you saying being a fashion model is dishonest?’

‘When I said an artist’s model was honest, I meant that she was offering her body just as it is to those who wanted to paint her. No fuss with hairdo’s and cosmetics, making herself what she’s not. No putting on expensive clothes to try to get rich, idle women to buy them, no living a totally artificial life.’

Rod’s expression in the dim light of the car was hard to see, but Lindy didn’t need to. She knew from his voice and his manner that his face would show the contempt he felt for the job she’d chosen, and it was the sort of contempt she’d never thought to see in him, never thought would be directed at her. Every word he’d uttered had been like a dagger in her heart, not just because of what he thought but because what he said made him seem like a stranger – someone she thought she knew yet didn’t know at all.

‘It’s no’ like that,’ she said in a low voice. ‘The girls aren’t trying to be something they’re not; they’re just wanting to seem more attractive. Is that a crime? The people who make the clothes have to sell them, and if there’s money made, is that no’ a good thing? Money’s needed, Rod, you know that, to make the world go round.’

‘Not the sort of money we’re talking about here, Lindy. Where rich women who contribute nothing to society stare at beautiful young girls and think they can look like them if they buy what they’re wearing. And pay out God knows what to dress themselves up, while outside there are people without jobs living in squalor, going hungry. Children as well – children most of all. And this is the kind of work you want to do, Lindy? To keep that great divide going?’

‘You’re too hard, too hard!’ she cried, her tears beginning to flow. ‘You’re no’ being fair, Rod, no’ being fair at all. When the people come to Logie’s and such they’re often just ordinary women – no’ the idle rich like you say.’

Suddenly she was crying in earnest, but when Rod tried to take her hands she jerked them away and sat with her face averted, letting the tears come. ‘I suppose you won’t approve if I just do some photographic modelling, either,’ she said thickly. ‘Where are the rich folk there? It’d just be for catalogues and stuff, to send to ordinary folk, but you’ll find something wrong with it, won’t you?’

‘Photographic modelling? Good God, what’s that? You’re shut up for hours with some man pointing a camera at you, Lindy? Is the idea of that expected to make me feel better? Well, it’s bad enough, but it’s not as bad as all that strutting around trying to make idle folk spend money.’

Rod tried again to take her hand, finally holding it for a moment before she again wrenched it away. ‘Oh, Lindy, Lindy,’ he whispered, ‘how is this happening? We were so happy. And you promised you’d think about doing the sort of work I do, so when you said you’d found a job I thought for a minute that was what you’d found. Of course, I knew it wasn’t likely, but that you wanted to be a model – that never crossed my mind!’

‘I did tell you once what I liked,’ she said in muffled tones. ‘I said I liked dresses and make-up, and you said it was only natural – nothing wrong with it at all. But now it’s terrible, is it? Terrible and shocking? Rod, I canna believe you’ve talked to me the way you have tonight.’

‘Of course it’s only natural for a young woman to think about dresses and make-up, Lindy. As long as they’re just for herself – not part of a professional armoury she shouldn’t want to have. You see the difference, don’t you?’

‘No,’ she said resolutely, wiping away her tears and straightening her hat. ‘The only difference I see is in you, Rod. You’re like a stranger.’

‘Don’t you think I feel the same?’ he asked quietly.

‘I’m a stranger?’ Her beautiful, drenched eyes were wide open, her lips parted as she tried to take in what he’d said. ‘How can you say that?’ she whispered. ‘You’re the one who’s different. The Rod I knew would never have hurt me like you have.’

‘Ah, I never wanted to hurt you!’ he cried, trying again to take her hands that she again snatched away. ‘It’s just that I got such a shock, you see. I had such different ideas of what you wanted, because I really thought you cared for the same things that matter to me. But when I heard you could take a job that just revolved around money, well, I saw you’d got very different ideas.’ Rod suddenly sat back, putting his hand to his face, covering his eyes. ‘Can’t you see what that did to me?’ he asked, his voice shaking. ‘What it’s doing to me now? Because I still love you, Lindy. I still care.’

‘There’s no future, though, is there?’ she asked slowly. ‘No future for us now.’

‘You won’t think again? About this job?’

‘No, because I think you’re in the wrong, Rod. You want me to do what you want, but this is my life we’re talking about, eh? I’ve a right to do what I think is best.’

‘That’s it, then,’ he said, sitting up, facing her. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

She dried her tears with her handkerchief, straightened her hat, looked out of her window and opened the car door. ‘Goodbye, Rod,’ she whispered. ‘You needn’t take me home. I’ll get the tram.’

‘Don’t be silly, of course I’ll take you home! It’s raining.’

‘No, it’s stopped. And I don’t want you to take me home, it’d be too sad.’

‘Lindy –’

‘Goodbye, Rod.’

Before he could put out a restraining hand she’d stepped from the car and was hurrying away down Thistle Street, not looking back. For some moments he watched, then leaped out to follow her, but at the end of the street she’d vanished into the evening crowds. There was nothing for him to do but walk back to his car and sit in desolation, until a policeman in the distance seemed to be staring, and finally he drove away.

Telling her family of her split with Rod was something she could scarcely face, yet must get over with as soon as possible so that they would say no more and leave her to her own misery. Of course, when she told them the reason for the break – and she’d felt she must be honest about it – Myra was able to say smugly, ‘Well, that makes two of us. You might have guessed a sensible laddie would agree with me on modelling, Lindy. He knows what’s right and what isn’t.’

‘No, he does not!’ Lindy flared up. ‘He’s got the wrong end of the stick altogether, and so have you, Aunt Myra. I said so the other day.’

‘Aye, and you seemed happy enough when you heard Miss Rosemary was going in for this work,’ George told Myra in a rare moment of defiance. ‘She’d never get mixed up in the wrong sort o’ thing, eh?’

Leaning forward he patted Lindy’s arm, his gaze mournful on her tear-stained face. ‘Poor lassie, eh? This’ll have upset you just when you thought everything was going well. Try to remember it’ll all seem better one day.’

‘No’ much comfort,’ said Struan, who had come in early from the pub, saying he was somewhat broke. ‘Today’s what counts, Dad, no’ tomorrow.’

‘It’ll all be for the best,’ Myra said decisively. ‘Better to find out now if you disagree on things instead o’ waiting till you’ve tied the knot.’

‘Maybe, but meantime I get no more drives in that grand little Morris,’ Struan said sadly. ‘Sorry, Lindy, I know you’ve got other things to think about but I’m really going to miss your Rod, and that’s a fact.’

At which remark Lindy burst into tears, her parents shook their heads, and Struan was all injured innocence.

‘Why, what did I say?’ he asked, as Lindy ran to her little room, saying she was going to bed. ‘It’s true, eh? We’ll all miss Rod.’

‘Can you no’ try a wee bit o’ tact?’ snapped Myra. ‘Lindy’s got more to be upset about than a few car drives!’

‘Did I no’ say that very thing?’ cried Struan. ‘I’m as tactful as the next guy, I’d say. When are you going to put the kettle on, then?’

Grateful to be alone, Lindy lay on her bed, hearing but not listening to the noises of her family next door, only wanting to shut out the unhappy world in which she was caught and longing for sleep that she knew would never come.

Oblivion. That was what she wanted. To be away from feeling that could only be heartbreak, for with his loss had come an even clearer understanding of how much she cared for Rod. The new job, the prospect of an exciting future, doing what she wanted to do, working with fashion that had always been a bit of a dream – none of that mattered now. Why had she not abandoned hopes of a change from shop work after she’d found Rob? Why hadn’t she just let their love blossom, as she knew he wanted to do, so that they came to the logical end, which was marriage? Forget all the worries over childbirth. Forget all the efforts to be something better. She would have had something better with Rod, and together they could have worked, as he already worked, for other people’s welfare. Why had she not taken that path?

Because – she had to admit it – she did want to follow the dream. She did want to see if she could succeed in doing something that seemed right for her, and the modelling job seemed so exactly suited she couldn’t turn it down. It had never seemed to be an ‘either/or’ situation to her. She’d thought she could have both – Rob and her new work – for modelling wasn’t like teaching or other professions where women had to give up their work on marriage. No, she could have kept it going, perhaps made her mark, satisfied herself, at least until she had a family. (And she might have found the nerve to get through that, mightn’t she? With Rob as a father?)