Between Friends (55 page)

TOM KEPT HIS
distance and so did Martin, and during the winter months and on into the spring Meg felt herself settle more comfortably into the belief that after all, she had been, as the saying went, crossing her bridges before she came to them. She was well aware that those bridges would be reached one day for though she held it deeply hidden in her heart and studied it only gently and silently in the quiet of the dark night when she was alone, she recognised the feeling which had been born to herself and Martin. It was nothing to do with the sincere and loving warmth she had always had for Tom, nothing at all, for though that was as deep and endless as life itself, what was between her and Martin
was
life itself and would last as long. He had not spoken of love and neither had she at that moment when they had acknowledged it, since there had been no need for words. Soon it must be faced but for the moment she was occupied from dawn until dusk with the hotel and she was glad that Martin did not come to disturb her composure. Of Benjamin Harris she scarcely thought at all!

Tom was good-humoured, appearing content just to hold her hand when they walked in the slowly burgeoning garden in the late afternoon, believing that all was as it had been before Mrs Whitley’s death, his soul at peace as the days drew out. To sit companionably beside her in the fire-lit comfort of their sitting room before they went their separate ways to bed was all he asked of her now. He had been badly frightened by the scene with Martin, relieved that he had not been to see them since, and was glad of the return to the placid waiting he had known when she had first agreed to marry him. She still wore his ring and he did not want to ripple the pond of their shared motivation in making the hotel the best they possibly could. He was absorbed in his garden, the wide vegetable plot at the back of the house, the pastures in which he intended to graze a cow or two. Each evening he sat with Meg and listened to her tell him what they would do
at
Easter, when the summer came, when the summer ended, at Christmas time and each aspect of the alterations and re-furbishing which was going ahead under her guidance, and he was well satisfied with their accord, their
shared
involvement and the growing hope that, given a month or two and the assurance of the success of the hotel which would certainly follow Meg might be approached again to name ‘the day’!

Their financial situation was stable and the renovation of the hotel was costing out within their budget, and the loan they had with the bank. They had been pleased at the continued success of ‘The Hawthorne Tree’ and the steady income it brought them which was repaying the loan. The shares they had in ‘Hunter Automobiles’ and ‘Hunter Aviation’ had already shown a handsome dividend and though Meg knew they walked a financial tightrope at times, robbing Peter to pay Paul, as Mrs Whitley would have put it, they were doing it quite successfully.

It needed only the arrival and approbation of their first guests at Easter to put the seal of success on what she knew had been a gamble. If the hotel failed the whole house of cards would tumble about her ears, she suspected, one venture destroying another as they came apart and she felt the need a hundred times as Easter drew closer to talk to Martin about it. Tom whistled cheerfully about the place, planting and weeding and hoeing, sowing seedlings, pruning fruit trees, digging in his manure and when the weather did not permit it, painting or mending something or other, fixing this or that indoors, his pipe peacefully between his teeth, his head filled with nothing more earth-shattering than whether to plant carrots or onions in the patch beyond the back fence, his confidence in her supreme. She knew if she were to pour into his ears the troubled concern she quite naturally felt about the financial side of their venture he would scratch his head and bite on his pipe before declaring that ‘she would find a way, she always had’ and go stumping off to the job she had interrupted.

Now with Martin she could talk of the enormous cost of refurbishing the house, the delicacy of drawing from one source to pay another, the dreadful apparition which came to her in the night of being unable to repay the loan, the mortgage, the debts she was accumulating as cash flowed from her hand to that of the builder, the joiner, the plumber and the wages she must soon pay to the staff who were to begin at the end of the month. Chambermaids, waitresses, kitchen-maids and porters, a man to
help
Tom in the extensive grounds, a mechanic in the garage which had been converted from the stables and on … and on … and on! It was not that she needed advice, but encouragement, someone to restore to her the strong, resolute, absolute certainty in her own judgement which often quailed beneath the enormous burden she carried. She knew her own skills and once they were employed in the placing of guests in the rooms she knew would please them, in the displaying of her care and attention to the smallest detail of their needs and comfort, in the superb food she would put before them, then she would get down to the task of
doing
it, no longer having the time to
dwell
on it. And Martin would understand this. He had harboured doubts, she knew, in the darkest hours of the night and it was his strength which had overcome them and he could help her, show her the way to do it for sometimes she thought she would go mad with only Tom’s cheerful assumption that ‘Meg will cope’, to bear her up!

‘I’m going for a drive,’ she told a surprised Tom one afternoon, as she backed her little car out of the garage. ‘No, you don’t need to come, love. I know you’re busy. I’ll only go into Ashbourne and back. I feel in need of a new hat or something!’

He laughed. ‘That’s right, sweetheart, you treat yourself,’ he shouted after her, waving his hand, turning away before she had reached the gate at the end of the drive.

She knew where she was going, of course she did, though she had not admitted it to herself, let alone Tom and nothing in the world could have stopped her. She told herself, as she made the turn for Camford, that it was to talk to him, to speak as one business man to another on the difficulties which lay ahead. To ask what he would do to resolve this, or this, or this, and how he would go about that, or that, or that. He had worked with Mr Robert and Mr Charles Hemingway, both astute men in the world of commerce and their shrewdness had been passed on to him in the years he had known them. He had learned from them as she had learned her trade at the Adelphi and he had put what he had learned into practical use, as she had done in a small way at ‘The Hawthorne Tree’. She told herself she was merely to consult him on a minor point or two which might prove awkward in the future and ask him how he would go about removing an anxious problem which had cropped up to disturb her. He would listen to her, understand what she was saying and just by doing so give her the support she badly needed at this moment.

He was in his overalls. They were stiff with grease and oil, worn almost threadbare in places, patched in others and evidently much loved by him for why else would he still wear them and she was smiling at this artless, unexpected side to his nature when he turned to look at her. His eyes widened, then filled with his delighted wonder and the depths of his love for her. She watched them darken and the corners of his mouth were tugged upwards in a smile of such joy, her own did the same and she spoke his name though he could not hear her over the noise of the hangar. She saw his lips form her name and began to walk towards him.

Every head in the hangar turned to look at her. She wore a hand-knitted ‘sports coat’ in saxe blue, hip length, very casual with pockets and tied loosely with a belt, and an ankle length woollen skirt of the same colour. The outfit was warm and comfortable for motoring and on her head was a woollen beret in shades of blue and cream into which she had stuffed her hair. She looked beautiful for the wind had whipped up her colour, and the strange excitement she felt had put a brilliant shine into her eyes.

They all watched as their employer put down the tool with which he was working, wiped his hands on an oily rag and began to walk to meet the lovely young woman who had come in through the hangar doors. The doors stood wide open and the spring sunshine poured in and the men were astounded by the expression on Martin Hunter’s face. Mind you, she was extremely pretty and in each man was the thought that he himself would look just like that if she were to smile at him as she was smiling at Martin Hunter. She held out her hands to him and seemed not to mind at all when he clasped them with his own, despite the oil which he transferred to them.

‘Meggie,’ they heard him say and his voice was certainly not the one they were used to, overbearing for the most part and hazardous in it’s intention to make them understand that what he wanted, he got! It was soft, gentle with some emotion which seemed to say that he had waited for this moment for a long time and thanked God that it had at last come.

He drew her by the hand through what appeared to Meg to be heaps of rusted metal and bits of twisted tubing, pieces of engines, rolls of fabric and struts of wood, wheels and cans of oil, strange objects which she could not begin to put a name to and all reminding her poignantly of Mr Hale’s workshop in Liverpool
and
the bicycles which had started it all. There was even the same smell, oil and grease, a strange and pungent burning and an even stranger, sweeter odour with which she was to become familiar, of the substance which appeared to hold together the flimsy little machines Martin built!

‘Come into the office and … perhaps some tea?’ his fascinated mechanics heard him say, turning to stare, open-mouthed at one another for where in the name of God was he to produce tea in this section of the industry which was dedicated to the sole function of producing Martin Hunter’s ‘Wren’ and nothing more? Over in the automobile factory which was situated near to the road in a corner of Watkins Field there was a small canteen and tea could be had from a huge urn during the five minute break Mr Hunter allowed his employees, but here, in the holy of holies where no-one was allowed except those who were working on the aircraft, it would be interesting to see from where he would produce a cup of tea!

‘I thought … I thought I would come and see … how my investment was doing, Martin.’ Meg stood where he had placed her by the desk and her breath shivered in her throat in the most awkward way, making it difficult to speak. He had closed the door behind him, leaning against it with his arms folded and should she have wanted to escape his warm regard, or even Martin himself, she could not have done so. The office was of glass so that Martin, when he sat at his desk or his drawing board, could keep an eye on what went on in the workshop, but it worked two ways and Meg was conscious of the eyes which were now on them and she turned away, blushing furiously for surely those men could read exactly what was in her mind. Dear God, why had she not noticed before the smooth amber of Martin’s flesh, the shape, the texture, the softness and strength of his lips, the way the light turned his dark hair to chestnut? Though her back was to him she could sense the power in his broad shoulders and in her mind’s eye see the shape of the lean muscles in his thigh and the bulge of his calves beneath the tight stretch of his overalls. She could smell the soap, the cigar smoke, the sweat for he had been working since dawn and feel the warm lapping of his eyes on her back, knowing they would be as deep and dark a brown as the hot chocolate Mrs Whitley used to make. She could hear his breathing, realising in her bewilderment that it was as rapid as her own.

‘The man … he would not let me in …’ She laughed and her
voice
sounded shrill in her ears and she pretended to study a poster on the wall which advertised Martin’s little family car.

‘
Get on the road with a Hunter automobile and be sure of arriving
. Guaranteed delivery within four weeks of order and all for the price of
£
110.’

‘He insisted on driving across the field with me … what have you here, state secrets? I left my motor outside the shed …’

‘Hangar.’

‘Pardon.’

‘This is a hangar, my darling, and please turn round and face me.’

She turned and their eyes met and their love flowed triumphantly between them and was given and taken with a joyous wonder which was unique and endless, their exchanged glances said.

‘You have oil on your cheek, Martin.’ She took a step toward him and smiled dazzlingly, putting a hand in her pocket to withdraw a scrap of handkerchief.

‘I love you, Megan Hughes. You know it, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Do you love me then?’

‘Oh yes, Martin.’

‘Say it instead of babbling about oil.’

‘I love you, Martin.’

‘I want to kiss you.’

‘I know …’

‘But not here.’

‘No …’

‘Where?’

She seemed incapable of thought as she admired the way in which his lips moved across his white teeth and could not bear another moment without feeling them against hers. She was captivated by the slow, sensual drooping of his long lashes across his eyes and as she watched them delightedly, they narrowed with a need she understood at last and she could see the straining of his crossed arms and though he gave the impression of a man lounging casually, carelessly, with no thought in his mind but his attention to a pretty woman she knew he was as tense as herself.

‘I don’t know …’ She looked about her and beyond his shoulder to the scattered groups of men, all watching curiously, avidly, some of them, this dalliance between Mr Hunter and his lady
visitor
and the flush of awkward embarrassment began somewhere behind her knees, working its way up through her body and suddenly she wanted to get away. She wanted their love, their committed acknowledgement of it to be displayed to one another in a place of seclusion, somewhere quiet and tranquil, somewhere they could linger in and sigh over and be certain they would not be disturbed.