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"Oh, that's awkward." He grinned at her.

"I had some books on the van;

I wondered if you'd be interested. It says outside you buy them. "

"Yes. Yes, we do, but Miss Frazer is out at the moment, she does the buying."

"I'll call back then." He nodded at her.

"Yes, you ... you could do that."

He stared at her. You couldn't say she was breaking her neck with enthusiasm at the sight of him. She had changed. Well, she would, wouldn't she? It must have changed the entire Blenheim family that do.

It was over two years since he had seen her last. She hadn't grown as tall as he imagined she would. She wasn't much bigger than him, well perhaps an inch or so. He had imagined, at one time, she would turn into a looker, but she hadn't. She still had all the bits and pieces necessary, yet there was something about her face that stopped short at the word beautiful or pretty, or even attractive. Likely it was due to her expression, it was surly.

She turned away from his stare, saying, "Miss Frazer won't be in until eleven tomorrow."

"Good. I'll call in then. Tara I' He was making for the door when she said, " How is Janet? "

He looked back at her now with interest. Her question took some of the uppish ness out of her manner and he replied, "Oh she's fine, grand.

How's your people? " The short space before she replied conveyed to him that his question wasn't entirely tactful.

"They're very well, thank you."

"Good." He nodded at her.

"Be seeing you then." He had turned from her again and reached the door when her voice, hesitant yet hurried, asked, "How ... how is your business

^53 .

yumy i Slowly now he faced her. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her across the gloomy room and he knew instinctively that she didn't care a damn how his business was going; the question she was asking was, "How is my father?" Her expression had changed, the dead look had lifted, and he saw she was agitated because her hands were clasped tightly together on the counter as if to prevent her from spurting something out. He looked from her face to her hands and back to her face again before he said, "It's going like a house on fire."

"I'm glad."

"Thanks." He thought a moment while she dropped her gaze from his, unclasped her hands and started tidying the counter, then he said, "You going straight back home?"

"Yes."

"By bus?" One of them might come to pick her up, you never knew.

Yes. "

"Well, I've got the van outside. I'm going that way, I could drop you."

-"Oh no. No thanks." Now she was agitated again. Her fumbling hands upset a stack of paperbacks and as she're assembled them she repeated,

"Thank you," then added, "I wouldn't want to trouble you, I might be some time."

"" The evening's me own, I can wait. "

Thank you all the same. "

As he continued to stare at her, rumbling with one thing after another, the old animosity welled up in him, until he was not seeing her any more but was looking at John Blenheim. Had his real education been garnered from school, he would, because of the pride that was inherent in him, have smothered his feelings taken no for an answer and left, seeing he had no personal interest in her. But his education had come mostly from the market and from men without inhibitions who said what they thought, more often than not without thinking. Daily contact with such types had also ousted in part the inborn reticence that was his, and so he said now, "Are you frightened of being seen with me?"

She jerked her head up and for a moment she looked like the too, impetuous, kind, as she said, "Of course not Robbie. Why do you say such a thing?"

"Well then, what's stopping you riding back with me in the van?"

Pier gaze dropped again and she said, "It's... it's only that..."

He finished the sentence for her.

"Some of your family might see you, your John for instance."

She was looking him full in the face now and she answered him truthfully, "Yes, it could be that."

"Huh I' He laughed, then said, " Well, what if I drop you this end of town? You could pick up a bus there and you won't have half-an-hour to stand in the queue, like down here. "

He watched her wet her lips, fumble with the books again, droop her head and think, before saying, "Very well, I'll ... I'll be out in a few minutes."

"Good enough." He turned without further words, went out and got into the van, and as he sat waiting he thought, "It'll give her the opportunity to ask; but she's got to ask, I'm not tellin' her else .

"

But she didn't ask, she hardly opened her mouth during the whole of the journey except to say yes or no, until they reached the outskirts of Fellburn, and then she said, "Would you mind dropping me here, please."

"O.K."

He pulled in abruptly to the kerb, then leant across her to open the door and pushed it wide, and when she stepped on to the pavement he said, "See you the morrow then." As he watched her eyes widen for a moment he put in, "I'll be bringing the books."

"Oh yes. And thank you for the lift, Robbie."

"Any time." He nodded his head at her, pulling the door closed, then started the van off with the same abrupt movement as he had stopped it.

As he drove along the road he watched her in the driving mirror until he turned the corner, and then he muttered aloud, asking himself, "Did you see her face when I said I'll see you the morrow?

She had forgotten about the books, but the look on her face. Well 1

She needn't worry. " He swung round another corner and spitting out one word now he

^5

SalU, fUll ill ins-it ill- ato>-t'-'-', 'v Ai-*-- . --- ^-----,

----breed. "

As soon as he entered the house, and before Janet could ask her usual question "Well, how did you get on?" he said flatly, Who do you think I saw the day? "

"Someone you're not used to seeing, evidently," she answered him, smiling and waiting.

Gail. "

"Gail! Where?"

In a few brief words he told her where, and as he ended he was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice, "She was scared to death to be seen with me."

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not silly, Mam. Most people can see through curtains but I can see through brick walls; it's been me trainin'."

"Oh, Robbie."

"Anyway, she said she was."

"Gail said that 1 No, she would never say that. I wouldn't (I believe it."

"Well, I'm telling you she did, and on account of Master John."

"Oh ... well now, that's possible and understandable."

"Is it?" His voice was aggressive.

"Well, you know you couldn't stand the sight of each other before all this happened, and he's bound to know you've been to see his father."

"How's he bound to know? Not one of them 'we been within a mile of Durham in case they would get the smit."

"That may be true, but news travels and by very odd pathways ... Did she ask after him?"

"No, she didn't." He pushed his eyebrows almost up to his hairline.

"That's the point, she didn't, and the only reason she came in the van with me was to find out something about him."

"Well, why didn't you tell her?"

"What 1 Not on your life. Look, Mam; she's not dear little Gail any more, she's a girl of eighteen, and if she had any spunk she would have gone and seen him. You haven't to be told that he thought the sun shone out of her, and she was supposed to be clean mad about him. It wouldn't really have mattered so much

tlUULtL Lm- ld'-la. ivl-dan-l J^llll, WAll, lie'll'llCVC1'llVC 1. "C

Stigma down, one couldn't expect him to go visiting at a prison. And Terry after all, as you pointed out, he did come and ask how his father was faring. And the old grannie would have been there like a shot if she hadn't had that fall. But our Miss Gail was the one he cared about. I know this much, he wouldn't have cared a damn about the others as long as she had gone, if only once."

"She had a very bad experience, you must remember that," said Janet calmly.

"It was bound to leave an impression on her mind."

Robbie turned away from her and went into the scullery, and as he took off his coat he called.

"It hasn't only left it on her mind it's left it on her face. She gave you the idea years ago she was going to look something."

"Well, doesn't she?" Janet came to the scullery door and he said,

"No.

It was a kind of shock when I saw her; it was her and yet it wasn't her, she's plain. "

"Gail plain?" Janet gave a laugh.

"You don't lose beauty overnight."

"It's been a long night, nearly two years, and I tell you any looks she promised have given her the slip. Her face is dead, blank looking, no life in it."

Janet stood looking at him as he washed himself and she said quietly,

"Well, if you're right that's one of the worst things that could have happened, for she did promise to be beautiful, and he was so proud of her. But perhaps she'll still look beautiful to him when he sees her."

He blew into the towel, dried his face hurriedly, then said, "If he sees her."

"Well, if she won't come to him he could go to her now you know where she works."

"That remains to be seen because he's altered an' all. You know he has. He was never a boisterous fellow but he's so quiet now he could be dumb."

"It's the place," she said; 'it doesn't induce conversation. "

"No? Well the others talk and seem glad to talk."

Later, as they sat down at the table, she said, "It's only six weeks and I'm dreading it in a way. Oh, not for me." She Yes. " He paused before picking up his knife and fork.

"You know you could be right; I think he's dreading it an' all. Last time, when I said to him, it won't be long now, he just looked at me.

And it was as much that look as anything, I might as well tell you, that settled the question of the house, me taking it."

She was holding his glance, and now she reached her hand across the table and touched his, saying, "You're a good boy, Robbie, a good boy."

He attacked his meal and after bolting a mouthful of food he said roughly, "Don'J: give me credit for being ... altruistic." He jerked his head at her now and laughed out loud.

"That's a good 'un isn't it?

I read it somewhere, but I'd like to bet I haven't pronounced it properly. Anyroad, you know what I mean, 'cos what I do, Mam, first, middle and last is to. look after number one because if I don't nobody else will. "

She nodded at him solemnly now, saying, "Yes, I know you're full of vices, but being your mother I'm blind to them, so to me you're a good boy." When he spluttered on his food and burst out laughing again she laughed with him.

THREE

The following afternoon Robbie took the books along to the shop and was met by Miss Frazer. Miss Frazer was a woman in her fifties. She was tall, lean, and sparing of words. She quickly looked through the assortment of books, then said, "There's only two I'd buy but I'll give you seven-and-six for the lot."

His natural response to this would have been, "You won't.

Twelve-and-six or nothing;' then following a little bargaining he would have walked out with ten shillings, but Gail was standing at a bookcase with her back to him and he knew she was listening, and although he thought, It's going to cost me that much for petrol, he said, "All right; I just want to get rid of them, I don't deal in them."

"You're a dealer?" Miss Frazer raised her eyebrows just the slightest, but even so they expressed disbelief, and he stared hard at her as he said' stiffly "Aye. Yes, I'm a dealer."

"In what?"

"Antiques." His voice was much louder than the answer in the ordinary way would have necessitated, but this old dame didn't believe him. For a moment he almost turned to Gail and said, "Tell her what I deal in,"

but Miss Frazer was handing him the seven-and-sixpence and although his maxim had always been pennies make shillings and shillings make pounds, he almost said grandiosely, "Keep it; you need it more than me."

During the time he was in the shop Gail did not acknowledge him in any way, she did not even turn and look at him, and when he was in the car once more he found himself swelling with anger and, as usual, talking to himself.

"God 1 some people. Who the hell do they imagine they are!

Royalty? The Aga Khan's lot? Or what? " But it wasn't quite evident whether he was referring to Gail or to Miss Frazer, or to both.

^9

It was mree weeKs lacer wnen nc inci- }jdii again, ain-i'll1 an unusual place, the Roxley Eventide Home.

It happened that he received a letter from a Mrs. Bailey saying that her friend, Mrs. Scott, had sold him some pieces of furniture and had recommended him to her. She herself had a few articles at her son-in-law's but he was moving away and didn't want the things, so would Mr. Dunn care to look at them, then come and see her?

So, after he had found among Mrs. Bailey's old fashioned furniture a beautiful eighteenth-century grandfather clock, and an envelope card table, he gladly went to talk terms with her at the Eventide Home.

It was as he was crossing the main hall that he saw Gail; she was going out of the front door. He stopped in his stride for a moment, then hurried after her, and when he came up to her he said airily, "You retiring?"

For a moment she looked startled, then she said stiffly, "Well, hardly." When she walked on, her gaze directed ahead, he felt, as he put it later to Janet, a bit daft her taking it like that.

Before he reached the main gates he had decided to let her get on with it. If she wanted to play the madam and remain aloof it was O.

K.

by him, but then she took the wind out of his sails for when they reached the street she stood in front of him and with her head slightly lowered, she said, "I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's all right; I was only meaning to be funny."

"Yes, I know, Robbie." She was looking straight into his face now.

"And you must think me awful. And the other day when you came into the shop. And I know what you meant just a minute ago, but, but with one thing and another I get upset." "Don't we all?" He grinned at her.

BOOK: i 51ddca29df3edad1
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